OMG I CAN'T EVEN!

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You know, every week, I pretty much want to name the episode something like "OMG I CAN'T EVEN!" I generally don't, because it's stupid. But tonight, I'm succumbing to the stupidity, because the only thing more tense than this episode was the struggle to watch the darned thing. Here, let me show you...

8:00 PM: Turn on TV. CW affiliate stuck on single frame of an ad for Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts.

8:05 PM: Ditto. Send panicked e-mail to editor Angel, and start whining on Twitter.

8:10 PM: DITTO! Pour glass of wine while husband calls cable company. Leave Angel a note on Facebook.

8:12 PM: Cable company says that they've had over a thousand calls reporting the same issue.

8:17 PM: Start making stabby motions at stupid frozen face of Le Cordon Bleu spokeschef. E-mail boss-lady, again. Bitch some more on Twitter.

8:20 PM: FINALLY! Episode starts up, twenty minutes in, and mid-Twitter bitch.

8:20 - 9:00 PM: Watch remainder of episode and drink copious amounts of wine.

9:00 PM: Get lots of summaries of the first 20 minutes from fabulous people on the forums, including: Morrigan1575, Noir Mayhem, efh, cheese2000 and Belley. Huge love to you all, and to ponygirl76, Lizatlax and approximofnice on Twitter.

10:30 PM: New, timely, anonymous friend delivers a recording I can watch. Bless my friend. Pour more wine. Watch. E-mail Madame Editorix. Pour more wine.

11:15 PM: You ready? Yeah. Me fricking too. Okay. Katherine, pretending to be Elena, meets up with a Matt-stalking Caroline at the Grill. KaKa has a message for the Brothers Salvatore: Gimme the moonstone or else. Caroline relays the message. She and the Brothers Salvatore scheme, and pull Alaric, Bonnie and even the Germ in to play along. Meanwhile, Elena and compelled-Matt tend to a recuperating Jenna at home. Elena won't be going to the Masquerade Ball at the Lockwood's, but Matt will. Elena nearly leads us all in prayer by encouraging us to imagine Matt in a suit. Try it yourself. See what I mean?

Once Alaric has taught the New Scooby-Doo Revue (NSDR) how to use his nifty weapons, he gets his marching orders: head over to Gilbert Gables, tend to Jenna and keep a close eye on Elena, while the NSDR takes on Katherine at the Masquerade. You know Alaric's going to fail on one of those fronts, right? That's because he's still shilling the Ric thang.

Katherine straightens her hair, if not her 'tude, and brings her own African-American witch to the Masquerade Ball, because... black witches are the new black. Or perhaps because she has enough respect for our beautiful Brothers Salvatore that she knows they'll try something. At any rate, there's a new witch in town, and her name is Lucy, y'all.

Bonnie, with Germ as her lieutenant, casts a spell on an upper room at the Lockwood mansion, which (much like the tomb spell) seals vampires inside. And crap, if she can do that, can't she put a de-invite on Gilbert Gables? Stefan and Damon ambush Katherine. They even manage to stake her, but miss her heart, because it's even smaller than the pre-Christmas Grinch's. The problem is, everything they do to Katherine also happens to Elena -- who of course has snuck out of the house to spy on the goings-on at the Masquerade Ball. Once the NSDR realizes what's up, the boys stop attacking Katherine. Bonnie must set Katherine free, but she finds KaKa's witch first, who lo and behold is a distant Bennett cousin. Once Bonnie grabs Lucy's hand, she knows she can trust her and gives her the moonstone. Lucy brings it to Katherine but before she hands it over, she makes Katherine acknowledge that Lucy is no longer indebted to her. When Lucy gives her the stone KaKa learns the hard way that it's been cursed! She falls to the floor, lifeless.

Stefan finds Elena outside, and tells her Katherine is gone. They can be together. Elena's all, Not so fast, Bub -- did you see Pudding Pop in his suit? Okay, no, what she actually says is that she loves him, but she can't get back together with him until she feels safe. What? Instead, let's just decide that Elena's a smart cookie and must know there's no way KaKa is dead this early on, particularly not before the end of Sweeps.

