There have been nine episodes of The Vampire Diaries this season thus far, and as you know… things can move quite quickly on this show. I’ve basically forgotten everything because it’s such a swift series! In my efforts to remind myself what the heck has happened this season, I thought I could help you out as well before the show returns from its winter hiatus.

So we opened this season with Elena having become a vampire from the prior season finale.

So at first Elena is all like

But secretly she’s all

But that’s for later. Not much later, but later nonetheless. At first, Stefan is not happy about this.

See? I told you. And then he stays not happy forever. Anyway, they all try to find a way to make it so that Elena is no longer A VAMPYR!!!! They had no idea what to do so they went to Bonnie as a last resort choice because that never happens ever.

But then Bonnie’s already-dead grandma died again.

The magic didn’t work. So Elena stays A VAMPYR! But whatever it doesn’t matter because then Bonnie makes magic rings and Elena is like “this vampire thing is cool.”

Oh and also at this point Rebekah and Klaus are not getting along. And the council tries to act relevant and then they all die thanks to some new character who kills them all in an explosion that has yet to be explained. And that’s episode one.

In episode two, Elena and Stefan get all flirty killing animals in the forest. Elena sucks some blood and then presumably goes to suck other things but then ends up regurgitating. What a tease.

Ah ha ha no, I mean that she vomits.

We also meet Connor, who turns out to be a vampire slayer… I mean HUNTER… a vampire hunter.

Also we met April (someone who has apparently been a part of these people’s lives), whose name we remember more than Sheriff… uh… whatsherface, and we’re supposed to start caring for her from the get-go and she’s probably going to date either Jeremy or Matt or possibly both at the same time, whatever we’re all cool with it.

Meanwhile, Elena is trying to figure out what her damn vomit problem is so instead of asking Stefan she asks Damon because she doesn’t want no bunny blood, man!

Technically this happens later in the episode, but ain’t nobody got time for that! In this scene, Damon has Elena drink his blood and that’s apparently an intimate thing between vampires that’s never brought up again or before this moment. Anyway, later in the episode, Damon is all “You must drink from the vein” and Elena’s all “Damn right, also let’s fuhhh.”

Also I have to mention this because I feel like no one actually talked about this! In this episode, Elena goes to a funeral for who the hell knows I forgot wearing this dress:

What the hell, Elena, seriously!? THAT’s what you wear to a funeral? Ruuu!

And I also feel that the most under-appreciated scene happened in this episode.

Anyway, as part of the B plot, Tyler gets shot by Connor with some bullets that should have killed him if he weren’t a hybrid or something.

Connor’s plan is to kill multiple vampires during a funeral because he doesn’t want anyone to find out about vampires so he figures the best way to murder them is with an audience of everyone in the town. Long story short: he fails; Elena drinks from Matt; April sees stuff and then is compelled. And it all ends with funerals for everyone the characters have lost thus far in the series.

And that was episode 2. Onto episode 3 which was about… uh… really I have no idea what happened this episode.

There was an explosion.

I really don’t know.

Also, Stefan made this face:

And apparently Klaus and Connor had some sort of confrontation towards the end that I can’t really remember but via screencaps looks a bit homoerotic.

I’m sure it moved plots forward or something.

OH! I’m too lazy to cap now but we’re introduced to Phoebe Tonkin in this episode so that’s a huge plus. She’s a friend of Tyler’s who he didn’t sleep with but everyone is trying to make Klaus believe he did.

Okay, episode four, which I DO actually remember. It started out with this guy who was half naked because apparently the good-looking people quota on this show to make me feel less secure about myself isn’t high enough.

Anyway, he was a hunter who Rebekah fell in love with some years ago and blah blah blah. We’ll get back to that.

If I’m not mistaken, this is also the first episode with Creepy Professor.

I don’t know if you can call a person trying to help kill vampires evil, but whatever I think we’re supposed to be against this guy. Bonnie needs his help because her magic is all tapped out since she tried to bring Elena back from the dead and then helped Klaus switch bodies a few episodes ago.

Anyway, Klaus is trying to get information out of Connor, who is all tied up and you just know the actor did NOT sign up for this.

APPARENTLY… Jeremy is a potential slave hunter because he can see some tattoos on Connor’s arm, which grow whenever he kills vampires. The tattoo is a map that leads to “THE CURE” (supposedly). This is something that Klaus knows but he makes it painful for Stefan to find out.

This is seriously the only explanation I can think of. It turns out that Guy Who Makes Us Feel Bad About Ourselves was a hunter who Rebekah loved and then tried to kill her but he didn’t know that Originals can’t die that easily so instead Klaus killed him!!

And they never could find another hunter to track down the cure… UNTIL NOW!!! Anyway, they dagger Rebekah for reasons I don’t comprehend either because she’s the best.

In the B plot, Elena, Damon, and Bonnie are at a college campus. Damon is trying to teach Elena how to be a “cool” vampire. So at some party, she scopes out who she wants to drink from (because supposedly she can only drink STRAIGHT FROM THE VEIN). She spots a date rapist and decides he’s scum enough to drink from. So Elena compels him to not remember about being bit… but she forgets to do something else.

 WHAT THE HELL? Why would she not tell this guy to stop raping people? I don’t even. WHAT?

Also… WHAT IS THE TIMELINE HERE? I’ve asked this a million times but is this halloween? They were at a costume party. If it’s Halloween, the timeline makes NO sense. And if it’s NOT Halloween, who has a costume party on NOT Halloween!?!!! This whole thing was just… WHAT?

Anyway, at the conclusion Elena was like “Damon, I want to be a vampire who drinks blood and is reckless and has fun and that sounds like total fun OMG I LOVED IT SO MUUUCHCCHHHHH OMGGGGG… wait, what was I gonna say? Oh, right, I can’t do that.”

