The Vampire Diaries- Season four, episode 10

Oh HELL yeah. It's about time. It's been so long since we've seen an A episode of this show, you guys, but the midseason premiere delivered. The first thing it gave us? Answers. We know who blew up the pastor and the council. We know who the next Big Bad will probably be (Silas). Thank God. We needed a new challenge.

The next thing it gave us was lots of good, old fashioned Elena triangle heartbreak. Rebekah forcing Elena to rip Stefan's heart out wasn't as sad as we thought it would be, but it was at least interesting. We felt bad for both Stefan and Elena when he said that he wanted Rebekah to compel him into forgetting his relationship with Ms. Gilbert. Ouch.



Then we had a Snow Patrol-backed phone call to Damon that managed to be romantic, even as we knew their whole situation was SO messed up it shouldn't have been. When Elena gets her real brain back, she is going to be so mad at Damon. There is even some nice Tyler/Caroline stuff, if you ship that. We are still sad she and Matt broke up.

In addition to that, April has more of a purpose and we met Bonnie's father who is also looking to end up a key player this season. April is being delightfully awful! We didn't know she had it in her. She's siding with Rebekah after knowing everything and is upset that the whole town is lying. Way to have a character (especially a human) have a motivation that isn't a result of compulsion or other magic!

Jeremy is well on his way to finishing that hunter's mark after the final scene tonight, and it could shake Elena and Damon up too, which is just fine. Rebekah is back, and we like her. Kol is hot.

Sure, it started off slow and too much resembled other "trapped in the school and forced to do bad stuff" episodes in this show. But once the episode started dropping plot points and confrontations on us, we forgave the show for repeating itself again.

Sure, Bonnie should really have questioned Shane about that necklace more. He said that an ancient, powerful witch used it to draw power! We would have had a few queries if we were her. Normal people would. But, overall, this is the fast-paced, twisty show we've been missing. Keep it up, TVD.

Episode grade: A-

Photo by Gage Skidmore  Uploaded by MyCanon (The Vampire Diaries) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons