The Vampire Diaries September 29 Episode Preview Pictures: Stefan and Klaus visit Chicago.

Stefan and Klaus check out a bar called Gloria's in Chicago.

On September 29, The Vampire Diaries takes another trip back in time to flash back to Stefan’s past in the Chicago of the Roaring Twenties when Stefan and Klaus take their werewolf hunt to the Windy City.  Stefan runs into a vampire, played by Claire Holt of “Pretty Little Liars,” who is nursing lingering feelings for him. The skinny from The CW is that this sequence will show us more shocking facts about Stefan’s Ripper days. While Stefan takes a trip down memory lane, Damon and Elena get a hot tip about his whereabouts and hit the road to find him. Tyler, meanwhile, takes his concerns about Caroline to Sheriff Forbes. He should just ask his mom.

Photos courtesy The CW Network LLC. All rights reserved.

Charmin Lee guest stars as Old Gloria. I wonder just how old she is?

 

Paul Wesley cuts a dashing figure as Stefan in a sequence set in the 1920s.

 

Will Damon and Elena find danger in Chicago?

 

 

The Vampire Diaries’ Julie Plec gives a sneak peek at the third season premiere

Check out the latest preview video from The CW featuring comments from The Vampire Diaries executive producer Julie Plec.  Julie gives the scoop on Damon’s latest attempts to seduce Elena (or at least flirt HEAVILY with her), Caroline’s evolving relationship with Tyler and Jeremy’s haunting by his dearly departed vampire girlfriends Vicky and Anna. Tune in tomorrow!

Footage copyright The CW Network, LLC. All rights reserved.

 

New Vampire Diaries Comic-Con Sneak Peek Season 3 Video: Damon Flashes Elena!

The CW is whetting our appetites for Vampire Diaries with some great sneak peeks premiering at Comic-Con and season 3 is looking JUICY!  I really love this new guy Klaus.  Well, I hate him of course because he’s so evil, but that’s what keeps things interesting, right? The plot twist that has Stefan returning to his ripper ways is going to be very heartbreaking to watch.  The latest video shown at Comic-Con reveals that he will have moments where he is fully aware of the horror of his bloodlust and has no way to stop it. Damon, meanwhile, will recover nicely from his near-fatal werewolf bite last season. He’s lookin’ mighty fine in the final scene of this video. Like I said, juicy.

The Vampire Diaries May 12 Season Finale Recap: Vicki and Anna Return!

Will Stefan give in to his dark side now that he's with Klaus?

May 12 – Is anybody really that surprised that Damon and Elena kissed on last night’s season finale of The Vampire Diaries? The writers have been softening our favorite bad-boy vamp all season long and giving us juicy scenes of him being more naked with his feelings for Elena despite her devotion to Stefan. Last night’s episode seems to have set the stage for a major role reversal between the Salvatore brothers that will no doubt complicate the Stefan-Elena-Damon love triangle to the nth degree. But plenty more went on in the slam-bam finale. Let’s just say Bonnie is gonna find her romance with Jeremy complicated by ghosts from his past. Damon is of course starting to feel the deteriorating effects of the wolf bite he sustained during his tussle with Tyler. Determined to clear his conscience before meeting the same gruesome fate as the late, lamented Rose, he apologizes to Elena for force-feeding her his blood. When an understandably hesitant Elena refuses to forgive and forget, he moves on to his next agenda: removing his protection ring and burning himself to death in the sunlight. Stefan won’t have it, though, and locks Damon up to protect him from his suicidal self while he figures out a way to cure him.  Stefan feels guilty about being responsible for Katherine turning Damon into a vamp in the first place and feels he owes it to his brother to save him.

Is Jeremy going to be a vampire next season?

