Season-wise Breakdown of The Vampire Diaries(2009-2017) #295

‘The Vampire Diaries’ is a show that started airing when I was still in school and finished after my college graduation. I occasionally caught glimpses of it while my elder sister watched it on TV, but I didn’t realize how popular the show had become over the years. My sister was a big fan then and still is now. After months of persuasion from her, I finally binge-watched all the seasons on Netflix in 2022.

The series will be removed from Netflix US in September 2022, so don’t wait if you haven’t watched it yet. Avoid the season-wise breakdown to avoid spoilers.

The Vampire Diaries is a classic love triangle, but the story offers more than just romance. The tale begins with Elena Gilbert (played by Nina Dobrev), a teenage girl returning to school after a long break. She lost both parents in a car accident from which she survived and has a younger brother named Jeremy. After their parents’ death, their aunt Jenna gained custody of them, but at her young age struggled with the serious responsibilities involved.

Elena was passionate about writing and used to pour out her heart into diaries every night. Her two best friends were Bonnie (Kat Graham) and Caroline (Candice King). She also dated her childhood friend Matt.

On the first day of high school, she met Stefan Salvatore (Paul Wesley), a 17-year-old boy with dreamy eyes and an irresistible smile that could melt anyone’s heart.

It was love at first sight between Elena and Stefan. Stefan was kind, gentle, sincere, and funny! However, he kept his past a secret. After a few days, Elena discovered that her boyfriend was actually a vampire. Instead of being scared for her life, she embraced Stefan’s true identity. She also met Damon (played by Ian Somerhalder), Stefan’s handsome elder brother who loved to make snarky comments everywhere they went.

Years ago when they were still human, both brothers fell in love with Katherine – a manipulative psychopath vampire who played with their hearts before turning them into vampires too. Years later, the human version of Katherine left Stefan spellbound after he had been observing her from afar for some time; eventually he decided to approach her.

While Katherine betrayed both brothers, Damon couldn’t move on from her. Watching Elena with Stefan was like salt in his wound. Life got more complicated as vampires and other creatures came to Mystic Falls, where Elena lived. I’ll highlight each season and discuss it. It’s a lot, so grab some snacks!

Season One:

Stefan-Elena and their epic love: honestly they seemed so perfect for each other in the beginning!
Damon-Caroline: Damon feeding on Caroline’s blood and compelling her to forget that… Seriously hated Damon for this part. Not sure how Caroline got over this act of Damon.
Caroline-Matt: I am not sure why this exists. I think both of them got bored after being single for 2 mins.
Bonnie-Grams: Bonnie discovering her mystic abilities with her grandmother, saving her friends’ life with that – was just the beginning of her life-long sacrifices, I realized.
Jeremy-Vicky/ Jeremy Anna: Elena’s little brother had the worst luck in love (after Bonnie). Both of his love interests died in the 1st season itself.
Katherine: Elena’s look-alike and Salvatore brothers’ first common love interest Katherine was definitely the queen of sass in contrast to the human pumpkin Elena. Katherine remained one of the most powerful villains of the series from beginning to the very end.
Aunt Jenna: Elena’s legal guardian, Jenna was barely in her early twenties – I lowkey loved her more than Elena!
The Salvatore brothers: Damon and Stefan’s love-hate relationship was definitely the most interesting to watch. It was refreshing to watch them having each other’s back at the time of crisis despite all the difference of interest they had for loving the same girl.
Other characters-
Matt – Elena’s childhood friend and ex-boyfriend
Tyler – Descendent of the Lockwood family (werewolves), his dad was the mayor.
Elizabeth Forbes (Liz) – Caroline’s mother, also a sheriff. This lady was badass, a member of the council and a good friend with Damon.
Alaric Saltzman – mysterious history teacher, never saw these guys studying anything apart from history
Vicky- Matt’s sister, dating Tyler and fliting with Jeremy and dying in encounter with vampires.

Season Two: Here are some of the highlights from season 2 of TVD.

After Tyler’s dad, the Mayor got killed in a vampire-killing expedition, Tyler’s uncle Mason got back in town. Unlike relationship with his father, Tyler had a good bonding with his uncle… After few days Tyler came to know about his uncle Mason turning into a werewolf every full moon. Mason got killed by Damon in this season- my sister liked Mason a bit too much! XD
Unintentionally Tyler fulfilled the condition of the curse and turned into werewolf as well.
Katherine turned Caroline into a vampire- Caroline became so much confident and strong after the transformation- she was no more to be taken lightly!
We are introduced to Elijah and Klaus – the originals. The originals are the first 5 vampires in the world- created by their mother. Klaus (actor: Joseph Morgan) became one of the most terrifying villains in the upcoming seasons, whereas Elijah kept himself in the gray zone (neither 100% devil, nor 100% angel)
My favorite aunt Jenna is turned into a vampire and also got killed by Klaus as part of a sacrifice.
Elena came to know about her birth parents – uncle John (her foster father’s younger brother) and Isobel (Her history teacher, Alaric’s late wife). John (a human) happened to be hatching plans to kill vampires in the town.
Isobel was turned to vampire by Damon on her request. She made her return to Mystic Falls only to make her daughter’s life miserable. Isobel died by the end of this season.
Amongst all the chaos, Damon got bit by a werewolf (werewolf bites are deadly for vampires), Stephan left town with Klaus with the intention of finding a cure to save Damon.
Long time back Stefan was actually a friend to Klaus, his sister Rebecca used to fancy him as well. After many decades the two reunited – but the dynamic of their relationship changed a great deal, however you’d wish to have someone to look at you like Klaus would look at Stefan ^_^
Just another missed opportunity of great bromance, I’d say!
Tyler-Caroline is my favorite couple from this season – honestly I shipped them so hard!

