sgroa: vampire diaries, s1 e16: there goes the neighborhood

Hola, y’all, how’s the heat where you are? We got two days of 70-degree temps, and now we’re back to high 90s! Thank all the various gods that it’s the solstice, and darkness returns to us apace. Let’s get started!

We open on the vamp house - covenhouse? - where the raveyard vamps are learning about television and getting haircuts.

Why. Why are vampires getting haircuts. WTF. I - You know what? Let’s just ignore this and move on, shall we? It’s hot, it’s summer, I do not have the energy to get into why vampires almost never need haircuts and why the fuck are you writing/directing/running a show about vampires if you can’t even be trusted to know that?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

MOVING ON. Anna goes from teaching a TV class to seeing the homeowner, Ms. Gibbons, being chomped. She gives the male vamp chomping the stinkeye, and he disengages. Ms. Gibbons asks if he had enough, and Anna tells her to go get some rest - and we can see that she also has bites on her throat. Male vamp says no, she feels fine, and she agrees - so she’s been mojo’d and this is all compulsion. Anna doesn’t look thrilled, and then we get our opening sting.

Matt is parenting his mother before school, which is awful. Not, like, the scene, but it’s awful for Matt. I’m pissed at his mom, mother-to-mother, because bitch, this is your job. You chose to have that kid. Fuckin’ step up. Jesus.

Elena and Stefan are gossiping at her locker. Damon is still depressed, won’t talk about Katharine, and has Elena decided what to do about her vampire birth mother? Who apparently is related to Katharine? Elena says that like it’s a fact, but I thought it was Damon’s depressed ramblings. Vampire Diaries, I wish I knew how to pay attention to you!

Back at the covenhouse, Anna’s mom is showing Harper (the vamp from the woods last episode) how to text, when they trigger Anna’s voicemail. She’s saving one from Jeremy, and she comes in to stop the phone playing. Harper asks if that’s her boyfriend, and her mom says, “Of course not!” in a scandalized tone. Uh-oh, did someone catch feelings?

Oh, Anna’s mom is Pearl, thank you for the reminder, Harper! Anyway, Anna and Pearl are taking Gibbons’s car and ATM card into town, where they have vague “business”, as Pearl says to the vamp who was eating Gibbons in the open: Frederick. He objects to being a “babysitter”, and Pearl reminds him that they have to cooperate with each other. Which - yes, of course they do, they evolved as humans. I’ve never understood why so much vampire media insists that vampires are weirdly territorial and always want to kill each other and shit. Why? Do you know people like that? Gross. You should maybe not hang out with them anymore, they’re broken.

Matt was distracted by his mother and maybe Elena and didn’t kiss Caroline before heading to class, which I didn’t think was hugely important, but now Caro is inviting Elena and Stefan on a double-date night with her and Matt, so. Oh, she thinks it will lead to them all getting over their awkwardness - because Elena and Matt used to date, remember. Stefan agrees with Caro, so Elena acquiesces.

Pearl goes to see Damon. She was able to waltz right in because no human lives there. Anna asks what they do about other vampires, and he says he kills them. He tries to demonstrate on Pearl, but she bends his hand back easily and suggests they sit down to talk instead.

The drama! How are these vampires all so strong and good-looking after being entombed for 145 years? Like, they were starved, they were basically left for dead. They’ve been eating whom, Ms. Gibbons? All 27 of them? They can’t eat animals, but they can all share one donor for weeks? (Okay, we don’t know it’s weeks, it might have been a day and a half, the way this show is.) And Pearl can beat the crap out of Damon.

brb, gonna hit the bong now. haircuts were one thing, but come on.

Y’all, I haven’t even mentioned that it is broad fuckin’ daylight, again, either.

Jeremy decides to ask ChatGPT how to become or kill a vampire. Just kidding, it’s an actual chat room, this is like, 2008 or something. He gets joke answers, and we cut away to Pearl and Damon as he settles in after asking for serious answers only.

Pearl and Anna tell Damon they know about the Founding Families’ Council, and that Damon’s on it, and that he’s supplying vervain. They want all the names of the Council and for him to stop supplying. Damon scoffs and asks what it’s supposed to achieve. They want their town back. Damon doesn’t give a shit, and Pearl offers him Katharine. But Damon doesn’t want her! First of all, he doesn’t think Pearl could even find her, but secondly, he’s not going to be her “little minion”.

