Probably not gonna get anyone half as cool as that guy, but you never know! Let’s get started!

So, uh, y’all are gonna think I’m super dumb, and I might be, it’s not out of the question, but – I literally just realized that the stupid “Dear Diary” bits are why the show is The Vampire Diaries. Like. The diaries are the point. Were there books? Did they follow the diary convention the whole time? Because let’s be honest, it’s been 5 episodes and we’ve only seen the diary thing in, like, 2 of them. Just, y’know. In my defense.

Anyway, Elena is trying to come to terms with thinking Stefan’s a vamp. She drives over to his place as he’s charging into the night with a stake for Damon and he opens the door to… what they say is 1864, but Stefan’s coat and hair definitely say 2000s trying to do “history” without a scrap of historical costume knowledge available. I don’t think the carriages are anywhere near correct, either. Oh, and here comes Catherine with her titties out and her hair all unkempt. Feh.

We get the title sting and then we’re back in the Aughts, with Elena demanding to know what Stefan is. He says she already knows, or she wouldn’t be here. She repeats the question, and through teary eyes, he tells us: “I am… a vampire.”

Elena runs away, but he moves faster and cuts her off, which just makes her leave faster. And then he shows up in her bedroom, insisting she’s safe with him, doing nothing to prove it. He tells her he’s a vegetarian, and that she can’t tell people because it’s dangerous, and she just wants him to leave. “If you mean me no harm, you’ll go.” He does. He is supposed to be our good guy, after all.

Damon has eaten everyone at the graveyard party and calls Stefan because he wants his ring. Stefan doesn’t have it and asks what Damon has done. Nothing, he says, because whatever he did is a direct result of being captured and starved. So really, what did Stefan do? Stefan says the town won’t believe anymore animal attacks, and Damon says he knows how to cover his tracks, while burning all the bodies. But what’s this? Vicki’s still not dead!

Stefan and Elena meet for coffee and explanations. He eats, he drinks, the ring explains the sun, holy items don’t work. Damon mojoed Caroline. He’ll tell her everything, and she’ll get to decide what she does with that information.

Logan and the sheriff are at the graveyard rave. Logan says the smell is awful, and asks how he should report this. Sheriff says drug deal gone bad, and then they find Vicki’s ID.

You know? I would have loved to see this show from the vampire hunters’ perspectives. I just think it would be so much more interesting and give so many more plot opportunities. How they came to the knowledge. How true or not they’ve thought it was all these years. How seriously or not they take their pledges to deal with the vamps. Like, just would be better, all around, imo.

Damon keeps hounding Stefan for the ring, and keeping Vicki alive on his sofa. Mostly by turning her, it’s true, but hey. What’s a guy to do?

Stefan takes Elena to see where his house used to be, and explains that he’s “been 17 years old since 1864”, all while looking straight into the camera with his 30-year-old face. Seventeen my ass, dude, and I know someone who’s been 17 for almost 600 years. She has never been to high school; she would find you offensive. Don’t know if she’d kill you, but she absolutely would hate you.

He promises he won’t hold anything back from Elena, and yeah, sure, buddy. We believe you. He and Damon were born there, and we go Flashbacking again, to absolutely the worst costumes I’ve ever seen. The boys look like it might be the 1920s, and their shirts are open, no undergarments, in front of Catherine wearing an 1890s hat, titties still out, hair some prom spectacle from 1994, in a polyester dress.

Damon wants to break them up in the Aughts because he and Stefan both loved Catherine. More flashbacks, more bad costumes. We even get the dreaded half-up hairdo! Catherine chose Stefan to take her to the first Founders’ Day Ball, and everyone is looking so well-fed and happy and I’m just…. Virginia! 1864! WTF?!

Yes, yes, rich people have always been above the fray but, like, come ON. Also, is Damon a Confederate because he’s evil? Why isn’t Stefan fighting? Did he just… not? Even though mostly everyone did? Yes, even 17-year-olds?

Feh, I say again. It takes like 30 seconds to Google this kind of shit and keep your audience engaged in the story. I’m super checked out because all of this – bad costumes, bad writing, an inability to understand basic history – has utterly broken my immersion. I’m wondering how they got food to the town to throw a party instead of paying attention to anything else.

And a corset lacing scene with no chemise. It’s like they did a bingo card!

