Damon torments his sibling Stefan by continually menacing his new love interest, Elena Gilbert, after they move to Mystic Falls. They both had a crush on Katherine Pierce, and he says Elena is a “exact match” for Katherine. He also puts on a show of power to show how much better off he is than Stefan, who is at a deficit because he must subsist on animal blood.

At the very beginning of Pilot, Damon takes out his first two victims, but it isn’t until he attacks Vicki Donovan in the forests that he truly makes his existence known. Later, when Elena goes to the Salvatore Boarding House to look for Stefan, she finds Damon there instead. Damon says his brother is “rebounding” after a breakup. After Elena departs, Damon teases Stefan by saying he will have a tougher time convincing Vicki Donovan to forget a vampire assaulted her. Caroline Forbes, a teenage acquaintance of Elena’s, is seduced and slept with by Damon at the conclusion of “The Night of the Comet,” and the story concludes with Damon savagely attacking her neck and eating from her.

Caroline is taken to cheer practise by Damon.

Caroline is driven to her cheering practise by Damon in Friday Night Bites, after he has coerced her into keeping his secret and made her fearless around him. He also invites her over for supper at Elena’s, where he further irritates Stefan while telling Elena more falsehoods about Katherine. Elena stumps him by asking which Salvatore dated Katherine first and then informing him she was regretful for his loss by saying she was apologetic for both of them. Damon tries to force Elena to kiss him in the parking lot before the football game, but she is protected from his control by her vervain pendant and smacks him across the face. Damon is livid when he sees Stefan walking to the field and approaches him, but his anger only grows when Stefan insists he still harbours humane impulses. In retaliation, Damon murders William Tanner, Stefan’s football instructor and Elena’s former teacher. Damon is in Elena’s room, staring at her and gently caressing her face while Stefan is writing about how there is nothing decent remaining in Damon.

Damon has a premonition for Stefan.

Damon awakens Stefan up in Family Bonds by making him have a hallucination in which Elena is killed by the elder Salvatore. He attributes his ability to Stefan’s penchant for consuming animal blood. Damon doesn’t seem to care that Stefan threw a dagger at him, so he stabs Stefan in the breast. Damon later stabs Stefan back for destroying one of his John Varvatos shirts, but he still doesn’t feel bad about it. The killings were covered up by him claiming to be a big mountain cougar who would be staying in town for a while. Later, he’s seen chilling in Caroline’s room while reading a Twilight book, and he comments on how “whipped” Edward is. He claims that his band prevents him from “sparkling” in the sunlight when questioned about it. Damon nonchalantly explains the transformation process to Caroline, who is concerned that the puncture scars all over her body indicate that she will soon become a vampire. In this episode, Damon also demonstrates his complete lack of respect for human life by casually telling Caroline that he will murder her eventually but not just yet. The scene continues with Damon reading on the sofa when Zach comes up to him and inquires as to why he is in Mystic Falls. Damon’s explosive nature is further illustrated when he picks a fight with Zach, who insults him by saying he always has an ulterior purpose. Stefan finally shows up just in time to save Zach from Damon’s wrath.

While getting set for the Founder’s Celebration, Damon shares his excitement at the prospect of never ageing. He comes close to consuming vervain-laced booze as part of Stefan’s plot to incapacitate him, and he says, “Who knows what I’ll do?” if he goes to the gathering in a furious state of mind. Damon is initially welcomed into the Lockwood Manor by Carol Lockwood, who hosts the celebration. Just as Elena is about to read both of their names off the initial register for the First Founder’s Celebration, he walks in from behind Stefan and Elena. Caroline asks to dance with the younger Salvatore after he forces her to divert Stefan from the fact that Elena is curious about Stefan and Damon’s ancestry. Damon starts his time alone with Elena with a very sarcastic apology, and he tells a story about the “original” Salvatore siblings. He claims that the brothers were killed while trying to retrieve a loved one who had been trapped in a burning church during the Battle of Willow Creek. Damon brings Caroline upstairs and opens a hidden chamber in a large wooden box containing one of the displayed objects—a golden gemstone. He claims to have placed it there many years ago. He blends in with the crowd until Elena spots the bite marks on Caroline’s back and challenges him, threatening to tell Caroline’s mother. Damon is so infuriated by this that he decides to take Caroline to a quiet spot by the lake. In one breath he says he’s sorry, and in the next he nibbles her neck, declaring that he’s finally moved on. He was dancing with her when he accidentally drank enough vervain to make himself innocuous, but he couldn’t tell that Stefan had tainted his drink. After injecting him with more vervain, Stefan brought him back to the Salvatore house and confined him to the basement.

