The Vampire Diaries “Bring It On” 

This week in Mystic Falls, Elena has a raging case of the 12s as she responds to having her emotions turned off by engaging in general bedlam that includes eating a motorist who stops to find out why she’s in the road, eating a competing cheerleader, parading around naked, smacking down Caroline (after letting her land on her head during a routine), slamming Liz into a wall, inviting a few hundred kids into Salvatore Manor, and running away with Damon. Oh, and her sire bond is donezo.

Through it all, Stefan is trying to be the voice of reason and Caroline’s finding Elena increasingly irksome (as am I). It’s a strange dichotomy to have Elena try to prove how much she’s not feeling by acting out in extreme ways that seem like an overdrive to have fun (which I’d think she couldn’t feel, either). I’d assume it’s like someone who’s been so overmedicated that they keep trying anything and everything to feel something, when Elena could just ask Damon to turn her back on if she really wants to feel.

Damon is otherwise occupied this week, trying to run down Hayley and then Katherine and then a Klaus-infected vampire, who turns out to be an old friend named Will (background TBD). He ends up paired with Rebekah for part of that expedition. While they’re out and about, Liz tells Stefan that the town hospital’s blood supply has vanished, and Damon and Rebekah discover it’s missing in another hospital, too. By episode’s end, six hospitals in the area are bloodless and Stefan realizes it’s probably Silas.

Caroline keeps calling Tyler, who never answers or calls her back, and then Matt invites her over to the Lockwood house in a very strangely blocked scene that certainly makes it seem like Matt might not be Matt except that he has to invite her inside, which I think wouldn’t be a req if he were actually Silas (right)? He gives her a letter from Tyler that explains that Matt owns the house now, and it’s her haven from Klaus. She collapses in tears in Matt’s arms after she reads Tyler’s words (done in VO by Michael Trevino) and Matt creepily smiles over her shoulder.

Klaus, meanwhile, has scooped Hayley out of harm’s (and Katherine’s) way and they do a weird dance around each other where he keeps asking her questions and she flirtily doesn’t answer (but she does eat the meal he’s prepared for her and consumes a fair amount of his booze) until they end up dancing on each other (which I think is a first for Klaus, amazingly enough). The goal would seem to be to find Katherine, which Hayley initially uses to try to barter for Tyler’s life.

Klaus isn’t interested until Hayley makes the point that dead Tyler=pissed off Caroline forever and he finally twigs to what that might mean for him. They sort of agree to a détente and then hungrily go at each other before they hit the floor. Afterward, as she’s dressing to leave, he tells her her shoulder birthmark is significant for an old Louisiana werewolf clan and she’s suddenly less inclined to bail the hell out of there quite so fast.

After Damon mercy kills Will and stops Elena from killing Caroline, he’s sorting through old pictures to find Will and Elena tries again to make the case that this version of her is better, faster, stronger and Damon probably prefers that version anyway. He doesn’t disagree and instead responds by driving off to NYC with her without clueing Stefan in.

So, I hope this is a starter Elena, because the bratting out just because she can will get old. I’m not at all happy that Matt might not be Matt because we don’t know concretely how Silas assumes his identities. I hope that was maybe just a misdirect.

There was one throwaway moment in the middle of the Salvatore shindig where Damon tells Rebekah again that she wouldn’t want to be human. He points out all the high school girls who are about five years away from mind-numbing normality and tells he she’s lucky that will never be her. She will never be ordinary. That may be important later (not a spoiler, just a guess).

No Bonnie or not-Shane this week.  Next week’s episode looks like a NYC flashback episode for Damon. He got two this season! So perhaps it’s turning out he knows something he doesn’t know he knows? We’ll see soon enough.

If you missed the episode, or want to catch it again, it’s up now at CWTV.com.