SGRoA: Vampire Diaries, S2 E5: Kill Or Be Killed

Happy Continued Spooky Season! I dressed my house-skeleton, David S Pumpkins, in his Halloween suit and made a haunted porch with thrift-store dolls and a bunch of spiders. I’m thrilled. Can’t wait for the kids to come. Let’s get started!

We open in Florida, ONE YEAR AGO, and oh, good, it’s a Mason episode.

they look just like him. same face! 

Oh, looks like we get to see whom he killed. Some dude starts a fight in the bar parking lot, maybe a friend? He accuses Mason of cheating with his girlfriend and starts punching. A crowd gathers, but not a single one of these motherfuckers tries to stop the fighting. Gross.

Anyway, Mason tackles him and he hits his head and cracks his skull open and now Mason’s a werewolf. He’s telling this story to Tyler, whose face shows us many emotions: shock, disbelief, concern, openness to advice.

Mason’s doesn’t move. He reminds Tyler about the moonstone, and Tyler takes him to a floor safe, but it’s not there. Tyler is holding it, and because Mason won’t tell him what it’s for, he’s not going to give it up.

Elena tells Jeremy - hey, hi, Jeremy! Haven’t seen you this season! Where ya been? - Elena tells Jeremy that he’s not to get involved with Tyler or any of the werewolves. She agreed to share information, not action. Okay, then, when do you tell fuckin’ JENNA about any of this?

Stefan comes in and reiterates that they’re broken up or fighting or whatever to throw Katharine off.

Caroline signed her mom up for the Historical Society volunteer picnic, and says she thought Sheriff would bail, but no, she wants to spend the whole day with her daughter. (LIZ. Her name is Liz. I will remember that someday, I promise.) Caroline says she’s “in a mood”, and then Liz throws her off by asking why Elena was there so late. But it was Katharine, and Liz says that Caro’s been acting differently lately, what’s going on? But Caro walks away: “There’s being a mother and then there’s reality. Let’s not push our luck, okay?”

Poor Caroline.

The whole town is out at the picnic, of course, because when does this entire town not turn up for something? Stefan approaches Mason and suggests that he and Damon call it a truce. Mason says he offered already, and Stefan, instead of apologizing and walking away, says there’s two Salvatores and only one full moon, so how does Mason want to play it? Mason tells him to keep Damon on a leash, and they shake hands.

Damon isn’t exactly pleased, but Stefan keeps trying to rein him in anyway. Good luck, Stefan.

The teens who aren’t at the picnic are at The Grill. A couple girls ogle Jeremy, but one says he’s “damaged goods”. Jer extends an olive branch to Tyler, who rejects it initially, but then calls Jeremy back to apologize and thank him for his kindnesses recently. The girls come over - one looks very familiar to me, but I can’t place it yet - and they make plans to go back to Tyler’s house. Tyler invites Jeremy along.

Mason tries to talk to Liz about the Council. She tries to rebuff him, but he says he knows about it, knows that vampires exist. He says he rejected it before but he’s grown; he wants to be on it. They need him: there are two vampires in town right now, and no one seems to be doing anything about it.

Liz asks who, of course, and Mason just comes right out with it: Damon and Stefan Salvatore. Liz practically laughs in his face, says Damon’s on the Council, he’s killed vampires before. They walk in the sun!

Mason says they’ve figured it out, but Liz is unswayed. Damon’s her friend! So Mason offers to prove it, right before the ad break.

Caro tells Elena about the fight with her mom, and Elena talks about the “fight” with Stefan.

Damon comes over to chat with Liz, and notices she’s flustered. Liz says it’s just Caroline, but don’t buy it, Damon. Go find Mason. Keep an eye on him.

But Damon goes straight to Caro to tell her not to be a bitch to her mom. Sure, she’ll take advice from you, Damon. But they’re both distracted by eavesdropping on another made-up fight from Stefan and Elena to report back to Katharine.

Like - okay. I know it’s a soap opera. I know it’s about teenagers. I know there’s going to be lame relationship drama that I can neither understand nor care about.

But like - VAMPIRES. Y’all are 150 years old, and this is the best plan you have to get rid of an older, more powerful vampire? This is it? Teenage nonsense? This bitch is like 400 years old, and while she’s clearly some order of insane, what with the teenaged boy obsession and all, she is extremely dangerous. Y’all should be armed 24/7 with hardwoods and firestarters, and you should be gunning for blood.

“We’ll make her think we’re breaking up!” is just such an incredibly dumb idea, all the way around. It’s a dumb idea when you’re doing it just to fool other humans about human relationships, but it is especially dumb to do around a vampire. Granted, she seems just as ridiculously stupid, but I wouldn’t ever bet on that to keep me alive.

At Tyler’s, everyone’s drinking. The familiar girl who said Jeremy’s unhinged? That demon from The Good Place!

I assume she’s just a high schooler here; I don’t think this show can handle adding demons and werewolves in one season.

OH, IT’S AMY, FROM THE SWIMMING HOLE EPISODE. I didn’t recognize her at all in that one, damn. She says she’s embarrassed that she was “slutting it up” with Tyler in that episode. Nice language. Maybe just say you’re ashamed you treated him like he wasn’t a person with feelings? The sluttery, in other words, is not the issue. It almost never is, girl.