Despite being imprisoned in the bowels of the Salvatore Boarding House, Damon makes a tenuous psychic link to Caroline in You’re Undead To Me. After his initial attempt to reach her in her room was unsuccessful, he found her in the corridor of Mystic Falls High School while she was retrieving additional cloths for the Sizzling Suds Car Wash. She travels all the way there in an effort to free Damon, but Zach is adamant about keeping him tied up in the lodging house. Damon, seriously debilitated after Stefan stole his daytime band, breaks Zach’s neck and pursues Caroline through the home. Vicki Donovan, one of his previous victims, is among a group of young people he stalks and murders after waiting until dark to strike.

Damon proceeds to eat fresh captives from Lost Girls and torch their bodies after using one of their limbs to swab his lips clean. Curiously, all of this transpired in front of a tomb bearing the name “Salvatore.” Damon phones Stefan while he is in the midst of the funeral pyre, demanding the return of his daytime band and even threatening Elena’s life if he does not get it.

Just before he murdered Vicki, Damon thought about this.

After ending his call with Stefan, Damon discovers that one of the bodies isn’t on fire, but when he tries to light her, he realises that Vicki is still alive. Damon, fascinated by her resiliency, brings her back to the Salvatore Boarding House and heals her by feeding her his blood. Katherine interrupts Damon and Stefan as they play an 1864 rendition of football in front of their house in this episode (during Stefan’s tale to Elena). Today, Damon gives Vicki more of his blood while also feasting on her; the two of them become inebriated and start moving around the home. Damon rips items out of their positions as he walks around Stefan’s room once they get there. Damon and Vicki begin a leisurely dance before the latter’s neck is snapped by Damon. She must eat in order to finish the “process,” he informs her when she wakes up; however, with a grin on his face, he recommends that she visit Jeremy and Elena at their home. In fact, he turns up later, barges in, and smugly warns Elena not to let just anyone inside. Damon saves Stefan from being killed by Logan Fell, who had used the Gilbert Compass to hunt down vampires, by killing him and then removing the wooden gunshot from Stefan’s ribcage, but only after Stefan has demanded the return of his daytime band. When Vicki finishes her transformation into a vampire by feeding on Logan’s flesh, he seems unconcerned.

Damon acts insulted that the death of Logan Fell isn’t in the press and claims that someone is covering it up when Stefan is trying to help Vicki adapt to her new life in Haunted. He explains to Vicki that he stole a guide from Logan. When he opens the door and sees Elena waiting for him, he treats her with arrogance and then proceeds to tease Stefan about giving Vicki animal blood. Damon seats down with Carol Lockwood while the events of the Halloween Party unfold and later brings Vicki outside, where the Salvatores lose her in the jungle. She asks if they are related when he tells her his surname is Salvatore, but he can’t get her to reveal her connection to Zach because she’s wearing a vervain wristband that blocks his thoughts. He keeps pressing for answers and uses the vervain to break the ice and get Carol to open up. Damon seems intrigued when she brings up the Village Council, but Carol swiftly shifts the topic. Damon keeps on wooing despite being rejected and eventually figures out how they are crossing people off the “vampire suspect” list: Damon and Stefan, like anyone else who showed up to the Founder’s Celebration during the day, were immediately wiped out. On the way to the school, where he’s going to accompany her, he happens to run into Bonnie. In an attempt to provoke her, he questions, “Where is Caroline?” before realising that she is actually sporting the yellow diamond he stole from the Founder’s Celebration. When he reaches for it, it flames his palm, and Bonnie quickly escapes. After Stefan is compelled to stab Vicki, he contacts Damon, who arrives to find Elena seated next to the corpse. Elena, angered by his calm attitude, swings at him but he blocks her blow. He assures her that none of this matters to him, so when he lets her, she strikes him. Damon appears enraged, but he maintains his composure as he instructs her to leave because her cuts are bleeding. Because Stefan’s diet stops him from successfully persuading humans, he later appears on Elena’s veranda and offers to remove Jeremy’s recollection. In order to aid “Jer,” Elena agrees to his proposal.

