The Vampire Diaries: Time Trippin’

If you haven’t had enough back story on The Vampire Diaries yet, you were in luck this week as the writers did the time warp once again to see the continued development of what really went down in 1864 between Damon, Stefan, and the legendary love of their lives, Catherine. I love a rich character history as much as the next viewer, but this one just keeps going and I’m starting to yearn for solid progress on the contemporary storyline. After this jam-packed episode though, it’s starting to look like that’s a real possibility.

With enough jumping back and forth in time to rival even The Godfather: Part II, this episode, titled “Children of the Damned” covered an extreme amount of ground and set the stage for what could be an explosive slew of episodes during this February sweeps period. In the modern day setting, Damon (Ian Somerhalder) continues his quest to bring Catherine back from the dead with the help of Stefan (Paul Wesley) and Elena (Nina Dobrev). He naturally doesn’t trust them and its for good reason because they truly don’t want him to bring Catherine back but want to destroy the Grimmerie (a “witch cookbook” that holds the key to bringing her back) instead.

To find the Grimmerie, they must read the fabled Gilbert journal, which is currently in the hands of that mysterious history teacher (Matthew Davis) but somebody else beats them to it. Fortunately (and a little too conveniently), there is a copy that Stefan is able to take, which leads him and Elena to discover that his own father was in possession of the Grimmerie. So off to the graveyard they go with a pair of shovels to dig him up.

In the flashback sequences we learn that the father of Damon and Stefan (played by none other than Samantha’s Richard on Sex and the City) was very gung ho about killing vampires and figured out that his sons were both madly in love with one of them so he tricked poor Stefan into revealing Catherine and had her hauled off to burn at the stake. But Catherine wasn’t the only vampiress residing in Mystic Falls back when the Civil War was in style – there was also Anna (Malese Jow) who has since appeared back in town wanting the Grimmerie as well. We can assume she wants to use it to bring her mother back from the dead but one never can tell for sure with these vamps.

Back in the graveyard, Stefan succeeds in digging up his long-dead father and finds the Grimmerie waiting there for him just as Damon shows up in a very foul mood for not being in on the action. In his rage he threatens to turn Elena into a vampire unless Stefan hands over the book. Stefan complies reluctantly and takes Elena home to safety where she is then kidnapped by Anna mere moments later! We can only assume that Anna will want the book in exchange for Elena’s safety, which will lead to another sibling rivalry since I don’t see Damon turning it over quite so easily. Will next week finally see the big fight between the brothers that we’ve been waiting for??? I won’t hold my breath for that yet, but I think we can agree that when it does happen it will be well worth the wait.

Random plotline of the week: This show has almost too many characters on it and because of that there is almost always one plotline every week that has little to do with the rest of the imminent story. This week that honor goes to the date between Bonnie, the witch (Katerina Graham) and Ben, the new vampire (Sean Faris). The date seemed to go well, but then she figured out he sucks blood so he snatched her up and ran off. That’s about it. I’m assuming this will be continued next week, but does it matter to anything else? Let’s hope so for the show’s sake.

For another opinion on this episode, check out “This ménage a threesome team thing” by Mallory Elis.

Season 1, Episode 13: Children of the Damned (originally aired February 4, 2010)

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Thursdays at 8/7c on The CW

Photographs courtesy of The CW and Guy D’Alema.