Episode Report Card Cindy McLennan: B- | 135 USERS: B+ YOU GRADE IT Back To School
By Cindy McLennan | Season 5 | Episode 1 | Aired on 10.03.2013
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Welcome back, everyone. It's a new, delightfully Original lite-to-free season. Let's dive right in (no offense, Stefan). Are you with me? Okay.
Stefan is still trapped underwater, in a safe. Silas is walking around in his true face. Since that true face is identical to Stefan's, I may continue to call Silas Stylus, because it helps me remember who I'm looking at.
Bonnie is but a ghost. Since Jeremy can see dead people though, she is using him to text her friends as if she's still alive, because yes -- learning that Jeremy and Bonnie have deceived them for months, will surely lessen the pain when her loved ones finally learn of her passing, right? Ugh. Why did death make her stupid? Or okay, stupider.
Tyler has been and continues to be out of town, helping some Appalachian werewolf pack. It's time for the show to fish or cut bait, with Tyler. All these extended absences are leaving his character with the emotional resonance of a waterlogged corpse (no offense, Stefan). Caroline has spent the summer planning the decor of the Whitmore College dorm she'll be sharing with Elena. And yes, I'd scoff at using decor in conjunction with dorm, but this is fantasy TV. The dorm room is nicer and more spacious than any given room in my house.
Damon and Elena have spent the summer shagging, but all good things must come to an end. Witness: Katherine. Now that she's human, I understand that Kiki has lost all her vampiric powers. Where I'm struggling is that is appears said powers include the skill to remove smudged, day-old eye makeup, and the ability to run a comb through her hair. Even when in a setting as flattering as Damon's bubble-filled tub, without her beast within, this beauty looks like a drowned rat (no offense, Stefan).
Stylus is after Katherine. Damon agrees to let her hide out at Mossy Manse. When Stylus finds Kiki in the tub, she at first thinks he's Stefan, but learns the truth soon enough. As she's fleeing the house, Damon and Jeremy return home. Damon orders Jeremy to take off with Katherine, but once they're alone, Stylus informs Damon that he knows where the real Stefan is, and he'll only give that information, in exchange for our once (and hopefully -- future) fair Kiki.
Meanwhile, Matt and Rebekah return from their European debaucheries. Rebekah heads off to New Orleans and her new series, while Matt returns to what promises to be a dangerous and unsatisfying existence, because it's going to play out, in Mystic Falls. Still, he's back to work, and struggling to keep his head above water (no offense, Stefan), until he runs into Nadia, a woman with whom he and Rebekah had a completely time-slot inappropriate evening, which culminated with Nadia stealing the Gilbert Protect-o ring that Matt had been wearing. Nadia claims to have traveled from Prague to the Falls, just to return the ring, but once Matt puts it back on, a man comes up behind him, grabs his Matt's head and incants something in a foreign language, which causes Matt's baby blues to turn totally black, like he's suddenly the demonic part of a Supernatural crossover event.
The episode is not without its casualties. Elena and Caroline's new roommate (who drinks vervain water, and has a picture of herself with Dr. Gilbert) is killed by a vampire. Stylus kills the Mayor, aka Bonnie's Interim Dad, and Jeremy is nearly killed, when Katherine grabs the steering wheel of his car and crashes it into a pole, so she can avoid being returned to Stylus. Damon opens a vein, saves the boy's life, which he certainly owes him.
Just as I'm not big on pilots, I am not crazy about season premieres. "I Know What You Did Last Summer," sets all the pieces in place, but I had a hard time remaining engaged. I think some of that is me, though. I have some nits to pick and will do so in the full recap. True confession: in this recaplet, I'm just trying to tread water (no offense, Stefan).
I'll be back with the full recap, ASAP. In the meantime, please grade the episode at the top of the page, and then come on over to the forum, where we are sometimes all wet (no offense, Stefan).
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously, on The Vampire Diaries, Elena and Stefan fell in love, then Elena and Damon fell in love. A resurrecting Silas killed Jeremy. Bonnie harnessed some bad juju to bring him back, then she died, but since Jeremy sees dead people, he can still talk to her. Elena shoved the cure down Katherine's slender throat. Silas revealed his true face and we learned that Stefan is Silas's shadow self -- his doppelgänger. Silas stuffed Stefan in a safe and tossed said safe in the quarry.
Now, on The Vampire Diaries, Bonnie is still misleading her friends about her death. They think she's on an extended vacation with her mother. If either Elena or Caroline stopped to think about anything other than themselves for two seconds they'd realize Bonnie's not just lying, she's lying carelessly. Since when has Abby wanted to do anything with Bonnie that didn't involve either controlling or abandoning her? Fortunately, Elena is too busy having sex with Damon to notice. I don't have to recap the whole Elena voice-over thing, do I? Great. Thanks.
Caroline is channeling all her control freakiness into preparing herself and Elena for college and bullying an absent Tyler into attending with them. Matt and Rebekah have been sending postcards (I miss postcards, I saved a couple of ancient ones my Nana sent me from Canada when I was little) from their European travels, that is, when they're not too busy having threeways with the nubile Nadia (Olga Fonda, no relation to The Fonda family) -- which hey, it's hard to type while I'm clutching my pearls, but this show is on at 8 PM on the East Coast, which means it is on at 7 PM in the midwest. That scene is inappropriate to the time slot. It disappoints me when TVD goes there. This is a show for teenagers -- a show which, when it is firing on all cylinders -- is exciting enough that there's no need for mindless titillation. You don't even need to go there, TVD. When you're trying, you've already got the goods that keep people turning in. Still, it is nice to see Matty flash a carefree grin. Anyhow, Bonnie dictates texts and email to Jeremy, so that he can send them to Elena and continue the fake out. No, it makes no sense that Bonnie has continued the charade that she's living this long. OMG, I just lost track because there was a SPIDER crawling down my arm. Thank goodness I have long sleeves on. Let's move on to a new, spider-free paragraph.
The voice-over correspondence between Elena and Bonnie continues over scenes of Jeremy entering Mossy Manse and finding -- much to his disgust -- that Elena and Damon are making out on the couch. Look kid, I can understand you not wanting to see it, but since your unstable sister burnt your house down, you pretty much have no place else to go, so please remember beggars can't be choosers.