episode 01, "the return" or as i like to call it, "shit gets real"

SPOILER ALERT:

CAROLINE IS A UNICORN!!!!!!!!
and by unicorn, i mean vampire.

but allow me to start at the beginning.

so elena finds uncle john and calls 9-1-1 like a good daughter (i might have just left him there to bleed it out) and does not actually encounter katherine. interestingly though, she does decide to run upstairs to check on jeremy while holding a knife. uh...didn't her parents ever teach her not to run with knives?

so, good news first: jeremy is not a vampire. i knew that kid didn't take enough pills to kill himself. turns out anna's blood just ended up healing him. man, that must be a total bummer. to lay down thinking you're going to become a vampire and only to wake up to find your angry sister and her boyfriend, who then slaps you around a little and informs you that NO, YOU'RE NOT A VAMPIRE.

back up, stefan slaps jeremy around? yeah! pretty harsh, right? i mean, i understand that this is serious stuff, but apparently i didn't know this was "slap in the face" serious. (it is). who's the bad cop now, huh?

meanwhile, at the hospital, matt has a sad because caroline might die, thereby permanently ending their annoying relationship. as he fills bonnie in on what happened though, the light bulb goes off above her head and she's like, "wait a minute...why did tyler hear the noise?" ooh, a mystery! while she consoles matt, damon consoles the sheriff. which makes me wonder if maybe he cares about her? just a little bit? a teeny, tiny bit?

so when elena arrives, everyone's a little on edge at the hospital. bonnie doesn't know any spells to help caroline, so somehow they come to the conclusion that damon should give caroline some of his vampire blood to heal her.

um.

what?

in what world is this even remotely a good idea? but damon agrees to do it. and when he says to bonnie, "if i do this. you and me. call a truce?" (damon) -- she basically shoots him down. WHAT. A. WHORE. i guess this answers the question about how much more of a whore she can be this season: A. LOT.

and speaking of whatever world the producers/writers live in...really? we're explaining jenna's total non-response to the stabbing and attempted suicide in her house by her supposedly telling elena/katherine that she had to go to the "fire department" to fill out a "report"? REALLY? that's how we're explaining this away?

all right, fine.

so after bonnie the whore stomps off, damon tries to talk to elena about their kiss, but, overhearing the above conversation with jenna where jenna's all, "i told you i was going to the fire department" and elena's like, "you be crazy, no you di'in't" he comes to the realization that katherine is back. his "oh shit" face is priceless. and of course, at the SAME MOMENT, stefan is having his own surprise encounter with katherine at elena's house. the funny thing is that stefan realizes immediately that it is not elena.

damon and real elena, having put the pieces of the puzzle together, go home and scare katherine off. this obviously leads to the "what are we going to do?! oh noes!" conversation.

      "katherine was in this house. that means she's been invited in. what are we gonna do?" (elena)
      "move." (damon)

step one: elena tells jeremy the truth about what's going on. apparently that is a five second conversation...? but anyway, we are left to conclude that all of jeremy's teenage angst has evaporated with his failed attempt at vampiredom and he and elena are cool again.

step two: damon goes straight for the kill by confessing that he kissed elena/katherine. SUPER. AWKWARD. (in an amazing way).

      "to risk another frown line encroaching on a very crowded forehead..." (damon)

step three: argue and threaten each other. (mostly damon and stefan).

step four: decide on a course of action. stefan and elena decide to talk to john and damon decides to do nothing except ponder the eventuality of what he'll do to katherine:

      "stake her. rip her head off. something poetic. we'll see." (damon)

the next day, caroline is miraculously better because damon slipped her a little v-juice -- which i am still maintaining is a bad idea, right? -- and there's this vomit-worthy moment with caroline, matt and bonnie that's all hugs and teddy bears and rainbows. gross.

racking up sainthood points of all kind, damon also agrees to play referee between mrs. lockwood and the sheriff, which ends in total lolz. (of course this conversation happens in the midst of everyone in town milling around the mayor's house to offer condolences. so. you know. the perfect place for a whisper argument).

      "your husband is the one who helped john gilbert execute his idiot plan in the first place." (sheriff forbes)

and then up rolls mason lockwood.

