Thanks for that link… great read! I’m wondering if Esther is going to be the big bad for next season?!!!

 What I wouldn’t give for it to be theory number 2… that would be amazing.

Definitely not caused by either brother, I agree. Even Uncle John said that the ring didn’t work because it wasn’t a supernatural death just a “tragic accident.” I am trying to remember exactly what Stefan said when he told Elena about the first time he saw her. I thought he told her that her father wouldn’t let him save him until he saved her, and then when he got back to the car it was already too late. 

I won’t hold my breath, ugh! rolls eyes.

The only problem is that Stefan told Elena what happened that day. She didn’t find out, he told her. He said he reached her father first and that he insisted that Stefan save Elena first. Stefan speaks of “pulling” Elena out and looking at her face. If he lied about it that would be awful. Stefan lied about a lot of things at the beginning of their relationship but he wouldn’t have lied about the car crash. If Elena was lying on the bridge unconscious, Stefan would’ve told her that and it would still be a mystery as to how she had gotten out of the car. As for the gaps in Elena’s memory…I won’t rule out compulsion but I honestly think she just passed out.

I can’t obsess about this now…one episode at a time please!! Ugh!!!! I REFUSE to think about The Departed while i’m dying over Heart Of Darkness, my brain will go into overload!! (it already has, hehe)

So many theories about the car crash…..all of you are correct. JP said the The Gilbert’s death was not a supernatural death. But I have to wonder, if by some chance, one of our boys was just standing in the road, or crossing the street, and the car veered to the side to keep from hitting what Grayson Gilbert would have considered a human, would that be considered a supernatural death? Suppose one of the boys didn’t mean for it to happen? Meaning it wasn’t a deliberate assault on the Gilbert’s themselves. It really was just a tragic accident. 

Stefan told Elena, back in season 1, that he was out in the woods when he heard the crash. He went to the accident site,  and dove into the water. But Grayson Gilbert told him to save Elena first, which Stefan did. When he went back in the water to get her parents it was to late. Keep in mind, this was after Elena found out she looked exactly like Katherine, who at the time, she considered Stefan’s ex. He then went on to tell her that her resemblance to Katherine didn’t make any sense, so he watched her through out the summer to confirm she wasn’t actually Katherine. He also researched, the best he could, Elena’s parentage. That’s when he discovered she was actually adopted. At this point, he also promised her no more lies.

Elena said she remembered waking up in the hospital, but had no memory of the accident, at all. What she knows of the events, she learned from Stefan. It should also be noted, as far as the viewing audience goes, we have never heard a conversation between the Salvatore brothers regarding that fateful night.

Back in Season 1, when Damon came to town, he came with one goal…getting Kat out of the tomb. And to do what he could to annoy Stefan. All of us know it, Damon & Stefan fans alike. Damon was a bit of a dick…a funny dick, for sure, but a dick none the less. He didn’t care about the repercussions of opening the tomb filled full of starved vampires and letting them loose on the town of MF. Basically, he considered it not his problem. All he wanted was Kat. Of course, all of that changed when he started to allow people to matter to him. He’s definitley not the same vampire who first came to MF.

Now, here’s where it gets puzzling for me. If Stefan was being truthful with Elena regarding the car crash, how could he not have enough time to save Elena’s parents? He’s a vampire, albeit a bunny blood drinking vampire at the time, but a vampire none the less. Also, we’re also going on Stefan’s word that was how the events unfolded. At the end of season 1, I believed him wholeheartedly. But now? We’ve seen how Stefan can hide the true truth, or gloss over a few facts, if he thought it was for the best. That’s not an insult to him, it’s just the way he is. It’s not outside the realm of possibility that the events that went down that night are not exactly what happened. If I remember correctly, Elena was an emotional wreck over finding out she looked exactly like Kat, and Stefan had just told her she was adopted….he may have felt that glossing over the events was better for her at the time.  Thinking back, I could see why he would think that. 

I’ve always thought that the first time Damon saw Elena was in the cemetery at the beginning of the series. But with JP saying we would get to see the first time Damon actually saw Elena, well, it does make me wonder a few things.

