The Vampire Diaries
Season 3 episode 6 – “Smells like Teen Spirit.”
Dear Diary, my how time flies. While it may feel like it has
been two seasons, but according to the Mystic Falls space time continuum it has
only been a year since the beginning of the last school year and we were
introduced to the world of the Vampire Diaries. One year since dopplicious doppelganger Elena Gilbert (Nina Dobrev) ran
into the eyebrows of Stefan Salvatore (Paul Wesley), the insanely handsome and
brooding younger brother of the also insanely handsome, dashing, dancing and
deadly Damon Salvatore (Ian Somerhalder.) A year since Vicki Donovan (Kayla
Atwell) was turned and staked and Jeremy Gilbert’s arms started to develop.
Since that time birth parents had been found and killed, Aunts have been
sacrificed, Original vampires became a thing and a problem, doppelgangers came
and went, curses were broken, hybrids were made, Caroline (Candice Accola)
became awesome, Stefan went evil, the English invaded and Matt Donovan (Zach
Roerig) fell madly in love with me, wait this is not my real diary. Hold on I
may need to compel a few people ... And we’re back and so are the Scrappy Doo
gang, survivors of the worst prank night in the history of prank nights are
back for the first day of school, I bet that they’re thrilled.
In “Smells like Teen Spirit” Elena is waking up at 5:15am to
do something active. That is never a good sign. It turns out a certain blonde
vampire slayer is helping the young Miss Gilbert buff out. It’s Alaric Saltzman
(Matt Davis) people, who else did you think I was talking about, with all his
gadgets and that one vampire he killed to the rescue!! It’s the day after the disastrous prank night
(seriously what was with all the cups on the gym floor, how was that a prank?)
night and now that her sweetheart Stefan has flipped the ‘I want to murder you
but can’t till I’m told’ switch and I don’t blame her one bit for trying to
defend herself. You can’t rely on the
vampires forever, they are notoriously fickle. Something that I admired in this
episode is that the writer’s are acknowledging that while Elena while in love
with some of the un-dead and part of their mystical plans it doesn't mean she
needs to act like the victim.
On the first day of their senior year the three girl
characters, who should be feeling ecstatic about reaching this milestone are
musing over the madness that is currently their lives. Bonnie’s (Kat Graham)
boyfriend sees ghosts of ex-girlfriends past, Caroline’s boyfriend is a newly
formed hybrid therefore doesn’t have to pay as much for fuel (hybrid is a car,
let’s just forget that) and Elena must face the fact the boy she met and fell
in love with a year ago to the day has some really sucky issues to deal with. See
madness.
Tyler Lockwood (Michael Trevino) is thoroughly enjoying his
new hybrid status and it’s creeping us all out. There also seems to be a sire man
crush thing he’s developed that will lead to nothing good.
This is all particularly worrying to girlfriend Caroline, who
on top of everything must now fend off the original sister Rebekah (Claire
Holt) who has her paws out after Caroline’s cheerleading squad and Queen Bee
status after Klaus (Joseph Morgan) leaves her in town.
Bonnie’s still upset that Jeremy is still seeing the ghosts
of Vicki and Anna (Malese Jow) but while I’m really glad that the younger
Gilbert is still around, it’s her own fault and that is all I will say on the
subject, next person’s issues.
Matt Donovan is truly the best and his interactions and
final goodbye to Vicki were tragic. As the only real human left in this group
he has slowly accepted all this supernatural craziness but can you blame him
for wanting the last remains of his family back?
This episode works really well as it’s a new year for the
characters and new starting point for the story. Everything is suppose to be
about them moving forward but something from their past is holding them back.
Elena is trying to grow and prove she is stronger but is still trying to hold
onto a Stefan that for all intense purposes no longer exists. Matt tried to
hold onto Vicki but that ended going up on flames. Caroline tries to keep the
old Tyler who doesn’t wear his breakfast to school. Katherine (Nina Dobrev
again) and Damon are clinging to the hope that an old foe of Klaus holds the
key but it may just be their downfall and Jeremy is still trying to have the
best of both worlds with Bonnie while trying to be close to Anna and if the
ending of this episode is any indication he may just get his wish with the
ghost situation being kicked to the fore front,
- BOOK SPOILER ALERT - and
if you, like me have read the Vampire Diaries book series and the writers
choose to follow even a slightly similar path you know that ghosts are
something that Klaus is not going to be too fond of - OK ITS OVER -
There are still plenty of questions to be answered over the
coming episodes: why is Klaus so scared of Mikael (Sebastian Roche) and why
does he drink Vamp blood because that’s new? Is Katherine dead? Is it possible
for Stefan to come back from Klaus’s compulsion? Who is the witch who was
pulling Vicki strings? Whose heads exploded more during the training session
Delena or Stelena fans? And why is no one trying harder to bring back Elijah
(Daniel Gillies)?!!
Till next episode diary, when ghosts invade Mystic Falls and
nobody knows who to call,
