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butterflyWe open on a tent in the woods. Two kids want to make out and possibly watch the comet. Fog rolls in and Damon notches another two kills on his belt. Background music: gonna eat me alive. Hee.
Also, I wonder if Damon was listening to their conversation and purposefully strung up the guy to drip onto the tent to make the girl think it was raining, like she kept warning the guy that it would. Ick.
So, I'm going to try to pay attention to this - did Damon lure people out of their cars/tents because those are 'owned' and he couldn't go in? Hmm. Because, strength-wise, he could just yank that thing apart if he wanted to. Then again, he might have just wanted to play with his food, like the proverbial cat.
The world is changing. Elena can feel it in the water, smell it in the-
...wait, wrong story.
Anyway, she and Stefan are having their separate glee!thoughts over each other. It's cute. Stefan is shirtless. Stefan feels 'completely and undeniably wide-awake'.
Jenna is going to a student-teacher conference for Jeremy. Sadly, in her conversation with Elena, she shows (again) that she really isn't prepared to be their guardian in any way (Jeremy 'went to school early for wood shop' except that he really went to the hospital to see Vicky).
Stefan and Elena bond over Wuthering Heights. Destructive passion. Hmm.
Bonnie fills Caroline in on her Grams telling her that she's a witch and Caroline is still swooning over Damon (who she saw briefly in the restaurant last night but didn't talk to).
Jeremy prods and pushes Tyler around (for flirting with other girls while Vicky is in the hospital). He's like his sister that way. Fierce in defense of those he loves. We get the set-up for Matt's horrible mom (he lets her know in this episode that Vicky is in the hospital but she doesn't show up until 'Pete', her latest boyfriend, breaks up with her). Stefan listens in on Matt and Elena's conversation and hears that Vicky knows she was attacked by a vampire.
Both Stefan and Matt head to the hospital - Matt to check on his sister and 'get the real story' and Stefan to cover up for Damon's attack by trying to get Vicky to forget about the vampire part.
During the Tanner-Jenna conversation... you know, he's a jerk, but he's right. She is not prepared. It's kinda sad how she's the one that gets cut out and protected throughout the series, because Elena and Jeremy are dealing with things that they don't want to burden her with (and it's also dangerous for her, as we see when she gets compelled by Katherine). Her failed conversation with Jeremy about his drug habits that she has later is another example.
Stefan strides down the hallway, at human speed. So... is the super-speed something that he can't do much of when he's not drinking the human blood? Because he could have been in and out before Matt got there. Unless he was over-confident/not really thinking.
We see Stefan's bloodlust showing up again, here, when he's confronted with a ward that has blood bags all over the place. Matt's curiosity, already pinged a bit by seeing Stefan flee after Vicky was brought back after being bit, turns toward suspicion. Or so the music implies.
So - comet as a sign of impending doom. Sounds like Emily was passing a warning down along her family, since she knew that the comet meant Damon's return and potentially the release of some hungry vampires (unless she/her line could prevent it). Caroline changes the subject to guys - specifically, Elena and Stefan kissing/having sex/whatever. Elena says that they 'talked for hours'. Caroline is a fan of putting sex into the equation right away. Elena is inspired by Caroline's words and heads off to Stefan's place.
Stefan... about this 'animal' thing... Vicky would sound more believable if it were a specific type of animal that she were saying attacked her.
Elena is at the boarding house. She rings the bell and then knocks the knocker - when she does, the door creaks open. Being a curious sort, she edges into the house, calling out Stefan's name. She hears the door creak again, goes to look, and Damon's crow startles her into turning around right in Damon's face (her nose almost smacks into his). Damon cocks his head and looks her over a little.
When Damon and Elena walk down the stairs into the living room (great room?), they're walking in step (sorry, I just love it when that happens; there's a scene in "Rose" (the Doctor Who episode, not The Vampires Diaries episode), where Rose and the Doctor walk in step and it makes me gleeful). Damon is busy planting his seeds of doubt by mentioning 'the last one' who 'nearly destroyed' Stefan.
"Oh, you two haven't had the awkward exes conversation yet."
"Nope."
"Oops. Well, I'm sure it'll come up now."
He's saying things that he hopes will bother Elena's relationship with Stefan, but they're true things. (and Elena has very valid reason to wonder if she's a rebound - if she went up to Stefan's room now and saw the picture of Katherine, how could she think anything else?)
"We all know how those relationships end."
"You say that like every relationship is doomed to end."
