Episode: The Vampire Diaries 1.05 – “You’re Undead to Me”
Original Air Date: October 8, 2009
Screencaps by toxic_caps.
We all have to grow up sometime… that is, unless you are a Salvatore. More specifically, unless you’re Damon Salvatore. Is it just me, or has this Johnny the Homicidal Maniac meets Spike Season 4 thing with Damon already been starting to get old before “You’re Undead to Me”?
Episode 5 begins with Damon imprisoned in the basement of the Salvatore manor, weak after being dosed with vervain by Stefan in the previous episode. This episode quickly catches the viewer up with episode 4; just after her sweet and tender reunion with Jeremy, Vicki sleeps over at the Gilbert house, where Elena finds her digging through the fridge in the morning. Elena and Stefan haven’t talked in days, which makes her more than a little bit cranky.
Now, before Damon wound up like a poisoned rat in a cage, he stole a fancy jewel out of the Founder’s Day exhibit last episode, just before he was captured by Stefan after biting the vervain-spiked Caroline. Caroline, who is having a bit of a hard time remembering the past day’s events, finds out that Damon intends to kill her — but not yet. Meanwhile, our favorite little great-great-great-great-great-great grandwitch Bonnie is continuing to test the limits of her newfound powers of fire.
We also found out that Zach has been dosing himself with vervain in an attempt to protect him from Damon’s bite. We also find out that he has purposefully put his life on a shelf and denied himself a family, just to devote himself to the Sisyphean task of keeping Damon in line. Fat lot of good that does if your vampire captive can still summon Caroline and drain her. It helps even less when your former vampire captive snaps your neck at the end of the episode. Frankly, I’m not sad to see Zach gone; his death was a shock, but this is a show about high schoolers and vampires, not their vigilante relatives.
Elena is still pissed at Stefan for his evasiveness about anything having to do with his personal life. Stefan, in a surprise move, mans up and cooks her a gourmet dinner in her own home. A word to my fellow single ladies — he may not be the best at communicating about the 500-pound bloodsucking gorilla in the room, but this is the kind of guy we should be going for. At least he finally opened up about the ex. It’s pretty obvious at this point that Stefan is on the verge of revealing his true nature, whether by design or accident, especially if his girlfriend is prone to kitchen accidents.
Meanwhile, the Mystic Falls Secret Vamp Hunting Goon Squad (the MFSVHGS for short) made up of the most prominent members in town — TV anchor Logan Fell (Jenna’s ex), the Mayor and Mrs. Lockwood, and Sheriff Forbes (Caroline’s mom) — finally get ahold of it when sleazy Logan feigns a date with Jenna in order to steal it.
We leave Vicki and Jeremy getting high in the cemetery with the goths like the bad kids they are, floating along in hazy bliss, until Vicki pulls out some pills she stole from Elena. This crosses the line for Jeremy, who finally realizes that he is better than she is (and sorry, but she is trashy). He leaves just in time to miss Damon, who massacres the entire group — except for Vicki.
What really made this episode great for me was our dear Bonnie. Some mean girl starts giving Bonnie a hard time… and Bonnie totally uses her witchy fire powers to smote the girl’s car down at the Coach Tanner Memorial Car Wash. Lucky for her, the only witness is Stefan. Bonnie ends the episode at her grandmother’s house (Jasmine Guy, in a most welcome cameo).
Unlucky for Stefan, the mean girl’s grampa happens to remember the massacre at the Salvatore boarding house that took place in 1953… and realizes the brothers are still the same. He reveals this to Elena, who goes on a hunt with Logan’s help in the news station’s archives (hooray, archives!) for any proof.
Turns out Logan’s dad was the original reporter on the scene. Also turns out, we can see Stefan in the doorway of the house. The record reveals all. Elena can’t deny it anymore. She now knows what she can’t deny anymore. Stefan is a vampire. The necklace he gave her is about vampires. Damon is a vampire. Everything is a lie.
If only it were that easy. She must now confront him.
Rating: 4 / 5 Stars
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About the Author
In Lauren’s ideal world, vampires and werewolves would be walking around in Oz, faeries and unicorns would frolic among the suits at Sterling Cooper, Rod Serling would narrate everything, and A Clockwork Orange would be made out of actual cogs and clockworks.
Much to her chagrin, Lauren was child of the 80’s and grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. She could never quite understand why her nights with the babysitter were never as cool as they were in the movies, nor why (no matter how hard she tried) David Bowie never took her little brother away. Luckily for all of us, a steady diet of pop culture, horror movies, vampire books, and science fiction television saved Lauren from the restrictive confines of her normal suburban routine; she has only just now realized that there are other geeks out there in the world.
Lauren is beginning her career as an archivist and is biding her time until she is recruited by Torchwood.