As promised, we’re finally devoting an entire episode to the humanity switch. We look at all of the reasons why characters like Stefan, Damon, and Enzo turn their emotions off and how they eventually get them back on. We also realized that so many iconic moments come from a vampire’s no humanity arc, like Damon killing Matt to get Elena to turn it …

For every character there is to love on The Vampire Diaries, there are a few to hate. While the list mostly includes annoying villains, useless supernaturals, and guest stars there are two characters in the main cast that are well known for annoying the fan base. You already know we’re talking about Matt Donovan and Elena Gilbert. But is Matt hated…

Before we get into Season 3 in a few weeks, we of course have to recap Season 2! This week, we’re looking back at the main characters, the villains, and all of the great Season 2 side characters. We’re also going to talk about all of the highs of the season, like best performances, favorite songs, best three episode run, and favorite Delena and Ste…

Put on your PJs, grab your Brothers Bond Bourbon or your Fresh Vine Wine, and get ready to slumber it with the Rippah Girls! This week, we're having a girls night and playing TVD Trivia hosted by Producer Shea. With 90 questions created by Shea and 10 listener-submitted questions, we'll see who really knows The Vampire Diaries the best. You can eve…

It’s officially been one year of The Rippah Diaries, or at least it will be on April 20th. Close enough for us. This week, we’re talking about the past year of the pod, what inspired us to get started, and some of our opinions that have changed with this rewatch of Season One and Two. We’re also going to turn the mic over to you guys and read some …

With the werewolf bite getting worse, Damon is ready to give up, but of course, Stefan can’t help but try to save him. The spirits in the old witch house reveal that Klaus will have the cure, so Stefan goes to strike a bargain while Alaric watches a sickly Damon. All goes well until Sheriff Forbes shows up with absolutely no plan and lets Damon out…

Now that Jenna has woken up, Elena explains to her that she’s in transition and Jenna realizes that she’s the vampire Klaus plans to sacrifice with the doppelgänger. With the addition of Jules as the werewolf, Klaus has all three goddesses needed to begin the ritual. With the sacrifice underway, Bonnie and Jeremy spend most of the night looking for…

It’s finally the full moon, which means Klaus is planning to break the sun and moon curse tonight. Elena and Stefan are willing to go along with the sacrifice and hope that Elijah’s magical elixir will bring Elena back to life, but Damon is not on board with that plan. In classic Damon fashion, he lashes out and feeds Elena his blood, almost guaran…

Elena and the newly undaggered Elijah spend the day together so Elena can prove she’s trustworthy and so Elijah can tell her about the last time Klaus tried to break the sun and moon curse in the 1400s. Through flashbacks, Elijah tells the story of how he and Klaus met Katherine, and he makes three huge reveals about Klaus and the curse. We also se…

It’s time for another decade dance: the 60s. Klaus continues to possess Alaric’s body, and with help from Katherine, he is ready to act as our favorite history teacher and taunt Elena. As always, Elena tries to pretend everything is normal, which of course means she and Bonnie and Stefan are finally going to school. Klaus, teaching history as Alari…

After stopping by the Gilbert house to ruin Jenna and Alaric’s relationship, Isobel convinces John that she’s trying to help Elena. John is blinded by love and believes her, but Elena and Stefan are skeptical. Rightfully so, because Isobel immediately meets up with Katherine to tell her that she made a deal with Klaus to save Katherine’s life in ex…

Now that Katherine has manipulated her way out of the tomb, she’s sticking around the Salvatore house to flirt with Stefan and Damon and antagonize Elena. And with Elijah now out of the picture, Stefan decides Team Save Elena should try to get Luka and Dr. Martin on their side, so he and Bonnie meet with the Martins at the Grill to plead their case…

As Elena reads the Gilbert journals, she finds out about Stefan’s revenge on the founding families in 1864. Now that the truth is out, Stefan tells Elena about his ripper era and how Lexi brought him out of it. Meanwhile, Damon is desperate to get a chance to "talk" with Elijah—we all know what that really means. Andie gives Damon the perfect oppor…

