Posted by Crissy Calhoun | September 11, 2010, 11:22 (EST) | 106 Comments
Category: TV Series

We’re doing something new for Season 2! Please welcome Crissy Calhoun, V-D.net friend and contributor and author of Love You To Death: The Unofficial Companion to The Vampire Diaries, as she kicks off her weekly post-episode column. Crissy won’t be doing play-by-plays of the episode; instead she’s going to ask a lot of questions and, taking a cue from the Episode Guide in Love You To Death, she’ll highlight the ep’s Compelling Moment (stand-out scene), The Rules (new information revealed about the show’s supernatural mythology), Foggy Moments (lingering questions), and look forward to next week’s episode. Please give her a warm welcome by going crazy with your own thoughts and theories in the comments!

Let me start off by stating the obvious: The Vampire Diaries did not lose its game over the summer. It stepped up and shocked us again. We knew Katherine Pierce was a hellraiser but, man, seeing her in action in present-day Mystic Falls brings a whole new level of intensity. In one of the bonus features on the Vampire Diaries DVD, Kevin Williamson said they want the show to have the same intensity as an episode of 24. I have to say The Return was one of the most stressful TV viewing experiences I’ve had in a long time — in the best way possible.

Tyler & the Lockwood Curse: Really like how this plotline is shaping up so far. Relatively slowly for The Vampire Diaries, we see Tyler dealing with his father’s death, see him reconnect, briefly, with Jeremy as he did after Vicki’s death, and we meet his chilled surfer Uncle Mason. (Never thought I’d say this but: how many handsome men can one show have? It makes it hard to concentrate on what they are saying when there are sooo many of them.) While I’ve learned that no TVD character is as simple as he seems at first, I’m happy to see a guy enter Tyler’s life who can help him control his rage. Susan Walters as Carol Lockwood puts in a great performance in this episode: she may only have two scenes (one with Liz Forbes and one with Tyler) but her portrait of the grieving and angry widow and confused mother to a violent son, perhaps a little too reminiscent of the late Mayor for her, is pitch-perfect. (Also, I’m cool with the Lockwood Mansion and its grounds becoming a more frequent location in season 2; that place looks good on camera.)

Katherine and Damon and Stefan and Elena: To understate the situation, this is a complicated love quadrangle made infinitely more complex by Damon’s actions in the last moments of the episode (more on that in a minute).

Stefan seemed like the most intense version of himself in The Return: from literally slapping some sense into Jeremy in order to protect him, to scaring the pants off Uncle John (and me) in the hospital by feeding him his own blood, to playing along with Katherine to see what her game is, to sensibly backing down with Damon when his dukes went up. Stefan has shown all of these sides before (threatening Ben the Bartender to get out of town in Fool Me Once, playing along with Damon in History Repeating…) but Stefan, The Return Edition, is somehow even more Stefan than he has ever been before. He’s on top of his game — and it keeps him from falling victim to Katherine like his big brother does. Like Stefan says to Damon (in one of his wisest speeches ever), “how we respond to [Katherine] will define us.”

Consider Damon defined by his response. The back-to-back heartbreak that he suffers from Katherine and Elena brings out the beast again, just as Elena feared Katherine’s return would. In the first half (two-thirds?) of the episode, Damon is on his best behavior: he comes to the aid of Sheriff Forbes, he mediates her conflict with Carol Lockwood, and he saves Caroline’s life (and before the smothering at the end, I thought that it was so fitting that he save her after the way he abused her at the beginning of season 1).

Elena worried that if Stefan confronted Damon for kissing her it would set him off in an already volatile situation, but it’s her words that start his unraveling. Damon and Elena have always been honest with each other — they call it like they see it — but Damon isn’t capable of handling what she tells him at the Lockwood Mansion. Or what Katherine tells him after their super hot make-out session. Or what Elena reiterates to him in her bedroom. It will always be Stefan.

I think Elena was being completely earnest and honest with Damon — she loves Stefan — but I also think Damon was absolutely right in what he said to her. That there is (well, was) something between them, something Elena wouldn’t admit to herself. Pushing himself on her was such an idiot move and so desperate. (Though I personally never felt like things were going to get violent à la Chuck Bass in Gossip Girl season 1 or, even more harrowing, that one Spike and Buffy scene in Seeing Red — perhaps because Elena didn’t seem frightened by him?)

