Hey nerds! Last week on Teens That Bite But Don’t Sparkle: Another fun lady character died, Damon joined a club, Stefan stayed mad, Elena stayed sad and then Cheerio and Matty got drunky and snuggly! Then we held a séance for John Hughes.

Guess who else was having séance! (Go segues!) The girls of Mystic Fallz were getting their twitchy magic on, doing manicures, and play-acting Paranormal Activity. The boys were bro-ing out as young brothers are wont to do. They were getting real bromoerotic about that shit, which young brothers are less wont to do, but hey, let’s go with it!

The episode opens with Bonnie being haunted by Emily the Witch. In a dream, EtW leads her out of her class into the woods by the old church and states: “We’re family. This is where it started and this is where it has to end.” Cryptic? Meh. Anyway, she wakes up in her PJs in the woods. Hauntings are scary! Bugs are gross! They’re still not as gross as those expanding and floating titles or the CW polls!

This outdoorsy adventure leads to some paranoia, which is spurred on by Damon, who REALLY wants Bonnie’s family talisman back. At this point, I assumed he needed it to open a sick antique jewelry shop, given his penchant for flirting with drunken old bags. As it turns out, he has a daring and depraved plan, that doesn’t involve old bags but instead, some dead bags. Bonnie remains unaware of these sinister dealings and falls further and further under EtDubb’s sway. I must say I was hoping for a bit more balls from Bonnie. I mean one minute she’s all, like look I can move things with my mind and burn people! Then she’s cowering against a car while Damon creepily strokes her face waxing on about body snatching. Well, it’s like they say: Who needs self-esteem when you gots looks?

Damon and Stefan are both trying to woo each other into revealing super secret secrets. I.E. what the fuck EITHER of these dudes are doing back in their lame hometown, hitting on 16-year-olds, attending high school, and throwing parties at a “bar and grill.” I mean if I was a 162-year-old vampire, I can’t say I would hang out in such joint, even if it was the home of the original kitten mittens. Which it’s not. Weird proclivities aside, the brothers were actually vaguely amusing with their morning banter about Damon’s murder o’ the week. You’re right, Damon: “This is fun” and “I do like this.” Damon promises to go on the Stefan diet for ... a week. Neato. It’s nice to see some more relaxed communication between these fools. Stefan seems a bit more complex thanks to his apparent resignation regarding Damon’s appetites. He’s almost complicit in the crimes.

There’s a new teach in town! It’s Elle Wood’s boyfriend. He has a stupid name.

Jeremy is continuing on his new academic streak thanks to Damon’s mind-adjustment. Bookish Baby J is drawn to the new teach / big bro / dad figure like his former delinquent self to the medicine cabinet. Likewise, auntie-desperate is almost immediately hung up on the guy; because her type seems to consist of any guy her own age within a 5-mile radius, which is to say, its fairly discerning. Teach asks BBJ (can’t believe I haven’t been referring to Jeremy as BJ. This. Whole. Time.) to write a local history paper in order to improve his zeros. Hmm, intriguing, auntie-d suggest he look into his Dad’s old files, wherein probably lie some wacky tales! She also dumps her tragic love life on teach, who lets on that his wife got killed mysteriously. It’s awkward! He also has a ring, supposedly from his pops. What’s up with all this male jewelry? Also auntie-d makes a big deal of not inviting him in later? I think he may be another vampire, but no one else in the room does, so make of that what you will. I plan to make very little of it.

Most fun thing! Cheerio and Matty are having awkward teen moments. It’s precious. I’m being serious! No. Really. It’s cute! This is for real.

After having tried to ditch the talisman in a field, Bonnie finds it right back in her midst. Elena calls up Stefan to solve the mystery. He lets on that it belonged to Katherine and was given to her by EtW, her handmaiden, sooo generally unhelpful. Instead he continues to bromance Damon at the bar and grill. It’s still funny! They say fun things about Jesus and Gas’n’Sips. Meanwhile, the gals are meeting in Elena’s living room to commune over the sacred ceremony of the nails. They have kits ... is that a thing?

Anyway, without any nails being done at all, Caroline and Bonnie stop fighting, and the former decides to accept that the latter is a witch. Thus, they decide to hold a séance, OK!

Then something fishily like Paranormal Activity goes down. “Show me a sign!” “If you’re among us, say something!” “Wait, I can’t!” “I’m done ... Get the Light!” Doors slamming. Windows moving.

