The Vampire Diaries 'Dead Man on Campus' photo recap: The over-friendly ghost

Who's got the time to think critically about The Vampire Diaries? On last night's episode, a lot of stuff happened — and most of it was entertaining on a superficial level. And that's why we watch The Vampire Diaries! It's fun! Let's not think so much. In celebration, I've decided to recap what happened. Here we go:

The Vampire Diaries 'Death and the Maiden' review: Doppelgängland

The Vampire Diaries is a lot of fun when you can just stop thinking and enjoy it for all of its insanity. At least that's what I've been telling myself during these past two episodes, seeing as I haven't allowed my quibbles to overshadow the entertainment. I've been struggling of what to make up of this season's episodes during reviews because plenty of times there just isn't much to talk about. Where before we could discuss the intricacies of characters and their motivations, now it's just a bunch of people running around doing some crazy stuff. I suppose it's been that for a while, but I'm not so much concerned with what they're thinking as they do it.

The Vampire Diaries 'Handle With Care' review: Breaking Kat

Let us all bask in the glory that was the best episode of The Vampire Diaries in a very long while! Am I delusional or was that just some very good stuff? I'm beyond the mythology, though sometimes with how wonky it is, it can be plain fun in its own right. It's not that I'm saying this episode was specifically compelling, but for some odd reason I just relished in it.

The Vampire Diaries 'Monster's Ball' review: Babies having babies

I must really be a masochist. OK, here's a stream of consciousness (I apologize in advance):

Well, let's be honest: that wasn't a bad episode of The Vampire Diaries. But, then again, as I've been reiterating for this entire season, this season is just a reiteration of the show. Even Caroline is tired of having the same talk with Tyler about him leaving and having to do things elsewhere. Tyler should take the word "hi" out of his lexicon, because he's more prone to goodbyes, anyhow.

The Vampire Diaries 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' review: Ghost whisperer

When Stefan lost his memory last week, I was split pretty evenly about it. On one hand, you have what could be a trite plot twist. On the other, it could be a lot of fun having Stefan rediscover this weird world. I mean, these are people who are vampires and where a friend is dead but is making sure no one knows. That’s kind of funny, and maybe he would point out some of these oddities in a breaking-the-fourth-wall kind of way. He did do that, a bit. And then there was a lot of what was supposed to be serious that, to put this blatantly, was just hilarious. Ultimately, I struggled with whether to be much more lenient with this episode because it was, in a way, entertaining, but in the end, it failed at what it wanted to accomplish. It’s not like this is worst-episode-ever territory (the worst TVD episode is still “Into the Wild”). But it just did not live up to what it set out to do.