Both Damon and Lexi.

Damon makes his first appearance in 162 Candles next to Stefan’s sleeping birthday visitor Lexi Branson. Lexi is in town to celebrate Stefan’s special day. Upon first meeting him, she is disgusted and says that he represents “only the negative aspects” of being a vampire. Lexi clamps him to the bed and warns him not to interrupt her time with Stefan, or else he will be physically harmed. Subsequently, he pretends to be Zach when he delivers a box of vervain to Sheriff Forbes’ workplace. Damon utilises this information to learn more about the Founder’s Council and join their “small group.” While at school, he runs into Caroline and convinces her to host a barbecue in the hopes of luring Stefan and Lexi. Even though he assures Elena that he only “took away his pain,” Elena is concerned about what he led Jeremy to think.

Damon ends Lexi’s life.

Damon murders a guy in the passageway behind the Mystic Grill and forces a woman to confess to everyone that Lexi murdered her boyfriend, further inflaming tensions between him and his brother and providing the Town Council with a convenient victim. She escapes from the sheriffs after they drag Lexi out of the bar, and she tries to murder Sheriff Forbes, who responds by shooting her several times in the breast. It comes as a jolt to both Stefan and Elena when Damon shows up and skewers her. Damon initially suspects his sibling of murder after he is attacked by Stefan in their house and staked in the stomach. Stefan claims he’s done with him and is only being nice because he saved his life.

Damon tries to make amends with Stefan for murdering Lexi in History Repeating by saying he won’t feast on a person for at least a week. Stefan attempts to pry from Damon the real reason for his return to Mystic Falls while they mock each other’s impersonations. Damon abruptly closes down and departs, but not before tormenting Stefan once more. Damon’s pestering of Bonnie continues throughout the day as he tries to reclaim his yellow stone. Bonnie’s grandmother Emily Bennett has been appearing to her in her hallucinations, and he says he knew her. That “a deal’s a deal” is what Bonnie is to convey to Emily, he says. Later, when he impersonates Stefan at the Mystic Restaurant, he calls Stefan’s character a “lesser location.” The two siblings play darts while Stefan persistently presses Damon for information.

Football is a popular pastime for Damon and Stefan.

During a brief football game, Stefan attempts to persuade his sibling that their feelings for Katherine weren’t genuine. Damon is confronted by Stefan, who admits that he was the last person to see Katherine the night she was abducted, and questions what Damon plans to do with Katherine’s crystal (the golden crystal he had been chasing for so long). Damon’s true intentions for revisiting their hometown are laid bare when he says, “I’m going to bring her back.” He says that he implored Emily Bennett, a sorceress, to spare Katherine’s life, and that in exchange, Emily Bennett locked Katherine away in a crypt under Fell’s Church. It was the comet that he claims Emily used to concentrate the energy into the stone that night. Damon claims that his pledge to Emily’s family is the only reason he didn’t murder Bonnie to steal the stone. Damon hears Elena inform Stefan that Bonnie has taken the crystal and disappears behind his sibling as he hangs up the phone. In the woodlands near Fell’s Church, he meets Emily (now inhabiting Bonnie’s body). As he approaches, she uses sorcery to hurl him into a tree, where he is impaled on a splintered limb. Stefan comes, drags Damon to the ground, and is horrified to hear that Emily rescued twenty-seven vampires in the mausoleum in addition to Katherine. This is why she is now standing in the middle of the open, destroying the crystal. Em exits Bonnie’s body right away, but a furious Damon attacks her. In the distance, he can be seen weeping over the loss of the stone and looking visibly shaken. At the episode’s conclusion, he is spotted once more seated by the church and looking absentmindedly away.

