Elena has spent the night at Vamp Villa, and she tells Stefan they need to hurry or they’ll be late for school. He doesn’t agree about rushing, but then again, he’s not the one who could get in trouble with his aunt for skipping. He tries to take her back to bed, and she gives in, saying she’ll give him five minutes.
Downstairs, Elena greets Damon, who rushes her and reminds her that he told her to leave. He thinks she’s Katherine, wearing Elena’s clothes to fool him. She’s confused, since last she knew, Katherine was in the tomb. Stefan comes down and is also confused. He goes back upstairs and grabs the doppelganger he thinks is really Katherine. Finally, the one from downstairs clarifies that she’s Katherine, which is good because it means Stefan didn’t just accidentally cheat on his girlfriend.
Now that things have been cleared up, Elena would like to know how Katherine got out of the tomb. Damon explains that killing Elijah broke his compulsion for her to stay there. Elena asks the Salvatores to make Katherine leave, but Katherine says the gang needs her. They all want Klaus dead, and clearly the gang doesn’t know how to accomplish that. Elena says she doesn’t want or need Katherine’s help. Katherine tells her she’s an idiot. The gang doesn’t know where Klaus is, when he’s coming, or even what he looks like. Damon tells her to spill what she knows or leave. Katherine’s fine with that – maybe she’ll go have lunch with Jenna.
At school, Caroline chats with Matt, who’s putting up posters advertising a live band at the Grill that night. Neither of them has heard from Tyler since he left town. Matt thinks he came by to say goodbye without actually saying it. Caroline seems hurt that she didn’t get her own goodbye. Matt’s frustrated that Caroline clearly knows something but won’t tell him anything. Usually he’s the one who struggles to express himself. She knows what he wants, so if she wants it, too, she needs to make a move. Otherwise, she needs to leave him alone.
Elena’s still complaining about Katherine when she and Stefan arrive at school. They both want Katherine gone, but Stefan thinks they should try to figure out why she’s sticking around. Elena doesn’t see the point, since Katherine just lies. I’m surprised they don’t think Katherine’s still there for the same reason she does anything nowadays: To be near Stefan and to bug Elena and Damon. Anyway, Stefan sees the benefit in keeping Katherine around in case she’s helpful. He suggests that he spend the night at Elena’s so they can get a break from Katherine, but Elena has plans for a girls’ night with Bonnie and Caroline. She sarcastically suggests that Katherine join them.
Back at Vamp Villa, Damon uses a blowtorch on Elijah, either because he wants to get rid of his body without removing the dagger (that’s Katherine’s guess) or just for fun. It doesn’t matter, since his body is indestructible. Damon asks how Katherine knows so much about Originals. Katherine credits the 500 years she spent running from one. Yeah, well, Rose and Trevor ran for the same amount of time and must not have done any research, since they didn’t know how to kill one permanently.
Damon asks why Katherine didn’t warn him that he would die if he used the dagger on Elijah. She says she got confused because there are so many rules. Instead of admitting whether or not she knew Damon would die, Katherine asks if the gang knows Elijah’s plan – does he have a dagger to use on Klaus?
Damon asks why she’s still there. Katherine notes that he hasn’t forced her to leave. He points the blowtorch at her, and though she says he wouldn’t use it, she’s not 100 percent sure. She reminds him that she wants Klaus dead, too, so the Salvatores need her. They want the same thing, and Katherine always gets what she wants. When Damon lowers the blowtorch, she tells him that she wanted out of the tomb no matter what. Of course she knew he would die.
At school, Stefan tells Bonnie and Jeremy that Katherine’s free, so when they’re with Elena, they need to be sure she’s really Elena. Jeremy says it’s more important now to get Bonnie’s powers back. Stefan wants to get Luka and Jonas on the gang’s side so they can all work together against Klaus. Bonnie doesn’t think that’ll happen, but Stefan says it’s worth a try, since it’s that or someone ends up dead. After he leaves, Bonnie and Jeremy check to make sure Elena isn’t around, then share a goodbye kiss. She promises to tell Elena about them soon.
Alaric fills Elena in on the problems John is causing for him and Jenna. Elena predicts that John will end up dead on the kitchen floor. I’m not sure who she expects will kill him. The possibilities are endless, really. But since Alaric gave him back his ring, it’s unlikely. Anyway, Alaric isn’t sure how much longer they can keep Jenna in the dark about…well, everything. He doesn’t want to be with her if he can’t tell her all about the supernatural.
