The Vampire Diaries- Summary of seasons one and two.

Ok, stop laughing TVD fans. We can do this. This show CAN be summarized in under two million words. We know people don’t have time to catch up on a show but have heard this one is good. So if you are thinking of starting up in September, for the first time, read on. But be aware that like ten important things happen per episode (because the pacing is brilliant), so this is a long one. Those who want to brush up on the mythology can read this too, because we included most of it.

Why you should watch this show: Do you like plot twists? Do you like plot twists that make you gasp out loud or shriek? Well then, let us introduce you to the show that has at least two major ones per episode. The number-one good thing about this show is that, after the first three episodes or so, it never, ever drags. Also, the romances are actually healthy. The teenagers on the show are actually good people, for the most part, who act with maturity and even some integrity. There are plenty of people to root for. And there are plenty of people to hate. The baddies bring the action. Fine, we will now get to the number two good thing about this show: Hot guys. It’s against this show’s policy to cast any uggos. The girls are pretty too, guys. While there is a romance element, the violence, mystery, and creepitude could make this an option for young guys to watch too.

The worst thing about this show? The name of it. We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: The name of the show, the channel it airs on, and the fact that Twilight exists all compile to trick people into not knowing this is an awesome show. So watch it. It’s best to catch up, but if you can’t, you can start watching after you read this.

Summary starts here. Spoilers too:First, read the cast of characters. You can refer to the picture. (From Left to Right) Elena, Stefan, Jeremy, Damon, and Caroline. Bonnie is seated.

• Elena Gilbert- The main female character, a high school girl. She’s just like Bella Swan, only not stupid, not weak, not confused, and not useless. She’s adopted, but that’s going to be news to her at some point during the series.
• Jeremy Gilbert- Elena’s younger brother who spends, like, 90% of the series moping.
• Jenna Sommers- Elena and Jeremy’s aunt who is their legal guardian. Largely useless for most of the series. But TVD characters don’t stay useless for long….
• John Gilbert- Uhhhhhhh. Elena’s uncle. Let’s go with that. (He’s really her dad. Her mom’s name is Isobel Flemming. She makes an appearance later.)
• Stefan Salvatore- A vampire who tries to be good. This does not stop him from having bad-ass moments.
• Damon Salvatore- Stefan’s older brother, the anti-hero of the series. He’s like Jack Bauer, Professor Snape, Mephistopheles, a drunk teenager, an angry homeless guy, with a dash of The Dark Knight’s Joker piled into the body of a hot guy. Who is a vampire. Who sometimes has feelings.
• Katherine Pierce- A vampire. We really can’t get into Katherine without giving a HECK of a lot of back story, but remember her name, because she is important. And awesome.
• Klaus- Remember him too. Back story needed. Yada yada. Remember “Elijah” too. They’re vampires who are gonna pop up and wreak havoc.
• Bonnie Bennett- Elena’s best friend, a witch, and the only minority main character. So she’s easy to spot, lol.
• Caroline Forbes- Elena’s other friend. She’s the blonde one. Largely useless for the first season, except to make Elena look classy because of how jealous and selfish Caroline always was. But, again, TVD characters don’t stay useless for long. In fact, she’s in our top three characters right now.
• Matt Donovan- Elena’s ex-boyfriend.
• Vicki Donovan- Matt’s beautiful, but troubled, older sister. She’s into sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll. If only that were ALL she got into….
• Tyler Lockwood- The mayor’s son who is kind of a douche. Largely useless for the first season, but, well, you know.
• Alaric Saltzman- A history teacher at the high school. And Damon’s best buddy. Sort of. After a while. There’s a bromance, we swear. But we’ll get to that.

When we first meet Elena, her parents have been killed in a car accident. Elena was in the car when it went into water and sank, but she survived. Now, Elena and Jeremy are living with their Aunt Jenna in the town they grew up in, Mystic Falls. Jeremy has turned to drugs to ease the pain, and he is also having a secret fling with Vicki, even though she is dating Tyler Lockwood. At school, Elena catches the eye of a new student, Stefan Salvatore. They are clearly attracted to each other. The audience finds out early on that Stefan is a vampire. After all, the title of the show and the paleness of Stefan’s skin made keeping it a “secret” a stupid idea. Later, Vicki is found bitten and attacked, presumably by a wild animal. Stefan knows better and realizes that he is not the only vampire in Mystic Falls. He then comes face-to-face with his older brother, Damon, who he has not seen in 15 years. While Stefan survives on animal blood, Damon has no problem feasting on humans. Stefan decides that this town ain't big enough for the both of them.

Bonnie tells Elena that she came from a Salem witch lineage, according to her grandmother (Grams). The audience realizes that this is going to come up later, in a big way. Matt moons over Elena, who he has known and loved all his life, but who dumped him. He tells Elena that he and Vicki are living alone because his mom skipped town with her boyfriend. Matt also tells Elena that Vicki believes she was attacked by vampires, but Matt just thinks Vicki can’t remember properly because she was drunk the night before. Stefan overhears this and goes to Vicki’s hospital room to alter her memory. Elena visits the old Salvatore mansion and meets Damon, who talks about Stefan’s ex, Katherine, and undermines Elena’s confidence in Stefan. At a comet-watching town event, Damon taunts Stefan by grabbing Vicki, dangling her off a roof, and enthralling her. Then he lets her go. That night, Stefan and Elena kiss for the first time. Damon’s attentions turn to Caroline, Elena’s insecure friend/competition in town.

Bonnie has bad feelings about Stefan, because she’s a supernatural creature about to come into her own. Elena’s solution is to invite Bonnie and Stefan over to dinner, but Damon and Caroline crash too. Damon has enthralled and slept with Caroline. Elena invites Damon into her house (now he can enter whenever he wants), freaking Stefan out. Stefan gives Elena a necklace filled with an herb called “vervain” that prevents vampires from enthralling the human wearing or drinking it. This works. Damon tries to enthrall Elena into kissing him and is rewarded with a slap. Tyler and Jeremy get into a fight, and Stefan gets his hand cut stopping the fight. After the fight, Elena looks for Stefan’s wound, but finds that it is gone. Stefan tries to convince Elena that he was never cut. Stefan tries to tell Damon that he (Damon) still has some humanity left, but Damon just kills the high school history teacher/football coach in response (which we approved of, since he was an ass). Then Damon pulls an Edward Cullen and watches Elena sleep, stroking her cheek.

