SGRoA: Vampire Diaries, S01 E22: FOUNDERS’ DAY

IT’S FINALLY HERE!!!!! FOUNDERS’ DAY!!!!!!! All those other Founders’ Days weren’t real, they didn’t exist, what are you talking about? It’s not 6 Founders’ Days a week, 2 on Sunday! Don’t be silly. This is the one and only Founders’ Day, and it’s finally here!

Everyone’s getting ready. Stefan is dressed like he raided the general costume department at…the CW? was this show on the CW? Elena’s titties are out, because she’s getting dressed in the weirdest historical garb imaginable to look like Katharine, obviously. Gotta look like Founders on Founders’ Day!

Mrs. Mayor is trying to get all the floats in line. There’s a bunch of Confederate re-enactors and… ew, but okay. Damon shows up in regular clothes and he and Stefan fight a little about Elena? Why. Damon, why. Stop it.

Damon says that Elena’s not Katharine, so Stefan doesn’t have to worry, but then Elena shows up in her 1860s-inspired prom dress-cum-Halloween costume, and they’re both speechless.

Jeremy’s getting dressed in said Confederate re-enactment stuff, and it’s still gross, I don’t care if that was how the Founders rolled, it’s weird and icky. This show lasted twice as long as the Confederacy, and it’s almost as bad! Let’s celebrate the founders of Vampire Diaries instead of Confederates, how’s that.

Anyway, he apologizes to Anna again about her mother, and she says he doesn’t need to, he didn’t kill them. John did. Jeremy takes a tone I can only think of as “mandescending”, because it’s that incredibly specific tone they get when they think you’re being an emotional girl? Like, it’s not just condescending; it’s condescending because you’re a woman. He mandescends to her about whether she’s really sure it was John, because, like, why would he be killing vampires? Besides that centuries-long family habit of killing vampires, you mean? Jesus, Jeremy, you’ve never struck me as stupid.

Anna’s not having it, so Jeremy switches tack. John hates all vampires, he doesn’t understand, it’s the way he was raised, he’s a different generation, it was another time - Wait, no, we’re just back to racism again. Which is not a great allegory, I’m not thrilled, but clearly there’s some overlap in Jeremy’s defense of John and every idiot’s defense of Uncle Steve at Thanksgiving. Fuck Uncle Steve, fuck John, and fuck you, too, Jeremy.

Anna should just walk out, but she doesn’t. She says she’s leaving, and Jeremy can come with her. She gives him a vial of her blood, and says that if he dies with it in his system, he’ll turn. She re-iterates that all vampires are desire-based alexithymics, who can just “turn it off”, and I guess that’s supposed to be a selling point, but, like, dissociation exists? Humans can do that, too, it’s not just autists. Weird point to make, I’m saying.

But Jeremy says he can’t, and Anna leaves through the open window. But he still has the vial, so if things go well, we should be seeing it again.

Stefan tells Elena that John’s her father. She says she has enough trouble with the family she likes, and goes into a list of all the things Jeremy will never forgive her for.

Caroline, Bonnie, Matt, and Tyler are being teenagers. Caroline is also mad at Tyler because he wants Matt to forgive him for being sexually assaulted by Matt’s mom. Yes, that’s correct. Tyler was sexually assaulted and everyone is mad at him for it. Good job, y’all.

Elena compliments Jeremy’s float and he tells her to pound sand.

Damon thanks Bonnie for disenchanting the device. It could have killed him, and he doesn’t take it lightly, and also - he owes her. Bonnie at first tries to demur - she did it for Elena - but no. Damon seems to understand what it costs her. Uh-oh, Bonn, feeling a little more guilty now?

John explains to the Mayor (?) that the device will work for 5 minutes only. It produces a high-pitched noise humans can’t hear (oh, what, like fluorescent lights? or a fridge? or a car three blocks away? did you test it on autists?) that will incapacitate the vampires. Once they’re easy to spot, they’ll be tranqed with vervain and brought to Elena’s dad’s old medical building. The mayor asks if John is sure the vampires are attacking tonight, and as John says he’s had it confirmed by one of the raveyard vamps, we transition to them getting ready.