In a rare cute Stelena episode, Stefan and Elena decide to avoid Uncle John and go spend the day at the Gilbert family lake house. While Stelena have their romantic getaway, everyone back in Mystic Falls is scheming. First we have Caroline, Bonnie, and Jeremy plotting to get information from Luka about the sacrifice by putting him in a witchy tranc…

All of the worst characters come out to play in this episode. Uncle John returns and immediately stirs the pot with Jenna and tries to parent Elena. Meanwhile, Tyler confronts Caroline about lying to him about how many vampires there are and who killed Mason. Trying to do damage control, Caroline sends Stefan to talk to Tyler to help him cool off. …

With Rose’s werewolf bite getting worse every minute, Damon asks Elena to play nurse while he tries to get a cure from Jules. Despite Elena's do-gooder efforts Rose hallucinates, attacks her, and escapes to cause chaos at one of the town’s many events. Just to lighten things up for a minute, both Matt and Tyler kiss Caroline, setting up a classic l…

It’s finally the first full moon since Tyler became a werewolf, and he is desperate to find Mason to help him through the transition. Thankfully, Caroline steps in and comforts Tyler through the whole experience. Unfortunately, the voicemail Tyler left for Mason is overheard by our least favorite side character, Jules. When Jules gets to town and s…

Desperate to save Elena, the Salvatore brothers plan to get the moonstone from Katherine with the help of Bonnie and Jeremy—not really a dream team. Elena wants nothing to do with their terrible plan, so she convinces Rose to take her to Slater’s apartment to find out more about Klaus. At the apartment, they find a very dead Slater and Slater’s vam…

After Rose tells Elena that Klaus is coming for her, Elena goes to the tomb to give Katherine blood in exchange for the truth about the sun and moon curse. Through flashbacks to 1490, Katherine tells Elena about the child who was taken away from her, how she ruined Trevor and Rose’s lives, and how she turned into a vampire. Damon and Rose also try …

After being kidnapped for the second time, Elena is brought to an old, abandoned mansion where she meets her kidnappers, Trevor and Rose. Trevor immediately tries to feed on Elena, and Rose slaps Elena so hard she does a 360 spin, so things don't look good for her. Luckily, Jeremy and Stefan figure out Elena is missing and Bonnie does a locator spe…

Katherine sends a message to the Salvatore brothers: hand over the moonstone tonight at the masquerade ball, or she will rip apart the town until it rains blood. But Katherine predicts that Stefan and Damon won’t hand the moonstone over without a fight, so she brings her very own Bennett witch for backup and keeps a few tricks up her sleeve. Kather…

You know Masquerade is that episode when there’s a whole episode about the set up for the masquerade party. Everyone in the show is involved in party prep, including Stefan and Mason. Mason is shocked to see that Stefan survived the last episode, but Stefan is even more shocked when Bonnie bumps into Mason and has a vision of him kissing “Elena.” S…

A new day in Mystic Falls means a new event, and today’s event is the Historical Society Volunteer Picnic, which is the perfect opportunity for everyone to be in the same place to cause drama. This means Elena and Stefan can put on their best performances in their fake fight and Mason can prove to Sheriff Forbes that Stefan and Damon are vampires. …

For a minute, this episode makes you think it's opening with a Steferine 1864 memory, but we quickly find out it's Stefan's Delena nightmare created by Katherine getting in Stefan's head. Despite the rude awakening, Stefan lets Katherine hang around the Salvatore House long enough for Stefan to vervain her and lock her in the basement. Across town,…

It’s time for another Delena roadtrip episode! This time, Damon, Elena, and their third wheel, Alaric go to Duke to look through Isobel’s research and see if Isobel has any information about werewolves. Poor Alaric, the vibes on the trip are so horrid since Elena obviously hasn’t forgiven Damon for killing Jeremy like a day ago. Thankfully, the tri…

