Vampire Diaries – “Let the Right One In” – review

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Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned…and I’m pretty sure that goes double when she is a vampire. Jeremy Gilbert, brother, you are about to find that out the hard way.  So possibly is Alaric, if he ever manages to track down his wife (or would she still legally be his wife?), vampire Isobel, who so very obviously does not want to be found.

Interestingly, for an episode that was very dramatic and action-filled, most of the important events were set-ups for future plot points.  But let’s run through it all anyway.  Stefan is kidnapped by some of Pearl’s rogue vampires bent on revenge, despite her warnings, and Damon has to go after him.  Stefan is being held and tortured at the house, and Damon cannot come in because one human still lives there and she is compelled to uninvite him.  Damon enlists Alaric to help him get in, while he insists Elena only drive the getaway car.  They manage to break into the house, free Stefan (with Elena’s help, because of course she’s not actually going to stay behind), and send Elena and Stefan off to the car while they provide a distraction.  Pearl comes home and calls the remaining vampires down, but, good news for Mystic Falls–between Damon and Alaric they took out nearly half of the remaining vampires in the coven.  But the ringleader had gone after Stefan and Elena.  After his torture Stefan is too weak to fight, so Elena insists he take some of her blood, after which he handily dispatches Frederick.  One more down. 

Meanwhile, Jeremy continues to pester Anna about turning him, while Pearl talks up Mayor Lockwood.  Pearl notices Anna and Jeremy’s interest in each other, despite her attempt to be covert (but covert texting only works if you don’t keep looking at each other, kids) and confronts Anna about it.  Anna admits that Jeremy knows and proudly flings the fact that he likes it, and her, anyway, in her mother’s face.  Also meanwhile, Caroline gets her car stuck out in the woods in the rain, and while trying to scramble down a bank comes across a human arm half-buried in the leaves and the mud.  Turns out to be Vicki Donovan.  Matt and his mother are devastated by this, as is Jeremy, as is Elena, given her part in Vicki’s death and the cover-up.   

So Vicki continues to screw things up for everyone around her even after she’s dead.  When the sheriff and Caroline are at the Donovan house to tell them, Caroline gently asks Matt if there is anything she can do.  He says he just needs to be alone–but the second Elena walks in he opens his arms to her and lets her comfort him.  Right in front of Caroline.  Poor thing.  I understand why he would take comfort from one but not the other; Elena grew up with Vicki and would actually miss her, too, and Caroline was the one to find her body, which had to be weird to him.  But. Still very hurtful, and I winced when he did that.  In a way that Elena barged in like that, too.

And, yes, Damon, you were a badass this episode.  I loved seeing him actually show his feelings for his brother by his actions, including his lecture to Elena about why she couldn’t help.  Sometimes it’s hard to remember Damon really does love his little brother, but–he really does.  Probably the stupidest thing those vampires could have done was to attack Stefan like that.  It just gave Damon the chance to go all Rambo on them.  Alaric was no slow shakes, either, with his vampire hunting kit and his excellent aim with the vervain darts.  Plus giving Damon the punch he deserved, afterward, for lying about the vampires knowing where Isobel was…but I can’t blame Damon for making the lie.  He needed help, and it was just one more piece of proof that he will literally stop at nothing to save his brother.

Finally, the Jeremy/Anna/Vicki triangle.  Oy.  First, interesting that they brought up the old tension between Tyler and Jeremy with a few looks at the Grill.  Then, when Tyler’s dad told him they had to go because Vicki’s body had just been found, and Jeremy was right there–can you say awkward?  But the worst part was when Anna came by and Jeremy turned to her with tears on his face and said his friend Vicki was dead, that she had been dead.  “The one you thought was a…”  And just like that Anna figures it out, that Jeremy had wanted to turn so that he could go find Vicki.  He tries to apologize, but it’s too late. She’s gone.  And I have no doubt that the next time her mother suggests they go after the Gilberts, Anna will be right on board with it.  Jeremy, you have entered a world of pain.

The final fall-out from the day’s events came at the epilogue, where Damon walks into the house to find Stefan hunched over a bunch of emptied human blood packs and sucking on one with a tortured look on his face.  Apparently just one taste was all it took to send him right back into his old addiction….