[Ed. Note: technical issues delayed this post.]

Last night’s season two The Vampire Diaries opener, “The Return,” gave us so much of the good stuff we’ve been missing the last two months: someone gets stabbed, two people get vampire blood, and someone gets vampired! Is there any other show as plot-tastic as this one?

Everyone’s Doing V These Days

We rewind a little to where we left things on “Founder’s Day,” Katherine stabbing Uncle Daddy while Elena walks up the porch. Elena finds Jon bleeding out and calls 911 but only gets as far as her address before that she figures out that Jon is saying “Behind you” for a reason. There’s nothing but whirling and twirling before Katherine zips out the door without Elena catching a glimpse. She runs upstairs to check on Jeremy and successfully wakes him just as the ambulance pulls up.

Stefan’s on scene as they load Jon up and immediately takes over the Jeremy examination. He’s not a vampire, so we can collectively breathe a sigh of relief. The vampire blood and the pills effectively cancelled each other out. Stefan, however, gives Jeremy a little slap (tough love!) and makes it clear that if he tries again, the death part will stick. Elena heads to the hospital while Stefan’s on suicide watch.

Damon rolls up at the hospital because Sheriff Forbes called him (AW!). She needs to investigate how Mayor Lockwood was felled by the device but breaks down about Caroline, who is in rough shape. Damon, Bonnie, and Elena have mini-confab about Caroline’s condition, in which Damon suggests using his blood to heal her. Elena says that she can’t sign off on that (why is it solely up to you, Elena? Please don’t turn into a little miss me-fffet), but Bonnie doesn’t know a healing spell (took Emily years to master one), so she gives Damon the go-ahead. For reals. Also, maybe you should let Caroline in on the truth. Just a thought. Anyway, Vamp Blood #1.

Damon gives Elena the heads up once the feeding’s over, but it’s all a pretence to talk about The Kiss. It’s been, like, two hours, man! Get a grip. Anyway, Damon’s all, “Let’s talk about our feelings of love,” and Elena’s like, “I don’t have time for your latest delusion,” so it’s only when Jenna comes up and is convinced that she told Elena she had to go fill out some insurance form (incredibly fast service!) and Elena is equally convinced that that never happened that Damon finally puts two and two together. The look on his face when he does it priceless. Really, Ian Somerhalder should put that on his reel.

Back at the Gilbert rez, Stefan, Damon, and Elena have a little confab about the vamp who tried to kill Jon, and Damon drops the Katherine bomb. Stefan wants to know how Damon can be sure, so Damon drops The Kiss bomb while he’s at it. Naturally, Stefan and Damon start zooming all over the place, looking for a fight, so Elena has to remind them to focus on the psycho killer that’s been invited into her home. Stefan and Elena want to know Katherine’s game, while Damon feels that ignoring her is the best way to draw her out. Later that night, Stefan finds Katherine once again in the Gilbert rez, and they get a little slammy and growly before Katherine takes off into the night.

The next day Bonnie, Elena, and Stefan trip over to the hospital to check on Caroline (miraculous recovery in place, making Matt happy) and Uncle Daddy (looking horrible). Jon wigs when he first sees Stefan and Katherine standing there and only mildly calms down when he learns it's Stefan and Elena. He’s all tough-guy posturing from his sickbed, and Stefan’s like, “Are you for real?” and finally Jon settles for a bunch of my daughter this, my daughter that, vampires= evil. It’s too little, too late, and Elena and Stefan peace when they realize that Jon has no meaningful intel about Katherine’s plans. Well, Elena peaces, but Jon hits the “vampires aren't good enough for my daughter” stuff a little too hard and pretty soon Stefan’s jaw starts twitching the way it does. Aw, yeah, badassery coming your way. Pretty soon Stefan’s opened his wrist and force-fed Jon a healthy dose of his blood while wrapping the other hand tightly around Jon’s throat. Jon had better leave town before the blood’s out of his system, or Stefan will turn Jon into the thing Jon hates most (that’s vampires, in case you’re just catching up). Vamp Blood #2. Out in the parking lot, Elena admits that she wants Jon gone, so any guilt Stefan may have felt poofs away knowing he did the right thing. Of course, this is Stefan we’re talking about, and he’s got sangfroid in spades, so I doubt guilt ever factored into it. At least now he’s got an handy excuse. Also, Stefan still wants to confront Damon because he tried to kiss Elena, and “that is not okay with me.” I like how such a simple phrase sounds like a shiv. Man, I have missed this show. Elena, however, warns Stefan not to poke the bear: Damon is unstable when it comes to Katherine.

Stabbing Someone Shows Them That You Really Care

Everyone’s at Mayor Lockwood’s wake (that was fast), including Katherine (who Tyler invites in) and Mason, the Mayor’s absentee, ne’er-do-well brother.  I mean, look at the truck and the ensemble. How could that be acceptable to classist Lady Mayor? The Gilberts + Jenna roll up with a giant basket of whatever Jenna made, and Jeremy must be fully indoctrinated now, given his share in the Danier Leather Factory. Maybe the Founder’s Council does ritual cattle sacrifices?

