Template:2009

Unknown, 2009

 * Atticus Shane's young son Sam died in an accident. His wife, the witch Caitlin Shane, used Expression to try and bring him back to life. However, the amount of Expression power she needed to draw to do the spell consumed her, and six months after her son's death, she died as well.

Ma​y 23, 2009

 * Elena Gilbert had a fight with her boyfriend Matt Donovan while at a bonfire party. When Elena was waiting for a ride home from her parents, she met Damon Salvatore for the first time, though he compelled her to forget about their encounter before she left.
 * Elena's parents took Wickery Bridge instead of the direct route of Old Miller Road because the storm from the previous day had broken off a branch to a tree that knocked down a powerline. This same storm kept them from surprising their children with visit to their lake house that weekend.
 * When Elena's parents were driving her home, they got into an accident that caused their car to fall off Wickery Bridge and into the river below.
 * Stefan Salvatore saw the accident and dove into the water to rescue them. Grayson Gilbert insisted that Stefan save Elena first, so he freed her from the car and left her on the shore to be found by EMS. However, when he went back for Grayson and Miranda Sommers-Gilbert, they were already dead.
 * Two hours before the accident, Miranda called Sheriff Elizabeth Forbes and left her a voicemail after she and her sister Jenna Sommers caught Jeremy Gilbert smoking marijuana in his room. Jeremy later said she was trying to scare him by pretending as though she was going to report him to the police.

Summer, 2009

 * Elena and Jeremy spent some time staying at the Forbes House with Liz and Caroline Forbes following the death of their parents while Jenna prepared to become their legal guardian.
 * Stefan, who was shocked by Elena's striking resemblance to Katherine, observed Elena over the course of the summer to ensure that she wasn't Katherine under a false identity. After realizing Elena was nothing like Katherine, he decided he "needed" to know her. It is possible that Damon was also observing her at the same time.

August​, 2009

 * Katherine, living under the alias of "Kathy" in Emerald Coast, Florida, compelled a man to pick a fight with his friend Mason Lockwood. Mason, whose latent anger issues were triggered by this fight, ultimately killed his friend on accident when he began to fight back, and as a result, he activated his werewolf curse, which was Katherine's intention all along.
 * It's interesting to note that, according to Stevie, Mason was hanging out with a werewolf pack even before he had triggered his curse. This pack did not approve of his relationship with "Kathy," who they could sense was a vampire.
 * After he triggered his curse, Mason began asking questions about the Sun and the Moon Curse, likely due to Katherine's influence, as she herself knew the truth about the curse and had Mason in mind for one of the ingredients of the ritual to break it.

August 31, 2009

 * Mason began a diary that detailed all of his feelings and experiences after he learned that he was a werewolf. Caroline Forbes and Tyler Lockwood would later find this diary weeks after his death.

September 4, 2009

 * Mason Lockwood transformed into a werewolf for the first time on the full moon. He recorded the entire transformation on video and then described his experience afterward in his journal.

September 6, 2009

 * Damon fed on and killed Darren Malloy and Brooke Fenton after luring them into a trap on a dark road.

Septem​ber 7, 2009

 * Elena and her brother Jeremy lived with their aunt Jenna Sommers (Miranda's younger sister) following the death of their parents.
 * First day of school year in high school. Elena officially met Stefan for the first time, as she was unconscious when he saved her four months earlier.

Septemb​er 8, 2009

 * A Back to School Party was held in the woods near the high school. Damon attacked and fed on two campers and killed them. He also fed on Vicki Donovan, but she managed to survive after Jeremy Gilbert found her in the woods.
 * Stefan and Damon reunited for the first time since the solar eclipse party at the Salvatore Boarding House on May 10th, 1994.

September 9, 2009

 * Vicki spent the day in the hospital after being attacked by Damon the day before.
 * Jenna attended a parent-teacher conference with Mr. Tanner, where they discussed Jeremy's missed classes and drug use.
 * Elena met Damon at the boarding house. She believed it to be the first time they had met, but in reality, it was the second, as she had been compelled to forget their first meeting. ,
 * There was a festival held in the Town Square to celebrate the comet passing over Mystic Falls for the first time since 1864, 145 years ago.
 * Damon threatened to expose Stefan, but Stefan called his bluff. In retaliation, Damon attacked and fed on Caroline.
 * Stefan and Elena kissed for the first time outside the boarding house following the festival to celebrate the passing comet.
 * Although she remained unseen until Bloodlines, Anna arrived in Mystic Falls on this date to witness the passing comet. She was responsible for turning Logan Fell and Ben McKittrick into vampires shortly after her arrival.

