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'Vampire Diaries' Buries a Friend

by Christine DiStasio

Thursday night's episode of The Vampire Diaries was all about coming clean and the Remembrance Day in Mystic Falls. Doesn't it seem like Mystic Falls has a holiday for just about every possible "day" you could imagine? Anyway, Stefan's still running around with no memory while Elena and Damon try desperately to bring it back, to no avail. Jeremy's secret has finally proved to be too much for him, so he's forced to tell, and the evil being renting Matt's body is becoming increasingly more aggressive. People let go of what they were hiding just in time for a beautiful funeral for the late, great witch, Bonnie Bennett.

Everyone's wondering where Bonnie is, not really because they miss her (well, maybe because they miss her) but mostly because they all have problems that they think she can fix. Like Jeremy Gilbert put it, "You fix things," when he tries to explain to Bonnie why he needs to let the others know that she's actually dead and not in Washington D.C. with her mom. It's the truth, Bonnie and her witchy powers have always been able to save the day, even if they almost kill her in the process. I mean, a spell to bring Jeremy back to life is the reason she's dead now because magic always comes with a price, duh. So Jeremy's been pleading with a ghost, he's also probably so tired of sending out emails pretending to be Bonnie for the past three months...

Matt Donovan is all screwed up (he also sent Bonnie 300 emails over the summer) and his body is being used by someone else's spirit. We all knew his summer of crazy antics with Rebekah couldn't end as sweetly as they did. The Czech girl from their threesome somehow transferred this spirit (how Voldemort/Quirrell host/parasite relationship-y is this) and now, some crazy Czech guy is living in his body until his "friends" come to get him. Matt's been videotaping himself to see how he's losing when he's blacked out and this creepy guy looked directly at the camera and aggressively sliced Matt's hand while threatening him about messing up their plan. Matt panics, he needs Bonnie (because we always need Bonnie) and goes to Jeremy for help because he can't understand why she has only answered two of his 300 emails (you have to do better than that if you're pretending to be someone, Jer) and to finally tell someone what's happening to him. Jeremy pulls together a bullshit excuse and Matt leaves to go mope about the situation some more. Why doesn't he call Rebekah? They're still friends, aren't they?

Elena and Damon are desperately trying to get Stefan to recall his 200 years' worth of memories with no luck. He hates reading his own journals (lol almost as much as we hated them in voiceover lol) and is convinced that without his memories, maybe he won't turn into the Ripper again. WRONG. When he feeds off of their waitress at the Grill, Damon passes him off to Elena, another bad idea. Elena's being really selfish about this whole "Stefan Has No Memories" situation. She's bitching about Damon not telling Stefan who she is right away and she pressures Stefan to remember their history right off the bat. Elena, you broke his heart, stop being so self-centered. She drags Stefan around the town trying to recreate where they first met and blah blah blah and gets sucked in my Stefan's charm and perfect bone structure, and he tries to kiss her. All of a sudden, she just decides that NOW is the perfect time to share that she's actually dating his brother and used the, "it wasn't you, it was me," to make matters worse. Boom, Ripper Stefan is back and now Elena's whining about needing Bonnie back to help because she'll know how to reverse the magic that erased his memory.

When Jeremy FINALLY feels guilty enough, the person he chooses to tell first is Damon, who's surprisingly more broken up about the situation than I thought he'd be. Elena's turning bad-ass, sexy Damon into an emotional mess. But, Jeremy confesses to him just the same while he's dancing on the graves of his ancestors and ringing a bell to celebrate "Remembrance Day". All hell ultimately breaks loose and everyone has to hear the bad news that Jeremy still isn't completely prepared to share, even though it's the right thing. C'mon big, bad hunter Jeremy, you're supposed to be able to handle this.

In yet another early-season tear-fest of a memorial Elena, Matt, Caroline, Damon, and Jeremy gather around a tree stump and place items that remind them on Bonnie on it. Then they stand there and cry. Jeremy rings the remembrance bell and as if on cue, Bonnie appears with her messages for her friends. At least in death, Bonnie is still interested in the wellbeing of her friends and she wants them to move on an be happy in their lives. She was always pretty mature.

And surprise, TYLER IS BACK. Yes, Tyler returns for Bonnie's funeral with a single white rose, places it on the tree stump, and puts his arm around Caroline in a sweet moment. Now Caroline can stop complaining about her relationship with him being as dead as the souls in the town cemetery. Caroline was about two seconds from moving on with this Jesse character, her study buddy and Dr. Maxfield's lab assistant, well at least she was, until Stefan rips his throat out. That date clearly didn't go as planned. Turns out that Dr. Maxfield is trying to create vampires, so now Caroline and Jesse will really have something in common. Not that I was ever convinced that the two of them could work.

Now that everyone's painfully aware of Bonnie's death (Elena will probably spend the next few episodes in a black hole of despair because "everyone is gone" and her life is a mess without them), who's going to help them solve their magic problems? Bonnie can't do magic from the Other Side and really, without magic her advice is kind of useless, so now what?

Image: The CW