Guessing not her children, but, like, I feel the quality will be similar? Let’s get started!

We open on Mystic Falls, 1864, and Catherine murdering people who are traveling through the woods at night?! Who travels at night in the 1860s, let alone during wartime?

Damon’s still human in this scene, and I did a double take, because he looked like Chris Pine, and I really don’t think we should stack any more Trek actors in here, honestly. Don’t sully their resumes. Catherine gets him to kiss her while she’s all bloody, because TV vamps never have any fuckin table manners, and I think this is to prove that he was totally into her without mojo, because that was brought up in the “previously on” bit, and it wasn’t a point I remembered, because who can tell what you’re supposed to think is important with this show? Impossible, honestly.

After the open, Elena and Stefan are waking up together. Does Jenna ever know where Elena is? Damon comes in and they get mad, but he just says if he sees something he’s never seen before, he’ll throw a dollar at it.

He’s ready to get started on getting Catherine out of the tomb, though Stefan has assured Elena that they will not be helping Damon in actuality. So they fuck again while Damon waits for them.

Flashback Time! To Catherine in a Victoria’s Secret lace-trimmed “corset” with no shift under it! I’m so glad that the stupidity is apparently carried on the looks-like-this genes, because both Catherine and Elena are dumb as hell and wear the worst clothes. Emily comes in to tell Catherine that “Miss Pearl” is here to see her, so Catherine comes downstairs in a satin ball gown and half-up hair at, like, 10 am. Emily and Miss Pearl are both costumed more-or-less appropriately, but main characters on this show get to… time travel? I mean, that’s generous, it’s really that no one wants them to look “ugly”, but vampires should be low-profile! Why would Catherine be walking around like this, drawing bizarre attention?

Miss Pearl is Anna’s mother, apparently, and has come by to tell Catherine that someone in town is selling vervain tincture to the townspeople to drive the vamps out.

In the future, Anna calls Jeremy and someone she’s staying with, who’s new – is it Tyler again? Why do I never recognize this guy? Is he just so bland he slides right out of my brain? – anyway, whoever this new vamp is is jealous and doesn’t like bottled blood, but they’re going to see “the witch”, so he has to be fed and looking normal so she won’t be able to tell they’re vamps. I think. The dialogue is, as usual, not great at, y’know, giving information, so. Anna tells him they’ll hunt soon – Oh, it’s Ben the bartender! Whew, thanks for that, Anna. They’ll hunt soon, but she wants Ben to be watching Bonnie while she gets the journal.

Stefan and Elena talk about whether Damon believes them (in their lie about helping him), and what his actual motivations are – is he doing this all for love, or what? Stefan insists Damon is strictly a sadist, has zero respect for human life, yadda yadda, we’ve all heard it before. I am of the opinion that none of that precludes love or heroism, but I am not writing vamps for children.

They’re going through some box of old shit and Elena finds what looks to me like a muzzle, made out of random scraps. Jeremy comes in before any explanation and asks what they’re doing; Elena says they’re looking for the journal. Oh, says Jeremy, I gave it to my history teacher.

Cut to Alaric reading the journal in what surely has to be the first instance of one scene naturally following another in this show, and we get Flashback Time to Jonathan Gilbert showing the compass to the Salvatore dad and the Lockwood ancestor. Salvatore dad is played by that older guy Samantha slept with in SATC?

Stefan interrupts them just to set up that Richard hasn’t told the boys yet, but they can both be counted on to fight the vamps. I mean… only if you tell them, Pop.

Alaric is copying the diary and leaving it in an empty locker, but he keeps the original on him. Anna is cruising the school, trying to scare him? I dunno, feels like you could just, like, go in and ask for directions or a phone or something and be INCONSPICUOUS, but that does not seem to be a word these vampires know. Alaric gets some weird homebrew vamp-hunting gun all put together and goes back to his classroom only to find Stefan.

Stefan disarms him pretty quick, but assures Alaric he won’t hurt him, and gives back the gun. He starts interrogating Alaric, who confesses the dead (parapsychologist) wife and the weird shit he’s investigating. Stefan asks about the journal…which has been taken from Alaric’s desk in the confusion. Finally! INCONSPICUOUS!!!!!!!!!!

