The Vampire Diaries - "I Know What You Did Last Summer" - Review

Intro

Just popping in here to say that this is the first of two reviews I'll be posting today, though they might be posted hours apart due to time constraints and whatnot. Thanks for reading!

SPOILER WARNING

If you have not seen the first episode of Season 5 of The Vampire Diaries, please leave the blog, head over to cwtv.com, watch the episode, and come back to read this. There are spoilers starting in the character list so I highly recommend watching the episode first.

Also, if you haven't seen the first 4 Seasons of The Vampire Diaries, there will be spoilers for that just due to the fact that The Vampire Diaries is currently in Season 5.

Lastly, there is a small spoiler for Angel, if you happen to be watching it the first time...

The Vampire Diaries - "I Know What You Did Last Summer" - Review

Characters:

• Elena Gilbert - Played by Nina Dobrev. Jeremy's older sister. Damon's girlfriend. Doppelganger and Vampire. Currently rooming with Caroline at college.
• Jeremy Gilbert - Played by Steven R. McQueen. Elena's younger brother. Sees ghosts. Hunter. Currently staying at the Salvatore house being a mouth-piece for Bonnie.
• Stefan Salvatore - Played by Paul Wesley. Damon's younger brother. Elena's ex-boyfriend. Vampire. "Shadow-Self" of Silas. Currently locked in a safe at the bottom of a lake.
• Damon Salvatore - Played by Ian Somerhalder. Stefan's older brother. Elena's Sire and boyfriend. Vampire. Currently looking after Jeremy.
• Caroline Forbes - Played by Candice Accola. Elena's best friend. Vampire. Currently at college, rooming with Elena.
• Bonnie Bennett - Played by Kat Graham. Witch. Ghost. Currently hanging around checking up on her friends and keeping an eye on things... or something.
• Katherine Pierce - Played by Nina Dobrev. Doppelganger, former Vampire. Sire of Stefan and Damon.
• Silas - Played by Paul Wesley. Immortal vampiric being.
• Sheriff Lez Forbes - Played by Marguerite MacIntyre. Caroline's mother. Sheriff of Mystic Falls. Human.
• Matt Donovan - Played by Zach Roerig. Works at Mystic Grill. Human. Rebekah's lover.
• Rebekah Mikaelson - Played by Claire Holt. Original Vampire. Matt's lover.
• Megan - Played by Hayley Kiyoko. Elena and Caroline's roommate. Human.
• Jesse - Played by Kendrick Sampson. "Flyer Guy." Human.
• Nadia - Played by Olga Fonda. Had a threesome with and robbed Matt and Rebekah over the summer. Showed up in Mystic Falls to return Matt's ring and have a friend put a spell on him or something.

Review:

The Vampire Diaries is back! Okay, actually, I'm not that excited, especially given the episode I watched. TVD is suffering, again, from too many characters and too many plotlines. It's pretty sad, actually, considering it's the start of the Season.

I'm going to start with the montage at the beginning. I understand it's important to catch everyone up after the long summer. I understand it's important to give a spiel about what happened last season for new viewers. That does not mean, however, that we need a giant montage to end all montages. Yeah, it's fairly quick. Yes, it takes care of everyone in one fell swoop. Yes, there was entirely too much making out and sex for my liking. Yes, I completely forgot Bonnie was dead during the montage. No, I don't feel a montage was the best way to go about starting off an episode and especially not a good way to start off a Season. I sat there wondering when it was going to end and that's not a good thing.

For the rest of the episode, I felt like I was being yanked around between characters and their stories. You've got a long Season TVD, or so I would presume from all the other Seasons, you can afford to drag things out a little. The whole Silas thing, while I'm glad they got it out of the way quickly, could have been revealed a little later. Like, the second episode or something. The bits where Matt and Rebekah were making out could have been left out altogether. I understand there needed to be some establishing of them being robbed, but did it really need to be in this episode? Seriously, this is coming from a fan of the Matt/Rebekah pairing. And lastly, Katherine was most likely better left until later or just dropped off the face of the planet, as usual, for what that's worth.

I had this feeling during the episode that Bonnie was going to be more annoying dead than she was alive. I was right. I also wasn't really expecting to see her back at all. Silly me, TVD likes to keep around ridiculously annoying characters for as long as they possibly can and then give them spin-offs... Yeah, I don't like Klaus, as I established last Season. But anyway, I didn't like that Bonnie was around and I very much agree with Jeremy. Everyone needs to find out that Bonnie is dead, the sooner, the better.

Speaking of Jeremy, he's really my favorite character right now. He's got a shit ton on his plate as is and then Damon saddles him with Katherine. Which was mainly done because no one else was around, but still. I'm so so glad Katherine ditched Jeremy, though it would have been more dramatic if Jeremy had ended up dead. I know they just brought him back and I don't actually want him dead, but it would have been a surprise.

Now to move on to the "Season Set-Up Section." Matt's had some kind of whammy put on him by Nadia and her mysterious unknown friend. Stefan's reminding me of Angel when Connor stuck him in a safe and tossed him into the ocean. Silas has sort of compelled an entire town to look for Katherine, which won't go well when Elena gets back to Mystic Falls. I say sort of because Silas used mind-powers that weren't actually compulsion... or so he says. Elena and Caroline stumble upon a mystery at college involving at least one vampire and Elena's dad. And Jeremy has school problems because keeping him in Mystic Falls and sending him back to school saying he faked his own death was an incredibly dumb idea. Yeah... not impressed that all got crammed into one episode.

So... not a great Season opener really. There was just too much going on with too many people. I appreciate TVD's faith in the viewer to pay attention and keep up, but there's no need treat the episode like it's a sardine can. Hopefully that'll get better now all the set up is out of the way, but I'm gonna try not to get my hopes too high. That never ends well.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• Elena, Caroline, and Megan have the most giant dorm room ever.
• Did I mention all the making out and how there's too much of it?
• Whether he likes it or not, Silas is definitely a vampire.

Favorite Lines:

"It's like a spool of pink taffy. Very messy, but kind of fun to watch." - Silas

Housekeeping

Just wanted to reiterate that I'll be having another review up this evening. It'll be for The Originals episode that premiered last night.

Love ya, Jessie.