Entertainment

'TVD' Has A Lot Going On, As Usual

by Christine DiStasio

The second episode of The Vampire Diaries fifth season aired on Thursday and it just keeps unraveling. This isn't surprising, considering the show's tendency to run multiple, intricate storylines at the same time, but they've never tried to do so in two primary locations. Obviously, the Whitmore College campus needed a way to be relevant to the show otherwise we'd have Caroline and Elena running back to Mystic Falls every other minute (not that it'd even take them that long to do that), but it's really not working out too well. Meanwhile, Mystic Falls is in possibly the worst turmoil it's been in in a long time, so there's also that. Good news though, EVERYONE is worried about Stefan now. Finally, I can breathe a sigh of relief that we're getting back to normal.

A lot has happened so far this season and we've only just made it through the second episode, so we came up with a list of the 10 things we wish The Vampire Diaries would focus on and what we should watch for during the rest of the season:

10) Elena and Damon? Elena and Stefan? We caught a glimpse of something that looked a lot like regret in Elena's eyes when Silas was pretending to be a jilted Stefan. She chose Damon last season, but will she change her mind?

9) Matt Donovan is apparently a badass. He's got the Gilbert ring that reanimated Jeremy like, a million times, and he has no fear when it comes to Silas, who seems to be taking Klaus's place as the big baddie of Mystic Falls. How many times are we going to watch him die and/or kick ass this season? I'm glad he's doing something for once, besides being the sad pseudo-boyfriend of various vampire ladies.

8) The suicide ruling. The coroner stated that Elena and Caroline's roommate Megan's death was a suicide rather than a brutal vampire attack (typically referred to as "animal attack" by humans in the know). Whatever that's about, it's definitely not the first nor the last time we're going to see this happen to one of their classmates. So when will we find out why there's such a huge cover-up?

7) Caroline's new single life. Is she technically single? I mean, Tyler didn't show up for college and isn't taking her calls, which in the real world usually means the brush off, but in TVD there's usually an epic explanation. Caroline and Tyler's love story was kind of annoying anyway, she was much better off with Klaus. Vampire Diaries and Originals crossover episodes? I'm interested in that.

6) Jeremy Gilbert taking matters into his own hands. It's not a surprise that Jeremy is knee-deep in everything that's going on, even though he should really be in high school geometry class. He got expelled in the first episode for fighting with kids about how many times he died and became Katherine's guardian or something. All well and good, if it's in the name of saving Stefan, but Jeremy is still so naïve. I mean, he thought he could take Silas in hand-to-hand combat. Stupid move, Gilbert, even if you are a hunter. It'll also be interesting to see how it goes when he finds out he's not the only one that knows Bonnie is dead.

5) Doppelgangers. Yes, more doppelgangers. As if vampire Elena and now-human Katherine weren't enough It Takes Two-action for us, we've got the Silas and Stefan problem. Silas is running around pretending to be Stefan, which might be why there's little distinction between the behavior of one vampire to another. But still, where are we going with this and when will we know how/why Stefan and Damon are related to Silas?

4) Katherine is SO bad at being human. Katherine Pierce spent decades looking for "the cure" and she finally got it and took it last season. The girl couldn't wait to be human again, but it seems like she had approximately NO idea what that would mean. She's whining about her feet hurting from heels (we feel your pain) and has no coping mechanism for the symptoms of the common cold (she looks like she's a plague victim). It can either get hilariously worse or significantly better from here. She should've asked Matt Donovan before she took the cure about what it's like to be the only human surrounded by vampires in Mystic Falls. She hates life, she feels sorry for herself and she's "the freaking moonstone." At least her jokes are funny.

3) Upperclassman Jesse and Professor Maxfield. These two are up to something, maybe not together, but they're a part of the storyline unfolding at Whitmore College. Did anyone else feel eerily like Jesse wanted to stake Elena through the heart with that jagged log in the wood shed? He probably did. Mr. Teacher kicked Elena and Caroline out of his Micro Biology class all the way back to their Biology 101. Did he realize that they only signed up so they could keep and eye on him? He has to know who and what they are, but why does it matter?

2) The travelers. Who the heck are these people and why is Silas so threatened by them? We know nothing about them, besides their creepy eyeball trick that makes them look like beetles and that one of them is a girl from Matt's threesome adventures with Rebekah over the summer. Apparently, they understand mind control, as Silas gets the boot from Matt's mind and he realizes that "there's someone else in there already." Are they there to drive Silas back to the grave or are they there to create more trouble? This is feeling extremely True Blood-y to me and I don't know how I feel about it.

1) WHERE IS STEFAN????? Now that everyone is clued into the fact that something is wrong and Elena is widely acknowledging the knot in her stomach that's been there all summer, we're getting somewhere. Damon had Sheriff Forbes scour the quarry where he believed Stefan was planning to drop Silas' body. Her team pulled out a safe that looked remarkably like the one Stefan was trapped in, but alas, no Stefan. That would just be too easy guys. There was a dead guy in the safe, so there goes Stefan... again. Silas released him and got him hooked on human blood again, we all know what that means... the Ripper is back.

Unfortunately, we have to go back down this Ripper road again, which was so infuriating and annoying two seasons ago. Disappointing, but Silas is damn smart for creating such a big diversion to keep everyone away from his quest to find Katherine. Unless Stefan is pretending to be the Ripper again to throw his great-great-great-great-...-great uncle, Silas, or whatever, off of his tracks (this is a stretch, but not unheard of). Something we know for sure, is that it'll be awhile until we see this again:

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