"Kat Scratch Fever" Review: Vampire Diaries Season 2 debut: The Return

     **Caution, may contain spoilers if you’ve not seen the episodes yet!**

"What Happened?" / "Katherine Happened!".

Well last night we saw the highly anticipated debut of The Vampire Diaries Season 2, aptly titled The Return and OMD! (Oh My Damon!) what a RETURN it was!

Picking up exactly where season 1 had left off, with Elena returning home to the ominous threat of the fierce, Katherine Pierce having been, "invited in" her home, with the only option, as Damon quite wittingly pointed out, being: "Move!"

This Return episode was, in my opinion, chocked full of:
 
Shock - with what Damon did to Jeremy           and       
Awe - the glimpse of Stefan's potential "badassness"      and
Touching Honesty - Elena's heartfelt revelation to and observation of Damon : "I care for you!" (her revelation) / "You care" (her observation).

And not to (forget to) mention heart break - when Katerine, all but drove a stake through Damon with her revelation that "it has always been Stefan"... and it didn't help that Elena, her "dead ringer", practically told him the same thing in a later scene.
It's like I said in the past, in one of my previous posts > Sympathy for The D-Man: Damon Salvatore, it's no wonder Damon has trust issues.

Ultimately, The Return episode saw Katherine leaving her scratches on just about everyone, most notably Damon, which in turn drove the episode onward at a fever pace.

And as usual with TVD, just when you thought it couldn't get any better... the end is only the beginning, as the final scene proved... Oh, sweet Caroline-a!

Here's a preview of next weeks episode!

Happy V-day! Here are some Vampires for Valentines Vids.

So I scoured the web (youtube) to find a plethora of certain Vampire related vids for Valentines.
Here are a few (several) featuring my top three Vamps du Jour ( or more specifically du Nuit!) : Henry Fitzroy (Kyle Schmid), Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgard) and Damon Salvatore (Ian Somerhalder). Enjoy the double V-day (Vampires and Valentines) Love!

**Note: the order is from bottom up (i.e. last is 1st)**

And of course finishing with the Honarable H himself, Henry Fitzroy:

And of course as they say, when it's nice, do it twice, so here's another Vampire for your Valentines more Honorable Henry:

Oh well what, the hell! When it's this nice, you do it thrice! More Vampire for Valentines, means more naughty, haughty Henry (as portrayed perfectly by Kyle Schmid ) :

Followed by... the E-man, Eric Northman (and the True Blood crew):

Starting with... the D-man, Damon Salvatore:

Sympathy for the D-Man: Damon Salvatore

**Caution, may contain spoilers if you’ve not seen the episodes yet! **

If you tuned in to these episodes of the last two weeks of the Vampire Diaries: Children of the Damned and Fool Me Once (Thurs. Feb. 5^th and Thurs. Feb. 11^th) respectively, then like most (if not all) of us who diligently and dedicatedly watch each week, you would probably have been at the edge of your seat (or close to tears after last night), with all that was going on therein, especially as it relates to Damon. 

In short we could have called these two episodes: The Damon Diaries!

In Children of the Damned, we were taken back, waaay back to a time of corsets and waistcoats (1864). And we were made privy to "from whence he came", that is to say: The innocence of Damon Salvatore, before he went all "Grr Argh" vampire. 

That episode of TVD (as it is often referred to on Twitter ) was a roller coaster ride of revelations from beginning to end (and yet had still left us with cliffhangers) including: more as to why Anna (Jeremy's "cute stalker chick") wants to find the grimoire almost as badly as Damon does, and why Damon told Stefan (back in the pilot episode): "I promised you an eternity of misery, so I'm just keeping my word."

The Damon of "Then" (1864) was devoted and in love with Katerine, even after knowing that she was a vampire. He was so in love that he was willing to have himself turned to be able to stay with her.

Unlike Stefan, Damon was very perceptive of their father Giuseppe Salvatore and protective of Katherine, and he knew that Giuseppe would not understand nor accept the fact of Katherine's true nature, even if they'd all come to love her.

Hence Damon beseeches Stefan, no matter what, not to disclose anything to their father Giuseppe. But as Stefan reveals, he had "put my fate in my father and Damon put his fate in me and I destroyed that."