For Elena, the longest that a relationship can possibly run is... let's go with eighty years, if she marries at twenty and lives until one-hundred (and ditto for her spouse). From the perspective of a potentially endless life, a love would have to be very special not to be doomed to end (now I'm thinking of Doctor Who again. Ha).
Stefan enters at this point. And he is carefully, icily focused on Damon. It's interesting how little he interacts with Elena. He glances over at her, briefly, but then always looks back over at Damon. Damon is the one who continues to pay attention to Elena (kissing her hand and telling her she's welcome any time).
The scene where she leaves is of particular interest - she stops in front of Stefan, says his name until he looks at her, then he just moves to the side and resumes staring at Damon, with no words of goodbye for Elena.
Elena is... pretty surprised, I think, at how much he's freezing her out while around his brother. Staring coldly at Damon is about ten million times more important to him than showing even an ounce of the warmth that he's been beaming her direction since they first met. It's a side of Stefan that she's never seen before.
Damon actually does sound kinda big brother-y here, after Elena leaves, teasing Stefan about his powers not working well if he doesn't feed.
"How long was Elena here?"
"Are you worried, Stefan? Scared that we may be doomed to repeat the past? Isn't that why you play your little game - 'I'm a high school human'?"
"I'm not playing any game."
"Of course, you are. We both know that the closest you'll get to humanity is when you rip it open and feed on it."
"What kind of game are you playing, Damon?"
"Guess you'll just have to wait and see, won't you?"
And Damon has him dead-to-rights. Stefan is playing a game. Just because he's also trying to play it on himself doesn't make it any less of a put-on. I am curious about how long he thought he could pull it off before Elena noticed him not aging (though I do agree that three days after meeting her is probably just a little bit too soon for vampire confessions). But Stefan does like to engage in denial and pretend that the rest of the world doesn't exist - we'll see this again, later, with the fake break-up.
Jenna throws an apple at Jeremy when he ignores her. It's a violent family.
Vicky, meanwhile, is having a vampire flashback. On account of Stefan's compelling being the Lite version.
It's the 'Night of the Comet' party. I swear, this town is constantly celebrating something.
I say yes when I oughta say no is the music playing when Caroline sees her mystery man (Damon) for the second time. But he's gone before she gets there.
Zach wants to know why Damon is here. Stefan is sure that it's all about him. He thinks this about Katherine, too, in S2, though she gives him more reason to think that. In both cases, torturing Stefan is merely a fun side-project for the people in question, and far from the point of being in Mystic Falls. Ah, Stefan. It is not all about you. But thanks for playing (he's the golden boy; he can't help but make these assumptions).
"Is she worth it, Uncle Stefan? This girl you came back for?"
It's interesting to me that Zach knows about Elena (do they ever meet? I think Damon kills him before they have the chance). I'm trying to picture the conversation where Stefan tells Zach about Elena and it is not coming to mind.
Matt gives his flame to Elena. She gives hers to Stefan (before she even realizes it's his). I suspect blatant symbolism is at work here.
Away from his brother, Stefan is all soft, warm eyes toward Elena again. He tries to get her to feel mushy toward him again with comet-talk. Stefan thinks that it's just a ball of snow and ice, but, in this case, he's wrong because it's also a comet that powers a magic crystal. Stefan apologizes for 'not being myself' yesterday with her and Damon.
"Yesterday, that wasn't about you."
"You didn't tell me that you have a brother."
"We're not close. It's... complicated."
"Always. He told me about your ex, Katherine."
"What did he say?"
Ah, I see you trying to figure out how little you can get away with revealing, Stefan.
"She broke your heart."
"That was a long time ago."
"When you lose someone, it stays with you. Always reminding you of how easy it is to get hurt."
We get another reference of the 'epic' conversation that lasted for hours. Where I'm guessing they talked about books all night or something, because they didn't talk about Stefan's life at all (he would have avoided the subject, naturally). I don't know! I wish that I did. It's dangerous for a writer to call an event 'epic', especially if the event is off-screen.
Elena blows out her candle. Symbolism! Hee.
So, when Jeremy comes up to Tyler, Elena is there. I don't remember us getting many (any?) Tyler and Elena scenes, but they apparently just had one. Off-camera. So, everyone goes off to look for Vicky, but Damon has taken her up to the roof. To wait for Stefan so that he can taunt him. Hey, he's killing time while the crystal powers up and trying to figure out a. where it is and b. how to get invited into where it is (b. is probably at least part of why he's cultivating Caroline - daughter of a founding family and desperate for some attention).