September 11, 2009

 * Damon spent the day feeding on Caroline at her home, and she missed class as a result.
 * Stefan tried out for and made it onto the school's football team as their new starting wide-receiver.
 * Damon attempted to make peace with Stefan, and even went as far as to say that maybe he, too, could learn to be a "non-living living person."
 * Elena invited Bonnie Bennett and Stefan over to her house for dinner in hopes that Bonnie would learn to like her new boyfriend. Caroline and Damon ended up crashing their dinner, and Damon managed to convince Elena to invite him into the house despite Stefan's protests, as she didn't know that Damon is a vampire.
 * Damon convinced Elena to drop out of the cheerleading squad, which she did the following day.

Septe​mber 12, 2009

 * Stefan gave Elena the necklace filled with vervain to protect her from Damon and other vampires.
 * Tyler picked a fight with Jeremy over Vicki. Stefan separated the two and cut his hand in the process. Knowing that his hand would heal almost instantly, Stefan claimed that he hadn't actually been injured and that the blood on his hands wasn't his own, but despite his efforts to the contrary, Elena became suspicious of his explanation.
 * Damon attempted to compel Elena to kiss him, but it fails due to the vervain necklace given to her by Stefan earlier in the day.
 * Damon killed Coach Tanner in hopes of proving to Stefan that he had no more "humanity" left in him.
 * Bonnie experienced visions that corresponded to where Coach Tanner's body was ultimately found that night, further hinting her growing psychic and magical abilities.
 * Damon visited Elena in her bedroom while she was sleeping and caressed her face, demonstrating that he may not have been as lacking in humanity as he suggested.

September 22, 2009

 * When Stefan began to fear Damon's recent murders would attract suspicion by the Founder's Council, Damon covered his tracks by bringing a mountain lion into the woods. It was later reported that this was the animal responsible for the recent killings.

September 24, 2009

 * The 150th Mystic Falls Founder's Ball was held at the Lockwood Mansion. Stefan attended the party with Elena, while Damon attended with Caroline.
 * Tyler invited Vicki to be his date to the party, but once she arrived, he purposely avoided bringing her inside, instead choosing to have them hang out in the backyard. When Vicki realized Tyler was embarrassed to be seen with her in front of his parents, she left the party and looked for Jeremy instead.
 * At the party, Jenna ran into Logan Fell, who she dated in her youth, for the first time since she returned to Mystic Falls from Whitmore College. Although she initially resisted his advances, he eventually convinced her to go out for lunch with him.
 * Damon sneaked upstairs during the party and took a crystal from one of the boxes hidden in the upstairs study. When Caroline asked about it, he admitted that he had hidden it there many years before, but refused to explain the crystal's importance. However, he accidentally dropped the crystal when he was weakened by vervain and captured by Stefan, and Caroline ended up finding it and keeping it for herself.
 * Stefan and Zach Salvatore managed to lock the weakened and unconscious Damon in the cellar with the intention of starving him to the point of desiccation.

September 28, 2009

 * Stefan continued to keep Damon locked in the cellar, where he was starved of blood and weakened further with more vervain injections. Stefan then informed Damon that his ultimate plan was to move him to the Salvatore crypt after he was desiccated.
 * Elena found out that Jeremy and Vicki have slept together multiple times.
 * After Elena and Stefan got into an argument that involved Elena accusing him of hiding things from her, Stefan made dinner for her at the Gilbert House and was open to her with select details of his history and interests to keep her from suspecting that he is a vampire.
 * Jenna went to dinner with Logan Fell and seemed to be holding less of a grudge against him for his past actions against her.

