The Vampire Dairies 2x17 Review

[iaria]

Know Thy Enemy

• I love that Stefan and Damon not only invited Elena to move in with them but that they deeded the Salvatore Boarding House to Elena. ♥ The latter is something I never even considered and it is leaving me gleeful. Elena owns the boarding house! Elena is going to be living with the Salvatore’s! Eeeeee! This part of the episode definitely made me happy.

• I loved the OT3 scenes. The first one with Katherine was great. I loved that whole talk, how the three of them ignored Katherine, the looks the three of them exchanged, Damon’s snarkiness, the fact that Stefan and Elena didn’t actually say anything, Elena’s grin when Damon told Katherine off. I loved how much it felt like the three of them were unit. Also Damon’s “Stefan? How did I beat you and Elena home?” made my OT3 self really happy.

• I loved that final Stefan/Damon scene at the end of the episode where they realise that Bonnie is their secret weapon and clink glasses. There were some intense eyes happening there. It feels like it’s been awhile since we’ve had a scene like that between them.

• Oh, Isobel, we barely knew you. I’m sad that we didn’t get to know more about her. I’m sad that we didn’t get more scenes between her and Elena and her and Katherine. I’m sad for Elena that she never got to know Isobel and that she had to watch her die. (OMG, poor Elena.) Once again it feels like such a waste. God, this show always does this. I mean I was pretty sure that Isobel would eventually be killed off. This is TVD and they take great delight in killing off characters. She’s a female vampire reoccurring character and that is three different points that put a bulls eye on her. The fact that she returned to Mystic Falls after surviving her last visit was also a bad sign. But still I was not expecting her to die in this episode, or in this way.

I’m not really sure how I feel about how she died. One thing I love about this show is that women have agency over their lives and choices and more often than not when characters are being manipulated it’s a female character behind it. But this time it was Klaus manipulating things. We don’t really know how much control Isobel had – her goodbye to Alaric and meeting Jenna was clearly all her, as was her choice of taking Elena to her grave. But turning Alaric over to Klaus’s witch hurt her a lot and clearly wasn’t her choice, I don’t think it was her choice to betray Katherine nor to kidnap Elena. When she learned from the witch that she was to let Elena go and that was it she was relieved.

Watching that final scene again I think it’s clear that Isobel truly did love Elena and wanted to protect her. That whole scene makes me teary-eyed when I re-watch it. She seemed so relieved and at peace when she was told her ‘part is finished’ and that she was ‘done’. Relieved that she wasn’t going to be forced to do more damage to the people she loved, forced to hurt her daughter, and I think maybe it went even further than that. Perhaps there was even some peace at the thought of not being a vampire and living her life anymore.

It did confirm for me also that Isobel was compelled to kill herself. The fact that she chose to return to her grave, where she thinks the human part of her is buried, where she has a connection to her parents, to die makes much sense to me. The way she says “I’m done” and the witch confirms that she’s done indicates to me that she knew she was going to die.

• Isobel and Katherine... ♥ They made me very happy this episode. Definitely a huge part of how unhappy I was with Isobel’s death was because of the Isobel/Katherine relationship. Now I have been invested in Katherine’s friendships from 1x06 where I fell in love with Katherine/Pearl and Katherine/Emily. But both of those relationships ended with Katherine betraying her friends to their deaths. Every relationship Katherine ever has that appears to be true and real ends with betrayal (see: Katherine/Lucy and Katherine/Mason as well) and at this point it’s actually become a thing for me. I have been wanting for so long now for Katherine to have a true friendship. A friendship where they know each other, and care, and where they don’t betray each other. Since the end of the first season where it was revealed that Isobel was working for Katherine I was kind of hoping to get that with them and... I kind of did. This was an excellent Katherine/Isobel episode for what little we saw of them.

At the end of the episode John tells Elena “I always knew that Isobel and Katherine were close. Two of the world’s most uncaring and selfish vampires and yet they were genuinely friends.” Now granted it’s John saying it and he both lies and has been lied to by both women but I chose to believe that he was telling the truth and that he knew what he was talking about. I really, really want to believe that they had the true friendship that I’ve wanted for Katherine. I think the fact that Isobel is Katherine’s descendant, her family, the child of the child she’d wanted to keep did make a difference in how she treated Isobel.