Then the town has a big party (Founder’s Party), hosted by the mayor, Tyler’s dad. Stefan and Elena go together, and Vicki goes with Tyler. Tyler’s parents do not approve of Vicki, and he does not treat her well at the party. Vicki goes back to Jeremy and they go into a bedroom. You know what that means… That they played Cranium! (No, not really.) Elena finds out about Caroline and Damon “dating” and spots bruises under Caroline’s scarf, and she chews Damon out. Damon takes an amber crystal that is an historical artifact from the Lockwood Estate. Stefan spikes Caroline’s drink with vervain so that Damon will get sick when he drinks from her. This works, and Stefan locks Damon up in the Salvatore mansion’s cellar. A human Salvatore descendant, Zach, stands guard.

Meanwhile, Caroline has passed out on said lawn. She comes to, finds the amber crystal that Damon accidentally dropped, and then sobs in Elena’s arms, confused and hurt. She has no memory of what Damon did to her. We then see that there is something called “The Founders Council” that includes the Mayor, his wife, Sheriff Forbes (Caroline’s mother), and a reporter (Logan, Jenna’s jerk of an ex). The council watches out for vampires and knows that the town has a history riddled with them. The council has realized that vampires have returned to Mystic Falls, because of all the drained bodies Damon has been leaving around. They remark that they need to get a pocket watch that belongs to the Gilbert family. Jeremy has it.

Elena finds out more about Damon and Stefan’s past. They had a love triangle with a girl named Katherine Pierce, who died, and that’s one of the reasons they don’t get along. Damon becomes weaker, locked up without blood. Stefan’s plan is for him to fully run out of blood and become a desiccated, living corpse that can be revived with blood…in fifty years after Damon has had time to re-think his murderous behavior. But Damon escapes, kills Zach, and goes to feed on Vicki. We find out that the reason the brothers can go out into the sunlight is that they have nifty magical rings that help them not burst into flames, which not every vampire has. Bonnie starts to discover some of her witch powers. Reporter Logan has dinner at the Gilbert house and steals the family pocket watch from Jeremy. Stefan has dinner with Elena and she cuts her finger while cooking. Elena catches a brief sight of Stefan’s “hungry vampire face”. Then, an old man comes up to Elena and remarks that Stefan looks like someone he knew nearly sixty years ago during a period of animal attacks. Elena goes into news archives to research the ‘50s animal attacks and sees a picture of Stefan Salvatore, who obviously hasn’t aged a day. It is here that Elena figures out Stefan is a vampire. In the fifth episode. Smart girl.

She goes to Stefan with questions, and he tells her that he and Damon were in love with Katherine Pierce back in 1864. Elena does what you SHOULD do when you figure out your boyfriend is a vampire: She dumps Stefan. Finally, the right response. What a smart lamb. What a lying lion. See what we did there? Now Stefan has to earn her trust back. Meanwhile, Damon dances and drinks at the Salvatore mansion, with Vicki, who he changes into a vampire. In order to complete the transformation, Vicki needs to feed on human blood, or she will die. Stefan tries to talk her into dying, but she wants plan B. Logan uses the pocket watch to find vampires (because that’s what it does), and he finds Stefan and Vicki in the woods. Logan shoots Stefan with a wooden bullet, but Damon saves him by attacking Logan. Vicki feeds on Logan, completing her transformation.

Stefan makes it his responsibility to help Vicki control her hunger, but she is wild. Because she was an irresponsible, impulsive addict in life, she doesn’t have the discipline to keep it together. She slams Elena up against a wall and chews Elena out for breaking her brother’s heart (Matt, remember?). Caroline gives the amber crystal to Bonnie, which results in Bonnie having a nightmare and waking up in the local cemetery, with the crystal. At an after-school Halloween party, Vicki finds Jeremy and starts making out with him. When blood is drawn, Vicki can think of nothing else. Elena finds them and attacks Vicki with a 2x4. Vicki throws Elena out of the way. Stefan shows up and is forced to stake and kill Vicki to save them. Jeremy grieves over Vicki. Elena asks Stefan to erase Jeremy’s memory of what happened. Stefan is too weak because he feeds on animals, so Damon volunteers to do it. He does that and more. After this, Jeremy is no longer into drugs and concentrates on his schoolwork. Vicki is buried in the woods and everyone in Mystic Falls assumes that she skipped town, like her mother.

At The Grill, Mystic Falls most happenin’ bar and restaurant, Damon and Mayor Lockwood's wife talk, and, after she has too much to drink, the the wife clues Damon into the existence of The Founder’s Council. She obviously doesn’t suspect that he’s a vampire. He's just so charming and polite! Damon gives the Founder's Council a box of the vervain. Lexi, Stefan’s cool vampire best friend, shows up in Mystic Falls and speaks to Elena, putting a good word in for Stefan. To get suspicion off of himself and his brother, Damon sets Lexi up to look like the vampire who has been killing people. The police grab Lexi, with the help of the vervain, and Damon stakes her outside of The Grill. Damon also manages to get close to Sheriff Forbes (Caroline's mom). Stefan nearly kills Damon but spares his life as repayment for Damon saving him from Logan. But Stefan declares he and his brother “done.”

Damon wants his crystal back from Caroline, but he can’t have it, because it’s Bonnie’s now. Bonnie’s grandmother told her that it was a talisman that she needed to hold onto. Damon is mean to Caroline because of this development, so she gets drunk at The Grill and Matt carries her home. He stays with her through the night to comfort her, and one of our favorite relationships was born. Matt and Caroline :). The school gets a new history teacher, Alaric Saltzman, and he and Jenna start dating.

