Last night on The Vampire Diaries we got more vampire mythology, a bitchier Caroline, a witchier Bonnie, and more teen emo angst from Jeremy. Three out of four is pretty damn good so lets get down to it!

Instead of another couple biting the dust in the opener, we return back to Damon’s bedroom where Caroline experienced the worst morning after. Her neck bleeding and Damon sleeps peacefully beside her, Caroline tries to make a run for it. But Damon hadn’t had his breakfast yet and he attacks again.

At school Elena was on Cloud Nine after her kiss with Stefan the night before. Bonnie warns Elena to slow her roll and be cautious of the mysterious Stefan, who can sense animosity from Bonnie, but doesn’t know the source. While watching Elena and Stefan talk, Tyler, in a ‘favor’ for Matt, lunges a football at the back of Stefan’s head. Stefan catches it last minute and sends it back with force to Tyler. Everyone is impressed, especially Elena.

Vicki approaches Jeremy about some concert tickets she scored and Jeremy, who is still hurt from seeing her with Tyler again, blows her off. Loser.

In history class, Tanner tries to embarrass Elena and Stefan again with history trivia and Stefan hands him his ass again. Meanwhile, Elena begs Stefan to try out for the football team and he does, but who just so happens to be the football coach? Tanner. What fresh hell!

Elena returned to the cheer squad to Bonnie’s delight. Elena then invited Bonnie to dinner with Stefan, to Bonnie’s dismay. After Bonnie voiced her concern over Caroline being M.I.A. all day, the girl in question arrives to cheer practice via Damon with a new scarf to boot. Caroline seems back to her normal bitchy self, despite being a continental breakfast for Damon earlier. Elena couldn’t keep up with the routines and Caroline asked her to just observe for the day. Meanwhile, Stefan is kicking ass during his tryouts, but Tyler and Matt don’t take kindly to this and try to give Stefan hell. If only they knew that Stefan could not only take their field positions, but also demote them to being his personal Gatorade keg on the sidelines.

While prepping for dinner, Bonnie attempted to convince Elena that she is psychic, mention numbers that had been haunting her all day: 8, 14, 22. Stefan shows up and while eating Elena reveals Bonnie’s witch lineage, which surprises Stefan a little. Bonnie tries to brush it off, but Stefan tells her that the Salem witches were heroic symbols because of their individuality against the masses. This calms Bonnie’s nerves and she lets her guard down.

Then Caroline and Damon showed up with dessert interrupting the dinner, but Damon can’t enter unless Elena invites him, which Stefan tried to prevent. Elena lets Damon in anyway and Stefan pales even more than I thought he could.

While talking after dinner, Damon and Caroline grated the nerves of Elena, Stefan and Bonnie. Caroline snottily and nonchalantly talked about Elena being off her A-game during practice due to her parents dying, while Damon brings up the subject of Katherine again. Damon and Caroline: Cute couple, don’t you agree?

Later, Damon catches Elena in the kitchen. After talking about Katherine a bit more, Elena deduced that Damon used to be in love with Katherine as well. Damon also tells Elena that she doesn’t fit the mold of a cheerleader and should consider quitting. In the living room, Stefan tried to talk Caroline out of the scarf she was rocking. But Caroline said that she couldn’t and didn’t know why. Damon comes and mind forces Caroline to go help the girls in the kitchen. After she leaves, Stefan demands for Damon to leave, but Damon declares that it doesn’t matter, because Elena’s doors are open now and there is nothing Stefan can do about him making visits. Damon proved that point by haunting Elena’s dream later that night.

Oh, Jeremy and Tyler get into another shoving match over Vicki at the Mystic Grill. No new developments so moving on…

It’s game day and before the pep rally, Stefan wrote in his journal that he knows that there has to be some sort of humanity left in Damon and fears for Elena. He then comes up with a plan to protect her. At the school, Stefan gives Elena a locket with some herbs in it for Elena to wear. She happily accepted it and admits him that she quit the cheer squad.

During the pep rally, Tyler decides he wants to be a jerk and go beat on something when Stefan gets praise from Tanner. So he finds Jeremy and the two go at it. Elena, Matt, and Stefan go to stop the fight. Stefan pulls Tyler off of Jeremy and Tyler tries to take a shot at Stefan, but it doesn’t affect him. Jeremy picks up a piece of a bottle that shattered during the melee and swings at Tyler and catches Stefan’s hand, slashing it. Elena freaks and after arguing with the lost cause that is Jeremy tries to tend to Stefan’s wound. Except it has healed. Stefan declares that he didn’t get cut, but Elena knows she saw it. Elena immediately ran to Bonnie and demanded to know about what Bonnie saw when she touched Stefan. Bonnie revealed that she saw what death could feel like.

While going to her car, Elena was startled by Damon’s sudden appearance. She was easily wigged out, especially when Damon tried to come on to Elena by attempting to glamour her. But Elena smacked him and lets him know that despite she is not Katherine. I think her strength might have had something to do with that locket.

And I am right when Damon applauded Stefan’s weapon of choice in protecting Elena. Stefan declared his belief that Damon still has some shred of humanity left in him, because of Damon’s love for Katherine that lead him to torture Stefan. Stefan was confident in his assessment and dared Damon to kill him. But Damon decided to drain another unlucky person instead: Mr. Tanner.

There goes my Mr. Tanner as a vampire theory.

After verbally and nearly physically kicking Tyler’s ass in the locker room, Matt finds Mr. Tanner’s body outside the locker room building.

While the police are at the crime scene, Bonnie noticed that Mr. Tanner’s body was found outside Building 8, in front of a car with the number 14 on it’s license plate, which just so happened to have been parked right beside parking spot #22 where Tanner’s blood stopped. Have I mentioned how much I LOVE BONNIE?!?!?!

Vicki found Jeremy and told him that she didn’t sleep with him for drugs, blah…

Elena was comforted by Stefan and again swore she saw his hand get slashed. Later, Stefan wrote his disappointment about Damon’s humanity being gone, while Damon tenderly caresses Elena’s face while she sleeps. Irony!!!