Written by Duana

(Lainey: you asked for it, here it is!)

And now for something completely different – I’m going to try to recap a show I haven’t seen from the beginning, for once. I know. Scandalo!

My research on Vampire Diaries has taken me to any number of Wiki pages, and this is what I’ve learned. Ready?

Creepy town, Mystic Falls/ Elena’s parents died/Stefan loves her/ she looks just like Katherine (vamp from 200 years ago) /did I mention Stefan is 162? But he goes to high school?/His brother Damon is evil (what else are you gonna do with those eyebrows)/ Stefan eats donated hospital blood (so does Damon?)/Stefan and Damon both loved Katherine/Bonnie is a friend. And a Witch/Caroline is a vampire. And a friend?/Elena talks about being a normal teen a lot/her brother Jeremy has the angst/vervain protects you from vampires/Elena’s real mother was Isobel/Matt’s a guy who might be a werewolf/or maybe it’s his uncle Mason?/Katherine can pretend to be Elena to finger cutting-off effect/vamps can walk in daylight because they have rings/Katherine had a hot romance with Damon and Stefan back in the day/Katherine compels people to do bad things. Like stab themselves/ Oh, and Founder’s day is really, really important in this town/Also amulets, moonstones, rings, and other semi-precious gem-type things are a really big deal around here.

I know you guys know some of the gaps so yes, please email me (gently). After this we can play catchup for 4 weeks, so I’ll need you to tell me which 4 eps would best catch us up.

With all this in mind – Season 2, Episode 16.

Previously on Vampire Diaries, Elena and Katherine looked just alike. A British lady tells Elena she’s a “Petrova doppelganger” and the key to breaking a curse. The oldest vampire ever is called Elijah, also British, and he’s stalking Elena. Katherine says it can’t be done but that might be because she’d be trapped in a tomb. So they kill Elijah, Katherine’s loose and in Damon’s shower. Meanwhile, Bonnie wants to help someone find his daughter, but he’s less than interested.

Adorable gingerbread Swiss house. Inside, Elena and Stefan are late for school because he wants to ravish her. She says ‘five minutes’, which is kind. But then suddenly she’s downstairs tormenting Damon. But also coming downstairs with Stefan! Whaaa? Finally the two are in the same frame, and Kath tells Elena it’s easy pretending to be her.

Title Card!

Katherine escaped from her tomb, because killing Elijah the original set her loose. Katherine says she has to stay and help because they all want Klaus dead, and she has the advantage due to knowing what he looks like. They tell her to get out so she threatens Jenna, the maiden aunt who turns a blind eye while Elena and Stefan bang.

Caroline talks to Tyra Collette’s cowboy. They start pretending to care about other people but really it seems to be about whether they’re getting back together.

Elena and Stefan get out of a sporty sporter car. Katherine’s back, Elena wants her gone. You were here for that? OK, Stefan says let’s find out how she knows what she knows. He offers to bang her at home tonight, but she’s having a girls’ night because Bonnie lost her powers. Ah, youth.

(Sidebar: Since most of my vampire history is with Buffy, I will find out why he can do it with Elena with no side effects. Maybe it’s just because.)

Firetorch. Damon. Burning the body of Elijah. Apparently Damon wants the dagger they killed him with. Know-it-all Kathy says that won’t work, but when Damon tries to firebomb her out, she swears she’ll help kill this Klaus character. I hope he’s bad.

(Sidebar: I guess they used to distinguish between Elena and Katherine via straight vs. curly hair. Now? Your intuition. Neat! )

Bonnie’s late to catch up to Katherine being out of the tomb, Jeremy’s all “bummer you don’t have powers right about now”, Stefan wants her to convince some folks to meet up, meanwhile, Jeremy wants to kiss Bonnie but she hasn’t told Elena yet.

Sunny classroom. Some teacher gave ‘John’ back his ring, which makes Elena’s statement that he’s going to end up dead on the kitchen floor kind of moot. Meanwhile, he talks to Aunt Jenna, so I guess they’re dating? Elena debates how people process hearing all this info.

Dark rando bar? A father and son come to meet Stefan and Bonnie. I’ll figure out their names, keep your pants on. But when they hear Elijah’s dead, they’re like “peace”. Stefan says they can help, because Klaus (this guy gets around) has their daughter (slash sister, I assume). So, can they work together?