Bonnie has dreams involving a witch ancestor named Emily, so she gets Caroline and Elena, and the three hold a séance which results in Emily possessing Bonnie. Damon tells Stefan that he came back to Mystic Falls in order to resurrect Katherine using the amber crystal that Katherine gave to Emily on her last day alive. Damon reveals that Katherine isn’t dead. She’s just trapped in Fell’s Church as a desiccated corpse with a bunch of other vampires. Damon had to wait for this year, the year of the comet, in order for the spell to work and free Katherine. All of those vampires were trapped by the townspeople, and Stefan feared that if the vamps were raised, they would seek revenge on their enemies’ descendants - the residents of Mystic falls. Damon obviously doesn’t care about that.

Damon went to Fell’s Church and ran into Emily/Bonnie. He reminds Emily that they made a deal that Damon would protect Emily’s descendents if Emily would ensure the resurrect-ability of Katherine. Emily goes back on her word, destroys the crystal, and departs Bonnie’s body. Damon attacks Bonnie, but Stefan saves her by giving her some of his blood. Bonnie freaks out, so Elena has to tell her everything. Logan returns…as a vampire, showing that there are other vampires around, otherwise, who turned him? He kills several townspeople and harasses Jenna. Sheriff Forbes goes to Damon and tells him that there is another vampire loose. Logan kidnaps Caroline, but she is saved by the Salvatore brothers. Logan tells Damon that he knows of another way to get Katherine back. Damon lets him go, making it look like Logan overpowered him. He brings Caroline back to the Sheriff, and the Sheriff trusts Damon even more now. Alaric finds Logan and tells him to leave Jenna alone. Logan attacks, but Alaric stakes and kills Logan. Damon gets credit for the kill when the Sheriff finds Logan’s body.

Elena tells Stefan that she loves him and they have sex. But then Elena finds a photo of Katherine and realizes that Katherine and Elena look EXACTLY like each other. She freaks and leaves. She gets in a car accident while trying not to hit a pedestrian. It becomes apparent that the pedestrian is not human as he approaches her overturned car. Damon arrives and the stranger runs. Damon takes Elena with him on a road trip to Georgia to see a witch named Bree. Bree and Damon had a fling, and Damon was hoping that she would help him open the tomb to free Katherine. Unfortunately for Damon, Bree was a friend of Lexi’s. She calls Lexi’s boyfriend so that the boyfriend could try to kill Damon for revenge. Elena saves Damon by talking the boyfriend out of killing him. Bree helps Damon find Emily’s spellbook and then Damon kills Bree. Damon and Elena return to Mystic Falls. They are more friendly now.

Stefan tells Elena that when he first returned to his home town and saw Elena, he was curious about her perfect resemblance to Katherine, so he watched Elena. He saw that she was a good person, unlike Katherine. Stefan reveals that he saved Elena from the car crash her parents died in. He couldn’t save her parents in time. He also tells Elena that he knows that she is adopted, due to his extensive, but understandable, stalking. Elena forgives Stefan. She has a talk with Jenna, who tells Elena that she knows Elena was adopted. Jenna knows that the birth mother’s name was “Isobel.” Meanwhile, Matt and Caroline continue their fledgling romantic relationship, but there is tension due to how poor Matt is and how in love with Elena he used to be (and probably still is, a little bit). Also, Caroline is insecure, and no teenage boy is truly up to the task of handling that.

Jeremy meets a girl named Anna and they research the town’s history of vampire mythology together, for extra credit in Alaric’s class. Jeremy is interested because he found a journal of one of his ancestors (Jonathan Gilbert) that mentions vampires. Anna tries to get closer to Jeremy and read his ancestor’s journal. We find out that Anna and bartender Ben are vampires who are also romantically involved. Alaric, meanwhile, spots Damon and recognizes Damon as the vampire he saw biting on his wife, who is now dead. This is why Alaric is such a bitchin’ vampire slayer. He wants revenge for his wife’s death, and he has been trying to track Damon down for years.

Matt takes a job as a busboy at The Grill and spends some time with a former high-school football star, Ben, who returned to town and took a job as a bartender. Bonnie has a date with Ben, discovers he’s a vampire, and is kidnapped. Damon and Stefan kill the strange vampire who was stalking Elena when she nearly hit him with her car. Before he died, the vampire said that the Gilbert journal holds clues to getting into Katherine’s tomb. Alaric tells Jenna that his wife was named Isobel. Stefan lies to Damon by agreeing to help him free Katherine.

Stefan finds out, via the Gilbert journal, that the way into the tomb is in Emily’s Grimoire (spell book), which can be found in Stefan’s father’s grave. Stefan and Elena go to the Salvatore grave to look for Emily’s Grimoire. We find out that Anna is the daughter of a vampire named Pearl. Pearl is one of the vampires that was trapped in the Fell’s Church tomb, and Anna wants her mommy back. The townspeople thought they burned the vampires, but Emily entombed and protected them. Damon goes to his father’s grave, finding his brother and Elena, who have just dug up the Grimoire. Damon takes the book, and Stefan brings Elena home. Elena is taken by Anna, and Stefan quickly notices. Stefan goes to Grams for help (Bonnie’s witch grandma, remember?). Stefan kills Ben and retrieves Bonnie and Elena.

Bonnie and Grams open the tomb, and Damon finds many vampires in the tomb, but none of them are Katherine. All of the vampires escape the tomb and team up with Pearl and Anna. Pearl is the boss, because she is the oldest. The plan? To take over the town. The seal of the tomb is only temporarily broken, so Damon and Stefan leave before they are sealed inside. Elena comforts a heartbroken Damon. Damon finds out from Anna that a church guard let Katherine go, so she was never inside the tomb. Anna tells Damon that she saw Katherine in 1983, in Chicago, and that Katherine didn’t even care enough to let Damon know that she was still alive. Grams dies from the strain of opening the tomb.

Matt’s mother, Kelly, returns, and she doesn’t like Caroline. Then Kelly gets drunk and makes out with Damon, and her son has to drive her home. Parent of the year. Alaric finds out that his wife was actually Elena’s mother and that Isobel is NOT dead. She was turned into a vampire by Damon. She asked to be turned, because she was bored with her life and marriage. Alaric confronts Damon and Damon stabs Alaric with a stake. Alaric dies but comes back to life, due to his own magic ring that Isobel gave him before she left. He who wears such a ring cannot be killed by a vampire. Elena is searching for her birth mother, but she receives a phone call telling her to stay away.

Pearl tries to recruit Damon, but he turns her down and there is violence. Two vampires who blamed Stefan and Damon for their years of being in the tomb break into the Salvatore mansion and attack the brothers. Stefan kills one but the other, Frederick, escapes. Jeremy figures out that Anna is a vampire and suspects that Vicki was too. He cuts his hand to tempt Anna and prove his theory. Then Jeremy asks Anna to turn him, but she says no at first. Stefan is later captured by Frederick and some other vampires who plan to kill him, slowly. Damon and Alaric become friends long enough to team up and get Stefan out. Elena helps too. Damon and Alaric end up killing most of the vampires while Elena escapes with Stefan. Frederick chases after them and hurts Stefan. Elena feeds Stefan her blood to heal him and Stefan loses control of himself for a scary second. Damon catches Stefan drinking all of his stored up blood bags that he stole from the hospital, meaning that Stefan has lost control of his hunger.

Caroline finds Vicki’s body in the woods, and this obviously upsets Matt, Kelly, and Jeremy. Kelly gets drunk and makes out with Tyler. Matt catches them and gets into a fight with Tyler at a fancy party. Tyler’s father hits him for embarrassing the family, and Matt throws his mother out of the house. John Gilbert, Jeremy’s uncle, arrives in Mystic Falls. Elena doesn’t like him. After finding out that Uncle John is on the Sheriff’s vamp-hunting council and that Uncle John is wise to Damon’s vampirism, Damon pushes Uncle John off of a balcony. But John Gilbert also has a magic ring like Alaric’s, so the killing didn’t take. Jeremy reads Elena’s diary to find out if she knows anything. He sees details of Vicki’s death and his memory loss. He is pretty hacked off about it.

We find out that Uncle John gave his own magic ring to Isobel (and it obviously ended up with Alaric). Uncle John knew her in high school. The magic ring Uncle John wears used to belong to his brother, Elena’s adoptive father. It was Uncle John who introduced Isobel to Damon so that Damon could turn her. Meanwhile, Stefan is starting to act rudely as he struggles to control his new drinking habits. Damon tells Elena that Stefan is still drinking human blood, and Elena confronts Stefan. Stefan gets angry and breaks a mirror. This act is seen by a teen girl, so Stefan abducts her.

The town has a “Founder’s Day Gala” complete with a “Miss Mystic Falls” contest. Caroline wins, and everyone is surprised that she beats golden girl Elena. Stefan is supposed to be Elena’s escort, but Damon steps in at the last possible second, because Stefan is off being obsessed with blood. Damon and Elena share the sexiest dance in The C.W.’s history, reminding us all why everyone ships these two. Holy chemistry, Batman!

Bonnie, who left town for a while after Grams died, returns and is cold toward Elena because she is dating Stefan/Bonnie is at a point where she is done with all vampires. After the contest, Damon, Elena, and Bonnie find Stefan and stop him from losing control and hurting the teen girl. Elena injects Stefan with vervain, and Damon locks Stefan in the cellar. We then get lots of flashbacks when Stefan and Damon tell Elena about how they were turned into vampires. Apparently, Stefan was never good with human blood and always had trouble with control.

Here’s the backstory: Damon was always in on Katherine’s vampirism and diabolical plans, but Stefan was compelled by Katherine. Both human boys were drinking Katharine’s blood, and if you die with vampire blood in your system, that’s the first step to being fully turned. On the night the vampires were entombed, the boys tried to help Katharine escape, but they were shot. Emily found them the next morning and gave them magic rings that Katherine had Emily make for them. The boys agreed to die rather than complete their transformation. Damon didn’t want to be a vampire unless he could be one with Katherine. Stefan went home, and his father revealed that he knew about Katherine and their fling. It was the brothers’ own father who had shot them. Stefan killed his father in self defense and then feasted on his remains. Stefan brought Damon a young woman and tempted Damon with her blood. Damon couldn’t resist and the other transition was complete. This is probably the main reason that Damon is annoyed when Stefan starts acting holy. The reason Damon hates Stefan is that Katherine was only supposed to turn Damon, but Stefan stole her heart.

Damon and Alaric team up to find a device that could hurt vampires before Uncle John can get it. John Gilbert stakes and kills Pearl, devastating Anna. She goes to Jeremy for comfort. Elena releases Stefan, who is calmer but still craves blood, and he resolves to die/kill himself, but Elena convinces him to fight, and the storyline takes on a surprisingly powerful parallel to real-life suicide issues. Bravo, show. There’s no rest for anyone on The Vampire Diaries, so the next person to show up is Isobel, and she’s not very nice. She tells Alaric to arrange a meeting between herself and Elena. Isobel asks Elena where the vampire-hurting device is, and Elena tells her that Damon has it. Isobel threatens to kill everyone in Elena’s life if Elena doesn’t get the old invention from Damon and bring it to her.

We find out that Isobel and Uncle John are both working for Katherine, but Uncle John has his own plan to betray Katherine and use the device to kill all the vampires in town. Isobel kidnaps Jeremy to show Elena that she means business. Damon gives Elena the device and Elena brings it to Bonnie so that Bonnie could disable it. Bonnie only pretends to disable it, because she wants vampires dead. Elena brings her mother the device, and Isobel says that she knew Damon would give it to Elena, because Damon is in love with Elena. Isobel reveals that Uncle John is Elena’s biological father. Isobel dated him in high school. Isobel shows some caring for Elena, warning her not to become a vampire.

In the season one finale, it’s Founder’s Day. Anna gives Jeremy a vial of her blood so that he can become a vampire if he wants. Damon and Alaric get their bromance on again to try to stop Uncle John from killing all of the vampires. But Uncle John is able to activate the device anyway. It turns out that the device generates a signal that disables vampires, and some other supernatural creatures. Even though he is not a vampire, Mayor Lockwood falls. Members of the Founder’s Council scoop up those who fall and take them to the basement of an old building. Anna, Mayor Lockwood, and most of the tomb vampires are killed when the basement is set on fire with them inside.

