Here we are, back again for an all-new season of The Vampire Diaries. Over a series of flashbacks, Stefan, Damon, Elena, Bonnie, Klaus and Jeremy fill us in on the history of Mystic Falls and its centuries as a haven for supernatural creatures, along with events from last season culminating in the tragic death of Alaric, Klaus's staking and Rebekah forcing Matt to drive off Wickery Bridge where Elena is left to drown. Elena has the last word: “And then there's me. I'm human. At least I was.” She opens her eyes with a gasp on a table in the morgue.
Now that is how you do a voiceover recap, Amy Pond.
Elena jolts awake in her room the next morning to find Stefan and Damon watching over her. Stefan explains about the accident and assures her that Matt is fine. She begins, “How did you...” and Damon, who's kept up his subscription to Glowering magazine, finishes the thought. “Save you? He didn't.”
The brothers place the rest of the pieces for Elena. She died with vampire blood in her system and is in transition. Understandably, Elena freaks, but Stefan informs her that Bonnie is going to try a spell to reverse her condition. Damon chastises him for giving Elena false hope. “We all know the drill. You feed or you die. There is no door number three.”
Elena sobs that she was ready to die and can't stand the thought of being a vampire. Wow, not too intolerant of your boyfriend's state of being or anything. She opts to wait to see if Bonnie can help.
Down in the kitchen Damon pours himself a breakfast scotch and, when Stefan joins him, lays into him again for letting Elena die. Stefan tells him again that Elena asked him to save Matt first. Damon: “And now the world has one more quarterback.” Bitch is serving some Bette Davis realness, yo.
Up in her room Elena is making weird faces and hilariously checking if her fangs are coming in, then Jeremy enters. He offers to help her through the transition, remembering how rough it was when his first girlfriend Vicki went through it. He's being very supportive, but Elena is completely distracted when her heightened hearing zones in on a buzzing light bulb in her bedside lamp. Jeremy exits to find Bonnie and Elena crushes the offending bulb with her bare hand.
Lockwood family crypt. Bonnie is standing over the charred remains of Klaus when she's startled by the entrance of Tyler, currently possessed by Klaus. We shall call him Tylaus. Bonnie asks why he's still possessing Tyler when the deal was he'd jump to someone else ASAP. Tylaus says his plans have changed what with his own body not having been totally consumed following his staking. He intends to have Bonnie put him back in himself and I don't get how that's supposed to work. Yes, his body wasn't consumed but it was still impaled on VamPric's Super Stake and it doesn't seem right that he should be able to come back from that. But oh well, their mythology, their rules I guess.
Tylaus demands that Bonnie transfer him but she explains she can't until she helps Elena. They go back and forth until Tylaus starts throttling her. Instead of giving him a Mystic Migraine she suggests that by letting her help Elena first he ensures a continued supply of Doppelganger blood to make new hybrids. Tylaus sees the wisdom in this and lets her go.
At the hospital, Doctor Horrible Fell greets a new character, Pastor Young (Michael Reilly Burke).
He has no time for pleasantries as he orders the Council minions he brought with him to lock down the blood bank and search the hospital. He tells her that VamPric told the Council all about her extra-curricular activities and suggests she might want to start looking for another job. I hear Seattle Grace might be hiring.
Matt and Caroline are hanging in Matt's hospital room. He's feeling guilty that his being saved put Elena in the transition position. She warns him to keep his voice down since she's a fugitive. He asks why she hasn't left town yet and she says it's because she doesn't know where to go. There's a Hellmouth in Cleveland you could check out. He comforts her for a moment until she's forced to flee from a cute Council redshirt checking the room.
At the Lockwood estate Mayor Carol is being led out in cuffs for “questioning”. Shortly thereafter Pastor Young relieves Sheriff Liz of duty. She warns him that he has no idea what he's up against and he's all “Do so.” The Council has confiscated the entire vervane supply and are “making [their] move”.
Cut to Caroline getting a call from Sheriff Mom, who hopes she's all the way out of town. Caroline starts to reassure her that she's all right but then a redshirt jumps her and injects her with vervane.
Stefan's fixed Elena a sandwich but she can't handle people food. Stefan's wracked with guilt over letting her die but Elena wants him to let himself off the hook. He worries what will happen if Bonnie can't save her, but she says “we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.” She bursts into giggles at making a bridge comment and Stefan recognizes that her emotions are “a bit heightened...a lot heightened.” Laughter turns to tears and Stefan pledges that no matter what he's there for her.
Stefan sends her upstairs to rest and as Elena enters her room she sees Damon, who compliments her pajamas. She, and we, quickly realize that she's remembering when Damon returned her necklace and confessed his love, then compelled her to forget. A side effect of being turned is that all compulsions end. Elena can't quite process.
At the Haus of Klaus, Rebekah is grieving his death when she hears someone enter. It's Damon and she admonishes him that it's bad manners to sneak up on a lady. He snarks, “Good advice; have you seen one?” She salts his wounds about Elena and he attacks her with his Super Stake (not a euphemism). They struggle until shots ring out from outside, wounding Rebekah. Damon flees as an arrow pierces Rebekah's heart. Oliver Queen, is that you?
Elena hears something downstairs and descends to find Pastor Young and a couple of redshirts covering Stefan.
At the Lockwood family crypt Tylaus gets a call from Mayor Carol and calls her an “incessant woman”. There's something...not quite right about that construction. He answers with his best Tyler Lockwood impression. He learns that Caroline's been taken.
Cut to a van transporting Caroline and a revived Rebekah to Vampire Gitmo. There's a crash and the van rolls. Tylaus rips off the doors and frees Caroline. Rebekah whines “What about me?” and Tylaus responds “Keep 'em busy, little sister.” She's stunned.
Sheriff Liz meets up with Damon and Meredith at the Gilbert place. They compare notes and then Matt wanders in. Damon starts throttling him, demanding to know in what world Matt's the one who survives.
At Vampire Gitmo, Pastor Young is explaining to Elena that back in the day it was her parents who wanted an emergency plane but Elena can't concentrate because of her hyped up senses. The pastor exposits that they plan to use her to lure in Damon and Rebekah to entice her siblings and asks her for the Super Stake. Elena casts a lingering gaze at Pastor Young's throat then makes a break for it. The sunlight overwhelms her and a redshirt knocks her out.
Tylaus and Caroline are in the woods and Caroline pounces on him for our first shirtless scene of the new season.
He tells her, “Easy love. Wrong time. Wrong place. Wrong equipment.” Buh? Caroline declares that in their situation “all signs point to hot vampire/hybrid sex” but the fact that he called her “love” breaks through the sex fog. She realizes she's dealing with Klaus in Tyler's body.
Bonnie's chanting in the Burned Out Witch House but the witch spirits are not taking her calls. Bonnie decides to commit mystic suicide to find Elena on the Other Side and bring her back.
Back at the Gilbert place, Matt figures out that Vampire Gitmo is Pastor Young's cattle ranch.
At Vampire Gitmo Elena's been chucked in a cell alongside Stefan and Rebekah. Rebekah twigs that Elena's a few hours away from the end and gloats that she'll get to watch Elena die all over again.
Not if Bonnie has anything to say about it. She chants herself to death while Jeremy freaks right the hell out, and finds herself at Vampire Gitmo. She grasps Elena's hands and starts to lead her back to the living until the scene is photobombed by Grams!
As Elena collapses, Grams warns Bonnie away from the dark magic she's using and orders her back to the living. Bonnie revives in the Burned Out Witch House and tells Jeremy of her failure.
Elena needs blood and Stefan starts yelling taunts and a redshirt appears to tell him to pipe down. Stefan goes all angry kitty and gets a couple of wooden bullets in him for his trouble.