At the end, it turns out Connor and Creepy Professor are in cahoots because duh.

Episode 5… here’s basically what happened in episode 5.

That’s really it. Stefan wants Connor to stay alive to get The Cure for Elena but she ends up killing him. Bonnie is with Creepy Prof, etc. And then Elena is sad she killed someone for like two seconds and then never brings it up again. The End.

Oh, and also Matt and Jeremy get April compelled to then make her wear a bracelet with vervain… I don’t… whatever.

Plus, more explosions:

And finally, the most awesomest death ever:

Episode 6!

In episode six, Elena starts seeing Connor everywhere.

Actually, I want you to remember something. In this episode, Elena LITRUHLY stabs her brother in the neck with a knife. And then in the next episode, she’s all “I would never do anything to hurt you.” EXCEPT FOR STABBING HIM IN THE NECK WITH A KNIFE ELENA OMG.

Anyway, it turns out that when you kill a hunter, the hunter sort of kind of maybe possesses your mind so that he or she can make one final kill: you. So Elena is going crazy, basically. That’s why Klaus kidnaps her (vampnaps?) because he’s gone through this when he killed Guy Who Makes Us Feel Bad About Ourselves.

So then Elena starts hallucinating other people telling her that she’s awful, like the vastly superior Katherine.

I didn’t get it either. And then Katherine is like “Bonnie hates you.” And Elena is all “No Bonnie is my friend and she likes being broken backwards to do every single little thing I ask her to do and LOLWUT where does she even live?”

It got so bad that even her “mom” was like, “yep we hate you.”

 

So Elena was going to wait for the sun, because she never even wanted to be A VAMPYR!!! But then Damon was all “Don’t do it, gurl.” And she was all, “Pero like why?” And he goes, “Cause we ain’t fuhhh yet.”

Meanwhile, in the B plot, Jeremy is the candidate for a vampire hunter. Everyone wants to see the map so they can find THE CURE for vampirism for Elena, but the only way to do that is to kill some vampires, etc. That’s when Caroline sacrifices one of Tyler’s RHOTE friends. (A RHOTE is a Random Hybrid of the Episode.) And Tyler ain’t happy about it. He’s all, “Dang not ERRTHANG ’bout Elena ANYWAYZ.” And we all cheered that.

Also that happened.

Onto Episode 7, also known as the episode where Elena and Damon did IT OH EM GEE.

That’s really all this episode is about, so let me not bore you. Elena has to leave her house because her brother is trying to murder her left and right since he’s a hunter now. So instead of going to Bonnie’s house, because she has NO idea where she lives, Elena decides to kick Stefan out of his house to fuhhh his brother.

But what’s so annoying about this scene is Steffie and Caro, who are BFFLs and shackin’ up, talking in between it. Like who thought to do this?

Cue the Internet talking about SEXUAL AGENCY for years afterwards. Now onto episode 8, WHICH STARTED THE SAME EXACT WAY WHO THOUGHT TO DO THIS?

So then Steffie told Day Day about the events.

Damon doesn’t believe it so they go to New Orleans to see a girl he sired once before even though siring is VERY VERY rare but apparently happened to Damon twice in a century. That’s when Tara’s mom from True Blood is all “Vampire siring happens when vampires have human feelings for you, also…”

It’s very muddy. She’s like, “Tell her to take a hike. It works.” And then she said that there’s dark magic and it’s called EXPRESSION, and that’s what Creepy Prof is making Bonnie do. CREEPY. Oh and Lexi was in this episode because of flashbacks, I don’t know.

In the B plot, there’s a rebellion happening in Tyler’s pack.

Turns out that Phoebe Tonkin is actually working with Creepy Prof and he needs 12 hybrids for reasons we don’t know yet.

And finally, episode nine!

Elena is trying to convince Damon that what they have is real, but Damon still can’t be with her because it’s kind of icky.

Meanwhile, Tyler and Caro’s relationship is continuously strained because of Phoebe Tonkin and because she sacrificed his RHOTE and whatnot. Plus, she’s sort of kind of getting close to Klaus even though that was only supposed to be a plot to gain his trust.

Tyler and his RHOTEs and Phoebe Tonkin (but not really, since she’s working with Creepy Prof) have a plan to take down Klaus that not everyone understands. Tyler wants to kill Klaus but Caro doesn’t want him too because something about The Cure or something.

 

 

Meanwhile, Elena goes with Damon to help Jeremy train through not trying to kill them all. It doesn’t work out so well in the beginning.

Jeremy needs some sort of human emotional connection, so Creepy Prof tries to see if he can connect to Elena. He fails. He can only connect with Bonnie. LOL.

COULD YOU NOT HAVE SAID THIS A FEW EPISODES AGO? WHAT? Creepy Prof is even MORE creepy now.

Anyway, April witnesses Caro come back from the dead so she decides to compel her… except April is wearing the bracelet from a few episodes back and can’t be compelled thanks to stoopid Matt and Jeremy.

Then Phoebe Tonkin decides to tell Tyler to skip town because she betrayed him like one of the apostles.

At the same time, Damon is telling Elena that they can never BEEEEE!!!

It was very sad.

Meanwhile, Klaus was murdering all 12 of the RHOTEs. It was glorious if you’re as morbid as I am.

Since Phoebe Tonkin told Tyler to leave town, Klaus couldn’t get revenge on him for trying to kill him. So instead, he went to the next best thing.

And that’s basically what’s happened this season. I’m sure I left some stuff out or oversimplified everything, but you get the gist. So now you’re all caught up, or your memory has been refreshed, and you’re ready to watch the new episode tomorrow (or tonight or yesterday, depending on when you read this)! YAY!!!!

Thanks to HomeoftheNutty.com for all of the screencaptures, which I stole!