Elena adds that it’s becoming more dangerous for her not to know. She was hoping to keep Jenna clueless until the gang had dealt with Klaus, but they might have to figure out how to tell her everything sooner. Alaric’s going to let Elena decide when and whether to bring Jenna into the loop. Until he can be fully honest with his girlfriend, they’re done.
Stefan and Bonnie meet up with Luka and Jonas at the Grill and inform them that Elijah’s dead. The gang still wants to help get Jonas’ daughter back. If Luka and Jonas know what Elijah’s plan was to rescue her, the gang will help them carry it out.
At Vamp Villa, Damon unpacks Johnathan’s journals, which Stefan and Elena brought back from the lake house. He hopes to find out the location of a witch massacre (which Elijah’s been looking for). Katherine reaches for a journal and Damon slaps her hand away. A small slap fight leads to Damon pinning Katherine down on a piano bench with his hand around her neck. She tells him she’s glad he’s not dead. Then she reveals that Emily once told her that when a witch has a violent death, they release energy that marks their place of death with power.
Stefan gets home and asks why Katherine isn’t gone or dead yet. He tells her and Damon that Elijah didn’t have a weapon to kill Klaus – he was hoping that a witch could channel enough power to take him down. Damon puts the pieces together, figuring out that once Elijah found the place where 100 witches died and released energy, he would have tons of power at his disposal.
Luka’s worried that the gang will find the witch massacre site and get the power to kill Klaus before they can get his sister back. Jonas assures him they won’t; he and Elijah have spent weeks looking for the site and haven’t had any luck. Luka reminds him that they don’t have a backup plan. They need to turn all their focus to rescuing Greta. Jonas says Elijah is the way to do that – the gang is the enemy. But instead of taking them out himself, Jonas wants to let Elijah do it.
Bonnie and Caroline go to Gilbert Gables for their girls’ night, which starts with them doing normal teen stuff, like considering rewatching The Notebook, and not-so-normal teen stuff, like wondering if they can trust Jonas. Jenna arrives and the girls offer to listen if she wants to talk about her problems with Alaric. Not that they can give her much advice, since her problem is that Alaric’s keeping secrets about Isobel, and the girls know what those secrets are.
Caroline says Alaric might have a good reason for not being fully honest. Maybe he’s trying to protect Jenna. Jenna says that’s not his call to make. She deserves the truth. Caroline says it could be more complicated than that. Jenna disagrees – if you care about someone, you’re honest with them. Caroline suggests that they all distract themselves by going to see the band at the Grill.
Jonas and Luka do a spell that will allow Luka to astral-project into Vamp Villa and find Elijah’s body. Damon and Katherine are there (though Luka thinks she’s Elena), reading Johnathan’s journals, and can’t see him. Katherine spots an entry about the witch massacre and learns that Emily was one of the witches who died. Johnathan doesn’t mention the location, though. Damon challenges Katherine’s claim that she wants to help the gang, but she points out that she has no reason to lie.
Katherine’s hungry, but Damon’s not feeling hospitable, so he tells her to go find something to eat herself. She goes to the basement and grabs a bag from the Salvatores’ blood stash. Luka watches her, and though she seems to sense that something’s going on, she still can’t see him. Upstairs, Damon and Stefan pretend they haven’t found anything helpful in the journals, in case Katherine’s listening, but Damon points out an entry to Stefan.
Katherine glances in at Elijah’s body, not realizing that Luka is crouching next to him, about to pull out the dagger keeping him neutralized. As she’s leaving, Luka starts moving it, but Katherine turns back and sees. She pushes the dagger back down before Luka can pull it all the way out. Back at home, the real Luka tells Jonas that Elena’s fighting him, and she’s stronger than he is. Jonas realizes he’s dealing with Katherine instead of Elena and tells Luka to stake her.
Luka lets go of the dagger, so Elijah is still neutralized. There’s a bang as Luka breaks a chair to make himself a stake. Katherine calls out for Damon, who arrives in time to see her with a piece of wood in her chest. I guess Luka doesn’t know where the heart is, because he missed it, so Katherine’s still alive. Luka’s gone back to the dagger, which Damon and Katherine both see coming out of Elijah’s body.
Damon grabs the blowtorch and fires it toward Elijah. Stefan arrives and Damon tells him they’re under some kind of psychic witch attack. He sends Stefan to make Luka and Jonas shut it down. But Damon’s already done enough damage, as the blowtorch’s effects on Luka’s astral-projection self have also burned the real Luka. Jonas tries a spell to save him, but he’s already dead.