What if Elena was already out of the water when Stefan came to the accident sight? What if she was semi-coherent and told him about her parents being trapped in the car? What if it really was to late to save her parents by that point? What if Damon was the one who pulled her out, but heard Stefan coming and walked away because he just simply didn’t want Stefan to know he was in town at the time? What if he, like Stefan, was surprised by Elena’s looks? What if Elena was getting hysterical by the loss of her parents and Stefan compelled her to forget the accident? What if she’s remembering all of these events because her memory is coming back to her….after all, when one turns, anything they’ve been compelled to forget comes back. I don’t know, but I’m super excited to see how all of this plays out:)        

Gosh, I can’t wait to find out what actually will happen the next episodes – especially the car crash and Elena’s saving.

I’ve always believed that Damon had been aware of Elena before Stefan had the guts to meet her in person. He has been at the cemetery and it always seemed he was not a bit surprised about her resemblance to Kat the first time they met.

Moreover, remember one of the very first scenes when Elena and Bonnie were driving to school and the crow hit the car?!?

When I think now a about it, knowing about the car crash of Elena’s parents, this scene gets a total new meaning to me and I have goosebumbs all over.

Just hope it does not mean that Damon had something to do with it like causing it. He likes to lay on the street now and then …. And an obstacle on the street causing the driver to leave the street in panic / in order to avoiding hitting it, is no supernatural death, like said before.

I dare not hope to think that the writers will have Damon being the one who actually saved her from drowning. Would be wonderful – but doubt that they’ll give us Damon fans that pleasure & exitement.

 I know!  It would be amazing!  I mean, for almost 3 seasons, everyone thought Stefan was the one who saved Elena, but to have that completely turned around would be a huge twist in the story – something that TVD loves to do.    I also love that in the theory, Damon lets Stefan take credit for saving Elena.  It’s very in keeping with how his character has evolved, given that he’s willingly backed down to let Stefan have Elena in S2/3.  I know he wasn’t like that when we first met him, but he always had the capacity to do good.  It just took meeting Elena and caring about her and others to unlock that capacity inside him.  I think it would be brilliant to see that Damon felt drawn to caring about Elena when he was still obsessed with Katherine and before he and Elena had even officially met.

I still don’t see a reason for showing Damon causing the accident. I mean they’ve done enough character damage to him in the past that it would seem redundant. Plus that would just piss people off. It would truly be nice if we could have him be the unknown hero of the accident since everyone always assumed Stefan was the hero and it fit his personality more than Damon’s at the time. However, as you’ve mentioned and I’ve mentioned before I just don’t know if the writers would actually give that to him and us.

“It would truly be nice if we could have him be the unknown hero”
= LOVE.

It’s very possible that one of the brothers was somehow, indirectly involved with the car accident. As you say, whether it was Damon laying in the road or Stefan standing in the middle of the road because he thinks it’s Katherine in the car…
Or they could be taking us back to show us that truly it was an accident caused by something other than our boys, and they in their own turn came to the rescue. If Elena was compelled, which it is looking that way right now… It had to have been done by Damon! It would be nice to see Damon and Stefan being painted in a good light here! We’ll see!

See my thoughts below…I wonder if the compulsion wears off as a result of the spell which temporarily turns them human so they can be unlinked from their originator. If their not vamps for any period of time then no compulsion magic. Agreed it’s too soon turn turn Elena and I certainly don’t want Damon on his death bed again as a season finale.

I’m also thinking Damon knew Elena before Stefan did….remember the next episode after Stefan tells Elena about her parents and the car accident? She has an accident herself and Damon saves her and takes her away to Georgia…hmmm. Maybe some foreshadowing? Damon never really seem phased about Elena’s resemeblance to Katherine, which makes me think he knew her before and then there is the whole fog & crow thing.

I re-watched the pilot again, and after Vicki is attacked and Stefan rushes home and finds Damon there, Damon reveals that he knows why Stefan came to MF again:”Elena”.  I never thought much about this before, but if Damon saw Elena for the first time that day in the cemetery, then how does he know who she is?  Stefan spied on her for weeks.  Damon obviously had met her before then.