The Vampire Diaries 1.14 “Fool Me Once” Recap

SWEET MOTHER OF GOD!!!!!!!! WHAT DID I JUST SEE?!?!?!!!?!

After running up and down the street, screaming my lungs out for 1) tonight’s episode of The Vampire Diaries and 2) the fact that we got to wait till FREAKING MARCH 25th for some answers, I have calmed down and am now collecting my thoughts. I am soooo pissed at how we left Mystic Falls tonight, but that’s what makes this show so damn GREAT!!!!! Grab your medical kit, vodka, and some Kleenex’s, because it is about to go down!

The Set Up

Elena wakes to find herself guarded by Ben in the hotel room. After an escape attempt, Ben tries to compel Elena, who is wearing vervain. Anna comes in, relieving Ben from his amateurish duties, and slings Elena into the bathroom where she finds an unconscious Bonnie.

Meanwhile, Stefan begs for Damon’s help, but after last night’s betrayal, Damon doesn’t give two cents about what happens to Elena. Stefan says that he is sorry that all of this is happening because of him, but Damon Elena makes it clear: He hopes Elena dies. WHAT?!!??!?!

Elena awakes Bonnie and fills her in on the vamps’ plan of using Bonnie to open the tomb. Bonnie says she’s not going out like a punk, but Ben bursts in and says Elena is leverage for Bonnie to do her job. Anna summons Elena and reveals that she went after her brother and that they are somewhat dating.

At the Mystic Grill, Jeremy overhears Matt and Tyler (WELCOME BACK, DUDE!) talking about a party thrown by some dude named Duke. Tyler tells Jeremy to butt out of the convo when Jeremy opens his mouth. Caroline enters and says that Jeremy should come to the party, but she spots Matt and gives him a speech on giving him an “escape clause”, because she doesn’t want to be duped into thinking that they are going to work. Matt says he’s good, but I smell bull.

Damon then has the audacity to stop by Grams Bennett’s house looking for Bonnie, but my grandmother doesn’t deal with terrorists. Damon gets feisty and dares Grams to step to him. She does and brings his sorry ass to his knees. Take that.

A Change of Plans…

Anna reveals to Elena that her mother, Pearl (Kelly Hu), is stuck in the tomb as well. She then calls Stefan on Elena’s phone where she makes demands to meet in the town’s square to talk business. At the Salvatores, Damon taunts Stefan by claiming he doesn’t care. Back at the hotel room, Anna leaves and tells Ben to watch his charges this time. Ben, being an idiot, underestimates the girls again. Bonnie tries another escape attempt that involves water, which she douses Ben with and sets him on fire. The girls make a run for it, but Ben recovers fast enough to grab Elena, forcing Bonnie back into the hotel room.

While walking to the rendezvous point, Anna runs into Jeremy who reveals that he wants to take her to the party. This throws Anna off, but the party location sends her for a touchdown. The location? Right near the entrance of the tomb beside Old Fell’s Church. Dur-de-durrrr!!!!! After Jeremy leaves, Damon shows up beside Anna and the two talk business. Anna claims that she will kill Elena if she doesn’t get what she wants. She tells Damon the time and the place of for the opening and leaves.

At the hotel, Ben runs his mouth some more when Stefan bursts in and saves the girls. Ben cowers from the sunlight before Stefan, who tells the fresh fledgling that he better hit the road or its curtains for his short life as a vampire.

The trio heads to Grams, who bonds with her granddaughter before they make plans. Stefan wants Grams and Bonnie to stay home, but Grams says ‘forget that ish’, she wants in on the action. Elena feels that they should help Damon to help stop the madness. Grams chimes in that she will open the tomb, but they will have to burn the place after Damon gets Katherine out. Stefan doesn’t think Damon will fall for the ruse again, but Elena says that Damon is only hurt and that she has a plan.

Meanwhile, Anna returns to find the dumbass that is Ben and comes up with another plan.

Elena finds Damon and tries to reason with him on the level of protection for those they love. Damon declares a “fool me once” motif, which Elena claims that the two of them have an understanding, especially after their trip to Atlanta where Damon didn’t compel her. She promises that she will help him get Katherine back, but Damon doesn’t believe her. Elena then takes off her vervain necklace to prove her promise. Damon sees this and accepts her plan, revealing that he didn’t compel her because she was having fun and that he wanted that to be real. I guess…

Party With The Animals

As Elena and Damon show up at the party, Matt and Caroline approach them and Caroline makes it a point to grab Matt’s hand, which startles Matt and shocks Elena. After Damon rudely talks down to the new lovebirds, he drags Elena off, with Matt ready to pounce.

