The Vampire Diaries Review: Hearts Will Roll

It’s almost Valentine’s Day and lust is in the air of Mystic Falls on The Vampire Diaries. I don’t think anyone can acceptably blame them though, right? They’re all smoking hot! Bonnie and Jeremy are finally getting it on. Matt and Caroline might be sorting their stuff out soon. Damon continues to woo/hypnotize the reporter that was mistakenly pegged for dead at the end of last week’s episode. And Elena and Stefan escape for a romantic weekend at a lake house for some steamy fireside love-makin’. How much more lusty lovin’ could you fit into an episode, you might ask? None. None more lovin’.

The lake house that Elena and Stefan travel to holds some cherished family memories for Elena but the past isn’t the only thing in the house. While making out in her parents closet, she and Stefan find a secret room full of vampire-fighting weapons and full volume of diaries from her family about fighting vamps. But unbeknownst to the happy couple, those damn werewolves, Jules, Brady, and Tyler are plotting to get their hands on Elena AKA the all-important Doppelganger who is key to breaking the curse of the moonstone. To get the plot rolling, Jules leads her group of thug werewolves to torture Damon to find out where the moonstone is currently located. In the process, nice-guy Alaric (Matthew Davis) takes a stake to the belly and goes down for the count…but he’s not dead. Don’t worry. I’m pretty sure that won’t happen until the end of the season…

Things are starting to look really bad for Damon (again) in the form of close range buck-shot, BUT Elijah (Daniel Gillies) shows up in the nick of time with the moonstone and tempts the werewolves to take it. When they try to do so he proceeds to rip out every single one of their hearts and it is awesome. Jules gets away (again) and Elijah warns that this is the third time he’s had to save Damon now. I’m not going to expect a fourth.

Back at the cabin, Brady and Tyler take out Stefan with a wooden bullet to the heart. Tyler is tasked with guarding Stefan while Brady goes in to collect Elena. What proceeds is a nice little sequence straight out of a slasher flick with Elena running around, slamming doors, dashing upstairs, and trying do anything to slow down a seemingly unstoppable foe. She even has to deal with heart-stopping verbal taunting from Brady including my favorite line of the episode: “I can smell you!” Oh, the horror.

But while they’re busy playing Michael Myers vs. Jamie Lee Curtis, Stefan clues Tyler into the fact that if the moonstone curse is ever lifted it will mean that Elena has to die. This is seemingly enough to change Tyler’s mind and make him get the wooden bullet out of Stefan’s chest in time for Stefan to swoop in and rip Brady’s heart out. I seriously haven’t seen this many hearts ripped out since the days when I would watch Dumb and Dumber over and over again in my childhood. It’s bizarre.

The other main story thread of this episode features the good witch, Bonnie (Katerina Graham), using a truth-getting spell on warlock Luka (Bryton James) to get some answers on Klaus, Elijah, and the threat to Elena. With Caroline and the adorable Jeremy (Steven R. McQueen) at her side she learns that Luka and his father are only helping Elijah so they can later help him kill Klaus who is holding Luka’s sister hostage. When pressed on how one actually kills Klaus though, Luka reveals that Klaus will be weak right after the sacrifice and vulnerable for a moment. This sounds good in theory but it means that Elena would be dead as she’s the one getting sacrificed so I’m gonna go ahead and assume they’ll look for a plan B.

This news put a fairly big damper on everyone’s spirits, especially Stefan who now realizes that Elena only made her deal with Elijah to protect her friends rather than herself. He’s obviously been reading the latest Vogue which proclaims that martyrdom is so out of style this season.

On the bright side of all this though – Bonnie and Jeremy finally make out and Tyler makes a super respectful plea to Matt that he should forgive Caroline for any misunderstandings that have gone down lately and love her for the great girl that she is. The sexy, hot-headed junior werewolf then packed a bag and took off with Jules to who-knows-where but I have no doubt they’ll be back eventually.

Finally, on a more humorous note we have poor Aunt Jenna played by Sara Canning. Jenna has a whole lot of weird shit going on around her every day and is completely oblivious to all of it. Even her boyfriend, Alaric, is highly involved with the monster hi-jinks but she remains hopelessly clueless. Evil Uncle John didn’t have a lot to do this week but he did start sowing the seeds into Jenna’s head that all is not as it seems with Alaric, which will likely only lead to further truth-unraveling from there. I’ll be curious to see her reactions when she finally gets the net but until then – sweet dreams!

The Vampire Diaries Season 2, Episode 14: “Crying Wolf” (Originally aired February 10, 2011)

 The Vampire Diaries airs Thursdays at 8pm on The CW.

Images Courtesy of Quantrell D. Colbert and The CW.