Now the unforgivable act: killing Jeremy. I’m with Elena, not Stefan, on this one. I don’t think Damon saw that Jeremy was wearing the Gilbert protective ring (especially judging by his own reaction to his actions). I don’t think Katherine is responsible for what Damon did. And certainly Elena rejecting him doesn’t justify his actions. It’s all on Damon. He did it because he knew it would hurt Elena more than anything he could do to her. It was such a Damon move (like killing Coach Tanner in Friday Night Bites or threatening to turn Elena in Children of the Damned) — and yet so totally unlike the Damon we’d come to know over the second half of season 1. Utterly heartbreaking to see him fall so quickly. And poor Elena witnessing her brother murdered. Such an upsetting sequence on so many levels.

The Cliffhanger: As if that wasn’t enough, Caroline. Jaw dropped. Total shock. I never in a million years saw that coming. First off: I am really excited to see what kind of vampire Caroline will be. A human’s personality is intensified in her change into a vampire — how will Caroline act around Matt, her mother, Elena, Bonnie, or Damon?? Remember that as a human transitions into a vampire she regains the moments lost to vampire compulsion. Caroline will remember what Damon did to her. Who will provide the human blood to finish her transition: a friend or a stranger? I’m also really happy for Candice Accola to get the opportunity to vamp out. That girl is crazy talented and I think she’s going to shine with some fangs in.

But our darling human Caroline is gone. She’s a character I have always loved, and we’ve watched her struggle with being on the edge of the supernatural world. Here she’s used as a pawn once again. I guess Katherine also believes in killing the messenger to send a message.

Compelling Moment: Jeremy coming back to life cradled in Elena’s arms. Beautifully acted by both Steven R. McQueen and Nina Dobrev.

The Rules: Uncle John explains to Jeremy that the Gilbert ring doesn’t protect against natural death or injury, which was a lingering question for many fans after season 1. Unlike Damon, Katherine is able to withstand Bonnie’s brain-pain spell because she’s a much older and therefore stronger vampire.

Foggy Moments:

• What did Elena tell the cops about Uncle John’s stabbing? Did she tell them it was a loose tomb vampire like she originally thought? Will the Founders Council continue its hunt for vamps?
• What tipped off Stefan that it was Katherine, not Elena, in the Gilbert house? (A better eye for wardrobe detail than Damon? Does Katherine have a different scent than Elena, perhaps from her curl-enhancing volumizing shampoo?)
• Did anyone at the Lockwood mansion notice that “Elena” was dressed very differently from her usual Chucks and jeans look, or that she changed outfits and hairstyle?
• Did it strike anyone else as a little unusual how Bonnie approached “Elena” to vent about Damon? The writers needed Katherine to know Caroline had vampire blood in her system but for me this moment didn’t feel entirely true to how Bonnie would talk to Elena in that situation.

 
Other Thoughts and Questions as we head into a Brave New World (EP202):

• The kitchen stabbing in the opening of the episode was slightly modified — an excuse for Jenna to leave the house added in as well Stefan’s replies to Elena on the phone (the lack of which was something that bugged me in Founder’s Day). Also modified: the title card font! I am on the fence about the new font!
• Notice how both Katherine and Damon were snacking on fruit at the Lockwood mansion as they bantered with Stefan and Bonnie respectively. Two of a kind…
• Does Stefan have any feelings — besides hatred — for Katherine? They certainly have serious sparkage and she seems to think he felt something for her. I think, like Elena’s feelings for Damon, Stefan’s for Katherine are a lot more complicated than pure and simple hatred.
• Goodbye, Uncle John. I’m glad to see him survive the episode — he’s an interesting character and one I love to hate. For giving Jeremy his protective ring (and saving his life), I salute you, Uncle John, for having some shred of decency.
• I hope Bonnie starts studying the grimoire and learns how to make daylight jewelry for Caroline. Will she feel some degree of responsibility for Caroline’s undeath since she was the one who took up Damon’s suggestion that he feed Caroline his blood and inadvertently let it slip to Katherine?
• “Brother, don’t worry. Our bond is unbreakable,” Damon said to Stefan. Judging by Stefan’s immediate excuses for Damon (temporarily) killing Jeremy, that bond seems as strong as Damon believes it to be. Will Damon still be the one to come between Stefan and Elena — but just not in the way Damon-Elena shippers hoped?

 
After the summer of anticipating its return, it’s hard to believe our show is back — let alone back and already blowing our minds. There’s so much to theorize about already. Any major things I’ve glossed over — like bad-ass Bonnie or genius one-liners or Katherine’s boots? Sound off below!

Crissy Calhoun is the author of Love You to Death: The Unofficial Companion to The Vampire Diaries. When not obsessively re-watching CW shows, she works as managing editor at ECW Press in Toronto. She blogs on TVD, Gossip Girl, and other random things she falls in love with at crissycalhoun.com and tweets @crissycalhoun.

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