So Pearl puts her thumbs in his eyes, and he’s unable to get her off. She says she has 400 years on him, and yes, that may be true, but YOU WERE IN A BOX FOR 150 YEARS.

Y’all. Y’ALL. I HAVE A CHARACTER WHO WAS STARVED IN A BOX SINCE THE 1860s! My man was not in a position to be doing anything but eating and killing entire grown people for several years after that. YEARS.

Elena thinks they should cancel on Caroline and Matt, but Stefan says this is what he’s wanted: to hang out with his girlfriend, to have as normal a life as possible. He’s been looking forward to it! Elena acquiesces.

The “business” Pearl and Anna have in town is meeting Jenna, who is apparently a realtor, to look at the old apothecary shop that they… used to own? So who owns it now? Shouldn’t they still own it, if they never sold it? Shouldn’t some sort of lawyer’s clause have kicked in when they disappeared?

I know too much. I cannot be trusted to just go along with the plot. I’m way too autistic for that, and I fuckin’ love logistics.

I’ll give you bad vampire television, at that

Damon rolls up to the bar at The Grill with sunglasses on, but when Matt’s mom asks him what the deal is, he takes them off, and his eyes are fine. Kelly says he’s new around here, and she would have remembered someone who looked like him when he says he’s not. She’s been blown off for the bartending job interview - she did fuck the manager’s boyfriend last time she was in town - and is about to hit on Damon really hard when Jenna walks in and Kelly invites her to drink with them and catch up. Because there’s nothing a television show likes more than everyone knowing everyone else - so no one ever leaves town, or only for college, or only until they decide to marry their high school sweetheart, or whatever. So weird to me. I grew up in Connecticut, my husband in Wisconsin, we met in Phoenix and currently live in Denver. Like. Do people just… sit and stay?

Back at the covenhouse, trouble is brewing. Despite being told how to use television and the internet, a bunch of vamps are just sitting around, staring at each other. And because there’s nothing vampires like more than never mastering their emotions, Harper and Frederick are getting into it.

Pearl comes in and stops the fight. Frederick wants to go into town, but she says they have to keep a low profile. How did this jabroni survive? YOU’RE A VAMPIRE. You have to hide. Get your shit together, my god.

The double date is going well, until we learn that Kelly and Elena’s mom were best friends, and she and Matt have known each other literally since they were babies. Then Matt looks over at the bar and sees Kelly drinking with Damon, Elena sees Jenna with them, and everyone on the double date is very disapproving.

Frederick and a female vamp, Beth-Ann, are going to town. Harper catches them, and Frederick’s all, “gonna stop me?” But no, obviously not, he’s just going to tell Pearl and she’s going to kill you, dude.

Anna shows up at Jeremy’s. He doesn’t look terribly enthused, and when she goes past him into the house - she’s already been invited in - he looks positively terrified.

Nonsense at The Grill - Damon suggests they get hammered, Elena talks about the first time she and Matt got drunk, Jenna notices the kids are there.

Jeremy asks why Anna and her mom decided to stay in town. “Business opportunity,” she says, her mom is going to open a store. And Anna might go back to school, but she’d have to ask. “I wish you were going now,” says Jeremy, “because I could use some help with my history paper about VAMPIRES.”

But he has a theory that vampires are maybe just outsiders, just misunderstood. She gave him all that info before, what does she think? “I made that up, Jeremy. I wanted you to like me. Vampires aren’t real.” Oh. OK. Sure. I don’t think he’s convinced, Anna.

The girls go to the bathroom, and Caro tells Elena to stop going down memory lane with Matt. “The point was to show him how much you like Stefan,” she says, and stalks away back to the pool tables. Elena follows, but is immediately intercepted by Frederick, who calls her Katharine. “You have the wrong person,” she says, and he hangs onto her arm for an uncomfortably long moment before saying it’s his mistake.

She goes directly to Stefan, whom Frederick recognizes, and very obviously texts him what’s going on. He immediately looks up at Frederick - but he and Beth-Ann are gone.