WHO. IS. THAT.

uncle mason? are you joking? shyeah right. "uncle." i'm so sure. just another piece of eye candy because...you know...why not? he and tyler have a total bro moment and in order to let teevee viewers recover, the show flashes back to the hospital, this time not for caroline drama, but uncle john drama. that's right. uncle john. still alive and still a total dick. how is it possible for him to still be such a dick after loosing most of his fingers and possibly his whole hand? i don't know. but it is uncle john.

after elena and stefan ask him questions that he refuses to answer, and he offends them some more, elena storms out and the new badass stefan threatens uncle john, going so far as to force vampire blood down his throat. I. KNOW.

      "and i will watch you hate yourself more than you already do." (stefan)

long story short: uncle john is leaving town.

back at the lockwoods' house, damon tries to find out more about uncle mason and tyler invites katherine in. way to go, tyler. you idiot. bonnie also tries to talk to damon about why tyler and his father were affected by the gilbert device, but it quickly devolves into their usual bickering.

      "yes, bonnie. i would love to know why a non-vampire was tortured by the vampire torture device that you let john gilbert use against us." (damon)

      "you're welcome." (damon)
      "no, you're welcome." (bonnie)
      "why am i welcome?" (damon)
      "you live to see another day." (bonnie)
      "no good deed goes unpunished with you, does it?" (damon)

      "damon drives me crazy. he's walking around like he's some kind of hero for healing caroline when it's his fault all this happened in the first place." (bonnie)

frankly, bonnie being a whore is totally getting old. also, i believe it's technically HER fault that all this happened, seeing as how she's the one who didn't actually deactivate the gilbert device. right? so in some ways, it kind of serves her right that she's really talking to katherine instead of elena and finally gets a beat down from an even bigger whore.

      "and then there's you, the vampire-hating bennett witch. did i do good?" (katherine)

so in case you're wondering, let me get it out of the way now -- no one at the lockwoods' ever sees elena and katherine together, and definitely no one notices the fact that elena magically changes clothes and hairstyle. go figure.

katherine does flirt with matt though, practically moaning that, "uuuuuh, his eyes are so blue." (katherine) before luring stefan outside with some nonsense about, "how about we don't have a couple's fight in front of all your friends?" (katherine) and something about playing a game with no rules.

no rules? is that something we're supposed to understand? stefan obviously does because he makes a face like he just swallowed a mouthful of cough medicine. damon was right about the ever-crowded forehead...

so while stefan and katherine go off, elena and damon have yet another heart-to-heart, with aunt jenna pausing watchfully to be like, "uh, don't make out with damon again, pleez, okthanxbai." (with her eyes).

      "great, elena. walking on sunshine. thanks for asking." (damon)

      "i kissed you. i thought you kissed me back. doppleganger hijinks ensued. how do you think i'm doing?" (damon)

damon drives me crazy. why does he have to be occasionally sensitive? grooooosssssss.

and to take the gross factor of this episode one step further, we have yet another moment of jeremy trying to befriend tyler, even though tyler is still totally uninterested.

      "the difference is my dad was a dick." (tyler)
      "yeah. he was." (jeremy)

fortunately, uncle mason decides to walk in on the pseudo-bonding at the most inopportune moment. oh, uncle mason. if that's even your REAL NAME. way to encourage underage drinking.

meanwhile, katherine is blabbering on and on to stefan about nothing even remotely interesting while stefan tries and fails miserably to get her to disclose any information about why she's there and why she wanted all the tomb vampires dead:

      "there's nothing more annoying than a vengeful vampire, stefan. just ask john gilbert." (katherine)

then the whore (katherine...not bonnie...) goes and tells stefan that she came back for him because she still loves him. WHAT. luckily, stefan is a badass now, so he totally whisper threatens her and i'm not gonna lie: i got all wobbly-kneed when he did. katherine then stabs him with a decorative garden lantern post and then scampers away.

ridiculous.

moments later, elena finds stefan and starts mopping up the blood from his stomach with like...a handkerchief of some kind...

      "cover up, fabio." (damon)
      "you got a crazy ex on the loose. better watch out. looks like katherine's trying to steal your guy." (damon)

cue damon and stefan bonding/fight scene. let's face it. damon needs to fight something or he is going to lose it. he's already losing it! and stefan. really. for the love of god, now is not the moment for a righteous lecture. but does that stop him? pfffffft. no.

