The Vampire Diaries - Season 2 (2010)

 

It's a rare occasion to find that one show which truly gets it all right and consistently hits it out of the ballpark on a weekly basis.  A show that you can sit down and re-devour an entire season in a couple of days and love it even more the second time around.  A show you grow a little homesick for when you have no more episodes to watch, for me that's been The Vampire Diaries, a show that's helped to bring vampires and werewolves back from the brink of Twi-hard destruction and place them in a more real world local.

If you thought Season 1 was a roller coaster ride, you've experience nothing yet!  Just when you began to question how far the writers could go, and what they could do to keep the show exciting and fresh they throw you a curve-ball. In fact the entire Season 2 is a series of unexpected twists and turns!

In Season 2 the werewolves are introduced. As teased at the end of Season 1 founding family decedent Tyler Lockwood quickly learns his family bloodline bears a horrible curse, a curse that is initiated if someone dies by his hand, causing him to transform into a wolf upon every full moon.  The arrival of his Uncle Mason not only stirs up questions in his mind but begins to stir up trouble in Mystic Falls.  Mason has returned to obtain a family relic, a moonstone, which is supposedly one of the ingredients to removing the curse of the sun and the moon.  If a vampire breaks the curse all vampires will be able to walk in the sun, if a werewolf breaks the curse all werewolves will have the ability to transform at will, or never at all. 

Chaos quickly ensues between the two species but the worst is yet to come.  Upon recently discovering werewolves actually existed our main characters learn some even more startling news, the existence of the originals.  The originals were the first ever vampires, and the head honcho Klaus, has his sights set on breaking the curse as well, but more than a moonstone is needed.  To break the curse one must have the moonstone, a witch to carry out the spell, a vampire, a werewolf and a doppelganger for sacrifice; that doppelganger is Elaina!

The plan is to then kill Klaus, unfortunately it's not very easy to kill an original, turns out the only way to do so is an overwhelming amount of supernatural power which would end up killing the witch who welded it, and even then it has to be done when Klaus at his weakest, which would be at the completion of the sacrifice.  So with Elaina's fate seemingly sealed she makes a deal with Klaus's former second in command, Elijah (the second known original) whose goal is also to kill Klaus.  Elijah agrees to protect her friends and family with the condition she doesn't attempt to do anything stupid that would prevent the sacrifice from occurring.  But Stefan and Damon refuse to let Elaina die without a fight.

The remainder of the season includes a more complete back-story on Stefan, Damon, Katerine, Elijah and Klaus; a large chunk devoted to werewolves and the revelation that a werewolf bite can kill a vampire (something that comes up a couple times); A LOT of people dying (even fairly main characters), a couple more vampire transitions, and some identities are revealed to a couple people in town that causes a lot of trouble.  

As with Season 1, Season 2 is the type of improvement one could only hope for from a premiere season that was already pretty outstanding.  What I enjoyed most about Season 2 is everything is ramped up; the action, the drama, the emotion, has all been stepped up a notch.  It's rare to find a series and a cast that gels so well together, and portrays a group of characters you actually care about.  The emotional sequences this season are truly some of the best I've seen in this type of genre, that's all due to the outstanding work of the writers and the performances of the cast.  Damon Salvatore (Ian Somerhalder) is still my favorite character, as the reckless and extremely hostile brother of Stefan.  His character has the widest range of emotions this season as he continues to deal with his jealously towards his brother, his personal demons, and losing someone he cares about.  I'm glad the writers were able to find a suitable balance for the character, giving him various opportunities to show he wasn't all bad, but at the same time not completely change his character.  I've also begun to get used to Bonnie, whom in Season 1 I was hoping they'd eventually kill off.

Overall, Season 2 is amazing, rarely a dull moment and more shocks and surprises than you'll find in most series.  I ended my review of Season 1 expressing my concerns questioning how the writers could keep the show fresh and not run out of ideas going at such a fast pace, well Season 2 proved they could do it, and now I'm wondering how they can pull it off again, is there even room for improvement?

My Top 5 Episodes

 Aired 2/17/11

Damon's provided with the only known weapon that will kill and original and plans to use it on Elijah during a dinner party he's holding, but the weapon has a catch that the giver failed to warn him of.  Meanwhile Stefan is attempting to persuade Elaina not to give up and recounts to her the story of when he first became a vampire.

 Aired 10/21/10

After he outed them to the sheriff, which almost lead to their death, and they learned he was working with Katherine, Stefan finally agrees with Damon that Mason Lockwood has to be dealt with once and for all.  Caroline learns from Tyler that Mason is now in possession of the moonstone and Bonnie, Stefan and Damon set out to capture Mason and discover where he's hidden it.  Once on the trail Damon is left alone to finish Mason off, a decision that may backfire when Katherine finds out.

Aired 10/28/10

Katherine's angry about Stefan and Damon sabotaging her plans and reclaiming the moonstone, and they quickly learn they don't want to make Katerine angry when she threatens to go a killing spree.  With the Lockwood's annual masquerade party scheduled they decide it might be the perfect opportunity to lure Katherine to them under the guise of giving her the moonstone, and then finally killing her.  Problem is Katherine's thought of everything, and she's surely thought the Salvatore brothers might try and pull one over on her.  She's also got Matt compelled to initiate Tyler's family curse.

Aired 2/24/11

After escaping from the tomb Katherine becomes the Salvatore's unwelcome house guest, promising to assist them in protecting Elaina.  Elijah's two witches finally get what they deserve after messing with the Salvatore's and Elaina for the last time.  Alaric suggests to Elaina that it might be a good time to fill her Aunt Jenna in on what's going on, as her suspicions have been growing.  And Matt finally discovers why Caroline has been acting so strangely.

Aired 5/5/11

The episode prior to the finale, that in my opinion would have ended the season on a little more of a cliff hanger.  Damon attempts to prevent a potentially disastrous mistake he created when he decided to take matters into he own hands and attempt to insure Elaina would survive the sacrifice.  Hoping to delay it he rescues Klaus's vampire and werewolf, but things go horribly wrong when the werewolf begins to transform and bites Damon on the arm sealing his inevitable death.  To make matters worse this attempt at bravery accomplishes nothing, as Klaus whose been attempting to break the curse for 500 years, reveals he had a backup werewolf and vampire, and the vampire is someone no one expected.  With the sacrifice still a go, their last chance to kill Klaus is right after he breaks the curse, and everyone is putting their trust in Elijah to follow through, no matter what.

9/10