Plan is to wait till the fireworks start, and they’ll never see ‘em coming. And just before we break for commercial, Anna shows up.

This is gonna be a short scene day, all of this has been intercut and shit like that. I’ll do my best, but a lot of these scenes are nothingburgers.

Elena goes into The Grill, because they built the set and they’re gonna use it. She runs into Damon and tells him not to make her regret being his friend, which he seems to take seriously. She then moves on to Jeremy, who tells her to go to hell.

Damon follows Jeremy out and makes fun of him for being a teenager, and then tells him to be better to Elena. Jeremy shoots back that she erased his memories, but Damon corrects him: “I did!” Jeremy’s getting antsy, and Stefan comes by to defuse the fight. He tells Jer what happened to Vicki and that he apologizes, and tells Jeremy not to blame Elena. Jeremy seems slightly mollified, but then Stefan tells Damon to butt out of Elena’s relationships and like, hello? THEY ARE ALLOWED TO BE FRIENDS. I mean, clearly not on this show, but yes, men and women are allowed to have deep, loving, fulfilling friendships that never end in sex. Hate how hard this show is trying to make this happen.

John and the Mayor tell Sheriff their plan. She says it’s too dangerous, it puts the whole town at risk, no fuckin’ way. But they’ve already shown the plans to her deputies, and they all agreed. But their kids are out there! And also, way to undermine your Sheriff, christ. Mayor says that’s why the secret council exists: they have to stop the vampires. This is the best way.

She says no. John sends Mayor away to talk to her alone, but then just knocks her out, duct-tapes her to a pipe, and takes her utility belt.

It’s nighttime now, delightful. Anna warns Damon about the attack, and he tells her the device has been deactivated. She says people are going to die, because the vamps are already in the crowd. Damon asks her to point them out.

Vampire leader guy, who looks like Kyle Rittenhouse, which is…

Anyway, Vampire Rittenhouse - Kyle Vampirehouse? - tells the raveyard vamps that they don’t know who’s ingested vervain, so it’s not about feeding, just about killing. They disperse into the crowd.

Damon gets Alaric and sends him to get stakes and shit out of his car. Damon then tells Elena and Stefan, and they run off to find Jeremy.

Tyler, Matt, and Caroline are at The Grill. Caro is trying to get Matt and Tyler to talk. The Mayor shows up and tries to get Tyler and the kids to go home. Tyler resists at first, but Mayor is too serious, and tells him to take Caro and Matt with him, in his car. They go.

Anna finds Jeremy at The Grill.

The Mayor begins his remarks before the fireworks.

Literally everyone should be able to spot these vampires in the crowd. They don’t smile, they don’t react to the mayor, they don’t react to anyone around them. They look like Feds, just slightly better-dressed. You need a device for this?

John gets the device ready.

The fireworks start; Mayor and Mrs. leave. Bonnie tracks a vamp in the crowd.

Damon finds John in the medical building.

John turns the device on.

The vampires are all incapacitated.

Deputies inject vamps in the crowd with vervain. Alaric redirects a deputy away from Stefan and saves him.

John tranqs Damon.

Tyler can hear the noise and crashes dad’s car, with Caro and Matt. Mayor can also hear the noise, because he collapses with blood coming out his ears.

Deputies find Anna and take her from Jeremy.

John takes the device apart and goes down to the basement, where all the tranqed vamps are. They start pouring gas. Anna grabs John, so he makes sure to stake her dead. No relying on fire here.

Damon watches all this, but obviously doesn’t move until John is up the stairs and has thrown the match. They were very spotty in dousing people. Simple incompetence? Probably. But if I were writing it, it would definitely be a further plot. Make people suffer, not just die. Where’s the fun in just killing them?

let's take a minute....

Whew. That’s a lot. Understandable, though - you do want to speed things up and make them choppier in action scenes. It can really ramp up the tension. But let’s take a beat, center ourselves again, and start the second half of our season ender. In…out. There ya go.

Alaric saw that they were taking the vamps to the medical building. Elena is confused: didn’t Bonnie deactivate it? Clearly not. Stefan isn’t angry, it seems to make perfect sense to him. To me, too, so I hope Elena doesn’t get weird about this.

