'The Vampire Diaries' Season 7 Premiere React: The Reboot Works

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Elena is gone but not forgotten. A lot of journaling and Damon treating Bonnie like she’s “Not Elena” made sure of that. But she also wasn’t exactly missed in the Season 7 premiere of The Vampire Diaries: The hour moved quickly as the series was rebooted and simplified with the Heretics becoming the Big Bads (for now). Let’s break it down.

Related: ‘Vampire Diaries’ Season 7: Seven Things to Know

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That Three-Year Tease: So we know that three years from now, Damon will be lying desiccated in a coffin next to Elena’s in Brooklyn and be extremely annoyed when Stefan wakes him. But someone’s after Stefan — a woman who gave him an ‘x’ scar on his chest (nooooooo!) — a mark that we also saw on Heretic Beau (so let’s rule out her being a member of Lily’s family). She’s there and shooting at them both. Who is she? Why won’t she stop until Stefan’s dead? Why had Damon given up on living life without Elena, and how had Stefan and Bonnie let him? How long has Damon been in that coffin? Since they said the woman’s “returned,” how soon will we meet her for the first time? And where are Caroline and Bonnie? Theories?

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The New Deal: Back to present day… It’s never been easy to trust Lily, but apparently she really did mean it when she said she simply wanted to be reunited with her family of Heretics so they could live an under-the-radar life together. A few weeks after their arrival, most of them were still sequestered at an abandoned home drinking their blood-bag rations from tea cups. There’s the mute Beau, the brat Nora and her mentor/lesbian love Mary Louise, the brown-noser Malcolm, and the lonely Valerie. (Another male, Oscar, was MIA.)

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All was fine until Lily decided to leave town to meet Enzo in New York and ask him to find some stone of hers that had recently been stolen from the Maritime Museum. (She didn’t yet trust Enzo’s loyalty enough to tell him who he’d need to fear had he accepted the errand, but do we think it’s the woman in the future?) With Lily away, Nora and Mary Louise were able to convince Valerie to take revenge on the young couple that had left her for dead in a hit-and-run.

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Seeing the women’s handiwork, Stefan and Matt decided they needed to take out the Heretics while Lily was away for the town’s safety.

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Cue Stefan sending Caroline in to play the Mystic Falls welcome committee while Matt snuck in the back door to set a bomb. Nora and Mary Louise proved they were Rebekah-lites (but entertaining) as they toyed with Caroline and compelled her to hand over her jean jacket. She and Matt got out right before the house blew, and they’d thought they killed the Heretics. When Stefan called to gloat to Lily and to tell her to leave town for good, she told him he was a fool to think he could defeat them like that. Her motherly advice: run.

The last town event we’ll see in Mystic Falls for a while is Matt’s police academy graduation. Right after he received his star, the Heretics turned the ceremony into a massacre (Stefan and Caroline couldn’t hear them chanting?). Lily showed up just in time to stop Stefan and Caroline from being killed (did the Heretics not care enough to kill Matt along with the other deputies?). She scolded both sides for not finding a way to co-exist.

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Ultimately, Stefan brokered a truce with Lily: She and the Heretics would give him, Caroline, and Matt enough time to compel everyone in town to evacuate because of some “mine fire” that made the town inhabitable, and anyone who trespassed afterward was fair game for the Heretics. Also, Lily and the Heretics were now the proud occupants of Salvatore Mansion. We’ll miss you most of all, Damon’s bathroom.

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Damon and Alaric’s Excellent Adventure: After Jo’s death, Damon had decided to take Alaric on a drinking tour of Europe, and Bonnie tagged along as their chaperone. Vacation, even if it’s a grieving one, suits Damon: He was wearing a button down that wasn’t black and had it open lower than usual. Alaric is a fun drunk — make that fun fake drunk. Turns out he’s been drinking tea instead of bourbon so he could sneak off and visit (and beat up) faux psychics who might be able to help him communicate with Jo and tell her that he has the stone — the same one Lily said had been hers and is seeking.

So Alaric hasn’t told anyone that he’s been paying the medical examiner to keep Jo’s body cold because he’s hoping to bring her back from the dead. Resurrection storylines rarely end well — at least on other shows — but Jo was so great, and Alaric needs a meaty arc, so go for it. Get our hopes up and bring the pain. (Just promise they will, at some point, get a tear-jerking reunion in death like Anna and Pearl.)

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Damon and Bonnie’s truce: In Europe, Damon hesitated to save Bonnie from a van that had no business speeding down a crowded, narrow street, and Bonnie was understandably pissed. First, let’s acknowledge the way he pushed her out of the way was hot. And secondly, Bonnie was right: she’d lost Elena, too, and Elena made sure they all knew she was at peace with the decision and wanted them to live their lives. So he has to stop looking at her as “Not Elena.”

Back in the States, after Damon learned about the deal Stefan had made with Lily to give up the town and their home, Damon waited for Bonnie in her door room. He told her what he’d been thinking in those three seconds he’d hesitated before saving her: How amazing it’d be to have Elena in his arms, that he’d be kissing Elena, and that Bonnie is his best friend and if anything ever happened to her he would lose his mind. Does that mean something happens to Bonnie — not death, but something that changes who she is — three years from now, and that’s why Damon is desiccated? Is Bonnie the woman shooting at them in the future, and the mark is a witch staple?)

For now, Bonnie and Damon are stuck together… making poor decisions. They want to fight and take back the town, so they disregarded the truce and killed Malcolm: Bonnie distracted him so Damon could rip his heart out from behind. (Elijah still does that best.)

One of my recurring problems with the show is the selective communication. Stefan and Caroline wouldn’t be happy with them for killing Malcolm, but Damon or Bonnie should have thought to warn them after hearing how vindictive the Heretics are. Lily must have called Enzo sobbing after she had to look at Malcolm’s dead body and asked him to choose her side. He did. Even though he could tell that Caroline had no clue about Malcolm’s death, he vervained her before she could call Stefan. So Lily’s plan must be to torture Caroline so Stefan will agree to get Damon in line, or out of town, or desiccated?

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It’d be an interesting move considering what else happened in this hour: After a few adorable, awkward moments between friends who know they’d each like something more, Caroline (sporting more cleavage than usual) and Stefan (so tan!) finally got together. She realized that even though she’ll never truly heal from her mother’s death, and Elena’s gone, and Mystic Falls is at least temporarily lost, she’s still happy when she’s with Stefan. The kiss wasn’t a throw-you-up-against-a-vending-machine frenzy; it was a real, tender kind of passion. He cares about her. But then, didn’t we learn last season that the real point of Stefan’s relationship with Elena was to remind him how much he needs his brother? Who would Stefan choose?

If Beau didn’t already have that mark that Stefan has, I’d be tempted to think the woman firing at Stefan and Damon three years from now is Caroline after a soul-warping journey that begins when Stefan chooses Damon over her. But that’s crazy. Right?

The Vampire Diaries airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. on The CW.