At the tomb, Stefan and the Bennett women wait for Elena and Damon. Stefan reveals his makeshift flamethrower, while Damon and Elena arrive.

At the party, Tyler tries to score weed off of Jeremy, who calls Tyler out for his hypocrisy. Tyler doesn’t have time for Jeremy’s mouth and berates him for being friendless. Yea, like that will help in your quest to score pot, Tyler. Idiot. But this is the perfect opportunity for Anna to show up, who promptly takes him for a walk into the woods. When they get to a secluded place, Anna works on Jeremy, who wants Anna to be his girl. She drops the bomb that she and her mom are leaving town. Jeremy leans in for a goodbye kiss, which forces Anna to vamp out. Jeremy spots it this time, but before he can react, Ben knocks him out from behind. Anna tells Ben to pick Jeremy up for her mother.

Tyler finds Matt, who is moping about going public with Caroline. Speak of the devil, Caroline shows up and gives another speech: she was lame for grabbing his hand. In other words, the act wasn’t to show off to Elena, but to show Damon (who we all know could care less) that she was with a good guy for once. Matt is relieved as is Caroline. Where the hell is this going?!?!

Tomb Raiders

At the entrance of the tomb, the group gets ready to do the deed. Damon reveals a pack of blood he swiped for Katherine. The Bennett women start to work their magic and the door opens to everyone’s astonishment sans Grams. Damon asks Stefan for fire, which Stefan runs to retrieve. Damon, seeing an opportunity, then tells Elena to come with him as leverage that the Bennett women won’t lock him in with the rest of the vamps. Elena reluctantly goes in while Grams and Bonnie watch in powerless horror.

Stefan meets Ben and Anna outside who have Jeremy as a hostage. Anna says that either Stefan can stop her or Ben from killing Jeremy. Stefan lets Anna pass. When Anna reaches the tomb, Bonnie tries to stop her from going in, but Grams holds her back. While Anna disappears inside the darkness of hellish tomb, Bonnie asks Grams why the hell she let her go through. Grams replies that Anna, nor Damon, are coming back out. Why? Because they used a spell to open the tomb, not unseal it… Say what?!

Stefan talks to Ben about the fresh vamp’s stupidity. Then when Ben tries Stefan, he flames his ass with the blowtorch. Sayonara, idiot!!!!

While inside the tomb, Damon leaves Elena to fend for herself. There are a lot of half dead vamps there and they are too weak to move, but I would still be one scared S.O.B. While Elena fumbles in the dark, she bumps into Anna.

Love Hurts…

Stefan comes back down the tomb and runs for the door after finding out Damon took Elena with him. Grams stops him and reveals the true power of the seal spell, which means that vamps can enter, but they can’t get out. Stefan deduces that only Elena can get out, which Grams says is all that matters. Damn… Not.

Anna spots Pearl and attacks Elena, because she made a promise that it would be Gilbert blood that would wake her mother. Stefan hears Elena’s scream and runs into the tomb! Grams says good riddance, but Bonnie says otherwise and wants to do the spell to drop the seal. Grams declares that they aren’t strong enough, but Bonnie says that many things can fuel a witches power and that if Grams doesn’t help her then she will do it herself.

Stefan comes and rescues Elena, sending her to the opening. Elena finds out once she gets to the opening that the stakes have been raised (no pun intended). Bonnie and Grams say that if they can open the seal it won’t stay open for long. Stefan goes to retrieve his brother.

But Damon has made a grisly discovery. Katherine is NOT IN THE FRAKKING TOMB!!!!!!! In a fit of rage, he throws the blood pack against the wall where it shatters and blood goes everywhere.

While the Bennett women hold the seal open, Anna and Pearl escape. Anna calls a truce to Elena and walks her mother out the tomb. Elena runs back in for the Salvatore brothers. While Damon is being unreasonable, Elena comes in and pleads for Damon to snap out of it and get out of there. They make it out, but the spell drains Bonnie and Grams.