September 29, 2009

 * The "Sexy Suds Car Wash Fundraiser" was held by the Mystic Falls High School cheerleading squad to help raise money for the school's athletic teams.
 * Even weakened by vervain, Damon managed to use his connection to Caroline to summon her to the boarding house to open the cellar door so he could escape. Caroline was able to open the door, but when Zach tried to intervene, Damon killed him. He then tried to attack and feed on Caroline, but he was unable to stop her from escaping through the open door because Stefan took his daylight ring and he was immediately burned by the sunlight.
 * Bonnie accidentally set a car on fire when Tiki was rude to her, and finally had to admit to herself that something was going on with her. She then visited her Grams and asked for help.
 * Damon bit and fed on Vicki (again) after being overcome by bloodlust as a result of being starved for days. He then did the same to her stoner friends, killed them in the process, and set their bodies on fire to destroy the evidence. However, Vicki managed to survive Damon's attack yet again, which both surprised and impressed him.
 * Elena, after Tiki's grandfather mentioned to her that he had seen Stefan at the boarding house in 1953, became suspicious of him, and decided to research the local TV news archives for answers. During her search through the archives, she found a video of a news report from 1953, when a Fell relative reported on the murder of Joseph Salvatore outside of the boarding house. While they were filming, the camera caught a glance of Stefan lurking in the background, and when Elena watched the video, she realized Stefan cannot possibly be human.
 * This revelation led her to drive to the boarding house to confront him, and arrived just in time to see him rushing out of the house with a stake in hand to track down Damon, knowing that he had attacked several more Mystic Falls residents. When Elena demanded to know what he is, he informed her that she already knew before finally admitting that he is a vampire. He also assured her that he would never hurt her and begged her not to tell anybody.
 * Meanwhile, Logan convinced Jenna to invite him for dinner at her house, and while he was there, he sneaked into Jeremy's room and stole the "Gilbert Watch," which was later revealed to actually be a vampire compass at that night's Founder's Council meeting with Elizabeth Forbes, Richard Lockwood and Carol Lockwood.

September 30, 2009

 * Stefan met Elena at an outdoor café the morning after she confronted him about his identity. He then agreed to answer her questions about vampires so long as she would give him the day to explain himself before she decided whether or not to tell anyone what she learned.
 * Damon brought the still-alive Vicki to the boarding house after he nearly killed her the night before, and spent the day trapped inside with her due to the fact that Stefan still had his daylight ring. He called Stefan and threatened to go after Elena at nightfall and attack her if he didn't return his ring before then. While he waited for Stefan to bring the ring to him, he got bored and decided to feed Vicki his blood to heal her so he could have some company. The two then got drunk and fed on each other all day while they danced and partied until sundown.
 * Vicki, drunk on bourbon and vampire blood, told Damon about her life, her family, and how she felt as though she had no future. Damon insisted that the only thing that could help her was death before he snapped her neck, knowing that she had his blood in her system. Soon after, Vicki awoke confused and in transition, and though Damon was honest about having killed her, she didn't believe him. When she mentioned she just wanted to go home, Damon saw an opportunity to stir up trouble and suggested that she stop by the Gilbert House on her way to see Jeremy, knowing that she would likely be tempted to drink his blood when she realized she had been turned into a vampire.
 * Logan Fell, on the orders of Sheriff Liz Forbes, used the Gilbert Compass to search the woods for the vampire responsible for the recent deaths in Mystic Falls. While there, he found Stefan and Vicki, and when the compass' needle pointed at Stefan, Logan shot him with wooden bullets to weaken him before trying to stake him. However, before Logan could kill him, Damon arrived and saved them by killing Logan.
 * Unfortunately, Vicki was unable to resist the scent of Logan's blood after his death and fed on his corpse, completing her transition and officially becoming a vampire.
 * Elena, overwhelmed by all of the information about vampires that she had learned over the last day, decided to break up with Stefan, though she did promise him she would keep his secret.

October 31, 2009
There is a month-long time jump.
 * Vicki was not dealing well with her transition. Stefan tried to teach her to live on animal blood like he did, but she couldn't resist her hunger for human blood, due in part to her issues with drugs when she was human.
 * At the party she attacked and fed on Jeremy after she accidentally bit his lip and was overwhelmed by her hunger after smelling his blood. When Elena tried to pull them apart, she fed on Elena as well. Stefan was then forced to stake Vicki in front of Jeremy in order to save him and his sister from being drained to death.
 * Elena, worried about what the loss of Jeremy's girlfriend would do to him so soon after the deaths of their parents, asked Damon to compel Jeremy to forget his memories of Vicki being a vampire and dying.
 * Caroline gave Bonnie the crystal that she had stolen from Damon to wear for her Halloween costume. When Damon tried to take it back from her, it shocked him and prevented him from stealing it. Bonnie then ran to her Grams' house, where Grams recognized the crystal and informed her that it belonged to their ancestor Emily Bennett.

