The Vampire Diaries – Recap & Review – Memory Lane

photo: cw

The Vampire Diaries
Memory Lane

Original Air Date: Sep 30, 2010

Meg – Senior Reviewer
meg@thetwocentscorp.com

Hey, ladies. Been dumped? Miss your man? Want to know how to get him back? Well, you’re in luck! The Vampire Diaries’ Katherine sure has the answer for you: let your ex chain you in a dungeon for a few hours and torture you! Repeatedly threaten to murder his current lady love! Stake him in the leg!

Yes, this is clearly the smartest thing you could do. Yup, that’s right; we spend half the episode in outtakes from “Hostel” as Stefan tries to torture Katherine into revealing her endgame. We do get some fun post-bellum flashbacks and reveals, but I can’t help but be disappointed that Katherine’s endgame might actually just be “twu wuv.” Oh, Katherine…

Stefan and Katherine
Talk about a psycho ex-girlfriend. Katherine invades Stefan’s dreams and torments him with scenes of Damon and Elena kissing. When Stefan wakes up, Katherine is curled up in bed with him, pretending to be Elena. Cree-pee.

She reads Stefan’s diary and taunts him for keeping a picture of her. He fails to explain that he needed the picture so that Elena could discover it and get super-creeped out in Season 1. Instead, he cozies up to Katherine and starts mumbling (seriously, boy – in 160 years you haven’t learned to enunciate?) about lingering feelings. She may buy it, but I don’t believe it for a second. He stabs her with vervain and chains her up in the handy basement dungeon. She is not enthused.

Stefan really is showing a darker, sadistic side this season, isn’t he? He was downright malicious with Uncle Jon in the premiere and tonight he seems to almost enjoy torturing Katherine.

Katherine waxes about blah blah eternallovefishcakes and claims she only compelled him after she had revealed she was a vampire to calm his fears (I can see how that would be a shock: “Hi honey, I know you’re vegan, but I’m in the mood for some raw fisherman tonight!”). She insists that Stefan loves her and asks if he remembers some magical night in 1864. Honey, that was 146 years ago—he’s allowed to get over you! Regardless, this brings us to… flashbackville!

Founder’s Day Ball – Lockwood Mansion – 1864
Katherine is Scarlett O’Hara-ing her way through the ball. Henry, one of the tomb vampires who got staked last season, pulls Katherine away from her coquette routine to tell her that he has found out that non-vampire monster (does it start with “w” and end in “-erewolf”?) is attacking people near the town. Henry thinks they should skip town before the vampires get sniffed out.

In my favorite exchange of the evening, the ball’s honoree, George Lockwood, pulls Katherine aside:

Katherine: I’m surprised you’d come looking for me.
George: Because you’re the rope in the Salvatore tug of war?
Katherine: No, because I’m a vampire and I could kill you in your sleep.

She tells him that she’s stronger than he is and wants to make a deal with him. Ooh – revelation alert! We learn that Katherine and George agreed that she would deliver the vampires to the townsfolk in exchange for her own freedom. Villain!

After the ball, Stefan makes my innards cringe by wooing Katherine: “I’ve never met a woman quite like you (that’s for sure). You’re an angel (not quite), blah blah… I touch your skin and my body ignites (and this is a good sign?).”

Katherine has clearly never read a Danielle Steel novel, so she melts. When she returns to her room, Damon is waiting for her. Katherine dismisses him, I’m confused. She has two hot dudes head over heels in love with her – why is she depressed? Does not compute!

Stefan and Katherine (and Elena!)
Stefan is horrified to hear Katherine confess, with not a hint of remorse, that she sacrificed 26 of her vamp-buds, just to fake her own death. She claims she was running from her past. Hey, Katherine? You are a frenzied killing machine with the strength of ten steroid-injected bulls: you do not need to run from anything!

When Katherine threatens to snap Elena’s neck and kill everyone she loves, Stefan almost stakes her, twice. Homegirl seriously needs to stop taunting the stake-wielding rage-a-holic! However, because she’s bad-ass, she manages to free herself and stake Stefan through the leg (Ouch. And, yuck). Katherine reveals she’s been sipping vervain for 145 years and she’s practically immune. So, she… chose to be chained and tortured all day?

Meanwhile, Elena has popped over to the Salvatore mansion, looking for Stefan. She and Katherine faceoff in the hallway. Elena is appropriately freaked out. Katherine vanishes and Stefan limps over to his lady. They establish that neither of them is remotely okay.

Release the Hounds
Mason is refusing to share any information with Tyler about the werewolf curse. He claims that once he tells Tyler the “trigger” for the curse, that Tyler won’t be able to think of anything else. Nope, Mason, instead he’s just going to think about what a douche you are. Is that better?

Predictably the heated exchanges lead to fisticuffs. Mason angrily blurts out that the curse is triggered when you kill someone. Umm… isn’t that a good thing for Tyler to know? Won’t this make him less likely to kill someone else? Mason is lucky he’s so pretty.

Speaking of pretty, Damon has a plan for outing Mason as a werewolf. Aunt Jenna (or Aunt Oblivia, as I like to think of her) has a BBQ and invites the five people she knows, including old high school pal Mason. I think Mason and Jenna have zounds more chemistry than Jenna and Ric. Damon spends the entire evening hilariously baiting Mason—drawing “Dances with Wolves” in Pictionary, pegging him for a “lone wolf,” and trying to get him to touch a silver knife.

Finally, Mason calls him on it and basically says “dude, clearly we know each other’s secrets. This stupid feud doesn’t apply to us, let’s have a beer and chill.” I applaud this approach. Damon responds by following Mason outside post-party and stabbing him in the chest with the silver knife. Annoyed, Mason pulls out the knife, informs Damon that lupine silver allergy is a myth, and declares them enemies (although I’d think the knife-in-chest would make that obvious…).

Caroline Follows Orders
Oh, Caroline—yes, you’re a vampire, but you also clearly suffer from foot-in-mouth syndrome. Caroline spends all her screen time being exceptionally harsh to Elena about how her relationship with Stefan is doomed because he not-so-secretly wants to eat her. On Katherine’s instructions, Caroline tries to keep Elena away from the Salvatore mansion. When she fails, Katherine confronts her and threatens to kill her (again). Caroline apologizes to Elena and eavesdrop as Stefan and Elena stage a breakup, knowing that Caroline will report back to Katherine. I don’t care for any of this. I want Caroline to be on Team Awesome!

We end with Katherine remembering the moments after Stefan and Damon were shot. She casts one last look at the dead bodies of her lovers, makes a beeline for Stefan, and promises him they’ll be together again.

This was a good episode, but the “reveal” that Katherine’s nefarious endgame really is “wah! I want my boyfriend back!” is so disappointing! I want her to be more interesting than that. Also – if she just wants Stefan back, why did she wait 145 years? I really want to know your theories – leave some comments and let me know your two cents!