Damon and Stefan appear to have resolved to flee Mystic Falls by the end of The Turning Point, but Damon keeps things light by joking that they should try out for the “Amazing Race.” While they are talking, Damon gets a doorbell knock from Sheriff Forbes who wants to talk to him. After informing him of yet another vampire assault, she turns to him for advice. As soon as Damon returns home, Stefan thinks he has murdered someone, but Damon strongly disputes this. He pokes fun at Stefan by acting like he doesn’t notice the “new vampire in town”: “After all, what does it matter if we care? In any case, we ought to get going, right?” Damon doesn’t get the joke, so he has Caroline use the Gilbert Compass to find the vampire, and they wind up in an abandoned building.

Damon, following his meeting with Logan.

As Damon walks in, the recently vampire-fied Logan Fell opens fire, accusing him of changing him. Damon won’t explain to Logan why he is able to go outside while he is still a vampire, so Logan keeps him there answering questions about vampires. Damon calls Stefan after Logan departs, and the two of them have a lengthy conversation during which Damon reveals what occurred to him in the warehouse. As a team, the siblings attack Logan, who has abducted Caroline for the express purpose of turning her into a vampire. Damon questions Logan after Stefan departs, and Logan admits that he is familiar with the crypt beneath the church. Damon is intrigued, but they don’t have time to meet right now, so he suggests he fake an assault and run away. Damon is surprised to receive a call from Sheriff Forbes, who expresses gratitude to him for abandoning Logan’s corpse at the church, when he travels there to meet him.

Together at mealtime: Damon and Elena

In the opening moments of Bloodlines, Damon comes to Elena’s aid after she is trapped in her wrecked Car. Damon tells her they’re in Georgia when she wakes up. In Bree’s Tavern, he tells her that he’s known Bree since she was a student in college and that she’s a sorceress. Damon, while Elena is on the phone, asks Bree if there is another method to access the mausoleum, only to be told that there is none. Damon walks outside after she phones Stefan to see if she’s all right, and she replies, “Don’t appear to care.” Damon explains to Elena that Katherine could not be her ancestor because Katherine never had children while they consume burgers and fries inside.

There’s Damon, Elena, and Bree.

In addition, he explains to her that vampires are sterile and that his body is perfectly normal so long as he has a steady supply of blood (to digest human food). After a night of drinking and shot-taking, Elena becomes extremely tipsy while hanging out with Nick. Damon is then spotted by Bree at the tavern, where she inquires as to Elena’s whereabouts. It appears she has disappeared, but when Damon goes in search of her, he is tricked by Lexi’s angry vampire lover, who was at first thought to be human. Elena’s discussion of Lexi saves Damon’s life, but he still approaches Bree at the bar, furious that she sent the vampire after him in the first place. The witch begs Damon to spare her life by informing him that Emily’s Grimoire—her collection of spells—is the only other means to enter the mausoleum. Damon’s murderous action is analogous to tearing out someone’s heart. At home, Elena brags about the fact that she has Damon to thank for his survival. Damon, at the episode’s conclusion, orders a whisky at the Mystic Grill tavern, where he finds the new history instructor, Alaric Saltzman. Flashbacks of Damon murdering Alaric’s wife Isobel appear to him.

Damon is first seen digging through the Salvatore family library in Unpleasantville, where Stefan questions him about Elena and their trip to Georgia. On a later occasion, he runs into Bonnie at the Mystic Restaurant, where he declares, “we need a new start.” Bonnie tries to caution him away from her, but their discussion is cut short when Ben McKittrick’rescues’ Bonnie. Damon is subsequently observed jotting down the names of the town’s pioneers, and Stefan subsequently presents him with their father’s diary, explaining that he knew Damon was searching for it. There’s nothing useful in the diary, Stefan says, but if Damon will just leave Mystic Falls, he’ll assist him. Damon, wary of the man’s true intentions, declines the offer. When Elena phones Stefan’s phone, Damon picks up and tells her that Stefan is on his way (relieving her worry that another vampire is in her home).

