The Vampire Diaries 4X2: Memorial

I'm so happy that Elena is struggling. Yes, I realize that sounds awful, and I don't actually want bad things for her, but I really thought she was gonna just become a vampire with zero repercussions.

So we start of with Stefan and Damon fighting about whether or not it's a good idea for Elena to eat animal blood. Stefan says she doesn't want to feel bad about herself and hurt people. Damon insists that if she subsists on animal blood, she'll end of binging later and not learning to control her blood lust, so she should be taught how to feed on humans immediately.

They decide to do it Stefan and Elena's way. He kills a deer for her to eat. Then, tries to teach her how to do it herself, but they get swept up in making out. However, not long after starting, Elena wretches herself away to go throw up. Stefan tells her had a hard time getting used to the animal blood too. But it turns out, she just can't keep it down.

Eventually, she asks Damon for help. He tells her she needs to have real blood from the vein and offers to let her drink from him. Which is does a little reluctantly, but at that point, she's starving. It's very sensual and I greatly enjoyed this. But, no dice. She ends up throwing this up too. Finally, Damon he offers her a bag of blood, but that's no good either. He tells her she's got to drink from an actual human. Maybe her doppelgänger blood is messing with things.

Shortly after this, Elena heads into the church (we're having a memorial service for the council members who died), and Stefan and Damon run into each other. Damon spills the beans on Elena not being able to hold down any blood, not even his own. Stefan does not seem thrilled that she drank from him, but they head inside.

Interspersed with this, we find out that there is a new vampire hunter in town. He runs around wearing vervain laced gloves and anyone he shakes hands with that burns, he just shoots them with wooden bullets. He got Tyler, but thankfully, Stefan managed to pull the bullets out. But, now we are on the look out for him.

Turns out, he's at the memorial. He attacks the pastor's daughter, April, and lets her blood drip down through the ceiling waiting for any vampire who turns around. Stefan tells them all it's a set up and to not turn around. But, Elena is miserable. She's starving and shaking and can't hold it together. Eventually, Matt offers to let her feed on him, which she takes him up on. It takes the edge off, but she's not good around blood yet.

Tyler decides to go up on stage and talk, making the vampire hunter attack him again, which causes a distraction and makes everyone flee the church, including him. Caroline and Elena rush to Tyler, and Damon heads out after hunter. But, while Caroline is taking after Tyler, Elena finds April and is just about to eat her when Caroline bounds up and stops her. She has Elena compel her to forget any of this happened.

Later, Elena and Stefan fight about her not telling him she couldn't keep the blood down. And that she fed off of Damon. Stefan decides they need to send off some paper lanterns to say good bye to everyone they've lost. Damon thinks this is stupid and instead, gets drunk at Alaric's grave and tells him all his problems. I'm really missing that friendship. I hope Damon can find someone else to be close to.