Recapping "Know Thy Enemy"
I’m going to kick this off by saying that I love Damon Salvatore. Like...love. If he was real, I would gladly sacrifice all womanly dignity and become his sure-to-die plaything. The fact of the matter is that Katherine never loved the poor man, and Miss Elena is currently too engrossed in sacrificing herself to notice her developing feelings for him. Um, these girls are clearly blind and I would gladly take the Damon problem off their hands – really.
But if he continues to hide important, ritualistically sacrificial objects in a goddamn soap dish in the freakin’ bathroom, I will retract, with monumental mourning, all of the above statements.
What the hell, Salvatore? Are you suddenly playing for the stupid team? Get your shit together! Did you do this during one of your alcohol-fuelled mope-y blood binges for shits and giggles?
Okay, now that I have that out of my system, read on to find out exactly what the hell I’m referring to.
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We pick up right where we left off: Isobel at the door. Jenna finds out that both Alaric and Elena knew that she was alive; the guardian proceeds to promptly have a complete mental breakdown of epic proportions (oh, honey – you don’t even know the quarter of it)!
Devious Katherine confronts the Salvatore brothers and declares herself to be solely on their “team” and we know this is complete bullshit by the mischievous grin she flashes to herself as she’s walking away. Stefan and Damon proceed to make elaborate eyebrow expressions at her as she explains her reasoning; Stefan makes some witty quip about Alaric’s dead wife showing up on his girlfriend’s doorstep.
Alaric goes to Elena’s house to see how Jenna’s doing. Um, and that answer to that would be – not well. She leaves and that’s the last we see of her for the rest of the episode. Basically all you need to know is this: John gets a fist to the face and it is awesome. I have been dying for someone to do this since that man showed up! If you freeze the frame and study Elena’s face, you get this: LOL.
Caroline has a bit of a panic moment in her car, trying to get a hold of Matt. She finally gives up and drives away. Um, you might want to find him, Caroline. He has destructive knowledge. This is not good.
Back at the Gilbert abode, John re-introduces Stefan and Elena to Isobel because the douche-bag invited her in. Completely uncalled for, John. God. Can someone please punch him again? Elena tells Isobel to “get the hell” out of her house, completely ignoring the “I just want to protect you” bullshit.
Meanwhile, Damon & Beremy (hah) have gone on an expedition. They first find themselves at the house of the dead warlocks. Seriously, guys? You maybe should have cleaned up your damage a little sooner. Hamburger (I don’t remember which blog/website gave him this nickname) Luka is still just chillin’ all dead and shit on the floor. Bonnie finds what she needs and they get out of there.
Meanwhile, Isobel goes to her house (most expensive foreclosure in town, people!) Surprise – Kat’s waiting for her and the two begin some plotting. WHAT THE HELL, ISOBEL? YOU’RE SUCH A BITCH! Also – KAT! This is not how you go about proving how much you “still love” Stefan! AGH. *head meets wall* Can I also mention how they keep giving each other sexually charged looks? Not cool. That’s your goddamn ancestor, Izzy!
Back at the Salvatore quarters, Stefan, Elena, and Damon converse about the shit they’re in. Damon waggles his eyebrows casually and it’s sexy as usual. Katherine shows up and demands to know what their plan is but they all remain mum. Can I just say that Nina Dobrev is fucking awesome here? I can barely even tell they’re played by the same actress!
Caroline, Elena, and Stefan converse about the Matt Situation at the Historical Society meeting; Jeremy, Bonnie, and Damon go to the house where the “power of 100 witches” is. The house does not like Damon; “Screw you, too, Emily!” Bonnie gets what she needs but remains cryptic about what she learned. People should be a little more concerned, here! Don’t die, Bon Bon! I started to like you! This is split up into two scenes, actually: we have a brief little interlude of (see below).
And then comes my favourite part of the entire episode: Katherine ransacking Damon’s room like the lying, petty bitch she is. Did anyone else notice the closet full of leather jackets – LMFAO. He would! She digs through his stuff, including a keepsake box which holds a bunch of cigars and a wad of cash. My first question: why does Damon have cigars? Um, you’re probably not gonna wanna put anything like that near your beautiful, flammable body, buddy! Second question: Katherine, you’re a petty bitch! Okay, that was more of a comment, but she just up and steals his goddamn wad of cash. I’d be pissed.
So Katherine’s looking for the moonstone. She gives up and is about to walk away when she realizes that the stone was, in fact, hidden in the soap dish in Damon’s bathroom. WHAT THE HELL? WHY IS THE MOONSTONE IN THE SOAP DISH? WHY IS THERE A SOAP DISH? DAMMIT, DAMON!
Suffice to say the little wench takes it and goes off on her merry goddamn way.
Back at Camp Nightmare, Isobel confronts Alaric randomly and tells him how much she loved him and blahblah sob story. I so didn’t buy this. And good thing, because seconds after that, some RANDOM WITCH takes Alaric down and KIDNAPS HIM. OhmyGod, kidnapping is so first half of the season, guys!
Isobel shows up to the Historical Society thing and saunters toward John and then proceeds to rip his throat out, thus causing a distraction .UGH. Okay, as much as I don’t like John, the poor guy looks truly duped here. Oh, and dead.
As Elena’s giving her speech (she received some kind of scholarship), John tumbles down the stairs, creating a massive diversion. As Stefan observes John, Elena is promptly kidnapped by Katherine. Looks like Kat is not on Team Anyone – she’s on Team I’mma F*ck Your Sh*t Up.