Tylaus has lost every vestige of patience at being trapped in Tyler's body. I can't imagine getting tired of Tyler's body, inside or out. Caroline tries to mediate, suggesting that a couple of days will let Bonnie recover enough to use “traditional magic” to make the switch. Tylaus is not having it; he rips his shirt open and starts digging his own heart out of his chest.
Jeremy says he's bluffing but Bonnie folds.
Stefan removes the bullets and he and Elena blah blah about their relationship again some more. Even Rebekah is a little bit “aw”.
Damon and Matt arrive at Vampire Gitmo and Matt just then decides to ask what the plan is. The plan is to use Matt as bait. Damon bites him.
Commercials. Hey, The CW? The Secret Circle has been canceled for months. It's time to stop advertising it.
Pastor Young sticks his head out of Vampire Gitmo's front door. Damon offers to trade the “innocent” Matt for Stefan and Elena. The counter-offer is a wooden bullet to Damon's shoulder.
Burned Out Witch House. Bonnie has started the spell to transfer Klaus to somewhere. Jeremy frets that she's performing more black magic. The spell takes effect and Tyler beams a smile at Caroline before suddenly collapsing.
As Caroline rushes to his side Grams appears to Bonnie. “I warned you, child.” Grams grasps Bonnie's wrists and can't let go. Bonnie screams as Grams goes all veiny and exposits that the witch spirits are taking out Bonnie's punishment on her. Grams screams and vanishes.
A couple of redshirts prepare another cell for Damon at Vampire Gitmo and Stefan and Rebekah exchange a knowing glance. Rebekah calls the redshirt over and tries to bribe him but he says he'd rather see her dead. No Make-A-Wish dream for him, as Rebekah shoves him against Stefan's cell, where Stefan inflicts major head trauma and drops him to die. Elena reaches for the sweet sweet blood spreading out from his multiple skull fractures. She dips her fingers in it and smears the blood on her mouth.
Another pair of redshirts move out to secure Damon, who springs up and slaughters them both. Damon stands over a wounded Matt, who implores Damon to kill him. “You can't hate me more than I hate myself." Damon begs to differ and moves for the kill, only to be thrown off by Elena in full vamp face yelling at him to leave Britney Matt alone.
A wounded Matt stumbles into the Vampire Gitmo farmhouse and Stefan tries to aid him. Matt resists and laments how he'll be forced to live with the knowledge that Elena became a vampire because of him. Stefan corrects that he doesn't “have to” live with that knowledge, but that he “gets to” live with it because of Elena's sacrifice.
Outside, Damon and Elena are blah blahing about their relationship and it means not a whole lot beyond confirming that Elena remembers meeting Damon first and that Damon is a selfish bastard. Old news.
Rebekah confronts a fully restored Klaus at the Haus of Klaus which I still don't understand how that works. He's pissed at her, she's pissed at him, bottom line she destroys all of Elena's blood that he'd banked last season and he disavows her as his sister and leaves. Good. I want all of the Originals to go away and not come back. And he snaps her neck for good measure.
Stefan and Elena are on a roof somewhere, probably the Gilbert house? He's guilty and conflicted, she's guilty and conflicted, status quo. He likes it so he puts a ring on it, specifically a daylight ring Bonnie whipped up so she won't fry. They kiss and watch the sun rise.
And then Pastor Young blows himself and a room full of people right the hell up.
I'm amazed that they decided to turn Elena. I haven't read the books but someone mentioned last season that she does turn in them, but for that to translate to television shocks me. I'm not a big fan of the “religious zealotry” storyline (it ruined the last seasons of Dexter and True Blood) so assuming that Pastor Young survives I'm nervous about the direction he could be taken. I'm also kind of surprised that Klaus got out of Tyler this early. I was expecting that story to be a major one for the season. Although honestly I'm a little weary of all of the Originals so if Klaus has indeed taken a powder it's all good.
Still, it's a solid opener and I'm looking forward to seeing how everything develops. Who's with me?
