Vampire Diaries Goes Buffy Up in Here

And I couldn't be happier! We've got Slayers and Mean Girl drama and someone finally being upfront about how ridiculous it is that Stefan and Vamp Elena still attend high school. AND Klaus is back!

Remember Rebecca, Klaus's annoying sister? Well, she's decided to be the (pre-Scooby, less clever) Cordelia of Mystic Falls and reign as Queen Mega Bitch. She throws a kegger, but even better, she throws a pencil right into Elena's shoulder after taunting her about making out with Stefan! Then, she tosses some blood bait into the girls' bathroom, and giggles with glee when Elena uncontrollably vamps out! Elena's desire to kill Becca, as well as her waning capacity to control her rage and bloodlust, is a major plot point of the episode, but another part of "new vampdom" that I could care less about. Becca the Bitch? That I enjoy. One thumb up.

We learn more about Connor of the invisible tattoos as well, and I'm into it. Turns out Jeremy can see the ink . . . because he's a potential vamp hunter as well! When he, Damon, and Klaus join forces to kill Connor, Klaus saves him at the last second, realizing he's "one of the five," a group so mysterious, Connor himself didn't know he was in it! Two thumbs up.

One of the many things I love about Buffy is the way the supernatural is used to intensify and explore elements of high school that all mortals relate to. With Tyler's old flame in town, Becca's bullying, and Stefan unable to help Damon kill Connor "because he had a physics test," this week's Vampire Diaries tapped that vein but good. Please sir, I'd like some more.

This week on The Vampire Diaries: Vampires eat people.

Nothing worse than a make-out session interrupted by blood barfing.

The title is not a summary of the episode, but rather a quote from Damon, Undead Captain of the Obvious. Though I guess somebody needed to say it, as Stefan spent a good twenty-seven minutes of the show trying to prevent Vamp Elena from feeding on a living human. The result of her drinking a deer and later drinking from Damon (clearly the way the show is trying to appease the Dalena shippers) was the show's salute to Kristeva's theory of the abject in the form of two spectacularly disgusting projectile blood barfs. I think somebody's angling for an Emmy . . .

This episode was, thankfully, a semi-return to what makes the show great: Oh no they didn't moments, and Mystic Falls civic events. This week, we had a memorial service for Pastor Whoever and the council members he blew up. We meet his daughter April, a prime piece of jail bait, but more importantly, a bald-headed vamp assassin, Connor, who shoots Tyler not once but twice. Luckily no one dies harder than Tyler the Hybrid, but the hunter's goal, if not his motivation, is clear--rid the town of what he calls "pollution," but what means "all the good looking characters on the show." There was an interesting moment where Jeremy remarked on a pretty rad sleeve tattoo on Connor's arm that no one else can see. Does this mean he has some affiliation with the "other side"? With Grams's return last week speaking of Bonnie's transgressions against said side that is other, perhaps that's will the the arc of this season.

Other than that, we have Elena stumbling around and looking peaked until she feeds from Matt at the memorial service (party foul!). What prompted her bloodlust was Connor's straight-up stabbing of young April, allowing her blood to pool in the church in the hopes of flushing out the vamps. So I guess she's more vamp bait than jail bait. At least this week. The episode concludes with Stefan the party planner organizing an impromptu memorial service so Elena can get in touch with her grief. He was luckily able to get his hands on about eight Japanese lanterns on very short notice, and the gang then engaged in a fairly hilarious roll call of ALL the major characters who have died since the show began. Actually, considering this is Mystic Falls, Japanese lanterns used for mourning purposes are probably available at vending machines.

Damon refuses to participate, it being rather lame and all, and instead has a heart-to-heart with dead Alaric . . . who shows up to listen! Yay!

All is right with the world, The Vampire Diaries is (are?) back

It's been a long summer, amiright? No arched-eyebrowed Damon, no slightly-dyspeptic-looking Stefan, no it's-cool-to-make-out-with-both-of-them Elena. But the wait is over, and I'm . . . a little underwhelmed, but hopeful. Bloodsucking spoilers follow.

I think the problem is totally my own. Despite my love for all stories vampiric, the one element of the genre that I find about as compelling as collating mass mailers for college reunions (long story) is the "newborn vampire" sequence. I didn't like it in Interview with the Vampire when Louis swanned around his backyard like he was in a performance of Cats, and I bet I won't like it when red-eyed Bella goes for a cross country run in hers. Since the majority of this episode chronicles Elena's liminal state between human and vamp, I was mostly uninterested, though I was mildly amused that pre-vamp state in Vamp Diaries universe has a lot in common with a tequila hangover--can't tolerate lights, noises, or food.

A lot of the ep seemed concerned with tying up loose ends from last season's finale. So (deep breath), Klaus is back in his body and Tyler is back in his. The council has been overrun by some pastor/rancher (?) ballbuster who is arresting all the family members who are a little too friendly with the supernaturals. Bonnie is trying to save Elena from becoming Vampira, and gets a warning from Grams (Jasmine Guy! Holla!) that she's meddling too much in dark magic. Also, both Stefan and Damon are still in love with Elena. That remains the same.

By the end of the episode, Elena has vamped out, and in so doing, remembered everything that Damon compelled her to forget, i.e., he loves her (this sort of recall is the opposite of a tequila hangover). But what is most interesting is the mass suicide of the pastor/rancher/council leader and his minions. Methinks he's somehow able to better meddle from beyond the grave. That, or the show realized that the one remaining supernatural creature it has left to melodramatize is zombies. I desperately hope that the next episode will return to my favorite element of Vampire Diaries--the over-the-top Mystic Falls civic event (dance, carnival, benefit ball) around which the plot pivots!