Jeremy runs into Tyler drinking alone from his father’s leather (!) flask, and they bond over having dead dads, except that Tyler’s dad really was an ass. They also throw some HoYay around for good measure. Damon runs into Sheriff Forbes and Lady Mayor bickering over the Mayor’s death and reminds them that they are all pillars of the community together. Funny how Damon really needs that to be true. Bonnie has a run-in with Damon, and it’s the usual stuff about how Bonnie will kill Damon one of these days and how they are really hot for each other. What? They have sizzling chemistry, and it’s about time Bonnie got some. Damon then runs into Elena, who tells him that she’s not surprised he tried to kiss her, just surprised that he thought she would kiss him back (and Nina Dobrev nails this delivery, very Buffy to Xander in the season one finale). At the same time, Bonnie has a run-in with Katherine, initially mistaking her for Elena and blabbing about Caroline gulping down Damon's blood. For her part, Katherine says a bunch of stupid shit about how she used Isobel to gather intel about Elena’s nearest and dearest and how difficult that was even though we all know all Isobel did was get Caroline talking. Whatever, the point is that the headache trick doesn’t work on Katherine, so Bonnie blows open the doors to the room with her mind before Katherine can get her teeth in. Naturally, Stefan is standing right there. Also, if you don’t have a built-in vampire detector like dear Bonnie does, look for the curls. Curls=Katherine, flat-iron=Elena.

Stefan and Bonnie trade places, and Stefan honestly goes, “Just do whatever it is you are here to do and get out of town.” He is so over her shit. Katherine tells Stefan that her game, whatever it is, has no rules, and they head outside to further discuss this game of her. Katherine actually tries to play the coquette with him, but it doesn’t work. She cuts to the chase: she wants Stefan back. Lady, you’re about 100 years too late. Stefan agrees with me, telling Katherine that his love for her was never real and now all he feels for her is hate. Katherine, however, feels that there is a thin line between love and hate and further demonstrates that fact by shiving Stefan with a wrought iron candlestick. Stabbed! Yes, Katherine, that does sound like the beginning of a love story. One in which you lose. You don’t know this Stefan. You don’t understand what you’ve turned him into. What he’s turned himself into. He could never love you now. Also, Katherine's game totally does have a rule! Piss her off, and she'll shiv you! That's the kind of thing you want written down.

Elena finds Stefan bleeding and pretty soon Damon turns up as well. Elena takes off so those two crazy kids can try to work it out. Damon does his Logan Echolls once again, faking that he and Stefan have a brotherly bond that cannot be broken, so you know he hopes that is true. Stefan completely flips the switch. Instead of raging over Damon’s attempted Elena kiss, Stefan urges him to hold onto wherever those feelings are coming from, as his humanity lies in the same place. Katherine seeks to take that away from him. “She came here to destroy us,” Stefan warns Damon. “How we respond to that will define us.” Whoa, a challenge on your life.

Damon comes home to find Katherine waiting, and he’s not terribly impressed, but pretty soon they choose kissing over killing. Damon presses pause, so he can ask the one question that’s been plaguing him for 145 years. Oh, man, someone stop him. Katherine does (yay?), but only to tell him she already knows the question and the answer. She never loved him. It was always Stefan. WTF? WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO HIM, THEN?! It’s sad, and Katherine actually seems to feel bad about hurting Damon this way, so she leaves without another word. Rule # 2 to understanding Katherine: No stab, no love.

Downstairs at the Gilbert rez, Jon takes off after telling Jeremy that vampire hating and hunting is his legacy. Dare to dream! Upstairs, Damon’s drunken mopey self is sitting in Elena’s room when she comes out of the bathroom to go to bed, and she gets about half-way through a “thanks for standing watch” when he’s back to, “Let’s talk about our feelings of love.” Man alive! Let it go, Damon. He tries to kiss her and Elena’s not kissing back, pushing away and saying no, she loves only Stefan. Fortunately Jeremy walks in before things get too creeptastic. Nope, spoke too soon. Jeremy wants to be a vampire, does he? Well, Damon’s here to help. He snaps Jeremy’s neck and takes off. Elena’s hysterical, crying and cradling poor dead Jeremy’s body when she reaches for his hand and finds the Gilbert ring. Oh, thank goodness. Stefan's there before Jeremy even comes to, rationalizing that Damon saw the ring and knew Jer would survive, but Elena’s having none of that. She hates Damon. Jeremy takes a deep breath, finally cured of his death wish. Back at the Salvatore rez, Damon drinks and wigs over what he’s done and for a second I think he’s going to burn down the house, but he settles for throwing his glass into the fire place, soap opera-style.

Game On

Back at the hospital, Caroline wakes up suddenly to find Katherine standing watch. Katherine introduces herself and asks Caroline to pass along a message to the Salvatore brothers: Game on. Before Caroline can even make sure that they’ll know what that means, Katherine smothers her with a pillow. Man, when Caroline transitions and remembers everything she’s been compelled to forget, there’s going to be hell to pay. Rule #3 in Katherine's game: death is the punishment when she loses a round. 

In other news:

• Mason tells Tyler that there is a Lockwood family curse after Tyler's latest rage attack, but he can learn to control it. No one yes says the word "werewolf."
• What happened to Tyler's little sister?

Next time: Who knows? Simulcasting has taken away my scenes from next week. Why is that? Do we not need scenes in Canada? Supposedly I'm watching the preview the next episode right now on the CW's website, but it's actually just a big blank.