Episode 2.3 – “Bad Moon Rising”

There’s a lot of skipping around in this episode, so I’m gonna try to condense the scenes together by shared characters, see if that flows a little better.

The return of Alaric!  He’s looking a little scruffy and what’s going on with his hair?  Still I’m so glad to see him back in action I’ll go with it.  Ric looks none too happy to be at the Gilbert place, but agrees to help them get some research on werewolves from Isobel’s old office.  Damon’s a little skeptical about the existence of werewolves, but in the interest of not being totally screwed, he wants to find out if that’s what they’re up against. 

It turns out that Elena, Alaric and Damon will be going on the road trip to Duke for Isobel’s research, and not Stefan.  Stefan seems to be okay with this and I almost wish we would have seen a little threat from him to Damon to behave or keep his mitts off his woman or something.  Ah well.  Elena seems pretty moody from the get go in this episode, vowing to bond with Alaric in their anti-Damon solidarity. 

Before they get on the road we get to see what’s happened between Ric and Jenna.  Apparently they’ve drifted apart over the summer and Jenna’s trying to be cool about it when it’s obvious she’s miffed over it.  Alaric tries to pull that “sorry things have been stop and start for us but maybe…” line where he gives her some hope even when he’s clearly still conflicted about moving on but Jenna calls him on it.  “Do what you need to do.”  She says.  Basically, call me when you get your shit together.

About to leave, Elena deliberately gives Stefan a long, lingering kiss, obviously designed to make Damon jealous and Damon’s expressive face is a treat to watch.�

In the land of werewolves, Mason’s going out for a run and Tyler is hot on his heels.  The older wolf heads straight for the old Lockwood plantation house where all that’s left are the ruins of a cellar with an awful lot of iron bars and shackles and such.  We don’t even need to see the deep gouges in the stone walls to know that they used to keep werewolves down there for their time of the month.  Tyler asks his mom about them and she gives him a line about their ancestors keeping slaves in them but he’s not convinced.  You go Tyler, get yourself some answers!

Poor Caroline.  A virtual shut in, she hovers just inches away from the sunlight as Matt knocks on the door calling her name.  Is it just me or does she have way too much eye makeup on for a day look?  No?  I digress…  Matt gets all sad and lonely when she doesn’t come to the door and calls her up to leave a voicemail that he’s going to the swimming hole on the Lockwood property and sure wishes she could come out and play. 

Stefan approaches Bonnie about making Caroline a ring so she can go out in the sunlight.  At first the witch balks, but he eventually breaks her down and she agrees.  Bonnie explains the rules to Caroline, saying if she ever hurts anyone she will stop her.  And then quick as a whistle, it’s done.  Caroline says what everyone is thinking.  “So that’s it?  I mean nothing witchy happened, no flickering lights, no gust of wind.  Have you even done this before?”  Bonnie pulls the curtains wide open demonstrating that it did work and Caroline gets over her initial shock that Bonnie picked that way to test it and seems pleased to have the ring. 

Stefan and Caroline go hunting next.�
Caroline:  So what do I do when I see the rabbit?�
Stefan:  Chase it, catch it, feed on it.
Caroline:  Isn’t killing cute defenseless animals the first step in becoming a serial killer?
Stefan:  You sort of skipped serial killer and went straight to vampire.

Caroline pouts about missing out on all the fun and she’s kinda freaking out.  Stefan finds this amusing.  He acknowledges that when someone becomes a vampire all of their natural behaviors are amplified.  So while he was empathetic and guilty over causing anyone pain as a human it’s made him the broody brother so as a vamp.  Thus Caroline is destined to spend eternity  as an insecure neurotic control freak on crack.  But he says that after they go hunting, she can go swimming and she perks up. 

Gotta love a roadtrip.  (*smirk*  especially mine!)  Damon starts us off:
Damon:  You know this whole pretending to hate me thing is getting a little silly.
Alaric:  I don’t think she’s pretending.  You did kill her brother.
Damon:  There is a huge asterisk next to that statement.  He came back to life.

He goes on to say that he did see the ring on Jeremy’s hand but Elena doesn’t look so sure.  They arrive at Isobel’s office.  (anyone else think it’s weird it’s just been left alone for years?  What they just have extra offices lying around that no one else wants to fill?)  Alaric introduces them to Isobel’s old grad student Vanessa.  At first I thought she was making flirty eyes at Damon but in a snappy and interesting twist, it turns out she recognized him.  While they all look around, Vanessa goes off to arm herself with a crossbow and shoots at Elena.  Damon puts on a burst of vampire speed and gets himself shot in the back while protecting her. 

It turns out Vanessa mistook Elena for Katherine at seeing her with Damon and thought she could take her out.  Silly human.  If that had been Katherine she would have been lunch.  Elena pulls the arrow out of Damon’s back and his reaction after shaking it off is “That bitch is dead…”  But Elena immediately protests, saying she swears she’ll never speak to him again if he kills her. 

Alaric calms Vanessa down and Elena introduces herself and Damon properly, admitting that he is *that* Damon, the vampire.  “I’d be extra nice to me right now.”  Damon smirks.   Vanessa proves a treasure trove of knowledge, giving them boxes of research on Katherine.  She tells them about some Aztec legends.  600 years ago vampires and werewolves were cursed and vampires were slaves to the sun and werewolves were servants of the moon.  Also, werewolf bites are said to be deadly to vampires.  Uh oh!
Elena asks if Vanessa knows anything about doppelgangers and she says that they usually torment the person they look like. 

