The Vampire Diaries Review: Ghosts of Girlfriends Past

It goes without saying that last week’s episode of The Vampire Diaries could have easily sufficed for an epic season finale but despite all of the death and drama, the show’s producers gave us one more hour! I thought it would be hard to top everything that went down previously but….here I am again reeling from some of the twists and thinking wildly about what season three of this show may look like.

Two weeks ago Tyler (in werewolf mode) nibbled a bit on Damon and the resulting wound has since pushed him closer and closer to a slow and agonizing death. Knowing that death is nigh this week, Damon attempts apologizing to Elena for almost turning her into a vampire. She admits that she isn’t quite ready to shower forgiveness just yet so instead he goes home, takes off the ring that protects him from sunlight and attempts to kill himself. But just before he bursts into flames, Stefan flies in to the rescue and locks Damon up in the cellar for his own good. Whatever would these characters do without this handy dandy cellar to lock people up in?

Not willing to lose his brother without a fight, Stefan goes on a quest for a cure and starts by taking Bonnie to visit the dead witches to see if they can offer any kind of spell to cure a vampire from a werewolf bite. After recent shenanigans the witches aren’t too pleased to see Bonnie and are only able to offer a clue that Klaus holds the key to saving Damon.

The next stop on the way to Cureville is Klaus’s apartment where Stefan finds the still-captive Katherine. He starts to give her the rundown when Klaus and Elijah return home. Elijah is still yearning to be reunited with their family but instead Klaus kills him. So much for keeping promises there, Klaus. BUT (and I’ve said this before) Elijah can only be killed with that stake that brings him back to life once removed, so the odds that we’ll see him again in the future are pretty high. Just sayin’.

Klaus then comes fairly close to killing Stefan too but has a change of heart when asked to heal Damon. Using Katherine as a guinea pig, he proves that he does indeed have the power to heal a werewolf bite and is willing to do so only if Stefan agrees to do anything he asks. Stefan is naturally skeptical about accepting this offer but ultimately does and starts his life as Klaus’s lackey by binge drinking human blood. We’ve seen in the past that drinking human blood makes Stefan go mental and turn into a total bad boy, which is exactly what Klaus wants to see happen. In fact, he plans to bring Stefan back to Europe with him to do top secret evil things. My sick mind likes to think that Klaus has a gay crush on Stefan and just wants him to come to Europe to cuddle but my hopes of that are kind of dashed when Klaus forces him to kill an innocent girl whilst the camera shakes violently. Such a shame really – Stefan was such a nice boy.

One of the more intriguing subplots working through the show lately has been the strained relationship between Caroline and her mother, the sheriff who recently found out that Caroline is a vampire. Its really these occasional touches of genuine human relationships that keeps this show grounded and safe from veering off into the realms of ridiculous and I, as a viewer, really appreciate it. This episode started by showing the tough sheriff getting aggressive after a stern talking-to from the mayor and in her boldest move to date she and her posse storm the Salvatore house. It is here that they let Damon free by foolishly opening the cellar. He escapes from them with ease but in his weakened condition they don’t expect him to go far.

Sheriff Forbes then pursues Damon across town where he stumbles upon an outdoor screening of Gone With the Wind. Luckily, Jeremy spots him and gets him out of public and into The Grill where the sheriff again storms in and attempts to shoot Damon as he flees but hits Jeremy instead. Minus the fact that she shoots the wrong person, this sheriff is a pretty good shot and hits Jeremy right in the heart causing him to die immediately despite Caroline’s attempts to turn him into a vampire. Bonnie is on the scene as well and should be completely broken by this but stays strong enough to convince Alaric and Caroline to help her move his body elsewhere.

They take Jeremy’s corpse to the witch house (they might as well move into this place) and beg the dead witches to revive the little dreamboat. The main witch, Emily (still displeased with Bonnie), insists that if they save him there will be consequences but Bonnie proclaims her love and essentially demands he be saved. He does manage to pull through, everyone rejoices, he and Bonnie fall deeper in love, and Caroline and her mom even get to have a heart to heart that ends with a sweet hug. Awww! Who said season finales have to be all doom and gloom?

Well, I may have spoken too soon because not long after that we see Jeremy sitting in bed and feeling a little funny. No, its not indigestion. It’s the fact that he actually died for a bit and can now see his previous girlfriends, Vicki (Kayla Ewell) and Anna (Malese Jow), hanging out in the house with him. Awkwaaaaaard!

Anywho, back to the main event – Damon has now stumbled back to the public park and is experiencing some massive confusion by hallucinating conversations with Katherine back in the 1800s. He even mistakes poor Elena for her at one point and tries to suck her blood. She gets him to stop and takes him home where his death starts to look very much near. Elena lies closely with him in bed trying to make him comfortable and they start sharing their feelings leading up to Damon professing his love for her. They then take it a step further and share a kiss just as Katherine walks in the door with the cure courtesy of Klaus. Damon takes it and revives as Katherine spills the beans about Stefan going to the dark side for him. She then peaces out while saying some really bitchy things about Elena having a backup boyfriend in the form of Damon. Oh, snap! This girl is saucy and I love her for it!

And that about sums it up for the second season of The Vampire Diaries. I must say that I was incredibly impressed with this season and think it was a vast improvement on the first year. Every episode yielded more surprises and twists than most shows manage in a year and they did it in a way that was both believable (for the world they live in anyway) and fun, which is no small task. And so now we go a few extremely long months before we get to see Stefan on a murderous rampage in Europe, the romance bloom between Damon and Elena, and figure out why Jeremy is now seeing dead people. I have no doubt that countless other twists and surprises will await us in season three so until then keep sipping that blood and stay out of the sunlight.

The Vampire Diaries: Season 2, Episode 22: “As I Lay Dying” (originally aired May 12, 2011)

Images courtesy of Annette Brown and The CW.