The Vampire Diaries -- 1912

For a month 1912 was promoted as the first Damon flashback, but sadly in the days before it would air the truth would start to came out. It was really a Stefan flashback sold as a Damon flashback. I'm guessing the reason it was sold as a Damon flashback because most people are sick to death of Stefan flashbacks while Damon only gets anything that's a byproduct of a Stefan flashback. Or maybe Julie Plec, the mother of all Stefan fan girls sold it to the network as a Damon flashback, but she's just so biased in favor of her beloved Stefan she managed to make what was supposed to be a Damon flashback into a Stefan flashback.

The way the media gushed about this episode it truly makes them seem like a bunch of gushing fan girls over-praising whatever dreck that comes their way. The big revelation of who the Council Killer was, was lauded by the media as the most shocking twist ever, but it was really one of the worst reveals I've had the misfortune to see. The story of how Damon became Damon was handled in a slapdash manner so Plec could fit in a scene showing how it was all Damon's fault that Stefan became The Ripper. Yes, true to Plec's usual MO, Stefan's not even to blame for becoming The Ripper, it's all Damon's fault. The network was insane to let Plec write an episode that was supposed to be a Damon-centric story when she's such a biased hack who takes out a can of whitewash whenever she has Stefan do something he might actually be held accountable for and always has to make everything all about Stefan. This could have been a great episode if Plec hadn't gotten her hands on it.

Let's start with the big reveal of who is killing members of The Council in town. After shooting Alaric, Meredith hauled his butt to the sheriff's office and accused him of being the killer. Alaric wakes up in jail. Alaric swears Meredith is setting him up. Elena rushes to go and confront Meredith to prove her roomie is innocent. Meredith fires back by telling Elena some dirt she dug up on Alaric's past, which Elena refuses to believe. Meredith then asks just how much does Elena really know about Alaric.

I actually started liking Meredith when she copped a, "Who the heck are you to judge me? You're dating two vampires, for God's sake," attitude with Elena. No one is allowed to cop that kind of attitude with Princess E and it made me like Meredith a bit, even though I don't really think the character fits very well on the show.

Anyway, Elena gets Matt to do a B&E with her on Meredith's place. They find a Gilbert family journal Meredith got her hands on somehow and Meredith finds them and calls the police. Liz lets them go and Matt reveals he swiped the journal. Meanwhile Stefan and Damon are reading a journal, as well, about the 1912 murders, and when there's a mention of Samantha Gilbert, Damon says that isn't possible, because he killed her. That's when Damon realizes she must have had a Gilbert resurrecto-ring and that Alaric has one, too, and that Alaric must be the killer. At the same time Elena is telling Alaric the same thing. And thus brings us to one of the worst reveals of a killer that I've ever seen, while the gushing media is calling it the most shocking twist ever.

How could the reveal been better? How about instead of suggesting it all hour, make it look like Meredith was the killer and evidence was piling up against her, and then show Alaric killing someone in the last few minutes of the show. Now that would have been shocking. Of course, Julie Plec couldn't make Elena so much the focus of everything if they did it that way. Unfortunately, Julie Plec's belief that Elena has to be in every story is ruining what could be a lot of good stories. Instead we saw a character we met earlier that I wouldn't recognize in a crowd of people killing the Salvatore relative that brought Damon and Stefan home. Total snoozefest of a reveal.

I also think the whole ring thing is a big giant cop-out. What with Alaric's history with both Jenna and Isobel being turned into vampires and dying, Alaric could have had a psychotic break without the big bad ring being to blame. In 3.04 he acted weirdly protective of Elena and turned on Damon when Damon wasn't even doing anything to warrant his paranoid delusions Damon was coming on to Elena. Then he forced his way on The Council to represent her interests. Would have been more interesting that way than the big bad magic ring made him do it.

The triangle from hell that sucks the life out of the show was mercifully kept to three scenes. Damon ran into Elena while visiting Alaric and when he copped an "I could care less" attitude, she told him if he didn't stop pushing people away, he was going to end up alone. She also saw Stefan feeding on a human and Matt thankfully dragged her way before she could get up on her self-righteous high horse and go, "Bad vampire, bad!" Then Matt asked Elena how she got involved with two vampires and Elena said Stefan was safe because he wouldn't die like her parents did and Damon just managed to get under her skin.and she can't shake him. [Not even when she has his neck broken, apparently]. And Matt's comment that's how it works with love or whatever he said made Matt the DE's hero when earlier they wanted him to leave town and stay away from Elena. Matt, unfortunately, is still in love with Elena. Poor fool!

The main attraction was Damon and Stefan with a little Rebekah thrown in the mix in the present and Sage thrown in in the past. Damon starts out the hour trying to convince Liz that Alaric is innocent and being told by Liz to stay out of it. Like he's going to do that. Damon is still more of a best friend to Alaric than he's been to Damon, this season.

Damon goes home, recalling that there were a similar string of murders back in 1912 and begins looking for Stefan's diary for that year. This causes Stefan to have a flashback. Yes, Stefan! And they've been promoting this as Damon's first flashback episode. Nope, just another Stefan flashback being passed off as actually giving Damon a flashback story for once. Stefan dominates the flashback for a few minutes until Damon finally makes his appearance and the first thing out of Stefan's mouth is to ask Damon if he killed Uncle Zacharias. Yeah, Damon has a history of killing his own relatives, doesn't he, Stefan? No, that was you, Stefan, as Damon throws in his face that Stefan's the one that likes to munch on their relatives, in particular, their father. I thought Stefan only started putting Damon down and copping this morally superior attitude with Damon when Damon became the bad boy we all know and love. No, he was doing it while Damon was a good boy, which makes me think he's been doing this to Damon since they were children. Always putting Damon down and suggesting Damon was bad and he was good.