Season Three: The season had way too many things happening and I am not sure what to tell and what to drop!

Elena turned 18 (She was supposed to be dead as per Klaus’s plan for the sacrifice).
Klaus’s sister Rebecca, another original vampire, started creating more problems for the good guys.
Klaus – a mix of werewolf and vampire – known as hybrid was more powerful than any pure vampire or werewolf. He hatched a plan to make more hybrids like himself to rule over the world.
Being the pure evil, Klaus asked Stefan top shut off his humanity. Stefan turned into a ripper (addicted to drinking blood, rips the head of the person every time he feeds from a person).
Our sexy vamp Katherine was also running away from Klaus as she did wronged him couple of centuries back and Klaus was hunting for her ever since.
Katherine arose the bigger villain-Klaus’s father, Michel who was a vampire hunter and wanted to kill him since the time Klaus became vampire… He was the only reason, Klaus wasn’t fully invincible.
After some chase and run, Klaus killed his father. Esther was resurrected this time. She was the mother of the 5 original vampires. The idea was to take Klaus down with help of Esther. However that plan failed as well.
Klaus set Stefan free, Stefan turned revengeful towards Klaus for making his life miserable.
Klaus-Caroline: Klaus had a soft corner for Caroline. This season gave them few moments together- Klaus giving Caroline his blood to cure from werewolf bite. Gifting her a dress and asking her out. If you go by the characters, there’s no good reason to support this situation-ship. However, the actors have really good on-screen chemistry. (Me trying to justify all the wrong things in the world that I support! :’) ) Despite Klaus being the terrible monster, killing Tyler’s mom, he was somehow a fan-favorite… Have we guys lost our minds? Probably, yes.
Mett-Rebecca: Rebecca, hopeless fool for love, spent the entire season pining for Matt’s attention. This is just another pair-leaving no lasting impact on me.
Alaric, the history teacher, became evil vampire hunter in this season and created a fair share of troubles.

The season ended with Elena turning into a vampire after a series of events. Can you imagine how Matt was still human and alive amongst all the swamp of vampires and werewolves and witches and hybrids? Cause I can’t!

Season Four:

Elena as a newbie vampire proved herself to be a total mess- Stefan tried to as much supportive as he could. From trying to teach her how to feed from animals and let Damon help her in the ways he couldn’t. However, their relationship came to an end after Elena started inclining significantly towards Damon.
Damon became a better version of himself… He loved Elena from long back, when Elena was still together with Stefan. However he kept himself away thinking Stefan to more deserving than him.
Damon-Elena: Things between Damon and Elena started getting hot and heavy, after Elena turned into vampire. Elena started trusting Damon more than Stefan. When Elena’s brother Jeremy turned into a vampire hunter, in order to keep her safe, Elena was asked to move in to Salvatore house.
Elena ended up sleeping together with Damon, keeping it a secret from Stefan.
The truth of their relationship was exposed by Caroline later in the series.
Turned out Elena was sired to Damon, meaning she wouldn’t say no to Damon for anything… Stefan came to know about a cure for vampirism. He considered finding it for Elena.
Both of the brothers weren’t sure whether Elena’s madness for Damon was coming from the sire bond or just her genuine feelings. Damon too joined the quest for the cure as he didn’t feel like abusing the sire bond.
We are introduced to another villain- named Silas. Silas had been controlling minds of several people to conduct sacrifices to resurrect his human body… In the quest for the cure, Silas got resurrected by Katherine, Jeremy and Bonnie died.
Elena couldn’t handle the grief of loosing the only family she had- to make her pain less Damon asked her to shut her humanity off.
Humanity-less Elena was a big-B. She burnt down her house with her brother’s body in it. Kept hanging out with Damon, being the biggest pain in the ass for everyone. Her murder spree got both Damon and Stefan concerned for her. After a lot of trial and error, Elena finally turned her humanity on.
Elena was no more sired to Damon. Her feelings for Damon was apparent to everyone. They officially started dating, Stefan left the town in need for time and space to heal.

The season ended with Stefan being locked in a safe and thrown into a lake by Silas- the villain who looked exactly like Stefan!