Damon picks on Bonnie and Caroline at the 50s Ball.

Damon arrives after Elena is assaulted, and the two of them decide to attend the 1950s Decade Ball in an effort to track down the vampire (since he was allowed in and therefore has free reign to hurt Elena at any moment). When Damon, Elena, and Stefan walk in, Alaric takes note. Damon seems to be attempting to make amends with Bonnie, as evidenced by his snide invitation to a dance later on. Then he invites Elena to dance, but she ends up dancing with Stefan instead. As Damon watches them dance, Alaric approaches him, curious about his presence. Alaric asks Damon a lengthy list of questions, but when the inquiries start getting too intimate, Damon gets wary and stops responding. Later, when Elena sees Damon dancing with a redhead, she says, “You really can’t take him anywhere, can you?” Damon and Stefan rush to Elena’s aid when her vampire attacker assaults, but Damon spots Alaric hanging out by the cafeteria entrance. Damon approaches him and tries to coerce him into telling him what he knows; when he realises he knows nothing, he departs. Alaric was clearly expecting a confrontation with Damon, as evidenced by the vervain he had pulverised in his hand. The first time we see Damon in Children of the Damned is in a flashback to 1864, when he and Katherine feast on the passengers of a carriage. Currently, Damon is waiting for Stefan and Elena to wake up so that he can perch on the edge of Stefan’s bed and join forces with them. He instructs them to seek out Jonathan Gilbert’s Diary, which details the Grimoire’s whereabouts. While Damon is currently at the Gilbert House chatting with Jenna Sommers, memories show that he has always had a strong dislike for his father’s viewpoint. Damon and Elena are having a conversation in the kitchen when Stefan’s arrival is noticed. Once without irony, he asks Elena if he can trust Stefan’s assistance.

The two friends, Damon and Jeremy, enjoy playing computer games.

During this show, we see a flashback to 1864, when Damon’s confidence in Stefan was initially betrayed. Current events find him and Jeremy occupied with a computer game. Stefan shows up and informs him that he misplaced the Gilbert Diary. Since Damon now knows that Jeremy also knew where the diary was hidden, he inquires as to whom Jeremy may have shown it. When he tells Damon that Anna was aware of the diary, Damon arranges for them to meet at the Grill. Damon pursues Anna back to her room at the motel and launches an assault, but since they are on equal footing, he backs down and they let go of each other. Damon figures out that the grimoire will be in his father’s tomb while Elena and Stefan are excavating it up. He discovers that Stefan and Elena have deceived him and are trying to prevent him from bringing Katherine back by confronting them at the cemetery. After being duped by Elena, Damon says he can only trust himself. He seems wounded by this admission (earlier she told him he could trust her). Damon threatens to make Elena a vampire unless Stefan gives him the grimoire by feeding her his blood. After everyone else has left and he has the book, Damon thinks back to the time he and Stefan died attempting to save Katherine.

After Elena is abducted, Stefan goes to Damon for assistance, but Damon declines to do anything for him, not even tell him where Anna is staying at the hotel (in Fool Me Once). He shares his wish for Elena’s death with Stefan. Bonnie’s grandma Sheila Bennett is the one he visits in his search for her, but she uses her powers on him after he threatens her. Damon initially rejects Anna’s proposal that he and she work together, but eventually gives in after she threats Elena’s life. Later, when Elena asks to work with Damon again, she removes her vervain pendant to prove her sincerity. In addition, she presses him on why he didn’t use coercion on her in Georgia, and he responds, “I wanted it to be genuine.”

Elena wraps her arms around Damon in an embrace.