The atmosphere at the Grill is much lighter, as the band has brought in a big crowd and everyone’s enjoying the music. Alaric’s there, so it doesn’t take Jenna long to decide she needs a drink. Caroline tries to talk to Matt, who’s sticking to what he told her about not wanting to have anything to do with her until she tells him what she wants.
Alaric approaches Jenna at the bar, but she wants a night off from his issues: “Tonight I have traded you for Señor Tequila.” She tells him that she can handle whatever he’s keeping from her. Last year, she was a pot-smoking grad student who couldn’t even take care of a goldfish. Now she’s raising two teens. She can handle anything.
Bonnie reminds Caroline that Matt put the ball in her court. Caroline says she can’t do anything about their on-hold relationship. Bonnie disagrees, since Caroline always talks about how much she cares about him. Elena notes that Caroline and Matt are in the same situation as Alaric and Jenna. One partner wants to protect the other by keeping them out of their secret lives, but that just hurts them.
As the band finishes a song, Caroline gets an idea. She goes up on stage and announces that Matt wants her to express her feelings, but she’s not sure how, even though she usually has no problems speaking. She’s decided to sing instead. She compels the band to accompany her as she sings the Bangles’ “Eternal Flame.” Jenna watches Alaric, who avoids making eye contact. Elena looks at Matt, nodding as if to say, “This is really how she feels about you.” He joins Caroline on stage and kisses her in front of the audience. Elena and Bonnie are thrilled.
Jonas, who’s barely keeping himself from exploding with rage, still has the things he stole from Elena’s room, and he uses them for a spell. Stefan shows up and Jonas gives him a psychic migraine, accusing Stefan of killing Luka. Jonas has no one now, and Stefan is about to find out what that feels like. He storms off, and Stefan recovers from his mini-aneurysms and sees Elena’s things on the floor.
Damon gives Katherine some blood, as well as a stake in the side to repay her for not telling him that using the dagger would kill him. Next time she pulls a stunt like that, he’ll kill her. Katherine says she still has information that could be useful to him. She knows that John and Isobel want the Salvatores out of Elena’s life. John made a deal with Katherine: She stays in town to help the gang get rid of Klaus, or he kills Stefan. That’s not so much a deal as a threat, but okay. Damon notes that John still tried to have him killed. Katherine explains that as part of the deal, she got to choose which Salvatore John killed. Damon lost. Katherine asks if he still wants her to be honest with him.
Elena catches Caroline and Matt making out in the bathroom at the Grill and grins to herself. Bonnie decides that since Elena’s in a good mood, she should ask if it’s okay for her to date Jeremy. Elena’s surprised at the thought of that pairing, but since Jeremy’s gone through so much pain in his life, he deserves to be with someone as awesome as Bonnie. Stefan calls Elena, and as she’s looking for a quiet spot in the restaurant so she can hear him, Bonnie sees Jonas arrive.
Damon tells Katherine that Luka’s dead and Jonas is going after Elena. Katherine offers to tag along, and though Damon doesn’t want her help, she says she has a plan. Back at the Grill, Bonnie tries to talk Jonas out of doing whatever he’s planning to do. He tells her that Salvatores killed Luka, and with Elijah neutralized, Jonas can only get Greta back if he trades Elena for her. To show that he’s serious, Jonas magically makes some lights explode. Bonnie lies that she hasn’t seen Elena and doesn’t know where she is. In response, Jonas destroys the rest of the lights in the restaurant.
Matt reluctantly ends his makeout session with Caroline to go see why the lights are all out. After he leaves the bathroom, Stefan and Elena come in and tell Caroline they have a plan to get Elena out without Jonas seeing her. Jenna is also worried about Elena, but Alaric assures her that she’s with Stefan and he’ll get her out. Jonas tells Bonnie that no one is leaving until he has Elena. She begs him not to do this, so he breaks a bunch of bottles at the bar and magically sets their contents on fire. Bonnie grabs his arm to try to keep him from continuing his search for Elena. He puts a hand to her head and magically renders her unconscious.
Matt spots Bonnie across the room and revives her, then starts to get her out of the restaurant. Stefan and Elena approach Jonas, and she expresses her condolences about Luka and asks him to let them help get Greta back. Jonas makes the flames at the bar flare up. Caroline tackles Jonas, which allows Stefan and Elena to run away. Jonas hits Caroline with a psychic migraine, and when Matt hears her crying out in pain, he leaves Bonnie at the door to the restaurant and rushes to help her. Jonas stops him, breaks a bottle, and jams it into Matt’s neck.
As Jonas leaves, Caroline rushes to Matt. After pausing a moment to gather herself, she vamps out, bites her wrist, and feeds Matt her blood.
