Good lord, it took ten full minutes to find a picture of a Prius I could use here. The enshittification of the internet continues apace. Let’s get started!

EWWWWWW EWWWWWW EWWWWWW THEY PUT AI IN MY BLOG I CAN’T TURN IT OFF EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

I hope Squarespace sees that, somehow. Guess I’ll be finding a hosting site that doesn’t have AI before I pay for another year! I also hope someone tells them to make it stop FUCKING FLASHING AT ME to get me to use it. I’m not going to use it!

Damon is tying string between pushpins on his murder map while listening to the news about Andie, the Reporter Lady, when Elena comes in. She tells him that Stefan called her last night from Tennessee. Damon tells her to drop it; she says if Stefan were really gone, he wouldn’t have called. Oh - he’s not tying string; he’s burning the murder map. No more Stefan tracking.

Elena then heads to Alaric’s, wakes him up, and demands to know what he saw in Tennessee. He doesn’t want to tell her, and thinks she shouldn’t be the one to save Stefan, even if he can be saved. Elena says she doesn’t cut and run when things get tough, and I find myself coming around on her. Oh, Season 1 Elena was awful, no doubt. But she’s starting to get a real personality now, and I’m glad. I can devote all my hatred to Klaus, now.

Ric tells her that Stefan and Klaus have been tracking werewolves. He keeps talking, but she’s somewhere else and turning away already.

Cut to the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee. Presumably the same day, but who knows with this show?

Stefan and Klaus are walking through the woods, taking a nice little hike. Stefan is carrying an - unconscious? dead? - Ray. Ah, they’ve found the pack, who all are… on a camping trip? living in the woods? Unclear at this time. Klaus gives his name, some woman says he’s the hybrid, we have our opening sting.

And FINALLY get back to Caroline! Or at least, back to Carol Lockwood, who put vervain in the coffee to … see if Tyler is a vampire? And she tells Tyler not to bring “prostitutes” home and make them sneak out in the middle of the night.

Tyler is obviously not a vampire, and he tells her Caroline is not a sex worker, but he is surprised she snuck out, true enough. Carol, reeling from the revelation that Tyler is fine (as far as she knows), calls someone (presumably Sheriff Liz) and says she needs help: “I’ve got myself into sort of a vampire situation.”

Jer goes into work specifically to tell Matt that he saw Vicki again. Matt asks why, and Jer says that she needs help. He’s looked up how to contact the dead: they need a personal item, and it works best if a family member reaches out. She loved Matt the most; she’ll respond to him. Matt looks angry, then sad, then distrustful. If Jeremy is pranking him or something - But no, we know Jer is sincere, and he convinces Matt.

Tyler is explaining werewolf culture to Elena out in one of The Grill’s booths. Most of them chain themselves up during the full moon, but a lot of them like to go out into the wilderness so they can enjoy the change and the hunt. State parks, forests, anywhere they’re unlikely to run into other people. Ah, the camping trip!

Tyler offers to look up where in Tennessee they might be gathering. Elena asks why he’s helping her, and he says that Caroline pointed out to him that Stefan is only involved in any of this because Tyler bit Damon, so Tyler figures he owes Elena at least this much. And by the way, have you talked to Caroline today? No, says Elena.

Elena takes the pin Tyler dropped on her Google Maps back to Ric, and tells him that if he doesn’t come with her, she’s going by herself. He thinks it’s insane to hunt werewolves on the full moon; she counters they’ll be in and out before the moon’s even full. He relents. But Elena’s driving!

Klaus’s stupid face is waxing - well, I was going to say “waxing eloquent” or “waxing poetic” but honestly? He sounds like an infomercial. “No more moon problems! No more sun problems! Just pure cryptid nonsense! Call now for this exclusive offer!”

“But wait, there’s more! Here’s Ray, back from the dead!” They need human blood for him to complete his transformation, and Klaus picks someone’s partner and says it’s just a mouthful. She says she’d rather die than buy his $19.99 Hybrid Transformation Serum, but you know Klaus isn’t taking no for an answer. He forces her to drink and then kills her, too, while Ray sips (? we hope?) from her human boyfriend.

