The Vampire Diaries – Season 3 Episode 1
by The Hudsonian
**This episode originally aired in September 2011. If you are unfamiliar with the series, turn away to avoid spoilers, or bleeding corneas.**
“Aren’t you going to invite me in?” – Klaus
Oh, he’s a crafty one. And it’s so hard to decline any sort of request from anyone with a British accent. Especially when they’re compelling you to do what they want.
Season two of The Vampire Diaries ended with Klaus becoming the first “hybrid,” which means he is both a werewolf and a vampire. Where they come up with this stuff is beyond me.
This episode starts with Klaus stumbling upon a house in Tennessee, looking for a man named Ray Sutton. When the lovely ladies won’t tell him where he is, Klaus is prepared to coerce them with his new partner in crime:
Stefan.
Stefan does Klaus’s bidding now, following him around the country in his never ending tour to make an army of hybrids, as debt for saving his brother, Damon, who was bitten by Tyler, a werewolf. Being bitten is like contracting HIV, only it’ll kill him sooner.
And that was just the first three minutes of the episode.
This is truly the most remarkable thing about this series. Like most YA shows, they stuff every 40+ minute episode with more story lines than are probably necessary, but few shows make them seem so easy to follow. In other words, it works.
Damon tries to find Stefan but keeps the info from Elena, who later finds out, at which point Damon proclaims Stefan is “gone” – meaning emotionally, not physically.
Jeremy, Elena’s brother, has been brought back from the dead by his girlfriend, Bonnie, who’s also a witch, and is now seeing ghosts of his dead ex-girlfriends.
Alaric, the school history teacher who was dating Elena’s Aunt Jenna, who died in the Season 2 finale, is living with Elena and Jeremy out of guilt because now they don’t have a guardian.
Caroline, a vampire, swoons over Tyler, the werewolf, and shows off her insane jealousy when he brings a date to Elena’s birthday party. In typical Caroline fashion, she compels his date to leave, which, of course, leads to some hot vampire/werewolf sex.
I guess opposites do attract.
Yes, these are basic genre story lines, but the way the dialogue flows, it all seems so natural, and not just generic. Damon’s quips and Caroline’s increased neuroses (vampire’s senses are all heightened, so if she’s naturally neurotic, or horny…yep, you get the idea) play up the comedic undertones of the show enough to give even hipsters the irony they crave. And just when you’re ready to quit because maybe the comedy isn’t enough to hold you, something pops out at the end that makes you go, “Holy Shit! Where’d that come from?!”
Like when Caroline leaves Tyler after their tryst and bumps into Tyler’s mom, the mayor of Mystic Falls, who promptly pumps Caroline full of vervain (which is toxic to vampires).
It’s the little things that get you psyched about next week.
!Gasp!