Damon. Bar. Katherine – or Elena. They’re WEARING THE SAME SHIRT, IT'S HARD. Speaking of, she touches him, and then they whirl across the room in an embrace. It’s hot for a second, and then they’re over it. Pity – now she’s dropping knowledge about when a witch is killed hard, they leave a trace. Stefan shows, and they don’t help me by calling his former bar companions “Papa Witch and Baby Witch”. Apparently what they need is a burial ground –

Which Papa and Baby Witch hope they don’t find. Papa says he’s going to let Elijah kill them, because I guess we didn’t see his flame-ridden corpse?

Okay so now we’re at girls’ night! “Chinese food or Pizza” is answered with “what do you think”? The girls are way too involved in a tablet product to answer Elena (I think, her shirt is buttoned) about whether Jonah is being sincere. Caroline moons over a picture of her and Matt, Bonnie is all about food.

Aunt Jenna! Maiden-y! She had a fight with ‘Rick’, and wants the girls’ night to be about her feeling better, and hijacks their night. Caroline’s issues are all about her, as she tells Jenna that sometimes the truth is not the best thing for a relationship. This is going nowhere fast so they decide to go dancing at ‘the Grill’.

Papa and Baby Witch are discussing using his energy. There are lots of candles and lots of concentrating on Elijah. Now some…Latin? Baby Witch is in the Salvatore house, which I think is the Swiss cottage of before. He takes in Damon and Katherine reading, but oh! He thinks it’s Elena! Baby Witch goes off (or his spirit does) in search of Elijah.

Meanwhile, Katherine is bored. Surprise! She reads over his shoulder, I guess he’s reading journals. Katherine backseat-drives that Damon should be able to find the witch graveyard, no? He doesn’t trust her, but she’s hungry, and is everything on this show a euphemism? She heads in for some blood, Baby Witch sees her, she senses him, do you get where this is going?

Stefan’s at home. Damon’s studying. He points out what’s in the book while lying that it isn’t there. Is it that easy? Baby Witch tries to take the dagger, but Katherine pushes it back in. Dad figures out it’s not Elena but Katherine, and Baby witch’s name is Luca, and he’s supposed to kill her, and Dad’s all “Kill her” like it ain’t no thing. Katherine can’t see Luca though, which is interesting.

And then Luca’s back and he’s stabbed Katherine and she yells for Damon but it might be through the stomach? Stay tuned!

Luca’s trying to steal the dagger still so Damon fireblasts the empty space where he might be, but back in the room with the candles, the REAL LUCA is on REAL FIRE! Dad is FREAKED and incants some incantations again, and that is some Serious burn-victim makeup.

Luca appears to be gone. I’m kind of sad. So is Dad. Like a lot.

Girls’ niiiiight! They’re at the bar, the band is kinda lame (I’m sure they’re huge). Dancing. Glances Between Significant People. Matt ignores Caroline. Rick tries to talk to Jenna. She’s not interested, she’s doing shots. Conveniently she recaps for me that last year she was a grad student show smoked a lot of pot and now she’s a parent. (Albeit one who lets kids bang before school). She storms off.

Caroline’s leather jacket is neat but not for a ‘first’ leather jacket (I’m looking). Elena has a revelation – you can’t protect people you love because you’re going to hurt them either way. This makes Caroline take off her neat jacket.

Oh, she’s up on stage now and she starts off “There was this guy” and so now she’s going to sing her feelings, and when a guy tells her to get off the stage, she COMPELS him – my first time seeing it! – to let her sing…”Eternal Flame”! OK, I love this show!

She’s singing straight to Matt, and the line “I watch you when you are sleeping” seems to take on another context. Jenna exchanges looks with Rick. How can she be old enough to date a guy named ‘Rick’? Elena smiles the winsome smile of one who doesn’t have romantic intrigue this episode.

Wait, Matt’s kissing Caroline! It worked! Elena and Bonnie are happy. Jenna waves her beer.

WitchDaddy is ANGRY. He growls at a convenient photo of Elena in cheerleading gear, pages through a spellbook, and incants. Meanwhile, Stefan thrusts open a door – wait, were they in the mansion all the time? WitchDad makes Stefan’s head hurt, Stefan sees BurnBaby and the picture of Elena –

And we cut to a very peaceful Katherine by a fire. Damon gives her some blood – and stake in the side. These people are very physical, aren’t they?

