The Vampire Diaries: The Descent (Season 2, Episode 12)

We open with Jules, bloody, naked, and perfectly made up and coiffed. It turns out that she has massacred a group of campers during her transformation. When a state trooper arrives, she fakes tears until she bashes his head in. So werewolves can be as bad as vampires.

We cut to Stefan who is sneaks up behind Elena. His little joke shouldn't be so funny considering all that's going on, but he is forgiven because he is shirtless. Shirtless Stefan! Shirtless Salvatore alert! First full shirtless Salvatore of the season, I think!

Meanwhile, Damon is sweetly nursing Rose's werewolf bite. Rose mentions that vampires don't get sick, which sounds pretty cool. Elena takes over Rose-sitting after Stefan is determined to ask Isobel about Klaus. Rose lies in Damon's bedroom, which is awesome. It's old school gothic.

Yet another Mystic Falls/school event is taking place. Caroline and Tyler have a moment. Their eye contact indicates that they are basically making love. Caroline puzzles Tyler when she mentions that a werewolf bite can kill a vampires. Matt interrupts them and kisses Caroline. Matt, you are ridiculous, hot and cold, yes and no. Caroline says there's nothing between her and Tyler. Everyone who watched their previous interaction knows this is false.

The Mystic Grill is the place to people (and vampire and werewolf) watch. Stefan gets Isobel's number from Alaric and leaves a message that sounds like he's calling Bonnie. It's completely casual and straightforward. Why would the devilish Isobel respond to a message like that? Also, Damon confronts Jules, who is surprisingly unafraid. Unfortunately, Damon doesn't kill her.

Rose starts to mistake Elena for Katherine and eventually goes competely rabid. Elena takes quite a while to contact Stefan or Damon about her erratic behavior. For crying out loud, she could have even contacted Elijah for help. Elena makes an impressive escape by using the light of a window and digging her fingers into Rose's wound. She barricades herself in the library until nightfall. Neither Salvatores arrive for some time, which means that they, especially Stefan, are both epic fails. Elena finally ventures out and finds Damon, who looks slightly surprised and concerned to see her gripping a stake.

Rose has made her way to whatever high school celebration is going on. She chows down on a janitor, who just happens to be black. Kind of amazing. I thought they'd stop the trend of racist vampires by now. The police arrive and pretend the maintenance man had a heart attack. Just as a girl tells her boyfriend about this, while she is SMILING, Rose attacks them both. She is overcome with remorse for hurting them. Why? Didn't her best friend forevor Trevor eat people?

Back in the boudoir, Elena once again treats Rose because Elena is only human, as Elena says. Humans aren't always so nice. Still, Rose continues to suffer. Actress Lauren Cohan does quite well in this episode.

As for the lovely Caroline and Tyler, they again speak outside Caroline's house. They seem to be made for each other. Tyler kisses her, and she kisses back before imploring "everyone needs to just stop kissing me!" Tyler's reaction is hilarious. He looks like he's thinking, "Dude?" Oh and now Caroline's wearing black nail polish. How did I miss this?

Rose isn't doing well, so Damon calms her by returning her to her idyllic medieval youth via vampire mind control. He joins her in a lovely and poignant scene. Eventually, he drives a stake through her heart, thus putting her out of her misery. But her last thoughts are peaceful and joyous. Tear. (That's :'( not ripping something up.)

Stefan arrives with Uncle Jon in tow! Dun dun dun. Can I just ask why Stefan was hardly in this episode? In the last episode, he was locked up in the tomb. Why has he been missing in action?

Jules meets Tyler at the Mystic Grill to tell him that she knows he's a werewolf, that he's not alone, there are many more werewolves, Mystic Falls is teaming with vampires, and Caroline helped kill Mason. 1) Jules is awful. 2) Aren't werewolves supposed to be almost extinct?

When Damon pretends he doesn't care about Rose's death, Elena tries to convince Damon that he is close to humanity. She then hugs him. First of all, this is clearly completely painful to him. Second, Damon killed her brother pretty recently, even after Elena's attempts at rehabilitation ("you're better than this"). Elena comes across as an abused wife.

Anyway, an unfortunate young woman in a big vehicle comes across the old vampire lying in the road trick. It's Damon! Drunk, stumbling around as sexy music plays. Somehow kind of funny. But then it gets intense. Damon is overcome with frustration at not being able to be who Elena wants him to be and he tells the girl his secret: he misses being human more than anything in the world. Saaaaaad. Then he kills her. Making Elena, Stefan, and everyone who ever believed in Damon look pretty foolish right now. Of course Damon can't go, he may actually be the heart of the show. But it makes no sense that these characters value Damon's life over every person he's ever killed, or even every person he's killed in the past year. Not that I think Damon's thoroughly evil. It's just not quite fair to all his murder victims.