The Vampire Diaries 2.01 “The Return” Recap

HOLY $#*+!!! The first ten minutes of The Vampire Diaries pulled the rug off from under me SEVERAL times!!!

We pick up were we left off, but with all of the cliffhangers edited in together as they happened. Elena walks in after Katherine has made mince meat of Jonathan and finds him in a pool of blood. She immediately calls the cops, but Jonathan warns her to watch her back. Katherine starts playing games with Elena, who never sees her. Fearing for Jeremy, Elena runs upstairs to wake him up and he opens his eyes in a jolt. Title card. Welcome back, VAMPIRE DIARIES!!!!

The medics arrive and cart off Jonathan, who is miraculously still alive, while Stefan shows up. Elena immediately sends him to check on Jeremy, who Stefan gives a clean bill of health. Jeremy is pissed, but Stefan gets in his ass about his actions. Stefan then sends Elena to the hospital while he watches Jeremy.

At the hospital, Bonnie arrives and asks Matt about Caroline. When Matt tells her about the noise Tyler heard, Bonnie’s face becomes taut with fear. Uh Oh!!!! Damon finds Sheriff Forbes at the hospital and she tells him about Mayor Lockwood and how it’s impossible for him to be a vampire. Elena finds Bonnie and they discuss Caroline, who Bonnie says is not looking too good. Damon overhears and offers to give her some vampire blood, which Elena disagrees on. Surprisingly, Bonnie tells Damon to do it. Damon asks for a truce for his services, but Bonnie tells him to forget it.

After Bonnie leaves Damon tries to get Elena to talk about their kiss, which Elena has no clue what he’s talking about. Jenna finds Elena, claiming to have spoken to her earlier, but Elena knows for a fact that she didn’t. Damon finally realizes that the inevitable has happened.

Back at Casa Gilbert, Stefan hears “Elena” come in and when they hug, Stefan vamps out and slings Katherine across the room. The two spar and before Katherine gets the upper hand, she informs Stefan of tricking at least one of them already. She then leaves before Elena and Damon walk in. The two Salvatore brothers share a look and know that hell has returned to Mystic Falls.

Later, Damon and Stefan talk about the reason why Katherine could be back. Stefan brings up Katherine’s words about tricking Damon earlier, and Bad Boy Salvatore doesn’t hold back. He tells the others about his kiss earlier. WHAT?!?!? Stefan goes vamp beserk, but it takes Elena to stop the two by saying that Damon kissed Katherine, not her, and that she would never do something like that. Ouch! Stefan suggests that Elena talks to Jonathan about why Katherine is back in town, a duty Elena is sooo not up for. Damon then comes up with the plan to lure Katherine out by just ignoring her. Then when that happens, they will kill her. Good luck with that, Chief!

The next day at the hospital, Bonnie finds Matt, who has been there all night. He does tell her that Damon stopped by, which puts the wiggins in Bonnie. Matt has a surprise for her in terms of Caroline’s health. He takes her to the room to find Caroline back to her old self, waiting for Jersey Shore to come on. HA! She then tells Matt and Bonnie that the doctors says she’s healing quickly. While the three buddies hug, I am a bit scared about that little statement.

At the Lockwoods, the town has come out for Mayor Lockwood’s funeral. Inside the house, Damon plays moderator between Sheriff Forbes and Carol Lockwood as they argue over who is responsible for the Mayor’s death. Meanwhile, Tyler welcomes back his long lost uncle, Mason Lockwood (Taylor Kinney). Damon notices Mason and finds out from Sheriff Forbes that Mason is anti-Council and is basically a surfer. Later, Tyler unknowingly welcomes Katherine into their house, thinking she’s Elena (bangs head on the wall in sheer giddiness)!!!!

At the hospital, Elena and Stefan ask Jonathan why Katherine is back, but he is stubborn and refuses to say anything to the vampire standing before him. Elena gets pissed and leaves, but Stefan stays behind gives Jonathan a piece of his mind… and blood! SHUT THE FRAK UP!!!!! Stefan forces Jonathan to drink his blood, telling the sniveling whiner that if he doesn’t leave town in 24 hours, he will be come a vampire by Stefan, who will watch him suffer and hate himself. OMG, yall!!!!! When they get outside, Elena forces Stefan to admit that he forced Jonathan to leave town. Elena’s happy about it, because she doesn’t want to deal with the guy. Stefan’s mind is still on kicking Damon’s ass for making a pass on Elena, or trying to at least. Elena reminds him that they have another homicidal vampire to worry about and to squash it already. Elena’s thinking with her head again. I like that!

Back at the Lockwoods, Bonnie asks Damon if he knows that Tyler was affected by the vampire device, but Damon begins to taunt Bonnie about that whole scenario being her fault, especially since it got people killed and Caroline in the hospital. Bonnie doesn’t flinch as she tells Damon that he is going down soon, because she doesn’t buy his charm one bit. Damon laughs off Bonnie’s newfound power until she uses it on him to show that she means business. After confronting Damon, Bonnie runs into Katherine, thinking it’s Elena! As soon as Bonnie finishes venting, she touches Katherine and immediately finds out the truth. She plays it off and runs to call Elena, who confirms Bonnie’s fear, but she doesn’t have to time to react before Katherine finds her!!!!

Katherine informs Bonnie that she’s well schooled in every piece of Elena’s life, including the part about Bonnie’s hate for vamps. Bonnie uses some powers on Kat, but she is too strong!!! Kat then pins Bonnie to the wall, ready to attack. Bonnie opens the doors to the room before Kat can bite, and Stefan stands in the doorway. He tells her to let Bonnie go. She does, oh so sweetly, though. Thank GOD!