Mrs. Mayor goes to get Sheriff because the deputies took Mayor. Mrs. lets Sheriff go.

In the fire, Damon starts being able to move. But Mayor can already move - the vervain didn’t affect him. Damon starts crawling toward him, asking wtf he is. Not a vampire. But before the Mayor can answer, he’s crawled into the lap of Vampire Rittenhouse, and gets his neck snapped.

Matt urges Caroline to get checked out by the paramedics, who are working on Tyler. Tyler seems mostly normal, but his eyes are weird - not vampy, but like, red and yellowed. Matt’s gone to look, and then Caroline collapses, and everyone moves on.

Stefan can hear the fire in the medical building. He and Elena run towards it, but John stops them, though he confirms Damon is inside. Stefan goes around the back, and Elena follows, but John grabs her and says if she goes with him, he’ll tell the deputies Stefan is a vamp. She says that what she wants should matter to him, as her father, and he lets her go.

Damon is up to crawling.

Bonnie tries to stop Stefan from going into the fire, and does stop Elena, long enough to bespell her, at least. As she spells, though, the fire recedes for Stefan, and he’s able to get Damon out. No one else, though, and Bonnie is exhausted - and looks like she already regrets saving the Salvatore brothers.

MFFD puts out the fire; Damon walks away; Elena and Stefan are at The Grill, perfectly clean and awake. They have to complain about Damon a little so Elena can declare her love again.

Jeremy still has Anna’s blood. Which is good, because there’s no more Anna. But he puts in in a drawer, just as Damon shows up to tell him that Anna has died. Which he does very sensitively, actually. And he admits he wanted to help her. He offers to “take away [Jeremy’s] suffering”, but Jeremy says it doesn’t take it away. He forgot what happened to Vicki, but he still suffers. Forgetting doesn’t fix.

Damon apologizes for Vicki, as well, and goes to leave, but Jeremy has more questions about shutting out pain. Would life be easier? Damon says life sucks either way, and yeah, life can be easier - but is that really the point?

Tyler apologizes to Matt at the hospital - maybe for the accident, maybe for being sexually assaulted, but either way, they make up. Caro’s going into surgery, Sheriff tells them, and she should be all right, but they’re all worried. Sheriff asks Tyler if he’s called his mom, and Tyler says he left a message, telling her he was at the hospital. Sheriff tells him to call: it’s about his dad.

Jeremy drinks the blood. And then tries to commit suicide? with Elena’s painkillers? You don’t want to be a teenaged vampire, Jer, trust me. Grow up a little.

Bonnie lets Stefan know that if Damon puts a pinky toe out of line, she’ll kill him. And she’ll kill Stefan, too, if she has to. Control your dog, Stefan.

Elena runs into Damon leaving as she comes home. He’s grappling with some weird feelings, like wanting to help Anna, wanting to protect his town. He’s not a good guy. But Bonnie saved him, because Elena saw something worth saving, so he’d like to thank her - AND THEN THEY’RE KISSING.

Jenna interrupts and makes Elena come inside.

Jeremy falls asleep, or maybe dead, or maybe undead. Who knows.

John tells Elena that vampirism ruined her mother, and it’s John’s fault for sending her to Damon. He asks if he can help her at all, and she glances down at his hand on the counter, the big-ass invincibility ring, the knife block next to her…

AND CHOPS OFF ALL HIS FINGERS.

He backs up, screaming, and she follows with the knife. “Katharine?” he says, dumbfounded. She vamps out. “Hello, John,” she says, and then stabs him in the gut and twists. “Goodbye, John.”

Elena is on the phone as she comes up the porch. Someone stole all her stuff she left at school. She looked everywhere, but she’s given up. She’s going to check on Jeremy and then head to the hospital for Caroline. Can Stefan meet her at the hospital? Sure!

She hangs up, goes inside, calls up the stairs for Jeremy. No answer there, but there’s a noise in the kitchen, so she heads that way.

And the show fucking ends.

AHHHHHHHH! If I had to wait three months or more to find out what happens? Oh, I’d die. This was a great season-ender! I’m very impressed at all the plot we squished into these last two episodes. Might be nicer to spread it out a little, but who knows, maybe season 2 will be better?

See you next week!