The Vampire Diaries - The Ties that Bind

Mothers never turn out well on this show, do they? We have Matt’s who sucked and made out with Tyler and abandoned him. We have Carol Lockwood, who is just a grade-A annoying bitch. There was Elena’s bio-mom, who was played by the worst actress ever and who sucked. Sheriff Mommy Forbes wins the Mother of Mystic Falls award, and she’s the one who raised Caroline, a girl who didn’t become tolerable until she became a vampire. And, finally, we have Bonnie’s mom who also abandoned her 15 years ago for what sounds like no good reason.

After Bonnie dreams about the fourth coffin, she realizes that her dreams are telling her that she needs to find her mother in order to unseal the mystery coffin and find out what’s inside. Bonnie and Elena take a road trip to find Ms. Abby Bennett Wilson, lying to Stefan about their whereabouts. Unfortunately, Klaus had already sent a hybrid to compel Abby and her adopted son, Jamie. Jamie was the son of one of Abby’s ex boyfriends, who abandoned him. Bonnie’s meeting with her mother was painful, especially when Bonnie found out that Abby was able to raise a youngster that was not her. While it was really depressing, one of us has never liked Bonnie more. Kat Graham knocked it out of the park there.

Stefan quickly figures out that Elena and Bonnie are at Abby’s. He shows up and Elena tries to talk to him outside in this barn-thing. Jamie appears, mid-argument, shoots Stefan with a wooden bullet, and ties Elena up. He must not have taken rope-tying classes, because he did a shoddy job. Elena was able to break free, grab Jamie’s shotgun, and knock Jamie out. Elena may be our hero. Elena digs the wooden bullet out of Stefan’s gut, and Stefan notices that Elena is “different.” Stronger. Tougher. Thank you vampire-hunting lessons by Alaric. We would pay $100 an hour for those. $150 if Alaric would kiss us goodbye after every session…

Meanwhile, Abby drugs Bonnie and takes her to Klaus’ hybrid. When Bonnie wakes, Abby tells her that if Klaus isn’t told where the coffins are hidden, Jamie will have to kill himself, because the hybrid compelled him to. Bonnie refuses until Abby shows Bonnie a way that she could warn her friends to re-hide the coffins. Well. At least one of the coffins. Damon chose to move the fourth, locked coffin. Abby offers Bonnie her help in unsealing that coffin, even though she lost her powers when she left Mystic Falls.

Oh yeah, and Abby was also the one who sealed Mikael in that crypt, because Mikael came looking for Elena when she was a baby. Elena’s adoptive mother and Abbie were best friends, so Abbie did a difficult spell that nearly killed her in order to protect Elena. Then Abbie realized that she enjoyed living in another town where she didn’t have to be a witch, so she stayed away. Not a good enough reason to leave your child. We disapprove. In fact, parental abandonment has to be in our top ten least favorite things, ever. It's up there with human trafficking and Two and a Half Men.

Klaus is able to get his family back by threatening the witch ghosts, saying that unless they show him the caskets, he will end the Bennett line. When Klaus moves the coffins to his home, he finds out that Damon undaggered Elijah. What fun! In other events, Elena tells Stefan that she and Damon kissed, because she feels guilty for keeping it a secret. She doesn’t feel guilty about the kiss itself, she says. This prompts Stefan to look sad and walk away from Elena for a few minutes. She follows him and he apologizes for nearly turning her at the bridge, which was nice. But then he goes right back to Mystic Falls and punches Damon in the face. Obviously, he still cares. Shocker.

In B plot, Bill Forbes returns in order to help Tyler break his sire bond to Klaus. In order to do this, Tyler must transform into a werewolf again and again, until the transformation is no longer painful. That way, Tyler will have nothing to be grateful to Klaus for anymore. Man, Daddy Forbes is smart. In C plot, Damon is concerned about Dr. Meredith Fell and her possible psychopathic tendencies. After all, she is showing interest in Alaric, and Damon can’t have Alaric’s heart broken again, because Damon loves Alaric with an epic bro-love. It is revealed that Meredith likes to attain vampire blood to help heal her patients. That’s cheating, doctor. But Alaric likes that her heart is in her medicine that much. They kiss.

Favorite lines? “We kissed. Now it’s weird.” And “I like to wave at newborns through the window.” Oh Damon. Complaint: Bonnie’s mom looks way too young to be Bonnie’s mom. Shipper news: Ern ships Stelena after re-watching season one and realizing how perfect that was. Delena needs to happen for a while, yes, but Stelena needs to be end game. It’s not fair that Nina Dobrev has chemistry with EVERYONE, but it’s good for the show. We love that they didn’t drag out Stefan finding out about the kiss. Do you even have to ask if we liked this episode? This show has yet to make a bad one. B- is as low as we could ever go with The Vampire Diaries.

Episode grade: A-