Season Five: The season started with Damon and Elena having the time of their life. Elena started getting a bad feeling that something bad was about to happen…

Elena and Caroline went to college in this season. Damon started looking after Jeremy as Elena was not in town. The history teacher from school, Alaric, was now a history professor in college. How convenient is that!
In this season, there’s a story line for Silas, Amara and Tessa, Silas (look-alike of Stefan) was married to the witch named Tessa. He requested her to make 2 immortality potions. After getting the potion, Silas took it with his side-chick and Tessa’s handmaid Amara (Elena’s look-alike). Furious and betrayed Tessa made some spells to take revenge on the two- so that they can never get together- neither in life, nor in death.
Silas, Amara, Tessa- all died in this season in a rather underwhelming way. Silas as a villain definitely had a lot of potential… He made Klaus, the original vampire, shit his pants- I was a bit surprised to see the Silas story-line ending so abruptly…
Stefan died and came back from the ‘other side’, to bring back Stefan, Damon died.
We are introduced to Enzo, a vampire friend of Damon from long back. Damon betrayed him in the past and Enzo made his life’s mission to take revenge!

The season ended with Damon and Bonnie being stuck in a different dimension (prison world for supernatural creatures).

Season Six:

Kai Parker was the star of the villains in this season- who was trapped in the prison world with Bonnie and Damon. Her sister, Joe was dating Alaric at that time. (yes, that Alaric was still alive and kicking)
In absence of Damon, Elena totally fell apart. She requested Alaric to erase her memory of Damon- the parts where she fell in love with him. Stefan on the hand, was living another life, as a car mechanic in a distant city, trying to cope with the loss.
Stefan-Caroline: Stefan and Caroline came closer this season. Caroline never stopped valuing the good qualities of Stefan. She was always frustrated with Elena for choosing Damon over him. This was the first Stefan moved on from his ‘epic love Elena’ and taking notice of the affectionate Caroline.
Caroline’s mother Liz died from cancer. Unable to deal with the pain, Caroline shut her humanity off and made Stefan do the same. The killer duo went on killing spree. After Damon returned from the prison world, he sought help from their mother Lily who was also stuck in prison world. Eventually Lily helped Stefan and Stefan helped Caroline to get back their humanity before making a huge mess.
Elena turned into human taking the cure, that Bonnie picked up from the prison world.
Psychopath Kai was hunting for his twin siblings – Olivia (Liv) and Luke. They were supposed to get merged and become more powerful than him. The catch is, the weaker counter part dies in the process. In order to save Liv, Luke merged with Kai – sacrificing himself.
Kai appeared on the day of Alaric and Joe’s wedding- stabbed Joe to kill the twin babies she was carrying at that time. He bound Elena’s life to Bonnie’s. Elena would be asleep until Bonnie was alive and left.

The actor Nina Dobrev, playing the character Elena, left the show at this time. Nina and Ian dated in real life and continued to work together for some time, however things got more complicated after they broke up. Nina decided to step out of the scene… Hence in the next 2 seasons, there were no story line for Elena!

Season Seven and Eight:

After Elena was out of the picture, honestly I couldn’t care less! However I still want to mention few points from the last 2 seasons. The 2 seasons focused more on brotherhood-bond between Damon and Stefan.

Bonnie, the witch got together with Enzo. Enzo was killed by Stefan, living Bonnie alone. Seriously, I feel sorry for Bonnie.
Caroline carried the child the gemini twins that Joe was carrying and Kai tried to kill. Vampires cannot procreate as per the theory. Actor Candice King was pregnant at that time and the story just made room her real-life pregnancy in the fantasy world! The dynamic between Alaric and Caroline seemed super weird to me!
Stefan and Caroline got back together after a lot of hurdles.
Tyler died. 🙁 :'(
Both Stefan and Damon turned back to humans.

On the season finale, Stefan and Caroline got married and hell broke lose as Katherine made a comeback. To take her down, Stefan sacrificed himself. Heartbroken Caroline continued taking care of the girls she gave birth to – Josie and Lizzie.
Elena became a doctor and lived a long happy life as a human with Damon. Stefan met his best friend Lexi on the other side, after death. (Nina did come for the last episode of TVD)
Caroline opened a school honoring the sacrifice of Stefan and received a big donation from Klaus, who was living in New Orleans with his other siblings.

Matt Donovan, out of all, remained human and alive (seriously, how???) and became a sheriff in Mystic Falls.

Little Gilbert, Jeremy finally found a purpose of his life as a vampire hunter. He started a new life with the mission to keep the bad vampires at bay .

The series ended with everybody reuniting with their loved ones and finding peace in the after-life…

All-in-all the series was very enjoyable for me- for all the love and romance, outstanding acting, interesting villains who kept on changing sides from time to time, insane chemistry between the actors and a parade of good-looking people.

The blog has already become a miniature novel at this point- I still want to talk about some plot lines which I couldn’t accommodate in one blog- I wish to make one more blog (you’ll find the link here, once it’s published!) Thanks for reading, Much Love! <3 🙂

Fun Fact: After ‘The Vampire Diaries’, there were two more spin-offs named as The Originals (The story of Klaus and his other original vampire-siblings) and The Legacies (the story of Josie, Lizzie and Hope, who was Klaus’s daughter)… 🙂

Turns out I could not satisfy myself with just one blog talking about The Vampire Diaries, so I went on take a deeper dive into the season.