Stefan tries to get Katherine to come clean about why she’s there, but her mind is only on being cryptic and coy, which is wearing Stefan’s patience. She asks to take their confrontation outside and he follows her.

Continued on next page…

Hi all, this is Clarissa taking over for Mark, who rudely got his premiere episode of The Vampire Diaries interrupted.

As Stefan and Katherine leave the house, Jenna, Jeremy and Elena arrive at the Lockwood mansion. Elena spots a morose Damon on the porch. She insists that she cares about him and wants to know how he’s doing. He denies being hurt, but she can see through him. She also says “I’m surprised you thought I would kiss you back”, which, while true, is also kind of cruel. Bonnie rushes up to join them.

Jeremy spots Tyler sitting along in a room and expresses his condolences. He can relate as he also lost his parents, but Tyler thinks their situation isn’t comparable because his father was a jerk. Uncle Mason comes by and off Jeremy goes. Looks like Mason’s one of those cool uncles who shares a flash with his nephew.

Outside, on the grounds of the Lockwood estate, the confrontation between Stefan and Katherine continues. Stefan tells Katherine to stop flirting with him, because he’s not obsessed with her like Damon is. He also tells her that he never loved her, that he was only compelled by her. He tells her to get on with her schemes and then leave town, otherwise he’ll kill her. Katherine drops her bomb – she came back for Stefan because she loves him. Of course, she then proves she really is mean when she rams him through with a poker after he says he hates her. So one has to question her professed love.

Elena has joined Stefan after the commercial break and Damon comes by, trying to goad Stefan into fighting him over Elena. Ever the level-headed one, Stefan refuses to fight his brother, believing that they need to stand united against Katherine.

Back at home now, Jeremy finds John packing to leave town. While Jeremy isn’t eager to talk to his uncle, John tries to explain that he was raised to hate vampires. Jeremy wants to know why John’s magical ring didn’t protect his father, but John says what happened to Jeremy’s parents was an accident. John also tells Jeremy he needs to get with the program and start buying into the family legacy of protecting the town against vampires.

The Lockwood house has been emptied of all the guests at the wake and Tyler is getting increasingly angry over his father. When his mother confronts him about his outburst, he pushes her, only to be stopped by Mason, who pins him to the ground. Tyler is freaking out, but Mason manages to get him to calm down. Clearly Tyler’s inner wolf is coming out, and I’m fairly certain Mason knows exactly what’s going on.

With a backdrop of depressing music, Damon finds Katherine in his living room. She says that she’s come to say goodbye and goads him into a short fight, which ends with him kissing her. The two get hot and heavy for a few minutes, but Damon puts a stop to it. He tells Katherine he needs to ask her a question – that her answer will define their relationship. He doesn’t need to put it into words because Katherine says she knows what he wants to hear from her. But she calmly tells him that she’s never loved him, that she’s only ever loved Stefan.

Ouch.

Surprisingly, Katherine seems almost regretful as she delivers the news. Could it be that she feels bad?

A short time later, Damon makes an unexpected visit to Elena’s bedroom. She thanks him for his help and realizes he’s been drowning his sorrows. He insists that there’s something between the two of them and that she’s hiding her feelings for him. He forces a kiss on her and she pushes him away. He continues to crowd her and, for one moment, I’m wondering whether this show is going to have him commit the terrible crime of forcing himself on Elena.

The moment is interrupted by Jeremy and Damon rushes him, pinning him to the wall. Damon tells him it’s easy to be a vampire, that it will stop Jeremy from feeling. He breaks his neck, despite Elena screaming at him. Elena crashes to the floor next to her dead brother and….

I started freaking out. I didn’t think they would go there.

Damon looks almost regretful as Elena starts to sob and he leaves. A second later, Elena spots John’s magical ring on Jeremy’s finger.

Back at the Lockwood house, Tyler says he hates acting angry like this, but Mason says it’s the curse of being a Lockwood.

At the Gilbert house, Elena’s holding Jeremy’s body as Stefan looks on. He says that Katherine clearly got under Damon’s skin and Elena tearfully says there’s no good left in Damon. We see Damon arrive back at home, where he proceeds to throw his empty glass into the fireplace. Elena tells Stefan that she hates Damon and Jeremy wakes up a second later, panicked. Stefan looks troubled about how to deal with his brother now.

Caroline wakes up in the hospital and greets Elena…only it’s not Elena, it’s Katherine. She properly introduces herself and asks Caroline to give the Salvatore brothers a message: Game On. Then she suffocates Caroline with her pillow.

Oh. My. God.

Game on, Katherine. Game on, indeed.

Katherine calmly leaves the room and we’ll have to wait until next week to learn whether Caroline is really dead.

Well, since Mark can’t comment on the episode as a whole let me tell you what I think: one of the best premieres EVER! The pacing of this episode was brilliant. So many things happened, so many new possibilities were introduced. Nina Dobrev effortlessly slips between Elena and Katherine and plays both to perfection. Somerhalder still manages to play Damon as evil and tortured at the same time and I cannot wait to see how he’ll react when Elena and Stefan inevitably push him away for his recent actions. And Stefan’s street cred shot up 100% when he got all badass by threatening Uncle John.

I LOVE the addition of Katherine and I cannot wait to see what hijinks will ensue next. Check out promo photos and a trailer for next week’s all new episode and check back again next week for Mark’s recap. Hopefully his show won’t be interrupted again.