The Vampire Diaries: Of Hoods and Hoodies

Twelve episodes in, and the good people at Vampire Diaries are already scraping the bottom of the topical-episode-title barrel with “Unpleasantville.” Aside from the fact that the latter half of the action takes place at a 1950s-style dance, I can think of zero parallels between this week’s episode and 1998’s Pleasantville. How awesome would that movie have been if Reese Witherspoon and Tobey Maguire had been vampires, though?

This week, Elena gets some handmade jewelry from Stefan. Just what every young girl dreams of getting from her boyfriend, I guess. Even better, it’s practical jewelry: the bracelets are stuffed with vervain. Elena describes the vampire she struck with her car as a young guy in boots and a hoodie, thereby describing every male in town under the age of 30, but Stefan can’t place him.

Hoodie Vamp shows up at the Gilbert house later that night, posing as a pizza delivery boy. Jeremy invites him in while trying to find enough cash to pay him. Vampires aside, and not to be entirely classist, who invites the pizza guy inside the house?

Over at school, Jeremy gets an A on his vampire report and casually lends a clearly valuable and fragile Civil War diary to Alaric, who describes it as “porn for a history teacher” which officially creeps me out. Elena gives Caroline some of the vervain-infused jewelry of her own, and Caroline responds by calling it a “lesbian friendship necklace” and telling her that they’ve “peaked” as friends. You know, Caroline, vervain may make you impervious to vampires, but you can still get slapped.

Elsewhere, Matt is doing his homework at a bar. What kind of a town is this? He’s getting life advice from Ben the bartender, who recommends he take work there as a busboy. Elena gets a phone call later from Hoodie Vamp, who leads with, “Hey, you hit me with your car.” Vague threats follow, and Stefan informs her that she’s being stalked. He also gives her back Jeremy’s old pocketwatch, which turns out to be a vampire compass, if you can believe it. What’s the point of being a super-powerful undead predator if there are so many gadgets that negate all of your strengths? Vamps are basically an evil version of Windows 95.

Matt and Caroline are having a sexy paint-fight that turns into a non-sexy word-fight because Matt’s not over Elena yet and Caroline is a pushy, self-centered pillow princess. Homeschool Girl seems to have taken notes on pushiness from Caroline, because she does everything short of challenging Jeremy to an arm-wrestling contest to get him to ask her to the dance. Elena finds out from Jenna her birth mother was a mysterious teenager named Isabel. Stefan brings Damon their father’s journal and promises to help him bring back Katherine if it means he’ll leave town.

Later that night, Elena looks fresh to death in her 1950s getup. She’s so busy blowdrying her hair she doesn’t notice the vamp-compass going all kinds of haywire. Turns out Hoodie Vamp is hiding (rather unnecessarily) on the ceiling, but Stefan hustles him out of the house before he even has the chance to mess up Elena’s hair, which looks really excellent. I think she’s wearing a Bump-It.

Vampire conference! Stefan and Damon decide that they have to get Hoodie Vamp tonight, since they know he can get in Elena’s house. They decide to have the rumble at the decades dance that night, and I have tried really hard to refrain from making too many Buffy comparisons, but come ON. Vampire love triangle? 1950s dance theme? Life-or-death stakes? I’ve seen this episode before.

Cue the blissfully unaware dancing teenagers! Alaric spots Damon at the dance and makes a beeline for him, entirely tipping his hand. Way to play it smooth, cowboy. Jenna, who’s there as a chaperone, one-ups Alaric’s awkwardness by repeatedly bringing up his murdered wife. Finally, Caroline turns inappropriate topics of conversation into a hat trick by asking Elena if she, Damon and Stefan are a “threesome now.” Not that we wouldn’t all love to see that happen. No? Just me? Well.

Elena and Stefan talk about what it was like to be alive in the fifties, reminding me once again that if he looked even half his age, his ass would so be in jail right now for statutory. Stefan tries to explain segregation and McCarthyism, but Elena’s having none of it—tell her about the poodle skirts, man! Nearby, Alaric starts chatting up Damon again, who’s starting to get a weird vibe from him. Sorry, do I know you? Have I ever savagely killed a loved one of yours?

Homeschool Girl crashes the party and accidentally puts on her vamp-face in front of Jeremy. She also turns out to be in league with Hoodie Vamp, who has also noticed Elena’s striking resemblance to Katherine. He manages to lure Elena out of the gym and attacks her, but she manages to fend him off with some pretty good pencil-stabbing until Damon and Stefan arrive to finish the job. They manage to get him to admit that the old journal has clues revealing the location of the Grimoire needed to open the tomb, but that’s all they get out of him.  Well, that and a mop handle. Rim shot!

Damon gets suspicious enough to try a thrall-y conversation with Alaric, who’s got a secret stash of vervain hidden in his fist. Is there a vervain farm outside of town? A vervain-heavy Trader Joe’s? Because this is ridiculous.

Back at home, Stefan has one last surprise for Elena—he’s been lying to Damon and has no intention of letting him revive Katherine. Elena promises to help him, but I’d much rather see this threesome Caroline’s been talking about. The ending reveal shows Ben the bartender to be a vampire and in cahoots with Homeschool Vamp to boot. Cue the credits!

Season 1, Episode 12: Unpleasantville (originally aired January 28, 2010)

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Photographs courtesy of The CW and Quantrell Colbert.