Episode 2.17 – “Know Thy Enemy”

And we’re back!  After a crazy 6 week hiatus, I spent most of the day in giddy anticipation and the show definitely did not disappoint!  The episode was chockablock with “holy crap!” moments, so let’s dive right in, shall we?

Elena keeps Jenna from inviting Isobel into the house, but the damage is done when Isobel comes out swinging with “So you’re the woman dating my husband.”  Poor Jenna!  She looks like she’s having a Twin Peaks experience.  Elena slams the door in Isobel’s face, but Jenna is devastated that everyone but her knew that Ric’s wife was still alive.  Locking herself in the bedroom, Jenna refuses to talk to anyone, looking like she’s having a panic attack. 

Alaric shows up to try to talk to Jenna, but she’s already packed a bag, planning on staying at the University since she has a thesis to write and doesn’t want to stay in the house on the count of all the rage and betrayal she’s feeling at the moment.  Jenna leaves, telling them she just doesn’t have it in her to listen to any more of their lies.  John shows up, is pretty much a jerk so Alaric gets in a good solid punch to his jaw and it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. 

At casa de Salvatore, Stefan is about to go see Elena and try to figure out what Isobel wanted, when Katherine (with lots of curly hair this ep) suggests that they might not want to mention to Isobel that she’s in town if they happen to run into her.  Besides, it’ll work better if they need her to swap places with Elena again if fewer people know she’s around.   

Poor Elena is freaking out with the idea that Jenna is about to find out what’s really going on, and Matt is MIA after having found out.  Just when she can’t feel any more powerless in her own home, John comes in to talk to her, after having invited Isobel in against her wishes.  He begs her and Stefan to listen to what she has to say, feeling that they can trust her.  Isobel tells them that she’s been doing everything she can to try and find Klaus.  While she hasn’t been able to find him, there are rumors going around that there is a doppelganger out there and Elena’s in more danger than ever, as vampires looking to gain favor with Klaus will come after her.  Isobel offers to take Elena to a safehouse with a deed in Elena’s name, leaving out the part where THIS IS ALL A HUGE TRAP!  Luckily, Elena isn’t buying it, and tells her to get the hell out of her house. 

Isobel doesn’t sulk for very long, leaving them behind to hole up in her new place; the nicest foreclosure in town.  In a nice “holy crap!” moment, Katherine shows up and after a little playful tussle, they embrace as friends.  Okay that’s gotta be creepy for Isobel to be huggy friends with an old vampire that looks exactly like her daughter who she doesn’t give a damn about.  I’m just saying.  Anyway, Isobel says that she’s been busy making a deal with Klaus to keep Katherine safe by delivering the moonstone and Elena.  The only reason that Isobel even went to Elena’s house was to see Jenna because she got jealous that Ric was dating “Auntie Vanilla”.  If Katherine can get the moonstone, Isobel will deliver both to one of Klaus’ witches who has negotiated Katherine’s freedom.

Damon, Jeremy and Bonnie go to Luka’s place (which still has his burnt up corpse, ick) to look for the grimoire that has the spell that will let her harness the powers of the dead witches to use to kill Klaus.  She pulls a convenient spell that leads them to the right book without having to do any searching. 

Later at the Salvatore place, Elena, Stefan and Damon all wonder if they can trust anything that Isobel has to say.  “You should just stay here,” Damon suggests.  “It’s better for us to keep an eye on you.”  Stefan disagrees since any vampire can just walk in without an invitation, her house is safer.  Damon agrees they’ll stay at her place.  “So is that the plan?” Elena asks, “neither of you let me out of your sight again?”  No one else has a better plan, so Stefan agrees to go with Elena to the Lockwood’s to pick up a check for her mother’s foundation and Damon agrees to go take Bonnie to the place where the witches were burned.  Katherine shows up, asking to be let in on the plan.  She says she’s been holding up her end of the bargain, they should show her a little trust in return.  “Don’t mistake the fact that we haven’t set fire to you in your sleep for trust.” Damon smirks. 

Once they’re all gone, Katherine starts searching for the moonstone, pocketing a wad of cash from Damon’s room before finally finding the stone in the bathroom, mixed in with a bowl of soaps.  (hilarious!)

At the Lockwood Manor, Caroline shows up asking it anyone’s seen Matt, but no one’s seen him.  Mrs. Lockwood says that no one’s heard from Tyler either.  Stefan and Elena arrive and promise to help her find Matt after she accepts the check. 

Damon leads Jeremy and Bonnie to the spot where the witches were all burned.  Bonnie wonders how he knows where the spot is?  “Because I tried to save her,” Damon replies, explaining that she was his key to bringing back Katherine, before he knew what a nasty little bitch she was.  Damon has to leave the house because the ghosts of the dead witches really don’t like having him around, so much so that they root him to the spot and render the effects of his ring useless until Bonnie releases him.  On their own, Bonnie leads Jeremy up to a room where Emily was killed and start setting up a bunch of candles to do the spell. 