He replaces her jewellery and assures her that he will now be able to rely on her. After everyone has gathered in the mausoleum, Damon opens the entrance and leads Elena inside to protect himself from any potential backlash. He goes in there with a blood bag in his palm and looks for Katherine, only to be distraught and angry when he doesn’t find her. Nearly refusing to exit the mausoleum, he instead hurls the blood at the wall, where it splatters. Both Stefan and Elena are needed to get him outside, where he stands looking aimlessly into the distance. Elena apologises and embraces him, but he doesn’t seem to feel anything. Anna’s mother Pearl was rescued from the tomb, and he later reappears in her hotel room to intimidate her and question her about her knowledge that Katherine was not in the tomb. Anna tells him that Katherine always knew where he was but didn’t care, and Pearl informs him that Katherine managed to escape. When Stefan returns home, he discovers his elder sibling gazing into the fireplace. He is sitting close by, but he is keeping his silence.

Damon is nearly always drunk in A Few Good Men, and he spends his time in the Salvatore Boarding House chasing after driven college females and listening to noisy rock music. Damon gives Stefan a long, rambling, incoherent lecture about freedom and how he’s fine while he’s inebriated. Damon doesn’t seem to recall Isobel, but Stefan asks him about her anyway. What he has to say is “Insignificant details are irrelevant. That’s not the case any longer.” Still wary of Alaric, he talks to him again at the pub. Sherriff Forbes visits Damon in the hopes of bidding on him at the Bachelor Auction. A while later, he informs Elena that he’ll be running the bidding and, being too tipsy to do so, requests her to fasten his shirt for him. Instead of listening to Elena’s story of discovering her biological mother, he responds with, “she abandoned you, she stinks.” When Stefan inquires further about Isobel, Damon finally understands that someone besides himself is curious. After Alaric brings up his late wife, Damon makes the link between Stefan’s probing and Alaric’s grief and resolves to torture him further. He is completely taken aback when Elena reveals that the lady he murdered is actually her biological mother. When Alaric returns to the lodging house, he wants to know where his wife is and what Damon did to her. Damon stabs him to death as he approaches him. Until Stefan comes, he waits on the sofa by the corpse, at which time he asserts self-defense and flees.

Together, Anna and Pearl pay a call to Damon.

Damon’s house guests in There Goes the Neighbors are Anna and her mom, Pearl. He gives in and settles down to listen to her after realising she can hold her own against him. She discloses that a group of twenty-five vampires from the crypt have been staying with them in a farmstead on the outskirts of town. She’s also cognizant of the existence of the Village Council, and she demands a roster of its members. In addition, she requests that they cease receiving vervain. Pearl wants him to assist her retake Mystic Falls, so she tells him where she last saw Katherine. He protests seeing Katherine, but she forces his eyes shut by threatening his life if he doesn’t. Kelly Donovan, the mother of Matt and Vicki Donovan, and Jenna later join him at the Mystic Restaurant. They all take a seat and start chugging alcohol. When Damon and Kelly’s flirtation becomes more intense, Jenna departs, and she and Kelly wind up at the Salvatore Boarding House, where Stefan, Elena, Matt, and Caroline are on a double date. Unfortunately for them, their night was ruined when the kids saw them kissing. Stefan and Damon decide to stay at the home, where they are quickly assaulted by tomb vampires Frederick and Bethanne. Once Frederick realises that Stefan has killed Bethanne, he runs away.

Damon, Stefan, and Elena are at the lodging house in Let the Right One In, debating what to do about the grave vampires. After Elena labels him a “self-serving sociopath with no good traits,” Damon rushes out in a huff. Damon shows up at Elena’s home concerned that he hasn’t heard from the younger Salvatore since Stefan goes AWOL. Damon insists Frederick let his sibling go as he and Elena drive out to the farmstead. He’s unable to access the home because of a human occupant.

The topic of Damon and Elena’s rescue of Stefan comes up in conversation.

Because of this, she feels she can no longer welcome Damon into her home. Damon returns to the vehicle and encounters Elena waiting outside in the downpour; Elena insists on going inside alone, but Damon forbids her. The two of them go to Alaric, and Damon lies to Alaric by implying that Pearl would know something about Isobel because of her link to Katherine. Damon repeatedly rejects Elena’s efforts to assist them, ultimately permitting her to drive the ‘get-away vehicle.’

