I’ve left it way too late to give you a proper recap of last Thursday’s The Vampire Diaries, “The Sun Also Rises,” but feel I must write something, so here goes: relentlessly advertizing it as the episode before the season finale, even though it focused on the season-long obsession (the sacrifice) made it pretty clear to me FROM THE JUMP that we haven’t seen the last of Klaus. If I were a betting woman, I would have split my monies thusly: the sacrifice goes according to plan (for Klaus, obvs), and he spends the next episode terrorizing everyone who tried to stop him OR the sacrifice doesn’t go according to plan, and he spends the next episode terrorizing everyone who stopped him. Instead, Klaus gets everything he wants, and we’re going to spend the next episode dealing with . . . Damon’s feelings? (More on this in a minute).

Alright, so there’s some other stuff in between. Stuff like Jenna totally dying. As much as I liked Jenna, Sara Canning was wildly underused for most of the series’ run, so it’s better for the show (and the actress, I hope) to cut its losses. A lot of her scenes in this ep, outside of the serious emotional stuff with Elena, were Vampire 101, and we’ve already been through that with Vicki and Caroline (come to think of it, why no new male vampires, show?). Again, as much as I like Jenna and Canning as Jenna, we’ve done this. Let’s move on to the good stuff, like Klaus totally ripping out Jules’ heart. Admit it: you cheered. No one liked Jules, did they?

Right, Jenna. Jenna, heartbreakingly, realizes that she’s failed Elena as her guardian (it was really more of a fail by omission, in that she never knew enough about what was happening to do a better job), so she gives protecting her ward one last effort: she sinks those brand-new vampire fangs into Greta’s neck. Unfortunately, Klaus pulls her off before she can finish the job and stakes Jenna. She dies. It’s both a devastating blow and not much of one, all things considered.

Last week’s The Vampire Diaries, “Rose,” was a little lacking in the holy shit compared to “Masquerade.” Of course, it’s hard not to do. Perhaps they were simply observing the cardinal rule of taking it down a notch to avoid blowing one’s wad. If so, well played. We got deeper into the Petrova mystery, Bonnie’s witchy powers, and Salvatore heartbreak. Also, did I mention the ROAD TRIP? Let’s go.

ROAD TRIP

Stefan’s chillin’ like a villain at school (I take a minute to laugh at this continued pretence). Jeremy strolls up to point out that’s easier to get someone to cover for you if you give that someone a heads up. Stefan doesn’t know what Jer’s talking about, and it pretty soon they both realize that Elena’s unaccounted for. Stefan is going to have a meltdown.

"Holy Shit!" was pretty much the theme of last night The Vampire Diaries episode "Founder's Day" (also, thank goodness that stupid Founder's gimmick is over. At least I hope it is). Notably, Katherine has finally returned, as we've been waiting for her since we found out she was never in the tomb. Also, I heard that two characters were going to die, but it's worse: three characters die plus a boatload of extras, two lives hang in the balance, and Katherine's back. Oh, did I mention that? Just wanted to make sure you knew.

Death, Death, Death

The tomb refugees that weren't already staked have chosen the Founder's Day festivities for their little founding families massacre. They're even smart enough to know not to try to feed (in case of vervain), just kill. John gets wind of this plan, so he decides to follow through with Original Recipe Jonathan's plan: use the device to expose the vampires, round them up, and burn the lot. In fact, John decides that his brother's empty medical practice is the perfect location for the bonfire. Exactly when the tomb refugees plan to attack, John sets off the device: essentially, it's like the headache inducer we've seen Grams and Bonnie use against Damon and Stefan, respectively, only much more powerful and with a far wider reach. Anna tries to warn Damon, who tries to warn Stefan, but they all go down anyway. The way Damon grabbed Elena's hand, who never let go of Stefan's hand, so they were all walking along hand-in-hand, was really sweet, though (pictured). Anna falls in the Grill's Ladies' Room while trying to warn Jeremy about the impending death to founders and gets carted off by some deputies, despite Jeremy's screaming and fighting. Stefan falls while he and Elena are trying to get away, but Alaric convinces the deputy that he's got this one before the deputy can pump Stefan with vervain. Poor Damon falls with no one to protect him, so off he goes.

