Episode 2.14 – “Crying Wolf”

Okay, here we go… The werewolves are burning their fallen comrades out in the woods and I’m thinking… wow, they really did kill more werewolves than I thought in that fight!  I thought there weren’t all that many werewolves to be found?  That’s why Katherine had to activate Tyler’s curse after Mason was gone?  But here comes wolf Stevie, who tells Jules and Brady that he should have known something was up when Mason started dating that hot vampire chick Katherine and asking about the curse.  So he’s obviously met her and she must have known there were other werewolves around.  But I digress…

Stevie tells them that the moonstone’s what’s needed to break the sun and moon curse and that the vampires must be working to break the curse.  “We can’t let them do that, even if we have to kill every last vampire in town.”  Brady says.  Um…. Yeah you and what army?  Cause it seems like you had your asses handed to you after coming up against just two of them last night… I’m just saying.

Tyler shows up and they enlist his help to try and find the moonstone.  He demands an explanation and they fill him in about the curse and the stone and the doppelganger.  Jules says if we can change at will, that means we don’t have to turn at all.  Yeah somehow I don’t think that’s their real desire to break the curse, but it catches Tyler’s attention because he never wants to turn into a wolf again.  Stevie shows him a picture of “Kathy”, Mason’s vampire girlfriend and he recognizes Elena right away. 

Elena, Caroline and Bonnie are all crammed in Caroline’s bed and clearly not early risers when Stefan calls to check in with Elena, but then again, I suppose I’d be tired after a slumber party too.  Elena (with perfect eye make up mind you) gets up for a little chat with Stefan who promises to take her away for the weekend to get away from everything that’s going on, especially John hanging around her house.

Damon compels reporter Andi Starr into not mentioning anything about the night before except for the fact that she might be falling for him.  Coincidentally, she’s going to a party with the town’s historical society for a writer working on small town histories – Elijah Smith.  Really Smith?  Damon thinks it’s a stupid fake last name too.  Alaric arrives and Damon introduces Andi as his girlfriend, a reporter for action news.  (not that it’s really action news, he just likes calling it that)  Damon shows him the dagger that John gave him that can kill Elijah.  They speculate as to whether or not they can trust John, and they’re not sure since John is obviously a weasel and can’t really be trusted in general.  Alaric mentions that he’s off to the historical society party as well and admonishes Damon to leave Elijah alone.  Damon promises not to try to kill him, he wants to know Elijah’s end game before he kills him.  But he does think that it’s time that he and Elijah officially met.  I guess staking him through the heart with a banister didn’t really count, huh?

At the historical society party, Elijah is talking to Carol Lockwood when Damon strolls up and she introduces them.  They’re civil enough out in public, but the moment they wander into an unoccupied room to talk, the kid gloves are off.  Damon demands some answers and Elijah responds by jamming a pencil into Damon’s throat.  Ouch.  I kind of think he got off light, Elijah could have hurt him a lot worse and still kept him alive.  “The moment you cease to be of use to me you’re dead.  So you should do what I say.  Keep Elena safe.”  Elijah says with a little smile on his face. 

As an aside, John threatens to tell Jenna about Alarics little extra curricular activities if he doesn’t stop spending the night at the house.  (apparently it’s a bad example for the kids)  Also, he wants Alaric’s ring for himself.  “You’re a dick.”  Seems to be Alaric’s reponse.  He goes home with Damon who’s recuperating with a sore neck and they commiserate over Elijah’s threat.  “Elijah’s one scary dude.  But with nice hair.”  Alaric comments.   I love the dialogue between Damon and Alaric here, just chilling, talking about Elijah, John, Andi.  Not enough to reproduce it here word for word, it just bears mentioning that it’s nice to see them relaxing together, talking through things. 

Bonnie and Caroline are at the grill, cooking up a witchy plan to find out just what Elijah’s up to as well.  Matt strolls by and blows off Caroline, to her confusion.  She confronts him and he admits that he knows she lied to him the night before, that she wasn’t with Bonnie when she was a no show at the grill because Bonnie was there the whole time.  Tyler shows up to try to talk to Caroline but she pushes him away.  But even as he’s apologizing and asking her to talk to him, he’s palming her phone after her purse spills out all over the floor.  Would he have really switched sides here if she’d stopped to talk to him?  I wonder…  Matt confronts Tyler, saying that if the two of them want to get together that’s fine, but do him a favor and stop lying about it. 

Bonnie approaches Luka with a coffee drink to bury the hatchet and I’m immediately thinking she’s trying to slip him a mickey.  Sure enough, after just a couple of sips he’s all wonky and about to pass out.  Good thing she called Jeremy to assist with the plan and with his and Caroline’s help, they get Luka out of there and over to Caroline’s place.  While they’re setting up, Caroline calls Bonnie on the attraction between her and Jeremy and Bonnie tries to deny it, but Caroline tells her that they’ve all changed, he’s not just Elena’s little brother anymore.  There’s no reason not to go after him if she wants to. 

Jeremy rejoins them and Bonnie works a little witchy mojo to get Luka to tell her why they’re helping Elijah.  Luka tells her that they’re helping Elijah in order to free his sister who is being held by Klaus to work magic for him in an effort to break the curse without the moonstone.  He also tells them that Elijah intends to kill Klaus AFTER the sacrifice that kills Elena, when Klaus will be vulnerable.  Uh oh. 

Tyler uses Caroline’s phone to text Elena and find out where she is.  Elena texts back that she’s just about to leave for the lake house with Stefan, and now the werewolves know where she’s going to be.  Easy pickings.  Stefan and Elena arrive at the lake house and Elena’s a little weirded out since she hasn’t been back there since her parents died.  But after a little nostalgic looking around, she’s fine, teasing Stefan before inviting him into the house. 