Time for fun at the swimming hole!  Mason shows up and tells the kids to make sure to clear out by dark so that if someone ends up drunk and killed the Lockwoods won’t get sued.  Caroline arrives in time to see new girl flirting with Matt.  Her own worst enemy, Caroline scares her off and compels her to only chase after single guys from now on, and Matt is angry that Caroline’s acting jealous and goes off to sulk by himself.  Stefan shows up with some paternal sounding advice about not letting the jealousy get the best of her.  These two are having a better time together than she does with Matt…

Night falls.  Matt is still mad at Caroline at first, but they kiss and make up and go for a walk alone in the woods.  Not the smartest move ever.  Elena calls Stefan to fill him in on what they found out.  Stefan turns around goes after Caroline.  (how come he can’t track her at all?)  Mason is in the underground cellar chaining himself up but Tyler shows up there with new girl and he’s forced to pull himself free to find another hidey hole.  Mason’s off like a shot and at first decides to chain himself to a tree but then inexplicably changes his mind and gets into his truck instead.  Thus we are cheated out of a transformation scene and just get a rocking truck and a few growls instead.  Stefan finds Mason’s truck and the wolf busts out through the back window at him but we don’t get to see too much. 

Alaric cautions Vanessa not to say anything to anyone about what she’s learned and she sorta flirts at him, but he’s not really biting.  He says she would do better not to get caught up into any of it, especially after what happened to Isobel.  Damon and Elena are out by the car.  He gives her a book he was holding back, letting her know that Katherine’s name was Katarina Petrova originally and it might have something about her in it.  

Damon makes an effort here:
Damon:  You have every right to hate me, I understand.  You hated me before and we became friends.  It would suck if that was gone forever.  Is it?  Have I lost you forever?�
Elena:  Thank you for the book Damon.  (sigh)

Caroline and Matt are making out in the woods and she starts to play a little rough.  Matt cuts his arm on something and uh oh, she sees the blood.  Before he has time to barely ask what’s going on she’s sucking at his wrist and then completely loses it and bites into his neck.  (uh oh!)  Luckily Stefan shows up and pulls her off of him but the damage has been done.  The wolf is out there hunting them and they have to lead it away from Matt.  They run off at vampire speed right up to the cellar where Tyler emerges wondering what’s going on.  Before they have a chance to answer, the wolf lunges at Caroline and knocks her down, drooling all over her in the process.  (ick!)  Tyler screams “No!” and the wolf takes off. (that was easy)

We’re in the last ten minutes of the show so that means it’s time to bring on the heartache…  Cut to Caroline compelling Matt into believing that he was attacked by an animal.  She’s pretty upset that she hurt the one person on the planet she never wanted to hurt.  Stefan and Caroline have a heart to heart and Stefan admits that he shouldn’t be with Elena if he really wanted to keep her safe but he can’t help himself.  Caroline takes it to heart and deliberately gets Matt to break up with her. 

Mason shows up at his truck extra dirty and extra naked and Tyler confronts him as being the wolf.  Mason nods.  (well duh)

Alaric shows up and just plants a big one on Jenna, no words, just takes her into his arms and kisses her.  (yay!!!)  Then says he should have done that in the morning and kisses her again. 

Elena asks Damon point blank if he saw the ring before he broke Jeremy’s neck.  Damon is honest and admits that he had NOT seen it, he just got lucky.  He admits Katherine pissed him off and he apologizes.  She thanks him for being honest but tells him that he has lost her forever.  He calls her on that, saying that she used him that day to get info on Katherine.  She admits without any remorse, he had info she wanted to know.  We can all feel Damon’s pain at that, but at least he gets in the parting shot.  “You and Katherine have a lot more in common than just your looks.”

Final scene is in Caroline’s bedroom where she wakes to find Katherine who greets her with “Don’t be frightened, we’re gonna have so much fun together.”

Next week Katherine comes face to face with Elena!

Random thoughts I had:

I am getting whiplash from Elena’s mood swings.  First she hates Damon with a fiery passion (and we all consider Seppuku).  Then she’s all “Don’t kill Damon it’s not his fault!”  And now she’s written him off for life?   (where’s that wakizashi…)

Boy, Matt sure was quick to blow Caroline off after he just confessed his love for her in the previous episode.  Kudos to Caro for being strong enough to put his safety first, but damn… that must hurt with how quickly he dropped her like a hot potato. 

Stefan has gone down market for me again, none of that grr that made him so hot in the season premiere.  Bring back sexy Stefan!!!

Tyler is really starting to grow on me the more they flesh him out.  He handles new girl’s rejection better than I thought he would, I loved the “Ouch”.   So much better than him just being all hormonal and testy with the full moon out.

Does this mean that Bonnie’s gonna come gunning for Caroline now when she figures out what happened to Matt?  Cause neck wound… duh. 

I was really hoping that it would have come out what Katherine actually said to Damon to tick him off enough to snap Jeremy’s neck, but oh well.  Maybe another time.  I could have done with a little more interaction between Damon and Alaric too, but hopefully we’ll have more of that to come.

So, what did you guys think?    Not looking too good for us Delena shippers is it?