Jeremy’s sketching, and the girls want to see what he drew. It’s all scary werewolves, and Jeremy stares at Tyler as the girls get weirded out. Tyler takes Jeremy off to see something he’s “been working on”, but just starts a fight about the werewolves. Jeremy admits he knows what Tyler is - even though Tyler isn’t? Currently, he’s just a carrier, not symptomatic. So what do you know, Jer?

LIZ POISONED THE LEMONADE. Damn, everyone but Stefan and Elena are on the ball this ep, eh? Damon takes a sip (after nonsense with Mason and Stefan), and immediately is spitting it out and doubling over. Liz is watching, eagle-eyed.

Caroline’s about to admit to Elena that she’s working with Katharine, but sees Sheriff leaving the volunteer day and gets pissed. Caro confronts her, acting like an annoyed teen, but she says to Elena that something’s happening.

Damon and Stefan assume that Mason poisoned the lemonade, and are going to go after him. Caro takes Elena up a hill, because she says she can hear better up there? and also that something is going wrong, right now, she needs to just figure it out. Caroline goes autistic - excuse me, vampire mode - and hears everything, but most importantly, Damon and Stefan confronting Mason and getting motherfucking SHOT by the Sheriff!!!!!

And you bitches were scheming about Katharine?! Oh, man, you guys are so incredibly bad at being bad guys, tell you what.

Back at Tyler’s, Jeremy is explaining that he knows about the Lockwoods from OG John Gilbert’s journals. Tyler confides in him. I’m glad these two are making up and bonding again, because they both could really use a friend. Especially a friend who knows what’s going on in town.

Oh, and there it is - Tyler is keeping the moonstone on himself, because he says it’s the only thing Mason is in town for, and he needs to know why.

Mason, Sheriff Liz, and some deputies take the Salvatores into the “old slave quarters” on the Lockwood estate. Liz tells Mason to leave, because they’re going to kill the Salvatores, and he can’t be a witness.

Caroline and Elena are hot on their heels, but they run into Mason first. He says he knows what Caroline is, and threatens Elena, but Caro successfully beats the shit out of him. Good job, Caroline!

Liz is torturing the boys for information, shooting legs and such. Can’t ever just kill someone, gotta leave time for them to get rescued! How many of them are there, how do they walk in the sun, etc. Damon can’t believe she’s doing this - “But you were my friend!”

Caro leads Elena to the dungeon, and hears her mother getting ready to kill the boys, but she refuses to go in there, because her mother will find out. Elena goes down and keeps everyone occupied, but Caro has had second thoughts, and rips the throat out of one of the deputies, then says “Hi, Mom!” with a vamp face and a mouth covered in blood.

Damon also eats a deputy, so the only one alive is Liz. Caroline begs for her to keep the secret, or Damon will, 100%, kill her. Liz says to kill her, she can’t keep this secret, but Damon refuses. She’s his friend. He’s not doing this.

The girls bust into the study at Tyler’s and take the moonstone. Sarah (the other girl) and Tyler are fighting over it on the stairs and she falls - but is fine. Jesus. That was too close.

Caro shows up at the Salvatores’ with a suitcase for her mom. They have to have the vervain leave her system before Damon can compel her to forget, so she has to be “home with a stomach bug” for at least three days. She asks (and Caro overhears) that Caroline be kept away from her. She’s not her daughter anymore. Damon says she’s very wrong about that, but this relationship is probably not going to recover anytime soon.

Stefan contemplates the freezer full of human blood. He thinks he can build up a tolerance to it, like Katharine did with vervain, because this is the only thing that will help him kill Katharine. He and Elena play this like it’s the end of the world, and not like a vegan trying some cheese, because… Well, I don’t know, but it follows the “brooding vamp-teenaged girl” dynamic, so I guess we’re going with it. END OF THE WORLD!!!!!!!!!!

Caroline finally tells Elena that she’s been working for Katharine, because Katharine threatened Matt. Good, Caroline. Now that’s out in the open, you can help them and stay better protected.

Mason calls Liz to make sure she ended up murdering people. He has to leave a message.

Tyler confesses to him that he almost killed someone, by accident, and he found himself thinking that he wanted her to die - at least, a little part of him did. He wants nothing to do with this, and so hands over the moonstone.

Elena tells Damon that what he did for Liz was good, that that’s the Damon she wants to be friends with. Damon tells her that Stefan “didn’t drink the people blood”, but he does tell her that it’s necessary - and she knows it.

So she goes to Stefan and offers her own blood. Because he shouldn’t have to do it alone. This is like me trying to deprogram from D.A.R.E. well enough to take my stupid meds every day. It’s not that deep, guys.

Mason goes to the woods to meet Katharine - WHO WAS WITH HIM IN FLORIDA. Certainly looks like she engineered the entire fight, to engineer his wolfiness, to engineer - who knows, at this point. But she does have to yell at him for going rogue with the Salvatores. She wants them, Mason. Don’t fuck with her plans, my guy. She might be dumb, but apparently she’s less dumb than we thought.

She wanted the moonstone back, after giving it to George all those years ago. She and Mason suck face when he tells her he got it, and we fade to black.

Non-stop, wall-to-wall action! I paid for my whole seat, BUT I ONLY USED THE EDGE!!!!!!!!!

See y’all next week, when hopefully we’re on a similar rollercoaster of vampy drama!