Bonnie and Jeremy meet up at Gilbert Gables, where she laments being unable to stop Jonas. Stefan and Elena arrive and tell them it’s not over yet. She heads upstairs, and Stefan asks Bonnie and Jeremy when they got home. They’ve only been there a few minutes, and they didn’t check the house for intruders. Too bad, because Jonas is upstairs, waiting for Elena so he can attack her alone. But this isn’t Elena – it’s Katherine. She bites him, then tells Stefan and Bonnie, “You’re welcome.”
Bonnie’s dismayed to realize that Katherine killed Jonas unnecessarily. She kneels next to Jonas’ body and starts to close his eyes. He suddenly sits up and grabs her head. Stefan breaks his neck, killing him for real.
Downstairs, the real Elena asks Damon how Katherine convinced him and Stefan to let her carry out her plan. Damon just says it was her idea. Katherine and Stefan come down, and Katherine gives Elena back her necklace. Elena says that they’ll have to get her out of the house before Jenna comes home. Uh, they should probably get rid of Jonas’ body, too.
Katherine asks if that’s all Elena has to say. Elena tells her this doesn’t change how she feels about her double. Katherine replies that she doesn’t like Elena, either, and in fact would like to see Elena dead, but they need her alive to take on Klaus. The rest of the gang needs to believe that Katherine’s not a threat.
Alaric brings Jenna home, and they talk out on the porch while, I assume, the others rush Katherine and Jonas out the kitchen door. Alaric says that there are some things about Isobel that he can’t tell her. He understands if she’s mad, but he loves her. Jenna looks like she’s about to soften toward him, but she remembers how hurt she feels and just says good night.
Up in Jeremy’s room, he tells Bonnie he’s worried about her. (Music: “Broken Strings,” James Morrison feat. Nelly Furtado) He thinks she’s in denial about how much trouble she’s in now that Jonas, the only witch who could have given her back her powers, is dead. As he says he’s there for her no matter what, she kisses him, then makes the lights flicker. She tells him that when Jonas grabbed her, he gave her back her powers, plus something extra: a way to kill Klaus.
Damon goes home and gets right back to reading the journals, this time in bed. He asks Katherine (in that tone that says he knows the answer already) how the town could have know that Emily was a witch, since apparently Johnathan was the only one who knew that, and he didn’t turn her in. Katherine admits that she was a loose end Katherine needed tied up. She thinks Damon knows the site of the witch massacre and hasn’t told her. Damon knew Emily was the key to getting her out of the tomb, and Damon probably protected her, so how could he not know where she was killed? “Who’s the liar now?” she asks.
Katherine continues that Damon hurt her today. He was monstrous and mean. He tells her she deserved it. She crawls up his bed seductively, saying she likes the mean Damon better. He just tells her that there are six other bedrooms in the house, so she should find one. Katherine realizes he really isn’t interested in her anymore, though he does give her a little glance as she’s leaving. Now he’s all Elena, all the time.
Caroline has brought Matt to Fort Forbes, where he wakes up totally fine. He remembers seeing her vamp out and drinking her blood. She tells him vampire blood heals humans, and she’s a vampire. She’s going to tell him everything, and they’ll be fine. Matt, freaked out, realizes Vicki was right all along about vampires. But since Caroline’s the only vampire he’s aware of, he thinks she did something to Vicki. He tries to leave the house, but Caroline zooms ahead to stop him at the door and tries to get him to calm down.
Elena joins Jenna in the kitchen of Gilbert Gables for a late-night snack. The doorbell rings and Jenna goes to answer the door. Her horrible day is about to get even worse: The unexpected visitor is Isobel.
Etc.: I’m not sure how business at the Grill can be down when it’s the only place anyone in town ever goes.
Alaric, I’m sorry you’re having relationship issues, but on a scale from “everything is going pretty well” to “Klaus is here and he’s going to kill us all,” that’s at the same level as “Bonnie and Jeremy can’t kiss in public because Elena doesn’t know they like each other yet.” Reconsider your priorities.
I can’t see Caroline picking “Eternal Flame” as a song to serenade Matt with. Also, “I watch you when you are sleeping / You belong to me” is creepy.
The writers go a long way for a small development when they have Jonas take Bonnie’s magic, only to give it back in the next episode. The only reason for it is so Katherine thinks later that she’s powerless. But there’s no way Katherine could have thought Bonnie had enough power to do anything.
Yeah, Elena, an ancient vampire is targeting you and someone’s at the door late at night – you should definitely let Jenna check it out.
An Eternity of Misery 