Once again, Elena drags her brother to the side to try to talk sense into him. Still doesn't work. He's in love and also working that self-destructive streak.
Damon is... being really a pretty big asshole while he waits for Stefan to find him and Vicky (he keeps pretending that he's going to shove her off the roof).
He compels Vicky to think that Stefan was the one to attack her, rips off her bandage, and shoves her at Stefan. Knowing what we do later (that Stefan was the one to start Damon on blood in the first place), I can... understand Damon's annoyance from that perspective. Stefan was the one who convinced him that this was the right thing to do and then he went and changed his mind, after Damon was already a killer and whatnot.
Doesn't make what he's doing to Vicky any less of a horrible thing (though he's very cat-playing-with-mouse here, again), of course.
"That's what this is about - you want to expose me?"
"No! I want you to remember who you are!"
Damon's wtf!face at Stefan's words is funny. He's like... 'obviously, I don't want to expose you. Idiot. I want you to drink her blood. Duh. How have I been unclear?'
"Why? So that I'll feed? Kill? Remember what it's like to be brothers again?
...
Let them drive a stake through my heart, because at least I'll be free of you."
Damon is a lot gentler with Vicky when he compels her the second time. And he leaves with a final Elena-taunt.
Bonnie gives Stefan Elena's phone number and email, but when she touches him she gets a vision and she asks him 'what happened to you?' Then she flees the conversation. I'm trying to remember if she talks about this later - oh, yeah, I think this is what freaks her out about Stefan. She saw 'death', possibly? Well, it'll be in "Friday Night Bites".
Elena has a conversation with Aunt Jenna where we learn that Jenna has issues about her sister being perfect and making everything look easy (maybe she should have a conversation with Damon). Anyway, this is a good, character-justified breakdown and it makes me want to give Jenna a hug.
Caroline, alone in the dark, runs into Damon. They have a brief, flirty conversation.
something always brings me back to you - that's the music that we get for the Stefan/Elena scene. Anyway, she takes him out to gawk at the comet. Elena tells Stefan what she would write about him in her diary. We learn that she used to hide it behind her ceramic mermaid - I'm guessing she moves her current one to behind her painting after she started writing about vampires and such.
I can't seem to let you go, the music tells us, and Stefan and Elena kiss for the first time. Short, cute. They go for a second series of kisses - sweeter, more reaching out and touching. Soft smiles. It's cute. I would probably not categorize it as 'passionate' but it is their first (set of) kisses. It's genuinely sweet, though.
Then we cut to Damon and Caroline, who have, as Caroline mentioned was a good idea earlier, progressed immediately to the 'sexing each other up' part of the equation. Which she's loving until he vamps out and bites her.
Gotta say, Damon's eyes are so blue when he vamps out. Pretty but deadly, that one.
1. Male camper; killed by Damon.
2. Female camper; killed by Damon.
Damon's current kill count: 4
1. Male camper; bitten by Damon.
2. Female camper; bitten by Damon.
3. Caroline, bitten by Damon. Hmm, in both the pilot and then this episode, he killed two people and non-fatally bit a third.
Damon's current bite count: 6
1. Stefan compels Vicky to forget being bitten by a vampire. It's... not as successful as it could be.
2. Damon compels Vicky to think that Stefan attacked her instead of Damon.
3. Damon compels Vicky back into the animal bite thing and lets her wander off again in a happy-drug haze.
Stefan's current compelling count: 2
Damon's current compelling count: 2
Bechdel moments:
1. Bonnie and Caroline talk about Bonnie's potential powers (technically, she's a witch, her Grams tells her).
2. Bonnie tells Elena and Caroline that her Grams says that the comet is a 'sign of impending doom'.
Both these moments get interrupted by Caroline wanting to talk about boys, but there's enough before that happens that I'm going to call them.
3. Jenna talks to Elena about her (Jenna's) feelings of not being able to live up to her sister's memory.
Night that the campers are killed - I believe that this should be the night of the 'Back to School' party, since the next day, Elena is talking about her conversation with Stefan that begins at the end of the pilot episode.
Next day (third day of school), Elena meets Damon for the first time.
Next day is the 'night of the comet' that ends in Elena and Stefan kissing for the first time.
Time covered: 3 nights, 2 days (but the first night is the same as the one we ended on last time).
Total time so far: 5 nights, 4 days. And I believe this would be when Anna gets to town ('half-past comet'), though we won't see her for quite a while.
1. Stefan; his first scene, waking up.
2. Caroline and Damon, in bed together.
For Stefan: Something bad that happened to him that she doesn't specify.