It's a flashback episode, so since this is the nuts and bolts version, I'm going to give it to you in chronological order.
1864: Before she even turns him, Katherine teaches Damon the old play dead in the road trick for fun and profit -- or at least a warm meal. And that's even before they had cars. After she feeds, she asks Damon to kiss her on her bloody mouth, just to get a taste. When he refuses, she tells him he'll crave blood soon enough, so of course he immediately changes his mind and kisses her dripping maw. Later, they're in bed, when Emily interrupts because Katherine's got a visitor downstairs. It's her friend Pearl who reports that Honoria Fell has brought some elixir to the apothecary to sell on the cheap to all the townies. Pearl makes Katherine try it on her wrist. It burns! It's Vervain. They realize the humans know about vampires, but Katherine is Giuseppe Salvatore's guest and Pearl is Jonathan Gilbert's crush (despite the fact that she has a teenaged daughter -- ANNAbelle.) so these two day-walkers hope to avoid detection.
Stefan thinks he and Damon should try to win their father over to Katherine's side. Damon neither likes nor trust their father though, so he makes Stefan promise he won't. When Giuseppe tries to enlist his boys in the proto-F'n COW, he notices their lack of enthusiasm and later, Stefan starts talking about fair-play for vampires, so Dad spikes his drink with Vervain. When Katherine takes a bite out of Stefan in bed, she chokes and hisses the name of her poison. Father enters the room, and orders Stefan to get the Sheriff. Stefan tries to talk him out of it, but can't stand up to his father. They lead the drugged Katherine out in a Hannibal Lecter-ish mask, and throw in her the back of the police wagon. Stefan sees Pearl, Anna and Emily watching from their hiding place, but Pearl decides to get her horse and try to save Katherine. It's then that she runs into Jonathan Gilbert, who talks excitedly to her, until his ACTUAL VAMPIRE COMPASS points out that she's an ACTUAL VAMPIRE. She begs him for mercy, but he shoots her and has another Lecter mask slapped on her. Anna watches her mother get dragged away.
2010: Even though Stefan promised to help Damon get Emily's grimoire -- so that they can get the spell to free Katherine from the tomb beneath the church ruins, Damon doesn't know if he can trust his brother. He stays right up Stefan and Elena's asses as they hunt down the journal. He also makes himself at home at Gilbert Gables and gets to know Jenna who whispers to Elena that he's ridiculously hot. Elena, realizing Damon can use his bionic vamp hearing whispers back that he's an ass. That's not important to the story, but it was my favorite moment, so there you go. Anyhow, they find out from Jeremy that Alaric has Jonathan Gilbert's journal. Before Stefan goes to the school, Anna's already there. She stalks Alaric and gets the journal, right after he makes copies of it.
Alaric thinks Stefan was the one stalking him, and tries to shoot him with a homemade stake gun. Stefan gets him to stop the foolishness and they talk. He reveals his wife Isabel was a parapsychologist. Alaric saw Damon kill her, but when he happened on the scene, Damon disappeared and took Isabel's body with him, so Alaric doesn't know what happened to her. I wonder if she's as dead as all that. Anyhow, Stefan gets the photocopied journal pages from Alaric and when he reviews them with Elena, he realizes his father took Emily's grimoire with him to his grave. They go dig it up and get the book, but Damon has tracked down Anna in the meantime, thanks to the Germ, and forces her to let him see the original journal, so he shows up at the grave. When Stefan won't give him the grimoire, Damon chides himself for thinking for a second that he could ever trust Stefan, after the way Stefan broke his promise back in 1864 -- which I don't think he actually did -- but that'll keep 'til the weecap. Anyhow, Damon grabs Elena, and force-feeds her some of his blood. He'll turn her unless Stefan trades the grimoire for her life. Stefan does, of course.
Later, Stefan and Elena are at her house. He goes downstairs to get her some aspirin and talks to Jenna, and to Germ, who mentions that his friend Anna is there. At the mention of the name, Stefan flashes back to 1864 and remembers Pearl's daughter. He fairly flies upstairs to Elena's room, but she's gone and her bedroom window is wide open.
Meanwhile, Bonnie is out with Ben (who was turned by Anna and is kind of her boyfriend). Bonnie gets impulsive and kisses him, but when their lips meet, she realizes that he is a vampire. She tries to make like she's going to the ladies room (I don't know if she's going to flee or call Elena), but Ben's onto her, so he grabs her and takes her out into the night. Thanks to friendly date conversation, Ben knows Bonnie and Elena are BFFs, bonded to one another for life; they would do anything for each other. Poor Elena. Heroine one week; damsel the .
Join me on the flip side for the full weecap. In the meantime, come on over to the forums, where we never, ever sing karaoke.
Read diaries of some other famous vampires, then check back soon for Cindy's highly detailed weecap.