Episode 2.19 – “Klaus”

Okay so I know that season 2 is long gone now, but I just hate leaving things unfinished, so I thought I’d continue with the recaps at least through the end of this season. 

As we start the show, Elena has just removed the dagger from Elijah’s chest and sits there, calmly waiting for him to wake up.  (I don’t think I’d be quite so calm!)  When Elijah opens his eyes for the first time, he mistakes her for Katherine (or Katarina, as he calls her) and we are transported back to England 1492 with another period flashback.  Will we get to see the elusive Klaus?  I’m assuming so from the title of the episode.  Everybody gets their silly hair of course, but when Elijah sees Katarina, he’s very taken with her as she reminds him of someone else.  Klaus makes a grand entrance, and proceeds to woo Katarina without any real interest in her; something she picks up on, even as she acknowledges that he’s very charming.  Elijah points out that many unions have been built on less but Katarina insists that she wants more.  She makes a very pretty speech about love, saying that there’s no point in living without it.  Elijah says he doesn’t believe in love and might have said more but Klaus returns and spirits her away.

Back in real time, Elijah can’t breathe because he hasn’t been invited into the house.  (interesting because vampires don’t need to breathe anyway… but I digress)  On the porch, Elena tries to convince him that he can trust her by handing over the dagger.  (No don’t do that!  Use it to kill Klaus!)  Stefan wakes to find Elena gone and immediately fears for the worst.  But Damon seems unconcerned, canoodling with Andie until they notice the door to the basement is ajar and go down to find Elijah missing. 

Elena offers Elijah her help (along with some blood bags until he is looking his usual hunky self) and in return asks for his help.  She believes that he is a noble man and follows a code of honor and that she can trust him.  Telling Stefan to back off and let her handle this on her own, she goes with him to the Lockwood Estate, (how random is that?  Were they just looking to use the pretty set again?) so that he can get a change of clothes and they can have some time to talk.  Elijah gives us the lowdown on some of his family’s past history, revealing that Klaus is his brother, and at one time he would have done anything for him.  There were seven children in his family, but they were all born human.  While they are the Original family and all vampires are descended from them, he doesn’t go into how they all ended up vampires at all.  (damn!)  He also reveals that the entire Sun and Moon curse is a load of crap!  No truth to it in any part, they made it up in order to obscure what they’re really looking for, even going so far as to draft the old Aztec legends themselves.  That way there would be an army of werewolves and vampires out there searching for the doppelganger and the moonstone for them and they can defeat the real curse which is on Klaus alone.

Damon can’t believe that Elena is playing herself right into Elijah’s hands and believes they should stop her before she gets herself killed.  But Stefan tells him to respect Elena’s wishes and back off.  They look like they might fight about it for half a second but Damon agrees to let them call the shots.  Only as soon as Stefan leaves Damon decides to break from the team and do his own thing, bringing Andie in tow. 

 Katherine gets Klaus (in Alaric’s body) to tell her that he needs to do the ritual to break the curse right there in Mystic Falls since it’s the birthplace of the Doppleganger.  Klaus compels her to stay in the apartment, effectively trapping her until he changes his mind, or dies, whichever comes first.  Bored out of her mind, she starts to look for something to do, but then Damon shows up with Andie.  He decides to give her some vervain to keep Klaus from compelling her any further, but it still doesn’t break the compulsion she’s already under and she’s still trapped in Alaric’s apartment. 

Stefan rushes over to the Gilbert house, desperate to keep Jenna from spending any time with Alaric now that he’s possessed by Klaus.  Only Alaric is already there acting super creepy.  He makes some awkward small talk while brandishing a large cooking knife.  Jenna just gets more and more pissed off while he babbles on about vampires and werewolf legends and she orders him from the house.  Stefan is revealed as a vampire when he has to use his super speed and strength to hold Alaric back.  Jenna is stunned to see Stefan all vamped out, but leaves the house when he tells her to.  The secret is out!  Stefan calls Elena to tell her about Jenna and Elijah reluctantly lets her go take care of family business.

Elena rushes back to the Salvatore place to beg Jenna’s forgiveness for keeping her in the dark this whole time.  Jenna demands to know who else knows and is livid that everyone else knew all about it, even Jeremy.  She falls apart and Elena feels terrible.  (don’t worry sister, I would have done the same thing in your shoes.  Or hmm, would I have?  I am terrible at keeping secrets!)  Elena leaves Jenna there with Stefan and goes back to Elijah after Stefan and Damon have another staring contest over who is the bigger man.  (somehow these feel manufactured to me.  I just can’t picture Stefan holding his own in a match against Damon, if only because he’d fight more honorably than Damon would)

Alaric/Klaus returns home just as his luggage arrives, including a huge box that contains his body and his own witch (Luka’s missing sister!)  More than ready to get out of Alaric’s body, they start preparations to return Klaus to his own body.