After Bonnie taps her witch ancestors to discover that Klaus holds the key to Damon’s salvation, Stefan recruits Alaric’s help. Ric, who’s drinking heavily to numb the pain of losing Jenna, straightens up upon learning of Damon’s plight. The two confront Kat for answers at Klaus’s place just in time for the Klauster and his stupid brother Elijah to arrive. Elijah, who holds out hope that Klaus can lead him to the bodies of their relatives, barely has time to say hello when his devious sibling stakes him! Now, who didn’t see that coming a mile away? Klaus then reveals the cure to a werewolf bite by munching on Kat’s wrist and then feeding her his blood, instantly healing the gaping, infected wound. In the ultimate ironic twist, the cure for a vampire mortally infected by a werewolf bite is the blood of a vamp-wolf hybrid! In order to get some of Klaus’s blood for Damon, however, Stefan has to turn to the dark side and become Klaus’s new sidekick! Klaus forces him to gorge on blood bags to unleash his bloodlust and shares an unfortunate young woman as a “re-initiation” victim with Stefan to make him revert to his original ripper ways when he was first turned by Kat.  Meanwhile, Sheriff Forbes is feeling the heat from Mrs. Lockwood to solve Mystic Falls’s vampire problem. As Caroline, Jeremy and Elena prepare a weirdly peppy picnic to watch an outdoor showing of Gone with the Wind in the town square, her mom stages a raid on the Salvatore home, but bungles it, setting Damon free instead to wander the streets. When she tracks him down again and shoots at him, she hits Jeremy instead. Poor Jeremy, always in the line of fire… literally! Caroline feeds Jeremy some of her blood while Sheriff Forbes looks on. Bonnie then manages to overcome those bitchy witches who resist helping her save him, thanks to her ancestor Emily.  Will their combined efforts to revive him have the effect that I suspect they will? When Elena finds a delirious Damon behind the movie screen, he nearly feeds on her but stops himself in time. Back at the house, Elena tends to a dying Damon as he pours his heart out to her, saying she would have liked him better before he was a vamp. She responds that she likes him just fine the way he is and gently KISSES him!  At this point, Team Delena’s cheering and hooting is brought to a screeching halt by Kat, who shows up with Klaus’s blood. It’s OK to love both Salvatores, Katherine tells Elena as she leaves. She should know. With the latest twist to the Stefan-Elena-Damon triangle fully in play, our attention is drawn to a recovering Jeremy, who awakens to an eerie feeling that someone is in the house. As he walks downstairs, he’s confronted with the sight of not one, but two of his dead vampire girlfriends: Vicki Donovan and Anna! Were they resurrected by Klaus in a new scheme that evokes Dracula’s trio of vampire brides? And if so, who will be recruited to be the third? More important, is Jeremy now a vampire? Whatever happens next, I’m sure Bonnie will NOT be amused! Tune in next season, folks, and enjoy reruns until then. The Night Bites blog is taking a break for the summer – unless some juicy news emerges before September, of course – but if you’re a True Blood fan, please consider following my summer blog Biting Remarks. Check it out at www.bitingremarks.wordpress.com and let’s obsess over Bill, Sookie, Eric and Alcide as the temperatures rise!

Photos courtesy The CW Network, LLC. All rights reserved.

The Vampire Diaries May 5 episode recap: Klaus Kills Jenna!

Goodbye to Jenna! She died a heroine.

May 5 – This episode was a sad one, folks. Exciting, but definitely sad. The writers of The Vampire Diaries didn’t pull any punches telling the final chapter in the tale of the moonstone curse. Characters were dropping like flies and not all of them were obvious choices for death. As usual, Elena was at the center of all the carnage. As the ritual to unleash Klaus’s werewolf side begins, his witch Greta encircles Elena and Jenna in rings of fire. The Klauster shows up with a third pretty lady, the she-wolf Jules, and Greta sets her magical recipe in motion. Jules is in agony since the witch had slowed down her painful wolf transformation in order to keep her vulnerable for the sacrifice.

Jules only wanted to help Tyler.

When Jules attempts to attack Klaus, he easily overpowers her and rips her heart out! Stage one of the ritual is complete. Jules’s werewolf protégé Tyler, meanwhile, is busy trying to rip Caroline and Matt to shreds. Matt shoots him and escapes with Caroline. In the morning, they find a naked Tyler lying outside their door. Matt admits to Caroline that as bad as his life can be, he just can’t deal with the complications that come with dating a vampire. When Tyler wakes up, he thanks Caroline for helping him and consoles her about losing Matt. Is this Wolf Boy’s chance? Hmm. Back at casa Salvatore, Damon has a rare moment of concern for his brother when Alaric tells him that Stefan left to sacrifice himself in Jenna’s place. He and Ric join Jeremy and Bonnie in pouring over the John Gilbert journals for a way out of this ritual mess. Sure enough, John, making himself useful for a change, reveals that there is some fine print in the lore about humans being turned into vamps when they ingest vampire blood. “Skip to the save Elena part,” an impatient Damon demands. Turns out there’s a way to replace a human’s soul before they convert fully to vampirism. Bonnie does a quick mumbo-jumbo number on John and heads out with Damon to save Elena. Alaric, however, is sealed in the house with John and Jeremy by Bonnie to keep him out of danger. Poor Ric is always left behind to deliver bad news to other characters. Just as Klaus is about to proceed to Jenna’s portion of the ritual, Stefan shows up and tries to negotiate with him. Klaus, however, prefers to keep Stefan alive for another diabolical purpose. Jenna valiantly resists by attacking his witch but Klaus stakes her as a helpless Elena looks on in horror! Klaus then feeds on Elena’s blood and she seemingly drops dead! Klaus’s transformation begins and Bonnie shows up to wallop him with her mega magic while Damon snaps Greta’s neck to keep her from interfering. Elijah emerges and reaches into Klaus’s chest to pull out his heart but Klaus tells him that the bodies of their family members are still safe. Elijah chooses family ties over keeping his word to the Salvatores and whisks Klaus away. Damon brings Elena back to the house, where John gives Jeremy his protection ring and a letter for Elena. As John walks outside, Elena comes back to life and he drops dead. Bonnie’s spell had set up an exchange of John’s soul for Elena’s. The next day, Elena mourns the loss of her remaining two parental figures as Jenna and John are laid to rest. Alaric has lost another love to vampirism. What will he do next? That’s what fans are wondering about Damon, who confides in Stefan that Tyler bit him. They’ll find a cure, Stefan promises. Will they do it on next week’s season finale?

