The Vampire Diaries Review: The One Where Bonnie Becomes Storm

Well over  a month has gone by since we got a new episode of The Vampire Diaries but The CW brought it back this week for the first of the final six episodes of the season. The last new episode was wild to say the least and this latest one certainly didn’t hit the brakes, further cementing it as the most unrelenting show on television.

When we last saw the characters of Mystic Falls, Elena’s (Nina Dobrev) awful biological mom/vampire, Isobel (Mia Kirshner) showed up at the door of Elena’s house and revealed herself to clueless Aunt Jenna (Sara Canning) who was previously told that Isobel was long dead. Jenna seems to be a pretty easy-going gal but she rightly takes this poorly and ends up storming out the house the next morning in a huff. Her boyfriend, Alaric (Matthew Davis), feels awful about it, as does Elena but I can’t help but think they both feel a little better after Alaric punches Elena’s biological father, John (David Anders) in the face.

So what is Isobel doing back in town, you might ask? Well she is apparently there to warn everyone that word about Elena being the doppelganger needed to break Klaus’s curse has gotten out and any time now, greedy vampires could be coming out of the woodwork to capture Elena to please Klaus. But we all know it can’t be that simple. In fact, Isobel is actually back to hang out with her besty, Katherine so they can plot on how to deliver both Elena and the moonstone to Klaus to save both of their skins.This plan is put into motion when they pretend to kill John as a distraction and kidnap Elena in the confusion.

Wait. Did I say that’s why Isobel was actually back? Because she’s actually ACTUALLY back to help one of Klaus’s witches capture Alaric, steal the moonstone (which Katherine found in a soap dish at the Salvatore house), and then ultimately betray Katherine by allowing the witch to capture her as well. Being a highly untrusting character, this should not have been completely unexpected from Isobel but what she does next is truly astonishing. She takes Elena to a cemetery where her parents placed a tombstone in her memory. It is here that Isobel admits to being an awful mother and comes clean about working for Klaus. But she then rips off the necklace that allows her to walk in the daylight and instantly bursts into flames bringing her wicked life to a quick and crispy close. Yeesh. A few more deaths like this and we can make a new version of Madonna’s video for ‘Burning Up.’

With that Elena is free to return to the safety of Stefan (Paul Wesley) and Damon’s (Ian Somerhalder) house where they give her the deed to hopefully keep any other vampires from entering without her permission. She even has a little heart to heart with John and decides not to hate him. I personally think this is a poor decision on her part since he is, after all, an asshole but to each his own!

Katherine, on the other hand, is in a much less happy place as she is held prisoner with Alaric by Klaus’s witch. Things get even weirder though when the witch does some kind of spell on Alaric that allows the mysterious Klaus to take over his body and speak with a (Russian?) accent. I’m still hoping we’ll get to see a legitimate physical representation of Klaus that isn’t an Alaric puppet but in the meantime this could be interesting.

On the good witch front, Bonnie (Katerina Graham) goes on a field trip with Jeremy (Steven R. McQueen) and Damon to the much-discussed witch burial ground where she can allegedly harness the power of dead witches. She performs the spell in question and there is a lot of painful screaming and loud noises but it works! With this extra boost power she can now control the weather much like Storm from X-Men and who doesn’t love that? Lord knows I do! Oh, and I guess she can also use this power to kill Klaus and take her own life the process but details, details…

And finally we turn to the epic love story of Caroline (Candice Accola) and Matt (Zach Roerig). When we last saw them, Caroline came clean on being a vampire. Being the moody teen boy that he is, he freaked out and went missing until about halfway through this episode when he pops up in front of Caroline’s mom, the sheriff (Marguerite MacIntyre) demanding to see the police file on his sister’s death. She puts him in his place in an awesome way and then takes him to her house where he and Caroline finally get to talk again. She tries desperately hard to make him feel better about it but he begs her to make him forget it all and she reluctantly agrees.

This episode already had two pretty crazy twists but the real kicker happens when Matt leaves Caroline’s house, gets into a parked police car, and unloads the truth on Sheriff Forbes that her daughter is in fact a vampire! Woof. Turns out the good sheriff dosed Matt with some vervain and made him her little secret agent. How long before she learns the truth about Damon and Stefan? And will she have the guts to stake her own daughter? I, for one, can’t wait to find out!

The Vampire Diaries: Season 2, Episode 17: “Know Thy Enemy” (originally aired April 7, 2011)

 The Vampire Diaries airs Thursdays at 8/7c on The CW.

Images courtesy of Quantrell Colbert and The CW.