Elena surprises Elijah by returning to him and demanding to know what Klaus’ curse is all about.  Klaus was not his full brother, and from a different bloodline as their mother had taken a lover.  When Elijah’s father learned of this, he hunted down Klaus’ father and killed him, thereby starting the war between vampires and werewolves that continues to this day.  This makes Klaus both a vampire and a werewolf.  (eewh!  Somehow I find the idea a little creepy but YMMV) The curse binds the werewolf half of himself, only allowing him to access the vampire side.  Dun, dun, dun!

Last ten minutes of the show:

Elijah tells Elena that Klaus wants to break the curse in order to sire his own race of werewolf/vampires, which would threaten those on both sides.  When Elena asks why Elijah helped him to try and break the curse when he posed such a threat, Elijah reveals that he helped Klaus for so long because he loved him, but not any longer.  The only way to kill Klaus now is for a witch to channel enough power to kill him (which is really hard to do).  Elijah’s plan is to go through with the ritual and kill Klaus when he’s at his most vulnerable. 

We flash back to Elijah telling Klaus that the witches might have found a way to spare the doppleganger’s life but Klaus doesn’t seem to care.  One human’s life means nothing to him.  Elijah begs him to reconsider (seriously, did he fall in love with her?) but denies that he had any feelings for Katarina.  Klaus warns that love is a vampire’s greatest weakness.  “We do not fear and we do not care,” he says.  “We did once,” Elijah reminds him, but Klaus doesn’t care and instructs him to tell the witches not to bother trying to save her life.

Elena is surprised to hear that she might not have to die, but they weren’t able to test the theory out since Katarina took matters into her own hands, becoming a vampire.  She realizes that Elijah must have had feelings for Katherine back then, but he shrugs it off, saying it’s a common mistake or so he’s told and one he won’t make again. 

Andie tries to comfort Damon who’s upset that Elena’s out there with Elijah again, but Damon tells her to leave him alone, in too bad of a mood to deal with being fussed over.  Stefan shows up to chide Damon for keeping Andie around like a plaything, reminding him that she’s a person.  Damon replies that Stefan should be grateful that he’s keeping Andie around, it keeps him from going after what he really wants.  “You’re right, thank you, for being in love with my girlfriend,” Stefan says, and the cards are all out on the table now!  “You can be in love with Elena all you want if it means you will protect her, but I have the one thing you never have, her respect.”  Ouch!  Damon responds with a resounding punch that sends Stefan flying across the room.  (Go Damon!)  They growl and snap at each other a little while longer until Elena appears with Elijah, demanding that they stop. 

Elijah flashes back to a similar memory of fighting with Klaus after Katarina has gone missing.  Klaus threatens to kill Elijah if he had anything to do with her escape. 

Damon is pissed to see that Elena invited Elijah into the house but she tells the brothers that they have renewed the terms of their deal.  Elijah promises that neither of them will come to any harm at his hands, in exchange for one thing; an apology.  I had to laugh at the look on Damon’s face over that request.  Stefan steps forth to apologize for the part he had in Elijah’s death but that he did it for Elena and will always protect Elena.  But Damon tells them to all go to hell, he doesn’t trust Elijah at all.  They all shake their head over his behavior and Damon goes up to his room to find Andie waiting in her underwear.  “I thought I told you to leave,” he says.  “You didn’t compel me,” she grins, before adding that she wants to be there for him.  Damon isn’t amused.  He’s upset, and knows what will happen to her when he’s upset.  He yells at her to leave but she refuses.  “You need to know that someone cares about you.  I care about you Damon,” she insists.  Damon bites into her neck savagely and I thought for sure she was a goner, but instead he lets her go and compels her to leave before he kills her.  Andie grabs her clothes and stumbles out while Damon tries to get ahold of himself.

Back at Alaric’s apartment, the ritual works and Klaus is put back into his own body.  Alaric passes out with no memory of what happened while Klaus was possessing him.  Klaus steps out of the crate looking fresh as a daisy.  “Now that’s more like it,” he says; a mischievous smile on his lips. 

Random thoughts I had:

I am dying to know who the Petrova dopplegangers resemble!  One of the Originals?  But then that would make it one of Elijah’s sisters, ick! 

If you had just found out about the existence of vampires (Jenna) and saw one vamp out in front of you (Stefan), is his house the first place you would run?  I’m just saying…

Is it wrong that I cheered when Damon knocked Stefan across the room?

Am I the only one who liked Klaus better in Alaric’s body?

Boy, what a lot of revelations in this episode.  No sun and moon curse, Klaus is not only Elijah’s half brother, but half werewolf and the one the curse is really on.  Elijah had a thing for Katherine back in the day.  There might be a way for Elena to survive the ritual… it goes on and on.