Posted by Erin Brown | August 31, 2010, 21:22 (EST) | 14 Comments
Category: TV Series

Countdown to The Return is a series of guest posts by Vampire Diaries fans on topics they’re pondering as we head into Season 2. Blogger Erin Brown is having a fangirl crisis and a certain Lockwood’s animal magnetism is to blame.

For the record, I’m a Stefan girl; I’ve always been a Stefan girl.

I’d like to blame David Boreanaz for all of this, of course – Angel/Angelus, aka the Original Captain Brood – for instilling my love of a tortured expression on a handsome face, but in truth, I’ve always loved a good moper with supernatural abilities and chiseled features; one who is ever-searching for his redemption by playing the good guy and being the better man…or at least an undead version of.

Paul Wesley, playing Stefan Salvatore, of course filled all of these expectations. The eyes, the abs, the forehead that has more acting skills than all the Baldwin brothers put together (what are there, like a million? Forgive me, but I lost count at William) and the smouldering, bruised expression? If we were going on stereotypes, it made more sense than chocolate and peanut butter: Stefan Salvatore had me well before hello.

But as the premiere of the next chapter in Mystic Falls history draws nigh, I find myself needing to make a confession.

It’s the eve of a new season and I am being seriously courted by another team.

Yes.

I’m looking at YOU, Tyler Lockwood. With your cougar-loving, bad boy, my-daddy-issues-have-issues ways, and anti-emo-Jeremyness…ness.

Me, President of Planet Stefan…I was fine – for months – until you showed up on my radar and went all interesting. Fair? Erm, no.

You see, Tyler is the perfect embodiment of that guy in high school that most every girl seems to have in her past, one that I definitely know I have in mine: the handsome but holy-toledo-you’re-an-ass football jock that we never really liked but always sort of felt we understood.

And Tyler was that jock to a T. Nothing more.

That was, of course, until the Season 1 finale.

In one hit, a device triggers his were-senses with a reaction you nigh on needed a Richter scale to measure, he gets in a road accident as a result, his estranged best friend’s girl almost dies because of it, and his dad bites the big one courtesy of a vamp in a fiery basement.

Cue Tyler Lockwood, Mark II – from one-dimensional douche to Onion Man; he of the fifteen layers of tear inducing issues, a tiramisu of angst. I was not prepared for this! To all of a sudden care more about what happens to you! This was not in the plan!

But between his supernatural heritage and new capabilities, his storyline, for me, is now one of the biggest hooks of Season 2 of The Vampire Diaries, as it charges forward into new territory on our screens in a little less than two weeks.

Unlike Stefan and Damon, who have never been in any doubt about whom or what they are – be it human or vampire – Tyler’s journey into becoming a werewolf is an entirely different one altogether. Katherine prepared the brothers for ages [well, one of them, at least - Vee] before she turned them, but from what we’ve seen so far, Tyler has had no such foreknowledge to work with. He has to relearn everything about himself and the person he thought he was, from the ground up.

In the context of Season 2, this opens up an innumerable list of delicious possibilities. One hand, of course, you have Katherine. Now that she has turned the Stefan-Elena-Damon love triangle well and truly into a square, whatever their storyline this season, we know it will be about them dealing with each other in one bloody, angsty, sexy way or another, even if we don’t know how that will all play out.

On the other hand, the beauty of Tyler’s plot line – courtesy of the exceptional proficiency for character development by the creative team behind show – is that it could go absolutely anywhere. Couple this with the willingness of Julie Plec and Kevin Williamson to take a decent amount of creative license with L.J. Smith’s original stories, and you have pretty much endless potential.

There are so many questions to be answered.

How will he deal with his new physical capabilities? How will he physically turn into a werewolf? Will he explode out of his skin? Develop a case of Insta-Fur every time he sees a full moon rising? Who will he confide in? What will their reaction be? Will he finally get kissed by someone who’s not an alcoholic Mrs. Robinson or a drugged out high school girl? (PLEASE, you team of writing masterminds – for the love of ALL that’s CW, make it so. We’re dying here.) What happens to his friendship with Matt? Will the Salvatores find out about him? Will he have any memory of what he does as a werewolf? (Because seriously: have you noticed in almost every show with werewolves in the plot, 90 percent of them get post-puppy amnesia every time they revert back to human form?) Will he meet anyone else like him that’s not a relative? Speaking of which, the uncle addition – what’s he going to bring to the mix?

The beauty of Tyler Lockwood in Season 2 of The Vampire Diaries lies with the complete mystery that surrounds him and the otherworldly potential that lies within him. And, perhaps best of all, we learn about him as he learns about himself. He’s as in the dark as we are. What this bad boy discovers come September, who knows.

In any case, let’s just hope it involves as many full moons as possible.

Erin Brown hails from Sydney, Australia. When she’s not busy reading, working, tweeting or drinking (another) coffee, she spends as much time as possible doing what she loves best – writing. She likes stormy afternoons, Bruce Springsteen and refuses to discriminate between vampires solely on the basis of what happens to them in direct sunlight. Bling or toast, she loves both the most.

For more of her musings and madness, visit her blog at:
http://www.mythconception.wordpress.com

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