I was prepared to enjoy this episode, but "We'll Meet Again" was a fairly big disappointment after the previous episode. While there were a few things I liked, such as Henry and Augustus, on the whole, the episode failed to make a point other than the childish "Love stinks. Nyah."

I think my biggest problem with "We'll Meet Again" is that its central analogy failed miserably. The writers wanted us to equate Lee, Helen, and Jeff to Henry, Vicki, and Mike, but...it doesn't work.

Yes, Henry decided he liked Lee, and he certainly understands struggling for love, but if there's anyone in the world who should understand that love isn't forever, it's Henry! The entire point is that he's a vampire, he's going to live (essentially) forever, while Vicki, like Dr. Sagara before her, will get old and eventually die. Henry knows this, because he's lived with this reality for centuries.

Trying to make Henry's decision to move on the same as Lee's decision just didn't work for me. Henry may be a romantic, but he's a realist as well. That's exactly why he's moving, after all.

And while Helen seemed nice, I couldn't quite manage to equate her with Vicki. Maybe it's because Vicki is so vibrantly alive, while Helen just acted wishy-washy and dull. (In my experience, pregnant women tend to be hormonal and over-the-top, not dull. But maybe that was just me.)

I know I was supposed to feel sorry for Lee, and I did, up to a point. And that point would be when the writers had him turn violent. That was when I starting humming "domestic violence isn't sexy" over and over again. By the point he was about to shoot Helen, I was cheering for Henry to snap his neck, which I suspect is not precisely what the writers intended.

The writers tried to have it both ways: Lee's an old soul who can tap into all the knowledge of his previous lives and he's a young and impetuous teenager ruled by his hormones. Bzzzt. Sorry, but you have to pick one. (Okay, you can get away with one teenage moment and have it be funny, but they went way over the line.)

I've watched the episode twice and I still can't figure out if the writers were trying to make me feel bad for true love gone wrong or show that true love doesn't exist. Well, whichever one they were trying to accomplish, they failed pretty miserably with me.

All of this sounds like I hated "We'll Meet Again." Hmmm. Yeah, I think I kind of did. The A-plot made my head hurt, with its "Hi, I'm thirteen-year-old fanfiction writer who's never actually been in love" feel. But there were some things I enjoyed.

As I said at the beginning, I liked the scenes with Henry and Augustus very much. I absolutely adored the idea of several generations of this family keeping the peace among vampires. And "you can't hack into cuneiform" cracked me up. I like the glimpses we get into the vampire world and how real a detail like this makes it.

Of course, there was some great dialogue scattered throughout the episode, from "I should crochet that on something" to "The 80s called. They'd like their lyrics back." And Mike's ironic conversation with "Uncle Gus" gave me a good chuckle.

Also, the scene with Henry and Lee at the beginning, with the rapid-fire 20s jargon, was beautifully written and played. I thought the actor who played Lee did an excellent job with a role that I disliked, making the mix of teenage punk and old soul work as well as it possibly could.

For some reason, the scenes with Henry and Lee worked a lot better than the ones with Vicki, possibly because Vicki's reactions seemed odd. Her little speech about moving on, well, I guess it was supposed to make me think about Henry, but it just seemed unnecessarily cruel and unlike Vicki. And she kept letting the kid go! C'mon, cynical Vicki being won over by the true lover? Gimme a break. At some point she should have tied him up, and that point was long before the climax.

(I wouldn't recommend getting me started on the improbability of Vicki uttering dialogue like "I have two men in my life. With one it's like...but the other one is so...")

Too bad the writers tried to shoehorn in the C-plot about Mike's job being on the line, because it was greatly shortchanged and out of place. (Yeah, I know, it was supposed to be about how his love for Vicki is getting in the way of his job, but it just made everyone look stupid. I find it hard to believe that Mike isn't closing cases because he's sitting around wringing his hands and thinking about Vicki. Or whatever they meant.)

I think this episode's take-home message comes from the only character who seemed to have the faintest grasp on reality. Yep, Mike gets to provide the moral this week, pointing out to Lee that "Romance is the easy part. Love...well, it takes years and years of hard work to pull that one off."

Yeah, Mike. Too bad it looks like you're the only one willing to put in the work.

Just as a reminder: If you--like me--are unwilling to watch the streaming video of the last two episodes on Lifetime's website, this episode is currently available through iTunes, and the last one should appear eventually. And if you order the episodes through Firefox News, we will be donating our proceeds to the Actors Fund to support striking writers and out-of-work cast and crew. I'm afraid there are currently no options for viewers outside the United States.