November 1, 2009
It's Stefan's birthday.
 * Lexi Branson visited Stefan in Mystic Falls to celebrate his 162nd birthday, as they had presumably done every year for the majority of their friendship.
 * Sheriff Forbes interviewed Matt Donovan, Stefan Salvatore, and Jeremy and Elena Gilbert regarding the disappearance of Vicki Donovan. Afterward, the Sheriff later admitted to Damon that she was beginning to wonder if the vampire behind the town's murders could somehow walk in daylight.
 * Grams explained to Bonnie that the amber necklace Caroline stole from Damon is a talisman that belonged to her ancestor Emily Bennett during the Civil War and insisted that Bonnie wear it, as she believed that Bonnie came upon it for a reason and that it would protect her.
 * Bonnie then began experimenting with magic in order to finally learn how to control her newly-awakened powers. She also revealed to Elena that she is a witch, and proved it by levitating dozens of feathers from Elena's pillow into the air.
 * Damon compelled Caroline to throw a party at the Grill as part of his still-mysterious "master plan." He then fed on and killed a male student before compelling the boy's girlfriend to accuse Lexi of killing him instead.
 * This led Sheriff Forbes and her deputies to the party at the Grill, where they quickly injected Lexi with vervain and forced her outside to deal with her. However, Lexi was able to overpower them and broke out of their hold before attempting to attack them in self-defense. She managed to fight through the multiple wooden bullets Sheriff and her deputies shot into her, but before Lexi could retaliate, Damon rushed in and staked Lexi in front of the Sheriff Forbes to win her trust. It was also revealed that Damon killed Lexi to make the Town Council believe that they caught the vampire in town in order to keep them off Damon and Stefan's trail.
 * Unbeknownst to anyone for several years, there was also a third motive behind Damon killing Lexi-- her presence reminded Damon of how he left her for dead on the rooftop of Will's bar in 1977 after he had seduced her and made her believe he had turned on his humanity for her to punish her for meddling in his life. So, when he created his plan to use Lexi to divert attention away from him and Stefan, he realized that it would also allow him forcibly remove this reminder of his past misdeeds by killing her.
 * Caroline's and Matt's relationship began in this episode after Caroline became too drunk at the party and Matt drove her home to make sure she got there safely. Caroline, feeling rejected after having been treated badly by Damon at the party, asked Matt to stay the night with her, and the two ended up cuddling in her bed all night.
 * Stefan, furious that Damon killed his best friend to cover his own murderous tracks, told Elena that he had no choice but to kill him to protect everyone else. However, when he finally confronted his brother, he decided to stake Damon in the stomach at the last moment, and stated that while he had done something awful, he had saved his life several days earlier, so he wasn't going to kill him right now.

November 30, 2009
It is the first Monday after Thanksgiving Break.
 * Damon apologized to Stefan for killing Lexi and offered to adopt Stefan's animal blood diet in order to try to make it up to him.
 * Emily Bennett haunted Bonnie's dreams by using her crystal talisman to form a connection with her while she slept.
 * Damon increased the pressure on Caroline to retrieve the crystal talisman from Bonnie, as he needed it for his still-secret plans.
 * Alaric Saltzman arrived to Mystic Falls and replaced the deceased William Tanner as the new history teacher. He then befriended both Jeremy and Jenna and gave Jeremy a second chance at passing history by assigning him an extra credit paper on local history.
 * Stefan set out to "brother-bond" with Damon in hopes of finding out what is his "diabolical master plan" was. After spending the day with him, Damon finally revealed why he returned to Mystic Falls and what he's been hiding from him all this time-- Katherine didn't actually die in the fire in the old Fell's Church, but was instead magically sealed within the tomb below it by Emily Bennett, and so he intended to free Katherine from the tomb with the crystal, since the comet that bound the spell had recently passed overhead, creating the necessary conditions to break the spell.
 * After Bonnie had several strange encounters with the talisman and Emily's spirit throughout the day, Elena, Caroline and Bonnie held a séance at the Gilbert House to speak to Emily and learn what she was trying to tell her. During the séance, Emily possessed Bonnie before quickly fleeing the scene in Bonnie's body toward the church.
 * Damon was the first to find Bonnie/Emily at the ruins of Fell's Church, followed by Stefan and Elena shortly afterward. Once they had all arrived, Emily revealed that, in order to protect Katherine from death in the fire in 1864, she had to protect the other twenty-six vampires inside as well, who would all be released along with Katherine if Damon got his way. Damon reminded Emily that they had made a deal, but Emily believed destroying the crystal was the best way to protect Mystic Falls from the wrath of the tomb vampires, so she used pyrokinesis to cause the talisman to explode. In a fit of rage, Damon attacked and fed on Bonnie and almost killed her. Fortunately, Stefan gave her his blood to heal her wounds, though Bonnie's status as a witch prevented Damon and Stefan from compelling her to forget what happened.
 * That night, Elena took the very-confused Bonnie back to her house and confessed to her that Stefan and Damon are vampires.
 * Jeremy started researching into his family's history by reading one of the Gilbert journals with the intention of using it as a source for his extra-credit history paper. He also began sketching again, indicating that he was starting to finally heal after the deaths of his parents.
 * Logan Fell magically reappeared at the Gilbert house to visit Jenna, and it was revealed that he had been turned into a vampire when he insisted that she invite him inside, though Jenna, angry at him for blowing her off and not knowing that he had died, refused to do so.

