A Case of the.... The Vampire Diaries - Episode 2-12

After a month and a half hiatus, The Vampire Diaries is finally back. While this is an improvement over last year (where they went from mid-November to late December without any episodes), CW really needs to rethink their schedule. Long breaks like this can really turn away your television audience. But, we’re back, so let’s get to this week’s new episode.

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Truthfully, in hindsight, I probably would have used this episode as the one right before the break, instead of the one to air for the show’s big return. After so many weeks away, it was a bit jarring watching an episode that so prominently focused on a short-term character. We barely saw Stefan and Alaric, and Jeremy and Jenna didn’t even appear at all. For that matter, Elena’s presence was a backdrop for Rose’s demise. Of course, some would argue that Rose’s story was merely a tactic to send Damon over the deep end – which is a fair point – but nonetheless an episode had to be “sacrificed” (for lack of a better word) to accomplish that.

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I didn’t enjoy the episode. I just think it would have been better served as the one to send them into their hiatus. Indeed, the ending would have been more enticing, as well, as it featured the return of John and Damon hitting his boiling point. Not to mention the potential return of Isobel. Plus, presumably, we’d return with an episode that centered on the characters we already know and care about.

I will say this, though: For the first half of the episode I wasn’t fully emotionally involved in the story. For one, because of what I stated above. But secondly, you could see the ending coming a mile away. It was obvious that Damon would kill Rose in order to put her out of her misery. But yet, amazingly, when it actually happened, I found myself incredibly moved. It played out pretty much exactly the way I thought it would, but it was just an overall powerful scene. And for whatever reason, I absolutely loved the fact that Damon staked her before she said “three.” That was one thing I didn’t expect. And you could also sense how much it pained him to have to pin all of the vampire murders on her.

And while I was somewhat critical of the fact that an episode had to revolve around an unknown character in order to justify a Damon heel turn, I did enjoy the results. When the girl asked Damon if he was going to hurt her, and he stammered and said, “I don’t know,” the delivery was just perfect. You could really feel that this guy had no clue what the hell he was going to do. You could tell that he wanted to just give up, but at the same time didn’t want to lose hope. He was teetering on the edge, with no idea what he was going to do next.

This scene also did a great job of showing how much Damon’s character has developed over the past two seasons. It was quite shocking to see him murder somebody in cold blood here, yet in the first few episodes he was regularly killing people who had done nothing to him. Although I can’t help but wonder why he didn’t make that werewolf girl his victim (from a writing standpoint, I already know the answer: Killing her wouldn’t have seemed evil or vicious, and that’s the point they wanted to get across to the audience).

The build between Caroline and Tyler continues to interest me. What did you think of her reaction to the two kisses? With Matt, she pulled away immediately. Yet she later claimed to love him (presumably, she’s still pushing him away to protect him). With Tyler, she reciprocated and allowed the kiss to linger before finally pulling away. Perhaps in that case, it was the mystery of the unknown.

I did find Caroline’s “everybody needs to stop kissing me!” line quite humorous, though.