Photos courtesy The CW Network, LLC. All rights reserved.

The Vampire Diaries April 28 Recap: Damon Suffers a Werewolf Bite!

Has Damon gone too far in his quest to save Elena from Klaus?

April 28 – The day of Klaus’s ritual has arrived and there are so many crazy plot twists in tonight’s episode that it’s hard to tell who’s a vampire and who isn’t by the time it’s over. Damon realizes more and more that he can’t bear to lose Elena and is cracking under the pressure of the coming deadline. Elijah has a plan to protect Elena by giving her an elixir that will make it seem like she dies during the ritual, which requires a witch to activate Klaus’s werewolf side with magic while a vampire and a werewolf are killed and Elena, the famous doppelganger, is drained of her blood by the Klauster. Damon doesn’t believe the elixir will work and demands that Elena let Bonnie sacrifice herself by taking on Klaus again with her super magic. When Elena refuses, Damon resorts to force-feeding her his blood. Stefan pulls him off her and the brothers fight with Stefan ending up stabbed by his volatile sibling. Alaric, who’s been released by Klaus, brings Stefan some blood bags but it’s too late to reverse what’s going to happen to Elena. When she dies, she’ll come back as a vampire! Stefan takes a tortured Elena on a nature hike to give her a deeper understanding of what it’s like to be a vampire. He gently gets a sobbing Elena to admit that she doesn’t want to become a vampire… like him. Damon, meanwhile, takes action to foil Klaus’s master plan. Klaus’s warlock hexes Mrs. Lockwood to call Tyler back to town and tosses her over a staircase railing to land her in the hospital. Caroline has an awkward reunion withTyler outside the hospital while Jules gives them a moment of privacy and the two are captured by Klaus’s warlock and witch. When they come to, they’re chained in the tomb where Katherine was previously imprisoned and, fearing it’s their last moments on earth, confess to each other their mutual affection. Might a werewolf-vampire romance still be possible? Don’t count Matt out just yet, folks. He hesitates to fully believe that Caroline is all bad despite what Sheriff Forbes may say. Realizing that the Mattster still has feelings for her daughter, the law woman relieves him of his double-agent duties. After Klaus warns Damon that he has most of the components of his ritual in place, Damon recruits Alaric to help him gain access to Klaus’s lair and find out from the captive Kat where he’s keeping his vampire and werewolf. The warlock is standing guard at the tomb when Damon shows up and the two start to tussle but Matt shoots the warlock before he can finish Damon off. Damon kills the man-witch and knocks Matt out before freeing Caroline and Tyler. While Damon is busy putting a wrench in Klaus’s plan, the Original Vampire grows suspicious that Katherine is no longer under his control. As a test, he orders her to stand in sunlight and Kat endures the agony long enough to fool him. As Damon leads Caroline, Tyler and Matt to safety, the full moon rises andTyler’s transformation kicks in at an alarmingly fast rate and he attacks Damon.

Have things changed forever between Elena and Stefan now that she's confessed she'd rather be human?

