It’s time for the annual founders party that celebrates the traditions of the town of Mystic Falls. Stefan agrees to go with Elena since keeping up with the town’s heritage was so important to her mother. Damon also goes, but has to place the thought inside Caroline’s head unwillingly to get the invite. Stefan and Damon are more familiar than anyone else in the town since they were there on the first Founders day over a century ago. When Elena sees both of their names on the guest list, Damon quickly claims that those were their ancestors; the original Salvatore brothers. Damon manages to get Elena alone and tells her the story of their similar sibling rivalry. He apologizes and makes amends for his past behavior. Of course, he is a bit more subtle about what he really wants Elena to think, making her question Stefan rather than Damon. This trust in Damon is short lived when she finds all of the bite marks and scars that Caroline has been trying to hide. Caroline tries to deny that Damon meant to hurt her, but he won’t stand for Caroline ruining the reputation he has been trying to establish.
In this newest episode knowledge of the vampires inhabiting the town is beginning to surface. Caroline knows what Damon is. Although, she is desperately trying to hide the evidence of this, others around her are beginning to get suspicious. Not to mention some of the elders seem to have witnessed vampire attacks before in their town and the Salvatore brothers presence might be stirring things up more than they realize.
Throughout the episode, Elena keeps on going back and forth between Stefan and Damon. She begins questioning Stefan, because at least she hears some sort of a story through Damon. Even when she asks Stefan he refuses to answer or talk about anything personal. He is trying to hide his blood thirsty nature. To Elena, Stefan is coming across as the dishonest one simply because he is ashamed of the monster that he views himself as while Damon prides himself on the very same thing.
While I thoroughly enjoy the Stefan-Damon-Elena love triangle, I am already starting to get sick of the Tyler-Vicki-Jeremy triangle. Tyler is just a rich, arrogant jerk who treats Vicki like crap, yet she keeps on dealing with it. There’s more of a connection and understanding between Vicki and Jeremy. Vicki finally takes notice how Tyler is ashamed of her in this episode. I really hope they don’t dwell on this too much longer, because it seems pretty black and white to me void of much more depth for exploration. I guess then there wouldn’t be as much of a storyline regarding these characters. Still, they need to find somewhere new to go with them.
The Vampire Diaries has faced a lot of comparison to Twilight as they’re both teen vampire romances with a rivalry based love triangle. They have a similar brooding, regretful vampire character and the desirable human girl, although the dangerous vampire love interest in the Vampire Diaries is where they differ. In order to try to squash some of the comparisons between the two, Damon gives a bit of commentary while reading one of the Twilight books. He’s unimpressed with “this Bella chick” and argues that real vampires don’t sparkle, but burn in the sun. It was a good way to exert the difference in the two in a fun, playful way.