I really liked their scenes together – how pleased they seemed to be to see each other and how they worked together. It really did seem as if Katherine trusted Isobel because she didn’t once seem to suspect Isobel nor distrust her. It’s weird but if there is one thing I did like about Klaus compelling Isobel it’s that Isobel didn’t betray Katherine by choice. Plus apparently Katherine and Isobel have been secretly working together behind the scenes like I’ve been wanting and it was John who was out of the loop so that made me happy too.

• “But you’re the only parent I have left. So maybe I can learn not to hate you.” – Elena. I’m so glad that Elena has decided to give him a chance. I’ve wanted Elena to connect with her birth parents from their first episodes and one of them is better than neither. If the show is actually going to explore the John/Elena relationship I am all for it. That makes me happy and I can't wait to see how things play out with them.

• It certainly made John's day. It was actually really sad how happy he seemed after Elena stated she was willing to try not to hate him. I think it would be really cool if he turned out to be a great support for Elena. I kind of like the idea that thirty years from now vampire Elena can return to Mystic Falls and have him there as part of her supportive family (I doubt that he will survive till the end of the show though).

• “If I am the only one who can put an end to this – than it will be my decision. No one elses. Mine.” – Bonnie. I really loved that. The whole last scene between Bonnie/Jeremy was great and I could see where both were coming from.

• I was even actually amused when Bonnie let Damon stay stuck and then burn for a couple seconds before saving him. Usually I think that would annoy me but her completely unmoved expression amused me instead. I hope Bonnie always messes with Damon.

• “Screw you too, Emily.” – Damon. Heh. I like that Damon did try and save Emily even if it was out of self-interest.

• I love when Liz gets to be smart. Her setting up Caroline with Matt and figuring out the truth again was an excellent twist I did not see coming. But, god, poor Liz. When she broke down after she told Matt “she is (dead)” I got teary-eyed. Her learning the truth again makes me very worried about her fate. I really hope she doesn’t die.

• One thing that really stuck out to me is that we didn’t get any Elena/Matt scenes. I didn’t like that. Season one was very heavy on their friendship. Despite breaking up they have been friends since they were young and have kept that friendship. Or at least they did in season one but for season two Matt and Elena have barely had any scenes. It feels really weird for Matt not to have immediately have turned to Elena after escaping Caroline at the beginning. She’s his closest friend in town as well as Caroline’s friend. It makes sense to me that he would call her. And yet the show lately is acting like they don’t even know each other.

• So... Klaus in Alaric. Um, what was up with that? Why was Alaric was chosen to house Klaus? Is it because he has the protective ring? But then so does John. Was it a further punishment for Isobel to use the man she loved? Is there something about Alaric that makes him special? Where the heck is Klaus’s body while his soul is off possessing another body? Or is Klaus only a soul and he moves between bodies which is part of the reason why no one knows where he is or can kill him? I wonder if him being in Alaric means that we won’t be seeing him in person this season.

• Jenna leaving at the beginning of the episode was unexpected but undoubtedly the best thing for her since a part of me was expecting her to either be hurt again or killed. Of the cast she is the most ‘cannon fodder’ like. It was a bit irresponsible of her since she is the guardian of Elena and Jeremy but for the episode at least it was understandable since she just learned that the people closest to her had been lying to her. Poor Jenna.

• This episode was the first time we’ve really heard about Isobel’s parents. In fact we haven’t really heard about any of Elena’s grandparents, she should have six, and the fact that they visit their daughter’s grave every week with flowers makes me feel so sad for them. They clearly loved her very much. I wasn’t even sure they were alive but now that Elena does know that she has grandparents I would love if we could have her meeting them at some point. Or at the very least I wish she’d bring them up again if only to sadly confide that she’s decided not to enter their lives in order to protect them from the danger of hers.

• Currently heading the ‘Danger, Danger’ list for the season finale are Bonnie, Alaric (possessed by Klaus), Jenna, Matt, John. Also Caroline – I am so afraid that Caroline is going to be killed. That would make me so sad.