Caroline and Matt lock themselves in the cage Mason set up in the Lockwood basement just in time to escape a snarling Tyler preparing to pounce in wolf form. Stefan tells Damon that Klaus arrived to pick up Elena and the hot-headed Salvatore brother makes a beeline to confront Klaus. When he cockily informs the ancient baddie that he has freed his vampire and werewolf sacrifices, Klaus reveals that he had a back-up plan all along. He doesn’t need Tyler because his witches also swiped Jules at the hospital. Klaus knocks Damon out and just as it appears Damon will be standing in for Caroline, he wakes up to learn from Katherine that Jenna has been turned to serve as the vamp sacrifice for the ritual being set up by Klaus’s back-up witch (who turns out to be Luka’s missing sister)! What’s worse, Klaus passed Damon over for the honor because Tyler managed to bite him during their scuffle in the forest! Will Damon meet the same fate as Rose?

Photos courtesy The CW Network, LLC. All rights reserved.

The Vampire Diaries April 14 Episode Sneak Preview Photos!

Jeremy and Bonnie share a romantic moment on the dancefloor.

 

Well this is a cute idea for an episode: the gang throws a retro ’60s dance at school, which gives everyone the chance to get decked out in Austin Powers-worthy duds while the specter of Klaus continues to hover over them. The April 14 episode is titled The Last Dance and my question is — last dance for whom? Judging from these sneak preview pictures from The CW, it looks like Elena is delving into someone’s archives for the perfect outfit for the dance. Could it be her dead mom’s things? She’s going to have to keep it together to support Jeremy, who’s concerned about Bonnie. She’s straining her powers to protect Elena and he’s not sure she has the strength to face what lies ahead from the ancient supervamp. Damon seems to be egging her on at the dance. Apparently he has a new plot for dealing with Klaus and Stefan and Company don’t react very well to its particulars. Hey, what’s an episode of Vampire Diaries without a ridiculously inappropriate and dangerous idea from the naughtier of the Salvatore brothers? Photos courtesy The CW Network, LLC. All rights reserved.

Elena works a purple outfit. Love the heart earrings!

 

Elena unpacks a box of memories.

 

What's Damon up to? No good, I'm sure!

A gorgeous Caroline and Matt look like blonde versions of Jackie Kennedy and JFK.

The Vampire Diaries February 17 recap: Katherine is freed from the tomb!

 

Stefan's friend Lexi appeared in a flashback to his savage days.

February 17 – He may be Elena’s biological daddy, but Jonathan Gilbert is one major jerk. Weaselly, as Damon likes to describe him, is most appropriate because he scurries about poking his nose in everybody’s business, claiming to have Elena’s best interest at heart (that is SO debatable), and generally causing all kinds of chaos along the way. Last week we discovered that he’s been plotting to free Katherine from the tomb and tonight’s suspenseful episode let us in on his plan.  There’s a lot of flashing back in time as the Salvatore brothers and Elena delve into the boys’ early days as vampires after being turned by Katherine. Elena reads the diary of Jonathan’s ancestor, which details his horrific slaying by none other than Stefan. In an ironic case of role reversal, it turns out that Elena’s sweet-natured boyfriend was quite the bad boy back in the old days, killing innocents with voracious glee as a reluctant Damon pleaded with him to rein in his savage nature. It wasn’t until Stefan’s dearly departed bestie Lexi came on the scene that he took a turn toward becoming one of the good guys. Still, his walk down memory lane gives Elena the shivers.  Her Prince Charming has the potential to be the Prince of Darkness.  Jeremy sets up a candlelit magic “practice session” with Bonnie after she’s confronted by an angry Luka about what transpired during his drug-induced blackout at her doing. Later, just as things are heating up between the young Romeo and his magical Juliet, Luka’s angry dad Jonas bursts in and drains her of her powers. Will Jeremy still be hot for her without her magic? Damon visits a famished Kat and she seemingly inadvertently confirms Jonathan’s claims that the dagger dipped in oak ash will indeed kill an Original vampire. Fearing that she’ll be stuck in the tomb forever if Damon kills Elijah, she begs him not to do it. Damon, of course, becomes even more determined to end the well-coifed fiend. Elijah creeps out Alaric by spending way too much time with Jenna sharing his knowledge of Mystic Falls history. He lost one lover to vampirism and is not about to risk having that happen again! 

Damon realized the gang goofed!