Stefan realizes he still loves his brother and Damon realizes he still has some good in him. Bonnie saves Stefan and Damon because of Elena. But she warns Stefan that if Damon kills again, she will take them down. Tyler is driving Caroline and Matt when the device is activated. Tyler loses control of the car, because the device affects him like it did his father. Caroline winds up in the hospital, gravely injured. Jeremy hears about Anna’s death, drinks her blood, and takes lots of pain pills, because rumor has it you can turn off your feelings if you are a vampire (it makes you a monster, like Damon used to be), and he doesn’t want to feel any more pain.

Damon walks Elena home and they kiss on Elena’s front porch. Jenna opens the door, catches them, and tells Elena to come inside. Elena goes into the kitchen, takes a kitchen knife, and cuts off some of Uncle John’s fingers. Uncle John gasps, “Katherine!” The real Elena walks into her house and heads toward the kitchen. The season ends on that cliffhanger.

Season 2:
Katherine slinks off, leaving Elena to find her injured birth father and unconscious brother. Uncle John goes to the hospital to get his fingers sewn back on, and Jeremy does not die from the pills he took. Damon donates blood to Caroline so that Caroline would use that strength to pull through. Damon realizes that Katherine is around, pretending to be Elena when it suits her. Katherine shows up at the Salvatore mansion and starts foreplay with Damon. The two drink and kiss and our TV nearly explodes due to the hotness. Then Katherine ruins their impending sex by telling Damon that she never loved him and that it was Stefan that she always loved. Crushed, Damon goes to Elena’s and tries to kiss her. Elena turns him down, also preferring Stefan to Damon. In a rage, Damon snaps Jeremy’s neck, but Jeremy survives, because he was wearing Uncle John’s ring.

Tyler finds comfort when his Uncle Mason comes to town. Mason questions Tyler about his anger problems, and Mason also looks for a Lockwood family heirloom called “the moonstone.” We find out that Uncle Mason is a werewolf. Katherine goes to the hospital and tells Caroline to deliver the following message to Damon and Stefan: “Game on.” Then Katherine smothers Caroline with a pillow, and Caroline dies with Damon’s blood in her system. Caroline wakes up the next morning, craving blood, and drinks blood bags in the hospital. Caroline’s memory of how Damon treated her in the first season has fully returned. She confronts Damon, lifts him, and throws him on the floor. Caroline attacks a boy and drains him.

Elena and Stefan find Caroline in the aftermath, with her mouth covered with blood. Damon votes that Caroline be killed, but Elena and Stefan disagree. Bonnie is horrified by Caroline’s vampirism and killing of their classmate, and she blames Damon. Bonnie nearly kills him with her witch powers, but Elena stops her. Matt notices a change in Caroline and just thinks she’s having a crazy couple of days after nearly dying. He tells her that he loves her.

Damon, Alaric, and Damon go to Duke University where Isobel used to work. They want to dig up her old research to find out more about Katherine and the Lockwoods. There, they find information on werewolves. Werewolves and vampires were cursed by a shaman so that the werewolves are slaves of the moon and the vampires are slaves of the sun. Before, vampires could walk in the sun freely and werewolves had more control over their transformations. Damon tells Elena that Katherine’s real name is Katerina Petrova. Elena starts to forgive Damon for hurting Jeremy.

Meanwhile, Stefan trains Caroline to control herself and hunt animals instead of humans. Stefan convinces Bonnie to make Caroline a ring that will allow her to walk around in the day. Mason Lockwood has a plan to chain himself up for the full moon, but that goes awry and he nearly kills Stefan and Caroline. Tyler interferes by shouting at Werewolf Mason. Tyler later finds Mason and realizes that his uncle is a werewolf. The next time Caroline makes out with Matt, she loses control and feeds on him. She erases his memory of the event and acts crazy so that he will break up with her and be safe. But that night, Caroline wakes up and finds Katherine in her room. Katherine threatens Caroline and orders her to break Stefan and Elena up. Caroline tries, and Elena quickly realizes that Caroline is under orders.

Katherine lets Stefan know that, unless he breaks up with Elena, Katherine will kill Elena and everyone Elena knows. Stefan and Elena agree to pretend to break up until they can get the Katherine situation under control. They stage a breakup in a place where they can be heard by Damon and Caroline. A flashback shows us that Katherine really does love Stefan. Meanwhile, Damon becomes obsessed with proving that Mason is a werewolf and tries to get Mason to touch silver. Mason tries to make peace with Damon, but Damon stabs him with a silver knife in a parking lot. Mason informs Damon that the whole “silver kills a werewolf” thing is a myth. Damon has made yet another enemy. Mason wastes no time in telling Sheriff Forbes that Stefan and Damon are vampires. At a picnic, the Sheriff puts vervain in Damon’s drink and confirms this. The Sheriff and her cops capture the Salvatore brothers, and Caroline and Elena arrive just in time to stop Sheriff Forbes from killing the brothers.

When the Sheriff finds out that her daughter is a vampire, she rejects Caroline. Caroline and the brothers keep the Sheriff locked up. Eventually, the Sheriff realizes that Caroline has grown bold, secure, brave, and mature as a vampire, and she promises to keep Caroline’s secret, but Caroline erases her mother’s memory just in case, which broke our hearts. Caroline comes clean to Elena about Katherine’s threats and Elena forgives Caroline. Meanwhile, Tyler gives his Uncle Mason the moonstone. Then we find out that Mason is working for (and sleeping with) Katherine, who is after the moonstone herself.

Damon captures Mason (with Bonnie’s help), and he tortures Mason for information on Katherine and the moonstone. But Mason does not break, because he loves Katherine. Damon kills him. Bonnie has a vision that Mason hid the moonstone in a well and Elena retrieves it. Damon informs Katherine that Mason is dead. We find out that Jenna has been compelled by Katherine, and Jenna has been reporting back to Katherine that Stefan and Elena have not really broken up. Katherine compels Jenna to stab herself in the stomach in front of Alaric and her family. Jenna lives but spends time in the hospital. Elena breaks up with Stefan for real. Katherine needs another werewolf, so she compels Matt to attack Tyler, repeatedly, until Tyler kills Matt and completes his transition into full werewolf, because it’s in his family line and blood.