With apologies for not posting about last week's episode of The Vampire Diaries, "There Goes the Neighborhood," sooner, I won't bog you down with the gory details a day before the next episode airs. Suffice it to say:

Stefan is Still the Most Badass Vamp on This Show

Sure, Pearl's the strongest, and she does use her vamp strength against Damon and Frederick (even staking Frederick in the stomach to prove a point), but did she get staked with a huge shard of glass, rip that shard out, break a chair, and stake and kill her attacker? No, but Stefan did. Looks like he's going to pay dearly for that in the next episode, but until then he retains the Most Badass title. Damon let his attacker get away. What does it take, Damon? 

TWoP has a photo gallery up about why The Vampire Diaries is so addictive (don't they know I already wrote all those posts for you in pursuit of what makes the show awesome?), but let me save you the trouble of clicking through with these three words: the Brothers Salvatore. I like Elena, I love Bonnie, Caroline's cool, and mad props go out to my dearly (sexistly) departed ladies Vicki, Lexi, Bree, and Grams. But the Brothers Salvatore make the show. Thanks to the writing and the wily performances of Paul Wesley and Ian Somerhalder, Stefan and Damon are never who you think they are.

At first blush, Stefan's the earnest, brooding good guy and Damon's his dangerous, bad boy older brother. While Stefan can be earnest and does brood (specifically with his forehead,  Damon would tell you), he's also far more dangerous than Damon could ever hope to be. Damon kills to feed or to protect himself: he's motivated entirely by his emotions. He views humans as a lesser life form, and it comes across in his every action.

Stefan, on the hand, tries to simultaneously embrace the benefits of being a vampire (longevity, super speed/hearing/strength) while rejecting that which sustains him (human blood). The wistful way he spoke of all the different jobs he's held for as long as he could didn't betray a longing to return to his human form: it spoke of someone determined to get as much as he could out of the life he chose. He's not self-loathing like Edward or Bill. He accepts, and he moves on. But you know what it takes to do as much accepting and moving on as he has? Motherfuckin' sangfroid, which he has in spades. Unlike Damon, Stefan readily forms human attachments, and his determination to protect them (not himself) from things that go bump in the night (although sadly not from Bumpits) leads him to some pretty dark places. We've seen him stake and flame-throw other vampires without hesitation. What will he do if another human ever threatens Elena? How far would he go? He's smart, funny, passionately in love, and loyal to both people and place. He's also an icy dispatcher of foes and not above poisoning his own brother. He's a study in contrasts.

Damon gets to utter last night's The Vampire Diaries episode title, "Fool Me Once," and, since he went for an over the top sotto voce delivery to the tail end of that aphorism, I'm down with that. Actually, I'm down with pretty much everything Damon does in this episode. Elena's a Little Miss Me-ffet for some of it, Bonnie and Grams team up to use super-witchy powers, and Stefan once again proves that he's the most dangerous vampire on the show. See for yourself!

Damon

Damon informs Stefan in no uncertain terms that he won't be helping Stefan track Elena down, telling him first that he hopes Elena dies and, if she still has Damon's blood in her system when she does, at least Stefan knows he'll see her again. Man, is Damon hurting. Anna tries to get Damon to work with her, which backfires because Stefan frees Elena and Bonnie (more on that in a minute) without Damon's help. Newly freed Elena convinces Damon that they all need to work together, and Damon heads down to the tomb with a blood bag for his beloved Katherine (adorable). All his searching is for naught, however, when it turns out that Katerine isn't even in there. He confronts Anna and newly-freed Pearl, who tells him that Katherine compelled a guard into letting her escape and never looked back. To add insult to injury, Anna ran into Katherine in Chicago in 1983, who knew where Damon was and didn't even care. Ouch. By episode's close, Damon's staring numbly in the fire at the Salvatore mansion with Stefan taking up quiet residence next to him.