OMG, you guys, big news: for Season 3 it’s now Mystic Grill! Matt asks Tyler what he’s still doing there: he’s been lurking for hours. Tyler says he was supposed to meet Caroline, and Matt gets shirty about it, before he realizes it’s nearly a full moon. He softens, and asks Tyler if he needs help - is it always a two-person thing? - because Caroline usually helps Tyler through it.

Tyler demurs, he can handle it on his own, he’s just worried about Caro. Matt refills his coffee and says he’ll keep an eye out. Before he leaves, Tyler drinks the coffee and comments on his tastebuds being off today. “Oh,” says Matt, super casually, “that’s the vervain Liz has me drop in the coffee. Most humans can’t taste it.”

Carol Lockwood didn’t call Sheriff Liz. She didn’t call Damon (are they still friends? unclear). She called - Horn Rimmed Glasses from Heroes?

But without the glasses. Apparently he “drove straight here” and declines her offer of a drink in favor of her telling him what, exactly, she expects him to do. “It’s Caroline, Bill,” she says, and that she’s been putting this together by herself for months. The Council isn’t involved. She can’t get her hands dirty. What should they do?

“What we have to do,” he says.

In Great Smoky Mountains National Park -

Ric and Elena are hiking to where Tyler told them to go. Full packs, water bottles, looks like they’re really into it, despite Elena’s hair being down and only Ric looking like he’s done a lick of exercise. Time! Distance! How do they work?

Ric’s even brought a crossbow and a wolfsbane grenade. Elena has John Gilbert’s ring - which was, you may recall, Ric’s at one point. He refuses to use it, saying it’s Elena’s, and she says she’s the Doppleganger, it won’t work on her. She convinces him to take it, finally, by saying she couldn’t live with herself if she got him killed before happy hour. She starts to say something else, but Damon - presumably here on his own business - throws her into the lake they’ve been beside having this convo.

Ah, Ric told Damon where they were going. Obviously. They need him.

At the campsite, everyone’s dead (and changing) besides Ray, who’s having a little menty-B while Klaus smarmily tells us his plans for war. “You don’t arm yourself after a war is declared. You make your army so big, no one ever picks a fight.”

Stefan asks if he’s being kept around as a mere witness, and Klaus says he’ll let him know why when he chooses. (When the writers decide. No shade on this one: I write that way, too. But I do have more opportunities to fix it in post.)

Meanwhile, Ray is shivering and bleeding from his eyeballs. Oopsie, did Klaus not think this all the way through?

Damon and Elena fight about going to help Stefan. Elena wins. Obviously. I admire her determination.

Another wolf wakes up; Ray takes the opportunity to run away. Klaus sends Stefan after Ray. Stefan ends up bitten in the chase, but Ray gets away when Stefan hears Damon and Elena bickering at a not-terribly-great distance. Like, he can see them distance. With regular old human eyes.

Klaus comes after him and notices the bite, but not the other three. Stefan directs him away, trying to say that Ray just got away. Klaus tells him to find Ray, or he won’t cure the bite.

Everyone at the camp is bleeding from their eyes.

Tyler confronts Carol at home. She tries to play it off like she doesn’t know what vervain is, but Tyler won’t let her. “You were testing to see if I was a vampire. I want to know why.” Because of Caroline, obviously. Tyler tries to play it off like he doesn’t know, and Carol won’t let him. “She’s a monster,” Carol says, spits it, really - and Tyler realizes. “You don’t know about me, do you?”

Damon, Ric, and Elena come upon Ray, who tells them to keep their distance - until he realizes Damon’s a vampire and attacks him. Ric is able to crossbow Ray in the back, but it’s the wolfsbane grenade that saves the day. But it’s clear to them that Klaus is making hybrids - or trying to, anyway.

Matt and Jeremy are in Matt’s basement, where all of Vicki’s stuff has been stored. Matt finds a Christmas morning pic of him and Vicki when they were both much younger, and tells Jeremy to go, he doesn’t want to do this anymore. Jeremy takes it in stride and leaves. Matt leaves the picture face-down in its frame and stares into the middle-distance, mourning.

Until someone puts the pic right side up again.

