Paging Doctors Spengler, Stantz and Venkman: the residents of Mystic Falls are in desperate need of your number. These folks require some serious ghost hunting!

Indeed, the latest Vampire Diaries episode, "Smells Like Teen Spirit," treaded heavily - too much perhaps? - in what Vicki referred to as The Other Side. There were apparitions aplenty, from Anna's pining over Jeremy; to Vicki's devious deal with a late, powerful witch; to the return of Mason Lockwood.

Wait... what?!?

Yes, folks, Taylor Kinney has stepped away from The Edge of Glory for a bit and come back to... haunt Damon? Enact revenge for his murder? Mentor his nephew? There's no way of knowing at the moment, which is part of the frustration with this ghost-heavy storyline.

It's all rather muddled. Anna can apparently touch Jeremy. Vicki was a vision only Jeremy could see, then Matt, then she was back for quasi real, tried to kill Elena, and then was banished again. Now Mason has been added to the paranormal mix. It's a lot to take in and there's no way to make sense of any of it.

It's one thing to keep viewers in suspense; it's another to outright confuse them with one random event after another. Right now, my eyebrows are furrowed more than my pulse is pounding, but have Kevin Williamson and Julie Plec given us any reason to lose faith? I'm confident these ghost stories will come together at some point. In the meantime, let's gather around the camp fire and eat smores with Damon and Rebekah, shall we?

I have a feeling neither gender will object to that plan. Double yum.

Aside from ghostly befuddlement, two major, fascinating developments went down:

1. Is Katherine dead?!? I have to assume not, as she has more lives than Chloe King. But we definitely learned what separates Mikael the Vampire Hunter from other vampires this week: he feasts on his own kind. Perhaps killing Klaus is as simple as sucking down his blood.

2. Tyler is totally sired. And he isn't just a freaky Klaus slave minion, as properly dubbed by Caroline, he's been baited into becoming his own type of Ripper. Damn. How will the taste of human blood affect the new hybrid? And how will Rebekah use him? As a force to be reckoned with, alongside her brother when he returns? Or a force against her brother? These two Originals don't exactly get along all the time. Would anyone be shocked if Rebekah turns Tyler loose against Klaus?

She's the show's biggest wild card at the moment. She's also really attractive.

A few concluding notes on an episode that concluded with a shock, but went in many different directions - without really accomplishing much - in order to arrive at that point:

• Poor Alaric. The guy loses his wife, then his girlfriend, now his car. And people don't even call him by his proper name most of the time.
• How, exactly, did Rebekah get into Tyler's house without an invite?
• I would pay good money for a Mystic Falls Timberwolves t-shirt. Even better money if it were dry fit.
• Barbie Klaus. Buffy shout-out. Simulation of a school bell ring and a sexy lesson on how to get to a vampire's heart? Damon enjoyed a strong hour.
• I'm the guy who's been assigned to protect the human blood bag. I mean, no offense. Offense totally taken, Stefan. You better develop a solid defense now against a newly-trained Elena.
• Take a look ahead at next week's "Ghost World" via THIS PROMO.

Matt Richenthal is the Editor in Chief of TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter and on Google+.