Well, finally, the first good Vampire Diaries episode of the season! It usually takes about this long. They often get off to a pretty rocky start, and they cure their ills this time by that classic strategy: having a big ill-advised party that not everyone invited will survive. This week it’s at the “swimming hole” weirdly not near the quarry but somehow on the divide of the town line, so vampire magic works only until anyone strays back to safety. Not that anyone seems to care about that, as underage drinking is part of Mystic Falls’ party scene, always.
Elena likes to make a big entrance at these things, which she does by making a very noticeable success of filling out her bikini, and then rope swinging into the drink! Vampires have no problem with water (unless it’s holy or vervain-laced), and Elena has always been a girl serious about getting her party on. 18th new cast member of the season is certainly taken with her (I think his nickname is Cool Brag, so I’ll go with that).
Normally all the new cast members would be a spell of death for a show like this. Is it really time for the onset of multiple Cousin Olivers in Season Six? Seems weird since the regular cast are more intact than ever: Bonnie and Damon, Caroline and Enzo, Damon and Elena, Matt and Tyler, Jeremy and a new skank ho. Heck, the witch twins from last season are even old hat now, present enough for Luke to encourage Liv to flirt with Tyler, which is actually kind of hot since passive aggressive always goes so over his dumb jock head.
And then there’s Tripp Fell (yeah, they did a bit about it, obligatorily) who is all about Founding Family tea partying on all the vampires driven out of town. Which would be dull, except they’ve hired the Maytag Repairman to play him — which means they’ve got some real plans in store. Though not as young as most of the cast, he’s very buff, and that usually means a several episode arc.
But if all that weren’t enough, the even greater amount of fun in the episode resides in the Bonnie/Damon sojourn. He thinks he’s in his own personal hell, she knows they’re reliving a day in 1994 over and over (with appropriate Ace of Base music cues!), and the surreal qualities of the place ultimately reveal a new player. Kai is yet another fresh young face, but he comes with a very bad attitude that involves dousing Damon in loads of vervain.
Which is good, because Damon knows what to do with bad attitudes: torture, and this once Bonnie is fully on board, especially since the attack triggered the return of her magic. She and Damon make a surprisingly formidable team. They’re both more fun right now than they’ve been in ages, and maybe this season will avoid the gloomy downer that was last season’s Katherine-dominated gypsy-fest.