If you were evil vampire Damon Salvatore and you just found out that the woman you love hadn't been trapped in a tomb for the past 200 years as you had previously thought but was instead free and totally able to reconnect with you at any time during those two centuries (just go with it), how would you handle it? I personally would've gone on a killing spree, but I guess drowning your sorrows in booze and women like Damon did on last night's episode of "The Vampire Diaries" is a viable alternative.
Damon handled the news of Katherine's safety remarkably well (for him) by drinking lots of scotch and having a vampire orgy with some college girls in lingerie, compelling them to let him bite them and presumably have sex (though we hope he didn't have to compel them to do that -- Damon is no legit sexual predator), then returning them to their dorm rooms. Whatever works, right?
Elsewhere in Mystic Falls, Elena, with the help of Aunt Jenna, finally put two and two together and figured out that Alaric's wife, Isobel, was her birth mother. Naturally the only thing to do then was to visit Isobel's best friend from high school to learn more about her mother. Said friend turned out to be in league with some sort of evil force and wasn't very forthcoming with details. She texted a mysterious man who showed up and looked evilly at Elena, who then escaped, before he went inside and killed the friend.
Stefan had this weird thing I didn't totally understand where he would only tell Alaric, Damon, and Elena parts of the story about Isobel, which clearly backfired. Damon found out Alaric knew he had killed Isobel, so he admitted it in front of the entire town during the bachelor auction (again, go with it), thus indirectly telling Elena, too. Afterward, when Elena told Damon that Isobel was her birth mother, he finally looked like he actually cared (knew it!) and even looked a little repentant. There's hope for the guy after all.
Though, as it turns out, Damon didn't kill Isobel. He turned her into a vampire. (Also turns out that the creepy guy stalking Elena had been compelled to tell her to stop looking for Isobel, who didn't want to know her. Then he stepped in front of a bus.) When Alaric confronted Damon about it at Salvatore Manor, Damon responded logically by stabbing Alaric in the chest and watching him die. …Or so we thought! Silly, this is "Vampire Diaries." Anything can happen.
Stefan was left to deal with Alaric's body, which promptly came back to life. But it wasn't because Alaric had vampire blood in his system — it was because he was wearing a ring his wife had made him promise to never take off. Bless that secret vampire jewelry and its mysterious powers.
Other good things about this episode: JULIE COOPER! Melinda Clarke made her first appearance as Matt's mom. She was fantastic. We hope she never leaves. Bad things about this episode: No Jeremy! And no Anna until the very end, when the other vampire who escaped from the tomb found Pearl and Anna hiding out in the home of a human they presumably compelled. Drama!
For those of you who didn't catch the special phone number we were told to pay attention to, it was 919-399-2507 (a Raleigh, NC number, so perhaps that suggests Isobel ventured back to her Duke stomping grounds?). The message, read by Ian Somerhalder (we think!), says, "For those of you who are on Team Stefan, you should know he isn't as perfect as you think. Just ask him what happened after he turned into a vampire in 1864. And for those of you who are Team Damon, ask him what he's done since that time. He never looks back at the people he's killed, the lives he's ruined. But eventually the storm hits, and it all catches up to him."
What did you think about last night's episode? Was it worth the wait? Are you excited to find out what's going to happen to the rest of the vampires from the tomb? And do you think Damon will find Katherine before the end of the season?
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