And so leads to the first act of betrayal on Damon by Stefan.

Then of course in the same epi. (Children of the Damned), we saw the further betrayal of Damon by the “lovely” Elena. After she (albeit afterwards regrettably) told Damon that she was “telling the truth” about Stefan’s loyalty in helping Damon release Katherine. 

The look of hurt that Damon gives Elena on her betrayal could not be hidden. I tell ya, if looks could kill…

Well as if that wasn’t enough, switch to last nights (Thurs. Feb. 11^th) episode: Fool Me Once. Just when you thought that Damon would have his “happy ending”, lo and behold we find out that Katherine, the love (and death) of his immortal life – WAS NEVER IN THE TOMB! 

And furthermore that she has been alive, undead and well all this time, never once coming to seek out, “the love struck idiot” (as Anna called him) that is Damon.

Thus by the end of the episode, Damon is left betrayed and bereft. And you wonder why he has trust issues?

It is with regard to all these harrowing happenings over those two episodes, why I can’t help but feel sympathy for Damon. 

Yes, true I am already a fan of the D-man – reason being from the beginning that I was a sucker for this bad boy – but now added to that, is also the fact that beneath his "cocky much" exterior, we see there is much more to Damon as he is now, in the present day and moreover WHY he came to be the way he is, i.e. “acting” the bastard.

Stefan may be considered by some the better brother to like, but Damon is by far the rebel with a cause, that cause being - “Love”! 

Happy Valentines… Vampire Diaries, Dearies! ♥

**Note: The Vampire Diaries will be on haitus, returning March 25th!**

Death Becomes HIM (and Poem featured)

Well, as it was announced yesterday, not even 24hrs ago as yet, that Sam Worthington is in talks to play Dracula in a film titled Dracula Year Zero.

This adds to the already growing number of actors who are associated with vampire or vampire related films, including Johnny Depp set to play Barnabas Collins in a Dark Shadows remake and Brad Pitt set to produce Vlad.

Soon, before you know it, everyone in Hollywood will have been "Vamped".

So it's with that fang-tastic idea in mind that I am posing the question to you my dear readers: Which actor (or actress if you will) would you like to see play a vampire, be it again or for the first time, in Tv or film?

And continuing in the vein of things, My poem Beautiful/ Deadly is featured today for Writer's Wednesdays on author Nicole Hadaway's blog All things Smart and Scary.

And in celebration of All things Beautiful and Deadly, here are two fan made videos featuring actors who play(ed) vampires, and if I do say so myself, Death Becomes them both Beautifully indeed: It's Vampire Henry Fitzroy (as embodied by actor Kyle Schmid) in a fan vid set to the song Time of Dying by Three Days Grace.
And Vampire Damon Salvatore (as portrayed by actor Ian Somerhalder) in a fan vid set to the song Oh Death by Jen Titus.

Where have I been? / General Announcements / and All I want for Christmas is my “V” TV!

Where have I been? : Lost in “hyper” Space!

So just in case you were wondering (or even if you were not) as to where I  have been for the past several weeks  – having practically abandoned my blog updates of most things “vampiric” – Rest assured, some bloody good things are coming.

Nevertheless, the reason for my M.I.A is simple. I had temporarily become a Twitaholic and to a lesser extent, a FaceBook fiend! LoL!

Yes you read me right.

But it’s all related… to vampires of course!

Over the past couple weeks, after having created both a FaceBook page and a Twitter stream for this here blog. I had decided to explore both social sites further, getting a feel of the online community thereon, and especially those of the two most current newfangled (emphasis on “fang”) hit shows: True Blood and The Vampire Diaries.

At first I’d lurk about (like Edward in Bella’s room at night while she slept), reading the posts and discussions on the official TrueBlood HBO and CW Vampire Diaries FaceBook pages, as well as on their several Twitter counterpart, fan(g) pages: @TrueBloodHBO @TrueBloodNet @TrueBloodDotNet and  @CW_VampDiaries @tvdnews @tvdfansonline

And it wasn’t long before I too found myself joining in on both shows FaceBook discussions and Twitter tweets and re-tweets. As well as participating in the fun (but exhaustive) #FF :  *Follow Fridays and doing *Topic Trending!  (*that’s some Tweet speak for those not in the know).