The Salvatore brothers, Jeremy, Alaric, Caroline, and Bonnie plan to kill Katherine at an upcoming masquerade ball. A witch named Lucy comes to help Katherine. Katherine goes to the ball pretending to be Elena and threatens to kill people if the brothers don’t hand over the moonstone. That’s how Katherine ends up with it. Caroline, Stefan, and Damon trick and trap Katherine into a room that Bonnie has done a spell on, preventing Katherine from being able to leave. Elena shows up at the ball, and Jeremy and Bonnie clue her into the plan.

Stefan and Damon attempt to kill Katherine by staking her, but they stop when Jeremy rushes in and informs them that whatever they do to Katherine happens to Elena as well. Katherine had Lucy link the lookalikes with a spell. Bonnie asks Lucy, witch-to-witch, to lift the spell from Elena. Lucy does it and also knocks Katherine out. Elena heals. Damon traps Katherine in the old tomb and seals it. Before he leaves, Katherine tells him that Elena is still in danger. On her way home, Elena is taken by a stranger wearing a mask. He turns out to be working for a vampire named Trevor.

During the ball, Matt, Tyler, and classmate, Sara, are drinking heavily in a room they have all to themselves. Matt attempts to fight Tyler. Caroline hears the fight and stops it (in a bad-ass way), but she clues Tyler into the fact that she is special in the process. Sara, who Katherine also compelled, stabs Tyler with a knife. Tyler accidentally kills her and triggers the werewolf curse. Tyler bugs Caroline until she tells him her secret. She doesn’t tell him about any of the other vampires though.

Trevor takes Elena to an abandoned, old house where he meets up with another vampire named Rose. Bonnie uses a spell to find Elena, and the brothers go to get her. Rose tells Elena that Elijah is one of the original vampires and that Elijah wants “a Petrova doppelganger” who is the key to breaking the curse of the sun and the moon. Elena is the current Petrova doppelganger, and that’s why she looks just like Katherine. Trevor helped Katherine, the last Petrova doppelganger, escape from the originals hundreds of years ago. But the originals held a grudge against Trevor and Rose for the act, and they have spent centuries running and hiding from the originals. Now, they are tired of running and want to deliver Elena in exchange for freedom.

Elijah shows up at the house and agrees to the deal, but he kills Trevor. Elena tells Elijah that she knows where the moonstone is, in order to bargain with him and stall him, but he takes her vervain necklace and compels her to tell him everything. Stefan and Damon finally arrive and stake Elijah. Rose tells Stefan that the originals will come for Elena, under orders from “Klaus.” Elena goes home, and Damon brings her vervain necklace to her room, late at night. Before giving Elena the necklace, Damon confesses that he loves her and also says that he doesn’t deserve Elena, but Stefan does. He erases Elena’s memory of his confession and leaves the necklace with her.

It turns out Elijah is very hard to kill, because he wakes up hours later and pulls the stake out of his chest. (It is about this time in writing this summary that this blogger’s eye starting twitching like mad and she had to take a break from it.) Elena goes to the tomb and offers the almost-starving Katherine a bottle of blood in exchange for her story. Once again, it’s flashback time. We go back to Bulgaria in 1490 where Katherine (Katerina Petrova) is having a baby girl out of wedlock. Katherine asks to hold her baby, the her family takes the baby away. Elena is the descendant of that baby. Katherine went to England where she met Trevor and Elijah. They saw that she was a doppelganger in the Petrova line, so Elijah planned to kill her to break the curse. But Trevor had fallen in love with her and helped her escape. Katherine became a vampire so that she would be useless to Elijah (the doppelganger has to be human to break the curse with her death). Klaus killed Katherine’s family as payback. Katherine has been running from the originals’ revenge ever since.

Katherine returned to Mystic Falls to make peace with Elijah and Klaus by helping them break the curse. The ingredients are Elena, a witch (Bonnie), a werewolf (Tyler), a vampire (Caroline), and the moonstone. Meanwhile, Jeremy starts falling for Bonnie, but Bonnie is attracted to a warlock named Luca who just moved into town with his father. It turns out that both Luca and his father are working for Elijah. Damon and Rose go to a vampire named Slater to find out more about Klaus, but Elijah overhears them. Later, Elijah compels Slater to kill himself. Also, Damon and Rose have sex and he develops real feelings for her. Later, Rose takes Elena to see Slater to possibly learn where they can find Klaus, but they find Slater dead. Elena gets on Slater’s laptop and sends Klaus a message, saying that she is the doppelganger and that she will surrender to protect her loved ones. Damon shows up and tells Elena that this is out of the question. Then, three strange vampires appear to take Elena to Klaus, but Elijah shows up too, kills the strange vampires, then leaves.

Caroline and Tyler find the place Mason used to transform (on old Lockwood property) and a video he took of himself undergoing his transformation. The video scares Tyler and Caroline, because it is hours long and Mason was in extreme pain through most of it. Tyler knows that the upcoming full moon will spark his first transition. Stefan and Damon want the moonstone back from Katherine, so Bonnie conspires to lift the spell from the tomb and control Katherine so that the brothers can run in, get the moonstone, and run out. Jeremy runs into the tomb to get it himself (to protect Bonnie from having to use too much magic) and is caught and bitten by Katherine, right before he is able to throw the moonstone out of the tomb. Stefan runs in, pushes Jeremy out of Katherine’s reach, and is trapped in the tomb with Katherine. Later, we see Elijah and Luca’s father talking, and Elijah says that he let Damon live in order to protect Elena, something Elijah himself wants to do.

The full moon arrives, and Caroline helps Tyler through his transformation. To prove that she still has some goodness, Katherine tells Stefan that he can ask Isobel for help finding Klaus. Bonnie asks Luca for help destroying the moonstone, but Luca tricks her and gives the moonstone to his father. Jules, a friend of Mason’s, comes to Mystic Falls looking for Tyler. Damon and Alaric provoke her into revealing her werewolf nature. Jules breaks into the Salvatore mansion and bites Rose in front of Damon. The bite becomes infected. Elijah comes to Elena and tells her that he doesn’t work for Klaus anymore. He makes a deal with her: If she keeps herself safe, so that Elijah can use Elena as bait to kill Klaus, then Elijah will free Stefan from the tomb and protect Elena’s loved ones. Elena agrees and Stefan is freed, but Elijah compels Katherine to stay inside, which means that Originals can compel other vampires.

