The Vampire Diaries Season 6 Episode 2 Recap: When Are They? >>Hollywood

Say this about the year 1994: it featured some winning music!

I note this, of course, because The Vampire Diaries Season 6 Episode 2 answered the question this week of where Bonnie and Damon are located, only it turned the inquiry on its head a bit and instead revealed WHEN they are:

The aforementioned year. 1994.

Damon and Bonnie are repeating May 10, 1994 in an empty Mystic Falls for some reason, with Damon spending the day drinking and making pancakes and Bonnie trying to re-find her magic in order to get them back home to present day.

Except, as we learned in the closing scene when Bonnie's missing crossword puzzle got filled in by neither Bonnie nor Damon... they aren't actually alone after all. Someone else is somehow there.

Elsewhere on a strong install ment of The Vampire Diaries Season 6:

• Elena finally admitted to herself that she fell in love with Damon while she was with Stefan, enabling Alaric to successful access that memory, erase it and set off a domino chain of events within Elena's head that made her forget she ever loved Damon.
• Jeremy and Matt learned that Sarah, the girl who Elena fed off last week, stole a car from her old boss and is in town... for some reason. But Jeremy is still taken and went to crash with her at the Salvatore mansion.
• Tripp told Matt that he was a descendent of the Founding Fell Family (meaning he'd be related to Meredith somehow) But Matt appeared to have some doubts. We later saw Tripp drive some vampires INTO Mystic Falls and unleash sunlight on them, killing them all.
• Caroline and Enzo found Stefan in Savannah. He broke Caroline's heart by basically saying he had to move on by completely ignoring her and his past in Mystic Falls. And then Enzo broke Ivy's neck to get back at Stefan for having given up on his Damon search.

Overall, it was a solid episode that focused more on character development than heavy plot movement.

But producers have said that's the goal early in Season 6 because they acknowledge the mythology has grown too complicated and dense.

What did everyone else think of this install ment? Are you dreading the day that Damon returns, Elena doesn't know who he is and then we go through a whole amnesia-type deal? Yeah, so are we.

Head over to TV Fanatic to watch The Vampire Diaries online and get an early look at The Vampire Diaries Season 6 Episode 3, "Welcome to Paradise," here: