at no point do stefan and damon cut their palms and swear an oath of any kind

internet, do we know know each other well enough for me to make a confession? (too bad. doing it anyway)

episode 20 ("blood brothers") might be my favorite episode of all time.

so it's no surprise to discover that this was a kevin williamson and julie plec episode. you may recall mr. williamson and ms. plec from such great episodes as "lost girls" (episode 6) and "children of the damned" (episode 13). following in that tradition, "blood brothers" was equally CHOCK FULL OF AWESOME. i mean, this episode has it all: flashbacks with period costumes, long-awaited answers to key questions, dark secrets revealed, making out...WHAT ELSE IS THERE IN LIFE?

exactly.

so allow me to break down some of the major points of this episode.

1. how did stefan and damon die in 1864?

so in the strangest twists of strange twists (is that a thing?) it turns out that stefan and damon were shot by their father, guiseppe, for the lame reason of "siding with the vampires." well, sorry, dad. that's what you get for letting one live in your house while there's a civil war going on...? seriously, who kills their own sons?

add to this twist the fact that stefan and damon, despite being suddenly killed, still turn into vampires. well, i guess that's what happens when you've been drinking vampire blood for weeks! (NOTE: the vampire rules on this show are that you become a vampire by dying with vampire blood in your circulatory system and then feeding on human blood). (i don't make the rules, i just report them).

damon of course was hittin' the vamp blood willingly, but stefan apparently had to be compelled into doing it. (this was katherine's blood, obvi). now, if you're wondering how this process completed itself, you'll be super-psyched to find out that stefan basically ate his dad.

true. story.

i guess that's kind of alarming, but when you take into account the fact that THE MAN SHOT HIS OWN SONS and the fact that when you're a vampire around fresh blood there's not all that much you can do about it...well...basically i love stefan anyway. (it's the eyebrows. i'm a sucker for the brooding eyebrows). (shut up).

but the story doesn't end there. considerate gentleman that he is, stefan brings back a snack for damon! some 1864 whore! and convinces him to feed on her so that he, too, can complete the transition to vampiredom.

wait, why wouldn't he want to complete the transition? well, as it turns out, stefan and damon didn't actually want to become vampires once they thought katherine was dead. (burned in the church if you will recall). they were going to let themselves die without completing the final step of drinking human blood.

so much for that plan. but at least now we know!

(oh, and emily had made them the rings in advance in preparation for katherine's obvious plan to turn them eventually).

2. pearl is dead.

sorry to spring that on you like that, but this blog tells it to you straight. NO CHASER. and worst of all? uncle john is the one who killed her!

john still wants the invention pearl stole from jonathan gilbert (you know, the one she gave to damon in the last episode) and actually asks pearl for it outright. yeah. like that plan was ever going to work. pearl tells him to go blow himself (i paraphrase, of course) and for some reason decides to add that she gave it to damon anyway.

great! now uncle john knows where the device is and has proven his ability to kill vampires. terrible.

related. (or unrelated, depending on how you look at it). uncle john also kills harper. uh...seriously? you bet! why? you know, because he was there.

i'm kind of super upset by this. i don't know why. maybe because harper stood up to frederic and was against torturing stefan in episode 17 ("let the right one in"). that made him okay in my book. it seems like such a waste to just kill him, just like we killed uncle zach for no reason in episode 5 ("you're undead to me").

3. uncle john is in league with more vampires than we could have ever imagined

of course, we have no idea why yet, but as damon and alaric's little "errand" adventure showed in this episode, john is in it deep. with isobel, with the gang from the tomb, with pretty much everyone, it seems.

now. if only we knew WHY.

4. elena still loves stefan!

this is basically the only reason to rejoice in this episode. otherwise there's a lot of dying and uncle john and general terribleness. but good ole elena comes through for us in her semi-endearing-but-still-a-little-annoying way. not only does she get both stefan and damon to spill the beans on how they died and became vampires, she saves stefan from foolishly trying to kill himself.

confession? sometimes stefan really does brood too much.

anyway, they're both alive and judging from the previews for next week's episode, still making out! all is right in mystic falls once again.

5. or at least they would be except now isobel is here.

yeah. you know what this show has taught me? never try to predict anything that's going to happen on it. because nothing i think of will be even half as crazy as what they actually decide to do.