Speaking of which, I’m so glad Ben died and Anna lived. Really liked this episode and Ian Somerhalder won me over in this one. As opposed to seemingly everyone else, I wasn’t much impressed by his acting until then but perhaps it’s partly because I didn’t like his portrayal of Damon. Seems to me too that they’re going for a compassionate Elena on the show and in this episode especially, seeing Elena understanding and caring for Damon, I think this is leading Stefan to see his brother in another light after all this time being convinced that Damon has lost all of his humanity.

And yes, shucks that Grams died! I practically cried.. Well, ok, my eyes watered a moment there, Katerina Graham was really that convincing to me. Hopefully though, we’ll get to see more of Sheila anyway, maybe in the form of a spirit summoning thanks to Bonnie I’m very curious about how Bonnie will react to the Salvatore brothers from now on or even to magic itself. Will she try to shun all?

As for Anna, yes, the question as to whether she was turned before her mother was entombed is a good one. There is still a lot that is unanswered. It was pointed out to me on Twitter that Pearl was not surprised to see Anna, thus it would seem that she was already a vamp back in the 1864 flashbacks we saw. However, they could still explain that lack of surprise away later–the result of Pearl being starved for over a century or something. But I suspect that both mother and daughter were turned at the same time, victims of some vampire.