Stefan attempts to contact Isobel, but he gets in touch with Uncle John instead. Uncle John returns to Mystic Falls. Damon asks Elena to stay with Rose while he searches for a werewolf bite cure, but a delirious Rose nearly kills Elena and escapes the mansion. Rose kills three people before Damon finds her and takes her back to the mansion. Because Rose is in pain, Damon compels Rose to dream of being back in her homeland with him, as a human, then Damon stakes her. Damon feels guilty, because Jules really broke into the house to kill Damon, not Rose. Elena comforts him, then leaves. Damon goes out, tells a strange girl that he misses being human and then kills the girl. Tyler meets with Jules at The Grill, and Jules tells him that Mason is dead (Tyler thought Mason just left town) and that more werewolves are on their way to Mystic Falls.

A rift grows between Tyler and Caroline, because Caroline knew there were other vampires and that Mason was killed, and yet she kept it from Tyler. Jules plans to take Tyler with her werewolf friends, including her lover Brady, and leave town. Jules takes Caroline hostage (keeping her in a cage in a motor home) and calls Stefan, telling him that she will exchange Caroline for Tyler. Damon and Stefan come to the woods with Tyler, and a fight ensues. Stefan and Damon kill a bunch of the werewolves. Tyler makes it into the motor home and lets a hurt Caroline out of the cage (after hesitating WAY too long). Luca’s dad shows up just in time to save the Salvatore brothers and defeats Jules and Brady with his witch powers. Luca’s dad did this on Elijah’s orders, because keeping Elena’s friends safe is part of his deal with Elena. Tyler tries to apologies to Caroline, but she tells him to stick it where the sun don’t shine.

Jules shows up at Damon’s house and tortures him, looking for the moonstone, but Elijah appears and kills all of the werewolves except for Jules, who escapes. Bonnie performs a spell on Luca that forces him to tell her about the originals/his father. Luca is compelled to tell Bonnie that Elijah plans to sacrifice Elena in order to make Klaus vulnerable enough to kill him. Luca is with Elijah because Klaus has his witch sister, Greta, and they need to save her. Luca’s father takes Bonnie’s powers away because she used them on Luca. Jeremy and Bonnie kiss.

Uncle John tells Damon that that the only way to kill an original vampire is to dip a certain old dagger in white ash wood. Damon plans to kill Elijah with the dagger and invites Elijah over for dinner. Jonathan Gilbert’s journal tells Elena that if a VAMPIRE uses the dagger to kill an original, both vampires will die. Uncle John left this part out when he gave Damon the dagger, hoping that Damon would be killed. Stefan calls Damon to warn him and Alaric answers the phone. Alaric is able to stab Elijah with the dagger instead. Damon and Alaric stash Elijah’s body in the Salvatore basement, but the body disappears, because if you remove the dagger after you stab an original (which they did), the original will come back to life.

Stefan and Elena vacation together at the Gilbert family lake house, but Tyler and Brady follow them, resulting in Brady’s death at Stefan’s hands. Stefan figures out that Elena knows that her deal with Elijah will result in Elijah killing her, and Stefan tells her that it isn’t heroic to give up like she is. Tyler tells Matt that Caroline still loves him (Matt), and then Tyler leaves Mystic Falls with Jules. Then Elena stabs him at the lake house. Elena agrees to fight if the brothers stop leaving her out of plans and let her call the shots. Damon returns to his mansion and finds Katherine in his shower. When Elijah died, Katherine was able to escape the tomb because his compulsion keeping her there wore off.

Katherine informs Damon that she made a deal with Uncle John so that Damon would die instead of Stefan, but she also offers her help to our protagonists. Damon doesn’t believe her and refuses to tell her where the “witch massacre” occurred. Luca’s father performs a ritual with Luca in order to try to remove the dagger from Elijah’s body from a distance, but it results in Luca’s death. Caroline sings at a party at The Grill in order to win Matt back. It works, and he kisses her. Then Luca’s father appears at The Grill, seeking revenge for Luca’s death. He makes all of the lights explode, starts a fire, and stabs Matt in the neck with a broken bottle. Caroline gives Matt her blood and saves him. Later, Matt wakes up and remembers this. Caroline is with him and tells him that she’s a vampire. Matt instantly realizes that Vicki’s death had to do with vampires (because Vicki had told him she thought she was attacked by vampires) and he panics, thinking Caroline killed his sister. He runs away.

Luca’s father goes to Elena’s house and attacks Elena, but, whoops, it’s actually Katherine, who bites him. Stefan ends up killing Luca’s father, but before he does, Luca’s father returns Bonnie’s powers and tells her how to kill Klaus. Isobel comes to town and meets with Alaric. She apologizes, telling Alaric that she actually did love him at one time. Then, a warlock of Klaus’ named Maddox captures Alaric. Katherine is also taken by Maddox. She wakes up in Alaric’s apartment and finds that Klaus is possessing Alaric’s body. KlaLaric is born.

Damon concocts a secret plan with Bonnie to kill Klaus and save Elena, but it is dangerous to Bonnie. Damon looks for a spell to gather the power of the witches killed in a massacre, centuries ago. Damon leads Bonnie and Jeremy to the witch massacre site that he knows about because he tried to save Emily from being killed in the massacre. The witches warn Bonnie against channeling their power, because she might die as a result. This upsets Jeremy, but Bonnie tells him that she will need all the power she can get to kill Klaus and save Elena.

Caroline finds Matt and tells him what really happened to Vicki. Matt tells Caroline that he doesn’t want to remember anything about the supernatural happenings. Caroline compels him to forget everything, but it doesn’t work, because Matt had gone to the Sheriff, who made him drink vervain and sent him back to Caroline to gather information. Now Caroline thinks Matt doesn’t know she’s a vampire, and the Sheriff has instructed Matt to continue dating her daughter, pretending that everything is ok.