Anna takes the journal back to the motel to read. She opens to a passage about “the most beautiful woman in town”: Miss Pearl. Flashback Time again! This is Forever Knight levels of history!

Pearl and Catherine are in the apothecary shop (well-kept and fully stocked in 1864, I will never stop harping on it), and Catherine has changed into a gown from 1875 and a hat, but still has her titties out and her hair down. Pearl is nervous, and says she knows Catherine is going to “change both of them”, obviously referring to the Salvatores. Jonathan Gilbert comes in to talk to Pearl, who’s obviously into him. Or pretending to be? Hard to say.

Richard is talking with Stefan about Damon, who apparently left the Confederacy out of principle!

Ok, sure, you want 21st century viewers to like him (I’m guessing because he’s the fan fave) and so he can’t be a Confederate, but come on. Come on!!!!!

Anyway, he turns to complain about Damon being a deserter TO DAMON, who is walking on his other side. Why were you talking like he wasn’t there?! This show is bananas, y’all, utter bananas.

Richard says they need to step up and stop “these killers” and Stefan asks what he’s talking about. He says demons live among them, and Damon says he should just say the word. “Vampires,” says Richard, and they need to be killed, and both boys are looking anywhere but at their Dad.

Dad says there’s a plan to kill the vamps, and the boys are gonna help.

Damon goes to Elena’s place to make dinner and is chatting with Jenna about her love life and Logan being off in the Bahamas, working on his tan. Lol.

Stefan asks Alaric how long he’s known about Stefan. Just recently, he says, after meeting Damon when he witnessed Damon killing Amanda Grayson. Stefan warns him against revenge, but Alaric is stalwart. Stefan warns him not to let Damon know, or Alaric will die. Stefan offers his help.

Damon and Elena are setting up dinner and Damon is flirting, which Elena shuts down (unlike Jenna, who seemed to quite enjoy it). He asks where Stefan is, and Elena says nothing, so Damon asks if he can trust Stefan. Elena lies, and then again not any more convincingly when he repeats the question more intensely.

Flashback Time to Catherine lying playfully to Richard about croquet as Damon and Stefan show up in 21st- century slacks and jackets with suspenders and floppy, untied cravats? I think? they just look like scarves, and the first sign of hardship due to war is how appallingly Damon’s coat fails to fit him. It’s ok, though, because Catherine is in a late 1700s bodice with – let’s all do this one together – “her titties out and her hair down”!

Damon says something about Catherine seeming to like their dad, and Stefan has the brilliant idea (/s) to tell Dad about her, so Dad can help protect her. Damon thinks this is the stupidest thing he’s ever heard, and implores Stefan to keep the secret. Back in the present, he talks vaguely about Stefan betraying him, and he wants to trust him but can’t. Elena quips that he has to give trust to get it, and he says he just wants Catherine back, and will not let anyone stand in the way of that.

While sitting around waiting for Stefan, Damon and Jeremy play video games and talk about the hot-to-weird ratio Anna has after Jer dodges her phone call. Elena and Jenna talk about how hot and evil Damon is, and of course Damon can hear every word. Jenna asks what Elena was doing with all the boxes of old shit, and she says looking for her bio parents, which leads to the revelation that no one’s told Jeremy about Elena’s being adopted yet. I’m sure that won’t backfire on them at exactly the wrong time.

Ben and Bonnie are on a date at… The Grill.

I mean, I love taking all my first dates to my basement to see where I do laundry, why doesn’t everyone have a first date at their work?! He says something about “next time” and then very subtly asks about Elena. No sarcasm, he is being very subtle, asking her generally about her friends and stuff. Oh, Ben. Now I’ve learned to recognize you, I fear you are not long for this world, especially given your competence.

