Episode Descriptions – Pilot – The Night of the Comet

Episode 1×01 “Pilot”

Airdate: 09/10/2009

Four months after the tragic car accident that killed their parents, 17-year-old Elena Gilbert (Nina Dobrev, “DeGrassi: The Next Generation”) and her 15-year-old brother, Jeremy (Steven R. McQueen, “Everwood”), are still adjusting to their new reality. Elena has always been the star student; beautiful, popular and involved with school and friends, but now she finds herself struggling to hide her grief from the world. Elena and Jeremy are now living with their cool-but-overwhelmed Aunt Jenna (Sara Canning, “Smallville”), who is doing her best to be a surrogate parent.

Elena manages to find some comfort with her familiar social circle – best friend Bonnie (Katerina Graham, “17 Again”), frenemy Caroline (Candice Accola, “Juno”), and former boyfriend Matt (Zach Roerig, “Friday Night Lights”), but Jeremy is on a more dangerous path, hanging out with the stoners and using drugs to hide his pain. Jeremy is also trying to figure out why Matt’s sister, Vicki (Kayla Ewell, “The Bold and The Beautiful”), is suddenly rejecting him and hanging out with Jeremy’s rival, Tyler (Michael Trevino, “Cane”).

As the school year begins at Mystic Falls High, Elena and her friends are fascinated by a handsome and mysterious new student, Stefan Salvatore (Paul Wesley, “Fallen”). Stefan and Elena are immediately drawn to one another, although Elena is puzzled by Stefan’s increasingly bizarre behavior when he appears suddenly at the cemetery where her parents are buried. What she doesn’t realize is that Stefan is hiding a dark, deadly secret of his own – the fact that he’s a vampire. At a bonfire party the next night, Elena and Stefan are just getting to know each other when chaos erupts after Vicki is attacked and left bleeding from a savage bite to the neck.

Fearing that he knows who is responsible for the attack, Stefan returns home and finds his older brother, Damon (Ian Somerhalder, “Lost”), whom he hasn’t seen for 15 years. Damon is also a vampire, and the two brothers have a long and bitter history. Damon ridicules Stefan for rejecting their legacy of violence and brutality, but he understands his brother’s obsession with Elena, since she looks exactly like a woman Stefan loved more than a century ago; a woman that Damon tried to make his own. Now these two vampire brothers – one good, one evil – are at war for Elena’s soul and for the souls of her friends, family and all the residents of Mystic Falls, Virginia.

Episode 1×02 “The Night of the Comet”

Airdate: 09/17/2009

As Mystic Falls prepares for a festival to celebrate the passing of a comet, Vicki (Kayla Ewell) is in the hospital recovering from Damon’s (Ian Somerhalder) attack. Stefan (Paul Wesley) goes to the hospital and tries to use his abilities to make Vicki forget who attacked her, but his attempt is cut short when Matt (Zach Roerig) arrives. Jeremy Steve R. McQueen) continues to struggle with his drug use and his feelings for Vicki. At a parent/teacher conference, Mr. Tanner (guest star Benjamin Ayres) warns a worried Aunt Jenna (Sara Canning) that Jeremy is in trouble and needs intervention.

Elena (Nina Dobrev) goes to the Salvatore house to talk to Stefan, but finds Damon instead. Damon tells her about Stefan’s past relationship with a girl named Katherine, and when Stefan arrives home, Elena is surprised that he seems upset to see her there. Meanwhile, Vicki’s memory of the attack begins to come back to her and Damon used his power of persuasion to make her forget what happened. Meanwhile, Elena realizes she has to tell Stefan how she feels about him and the two share their first kiss as the comet lights up the sky over Mystic Falls. Finally, Damon set his sights on Caroline (Candice Accola) as his next victim. Katerina Graham and Michael Trevino also star. Marcos Siega directed the episode written by Kevin Williamson & Julie Plec