After being killed by Katherine, Caroline wakes up in transition and is immediately great at being a vampire in classic Caroline fashion. She completes the transition in record time, compels a nurse, and puts on a smokey eye so you know she’s really in her vamp era. While Caroline figures out how to get out of the hospital, Elena and Bonnie get the…

Picking up right where we left off, John is down to six fingers, Jeremy may or may not be transitioning into a vampire, Damon thinks he and Elena kissed, and Caroline is in the hospital after the car crash. Eventually, Damon and Stefan realize that only one person could have caused so much drama: Katherine Pierce. At Mayor Lockwood’s wake the next …

We're back with a review of Season One! To refresh our memories, we recap this season's character arcs, villains, and couples. We highlight some of the best performances and outfits and choose our favorites, like the best song of the season, our favorite three consecutive episodes, and, of course, our favorite Stelena and Delena moments. We even gi…

Like Anna tells Jeremy in 1x17, there are only so many reasons to turn a vampire: to get someone to do your dirty work, for revenge, out of boredom, and because you love someone so much you want to spend eternity with them. In this special episode, we go through all of the vampires that we see turned in the series from the Originals to the Salvator…

Regardless of whether you’re Team Conrad or Team Jeremiah, you can’t deny there are so many parallels between The Summer I Turned Pretty and The Vampire Diaries. Not only is there a love triangle between the main character and two brothers in both series, but there are also obvious visual parallels like Conrad stepping in for Jeremiah in the season…

It's finally Founder's Day—the perfect day for Damon to eat cotton candy and steal Stefan's girl and for the tomb vampires to exact their revenge on the founding families. Luckily, Uncle John has a plan to take out all of the tomb vampires, but of course, John doesn't stop at capturing the tomb vampires: he also gets Anna, Damon, and Mayor Lockwood…

There are a lot of bad moms in Mystic Falls, but one of the worst, Isobel, finally comes into town. After threatening Alaric, Isobel meets with Elena to tell her to get the Gilbert device from Damon. When Elena doesn't immediately give it to her, Isobel breaks Matt's arm, kidnaps Jeremy, and makes her compelled cowboy and jazz singer beat up John. …

In the third flashback episode of this season, Stefan relives how he and Damon died in 1864 and became vampires. While Stefan dries out in the Salvatore basement, Damon and Alaric team up again to get more information about John and the Gilbert device. Meanwhile, John uses his “Gilbert charm” (gross) on Pearl at the Grill to try to get the device f…

Leading up to the Miss Mystic Falls Pageant, Stefan spirals further out of control and is robbing blood banks left and right. Caroline is also out for blood in a different way—she’s desperate to win Miss Mystic Falls. Later at the pageant, Damon tells Elena that Stefan is drinking human blood again, and Stefan loses control and basically kidnaps an…

After drinking Elena’s blood, Stefan struggles to not completely turn into a ripper and to hide his bloodlust from Damon and Elena. To make matters worse, Uncle John comes back into town and makes it clear that he knows more about what’s going on than anyone else. Later, at the millionth Founders’ Day event this year, Stefan actually has a little f…

After killing Bethanne, Stefan is kidnapped by the tomb vampires in the middle of a storm. Armed with Alaric’s vervain darts and other vampire-hunting weapons, our favorite trio, Damon, Alaric, and Elena, have to team up to get him back. During the rescue mission, Damon and Elena have a very heated conversation that’s so steamy it inspired the rain…

After a quick Bing search, Jeremy figures out that Anna is a vampire and decides that he wants her to turn him. On top of dealing with that, Anna and Pearl struggle to keep the tomb vampires under control as they become desperate for revenge. Despite all of this drama going on, Stefan and Elena agree they should have fun and pretend they're just a …

Jenna reveals to Elena that, like a true 21st-century woman, she scoured the internet to research Elena’s birth mother, Isobel. After Jenna gives her the full report, Elena pays Isobel’s high school bestie, Trudie, a visit, where Trudie is SUS AF. Meanwhile, Mom of the Year, Kelly Donovan, comes back to town to bully Caroline and go to the annual M…

