The Vampire Diaries Review: Holy S*%#!

It hardly seems possible that an entire season of episodes of The Vampire Diaries has already unfurled in front of our eyes. It seems like only a couple months ago that I hesitantly watched the show for the first time and found myself pleasantly entertained by the drama unfolding in the small town of Mystic Falls. From the charismatic Salvatore brothers to Elena’s dysfunctional family, we have seen a lot of stuff go down and a lot of characters bite the dust, but nothing had really quite prepared me for this epic season finale.

As the town gathers to celebrate their annual Founders Day festival, the bitter tomb vampires plan their revenge attack on the founding families while evil Uncle/Father John prepares to unleash the ancient weapon against the vampires. John has everything lined up with Mayor Lockwood and will stop at nothing to see it through even when the sheriff suggests it puts too many people at risk.

But before we get into all that – Anna goes to Jeremy in hopes that he might leave town with her and become a vampire to escape their pain and live together forever. Even though he’s incredibly unhappy and mad at his sister, Elena, for all of the lies, he turns Anna down. Undeterred (and giving us a major plotpoint) she gives him a vial of her blood anyway saying that if he dies with it in his system he will be turned and rise from the dead to live as a carefree vamp.

Anna is naturally disappointed that Jeremy doesn’t jump at the chance to join her so she goes to a meeting of the tomb vampires as they make their final preparations to kill the founding families at the night’s festivities. You may think she’s gone bad but she’s actually just gathering information and proceeds to warn Damon of the impending attack.

Meanwhile, Stefan is still paranoid that Damon is in love with Elena too but tries to brush it off and get on with things like telling her that Uncle John is actually her Father John. Elena reacts fairly calmly to this news and I can’t say I blame her. I mean, after all of the crazy stuff that has happened to her over the last year the identity of her true father is peanuts. It just happens that her true father is a real asshole who goes ahead with his plan and sets off the device which emits a painful sound that only vampires can hear and stops them long enough to inject them with vervain and haul them off to a basement to be killed.

Most of the tomb vampires are rounded up in this ploy as are Anna and Damon. Stefan escapes with the help of Alaric (such a nice guy) but the real shocker comes when both the Mayor and his son, Tyler, go down with the symptoms as well despite helping to lead the charge against vampires all along! The Mayor is carried off with the rest but Tyler is behind the wheel of a car when it happens with Matt and Caroline as passengers. Tyler loses control of the car and they crash leaving Caroline with severe internal bleeding and the growing mystery of why Tyler was affected but on a lesser scale than the vampires. Do I smell a werewolf? I think so…

My theory is strengthened back at the basement of death where the Mayor is seemingly unaffected by the vervain shot suggesting that he is not a vampire at all. But before we can learn anything else a tomb vampire snaps his neck and kills him.

On a far more tragic level though, evil Uncle John takes a stake to poor Anna and sends her off to join her mother as Damon looks on paralyzed to stop him. Luckily for Damon, John opts against sticking a stake in him (odd considering how much he hates Damon) and instead pours a bunch of gas on everything and lights the room on fire. As the building slowly burns Stefan heads to it in rescue mode but realizes he can’t get past the flames so Bonnie reluctantly uses her witch powers to tame the flames long enough to get Damon safely out. Never mind the fact that this is kind of all her fault, she still threatens Stefan that if Damon doesn’t change his ways, she’ll finish him off herself. Rude.

Later on that evening, when things have appeared to calm down, Damon goes to Elena’s house to break the news of Anna’s death to Jeremy. The poor kid doesn’t take it well and after a somber Damon leaves Jeremy does what we all knew he would do – drinks Anna’s blood and then ODs on some pills. Get ready for a Jeremy with fangs in Season 2!

And just when you thought things couldn’t get more dramatic Damon runs into Elena when leaving the house and the two of them share a tender moment that ends in a VERY serious kiss! Aunt Jenna breaks it up quickly enough to avoid heavy petting but the sparks were definitely flying…Once inside, Elena has a brief heart-to-heart with Father John… right before chopping his fingers off and stabbing him to death! That’s right. That ain’t no Elena. It’s the legendary Katherine and even though she looks just like Elena, it’s clear that Season 2 will not be filled with The Parent Trap-style shenanigans. Katherine is going to cause a riot and I, for one, can’t wait to see it.

That’s all for Season 1! Not too bad for a freshman series on The CW and I look forward to its return in the fall.

For another opinion on this episode, check out Who told you you’re allowed to rain on my parade? by Mallory Elis.

Season 1, Episode 22: Founders Day (Originally aired on May 13, 2010)

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Thursdays at 8/7c on The CW

Photographs courtesy of The CW and Bob Mahoney.