In the car on the way… home? Elena says she wants to deal with it tomorrow. Oh, Stefan’s house, they’re gonna watch a movie or something, I guess. Caroline feels like she’s been there before, lol. Stefan and Matt bond over cars. Matt brings up a Camaro Elena’s dad used to have, and Caro says she doesn’t like sports cars: they’re too hard to make out in. “Nah,” says Matt, “it wasn’t that bad,” and immediately everyone knows he fucked up, and Caroline goes back to the house.

It doesn’t bother Stefan, and Matt tells him he’s happy Elena is with him. She’s happy, and that’s what matters to Matt. Aw. Get it together, Matty, or you’ll lose Caroline.

Jenna leaves Damon and Kelly practically sucking face at the bar, and walks out to find Frederick and break her shoe. He breaks the other one for her, and then asks her about Damon, saying they “go way back”. But he’d rather talk to her, and tries to mojo her into going with him, but obviously she’s got the vervain amulet. She gets her cab, and maybe Frederick realizes he doesn’t know everything.

Matt gets the engine going on Stefan’s - it might be a Karmann Ghia, but I’m not 100% on that - anyway, he gets it to run, and they head back to the girls, and because everyone senses the tension between Caroline and everyone else, Stefan tells Matt and her to take it for a drive.

Jeremy makes Anna and him sandwiches, and while her back is turned, he cuts his hand on purpose to see her reaction. He gets her to vamp out and she chomps him - well, chomps his already-bleeding hand. Jenna interrupts, and Anna goes out the back door while Jeremy is distracted.

Y’all, not a lot of jokes this week, but we’re back in the land of super-quick scenes, nine million cuts, and absolutely zero plot movement. Well, maybe not zero, but it is very little. Most of this ep is just relationship drama, which is not what I’m here for, frankly.

I’m here for these bitches!

Matt and Caro make up and make out. Obviously. I do like them, they’re the least irritating people on this show, and Caro proves her point about sports cars, heh.

Damon brings Kelly home, and right about the time her legs are wrapped around him in the FRONT HALLWAY, Matt and Caroline come back in, followed shortly by Elena and Stefan, who’ve been alerted by Matt’s very loud, “MOM?!”

Kelly slinks back through the door, Matt follows, I’m sure Stefan’s lecture to Damon will be boring as usual. Stefan sends the girls home, and of course Frederick is watching the house. So no, Stefan’s lecture will not be boring: it will be interrupted by Frederick flying through a window, followed by Beth-Ann, to have a vamp fight in the house. What these men must spend on glazers, wouldn’t it be easier to have a butler or something?

Frederick gets away, Beth-Ann looks dead but we’ll see. Stefan says he recognizes them from 1864, and Damon says, “About that….”

Damon. DAMON. You didn’t tell him the crypt is open?!?!?!?!?!? You couldn’t send a damn text all day?

Matt’s lecture to his mother, on the other hand, is excellent. She’s drunk at the bar, where HE works to pay bills that SHE doesn’t? She’s tryna fuck a guy half her age? She’s always drunk somewhere? She says he’s right, and she’ll try.

Elena and Jeremy meet in the bathroom to brush their teeth. “How was your night?” says Jeremy. “Same old, same old,” says Elena, and they brush in silence.

Frederick goes back to the covenhouse. Pearl is waiting, and asks after Beth-Ann. “She won’t be coming back,” he says. “We shouldn’t have left.”

She fixes him a glass of blood from a motherfucking WATER BOTTLE, and I do not have time for that, we’re just gonna move along - She fixes a glass of blood for him, then stabs him in the stomach with a wooden spoon and throws the blood on him. “Next time you’ll listen to me.” Ooh, Pearl might become my new fave, that was excellent. Not the water bottle, obviously, but I… can’t. We have three minutes left, I’m out of steam.

Elena lets Stefan know she made it home okay.

Anna shows up in Jeremy’s bedroom. She could have killed him. She should have. But she didn’t. How did he know? He tells her about Vicki, and the articles, and her own eyeballs when he kissed her. Why didn’t she kill him? She says she’s a sucker for lost guys, like him. Why did he take the chance? Because maybe it means Vicki’s still out there, alive.

And because he wants Anna to turn him.