      "let me know when you guys are done." (elena)

      "make your threat. stake your claim." (damon)
      "i'm not gonna fight you." (stefan)
      "WHY?! i'd fight me." (damon)

      "brother. don't you worry. our bond is unbreakable." (damon) (sarcastically) (duh)

      "how we respond to that will define us." (stefan) (really?)
      "it's our choice." (stefan) (seriously? who wrote this?)

back at the gilbert house, uncle john is packing his bags when jeremy finds him and they have a typical uncle john conversation where he just annoys whoever he's talking to.

      "so you figured you'd kill all your evil vampires and then you'd leave town?" (jeremy)

BUT. we do find out more about the rings! there's nothing that can save them from accidents, not even the rings! so that's why grayson died apparently. bummer. on that note, uncle john makes one final pitch about how jeremy's a gilbert and is a part of the fight against vampires, or whatever, and jeremy's like, "whatever, uncle john, i'm not into the family legacy stuff," and uncle john goes, "sooner or later...you'll have to." have to what? this doesn't make any sense! jeremy has chosen. and he's chosen not to be a dick.

from that we go back to the lockwoods' where tyler has a freak out and uncle mason pins him to the floor and tells him to cool it. still no sense of when tyler is finally going to become a werewolf, but judging by the vein in his forehead, i can't help but guess...soon...?

and as if that wasn't enough, sure, why not, let's head over to the salvatore house, where yes. damon really does go all 1864 in just a snap of the fingers. CUE DAMON-KATHERINE MAKE-OUT SESSION.

      "don't pout. it's not attractive in a woman your age." (damon)
      "ouch." (katherine)

      "i'm better at the enigmatic one-liners, katherine." (damon)

      "wait. brief pause." (damon) (mid-make-out)

but then, damon, in a touchingly heartfelt moment, asks katherine what the deal is: did she ever love him? and guess what? the answer is no.

WHAT.

then why torture damon? what is the point? what is the purpose? even in this moment? why come back for a last good-bye make-out session or whatever? i hate katherine sooooooooo muuuuuuuuuuch.

so what does damon do? what he always does. pays a visit to his brother's girlfriend!

      "that's me. trusty bodyguard. calm in crisis." (damon)

      "no, i'm not upset. upset is an emotion specifically for those who care." (damon)

then he tries to make out with her. again. but for real this time. and this is just a hunch, but i'm guessing that elena saying "i love stefan. it's always going to be stefan" is probably not what damon needed to hear right then in that moment. and actually it's probably not going to lead to anything good in the next six minutes or however much is left of the episode. am i right?

I AM SO RIGHT.

because jeremy walks in and is like, "what's going on?" and elena's like, "nothing," but jeremy's all dad-like and goes, "it doesn't look like nothing" and then DAMON BREAKS HIS NECK.

IN.SANE.

should i even wonder where jenna is right now?

the only thing that prevents this from being totally and completely horrible is that jeremy is wearing his father's ring, which apparently uncle john gave to him. on the one hand, this is possibly the only good thing uncle john has ever done. ever. on the other hand, it also means uncle john is dead meat.

elena is pretty emotional through all this, understandably, and stefan tries to comfort her, but she is like, "no. that's it. i hate damon." which i was surprised to find really upset me. a lot. but as mentioned jeremy wakes up -- thank goodness -- and is not a vampire. (anna's blood, remember).

      "damon killed me!" (jeremy)

well. to be honest, jeremy, you're not the first and you surely won't be the last. now jeremy and alaric have something in common! (WHERE IS ALARIC)?

and while this is going on, they tease us with just a little tidbit of conversation between tyler and his uncle, where mason mentions "the curse of being a lockwood" without actually revealing the secret of their werewolfdom. lame.

i know what you're thinking: the end. right? WRONG. the producers can never just let things be. which is why katherine shows up at the hospital and smothers caroline to death! so that she will become a vampire! and you know what else? IT IS TOTALLY BONNIE'S FAULT THAT KATHERINE KNOWS ABOUT DAMON GIVING CAROLINE HIS BLOOD. and katherine leaves a little message for the salvatore brothers, very godfather-style:

      "game on." (katherine)

what does it meeeeeean? this episode is full-on double rainbow all the way...