The Vampire Diaries Review: The Originals Are Coming!

November 9, 2010 by Matt DeGroot
Filed under Television

On last week’s episode of The Vampire Diaries our heroine, Elena, was snatched out of the clear blue sky by a masked man who we only assumed was not related to anything else going on in the series at the moment. This assumption proved to be partially true when this week’s episode opened with said kidnapper transferring Elena to a new car and then suffering the grisly bite of a mysterious vampire in the driver’s seat. And so we meet Trevor (Trent Ford) and Rose (Lauren Cohan), two wonderfully British vampires with the goal of using Elena as a bargaining chip with Elijah (Daniel Gillies), one of the so-called Originals.

The Originals happen to be the oldest vampires on earth and are therefore the strongest and most cunning. Elijah in particular has a beef with just about everyone but would mostly love to obtain Katherine’s doppelganger, Elena, to use with the moonstone to break the curse of vampires. Rose and Trevor don’t particularly care about the curse but providing Elena to Elijah will free them of his wrath and hopefully make everything copacetic.

Meanwhile back in Mystic Falls, Jeremy notices that sister Elena is missing and sounds the alarm after realizing that she wasn’t just canoodling with Stefan. Bonnie is able to use Jeremy’s blood and a map to track Elena’s location so Stefan and Damon take off on a rescue mission while Jeremy and Bonnie stay behind to cast more spells, nap, and share their feelings. I was pretty sure they were going to make out on at least twelve occasions but no such luck yet. Maybe next week?

Stefan and Damon road trip down the creepy house where Elena is being held not long after Elijah beheads Trevor in an almost too graphic for TV manner. The super hot brothers unleash some sweet weaponry during the melee including a vervain grenade and a stake-shooting gun but it’s ultimately a banister to the chest from Damon that puts Elijah down for the count. Rose escapes but all seems to be forgiven now that Elena is safe.

Later on that evening Rose shows up at Stefan’s house and offers her help against someone named Klaus who is apparently the leader of the Originals and we see that Elijah is actually not dead so next week could be brutal indeed. On a lighter note Damon visits Elena’s bedroom to return her lost vervain necklace, but before he does he confesses his love for her in a surprisingly sweet and touching scene. And to pack on the heartbreak he compels her to forget that it even happened. Even though I think Stefan would make the better mate, it’s hard not to want to give Damon a chance after a scene like that.

On the subplot front, Tyler Lockwood is experiencing his new-found strength as a werewolf and is curious as to how much Caroline really knows after she witnessed his first transformation in last week’s episode. They kind of tip toe around the issue and Caroline plays dumb (not hard for her) until things get seriously physical and she reveals her true self as a vampire. But rather than try to kill each other they share a heart-to-heart on what it’s like being a new monster and quite frankly I loved the dynamic. My pessimistic side sees this ending tragically with one having to kill the other somewhere down the road, but until then I love seeing them as an odd couple of friends who I definitely want on my side in a fight.