December 2, 2009
It is the first full moon shown on the series
 * The body of Logan's first known victim, Daphne, was found by the police force. Sheriff Forbes, who was unnerved by this recent murder after having believed that Lexi's death had rid Mystic Falls of their vampire problem, then asked Damon to help with the investigation into Daphne's death.
 * Damon, who had stolen the Gilbert Compass after he killed Logan, decided to use it to track down the new vampire. However, since his own vampirism affected the enchantment, he compelled Caroline to use the compass instead to help him search in the right direction. When the compass pointed toward an abandoned warehouse, Damon investigated the building, only to be found by Logan, who shot him with wooden bullets to weaken him. He demanded to know how Damon walked around in the sunlight and revealed that he was living in the Ramada motel, where he was killing the staff and hiding the bodies in the warehouse.
 * Despite Logan's violent interrogation, Damon refused to tell him how he could walk in the daylight, and instead asked Logan who turned him. Since Damon proved to be unhelpful, Logan refused to tell Damon who sired him, though he did reveal that there were other vampires in town who also wanted to open the tomb, and claimed that they knew how to open it.
 * Tyler initiated a fight with Jeremy at Career Night at school. Mayor Lockwood, angry that his son had embarrassed him in front of the other parents, took Tyler and Jeremy outside to make them fight each other "like real men" in punishment. Alaric, who was nearby, overheard both Tyler and Jeremy protest against these orders and intervened before any more violence could occur. Though Mayor Lockwood was clearly furious at Alaric for butting in, he and Tyler then left abruptly afterward.
 * It was insinuated that the full moon had an influence on Tyler and his father, Mayor Lockwood, and made them have a greater difficulty controlling their anger and increased the likelihood that they would become violent. This was the first hint in the series that the Lockwood family were werewolves.
 * After Logan attempted to confront Jenna multiple times, Alaric realized that he was a vampire and tracked him down to the warehouse, where he staked Logan before he could reveal the identities of the other vampires he was working with to Damon.
 * Stefan and Elena reconciled after their break up and had sex together for the first time in Stefan's bedroom at the boarding house.
 * Afterward, Elena was looking around Stefan's room when she found the tintype photograph of Katherine on his desk. She became so upset and confused about her startling resemblance to Katherine that she took off the vervain necklace Stefan had given her and left it behind before driving away in tears.
 * She ended up accidentally running over a man who was standing in the middle of the road; when she swerved in an attempt to avoid him, her car flipped over several times before landing upside down down the road. Despite being hit by her car, the man quickly got up and started to stalk toward her, indicating that he was a vampire. However, Damon arrived just before the man could reach Elena's overturned car, and he fled the scene before either of them could learn who he was. Damon then helped Elena out of the wreckage and assessed her injuries, but she was so overwhelmed by the various shocks she had received that day that she fainted in his arms.

December 3, 2009
It's the next day.
 * Elena awoke in Damon's car after he rescued her from the car wreck the night before, only to find that he had driven them to Atlanta, Georgia, so he could meet with a witch named Bree who owned a bar there. He his hope was that Bree could help him find a way to open the vampire's tomb and free Katherine without the crystal talisman that Emily destroyed.
 * It is revealed that Alaric had been hunting vampires since his wife Isobel's "death," but Logan was the first one that he had found in Mystic Falls.
 * Bree, furious at Damon for killing her good friend Lexi, called Lexi's boyfriend, Lee, to inform him that Damon was at the bar. Lee later showed up there to get vengeance on Damon and lured him outside by capturing Elena and holding her hostage in the back alley. Once Damon came looking for her, Lee attacked Damon before dousing him in gasoline and trying to set him on fire. Fortunately for Damon, Elena managed to talk Lee out of killing him by reminding him that Lexi wouldn't have wanted him to be a killer, which ultimately saved Damon's life.
 * After Lee's attempt on his life, Damon returned inside the bar to angrily confront Bree for her role in his near-death experience. After some arguing, Bree, hoping to convince Damon to spare her life, confessed that Emily's grimoire would contain the spell to unseal the tomb. However, Damon still ended up killing her by ripping her heart out before he left with Elena to return home.
 * Back in Mystic Falls, Jeremy met Anna, a vampire from 1864 who was posing as a home-schooled student at the library.
 * Bonnie began having trouble doing magic after she was attacked by Damon several days earlier. Her grandmother told her she must face her fears, which led her to the tomb under Fell's Church. She accidentally fell into an underground cave that led to the entrance to the tomb, and had no cell service to call for help.
 * Stefan, worried about Elena, sought out Bonnie and ended up making an alliance with Sheila in the process. When Stefan expressed concern about Bonnie to her as well, Sheila did a locator spell to find Bonnie and sent Stefan to rescue her from the cave. After Stefan saved her, both Bonnie and Sheila began to trust him more than they had before. Bonnie also was able to sense the starving and desiccated vampires trapped in the tomb, but when she expressed her concern about them getting free, Stefan assured her that Emily had seen to it that it would never happen.