Damon kills multiple vampires without suffering serious injury during the quest to save his sibling, and after Elena and Stefan depart together, he and Alaric are left to confront the tomb vampires alone. Before the assault, Pearl returns, explaining that she had no clue Stefan was being tormented and that it was wrong for it to happen. At the episode’s conclusion, we find him at the bar, where he admits to Alaric that he misled to protect Isobel. Damon seemed unfazed by Alaric’s strike and subsequent departure from the pub. When Damon returns home, he discovers Stefan gorging on as many blood containers as he can.

Damon convinces Stefan in Under Control to replenish his vitality by consuming human blood. Even more ironically, he drops his bloody goblet and then smugly sprints back to get it. In a subsequent scene, Damon meets Elena’s relative John Gilbert for the first time at a Town Council gathering. Elena calls Damon over after she becomes concerned that Stefan is out of control, and she questions him how long she should expect Stefan to act this way.

Damon informs her that John is on the town council while he searches her room. He also implies that the Damon-like beast inside Stefan has been battling its way out for quite some time now, despite being ‘under control’ for quite some time.

Damon teases Stefan at the Founder’s Day Kick-Off Luncheon about how alcohol can cure his blood lust. Damon eventually uses a pleasant nickname for Sheriff Forbes, calling her “Liz.” She warns him that there may be more vampires in town because everything John Gilbert said about blood-bank robberies was accurate. In response to Jeremy’s inquiry about Vicki Donovan, Damon adopts a wary demeanour. Elena asks Damon at the bar if he knows what he’s been up to with his sibling, Jeremy, and he says he hasn’t had time to think about it because he’s been too busy with hers.

John Gilbert tells Damon what he really thinks of him during their conversation outside the party, and Damon reacts by breaking John’s neck and shoving him off the railing. After the fact, Damon tells Stefan that he was the one who murdered Elena’s uncle. Later on, when Damon sees John Gilbert rising to make a statement, he is shocked to see him and comments to Alaric that John is sporting the same band. A little while later (with Alaric present), John tells him that he is acquainted with both Katherine and Isobel, and that he is the one who originally gave Isobel Alaric’s band. By the episode’s close, Damon has left another beaker of human blood for Stefan to consume.

Damon receives a visit from John Gilbert and Sheriff Forbes in Miss Mystic Falls. To find out who is taking from the blood banks, John proposes he and Damon team up. Later, Anna pays him a visit; he tells her that the Founder’s Council is onto the tomb vampires, but she claims she hasn’t visited the blood bank in at least a week and that all the other vampires have disappeared. Even though Damon seems thrilled by Stefan’s new diet, he returns home and accuses Stefan of being the burglar. He also discovers human blood in Stefan’s refrigerator.

There’s a performance between Damon and Elena.

At the Salvatore Lodging House, John Gilbert returns to demand the Gilbert Device from Damon. He has heard that Pearl, who was “friends” with Jonathan Gilbert in 1864, has it and he wants Damon to get it for him. Instead of agreeing to assist John, he declines but later asks Anna about the gadget at the Miss Mystic Falls Contest. Later, he visits Elena in the upper-level locker room, where he reveals that he has heard that Stefan has a bloody refrigerator. Since Stefan has mysteriously disappeared just before the dance is about to begin, Damon volunteers to take Elena’s place in leading her onto the dance floor. After the performance is over, Elena and Damon have a private moment to discuss the absent competitor.

They track him to the forests, where they discover him devouring Amber Bradley. Bonnie shows up and manages to control Stefan; however, once he comes to, he escapes. In the end, Pearl delivers Damon the gadget she took from Jonathan Gilbert as a peace gift because Anna has decided to remain in Mystic Falls. Damon and Stefan recline in the dungeon’s corridor after Elena has put Stefan to sleep. Damon then takes Stefan down to the dungeon and closes the door behind him.

