The Vampire Diaries – Recap & Review – The House Guest

photo: cw

The Vampire Diaries
The House Guest

Original Air Date: Feb 24, 2011

Meg – Staff Writer
meg@thetwocentscorp.com

It’s a night of exes and oh’s (as in “oh em gee!”) tonight, as Operation Kill Klaus gets sidetracked by an epic inferno. Damon and Stefan deal with their saucy minx of a mutual ex, Katherine. Caroline tries to woo her own ex with song. And Jenna allows something silly like a maybe-dead ex-wife get in the way of reuniting with Mystic Falls’ most eligible (human) bachelor.

Doppelganger Hijinks Ensue
Stefan and Elena are all lovey and kissy and whatnot. Elena ruins the moment by wanting to go to school. Stefan wants five more minutes of sexy time (five minutes? I wouldn’t brag about that, Stefan…).

Downstairs, Damon grabs Elena by the throat, thinking she’s Katherine. Stefan pulls him off and realizes that there’s definitely a doppelganger in the house. Katherine taunts everyone about how awesome she is at impersonating Elena. Elena is not amused. Can we get a hair-stylist on set? Telling Katherine and Elena apart was a lot easier when Katherine was going through her perm phase.

Elena wants Katherine gone, but Kat claims that she wants to help Team Kill Klaus. I believe that she wants Klaus dead; but I also believe that she would double-cross our gang in a second to save her own hide.

Damon uses his friendly household flamethrower (I need to get me one of those) to torch Elijah’s body. It doesn’t burn, which means the only weapon that can be used to kill Klaus is somewhat off the table.

Witches + Flames = Not a Good Idea
Stefan wants to get Luka and Hot Doctor Father (HDF!) to join Team Kill Klaus. After his bad-assery last episode, I have rechristened HDF as Manwitch, for he is both hot and tasty.

Luka wants to help, but Manwitch doesn’t. He clarifies that Stefan and co. are their enemies and he’s going to help Elijah kill ‘em all. Manwitch has anger issues.

Amid a sea of candles (seriously—I’m starting to think Yankee Candle Company is bribing someone in the props department), Luka and Manwitch start magicking. As Manwitch guides him, Luka astral projects himself to the Salvatore mansion and starts poking around for some burnt Elijah.

Damon and Katherine are reading old journals to try and locate the site of the Mystic Falls witch massacre. Well, Damon is researching. Katherine is bored. She tends to kill people when she’s bored (anyone else thinking of “bored now”?).

As Luka tries to pull the dagger out of Elijah, Kat tries to force it back in. Kat yells for Damon while Luka pokes around for a stake (you’d think a house of vampires would be more careful about surrounding themselves with ready-made instruments of death). Damon grabs the flamethrower and waves it in the general vicinity of Elijah’s corpse.

Back home, Manwitch sees Luka burst into flames in front of him. As Luka flails and fries, Manwitch takes a dramatic pause (c’mon, Manwitch-stop drop and roll! Stop drop and roll!). He finally grabs a blanket and tries a healing spell, but it’s too late. Aww, poor Luka—you were kind of bland and had weird teeth, but you were nice.

Manwitch goes full on Dark Willow—everybody hold on to your skins!

Girls’ Night
Elena, Bonnie, and Caroline rope Jenna into a girls’ night. Jenna is bummed because Ric is hiding something from her. Caroline tells her that “maybe there’s a great reason and maybe he’s trying to protect you and maybe he just really likes you, but he’s kind of a vampire and there’s a cute werewolf guy and am I totally projecting?” (I may have paraphrased).

Realizing that their girls’ night and i-pad product placement are kind of lame, the gang goes to The Bronze—I mean, The Grill.

Jenna runs into Ric and tells him that he needs to let her in on whatever secrets he’s keeping. She says “last year I was a grad student who smoked a lot of pot and couldn’t keep a goldfish alive. This year I’m a parent – I can handle anything.” Poor Ric is all, “yeah… I’m not sure Dr. Spock covered this.”

Seeing her chance to convince Matt they should be together, Caroline jumps on stage and compels a band to let her “live out her rock star fantasy.” Caroline sings “Eternal Flame” by the Bangles, and thank god she can actually sing because otherwise? Awkward. Matt jumps onstage and kisses her—and the crowd goes wild.

Club Dead
Ostensibly inspired by Caroline’s song choice of “Eternal Flame,” Manwitch arrives and promptly goes Carrie on everybody.

Matt takes a break from making out with Caroline in the bathroom to help. He saves Bonnie from the fire and turns around in time to see Caroline getting mind-whammied by Manwitch. Matt tries to rescue her, but gets stabbed in the neck by Manwitch. As Matt falls to the ground, bloody and dying, Caroline forces him to drink her blood. When he comes to later, he’s confused and really grossed out. When Caroline gives him the “surprise, you’re a vampire!” speech, he flips out, realizing that his sister wasn’t crazy. He, however, seems firmly on the path to crazy. This will not end well.

Team Kill Klaus returns to Elena’s house, with Katherine pretending to be Elena. When Manwitch attacks her, she takes a big ole chunk out of his neck. Bonnie is upset and tries to close his eyes, in an act of kindness. She’s even more upset when he roars back to life, grabs her head, and does some crazy chanting before Stefan snaps his neck.

The upside? Manwitch gave Bonnie her powers back and told her how to kill Klaus. And because we can’t have a Vampire Diaries episode end without a twist, someone comes a-knocking on the Gilbert door. Jenna answers it to find Isobel, Ric’s allegedly dead wife, on the doorstep and just charmed to meet her.

This was a great episode! I’m glad they finally found a storyline for Matt, but I’m convinced that he’s not long for this world (or the next). He’s going to get dead. Or undead. Or de-undead. Or—whatever, you know what I mean. I also loved Damon’s rejection of Katherine – do you think it’s because she re-crimped her hair? Seriously that 80s look is so passé. I can’t believe this is our last episode until April! What did you think of the episode? Leave some comments and let me know your two cents!