December 4, 2009
''It's the next day. Elena and Damon leave Georgia in the evening and arrive in Mystic Falls in the morning.''
 * When Elena returned to Mystic Falls, she confronted Stefan at the boarding house to get answers regarding the photo of Katherine and why she looks exactly like her. Stefan confessed that he was the person who saved her from the car crash that killed her parents, and revealed that after he had realized her uncanny physical similarity to Katherine, he began searching into Elena's family history and learned that she was actually adopted by Grayson and Miranda Gilbert.
 * Afterward, Elena went home, where she found Jenna waiting for her. She was furious that Elena had been gone for two days without calling, but instead of explaining herself, Elena instead confronted Jenna about the fact that no one ever told her she was adopted. Jenna was speechless, and when Elena said she thought they were too close to lie to each other, Jenna insisted that Grayson and Miranda didn't want her to say anything about it until they had told her themselves.

December 6, 2009

 * The vampire that Elena hit with her car in The Turning Point, Noah, managed to gain an invitation into the Gilbert House from Jeremy after he posed as a pizza delivery man. Noah then left right after delivering their pizza so as to not draw attention to the fact that he was the vampire who was stalking Elena.

December 7, 2009
Alaric had given Jeremy week to finish his essay, which was due on this day.
 * Stefan gave Elena vervain to give to all of her friends and family members to protect them from any vampires in town.
 * Matt was hired to work as a busboy at the Mystic Grill.
 * Damon (sort of) apologized to Bonnie for almost killing her and tried to convince her to let him help her, but she refused his offer.
 * Stefan gave Elena the Gilbert compass they had stolen back from Logan so she could protect herself after it became clear that the vampire she hit, Noah, was stalking her.
 * Jenna admitted to Elena that she had researched into her biological parents and learned that Elena's mother was a single teenager named Isobel, who ran away several days after Elena's birth. She then explained that Grayson Gilbert delivered the baby, and he and his wife Miranda Sommers-Gilbert decide to adopt Elena after they realized Isobel wasn't coming back, even going so far as to forge the birth certificates and other documents in case the government tried to take her away.
 * Alaric, after being intrigued by Jeremy's extra credit paper on the vampire legends attached to Mystic Falls, asked him about where he got his information. When Jeremy revealed that his source was his ancestor Johnathan Gilbert's journal, Alaric became more curious and asked if he could borrow the journal to read, citing the fact that he was a history buff and wanted to read a first-person account of the Civil War. In reality, he wanted to learn more about vampires, which is ultimately what he did.
 * Noah, Elena's vampire stalker, returned to Elena's house and tried to kill her. Fortunately, she was saved by Stefan and Damon, the latter of whom convinced the other two to allow him to use Elena as bait at the school dance so that he and Stefan could catch him and kill him. Though Stefan was initially uneasy about this plan, he eventually agreed to help after Damon reminded him that since Noah had gained an invitation into the house, both Jeremy and Jenna were at risk as well.
 * Stefan pretended to make a deal with Damon in which he agreed to help Damon open the tomb and rescue Katherine, but only if Damon left the rest of the vampires inside and left town with her afterward. Damon, believing Stefan's offer to be genuine, accepted his offer, but that night, Stefan admitted to Elena that he had no intention of assisting him in opening the tomb.
 * Caroline and Matt kissed for the first time.
 * It was revealed that Noah was working with Anna, and that he was also obsessed with Katherine in 1864. It was also revealed that their plan was to search for Emily's grimoire in order to finally open the tomb and free Anna's mother Pearl, a former friend of Katherine. Damon and Stefan ultimately staked Noah in the cafeteria during the school dance after they had tortured him for this information.