So if you’re planning a hitchhike across the Twitter-verse to get your fave vampire show info fix, then the @forementioned are good places to start.

And also be sure to check out the “Mother” of all vampires (if you consider Bram Stoker to be the “Father” that is), Mrs. Anne Rice.

Yes, Lestat’s mom Tweets (via simultaneous linking of her FaceBook page and Twitter stream).  
@AnneRiceAuthor is also included among the females on my Authors-of-Genre list. 

So there you have it, I was lost in “hyper” space for the past several weeks… But now I’m back!

Info to the end (of this piece), according to The Global language Monitor: “Vampire” was the fifth word of 2009, while “Twitter” was the Top Word of 2009!

*   *   *

General Announcements:

So in these weeks to come between Christmas and the New Year (and sometime after), I should have a few bite bits (a.k.a Topic Treats) with which to deck the blogs!

a) All I want for Christmas is my “V” TV:  Some recommendations for dealing with the vampire TV show hiatus withdrawals.

b) I see a New Moon Rising: A review of New Moon.

c) The Vampire Diaries –dot, dot, dot – And the devilish, delish Damon Salvatore:  a commentary piece on the hit new show and the talked about vampire du jour!

d) Guest blog post by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro for the release of her new novel Burning Shadows: Saint Germaine Chronicles. (Blog post scheduled for Thursday, December 17^th.)

So stay tuned!

*   *   *

All I want for Christmas is my “V” TV:

To use (and pun upon) that famous phrase from MTV in the 1980’s: “I want my “V” TV!” 

And no, I’m NOT talking about that new series re-make “V” (The Visitors) on ABC . I’m talking “V” as in Vampires!

Vampires have risen once again – but then again for those of us, who are fans of the fanged, vampires never went away –  it’s just that it may seem to some that they are everywhere these days ( yup, they don’t just come out at night anymore) ; and especially more so in the last couple years!

Apart from The Twilight Saga: New Moon, which recently ripped apart the box office on its opening day (kinda like the way those werewolves ripped apart the vampire Laurent), we have also had, earlier this year (back in June) the much anticipated return of True Blood, season 2 on HBO and the debut (this past Fall) of The Vampire Diaries (based on the novels of L.J Smith) on the CW.

It was a bloody good Summer / Fall for all things fang-tastic.

Alas, now December is upon us.

We’ve already seen New Moon, like what, 2 or 3 times!  Both TV shows are on hiatus – The Vampire Diaries is set to return on the CW in January for the 2^nd half of its first season and True Blood is scheduled to return to HBO in June 2010, with Season 3 – and Day Breakers doesn’t hit theatres ‘til early 2010 either.

However, before we lie in the winter of our discontent and start shouting, batty in the belfry: “I’m mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore”, rest assured here are some recommendations of quick nip fixes for dealing with the vampire TV show hiatus withdrawals:

·        Beginning next week on December 14^th,  for five days, the CW will be re-airing the first 10 episodes of  The Vampire Diaries . That's five days, 10 episodes, 1 full week!

·        Starting December 28^th, catch True Blood season 1 on HBO. 3 episodes a night, 4 nights in a row.

·        For fans of Kyle Schmid or for those just curious to know about that vampire show I’m always tweet quoting about (and on which this blog was originally inspired… Henry Fitzroy anyone? ;o) – Blood Ties, season 1 and 2, is now available on DVD.
 

·        You think Eric and Damon are dangerously hot now? Well back then there was The Lost Boys. A classic that never dies and never grows old:  Need I say more?

·        And just for the neck of it: He was a grinch and a scrooge and a pet detective and yes, a vampire too (well almost), Jim Carrey in Once Bitten.

So what are some of your vampire TV show hiatus withdrawal recommendations?

I “invite” you to come inside, to leave your comments below:

My top 10 picks for fave Vampire : 4 and 3

So yesterday I gave you 6 and 5.
Here's todays installment:
 

#3) Ian Somerhalder as Damon Salvatore (in The Vampire Diaries)

#4) Tom Cruise as Lestat (in Interview with the Vampire)