Plan B

Vampire Diaries Episode Review

In which Katherine needs a new boyfriend. Okay. Now I'm just flat out loving The Vampire Diaries and that's all there is to it.

What Happened

Jeremy goes to Damon and Alaric with the Tyler's story about the moonstone. When Alaric produces evidence that the moonstone can reverse or "cure" being a werewolf, Damon decides they need to get their hands on it. Learning from Tyler that Mason has it, he decides they need to get their hands on Mason. In the middle of all this, Bonnie bumps into Mason and gets a flash of Mason kissing Elena.

Or, Stefan guesses, Mason kissing Katherine.

Well, you can imagine no one is pleased with that little tidbit floating around. After Bonnie also identifies an old well on the Lockwood estate as the hiding place, Stefan and Elena go looking for it. That leaves Mason tied up while Damon tries to convince him to tell them where Katherine is and what she's up to. Mason insists that Katherine just wants to help him not be a werewolf anymore because she loves him. Damon expresses his feelings about that by ripping Mason's heart out.

Stefan discovers the hard way that Mason filled the well with vervain, but he and Elena manage to get the moonstone out - with an assist from Caroline. Pleased, Caroline reports back to her mother, who is still stuck in the basement. Liz is so struck by her daughter's newfound confidence that she seems to get past the vampire thing and promises to keep her daughter's secret. Knowing Liz won't keep Stefan and Damon's secrets, however, Caroline sadly compels her to forget all that has happened.

Unable to resist, Damon calls Katherine from Mason's phone and drops the news about Mason being dead now. Katherine's response is to place a call to Elena, informing her that Aunt Jenna has been under Katherine's control for weeks and Katherine's just compelled her to kill herself. After taking Jenna to the emergency room, Elena goes to see Stefan. It's too dangerous. Katherine's won. They can't be together anymore.

And now... Katherine finds herself in need of another werewolf. Solution: have Matt attack Tyler until Tyler kills Matt.

The Good

• Damon's "why is everyone blaming me for Jeremy?" look.
• Vervain in the well. Methinks Mason really doesn't trust Katherine.
• Damon and Mason. And Damon actually following through on his threats.
• Katherine and what she does to Jenna. Ouch. Very effective and brutal.
• Caroline and her mother. Now, I'm invested in them. So much growth here.
• Matt! What's she going to do to poor Matt?

The Bad

• Finding out about Katherine and Mason that quick and with such little fanfare. Could have been milked for more.
• I'm just not bonding with Bonnie as I should.

The Cliche

• Jeremy did not hold his ground and make Damon let Mason go. But he tried with the "you can't do this," so it counts.
• The real break-up between Elena and Stefan. Fantastic scene. Wonderfully done, but it is a cliche.

What Did I Think?

Loved it.

I love that Damon followed through on his threats. I have no investment in him being a romantic hero; that's not what they've been selling here. So if he's going to present as a ruthless killer, he's going to have to actually kill someone now and then. And it handled Jeremy's reaction well. It's a "show" not a "tell" that Jeremy's in over his head. Because - realistically - Jeremy has no influence over Damon. He's not guilting Damon into doing anything or running some kind of appeal to his better nature. Damon's better nature - such as it is - is buried too deep for some floppy-haired fifteen year old to reach. Notice that Damon doesn't apologize for killing Mason because killing Mason is wrong. He apologized for riling Katherine up because there were unintended consequences that hurt one of the few people he gives a damn about.

I really enjoyed the scenes between Caroline and her mom. I'd been resisting this because it's such a cliche to have a workaholic parent and neglected child being bitchy to each other. I was all, "Boring! I seen this before." And then the last scene where Caroline undoes everything they'd accomplished that day? I'm bawling like a baby. I think it was the right thing to do, however. For one thing, Liz is the Sheriff and she's got two dead deputies on her hands. As much as she wants to love her daughter, Caroline did kill them right in front of her - how exactly was she going to handle that?

And then there's Bonnie. Granted, she gets more to do here than usual and her run ins with Damon are always entertaining - she holds her own there. But I still get a whiff of Counselor Troi off her as if they pull her out when they need to smooth over a plot point. The fact that they were smoothing over the discovery of Katherine's alliance with Mason - such a juicy bone! - kind of makes it worse. I'm not one for dragging things out for.ev.er. (I'm kind of glad the whole "Stefan and Elena pretend to break up" thing never really fooled anyone because it could have gotten tedious.) But outing them with such little effort? And the only reaction is an eyeroll and "but he's surfer"?

Although, I suppose you could say that Damon's whole attitude was one big reaction to the news.