Last Time: Some Interesting Things happened? Then the best character died ... bummer!

In this birthday-rific episode, entitled “162 candles,” it’s quite clear where everyone stands. Stefan like SO is Molly Ringwald, all pretending his little vampire heart doesn’t sing when he walks into a room and all tweeny eyes are on him. This is a fun game! Damon is sad braces-stricken Anthony Michael Hall wanting nothing more than to sniff Lexie’s underwear! Elena is that hot guy whose name is irrelevant!

Julie: No. Damon must be Duckie!

Ahh ... OK Damon is Duckie, Elena is Andie and Stefan is AAAAAAAAAAHHH! STOP this is verging on blasphemy, game over. My sincerest apologies to awesomest of the awesomes Andrew McCarthy, may he continue to get more attractive with age, and to John Hughes, may he rest in perpetual and beautiful teen angst. Amen.

(Julie: Angsty-amen high five!)

Stefan’s buddie Lexie stops by for his big b-day! Then they have some girly chat: “Dead or alive, it’s our theme song!” They met Bon Jovi. Blah blah blah. Blurgh. Stefan swam in the Trevi Fountain. This is as far from La Dolce Vita as one can get. Fellini. Grave. Rolling. He should entrap Elena with his “wild vamp sex.” BAHAHAHAHA that’s silly. After this tomfoolery, however, Lexie FINALLY highlights how strange it is that Stefan is all “sprung” over his time-machine-abomination lady and must have “emotional damage.” (From here on out I will try to refer to Elena as a new theory of what she might be). He returns to a town just to get to know a Cylon who looks like a crazy lady who murdered him. Sounds rational. At any rate, Stefan gives us a fuzzy-feeling answer about how her face drew him in but it’s only because he got to know her that he—wait for it—fell in love with her! How cute! Kill Me.

Robo-lena finds herself involved in a cover-up and she is sad, leading to another relationship fake-out. Ahh, can’t do it, death follows you, whatever, whining *#$%$^&*beeeeeahdfjdka. However, its nice to see lady self-righteous feel quite guilty about things, particularly when Bonnie comes clean about her own supernatural abilities. Yeah, genetically engineered clone, you don’t keep secrets from your BFF. I mean. Come. The Fuck. On.

Lexie is kind of fun! The best part is that she’s tough. When Damon attempts to get all up in her business with some snivelly flirting, she’s employs sarcasm AND threatens him with mortal harm! Holy Smokes: A woman on this show who doesn’t make me want to throw in the towel and follow in the footsteps of Chastity Bono. I guess I haven’t outright haaated the women on the show thus far, but the presence of a fun female character revealed their innate lame-ity. Bonnie is excused because she manages to not be defined by a relationship to a dude. Also she has magicks and that is cool (like a fool, in a swimming pool).

Damon playing Kyle XY’s mom like a cheap civil-war era side drum is also kind of fun! The sheriff is starting to get wise to the idea that these modern-type vampires have adapted, but not to the fact that Damon is total creepster who, among other things, was banging and biting her kid. Wouldn’t a mom notice the constant scarves and at least check for hickeys? Jeez, come on.

So the central plot device is a party thrown indirectly by Damon through his cheer-slave, aka she of the horrible nicknames (Dungeon Boy? bleh). Because when he’s around his super-fun party pal Lexie, Stefan is temporarily relieved of the whole stick/ass situation. Lexie lays some wingman groundwork with mechanized life-sized sex-doll so (Shock!) the Stelena train continues to pull away from the station. Thankfully, this whole set-up implies that Damon has some kind of end game, which is good because shows need...what is it? Arcs? Plot? At this “party:”

1. He bitches at Caroline for calling him Dungeon Boy: “You are stupid, shallow, and useless.” Oh, I get it; he’s externaaalziing. Can’t put one over on me, moving pictures box.

2. Damon realizes that something is up with Bonnie who refuses to relinquish his super-fabulous necklace. That goes swell with that vintage Liberace suit he’s been holding onto.

3. Surrogate confronts Damon who’s done one nice thing for her! Jeremy is doing homework and totally over cougar. Damon should start a business: kid-adjustment without Prozac, Aderall or therapy!

4. Radical facial reconstruction recipient calls Lexie “towel girl.” Seriously, wit needs to be instituted as a class in high schools across America. Yet, she makes up for it by being nice to her and at least trying to fulfill Stefan’s b-day wish to be reunited with his ghost.

5. The two characters that nobody in the world seems to care about, sweetie-pie Matt and Cheer Slave, link up! It’s just nature I suppose?

6. And then ... Damon uses he party setup to capture some teens making out, because they only come out on special occasions. He slaughters the boyfriend and Jedi-mind tricks the girly to point the finger at Lexie the bestie in front of witnesses!

Oh, remember how Lexie was the most fun character since Vicky? She’s dead.

To put the final flourish on his “member of the Scooby gang” certificate, Damon rescues Kyle’s mom with a handy stake. I’m enjoying this infiltration. I would like to see the secret lair now. Do they have a secret handshake? Or maybe they just get Tyler’s mom mad drunk and watch her do stupid shit. Yeah, that’s it.

At any rate, we finally got to see a sweet, campy fight seen in which Stefan didn’t look like the Zach Galifianakis on Sunday’s Bored to Death. He lets Damon live, ostensibly because big bro did him a favor but mostly because he’s def still a pansy ass. Interestingly, in his fury over Lexie’s sad deletion, he accuses his replicant of trying to save Damon. Perhaps he hasn’t separated Elena from Katherine totally, or he’s just confused! Who cares? Uninterestingly, no one spends any time mourning the Vick-ster.

I’m exited for next week’s Bonnie-centric episode. It’s definitely about time. Looks interesting. Magic kicks ass. To screw this up well...eh let’s not jinx it.

Last week, just for funzies, I pondered if this show is all about predestination and destinies and whatnot. Now I wonder if it is perhaps about the failures of American parents. Vicki is “just like” her deadbeat mom. The Sheriff doesn’t give a hoot or a shit about her daughter other than that she is a general embarrassment. Tyler’s parents are present but lame drunkies. Mind-altered time-traveling astral projection’s parents are doornail dead. This is to say nothing of the instigators, absent and long dead, dead-beat parents of Stefan and violent Damon, whom it seems, were either a-ok with fornication and bowler hats or just chilling elsewhere ignoring their spawn. The result: a bunch of lost babies, with little emotional or social literacy, gallivanting, having sex, doing drugs, and murdering some bitches.

Eh, they’d probably be doing all that stuff anyway. Stay tuned for next week where I may postulate that this show is somehow about gender relations in the digital age, the Cold War and/or the depletion of the ozone layer.

Cheers.