Stefan shows up, and Elena and Damon talk with him on the porch. He’s pissed the journal is missing, and they all go in to ask Jeremy about it. He wonders why everyone is so obsessed with that journal –

and says that Anna knows about it and wants to meet him at The Grill. Elena gets a phone call from Bonnie simultaneously, to talk about the date, which Bonn says is going great, and then immediately gets off the phone. Stefan comes upstairs and says that Jer and Damon have gone to see Anna, but he has the copy of the journal, so they needn’t worry.

Jer and Anna flirt at The Grill while Damon listens from a discreet distance – one that allows him to see Anna and realize who she is during another Flashback. Damon, Catherine, and Pearl are talking, and Damon can’t believe how calm Pearl and Catherine are about the townsfolk getting closer to figuring out they’re vamps. Catherine says they’re “the respectable ladies of Mystic Falls” and I will just show you exhibit A:

But the important part is Damon remembering meeting Annabelle, Pearl’s daughter – aka, Anna of the terrible curling iron accident.

Elena and Stefan are reading the journal and find that Dad offered to take “the secret of the witch’s spellbook to [his] grave.” Which leads to a Flashback of Stefan trying to convince Dad that some vampires might be good! we should give them a chance! and Dad of course saying that they’re demons, and any human helping them will also die. Which causes Stefan to know where the grimoire is – in Dad’s grave, yes? Or a Salvatore family crypt or something? Like, yes, Stefan, taking things “to the grave” in these cases is often literal, no one needed you to say that.

Ok, well, maybe Elena does. Sorry. I forgot she’s… Elena.

Damon follows Anna to her motel, and they have a little posturing.

Stefan takes motherfucking TORCHES to his dad’s grave to dig up the grimoire, which for some reason is italicized in the captions? Why? I have a grimoire right upstairs, it’s nothing fancy. Didn’t Damon call it a “witch’s cookbook”? That’s all it is, just spells and trivia and little notes. I’m considering putting actual recipes in mine, because I’m so much a kitchen witch. It doesn’t need italics like it’s ~~**foreign**~~ or something, lololololol.

Stefan has a flashback to Catherine biting him and being poisoned by vervain, which his father fed him in hopes of routing the vampires. He knew when Stefan was asking about nice vamps that someone was talking in his son’s ear, and he sends Stefan for the sheriff as Catherine writhes in her shiftless 20th-century corset on the floor.

Anna brings Damon up to speed on her plans and what she knows, and what she needs from him: the grimoire. Sorry, he says: he works alone. And leaves.

Bonnie kisses Ben and realizes he’s terrible, so she tries to slip out to the bathroom, but Ben obviously picks up on her disquiet and drags her out the back way, all vamped out.

Elena is pointing a flashlight into the grave when Stefan finds the coffin, but what about the torches, Elena? Not enough light for y’all? Stefan finds the grimoire, of course, and instead of immediately secreting it on his person and getting the fuck out, they open it and start reading long enough for Damon to show up.

They fight a little – I can’t let you raise the vampires, I should have known better than to trust you, yadda yadda. Damon threatens Elena, then actually feeds her and says he’ll kill her and turn her. So Stefan gives up the grimoire to get her back, like an asshole. Why are TV and movie people’s principles never actually worth fighting or sacrificing for? He wasn’t even gonna kill her! Now how are you going to stop anything? Damon knows you’ll fold if he even looks at Elena wrong. Fuckin dumbasses. FEH.

Damon has his own flashback to Catherine being hauled out of the Salvatore house, how his father stopped him from outing himself as a vamp sympathizer so he wouldn’t be killed as well. Richard is a much better father than he was a boyfriend.

They muzzle Catherine and put her in a paddy wagon, and Damon thinks Stefan flat-out told their dad about Catherine, so there’s the big betrayal, just more typicals incapable of using language.

They also take Pearl away, thanks to Jonathan’s compass, but not Emily or Anna – who is at Elena’s to visit Jeremy, and kidnaps her the moment Stefan steps away.

This was a good one! See how much story you can give us when every scene doesn’t have to be only two lines long?! I do sort of wish we could get an entirely in the past episode, I think it would tell the story better, but I can’t expect competence from this writers room, they’ll never live up to that. Hope we keep it up next week!