And KaKa's not dead. Damon has delivered her to the tomb. Once she's sealed in, he leaves her there, ignoring her pleas and warnings that there's something coming and they're going to need her to protect Elena. Back at the ball, Elena walks off from Stefan, and is immediately grabbed by a spooky masked baddie. AieeeEEEEE!

And babies? That's only the half of it. Matt follows through on Katherine's compulsion command and does everything he can to enrage Tyler. Luckily, Caroline realizes what's going on and knocks him out, cold. But Aimee's friend, who has been partying with them, is under compulsion, too. She stabs Tyler with a letter opener. He throws her off in self-defense, but she strikes her head on the late Mayor's desk and breaks her neck for real this time. Tyler turns. Oh, and somewhere about 20 minutes into the episode, Katherine kills Aimee, right on the dance floor. And, finally, there's some Bonnie/Jeremy sparkage. Do you see what I mean when I say OMG I CAN'T EVEN! Yeah. I thought so.

"Masquerade" is, once again, A+ work from the cast, but I have a couple of things I'm mulling over, so I'm holding off on a grade until the full weecap, but don't let that stop you. Grade the episode at the top of the page, now. And grade it when you come back to read the weecap too, which I'll put up, ASAP. Until then, please join us on the boards, where we're trying to figure out why the heck the NSDR sealed the moonstone in the tomb with KaKa.

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Want more? The full recap starts right below!

It's a busy weekend, and I had a trying time watching this episode (see recaplet for details) so I'm getting right to it. You ready? Okay. Katherine tells Caroline that if Damon and Stefan don't give her the moonstone tonight, at the Masquerade Ball, she will rip apart Mystic Falls until it rains blood. Katherine, "It's Raining Men" is a classic. Why deviate from the norm? Matt helps Elena and Jeremy bring Jenna (who thinks she walked into a knife) home from the hospital, and the subtlest of sparks fly between Matt and Elena. Katherine enlists the help of African-American witch Lucy, who is indebted to her, because... um... black witches are the new black. Seriously, Show? In an attempt to thwart Katherine's moonstone-grabby plans, Caroline, Stefan, Damon, Alaric, Jeremy, Bonnie and her grimoire form a sort of New Scooby-Doo Revue (NSDR), and leave Elena totally in the dark. The NSDR sends Alaric to Gilbert Gables to watch Jenna and Elena, while they flit off to the ball

At said ball, Katherine shores up her compulsion of Matt. He'll beat down Tyler until Tyler kills him. Later, KaKa dances with Stefan as she bargains for the moonstone. Once he leaves his thrall-mistress, Matt works hard at getting himself, Tyler, Aimee Bradley and Sarah drunk.

Meanwhile, Bonnie and Jeremy make their way to an upper room, bust out the grimoire and set about casting a sealing spell. Bonnie confesses to Jeremy that she hasn't done too much magical research, because she doesn't want to know about any spells which accomplish other than good. She's only helping because she doesn't want anyone else getting hurt, and doesn't know how to stay out of it.

Meanwhile, at Gilbert Gables, Elena twigs to the fact that it's weird all of her friends are going to the Masquerade Ball without her, haven't contacted her all day, and have even managed to drag the anti-social Germ along. Alaric tries to play dumb but it neither suits him nor fools Elena. Over at the ball, Bonnie senses Lucy's presence and confronts her, but the witch plays herself off as a mere innocent Plus-1 at a swanky party. Back at Gilbert Gables, Elena sneaks out of the house.

At the ball, Katherine strong-arms Stefan into dancing with her. When he labors under the false impression that he's this week's Dungeon Master, Katherine sets him straight by killing poor, enthralled, slutting-it-up Aimee, right on the dance floor. No, I don't know how nobody saw that (or Stefan dragging her lifeless corpse off the dance floor), either.