Katherine, pretending to be Elena, goes off merrily with Stefan. Um, Stefan. HOW ‘BOUT YOU USE YOUR SUPER SENSES AND SMELL HER? Meanwhile, the real Elena is being driven to the middle of nowhere with Isobel as the driver!
Stefan and Katherine go to his car; he barely waits three seconds before letting her know that he knows her cover. She casually tosses him into the bushes and then steals his goddamn car. Can we all say it together now: BADASS.
There’s more Bonnie & Jeremy angst as Bonnie actually receives the power of the witches (okay...honestly, wasn’t paying much attention here. I was trying to figure out who was bad and who was good and holyeffinggod KNOW THY ENEMY, CHILDREN)!
Damon arrives from the “witch house” after having been called by “Elena.” Him, Mrs. Forbes & Mrs. Lockwood fuss over the body of John, and Damon has to awkwardly and haltingly explain to them that John isn’t really dead because he has a supernatural ring thing.
Matt confronts the Sheriff about vampires. Oh, shit, boy. You don’t even know what you just started.
Damon brings John’s dead weight body back to the Salvatore house and unceremoniously dumps him on the floor. He goes to wash his hands of the blood (and takes off his shirt for some reason). Uh, okay there, Damon. The unnecessary-ness of this action begs the question: if you need to wash your face, are you going to take off your pants? Because that’s totally okay. In the meanwhile, he discovers that Katherine’s played them, via phone call from Stefan, and that Elena’s missing. He proceeds to toss and break shit in the bathroom and you know, what? Sometimes we all just need to have a hissy fit. Him and Jenna can start a club!
As Isobel’s driving, she says a few cryptic things to Kat, and basically lets her know that UHOH –she’s been had! You better watch your back, Kat! Elena comes to, and seconds later, at Isobel’s house, there’s some Katnapping of epic proportions by the guy whom I’ve dubbed Caucasian Witch.
Matt and Caroline finally confront each other. Yes, please be okay, Matt! ... Nope, not okay.
Bonnie & Jeremy argue about the safety of people, and Bonnie conjures a freak storm to show off her newly acquired powers. I kind of love this shot. It’s really cool. Go, Bon Bon!
Meanwhile, Damon and Stefan are searching Isobel’s house (they don’t look very hard at all...) for traces of Kat or Elena. None to be found. While they’re doing that, Isobel brings Elena to a graveyard and shows her the tombstone which reads: Isobel Flemming. Well, that’s nice. What a perfect mother-daughter bonding expedition! Here, daughter whom I gave up! Come look at Mommy’s gravestone because that’s so heart-warming!
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But then it does get almost kind of touching, as Isobel explains to Elena that she had always wanted to meet the daughter she gave up. And at this point, I know shit’s gonna go down. Like something terrible. I get my (wish?) and Isobel rips off her magic necklace and proceeds to BURN TO DEATH IN FRONT OF ELENA.
And then we know: that’s some serious Klaus shit going on and Isobel was obviously compelled by Klaus. And Klaus wants to keep Elena safe for the time being. What the HELL?
Matt and Caroline continue their really depressing conversation. Caroline tries to convince him to just try being with her, but he can’t, and asks her to make him forget. So she obliges his wishes and it’s really sad and stuff.
Elena is safe with the brothers after watching the Mommy Roast. And guess, what, guys? There’s finally some happy/touching news in this episode! Damon & Stefan signed over their house to Elena so she would be the owner, thus making it so only she could invite people in. Sniff. I think I teared up here.
John awakens from his coma and Elena and him have a ‘moment.’ It seems like John’s actually being sincere when he says he’ll do whatever she wants, but after this episode, it’s exceedingly difficult to trust anyone, yeah? The part about the “only parent I have left” – good God. I was tearing up again. Dammit, why must they play the parent card?!
Bonnie & Jeremy (yeah, they’ll still off gallivanting together even though all this epic shit has gone down). Bonnie lays down the law and basically tells Jeremy to STFU – she’s a grown girl and will make her own decisions, even if that means she ends up dead!
AND THEN...OMG. We find out that MATT has been drinking vervain and is actually acting as Sheriff Forbes’ little minion! Thus, Caroline didn’t actually compel him and now he’s gonna tell Mrs. Forbes everything! WHAT THE FRICKING FRICK? Honestly, Matt, because you’re such a little traitor...at this point, I don’t mind if you die. Because when it comes down to being between you and Caroline, well...I’m Team Vampire Barbie. Take that, “Mashed Potatoes” (that’s right – I went there).
Stefan and Damon realize they’re the only ones who know about Bonnie and her newly acquired secret weapon and what she can do with it. They toast themselves. It almost makes up for the soap dish incident because they’re actually being smart here. Come on, Team Salvatore! Use those 150 + year-old brains! : )
And that’s not all, folks! Remember Alaric? Yeah.
Things are looking mighty bad for him as Kat wakes up in the middle of some creepy ritual involving blood, Alaric, and Caucasian Witch. And guess what?
Alaric is now possessed by Klaus.
HOLY EFF. And the episode ends there.
Get out your hippie-head-bands and bell-bottom jeans because next week, by the looks of the preview, we’re gonna experience Part One of the Mystic Falls Massacre at the high school decade dance.
Be forewarned: I think I saw Damon doing some variant of the Hustle.
Until next time...