All of a sudden things stop banging and Bonnie/EtW/Katie says: “Everything’s fine now.” MICAAAAAAAAAAAHH!!!! Uhh ... wait ... Fortunately for everyone, Elena fairly quickly realizes that Emily has taken over Bonnie, but its too late, she’s out the door to destroy the necklace.

Stefan continues to put the moves on Damon. They rough-house a little under “the starry night.” Stefan looks him deep in the eyes and tells him that what he had with that stupid lady wasn’t real! She made him do it. In response, Damon finally admits his EEEEEEEEVIL PLAAAAAAAAN: He wants to bring crazy bitch back. He made a deal with EtW that he would save her fam if she stashed Katherine in a “mystical holding cell.” The witch used the silly crystal and a comet to do it. He’s been waiting and waiting till the comet comes back around to open up the cell and let his lady love out. Stefan is a dummy and allows Damon to overhear that the witchsky is heading to the old church with the thingy DRAT!

And now for the climax. For this section of the recap I think I will just copy / paste my quickly jotted notes because they were funny and make little sense, hah!

They both think they were the last dudes to see their crazy old lady. Damon says he could rip Stefan’s heart out. DO IT DO IT DO IT. He is mad stoopid.

so anyway she kills the gizmo, Damon’s upset and bites her. ahhh whatever. back to cheery and matty!

Translation: releasing Katty-poo means releasing 27 other pent up vampires. ETW reneges on the deal, finding that the sweet folks of the 21st century, we of Pop Tarts and porn stars, nukes and cyber predators, Tucker Max and Madoff, are too sweet a people to be subjected to such evil. Or she just wants to save the Bon-ster. She breaks the talisman, preventing any of us from seeing its hideous, tacky Anthropologie-ness ever again. Hooray! Stefan heals Bonnie with some blood and then all four of them cry like little bitches about this stuff:

1. Damon remains alone — sad!

2. Stefan breaks up with Elena — who cares!

3. Bonnie has PTSD or something!

4. Elena has no reason for being a character without Stefan — sad!

Then we get an awesome bonding scene between Caroline and Matt. These two had the most genuine thing happening during the whole episode.

Matt: We cuddled and it creeped me out.

Caroline: It creeped you out?!

Matt: It’s just, I don’t like you. I never have. But it was nice!

AMAZING.

Damon breaks up with Stefan! He informs him that he knew everything about Katherine the whole time they were getting it on. This is mysterious! Does it mean (A) He knew she was a vampire who was doing his brother and didn’t care? How Progressive. (B) She jedi-mind tricked him into thinking he knew the whole time and didn’t care (C) He’s rationalizing and is mentally ill! (D) He knew she was a vampire but didn’t really know what was happening with Stefan? (C) This whole thing is heading for a gross OM3 with Stelena! This isn’t a fun game anymore.

Bonnie finally gets to hear about all the biting and murdering. Damon finally agrees to leave. Now no one will have any comedic timing. Good thing it’s a joke. AND WOAH! Lame Scooby gang member and auntie-d spurner Logan shows up at chez-Lena. Well, at least we got one new vampire.

All in all, this episode continued in the right direction. It was nice to finally feel that there is some kind of over-arching story here, and that we might eventually meet a crazy, starved, vampire. Damon and Stefan finally had some naturalish-feeling dialogue and we got to see a real relationship of some kind developing organically between two characters.

On the other hand, Bonnie didn’t get nearly the kind of development that I had hoped for. We got to see a lot more of Emily, which was interesting, so it could have been worse, but this show really needs a consistent, strong female character. You got me. Strong. Female. Character. Not a Stupid. White. Female. Cool. Also, to Stefan: even if you’re playing an oldie former drug addict, you can still be awesome, just take it from my Governor Patty-Pat. That dude is LEGENDARY: a blind, adulterous, ex-cokehead with a sense humor and some flair.

So, in furtherance of my two-week tradition of wondering what’s happening in this program, today I’ll put forth that this show may actually be about acceptance and diversity. We finally get to see Damon’s true motivation in returning to Mystic Falls to stir up trouble. Yeah, it’s to get his lady back but it’s also to seek vengeance against the town he thinks tried to put the supernaturals in a corner. They burned up 27 vampires in the name of the Confederacy when they really just wanted to be liberated?

Hmm ... hundreds of thousands of people were killed in the name of the Confederacy too, right? Also, there were those other dudes who wanted to be liberated ... who were they? History is so tough! Nevertheless, those townsfolk were driven by an evil Puritan blindness and Damon the self-centered is sure it’ll happen again. But ... not this week.

Next episode, it looks like we get that aforementioned “wild vamp sex.” Maybe levitation is involved, freaky!