Damon plots to have Elijah over to Jenna’s for dinner with the gang, including Damon’s newscaster bimbo Andy, not knowing that he would destroy himself by using the dagger against the Original, a fact Jonathan conveniently left out of his explanation to further his vendetta against the Salvatores and their kind. Luckily for the blue-eyed bad boy, Stefan alerts Ric to Jonathan’s plot and Ric does the honors himself and Elijah goes bye-bye. Not so fast! Elena comes across a passage in the diary saying that the small print in all this vampire mythological mumbo jumbo says you gotta leave the dagger in the Original for him to stay dead — which Damon & Co. fail to do so next thing you know Elijah is back in action and drops by the lake house to collect from Elena. The two engage in some tense negotiations and Elena stabs herself, forcing Elijah to again promise not to hurt her loved ones in exchange for keeping her intact for the sacrifice to Klaus. Catching Elijah off guard, she stabs him with the dagger. Damon suggests they leave it in the newly dead bad guy this time.  The smug vampire’s mood changes quickly when he returns to his pad to discover an equally smug Katherine making herself at home. It turns out Jonathan’s ruse to get Damon to off Elijah was the key to freeing Kat from her tomb. The Kat is back! It’s about time.

Photos copyright 2011 The CW Network LLC. All rights reserved.

Vampire Diaries January 27 Recap: Damon does a mercy killing.

Damon had no choice but to put Rose out of her agony.

January 27 – This episode features some mighty fine acting by Ian Somerhalder, who goes from touching to terrifying in the blink of an eye as the torn Damon Salvatore struggling to reconcile his savage vampire nature with his resurgent humanity. He definitely goes through the ringer on this one and I was feeling for Damon a lot. We also got more evidence that Jules is one baaaaad werewolf chick. She may not be as powerful as Katherine, Mystic Falls’ undisputed top villainess, but Jules is trouble with a capital T. We first see her waking up in the aftermath of a particularly grisly kill at a camp site where she tries to burn the mangled remains. When an unlucky deputy happens upon the scene she bludgeons him to death to cover her tracks. After Damon leaves an ailing Rose in Elena’s care at his place he confronts the she-wolf and tries to bargain with her to find a cure for the wolf’s bite. His intimidation gambit falls flat because Jules isn’t afraid of big bad Damon. “Put a stake through her heart,” a defiant Jules suggests prophetically. Elena is thinking the same thing when a delirious Rose turns rabid and attacks her. A resourceful Elena uses sunlight to fend Rose off and locks herself in a room with a makeshift stake. When she exits the room she encounters Damon and the two head out to find Rose, finding her just as she bites big, bloody chunks out of a young couple leaving the latest festival. Damon returns Rose to his home and comforts her as she grapples with unimaginable pain and guilt over killing the innocent locals. Realizing there’s no other options, Damon lulls Rose into a dream in which she revisits her idyllic human life in England and gently stakes her to release her from her agony. Ian’s lone tear drop is an acting coup and I really felt for Rose, whom I admittedly found annoying because I thought she lacked chemistry with sexy Damon. Still, the scene belonged to Ian.

An unlucky woman paid the price for Damon's emotional turmoil.

After Elena hugs him to express her condolences over Rose’s death, a tortured Damon gets smashed and lures an unsuspecting female motorist to her doom, the whole time keeping us on pins and needles as we beg him not to kill her knowing full well that he was gonna do it. And boy did he ever! Yikes!  While Damon reclaimed his bad boy credentials, Caroline finds herself smack in the middle of a love triangle. Matt kisses her after she confesses her love for him but she pulls away without sharing the news of her bloody new diet with him. While the eternally clueless hunk scratches his head in confusion, Tyler shows Caroline his gratitude for her support with a big wet one and she responds. Pulling away, she exclaims “Everyone just needs to stop kissing me!” Lucky girl. Tyler has reason to change his tune where Caroline’s concerned when Jules reveals her werewolf status to him and implicates Caroline in Mason’s death. Join us, she tells him, adding that more werewolves are on their way to Mystic Falls for a showdown with the vampires. She’s trouble I tell ya!  Stefan, meanwhile, gets Isobel’s number from Alaric so he can enlist her help in saving Elena from super vamps Elijah and Klaus. His search reunites Elena not with her mysterious mom but with her daddy dearest, “uncle” Jonathan Gilbert!  Where’s Katherine when you need her?

Photos copyright 2011 The CW Network, LLC. All rights reserved.

Sexy new Vampire Diaries YouTube video asks: “Got Wood?”

When the folks at The Vampire Diaries say “things that go bump in the night,” they probably mean boots because there seems to be a whole lot of horizontal action planned when the show returns tomorrow after a  l-o-o-o-n-g winter’s break.  From Stefan, Damon and Elena to Caroline and umm, somebody (Tyler? Matt?) … everybody’s body temperature seems to be rising… even the vampires! Check out the new footage from The CW and let the games begin! Welcome back, gang!

Footage copyright 2011 The CW Network, LLC. All rights reserved.