Jeremy starts to have some misgivings when they both hear the ghosts whispering, but Bonnie proceeds with the spell anyway and it looks like it hurt like hell!  But she’s not bleeding or in a coma, so that’s a good sign. 

Isobel confronts Alaric on the street, telling him that she wants him to know that she loved him very, very much before she left him.  Before he can react, she says “He’s all yours” and a witch steps up and drops him like a sack of potatoes.  Holy Crap!  Next she shows up at the Lockwoods’ for a distraction by killing John!  (Not so fast, he has that ring on remember?)  But it is enough distraction for Katherine to take Elena’s place.  The sheriff sees the bite marks on John’s neck and asks people to back off.  “Elena” calls Damon to come and explain to the council why John’s not going to stay dead.  Stefan figures out it’s Katherine instead of Elena pretty quickly, but before he can do anything about it, she jabs him with a syringe of vervain. 

Damon shows up at the Lockwood’s and explains that John’s ring gives him protection against death at the hands of a supernatural identity.  He takes the “body” back to his place.  In washing up (lovely gratuitous shot of him without his shirt, let me just rewind that and watch again…) he notices that the moonstone is gone and he is Pissed with a capital P. 

Isobel has Elena in the back of her SUV.  She calls Katherine and says “I’m sorry, I had to do what I was told.  He wanted the moonstone and he wanted you.”  Before she can barely wonder “he who?”  Klaus’ witch knocks her out.  Isobel takes Elena to the cemetery, showing her the empty grave that her parents set up for her when no one could find her body.  The phone rings and Klaus’ witch tells her that he has Katherine and the moonstone.  She can let Elena go, Klaus has everything he needs and her compulsion is over.  “I’m done?”  Isobel smiles, her relief palpable.  With a tired sigh, she apologizes to Elena for being such a disappointment, and yanks off her magic pendant, burning before Elena’s eyes, right on top of her grave.  Holy Crap!

Matt confronts the Sheriff, demanding to see Vicki’s file and how she covered up her death at the hands of vampires.  She tells him to cool down, slamming him up against the hood of her car.   Later Caroline tries him on the phone again, shocked to find him waiting at her place.  He says that her mom left him there to cool down and then had to go back to work.  He asks her for some answers and she tells him EVERYTHING about what happened to Vicki, about what happened to her.  Freaking out again, he demands that she makes him forget, he doesn’t want to look at her and see what he sees anymore.   

Last nine minutes of the show:

Elena is holding Isobel’s necklace, thinking about her mother.  She and Stefan try to figure out why Klaus would have let her go.  They decide to take some precautions, by signing over the Salvatore mansion to her name so that no vampires can enter without her permission.  Although Damon will be super pissed if she locks him out.  John wakes up, contrite over his role in things. 

Jeremy is upset to learn that the spell Bonnie did to tap into the dead witches’ power is so dangerous.  If she uses too much of her powers at once it’ll kill her, and it will take all of the powers in order to kill Klaus.  She says that’s her decision to make.  That it is the reason she was born with the powers at her disposal and it’s her choice if she decides to sacrifice herself to take out Klaus. 

Matt climbs into the Sheriff’s car, reveling that he was on vervain when he got Caroline to tell him everything that was going on, so he wasn’t really compelled to forget.   Holy Crap!  Sheriff Forbes wants him to tell her everything. 

John apologizes to Elena, telling her that he really did think that Isobel wanted her to be safe.  He was there when she was born, and saw how much it tore Isobel up to give Elena up, and because she was the first girl he ever loved, so when she’d said she would help keep Elena safe, he believed her. At this point he’ll do whatever Elena wants him to do; stay or go.  Elena replies that he screws up everything he touches, but he’s the only parent she has left, so maybe she can learn not to hate him.  He looks happy to take that.

Stefan and Damon realize that neither Katherine nor Isobel knew that Bonnie got her powers back or that she’s tapped into the other witches’ powers.  That literally makes Bonnie their secret weapon.  They toast to each other over that knowledge.

Katherine wakes up to see Klaus’ witch standing over a man sitting next to some containers of blood and magical objects.  Holy Crap, it’s Alaric!  And he’s now channeling or being possessed by Klaus!  Double Holy Crap! 

Random thoughts I had:

I know Jenna’s feeling betrayed and all, but what about her responsibility to take care of Jeremy?  Sure she hasn’t seemed to care where Elena is spending her nights in a long time, but doesn’t she have the least bit of maternal feeling towards her nephew?

So um… how the hell were all these witches burned inside a house that is still standing? Even if the house was built after the first 100 witches were burned, how was Emily burned on the 2nd floor of the house with no fire damage?

I so wasn’t expecting Isobel to go out like that!  But it was an interesting ending for her, and I think she finally touched Elena with her death in a way she never did when she was alive. 

Holy Crap, now Caroline’s mom is going to know everything!  What does this bode for Damon and Stefan with the council? 

What the hell is Klaus doing in Alaric’s body?!?  I thought they cast a new actor for that?

What do you guys think, was this episode worth the wait?