Isobel abducts Elena and takes her to a cemetery, in the daytime. Isobel takes a phone call from Maddox who tells her that she is free to let Elena go and that her tasks for Klaus are complete. Isobel apologizes to Elena, removes her magic necklace, and burns in the sun. We realize that Isobel has been acting under a compulsion by Klaus, who can compel other vampires. KlaLaric nearly kills Bonnie after pretending to be Alaric for an episode, because she is the only one with access to the power to hurt him. Damon plans to let KlaLaric believe that he succeeded in killing Bonnie. Elena finds out about Damon and Bonnie’s plan. Damon tells Elena that if it comes down to Elena’s life or someone else’s life (like Bonnie’s), Damon will always choose Elena. Elena doesn’t want any of her friends to be sacrificed for her, so she goes into the basement and pulls the dagger out of Elijah, and he recovers. Elena asks him to trust her and gives him the dagger so that no one can kill him anymore.

Elijah and Elena share information. Elijah says that he and Klaus are half brothers from the original vampire family. Their mother cheated with a man from a werewolf bloodline (who is Klaus’ real father). Elijah’s father had the man and his family killed, and this is what started the war between wolves an vampires. Klaus is both a vampire and a werewolf, and he can only be killed by a witch. The curse of the sun and the moon does not exist. It is a myth created by Elijah and Klaus. The real curse is that Klaus’ werewolf side was shut down by witches, and Klaus wants to awaken it and create his own line of hybrids. In order to break the curse, the power of the full moon must be channeled into the moonstone, a werewolf and vampire must be killed, and Klaus will need to drink the blood of the Petrova doppelganger. Klaus killed Elijah’s whole family, and Elijah wants to kill Klaus for revenge.

Stefan and KlaLaric tell Jenna vampires exist. Damon finds Katherine, who is compelled by Klaus to stay in Klaus’ apartment. Damon gives Katherine vervain so that Klaus can’t compel her anymore. We meet Luca’s sister, Greta, who is actually working with Klaus willingly. Maddox and Greta do a spell that releases Alaric’s body and places Klaus back into his own body. Maddox tricks Tyler into coming back to Mystic Falls with Jules, then he kidnaps Caroline and Tyler for the full moon spell. Elijah tells Elena that he can save her by giving her an elixir that will prevent her from being killed when she is drained. Damon doesn’t believe this elixir works and doesn’t want to risk Elena’s death. He forces Elena to drink his blood, intending for her to be turned when Klaus kills her. Elena is upset, because she doesn’t want to become a vampire and she has a thoughtful, touching little breakdown about the human life she will miss. Alaric returns and tells everyone that Klaus’ ritual is set for that night. Realizing that Klaus will need a werewolf sacrifice on hand, or he will have to wait another month, Damon rescues Tyler and Caroline and kills Maddox. Because it’s the full moon, Tyler transforms and accidentally bites Damon. Matt appears and saves Caroline from Tyler with his bitchin’ crossbow.

Klaus comes and takes Elena. Damon goes to Klaus’ apartment to taunt him about having to postpone his ritual, but it turns out that Klaus has a backup werewolf and a backup witch: Jules and Greta. All he needs now is a backup vampire, but Damon won’t do, because he has been poisoned by Tyler’s bite. Greta takes Elena to the ritual site, where Elena sees Jenna’s dead body. Then Jenna wakes up as a vampire. The backup vampire! Stefan shows up to offer himself as the sacrifice so Jenna can live, but Klaus refuses. Klaus begins the ritual and kills Jules and Jenna, and then he drains Elena’s blood. Meanwhile, Bonnie finds a spell that uses the parent/child bond to resurrect someone. Uncle John has Bonnie use the spell on him, and he dies in Elena’s place.

Elijah, Damon, and Bonnie arrive as Klaus completes the ritual and starts to transition. Bonnie attacks him and weakens him, and Greta is killed by Damon. Before Elijah can step in and tear out Klaus’ heart, Klaus informs Elijah that Elijah can be reunited with his family. Klaus promises to take Elijah to his family if Elijah helps him live. Elijah turns on our protagonists and leaves with Klaus. Elena comes back to life and is not a vampire. Damon breaks the news of his impending death to Stefan.

At Stefan’s request, Bonnie contacts Emily to ask her if there is a cure for Damon. Emily does not want to help, but Emily hears the witches whisper Klaus’ name. Stefan goes to Klaus and begs for the cure, which Klaus reveals to be his own blood. Klaus keeps his promise to reunite Elijah with his family by killing Elijah with the dagger. Klaus tells Stefan that he will give Damon a vial of his blood only if Stefan starts drinking human blood and killing again, and also leaves Mystic Falls with Klaus as “a ripper.” Stefan agrees to the deal and drinks a bunch of human blood.

Sheriff Forbes goes to the Salvatore mansion to try to kill the ailing Damon, but he escapes. Jeremy finds Damon and brings him to The Grill. Sheriff Forbes finds them and accidentally shoots Jeremy. Jeremy dies, and Bonnie contacts the witches and asks for their help to bring Jeremy back. The witches tell Bonnie that if they do this, there will be “consequence.” Alaric has one of our favorite lines in response to that: "Well he's just a kid, tell them to shut up." Bonnie agrees to whatever consequences arise and Jeremy is saved. Sheriff Forbes and Caroline hear that Jeremy lived, and this provokes the Sheriff to make peace with her vampire daughter.

Elena finds Damon, delirious and wandering. She brings him back to the Salvatore mansion. Thinking he is dying, Damon goes ahead and tells Elena that he loves her. Elena kisses him. Katherine walks in with a vial of Klaus’ blood, sent by Stefan. Katherine gives Damon the cure and tells Elena that Stefan chose saving Damon’s life over a chance at a future with Elena. Meanwhile, Klaus has Stefan kill a human girl and then the two leave town. That night, Jeremy wakes up and goes downstairs to investigate some noises. He finds his dead vampire exes, Anna and Vicki, standing in his living room, back again. AHHH!

Show grade: A+

If you think we left something important out, tough, because it was hard enough to narrow it down to the essentials. This is a show where things actually happen. But you can always mention your favorite moments in the comments.