Elena and Damon “babysit” Stefan at the lodging home in Blood Brothers. The siblings revealed to Elena, one piece of information at a time, how they came to be vampires. Damon then goes on to explain that Stefan compelled him to feast on a person. Damon also makes fun of Elena by joking that Stefan would rather drink blood from a golden retriever dog than any other kind. While investigating leads about Isobel, Damon and Alaric run into Henry, one of the mausoleum vampires. The vampire lets slip that John Gilbert has been keeping tabs on the other vampires in the crypt with him. After murdering him, they have a fairly in-depth discussion about tracking down their exes.

When Damon gets back to Elena, he tells her the final chapter of their vampire backstory. Damon urges Stefan to stop feeling guilty after he confronts him while he’s imbibing in the living room. Then he tells him that he’s been hating him for so long not because he made him turn, but rather “because she turned you.” Damon mistook his own specialness for Katherine’s undying affection.

While on the phone with Elena, Damon voices his disdain for the ‘fixed’ Stefan in Isobel. His anxiety extends to Elena’s first encounter with Isobel. Damon is walking alongside Alaric outside the Restaurant as they have their conference. Although Damon admits he is human, he claims that Isobel has a “button” that allows her to control her feelings. When Isobel returns to her interim residence, she discovers Damon naked while playing cards. She makes a warning towards him, but Damon keeps probing her about the Gilbert Device. Damon promises to “tear her to pieces” after she embraces him in retaliation for what she said to Elena. Katherine was instructed to come get the gadget herself, so he instructed her to relay that message. Later, with the help of Bonnie, Elena attempts to steal the gadget from Damon in the hopes of exchanging it for Jeremy, whom Isobel has abducted. Bonnie demonstrates her abilities by telepathically obtaining Call of the Wild, Damon’s beloved novel, from the library shelve. He says he doesn’t have much faith in Bonnie, but he will put his faith in Elena and hand over the gadget. Damon joins in on the “de-spelling” as well. Damon and Stefan are present when the exchange with Isobel is made. When Elena inquires as to how Isobel anticipated Damon to hand over the gadget, she is told, “Because he’s in love with you.” After their conversation, he remains in the same place, observing Stefan and Elena embrace in silence. Damon is confronted about his feelings for Elena by Stefan later on, but it seems he is okay with them, as long as Stefan promises to always safeguard Elena. Also, Damon admits that John Gilbert is Elena’s biological father, and he finds it hilarious that no one else saw this coming sooner.

Damon is taken aback on Founder’s Day when Elena appears looking eerily like Katherine. Elena smiles and gestures at Bonnie from the procession carriage as she and Stefan greet the audience; Damon then emerges between them and waves back. The earnestness with which he praises Bonnie for de-spelling the gadget takes her by surprise. He runs into Elena again at the Mystic Grill and informs her he prefers her in everyday clothes. She claims Stefan is concerned for their “relationship” because of this.

Damon follows Jeremy outside after hearing his hostile reaction to his sister’s apology and urges him to be more understanding of the situation. Stefan “saves” Jeremy from Damon and claims Damon is acting selfishly. Damon runs into Anna at the Founder’s Day Commemoration and she informs him that the tomb vampires will start murdering the founding families as soon as the pyrotechnics begin. Damon first proceeds to Alaric]], then to Elena and Stefan, warning them to flee the gathering immediately.

Unfortunately, Bonnie forgot to de-spell the device before he went to the building where John Gilbert was installing it, and he passed out. Vervain was infused into his veins, and he was taken to the Gilbert Building’s cellar, where he was incinerated alive. Damon is rescued from certain death thanks to Stefan and Bonnie’s efforts. Damon sees Jeremy after he is saved to break the news that Anna has died. He suggests erasing Jeremy’s recollection once more, but Jeremy declines, explaining that he is still “empty” on the inside and that forgetting won’t help.

He apologises to Vicki Donovan and says he knows what he did to her was wrong. Jeremy was about to commit suicide, but Damon told him the reality when he inquired if vampires can block out their humanity. Damon was about to leave when he saw a girl he assumed was Elena standing on the veranda. He praised her for seeing potential in him and kissed her on the brow before moving on to the lips, only to be stopped by a bewildered Jenna. It turned out that Katherine was acting as Elena the whole time.