Jeremy and Bonnie chat about her magic as they wait for their signal from the Salvatores. Jeremy's feeling his oats. "Can you do a hocus-pocus and ace a test?" When Bonnie says she doesn't play that way, Jeremy replies, "That would be like the first one I'd learn... Or maybe like a sex spell, or something. I don't know." Bonnie's bedazzled masquerade mask can't hide the fact that Bonnie's eyes are bugging out of her head, but Jeremy's high on vampire hijinks and hormones, so he proposes they dance to pass the time until the Salvatores text them. At first, Bonnie laughs her ass off, because this is her BFF's little brother, y'all. Then she considers his...well, his clean-haired Jeremy-ness, and amends her answer to a polite, "No, thank you." Damon then sends a "Now" text to the Germ, saving him from any further awkward advances. Since he's up, Jeremy finds Katherine, and pretends he thinks she's Elena until Lucy leaves them. Once they're alone, he tells Madame KaKa to meet the Brothers Salvatore at the edge of the Lockwood Lake, down by the woods. After Katherine leaves him, Elena pops out of nowhere and pulls Jeremy aside. "What the hell is going on?"

Katherine hasn't un-lived this long by being stupid, so rather than running right to our beautiful brothers, she throttles Caroline in some remote corridor of the mansion. Oh, she pretends she wants intel from her baby-vamp, but we all know this is really all about the show's Obligatory Throttling of the Week (OTotW). After the OTotW, Caroline leads Katherine to the enchanted upper room, but it's only once Katherine has crossed the threshold, and Caroline has not, that KaKa learns Bonnie has sealed her sassafras in there. It's like the tomb, but more well-appointed.

Stefan and Damon do their damnedest to kill Katherine, but she really does have plans for every letter of the alphabet, so it's tougher than you'd think (or hope). They battle it out with their cheating ex until Jeremy rushes upstairs and informs the Brothers Salvatore that anything anyone does to Katherine also manifests on the ever-fair form of our Miss Gilbert. So far, they've staked KaKa in the back (missing her pre-Christmas Grinch-sized heart), and stabbed her in the arm. And our Elena? She's hurting because of it. Once Katherine has this confirmation, she inflicts some gratuitous self-harm, just to freak out our pretty boys. Outside, poor Elena suffers and bleeds.

Bonnie can't reverse the spell linking Elena to Katherine, but she can cast a spell to relieve Elena's pain, so she does, because duh, they're BFFs. When Jeremy returns, Bonnie leaves him with Elena and rushes off to find Katherine's witch. Upstairs, Katherine taunts Stefan with Damon's feelings for Elena, but Stefan is focused and doesn't let her get to him.

Meanwhile, Matt, Tyler and Sarah are back in the late Mayor Lockwood's study, wondering where Aimee is. Matt amps up his antagonism of Tyler by pouring booze all over the room, and then over a Lockwood family portrait. When that doesn't achieve his desired/compelled results, Matt mocks the late, great Mayor, and gets rough with Ty. There's tackling, punching and all manner of fisticuffs. Fortunately, for our Pudding Pop, there's also noise -- noise that Caroline overhears. When she can't get Matt to back off of Ty, she knocks him out cold with a totally bad-ass blow to the head. It's then that we learn that Katherine has also compelled Sarah to provoke Tyler, in case Matt fails. Despite Caroline's warning shout, Sarah stabs Tyler with a letter opener. When he throws her off in self-defense, Sarah falls, hits her head on the late Mayor's desk, and breaks her slender neck -- for reals, this time. When Tyler's efforts to rouse her prove futile, he flashes wolf eyes at Caroline, and I marvel at how -- in just a year's time -- I've gone from hating Little Lockwood to kind of loving him.

Upstairs, Stefan figures out that back in 1864, Katherine gave the moonstone to George Lockwood, in exchange for her freedom, which Damon and Stefan then promptly bolloxed up. Stefan can't figure out why Katherine had it, but reckons it wasn't hers to begin with. He decides that long ago and far away, KaKa faked her death because she was on the run. Katherine gives him no answers. Instead, she lets him know she has stalked him over the years, including 1987, when he went to a Bon Jovi concert, with the late, great Lexi. Stefan doesn't let that distract him. He demands to know what Katherine has been running from, but she just mouths "I love you," at him.

Downstairs, Bonnie finds Lucy, and tries to stare her down, but once they touch, Bonnie realizes she can trust Lucy and gives her the moonstone. WHAT?! I hope you're right, B.

Back upstairs, Damon shoves Katherine against the wall and readies himself to stake her as soon as the linkage spell has been lifted from Elena. Speaking of... it's then that Lucy arrives -- moonstone in hand. She informs Katherine that the room-sealage spell has been lifted. Once she gets Katherine's confirmation that their score is settled, Lucy hands KaKa the moonstone. But wait! It must be transmitting some bad juju, because when Katherine touches it, she gasps for breath and falls to the floor -- moaning and groaning. Lucy scolds Katherine for not warning her that another witch -- particularly a Bennett witch -- is involved in the intrigue, but Katherine's not up for explanations. As he watches Katherine suffer, dawn breaks over Stefan's marble head, so he yells, "Wait. Elena!" but Lucy informs him that Elena's fine. The Katherine/Elena linkage has been broken, and she'll heal quickly with Bonnie by her side. As Lucy apologizes to the boys for her involvement, Katherine loses consciousness and the fans go wild.

In the study, Caroline lies to Carol Lockwood that Sarah was drunk and just tripped and ended up all dead. Carol seems to believe her, but when Ty informs the ladies that Sheriff Forbes is there, Carol leaves Caroline with a warning to wait for her mother. "She's going to want to hear this story from you." Once Tyler is alone with Caroline, he asks why she lied. Caroline, who has already stashed an unconscious Matt away in her car, is playing the sweeper in this episode, and pretty much admits it, but when she hints that she's aware of Tyler's lycanthropy, he sneers -- clearly thinking she has no idea what's what. Caroline proves herself by half asking/half pointing out that his stab wound has healed. Ty's all, "How did you..." as we cut to the mansion's exterior.

Bonnie chases after a departing Lucy. She wants to know more, like why she instantly trusted this stranger. Lucy explains that she's a distant relative. "My mother is Joanna, first cousin twice-removed from Pauline, niece of Sheila." Scott says, "They're more closely related to Noah than each other." He's not wrong, but whatevs. Seeing Bonnie was a wake up call for Lucy; she's swearing off vampire entanglements. Bonnie wants to know how to stay out of the middle of them, too. Lucy tells her she can't. "Unlike me, you're one of the good ones, Bonnie. The middle of it is exactly where you need to be." Right after Lucy promises Bonnie they'll meet again, she walks off, but Jeremy soon approaches. When he offers Bonnie a ride home, she boggles at the fact that he's old enough to drive. Jeremy's expression, while exasperated, remains charming. "I'm not a kid anymore, Bonnie." He ain't, girl. Look at that, there. Oh, hey, she's listening to me. Bonnie: "I'd... love a ride home." And by "ride home" I think she means, well, you know what I think she means. All right, she probably doesn't mean it yet, but she is so going to mean it.

Meanwhile, Elena, who just moments ago was bleeding out, is now standing by her lonesome -- along the side of Lockwood Lake. Stefan finds her and tells her that Katherine is gone. No way is that bitch dead so soon, and certainly not before the end of November Sweeps. What kind of rubes do you take us for, Stefan? He's not listening. He's all intent on reuniting with Elena, Elena, Elena -- but guess what? Elena is so not ready to get back with him. "I want to be with you, Stefan, you know that. But first? I need to wake up and know that the people I love are safe. I need to feel safe. Do you understand?" Stefan nods quietly. Elena sighs and limps off, leaving him as alone as she is.

Katherine wakes up alone with her beloved moonstone in ye olde tomb. The moonstone no longer seems toxic to her, because she grabs it from the ground as she rises to her feet, only to find she can't leave the tomb. As Kat struggles against an invisible barrier -- like a mime in a box, only sexier -- Damon appears and informs her she's where she should have been all along. When she tells him he should have killed her, he replies that death would have been too kind. No, it wouldn't have, Damon. It would have been the only action that made sense, and yet...? Katherine begs Damon not to close the tomb door, adding that Elena's in danger. Damon accuses her of lying as usual, but Katherine insists otherwise. "Why do you think I haven't killed her? She's the doppelganger. She needs to be protected." Damon considers this for a moment then says, "Then I'll protect her while you rot in Hell." Booyah! He slams the door on Katherine's pretty, pretty face as she screams, "You need me. You need me." Once the tomb is closed off, Damon breathes a sigh of relief.