Okay so now Katherine comes clean, maybe. John Gilbert and Isobel want the bros. Salvatore away from Elena. If my research is right, those two might be her folks, maybe. So they offered Kat a deal – either she helps to kill Klaus, or he kills Stefan. There’s a lot of eyebrow in this scene, but I think it means Damon’s gonna die?

Elena storms into a bathroom, like STORMS, as if Caroline and Matt aren’t’ totally doing it in there. Then she gets a double-hit of bad because Bonnie’s all “So I’m going to date your brother, OK?” She looks conflicted, but then she’s OK with it, but she still kind of looks constipated, I can’t lie. Phone breaks the boon –

Elena can’t hear who’s on the phone and runs outside as AngryWitchDaddy comes into the bar. Bonnie clocks, worried.

Damon’s about to go after Elena, Katherine wants to come with and flies across the room to make her point.

So AngryWitchDaddy is called Dr. Martin, and stalks Elena. He’s all “Luca died, I need Elena”. Bonnie says no, so he BLASTS out all the lights in the bar with the fire of his eyes! I could get into this, and so could Caroline and Matt, which – why are they still clothed? He takes off, Stefan and Katherine come in, or maybe it’s Elena, Jonas IS AngryWitchDaddyMartin, and they need Caroline!

Rick tries to spirit Jenna out, and is like “Hey, forget about your teenage charge!” Jonas starts a fire and Bonnie tries to stop it. Seriously, the bar is burning. Jeremy carries Bonnie. Elena tries to appeal to Dr. Martin, he says only Elijah can, Caroline goes to jump him, but he does witch voodoo on her, and then TOTALLY stabs (human?) Matt in the neck with some broken glass. So that happened.

Caroline is screeching, as you do when your boyfriend’s jugular has been sliced. Oh, but she’s also totally vampire attracted to him. This is interesting. She shoves her wrist in his mouth.

Bonnie and Jeremy are totally discussing the death and carnage over tea. Like, tea. Elena and Stefan enter, he’s fussy that they didn’t check the house. Elena looks in a mirror, and then doesn’t see that Jonas is behind her! But then wait, it was totally Katherine! Will the clothing no longer be a clue? She VAMPS out and bites him and kills him and Bonnie is conflicted. She wants to close his eye but OMG he became re-awake and made Bonnie’s head hurt and then fell back dead = Vamp?

Elena (I guess) is all “How come Katherine got to be me”? When she says it was Katherine’s idea, Elena’s worried. These scenes must be hilarious to shoot. Katherine says she’s not a threat to Elena, because they have to kill Klaus. She does a convincing job of convincing them, but isn’t that her job?

Rick walks Jenna home. He loves her but he can’t tell her certain truths, I guess. She just says ‘goodnight’. Cold! She walks inside, and I have no idea whether Elena or Katherine greets her.

Jeremy is worried because the only witch who could give Bonnie back her powers is dead, and he gets all flustery-fussy and Bonnie kisses him to shut him up. Time honoured technique. She puts her hands on his heart, and flickers the light – and it turns out he gave her back her powers! And told her to kill Klaus.

Damon in bed, reading. Katherine (thank god for identifying curls!) in lingerie, lounging. Apparently Kat tattled on who Emily Bennett was, she and Damon flirt back and forth with information, and this is all foreplay despite the fact that they talk about hurting each other. He does the also time honoured almost-gonna-kiss-you-but-toss-you-aside.

Matt wakes up. Coughing and blood covered. Caroline’s like ‘sup’? He processes, really slowly. “I drank your blood.” She catches him up, slowly. “Vampire Blood fixes humans, I fixed you, PS I’m a vamp.” He’s less than impressed. Then he invokes Vicki, who I know was gone along time ago, and he thinks Caroline did something to her because I guess she babbled about vamps?

Kitchen. Ice Cream eating. Jenna. Clichés. Doorbell. Who’s that? Turns out it’s Elena’s mother. Isobel. Which makes Elena hiss, and Jenna looks kind of alarmed. But only kind of.

Whew! Okay so that all happened, and it is a sexy good time! So now remember, hit me up with the four most important eps I’ve missed, and we’ll catch up with those before the show comes back. Word?

Attached – Paul Wesley last night in New York at the opening of That Championship Season.


Photos from Wenn.com