The Three Musketeers tie Ray to a tree, and realize pretty quickly they don’t have nearly enough to hold him. Ray wakes again and starts turning, even though it’s still daylight, let alone anywhere near the full of the moon. They run.

There’s a couple weird scenes that I think are meant to create suspense? But they just feel like we’re padding the runtime, which is a very scant 40 minutes as it is (usually they run in the 42-44 minute space). Klaus kills the human who’s been feeding his hybrid wolves, and then realizes that they’re all broken; and Elena falls in the forest and is literally face-to-face with a wolf. Damon gets the wolf to chase him instead, and then Ric and Elena fight about leaving him behind? In a forest full of werewolves? Elena gives in quickly, thank god, and they get to running again.

Meanwhile, Tyler is taking his mom down to the werewolf dungeon to show her what’s up. Just gonna go full wolf right in front of her. She starts screaming as soon as his eyes change, of course. (Can you imagine traumatizing your mom? God, I bet that sounds so good to so many of us.)

Damon and Stefan fight in the forest. Stefan tells Damon he’s not coming back, so Elena had better give up on him. He asks Damon to make sure Elena makes it home safe.

Ric and Elena are waiting for Damon in the car and Elena is trying to get Ric out of his own ass. I guess grieving for anywhere from two weeks to several months is enough, apparently. It’s a nice bonding moment, I shouldn’t be a bitch, I’m just finding this episode kind of scattershot and a little boring. Damon finds them and they head home.

Matt shows up to Jeremy’s with a sixer (they’re both teenagers, mind) and says he’s back in for contacting Vicki. They’re talking about how neither of them can remember their last moment with her - Jeremy because the memory was taken, Matt because he doesn’t know exactly when she was turned.

Jeremy suddenly turns around, and Vicki’s there, asking for help to come back. Matt asks what she’s saying, what’s going on. A window breaks. Before Jeremy can tell Matt anything, Anna is there. “Jeremy. Don’t trust Vicki!”

Stefan comes back to the camp with Ray, who is once again unconscious.

FINAL TEN!

Ah, Klaus says “they went rabid”. Most of them just bled out. So Ray’s dead, apparently. Kinda feel bad about making a joke now.

Klaus has a tantrum because he did everything right, including killing the Doppleganger. Which he didn’t do, and Stefan has a moment where he thinks Klaus is going to figure out he didn’t. To be fair, I thought Klaus was figuring it out, too, but he just heals Stefan of the wolf bite (He bleeds into a beer bottle. God forbid we do anything homoerotic.) and then mopes off into the night.

Damon tells Elena that he saw Stefan in the woods. Elena asks if he’s okay, and Damon says “No. He’s an insufferable martyr who needs his ass kicked. But he can be saved.” Damon says he changed his mind because Stefan still wouldn’t kill Damon, but what changed Elena’s mind? She was hell-bent on getting into those woods and saving Stefan, why did she give up so easily?

Because she cares about Damon. Because she didn’t want to see him get hurt. And that has to be because she’s in love with him? Sorry, VD, my asexual ass is not interested in this storyline at. all.

Tyler wakes up the next morning to his tearful mother. “I’ll take care of it,” she says. “I’ll take care of it. I’ll make sure nothing happens to her.”

She calls Horn Rimmed Glasses to call him off, but he’s been in the family business for years. She married into it, she won’t understand, but he knows what his obligations are. Click

And of course he already has Caroline locked in a dungeon. Why are there so many dungeons in Virginia - ohhhhhhh, never mind, I do not want to look into that.

She wakes up, he comes into her cell, she looks up at him and says: “Daddy?”

WHY WAS I IN THE WOODS WITH KLAUS SO GODDAMN MUCH THIS EPISODE! Stop giving Caroline all the juiciest plots and then never showing us! UGGGGGGGHHHHHHH, I am dying until next week, when I’m sure we’ll get another ten total minutes on the Caro plot. Bah!

SGRoA: Vampire Diaries, S3 E2: The Hybrid

SGRoA: Vampire Diaries, S3 E3: The End of the Affair

SGRoA: Vampire Diaries, S3 E1: The Birthday