The Vampire Diaries ®

First Season

Unpleasantville
Children of the Damned
Fool Me Once
A Few Good Men

A fun new story arc has a new danger in Mystic Falls: Anna, a girl claiming to be a homeschooled kid befriending Jeremy. Pearl was Katherine's vampire friend, mother to Anna. Elena's adopting father's ancestor, Jonathan Gilbert, took a shine to Pearl. The show goes back and forth in Children of the Damned, alternating between the present and past. The Grimoire is so desired by Damon and Anna and it's location could possibly be found in Gilbert's journal. Anna being a vampire is revealed at the end of Unpleasantville, the episode centered around the school's 50s era dance. Jeremy, being the interesting character he is, works the punch bowl.

What I’m starting to like about The Vampire Diaries is that the show is gradually leaving the school and taking us into alternate stories within the town and slightly beyond. To go completely away from Mystic Falls would undermine what the show seems to stand for (vampires and humans and whatever might come next wrapped in drama, flesh, and blood…and how it all establishes secrets of the past and present, with the effects and ramifications of deeds and misdeeds), so venturing too far out appears not at all in the equation.

Matthew Davis’ history teacher has emerged as a supporting character with some serious dramatic weight, tied to Elena in ways not even realized early in his tenure. Isobel wasn’t a character of much girth when first announced as a shocking development involving Alaric and how Damon could have been responsible for her death. Alaric’s pain has been emphasized for sure. But how his life is so changed by Elena’s news from Stefan of being adopted, and Aunt Jenna doing some “digging” to find evidence of a friend to Isobel…Isobel, Alaric’s wife, could very well be Elena’s mom! So all of this is building towards Isobel’s whereabouts, and how she seems to not only be alive but avoiding her daughter at all costs…which includes killing her friend (who had successfully avoided telling Elena anything and nonetheless is killed by some guy “compelled” by her to protect Isobel’s privacy). The show was building towards Alaric confronting Damon to stake him (unsuccessfully, of course), and his discovery of what Isobel’s ring’s importance is leaves quite a carrot dangled for viewers as the episode A Few Good Men concludes. Damon, with some nagging from Caroline’s cop mom, attends a “bachelor auction” where single guys go before ladies in town to be their date with proceeds going to fund raising. Damon gets the chance to rub Isobel’s fate in the face of Alaric, but this revelation stuns Elena who realizes he killed her mom, so that goes over well! The show continues to hint at Jenna and Alaric becoming an item. I am curious as to how that turns out now that Alaric learns of why Isobel was desirous of him wearing the ring… Stefan tries to make sure Damon killed Isobel before Elena was to learn about it. But Damon can’t help himself. So once again Stefan sees his girl enduring another melodramatic crisis…and Damon is part of why she’s in pain.

James Remar, of all people, has a guest spot on the show as the father, Giuseppe, of Stefan and Damon. Ironically, Giuseppe was the fixture in 1694’s human vampire hunt, targeting Katherine, too. Stefan inadvertently is responsible for Katherine’s being revealed as a vampire, with Damon blaming him for her supposed exile to the sealed tomb under the church near the abandoned cemetery on the outskirts of Mystic Falls. Children of the Damned and Fool Me Once work as a type of two-parter. Anna wants her mom, using a bartender named Ben (a former jock athlete reduced to working behind the bar at the Grille in town), turned by her, to help hold Bonnie and Elena hostage. She needs a witch to help lift the seal containing her mom in the tomb. Damon has the Grimoire with the incantations needed to lift the seal with help from the witch’s magic, discovered in Giuseppe’s coffin with him by Stefan and Elena (they lied to Damon, having him believe they would help him find the Grimoire, all the while planning to destroy it so Katherine and the other vampires wouldn’t go free). So Anna and Damon meet in the park and plot together to rescue their loved ones as a unified front.

Pearl’s escape with help from Anna (with Bonnie and her grams (Jasmine Guy) help, obviously) from the tomb as the seal is momentarily lifted (Bonnie urges her grams to help keep the seal altered so Damon and Stefan can escape) will be that big “uh oh” moment that seems not quite as significant upon first glance—Anna says to Bonnie and grams that she only wanted to find and save her mom—but at the end of A Few Good Men, it does appear as if a family will begin to take shape. Pearl does have a lot of revenge on the mind I imagine.

 

Katherine’s character has often appeared quite suspect. She’s a maneater seemingly disinterested in any type of real relationship, although Damon had pined for her for nearly two centuries. When Katherine is nowhere to be found in the tomb, and after physically confronting a weakened Pearl about her whereabouts, as Anna also has knowledge of where she had been (last seeing her in 1983 Chicago), Damon must accept the unimaginable…his aching for rescuing her has been emotionally one-sided. She could have found Damon at any time…she chose not to! So after this, Damon spends his time feeding from sorority girls, staring apathetically into a raging fire in the family fireplace, and drowning his sorrows in liquor. This quest has found its end with no reward…only knowledge that the woman you have adored simply didn’t want to be bothered and allowed you to continue to think she was entombed!

 

In the Dawson’s Creek subplot of Matt and Caroline, they are going through that relationship “feeling out process”. Matt isn’t sure (she’s “clingy”, he tells Tyler) if this will really work and Caroline prepares speeches for him, equipped with escape clauses that allow him an out from her if he so chooses, fully aware that he might not consider her “his type”. When Matt’s rotter of a mom returns from “being away” (Melinda Clarke; Grissom’s dominatrix love interest on CSI: Las Vegas), she demeans Caroline, considering her a fake human being (coming from someone who has been absent from her children’s lives, off with guys while they try and fend for themselves), while drunk, needing help from Matt home because she can barely stand much less walk. Caroline tries to be appealing and nice…good luck trying to impress this lush. Clarke’s Kelly Donovan is a real piece of work. Kelly goes all sad-faced, asking her son not to leave her side. Ugh. So there’s that soap opera. Bonnie attracted to a bartender that winds up being a vampire that kidnaps her, holding in a cheap hotel room while Anna is off attempting to negotiate with Damon over vampire escaping a tomb also might cut the soap opera muster.

So as of now the show has a busy array of characters and plenty of alternating stories to keep the audience early in its run quite attentive. Lots going on. Mystic Falls, like any gothic soap, is its own universe. As long as the show keeps me guessing, I'm game to let it take me places. I am glad we don't spend so much time at school now. I'm not the audience for that shit.