‘The Vampire Diaries’ 5.01 Episode Recap and Review: I Know What You Did Last Summer

After inevitably leaving the fans to wallow for months over the fate of Stefan (Paul Wesley), Bonnie’s (Kat Graham) future, and the direction of Damon (Ian Somerhalder) and Elena’s (Nina Dobrev) relationship – The Vampire Diaries is finally back, and it’s time to head to college! While Caroline (Candice Accola) and Elena become situated in their new dorm with a very peculiar roommate, Damon is left in Mystic Falls to handle everything. Tough break for Damon, because it took all of five minutes after Elena left for hell to break loose.

Luckily for Delena fans, Damon and Elena’s relationship is going strong, even after the summer ends. Now, it’s time for Damon to get Jeremy (Steven McQueen) situated back at high school, covering up his sudden revival by blaming it all on a attempt to fake his own death, while Elena situates herself at college. It’s all hugs and kisses with Damon and Elena, but nothing every stays lovey-dovey for long in Mystic Falls! Elena begins to have a nagging feeling that something is wrong with Stefan, and with good reason. The audience soon finds out that Stefan has been stuck in the coffin all summer, drowning repeatedly. He even starts having inner battles with a hallucinated Damon, telling him to flip his humanity switch.

Jeremy begins his first day of high school, only to reveal that he has been keeping Bonnie’s death a secret all summer. She’s still able to be seen and heard by Jeremy, using him to contact her loved ones. How long will she be able to keep this up? It takes Jeremy all of first period to get expelled, after some bully starts taunting him, forcing Jerbear to unleash his hunter moves. This is the first mess Damon has to clean up.

Silas soon strolls through town, causing absolute havoc. After feeding off of Sheriff Forbes, and discussing his distaste for his own kind, he soon makes human Katherine his target. He finds her in a bubble bath, first seducing her, only to end up trying to kill her. She’s saved by Damon, and escorted to safety by Jeremy, only to be betrayed after Silas reveals that Stefan is currently being tortured, and the surrender of Katherine being the only way to save him. Regardless, after Katherine realizes that she’s not safe afterall, she unclasps Jeremy’s seatbelt, and crashes the car. She, even in her human form, escaped to safety, but Jeremy was almost left for dead. Silas wasted no time, though. After he realized that Katherine had most likely escaped, he waltzed his way to the town square, and made quite the show. After revealing what he was to the town, using his compulsion to keep them from going into a frenzy, he sliced the mayors throat and demanded all to be in search for Elena Gilbert’s lookalike. I have to say, Kat Graham did a phenomenal job during this scene. She wasn’t able to be seen nor heard, but that scream when Silas killed her father was heartbreaking.

Meanwhile, Elena and Caroline try to get used to their new roommate, Megan (Hayley Kiyoko). Though after doing some snooping, Caroline and Elena soon realized that Megan might be on to what they are, after getting a swig of vervain. I understand that vervain is rare, but can’t someone like to drink it without automatically being accused of knowing what vampires are? Regardless, this little revelation was short lived, because Megan was soon killed at a party (where you had to be invited in). To make matters even more sketchy, Elena and Caroline decided to look through Megan’s phone, only to find out that Megan knew Elena’s dad? Weird.

And even with all of that, TVD still managed to add in one last twist. After a summer of love and lust with Rebekah (Claire Holt), Matt (Zach Roerig) is followed back to Mystic Falls by a thief that he shared a threesome with. He believes that she’s only there to return the Gilbert ring that she stole, but it turns out that she has even bigger plans for him. I’m not 100% clear as to what happened, but once Matt slipped the ring on his finger, a man came from behind and worked some witchy juju!

This season is off to a great start! So much happened, but it all still molded together perfectly. I’m so curious to see how everything pans out, and I’m extremely happy with Paul Welsey’s role this season. So many questions, the first being… Is it Thursday yet?

Rating:
A+

Questions:

• Thoughts on the season premiere?
• What’s in store for Matt?
• Are you hoping that Stefan flips his switch?
• Any idea what the link between Elena’s deceased roomie and her dad is?
• Are you liking Caroline’s new possible love interest? Or are you hoping that Tyler returns–fast!?