Vampire Diaries: Under Control, but not in control.
The Vampire Diaries (s1ep18): Under Control - ***
This week on Vampire Diaries, Elena and Jeremy receive a surprise visit from Uncle John (David Anders), and Damon attempts to uncover the reason he is in town. Meanwhile, a Founder’s Day event leads to trouble between Matt and Tyler and well, everyone.
Previously: Stefan loves Elena. Elena looks like Katherine. Stefan was kidnapped, but rescued. He drinks Elena’s blood. And goes feral. Vicki’s body was found. Stefan feasts on human blood.
John: It’s Founder’s Day and apparently everyone is invited. Really. Uncle John arrives in town, and Damon is quickly suspicious as to why he’s in town. Especially, once he sees Uncle John hanging with the Founder’s Council. There’s something not right about Uncle John.
Jeremy: Word is Vicki died from a drug overdose. Jeremy doesn’t believe that one bit and starts asking questions (and we get a little bit of Jeremy and Tyler bonding), which gets Damon a bit worried.
Damon: Jeremy’s been asking questions about Vicki Donovan’s death.
Elena: He knows that her death was ruled an overdose.
Damon: Right. ‘Oh, but sheriff. Someone buried her, who would do that?’ ‘I know, I know, me.’
This forces Elena to circumvent and see what Jeremy knows about vampires. They’ve been a bit in their own worlds lately and Elena finally tells him how she’s adopted and slyly asks him why he wrote his vampire report for school. All this does is get him even more suspicious, and he finds and reads her diary. I knew this would happen. Uh, oh.
Stefan: Continuing on from where we left off last week, Stefan is having some big problems controlling his hunger for human blood, but he tries to keep that fact from everyone. And he does a halfway decent job, until him and Elena get hot and heavy and his vamp side comes to the surface. This leaves Elena having to call Damon for help, and Damon plays up that fact as much as possible for her brother Jeremy:
Damon: “No, Elena! I will not go to your bedroom with you.”
Damon also lets her in on the little fact that Uncle John has been hanging with the Founder’s Council.
Elena: Perfect, we’ll just add it to the growing list of how everything’s falling apart.
Damon doesn’t really have anything helpful on Stefan, except that it’s going to take time.
Damon: He doesn’t want to be me, but that doesn’t mean, deep down, that he’s not.
Stefan and Elena go to the Founder’s Day event, along with everyone else in town, and Stefan becomes a bit of an alcoholic as he uses it fend off the cravings. This also leads to some unexpected results.
Elena: You don’t like dancing. I usually have to beg you.
Stefan: No, no. You have to beg the sober me. The drunk me, there’s no begging necessary.
At times he’s cute. Then at other times he’s a bit scary as he uses compulsion on a guy to change the music. And then goes feral on a guy after he’s rude to Elena. He even breaks the guy’s arm when they’re alone later outside. Then he speeds out of there once Elena comes outside. I don’t like this Stefan. Thankfully, he finally admits to her in a really pretty scene that he’s not ok.
Stefan: My head is pounding, I feel like my skin is on fire, I have this hunger inside of me that I’ve never felt before. But I don’t want you to see me like this, I don’t want you to know that this side of me exists.
Matt: There’s not really any Matt/Caroline scenes this week. I kind of miss those two. (I miss Bonnie, too. Where the hell is she still?) Matt is too preoccupied with his mother anyway. She’s really trying to keep it all together, but the discovery of Vicki’s body last week makes things difficult. She starts to drink, then she’s flirting with Tyler, and before she knows it they’re kissing and caught by Matt. This leads to a big brawl between Matt and Tyler (who goes all grr), and finally ends with Matt kicking his mom out of the house. Can he do that? Is he not a minor? (We also get another small scene with Tyler’s dad: “That is the last time you ever embarrass this family.” and then slaps him.)
Matt: I want you out of the house, and my life, by morning.
Matt: Don’t you get it? I’m better off without you.
Damon and Alaric: Damon and Alaric continue their awesome dynamic duo routine from last week.
Alaric: You think John knew Isobel?
Damon: I think John knows a lot of things.
And Damon’s right. Uncle John has an immortality ring just like Alaric’s on his finger, which Damon discovers after he kills him and he doesn’t die. Turns out, John and Elena’s father inherited the rings, gave his brother’s ring to Isobel who gave it to Alaric, and sent Isobel to Damon to be changed. He also seems to know a lot about the town and about Katherine.
Damon: We have a problem, Stefan. And when I say problem, I mean global crisis.
Damon leaves and Stefan is still drinking human blood. Dun, dun, dun.