First of all, let me say that after vowing to never again watch this show after seeing season 1 on DVD, I recently said 'the hell with it' and watched an episode of the 2nd season on the internet. And then another one and then another and then I started watching the DVDs of season 2. I think my enjoyment of this season has to do with a different outlook on my part: I remembered this is a CW show. You have to simply enjoy the train wreck and stop worrying about the insane decisions people make or the warped values and moral scale they use, while admiring the eye candy. Then there is the fact that I have noticed in the credits the names of Sara Craft and Elizabeth Fain (or maybe the other way around) who I notice because their names are always paired up in the credits of whatever show they are on. I last noticed them on the credits of Angel, the best vampire TV show of my experience, and on The Shield. This pair of women wrote for The Shield. And now they're writing for a CW show about stupid teenagers concerning themselves with people that in more civilized times and places were routinely set on fire. They have to be aware of this, and I think that's affecting their input on the show, because the characters appear to have become much more self=aware of how ridiculous they and their issues are. Ian Sommerhalder's Damon Salvatore in particular seems to be very much aware of the ironies of the show, and watching him alternate between blithe acceptance of the extremities of melodrama and chewing up the scenery like he's got the munchies is one of the very great pleasures of the show.

Now I'm about halfway through and am currently on the episode where Isobel shows up again. Of course everyone starts spitting epithets at John like this is his fault.

From what I remember of the first season, he was mostly just trying to stop the mostly evil vampires in the town. Recall that except for the one good vampire (whose agenda centered on pretending to be a high school student in order to stalk a minor), the others were randomly and carelessly slaughtering people or trying to release an even more evil vampire from a magic tomb. Yes, he was taking action that would harm the main character's boyfriend, but HE'S A VAMPIRE! Trying to kill Stefan et al, is a perfectly reasonable default reaction, barring absolute and incontrovertible proof of their good will. Either that or Elena's best friend Bonnie is a right royal See You Next Tuesday for having the exact same opinion vis a vis her vampire boyfriend. But she's not. Like all the minority best friends of TV heroines, she is the moral voice of the show. Yet John shows up with pretty much the same opinion, in addition to certain knowledge of how said boyfriend MURDERED HIS ANCESTORS, and everyone treats him like crap.

Later on, when he comes back, he is treated like a villain for his occasional interference in the guardianship of Elena's aunt, Jenna. Setting aside that Jenna is largely oblivious to her wards' lives and questionable life choices, including promiscuous behavior with rather shady characters and DRUG DEALING. As the show progresses, she becomes far more involved in her relationship with her niece's teacher (who, by the way, NEVER seems to work any more, aside from using "grading papers" as an excuse for not hanging with her) than in her loco-parentis role in Elena's life. This trend climaxes with the arrival on her doorstep of Elena's biological mother, the ex-wife of Jenna's boyfriend. She leaves her niece and dependent minor standing in the foyer in a hostile confrontation with her long-lost birth mother and runs up to her bedroom to cry because her boyfriend seems to have misled her. This woman plainly should NOT be trusted with children. Even as an absentee uncle/father who has been more interested in hunting vampires than hanging with his kids, John is still the clear-cut winner in the parenting contest.

By the mid-point of Season 2, Jenna's obliviousness to the supernatural goings-on is nearly a running joke, as practically every single other character with similar relative billing on the show is in the know. One show climaxes in a dinner party with all the other characters maneuvering to assassinate one or another of the guests, without letting Jenna know what's going on. Setting ALL other considerations aside, why would you, in John's shoes, let a person who is completely ignorant of the greatest danger in the town be in charge of your daughter and your nephew (Elena and her brother - don't ask)? Her ignorance and inability to take even rudimentary precautions against vampire threats has been taken advantage of more than once to threaten Elena and the rest of the supernatural protagonist clique. It's like having kids live in a town at the base of an active volcano and their legal guardian thinks a vulcanologist is only a type of alien on Star Trek.

All in all, John's really not that bad, is certainly better for Elena and her brother than their current caretaker, and when you factor in the ramifications of Elena in the vampire mythology of the show, his seeming abandonment of their family could more accurately be compared to a man fighting on the front lines of a war, instead of deserting to go home to the wife and kids. Why don't they give the poor bastard a break?