Vampire Diaries: Falling Off the Wagon, Vampire Style

For the last couple weeks The Vampire Diaries has given us glimpses of a big house out in the woods chock full of bitter vampires under the leadership of queen bee, Pearl. Last week, the most bitter of the bunch, Frederick, had his first confrontation with the Salvatore brothers and it didn’t go so well for him so this week’s episode, “Let the Right One In” (stolen title from a European vampire film) was all about revenge.

Instead of drinking the two liters of soccer mom that Damon keeps in the fridge, Stefan decides to go out running for squirrels to suck on in the woods. This seems like a pretty swell idea until he gets jumped by Frederick’s band of grumpy vamps and hauled back to the house where they promptly begin torturing him. This of course sucks for Stefan but as a viewer who likes to see him with his shirt off, I sign off on it completely.

Damon and Elena immediately begin mounting a rescue operation and recruit increasingly useful history teacher, Alaric, who we now know possesses a magic ring from his wife that protects him from all manner of evil and death. Together the three of them take on the house and are able to rescue a very wounded Stefan. Damon and Alaric stay back to fight Frederick and his goons while Elena gets Stefan to the car but it is there that Frederick pops out and beats the ever living hell out of Stefan. It starts to look like death is near but in a grand act of sacrifice Elena offers her wrist for him to feed on.

This is his first taste of human blood in quite some time and I can best compare it to Popeye eating some spinach because he instantly becomes super strong and kills Frederick without batting an eyelash. Elena is able to calm him down but it’s clear that poor Stefan has fallen off the wagon and the promo for next week’s episode makes it look like a big problem. But can we really blame the guy for just wantin’ some good eatin’s?

On the other side of town sad Jeremy continues to beg Anna to turn him into a vampire going so far as to make her believe that it’s so he could spend eternity with her. Maybe I’m a sucker, but I believed him too so I can’t fault Anna for getting a warm glow inside about it. But remember Vicky? She was a major character at the beginning of this series who was kind of a mess but Jeremy liked her anyway. You may also remember her turning into a vampire and quickly being killed. The Salvatores led everyone to think that she just left town even though Jeremy suspected that she might be a vampire.

Well, all of that came crashing down when Caroline accidentally discovered Vicky’s body this week prompting all kinds of sadness. In seeing Jeremy’s reaction, Anna realizes that he wanted to be turned into a vampire to be with Vicky eternally – not so much with her. I can only imagine what form Anna’s scorn will take but if I were Jeremy I would definitely be watching my back – things could get ugly really, really quick.

Only five more episodes remain of this first season of The Vampire Diaries and a lot of things will certainly happen but a couple things that I think I can predict now are a breakup of Stefan and Elena (this is a rule of CW shows) and the ultimate return of Katherine to wreak havoc on Damon and the rest of the town. Let me know what you all think is going to go down – I love outlandish theories for shows likely to make them true!

For another opinion on this episode, check out And Now Back To Your Regularly Scheduled Shirtless Torture Scene by Mallory Elis.

Season 1, Episode 17: Let the Right One In (originally aired April 8, 2010)

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Thursdays at 8/7c on The CW

Photographs courtesy of The CW and Bob Mahoney.