The last season of “The Vampire Diaries” ended with Elena (Nina Dobrev) and Damon (Ian Somerhalder) blissfully together; Bonnie (Kat Graham) dying, bringing Jeremy (Steven R. McQueen) back to life; everyone graduating high school, Klaus leaving for New Orleans; and Silas locking Stefan (Paul Wesley) in a safe and pushing him into a lake while stealing his face. Three months later, Stefan is missing, which no one seems to find odd; Elena and Caroline are off to college; Jeremy is back to high school; and Katherine reappears human.
Stefan is drowning over and over again while trying to reach out to Elena. Silas comes back to town with Stefan’s face and begins to cause trouble immediately. No one knows about Bonnie’s death, and Jeremy is using her phone to make it seem like she is still alive.
Elena and Caroline also find out that they have an unexpected third roommate while Damon is left in Mystic Falls in order to look after Jeremy. Katherine comes to the Salvatore house looking for a safe place to stay because she feels she can’t protect herself now that she is human.
Nina Dobrev has the challenging job of playing two characters: Katherine and Elena. As always, she is great as Elena, who is now a college girl and excited to start this new journey in her life while worrying about her little brother who was just brought back from the dead. Dobrev handles the emotions of the transformation from vampire to human quite well. She has done so much with these two characters, who are complete opposites. The tables have turned for her characters.
Elena is a vampire while Katherine has reverted back to a human. Even with these changes, both characters still have very different personalities. Dobrev is a master of carrying through every change that the writers throw at these characters.
Ian Somerhalder has always been great at portraying all the different sides to Damon, but his best quality is his sarcastic humor.
Paul Wesley has said in many different interviews that he loves playing the bad vampire. We were able to see how well he did this in season three when Klaus made Stefan turn off his emotions, and he returned to his ripper status. Much like Dobrev, he now has two roles on the show as long as Silas is wearing Stefan’s face. Silas is different from ripper Stefan in the way that he is even more evil, but Wesley pulls it off flawlessly, and I am very excited to see more of Wesley as Silas.
On the other hand, Wesley still portrays Stefan as the good boy that we have always known him to be. Unfortunately, he is trapped in a box where he keeps drowning and having imaginary conversations with Damon and Elena.
This episode receives four out of five stars from me. The season premiere has everything that this show is known for. Get ready for another wild ride on this season.