Elena walks alone through the parking area. She's on the phone with the Germ, telling him she's okay and has her car. She encourages him to take Bonnie home and then get himself to bed. But wait! The moment Elena hangs up, she's grabbed by a scary ass masquerade-y clown, leaving us hanging until week. AieeeeEEEEEE! Can't sleep. Clowns will eat me.

"Masquerade" is, once again, A+ work from the cast, but I have a couple of quibbles with the plotting/writing. Elena nearly DIED, yet we are to believe that Jeremy and Bonnie left her standing all alone in a vampire-infested town, on the shores of Lockwood Lake, and Stefan (dumped or not) didn't escort (or stalk) her to her car or to her home? Are we also to believe Elena's "I want me and mine to be safe," excuse for breaking up with Stefan? I acknowledge the fact that the writers planted the idea early on in the episode, when Elena told Matt that there's so much about her and Stefan that will never work. And yet? I don't buy it. But regardless, does Elena know Katherine is alive but entombed? Does Stefan know Katherine is alive but entombed? Did Bonnie seal her in the tomb? Why didn't Damon just stake KaKa once she was unconscious? Actually, I kind of know the answer to that one. He's been obsessed with her for 145+ years. Despite all his preening earlier in the episode, I can totally buy that he'd need to know she's suffering more than he'd need to know she's dead. But... so what? Why didn't Stefan kill the bitch? I mean -- other than it being far too early on in Katherine's story, there's no reason (no organic reason) for the NSDR to let her live. On Twitter, Julie Plec has been categorizing this as part 1 of a two-part episode, so perhaps my questions will be answered in episode 2-8, but there were enough shortcuts and loose ends in this one that I'm not banking on it. The most glaring WTF moment, at least for me, was when Katherine left Stefan holding a dead Aimee on the dance floor, in the middle of the ball. I know it amped up the drama for Kat to kill someone in such a careless fashion, but watching it play out took me right out of the story.

Okay. If the preceding paragraph explains why the episode didn't get an A+, then this paragraph is all about why it did get an A. The action was non-stop. Nina Dobrev continues to wow me with her dual roles. And best of all, for me, the girls aren't damsels in distress. Sure, Bonnie and her distant cousin are nearly Mystical Negroes, but with the Jeremy-chemistry in the offing, I'm choosing to hold off on levying that judgment. One thing that's brassing me off is... well, it's the fandom. I can't count how many times I've read criticism of Elena sneaking out of the house and heading for the ball. Allow me to point out that had Elena not done so, she'd have died at home, thanks to the linkage spell. In other girl power news, how awesome was Caroline's glee at having bested Katherine? And for that matter, how fierce was Bonnie when she confronted Lucy, long before she knew they were related? Call Mystic Falls anything you want -- anything but a feminist ghetto. The ladies save the day more often than not, and -- given the CW's target demographic -- that's a good thing. Thank you, writers!

I have some other thanks to dole out, too. Here's a big thanks to Hamnoo, Nerg, Morrigan1575, Noir Mayhem, efh, cheese2000 and Belley from the TWoP boards, and to ponygirl76, Lizatlax and approximofnice on Twitter. If you tuned in Friday morning, you know my cable company lost its CW feed for the first third of the episode. The lovely and talented people listed above gave me great summaries and other help, in case I wasn't able to see the episode before the recaplet deadline. As it turns out, I did get to see it, but it warmed my cold, brittle heart that so many busy people with full lives were willing to lend a hand in a time of need. You all rock. Wait, you do more than that. You boulder. You fricking planet. I love you, m'kay?

I'll be here Friday morning with my review of the upcoming "Rose." Until then, please join us on the boards where we're trying to figure out why the heck the NSDR sealed the moonstone in the tomb with Katherine. Got an idea? Some love? Some hate? E-mail me at CynthiaMcLennan[at]gmail.com, or follow me on Twitter, and let me know what you think.

See why we love the show, then join our vloggers in debating whether Diaries beats True Blood, below.

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