Elena stands looking out over the lake, thinking about her childhood memories when Stefan comes out to join her.  She asks if he ever thinks about their future together.  “There are a lot of conversations to be had about our future, what kind of life we could have together.”  He says.  Wow, that’s a wordy response for ‘I’m not sure I want to talk about it.’  Elena acknowledges that it’s a box they probably shouldn’t open but Stefan encourages her to talk about it if she wants to.  She declines, saying she wants to live in the now.�
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Later,  Stefan is making dinner up at the cabin so Elena offers to get more wood for the fire.  Venturing into her parents old room for a jacket, she stops to smell her mother’s perfume, and more nostalgia ensues.  While looking through the closet, Stefan finds a hollow section of the wall and they discover a secret room filled with a cache of weapons and more old Gilbert journals like the one Jeremy has.  Sweet!  Stefan leaves her there to go through it, going out to get some wood.  While out there, he’s brought down by Brady and his wooden bullets (can someone explain the physics of wooden bullets to me?) in the woodshed.  Passing the gun and a stake on to Tyler, Brady goes after Elena.  What follows is another teen slasher movie rip off where he chases her through the house and she cleverly avoids him. (yawn)

Apparently Tyler is just fine with Stefan dying in this scenario as long as he gets to break the curse.  He shoots Stefan in the leg trying to keep him down.  Stefan tells him that they’ll have to kill Elena in order to break the curse.  That’s the deciding factor for Tyler, who breaks faith with the werewolves and lets Stefan go just in time for him to kill Brady.  Tyler apologizes to Elena, saying he didn’t know what they were going to do to her.  Elena gives him a sympathetic hug as Stefan looks on.  She’s very huggy lately, no?

John tries to tell Jenna that Alaric’s a liar (right after telling her she’s an unfit guardian) and she doesn’t buy it until he starts talking about what happened to Ric’s wife Isobel.  You can see the tiny kernel of doubt in there that I’m thinking will come into play soon.  I hope so at least, it’s time for Jenna to learn some things, don’t you think? 

Alaric says he finally has to go pick up Jenna, but before he can leave, the werewolves attack!  They stab him in the gut, and I’m thinking they must not worry a whole lot about collateral damage.  Or maybe they figure that since he’s a vampire sympathizer it’s okay to kill him?  I dunno, but they didn’t have a problem “killing” Alaric, thank god for that magic ring!  Damon puts up a pretty good fight but a syringe of vervain later he’s pretty much subdued, and ready for the torture.  They rig Damon with a collar lined with wooden stakes and start to ask him where the moonstone is.  “If you only knew the irony of this moment right now.”  He laughs as he sits in the same chair before the same fireplace he tortured Mason over the moonstone for.  Damon seems pretty unconcerned with their threats and torture, vowing never to tell where the moonstone is.

“You looking for this?”  Elijah shows up with the moonstone in hand.  Without batting an eye, all of the werewolves are dead, (tearing out of the hearts seems to be their favorite trick) except for Jules who runs off and Elijah breaks Damon’s chains.  “Do you realize this is the third time I’ve saved your life now?”  Elijah mentions, picking up the moonstone as he leaves.�
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Last seven minutes of the show:

Damon sets the room to rights while he’s on the phone with Bonnie and she lets him know that Elijah intends to go through with the sacrifice.  Alaric wakes up from his mortal wounds, and has to lie to Jenna on the phone about where he’s been.  (talk about awful timing for him to give her any doubts!)  Damon passes the word along to Stefan about Elijah’s intentions and when he tells Elena, she admits that she assumed she’d die all along.  She still thinks it’s better to sacrifice herself instead of all of her loved ones.  (no wonder she didn’t want to talk to him about the future earlier!)  Stefan is pretty upset about her acting like a martyr.  Elena asks him how it’s any different from him being willing to die to protect her and he responds that it’s because he’s already lived for 162 years and she hasn’t had a chance to live her life yet, that’s not heroic, it’s tragic.  (I can kinda see the point there)

Bonnie and Jeremy are leaving Caroline’s place after she left to take Luka home and Bonnie tells him that she’s been there through all of the awkward phases of his life and somehow he turned into a hot guy overnight and before she can finish her train of thought, Jeremy steps up and kisses her.  It’s a pretty good kiss apparently because the first thing out of her mouth when they come up for air is “Wow.”

Tyler leaves his mother a goodbye letter and then stops by the grill to say goodbye to Matt.  Tyler admits that he did fall for Caroline, but that she really loves Matt and that he should be good to her.  He says “see you around” but gets into the car with Jules and a great big duffel bag.  Jules promises him “No more lies.” And they drive off into the night.
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Random thoughts I had:

I kind of feel sorry for Andi here because with that little compulsion he’s making her invest her feelings for him instead of just the acknowledged booty call of the night before.  But then again, I feel sorry for Damon for having to compel a woman into accepting him for what he is.  Either way, this whole relationship, if you can call it that, is just setting up to be a train wreck waiting to happen. 

Boy Caroline really doesn’t spend much time with her mother.  I mean we’ve known they have a less than perfect relationship already but damn, that woman is Never home. 

Any one else think it was really stupid of Damon to challenge Elijah like that?  I mean come on, the guy’s an Original.  Did he really think he could threaten him?  Hopefully he’s got it through his pretty little head just how much more powerful Elijah is and treads a bit more carefully.

You know, I wasn’t really happy with Tyler’s going back and forth between factions so much lately, but I have to say I’m sorry to see him go.  I hope he turns up again sometime because they really made him into an interesting character, and I really liked seeing Caroline’s protective and caring side come out whenever she was around him.

Let’s hear what you thought about the episode!

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