December 11, 2009
'' ends with Damon and Stefan taking Elena to her house, so one can assume she slept there that night. opens with Elena sleeping at Stefan's, so it's assumed that it's a different night. In the episode, Ben asked Bonnie on a date, presumably that Friday.''
 * Elena, having learned that her ancestors had known Bonnie's ancestor Emily Bennett, began to search the house for the Gilbert journal in hopes of learning where Emily's grimoire was hidden. She later discovered that Jeremy had loaned it to Alaric, leading Jeremy to become suspicious as to why everyone seemed to be so interested in it.
 * Stefan went to the school to retrieve the journal from Alaric, who tried and failed to stake him in the process with one of his homemade stake-shooting guns. Stefan assured him that he had no interest in hurting him, but insisted that he needed information from him about his knowledge of the town. When Alaric told Stefan what he knew about vampires, especially those in Mystic Falls, he confessed that he also knew that Damon had killed his wife.
 * Stefan learned that Johnathan Gilbert left Emily's grimoire to Stefan's father, Giuseppe Salvatore. He guessed that it was buried with his father, as Johnathan wrote in his journal that Giuseppe promised to take it and the rest of their secrets about the supernatural to his grave. Stefan and Elena then dug up the grave in Mystic Falls Cemetery to recover the spellbook.
 * Damon finally recognized Anna as having been a vampire and an associate of Katherine's when they all lived in Mystic Falls in 1864, and she informed him that she also wanted to open the tomb. Anna asked him if he wanted to work together, but Damon stated that he only works alone.
 * Bonnie developed a crush on Ben McKittrick, a bartender at the Mystic Grill and went on a date with him there during the restaurant's karaoke night. However, when she kissed him near the end of their date, her witch intuition gave her a vision that indicated he was a vampire. She tried to leave quickly and quietly without him noticing, but he caught her before she could flee and kidnapped her on Anna's orders.
 * Damon discovered that Stefan and Elena had double-crossed him when he found them digging up Giuseppe's grave in the cemetery. In a fit of rage as a result of their betrayal, Damon fed Elena his blood and threatened to make her "their new vampire girlfriend," forcing Stefan to give him the grimoire in exchange for Elena's safety.
 * Afterward, Stefan took Elena home, where he assured her that the vampire blood would pass through her system in a day or so. When he went downstairs to get Elena some aspirin for her headache, Anna, who had been hanging out with Jeremy at the Gilbert house that night, kidnapped Elena from her bedroom to use as leverage for the grimoire.