He gets Damon to go for a drink with him and they end up at a tent where a female vampire named Sage is boxing against men and beating the crap out of them. Damon seems a bit enthralled by her, but when she approaches Damon and sticks money down his pants, [Apparently she's under the impression Damon's a Chippendale's dancer. ] he gives her the cut direct by telling her he's already spoken for. As in a certain Miss Katherine Pierce. In fact, Damon has been faithful to Katherine for the last fifty years. Yeah, Julie Plec, keep saying Stefan and Elena are the epic romance of the show, while refusing to acknowledge that the true epic romance of the show is Damon and Katherine.

Sage follows Damon as he feeds and kills on some woman and tells him a woman is not just for food, she's for pleasure. Next thing you know Sage has got Damon in the fight tent and she's teaching him to pick upperclass victims opposed to cheap prostitutes. He chooses Samantha Gilbert and feeds on her. Frankly, I didn't see any difference from when Damon fed on the lightskirt and fed on Miss Fancypants, but apparently Sage did, as she declared that was more like it. I don't know if Damon had sex with Samantha Gilbert, but he killed her, adding another of Elena's relatives to the long list of her relatives he's already killed.

Earlier Stefan had tried to turn Damon on to his animal blood diet thinking that would make him happy. Damon was miserable because he only agreed to become a vampire in the first place so he could spend an eternity with Katherine. Without her, he loathed being a vampire, and drinking animal blood wasn't going to change that. Sage, at least, gave him a way to enjoy being a vampire and get some pleasure out of this new life he was stuck in.

Damon was apparently enjoying it so much, he wanted to turn Stefan on to it. He got Stefan to go off the wagon but since Stefan's a little blood glutton, Damon got to stare in horror as Stefan decapitated his victim then tried to stick her head back on her body. Yeah, Julie Plec is trying to tell us Damon is to blame for the birth of The Ripper. Sorry, but wasn't Stefan The Ripper when he first became a vampire and was ravaging the town? Well, if Damon is to blame for Ripper Stefan, then Stefan is to blame for Bad Boy Damon, since he took him to the boxing tent and Sage got her claws into Damon.

Anyway, Damon notices how twitchy Stefan is craving the taste of some nice hot human blood instead of munching on a rat for nourishment. He suggests he and Stefan go to the Grille for a drink. When the arrive he sees Rebekah and they make eye contact, no doubt reliving that hot vampire sex they had together a day or so ago. Rebekah is hoping Carol can tell her where the big bad killer white ash oak tree could be. Carol mentions the Salvatore family kept records, and there's two of them over at the bar, so she comes over and starts plying them with questions.

Damon suggests she wants more sex from him because she starts hanging with him and Stefan. When Stefan asks if Damon remembers Sage, it seems Rebekah also remembers Sage. She says Sage was a piece of trash who was in love with her brother, Finn. Damon explains that Sage taught him to have a good time, because when he met her he wasn't a happy camper because the woman he loved [Katherine] was trapped in a tomb.

Tired of how twitchy Stefan is, Damon comes up with a plan. Call it the anti-Lexi plan. He says Stefan's problem is he goes from one extreme to the next. Either he's a blood glutton or he tries to starve himself. What Stefan needs is to learn moderation. I think he has a good point. A food addict has to learn to control their food intake and blood is food for a vampire. Damon enlists Rebekah's help in getting Stefan to munch on a human.

Damon compels a blonde and takes a nice juicy bite out of her neck, then he tells Stefan he has a choice: either take a bite or Rebekah will kill her. Rebekah's about to take a bite when Stefan gives in and Damon tells her to get lost, which she does, after telling Damon he's an ass. Damon pulls Stefan off the girl before things get out of control and all is going well until Little Elena Sunshine shows up and is all appalled. Thankfully, Matt drags Elena away before she can make matters worse.

Back home, despite Stefan being an ass-wipe to Damon the last time he showed his emotions and ridiculing him for it, Damon shows his feelings for his brother. He says he could have stopped Stefan from becoming The Ripper but he didn't care to then, but he does now. He's going to keep pulling Stefan back until Stefan can control his blood addiction. And that he's not going to abandon Stefan until he doesn't need him any longer. Stefan wants to know why, and Damon comes as close as he's going to come to telling Stefan he loves him, when he says Stefan is all he has right now. Stefan walks away.

This was the best scene of the night. When the spoilers said Damon would make a heartfelt confession, I was afraid it was another boring go-round of, "I love, Elena." Thank God it had absolutely nothing to do with her. Unfortunately, I felt like Damon could have been making this confession to a piece of wood for as much of a reaction as Stefan gave. Stefan's still all pissy about Damon kissing Elena, when Damon should be the pissy one because Stefan broke his neck because some chick asked Stefan to.

When he comes back later, while Damon is playing the piano, he's in a much better mood. All the twitchiness is gone. In short, what Damon did made Stefan feel world's better. He's even wanting to help Damon figure out who the killer is. Only problem is they both realize it really is Alaric.

So the resurrecto ring is making Alaric blackout and kill people. Damon, after being shown the vampire ropes by both Katherine and Sage, is going to hopefully be able to teach Stefan to not be a blood pig anymore. And Rebekah is still looking for that killer white oak ash tree.

Please, no more Stefan flashbacks. If you say it's a Damon flashback then let it be a Damon flashback. And for the love of God, if they ever truly do a Damon flashback, please don't let Julie Plec write it. She won't be able to put her Stefan bias aside and do a decent job of it. I mean, look at those two Damon and Katherine flashbacks from last season's finale. Even though Stefan wasn't in it, they had to make sure Stefan was mentioned.