Episode Report Card Cindy McLennan: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT You Shouldn't Have
By Cindy McLennan | Season 2 | Episode 6 | Aired on 10.21.2010
Meanwhile, Elena and Caroline have gotten Stefan out of the well -- well, what's left of him. The vervain has eaten away at his skin to an alarming degree. Bonnie's up top with Caroline and I think she does most of the Stefan handling, which is good, since Stefan's been steeping in vervain. Down below, Elena refuses to exit the well until she finds the moonstone. She is fierce -- at least until snakes start crawling on her. How she sticks it out, I do not know. I'd rather have the hot-poker treatment from Damon. Yeah, no, even the non-euphemistic kind. When Caroline pulls her brave mortal friend back up to ground level, Elena rushes to Stefan, opens a vein with a ROCK, and feeds him. People are sweating the fact that she, too, is drenched in vervain, but I figure whatever residue is on her skin can only match the residue on his. He was face down in the stuff, and besides, shut up.
Alaric and Jenna are cooking, flirting, drinking and smooching, when Elena arrives home and mouths to Alaric that they got the moonstone, before she sneaks upstairs.
Back in the Salvatore Dungeon, Caroline tells Liz about her big day and is touched when Liz comments on how strong and confident she's become. Liz promises to keep Caroline's secret without having her memories taken away. "I'll never do anything to hurt you." Caroline knows she can trust her mom, but she also knows her mom is never going to trust the Salvatores, so she compels her (but handily fails to mention said Salvatores in the doing) in a tear-jerking speech that has to be seen for full effect. Now Caroline has been a really quick learner when it comes to her vampyrism, so it's hard to know how to take this scene. Either she's accidentally left out some important bits in her mother's compulsion, which will bite her in the ass later, or the scene grew so touching that the writers didn't want to muck it up with specific instructions. I'm leaning toward the latter, for now, and assuming that later, off-screen, Caroline dotted the compulsion Is and crossed the Ts. If I'm wrong, then I'll get a lovely surprise.
When Stefan arrives home with his skin back on and the moonstone, he finds Damon wrapping Mason up in tarp, and snarks, "I see you exercised your usual restraint." Damon just shrugs, which kind of kills me until I remember I have to hate him for at least another eight minutes, so harumph. He then grabs Mason's cell phone and texts a goodbye note to Carol Lockwood. Stefan wants to get rid of the body, but Damon wants to nose through Mason's phone. Overcome by Evil Pixie Monster curiousity, he hits the last number dialed button and turns his eye thing on Stefan as he says, "I wonder who that could possibly be." Of course it's Katherine Kaka Face. Stefan tries to get the phone away from Damon and warns him not to taunt Happy Fun Psychopathic Ex, but to no avail. When KaKa assumes Mason is calling her, Damon teases, "Wrong boy toy." Damon wastes no time letting her know he huffed and puffed and blew Brick House down (and threw his heart across the parlor). Katherine and I have little in common, except a deep and abiding hate for people who kill the pretty. She sneers what I've been thinking for the last several scenes. "You shouldn't have." Damon provokes her further by telling her Mason obviously didn't trust her since he hid the moonstone in a well full of vervain. Damon thinks he has the upper hand, but Katherine's quick to set him straight. She has not only a plan B, but plans for every letter of the alphabet, like Sue Grafton, but fangy-er. She then breaks out her own hot poker as she closes their conversation with a chipper, "Send my love to Stefan." After Damon hangs up, he and Stefan share A Look.