December 12, 2009

 * Stefan spent the entire night searching for Elena, while Damon, who was still angry about their betrayal, ignored his desperate calls. At a loss for options, Stefan went to see Sheila Bennett for help in finding Bonnie and Elena using a locator spell.
 * Anna brought Elena back to the motel room where she was staying with Ben, who knocked out Bonnie during their date and left her in the bathtub. Anna left Ben with the girls in order to strike a bargain with Damon, as they each had only one piece of what they needed in order to open the tomb (Anna had Bonnie, the Bennett witch necessary to cast the spell, while Damon had the Bennett grimoire that contained the spell itself). Damon resisted at first, but eventually conceded, because deep down, he didn't want anything bad to happen to Elena. He made his anger that Anna put Elena in danger very clear, leading Anna to remark that between him and Stefan fighting over Elena, it was like 1864 all over again.
 * Elena and Bonnie eventually escaped from the motel room after Anna left, thanks to Stefan, who kicked open the door upon his arrival and left it wide open, forcing Ben to hide between the beds to avoid being burned in the sunlight. Once Bonnie and Elena had run to safety, Stefan told him that he would kill him if he didn't leave town.
 * Anna returned to find Elena and Bonnie gone, and Ben crouched behind the bed to avoid the sun. She was visibly angry about losing their leverage over Damon until she was able to concoct a new plan: she knew that Damon was desperate to free Katherine, so she decided to wait for Damon to open the tomb and then fight her way inside to save her mother. Once inside, she planned on using Jeremy's blood to awaken Pearl, who had gone 145 years without blood.
 * After realizing that they would never have any peace as long as Damon and Anna were around, Sheila ultimately agreed to cast the spell to open the tomb, with help from Bonnie, and allow Damon to rescue Katherine. However, in exchange, she demanded that the Salvatore brothers burn all of the other vampires who were trapped inside, because she wanted to end the drama without any more innocent people getting hurt in the process.
 * Elena went to the boarding to inform Damon that she and Stefan were willing to truly help him get Katherine back under the conditions set by Sheila. When Damon was reluctant to believe her, Elena reminded him that the two of them had an "understanding" and eventually convinced him that she and Stefan could be trusted by removing her vervain necklace and offering to allow him to compel her for the truth. Damon, surprised by this reaction, took Elena at her word, but warned her to not make him regret doing so.
 * Anna lured Jeremy to the woods near the bonfire party, and once they were far enough away from the crowd, Jeremy started kissing her against a tree. Anna's vampire face involuntarily came out in the heat of the moment, and when Jeremy pointed out that her eyes had changed, she turned away from him and claimed it was nothing. Before Jeremy could ask any more questions, Ben punched him in the head and knocked him out, though Anna was visibly annoyed that he had been so violent.
 * Stefan ran into Ben in the woods, and when Ben brought up Stefan's "vegetarian" diet as a reason why Stefan wasn't strong enough to take him in a fight, Stefan shot him with the flamethrower and burned him to death.
 * Damon took Elena into the "opened" tomb with him to ensure Sheila and Bonnie wouldn't try to trap him inside. Anna showed up shortly afterward and and forced her way into the tomb as well. When Bonnie scolded Sheila for allowing her to go in without a fight, Sheila revealed that they hadn't actually unsealed the tomb, they only opened the door-- since the seal only kept vampires from leaving, Damon and Anna would be trapped, but Elena as a human would still be able to escape. Stefan returned after killing Ben and was furious to learn that Damon was unknowingly trapped inside.
 * Damon and Elena looked around the tomb, taking note of all of the desiccated vampires they passed. After Damon split up from Elena in order to find Katherine, Anna caught up with her and attacked her, biting her wrist and forcing it into her mother's mouth to feed and awaken her, claiming that since the Gilberts were the reason she was in there, Gilbert blood would be what would get her out. Stefan heard Elena's terrified screams from outside and ran in to save her despite knowing that the seal would trap him inside.
 * Bonnie, who didn't want to leave Stefan in there to rot for eternity, told Sheila that she would try to open it herself if Sheila wouldn't help her cast the spell to unseal the tomb. Stefan, who had finally found Elena and brought her to safety, made it to the threshold before being forced to confess that he was trapped inside. Elena became visibly upset that he was stuck in the tomb because he tried to save her, and Bonnie finally convinced Sheila to help her unseal the tomb before the two began to cast the spell together.
 * Knowing that the Bennetts wouldn't be able to lower the seal for long, Elena and Stefan ran back inside to tell Damon to hurry. Damon was visibly distraught when he realized that Katherine was nowhere to be found. He became so furious that he tossed the blood bag he brought to wake up Katherine against the wall, causing it to splatter everywhere. Stefan and Elena pleaded with him to come with them before both brothers are sealed into the tomb for eternity, and they finally convinced Damon to leave.
 * Anna walked out with Pearl and apologized for her involvement, explaining that she only wanted to free her mother. Stefan, Elena, and Damon make it out just before the seal is closed again. Bonnie and Sheila are noticeably worn out from the amount of power needed to perform the spell.
 * After their ordeal, Damon lamented the fact that Katherine wasn't in the tomb like he had thought all these years, and Elena hugged him sympathetically to comfort him. He then tracked down Anna and Pearl to their motel room and attacked the latter, pointing out that Anna had to have known that Katherine wasn't in the tomb and demanding to know why they were allowed to have their happy ending and not him. Before Damon could kill the still-weakened Pearl, Anna confessed that the last time she saw Katherine was in Chicago in 1983, and insisted that Katherine knew all along where Damon was, but she didn't care. She then apologized for deceiving him, but argued that she knew he wouldn't have helped her otherwise.
 * Elena and Bonnie went to Sheila's house to rest after their night, and Sheila was so exhausted she immediately went to bed. When Bonnie went to check on Sheila and bring her some tea later that evening, she found her grandmother dead in her bed and tried desperately to wake her to no avail while Elena called for paramedics.
 * One of the tomb vampires, Harper, managed to lick some of the blood that Damon splattered onto the walls of the tomb, giving him enough strength to pull himself up onto his feet, open the tomb door, and escape into the night. This revealed that the seal had been permanently broken, allowing any vampire inside who was capable of moving to free themselves.

December 2009

 * Caroline complained to Elena and Bonnie about Stefan's "crappy" Secret Santa gift-- a mini snow-globe of Mystic Falls on a keychain-- at the Winter Festival held at Mystic Falls High School.