For some odd reason, we are back to the Caroline and Matt bit, which involves Matt asking Caroline if she is being real by being honest and whatnot. Caroline says that she is just protecting her feelings and doesn’t want to mess anything up. Matt concurs that he feels the same way. They kiss and make up. For now. I hope. Now, let’s deal with Tyler’s inner wolf next time, okay writers?

Elena and Stefan tend to Jeremy, but Elena sees how hurt Damon is and she gives him a hug, saying that she’s sorry. Hmm….

Back at the Bennetts, Gram stumbles, which worries Bonnie. But Grams says she’s fine. Um…

Elena talks to Jeremy at home to see if he remembered anything, which he says he doesn’t. Elena leaves him for Bonnie’s, but it turns out that Jeremy did remember everything since he immediately starts his search for vampires on the Internet.

Anna brings Pearl back to the hotel room where Damon waits, pissed. He immediately lights into Anna for knowing the entire time that Katherine wasn’t in the tomb and grabs Pearl by the neck, asking her why does she get happiness in the end and he doesn’t. Well, Damon, there is a thing called karma that you just might want to look into. Vampires are not immune to it. But Pearl reveals that Katherine, aka, DIVA, the female version of a hustler, had all of the men in town under her spell. One of those men was a guard, who wanted Katherine to turn him in order for her escape. He let her go. What?!

Then to drive the stake home, Anna adds that the last time she saw Katherine was in Chicago in 1983 and that Katherine knew Damon’s whereabouts the entire time. She just didn’t care to call him up for a run on the town. Now that’s Dirty!!!! After this revelation, Damon can’t do anything, but walk out the hotel room in stunned shock.

Elena calls Stefan to say she made it to Bonnie’s OK, but she asks if Damon is OK. Stefan says he will call her back as he goes and sits with his brother in silence. Aww.

But this next scene is the killer.

Bonnie enters Grams’ room to say goodnight and to tuck her in, but she finds Grams is not breathing!!!!! She screams (and I scream) and Elena comes running, but there is nothing she can do but call the medics. Bonnie, sobbing profusely, screams for Grams to wake up while looking through the spell book to “fix this”. But we all know it’s too late. Grams, GOD I will miss you.!!!!! DAMN!!!!!!

Oh and the last scene of this chapter involves the vampires in the tomb awakening to the busted blood pack and opening the tomb, which is no longer sealed. And their hungry…

The Vampire Diaries…

From The Journals of The Council

– Who in the HELL told the TVD writers that they could kill off Grams?!?!?!?!?!?!! I need names, numbers, addresses, and itineraries of each person involved in this debacle!!!! I will feed them one by one to the waiting vamps outside the tomb. I haven’t been this pissed since they killed off Lexi, but this elevates that to a whole new level!!!!! SOOOOOOOO PISSED NOW!!!!!!!

– Damon got his just deserts, now I think it’s time to find Katherine, who is quickly becoming the baddest thing on the show and she hasn’t even shown her face in the present yet!!!! I can. not. wait for that showdown to commence and I bet it will begin once the damn show returns on March 25th.

– Elena showed that she can be trusted and man does she has some balls to still hug Damon for his loss after all he has put her and her friends through. She is the epitome of turning the other cheek and I aspire to be like her one day. Just not now, but one day.

– Matt and Caroline. Glad to see they are patching things over. I felt that Caroline was just showing off to Damon, because she feels that she has to prove to him that he is the dirt from a pigs hoof, but she doesn’t need to go that far to do so. And Matt? I’m going to need him to either stick to liking Caroline or stop leading her on. I think that he is in the former now. I hope.

– So Jeremy is in on the scheme of things now. Will he reveal this to his sister soon or will he try to stake her boyfriend behind her back? He needs to step his game up. I imagine an epic season finale where everyone will be in on the drama that is the Mystic Falls supernatural community.

– Speaking of which, Tyler makes an impromptu appearance, but you wouldn’t know that he has wolf in him if you didn’t see “The Turning Point” back in December. I hope he changes before the year is out.

Okay, TVD fans. We got to muster another long ass hiatus, but we can do it. We managed before and we will manage again and our payoff is a beauty: Eight, uninterrupted episodes (supposedly a new chapter) leading to the season finale!!!!! Are you excited? Now get those DVRs pumping by rewatching the first fourteen episodes all over again until that time comes. Until then, peeps…

Have some Vervain on hand…