I have been waiting for this moment for months. MONTHS. It was a very hard wait after the finale the Vampire Diaries writers gave us, shocking us with Katherine’s return and putting three people’s lives on the line. And poor Damon’s heart, because in the last few moments of the show, he kissed Elena–only it was Katherine, not Elena.

No bones about it, Damon’s my favorite character. No bones about it. Mostly I feel so badly for him. He’s been screwed over so many times and all the “evil” stuff he does is a defense mechanism, vampire-style.

And he’s smart. Thank God he was the first to realize Katherine was back and that it didn’t take him very long. In the first few minutes of the show, he has a conversation with Elena; they’re both confused because he keeps trying to make her admit that she was on the porch the night before and kissed him, but of course she wasn’t there. It was her evil vampire doppelgänger (I’m not sure that means what you think it means, world at large). Jenna then shows up and insists that she told Elena about going to see the fire marshal, and Elena’s like, “Uh, no you didn’t.” And then Damon, looking on, has one of those lightbulb moments. “You have got to be kidding me.”

He isn’t shy about it, either, which is slightly surprising to me, but I guess he had no choice, knowing Katherine will spill the beans. He’s now pretty up front about going after Stefan’s girl. He tells Stefan and Elena that he kissed Katherine, who he thought was Elena. Elena steps in between the boys, who get in a little tiff. I was a little pissed that Stefan was able to tell it was Katherine right away when she shows up and tries to kiss him, but Damon was fooled. That’s really not fair, I think, to Damon’s character. He’s the smartest one on the show, if he couldn’t figure it out then Stefan shouldn’t have been able to. till, logically, Stefan has kissed Elena before, knows her in some ways that Damon doesn’t–and Stefan wasn’t dosed up on vervain and in a highly-emotional state at the moment, either. Okay, okay, I might let that slide, though it bugs me.

Cut to Damon comforting Liz Forbes over Caroline’s illness. Caroline was injured when Tyler (*werewolf*) crashed his car in the season finale. Damon lets Liz cry on his shoulder and then, loving guy that he is, gives Caroline his heeling blood. Cut to the funeral. Katherine is running around, not caring whether Elena shows up and the locals are confused. She confronts Bonnie, who’s no match for her (will that take Bonnie down a notch? um, no). She has a little heart-to-heart with Stefan. She came for him (whatever, she lies, so I wouldn’t be surprised if this, too, were a lie), then stabs him with a candlestick when he says he hates her. It’s hard to say if either of them are really over the other. As Katherine says, even though he pretends he’s over her, his choice of girlfriends (hello, Elena looks exactly like her!) says different.

There is a lovely little Damon and Elena scene, where he makes an attempt to call her out on her denial. Yep, he ain’t being shy about it now. I think the kiss, and the bitter disappointment of the fact that it wasn’t Elena, has galvanized his determination to really make Elena see how much she cares about him. But, denial ain’t just a river in Egypt, ladies and gents.

And Stefan is all blah, blah, let’s all be friends. Naturally he’s right, but just as naturally he doesn’t understand his brother. He doesn’t want to hear Kumbaya, he wants to hurt someone or something, he wants to be angry. He’s very much on edge. Telling him to just get over it won’t really work. If they’d fought a little, it might have let off some steam. Then again, Stefan can only do so much to reverse what Katherine has done, and he is really trying to put all this insanity behind them. It is really tough when the crazy little bitch is running around, though.

I would like to mention that Bonnie is pissing me off. I disliked her from the moment she pretended to unspell that device. Now she’s hurting Damon for no reason whatsoever and is getting a really, really big head. She even thought she could take on Katherine. She needs to listen to Damon and realize her powers are not as powerful as she might think.

I missed most the short bits with Tyler and his Uncle Mason. I did NOT miss Uncle/Daddy John being an ass hole, or Stefan threatening him. Somehow I feel that should have been Damon, but Damon is way too messed up at the moment…

In fact, he’s going for a drink, and–uh-oh–Katherine is there. I’ve seen enough of the previews to know this will lead to a bit of violent making-out-like rough-housing. As I thought, it wasn’t really much of a makeout session. It was mostly poor Damon hating Katherine so much and still loving her way too much. He demands that she stops, and says he has just one question and he wants her to be honest, for once. He is so very, very sad, because I think he already knows the answer. She says, “The truth is, I never loved you.” And she leaves. This girl cruel beyond words (he’s been searching for her for 145 years, she knew it, and she never went to him once!). She also doesn’t realize what a maniac she’s made him–because she calls him her sweet, naive Damon or some such.

It has to be a lie. Why in the world did she mess with him way back when, if she didn’t love him at all? I can imagine she was just playing with him, but why? Why would she want to turn him (which she did) or have a threesome with the brother (which she did) if she didn’t love him? And if she loved Stefan so much, why in the world has she stayed away for 145 years? I don’t believe she never loved Damon. I know we’re going to learn where Katherine was all these years, but I somehow think she’s lying to Damon perhaps in some attempt to help him.

At the moment, though, he is one hell of a mess. And he shows up in Elena’s bedroom a “little” drunk. Now it’s Elena’s turn to say she loves Stefan. Oh my God! People need to stop choosing Stefan over poor Damon, stop hurting poor Damon! Elena really should know better. She should have been much, much more understanding. Both she and Stefan seem to be telling him they aren’t really interested in what’s wrong with him. Stefan just wants him to stop being obsessed with Katherine (he can’t! he’s been in love with her for so long!) and Elena just wants him to stop asking her for any compassion, apparently (that’s the message she was giving, anyway). Oooooh, boy. What a shame. Poor, poor Damon!

Is it any surprise that he snaps, and forced himself on Elena? My first reaction: oh no! This is NOT how the first real Damon/Elena kiss should go down! But then, poor Damon is so messed up at the moment, that it couldn’t have really gone down another way. But Elena should have given him a little tenderness in return!

Damon is now doubly rejected by Elena. And he attacks Jeremy. I yelled at the TV, “Don’t hurt Jeremy!” but he didn’t listen. He snapped Jeremy’s neck. At least Stefan had the grace to say that Damon probably knew that Jeremy had the protective ring on. He’s probably right–Damon wouldn’t have actually killed Jeremy, I don’t think, because even he would have known Elena wouldn’t forgive him for killing her brother. Also, spoilers have said he becomes something of a father figure for Jeremy, and in episode 3, Elena and Alaric go with him on a road trip. So she must forgive him. I think Damon has hit rock bottom, but I think it can only go up from here. He must have some closure now with Katherine.

Just to seal her evil-ness, in the last few seconds of the episode, Katherine pops up at the hospital where Caroline is still recovering. Wow, that poor girl! She just recovered from a nearly-fatal accident, she has the love of her mother and her friends and Matt, everything is going great for her. Heck, she’s Miss Mystic Falls. And Katherine smothers her. Caroline has Damon’s blood in her system, so she’ll wake up a vampire at least, but how evil is Katherine for doing that to her? I love Caroline, she’s so adorable! Now her life is ruined–literally gone! And everyone (*Bonnie*) is going to blame Damon. Oh, and poor Caroline is just a message. “Game on,” Katherine says.

I LOVE this show.