Turns out Catherine was a vampire, and obviously, she’s gotta be both men’s dame, right? She wanted a polycule but mojoed both guys to not tell the other about the vampirism. Weird way to set up a throuple, but whatever.

Ooh, yay, more town founder vampire hunters! Logan did manage to get the watch from Jeremy. Lockwood – who looks like the Gabriel Macht you get on Wish – takes out the watch part and puts in something that looks like a compass, so I’m guessing it will find the vamps. Seriously, I could watch hours of this, but then we’re off to have a dance party with Damon and Vicki.

And apparently Damon didn’t turn her? because she complains about her life and he says she’s pathetic and then he snaps her neck.

But then we come back from commercial and she’s alive again. The number of this woman’s deaths is too damn high!

Damon says he drank from her, she drank from him, he killed her, now she has to feed to finish the transformation. She doesn’t believe him, says she just wants to go. He tells her to stop by Jeremy’s on her way home, and if she sees Stefan or Elena, tell them to call him.

The hunters are on the prowl. Sheriff gives Logan the compass and some wooden bullets (finally, some good fucking lore!) and some stakes. The bullets won’t kill, but they will slow them down. He’s at the entrance to… the cemetery? no one has said where they’re staking out – heh, staking – but this is some sort of operation to catch the vamp.

Vicki does indeed go see Jeremy, complains she’s hungry and her head hurts, and raids his fridge.

Stefan explains the vervain amulet.

Jeremy calls Matt to help Vicki, and the three of them see Logan reporting on the murders. She freaks out, obviously, but Stefan comes in with Elena at that moment and takes over for the boys who can’t know how to help. He tells Elena that Vicki needs to feed on human blood; if she doesn’t, she’ll die.

I have to say, the woman playing Vicki is great. She is not given a ton to work with (none of them are, let’s be real), and I really feel for her every time she’s on screen! It would be so easy to make her a throwaway character, another dumb druggie bitch, right? But she’s played with such intelligence and sensitivity and a real sense that her bad decisions are all made out of suffering. Oh no. Is Vicki this show’s Miles O’Brien?

Stefan says she has a few hours. Right now she doesn’t remember anything, but as she gets closer to death, she will get those memories back, and then she’ll know she has to choose. “The same choice you made?” snarks Elena to Stefan, and then leaves the room.

I’m sorry, what choice would you have had him make? No one has explained this in words so that Vicki knows what’s going on. She has zero idea she’s gonna be a vamp or a corpse. Did anyone explain it to Stefan? Did he know what he was choosing, or was he – a SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD – merely choosing to live, as almost any human would do?

Vicki almost bites Jeremy and runs out of the house to stop herself (BECAUSE NO ONE HAS SAID SHIT TO HER ABOUT WHAT’S HAPPENING). Stefan says he can track her and Elena yells at him to go do that. I hate all these people, my god.

Logan is wandering in the dark forest with his little compass. Who vampire hunts at night? Apparently the sheriff and her deputies, too, because Logan is being pointed toward the cemetery and calls for backup.

Damon shows up at Elena’s and does his little villain dance on the catwalk. He’s the only one having fun here, I love him.

Elena is visibly afraid, so he guesses that Stefan told her about the fangs. There’s the usual posturing and implied threats, the fun snappy dialogue. She makes a quip about Catherine and Damon leaves.

Stefan finds Vicki in the cemetery, and we’ve got like 5 minutes left, so my guess is that we’ll all converge. Ooh, maybe Logan gets eaten? He seems too important, but maybe?

Vicki’s crying: she doesn’t want this, she doesn’t think. But maybe. Will she be better? No, it doesn’t matter, she wants to go home. Will Stefan take her home?

Probably, but Logan shoots him with a wooden bullet before he can answer. Stefan hits the ground, Logan threatens with the stake. Vicki screams No! but it’s Damon who sinks his teeth into Logan, and Vicki who finishes him off, says she’s sorry, and runs away.

Damon takes the compass and his ring and takes off; sheriff and deputies find Logan but no Stefan, so I guess he ran away? despite being woodshot?

Stefan shows up back at Elena’s to bring her up to speed. He says he’ll find Vicki and teach her to eat animals, but what are they going to tell everyone else? A story, he says. A lie, she counters, and then breaks up with him.

Despite her copious tears, don’t think this one’s gonna stick, either! Until next week, Snowflakes!