With the help of Grams, Stefan and his hero hair save Elena and Bonnie from their first kidnapping. As it becomes obvious that Damon won't give up, Elena gets everyone on board to open the tomb, including Damon who she convinces to trust her again by taking off her vervain necklace. When the door is finally open, Anna gets her mother, Pearl, out an…

It's time for some more flashbacks! As the search for Emily's grimoire continues, Stefan remembers the events that led to Katherine being captured by Giuseppe Salvatore and the rest of the 1864 Town Council. In the present, Damon reluctantly teams up with Stefan and Elena to search for Johnathan Gilbert's journal, which leads to a Stelena grave dig…

It’s finally time for the first decade dance! Literally every single person in Mystic Falls attends: Jeremy’s stalker, Elena’s stalker, and the teens that don’t have stalkers. Despite being best dressed, Caroline and Bonnie ditch the dance early on to go to the Grill where Bonnie flirts with Bartender Ben, and Caroline and Matt get their Notebook k…

If you were one of the early Delena shippers, this is where it all began: Elena and Damon’s road trip to visit Bree in Georgia. While Elena actually lets herself have fun and Damon asks Bree about opening the tomb, Stefan tries to get Bonnie to do a locator spell to find Elena. Stefan eventually rescues Bonnie from the tomb entrance and returns her…

At the Mystic Falls High Career Fair, Jeremy and Tyler sort of bond over their typical teenage boy art, Caroline decides she wants to become a broadcast journalist, and Logan Fell comes back from the dead to work the crowd and kidnap Caroline. Just as Damon is about to deal with Logan, Logan reveals that there’s another way to open the tomb. Meanwh…

If you were ever part of a female friendship trio in high school, you know exactly what happens at Elena’s sleepover: Caroline starts a fight, Bonnie storms off into another room, and Elena forces Caroline to apologize. We’ve all been there. Unfortunately, Caroline suggests a seance once they all make up, which ends with Emily possessing Bonnie. Ho…

It's Stefan's birthday! To celebrate, Lexi comes to town and convinces Stefan to have a little fun for once. Luckily, Damon already compelled Caroline to throw a party at the Grill where Stefan and Lexi can go do tequila shots. Since Elena and Stefan are still sort of broken up, Bonnie cheers Elena up by destroying her pillow and magically floating…

Now that Vicki has completed her transition, she has to deal with her feelings for Jeremy, Stefan’s vampire lessons, and Elena’s self-important lecturing. And if you are an Elena apologist, proceed with caution, because she makes a lot of missteps in this episode. But none of her missteps are as bad as the costume designer putting Bonnie in a terri…

All I ever wanted, all I ever needed was the scene where Damon dances on the ledge of the second floor of the Salvatore House. After he and Vicki party, Damon snaps her neck, and she starts to transition. Meanwhile, Stefan finally tells Elena some of the truth (of course not all of it, this is Stefan after all), and we meet Katherine for the first …

Of course, Mystic Falls would have a sexy car wash. While Logan Fell reports on the fundraiser, because apparently that’s news in Mystic Falls, Stefan reveals all of his red flags to Elena. But Elena overlooks Stefan’s favorite movie being Taxi Driver because she starts to piece together that Stefan is a vampire. Later on, Damon summons the strengt…

Doesn't it always come down to the love of a woman? Yes, unless that woman is Carol Lockwood, who is on one in this episode. But being on one is kind of the theme of this episode: Logan Fell tries to honeypot Aunt Jenna at the Founder's Day party and Damon is just being season one Damon. Thankfully Stefan swoops in and vervains Damon right before h…

Eeeep!!! It’s finally time to talk about Friday Night Bites, a true top ten episode. Join us for an in-depth discussion of all the things that make this one of our favorites: the Stelena-Delena love triangle is at its peak, Bonbon still has her psychic abilities, and Damon and Caroline crash Bonnie, Stefan, and Elena's dinner party. Matt also final…