I didn't realize quite how many threads we've been following until this episode wove them into an impressive tapestry. In theory, this is just a recaplet, so let's get right to it.

Isobel (Mia Kirshner), offers Alaric no explanation of her decision to forsake her marriage and her humanity, for vampyrism. Instead she asks him to set up a meeting between him and Elena. Alaric: "You want me to... deliver a message? Screw you, you selfish bitch." Audience: Hooray! Isobel: Do it or I'll kill off the whole town, starting with your students. As tempting as the second option is, Alaric isn't tenured, so he complies. The mother and child reunion is only a motion away, so Isobel goes home to prepare, like you do, by watching jazz singer enthrallee, Cheri, fooling around with cowboy enthrallee Frank (Michael Roark). Frank isn't just a cowboy, he's a big gay cowboy who Isobel has temporarily degayed. Uncle John "Snark" Gilbert is appalled! Who's he going to play with? Or okay, maybe he thinks vampires shouldn't treat people like dolls. Isobel will brook no insolence from anyone lower on the food chain, so she bitch slaps him into subservience. If not for the three pounds of glittery gold eyeshadow of the damned caked on her eyes, and that... that... thing around her neck (is it a scarf, a boa, a necklace, bad taste incarnate) Isobel would have won my undying affection, right then and there.

Elena meets Isobel at the Grill, with Stefan standing watch over by the pool table. Isobel too is struck by Elena's resemblance to Katherine. Do none of these people know about IMDB.com? Katherine found Isobel after she turned ("genetic curiosity, I suppose") and hooked her up with daywalker bling -- in this case, a pendant. Elena wants to know who her bio dad is. Isobel: "A teenage waste of space." Oh, so it is Uncle Snark, then. Good to know. Isobel's not there to answer Elena's questions. She's there to get Original Johnathan Gilbert's invention.

Isobel knows a lot about current-day Mystic Falls citizens, mostly thanks to yappy Caroline, who yapped her yappy head off to Isobel, even though she had no idea who she was. Caroline intel aside, Isobel also knows Damon has the Gilbert Gizmo, and that he is sweet on Elena, so when she arrives home to find him playing strip poker with Cheri, she tells him "Don't kill the messenger," and says they're on the same side -- and that side is Katherine's. Katherine wants John Gilbert to have the device; Isobel is just following orders. Damon pays um... lip service to Isobel's demands at first, but then he tackles her, throttles her and lays down the law. Lay off Elena, or he'll rip her to bits. He believes wholeheartedly in killing the messenger, because it... sends a message. "Katherine wants something from me? You tell the little bitch to come get it herself." Whee!

Meanwhile, Bonnie, who earlier froze out a tearful Elena (right after the Isobel meet and greet) comes to Elena to repair their friendship. Later, she shows Elena old Emily Bennett's grimoire and its description of Original Johnathan's devices. None of them worked, until Emily (unbeknownst to O.J.) mojoed them up. Sure she had a debt to Katherine, but she couldn't leave the townsfolk vulnerable to vamps, so she tried to ensure they had some protection. The ACTUAL VAMPIRE compass was a warning system, but the mystery Gilbert Gizmo was vamp-killing weapon. When Isobel kidnaps Jeremy and injures Matt, in order to prove she is not screwing around, Elena realizes they have to give her the device.

When Uncle Snark discovers Isobel has kidnapped his nephew -- the only person in Mystic Falls who can actually tolerate him -- he appeals to the remnants of Isobel's humanity and asks her to let Jeremy go. Nothing pisses off Isobel more than intimating she might have a shred of human decency, so she overpowers Snark, rips off his Magical Ring, and takes the lead on Gizmo retrieval.

Elena tells Bonnie and Stefan that Isobel has grabbed Jeremy and asks Bonnie if she can remove the spell from the device. She can. Damon doesn't trust Bonnie, so of course he chooses to taunt her rather than try to win her over. Finally though, Bonnie convinces Damon that she is capable of removing the spell. Elena begs Damon to trust her plan. He can't resist that face, so he relents. Bonnie does her thing and pronounces the Gilbert Gizmo harmless. They meet up with Isobel in the town square. She instructs Elena to call home and confirm Jeremy's there. In the course of conversation, Isobel also says that Damon is in love with Elena. Stefan and Damon are standing by and hear every word. Awkward! Elena then cuts the conversation short, hands over the Gilbert Gizmo and thanks Isobel for being such a monumental disappointment. "Keeps the memory of my real mother perfectly intact." Isobel has a parting dig of her own. "As long as you have a Salvatore on each arm, you're doomed. Katherine was smart. She got out, but we all know you're not Katherine." Once the bitch is gone, Stefan takes a devastated Elena in his arms. She can't help peeking over his shoulder at Damon, who cannot take his eyes off her. None of this escapes Stefan's notice.

The big shocker of the night is one that was hinted at throughout the episode, and yet managed to knock off this recapper's socks, all the same. Bonnie faked the spell removal spell. Psych!

Elsewhere and when, did you guys know it's almost Founders Day? They should have said something. I would have been better prepared. Alaric is in charge of getting the kids to make the History Department's Founders Day Float -- a recreation of the Battle of Willow Creek. With so many of the original players still in town, that ought to be a shoo-in for a blue ribbon, yeah? Tyler Lockwood is named chief artist in charge, but he's going to have to work through his troubles with our luscious Pudding Pop, Matt Donovan, who's still a bit prickly about the fact Ty totally tried to do Matt's mom, Kelly.

Also, Jeremy spends much of the episode looking for a missing Little Orphan Anna. She returns at the end -- in tears, but not before the Germ lets Elena know he's read her journal, knows everything, and is mad as Hell. In a reversal of the position he took in an earlier episode, he's now furious that Elena had Damon remove his suffering (and suffering induced memories) under compulsion. When Elena tries to talk to him, he shuts his bedroom door right in her face, which means I have to go back to calling him Germ full time, at least for a while.

Katherine wants Snark to use the Gilbert Gizmo to wipe out all the tomb vampire refugees. Isobel, in a rare, human moment, returns the Gizmo and Magic Ring to Snark and asks him to add Stefan and Damon to that list. As parents they agree, their bouncing baby girl should be nowhere near the Brothers Salvatore. Killjoys. So much happened in this episode. There's more about Isobel, John, Anna, Jeremy, Alaric and the Elena-induced sibling rivalry between the Brothers Salvatore. I'll hit it all in the full weecap, so check back, soon. Until then come on over to the forums, where no one interrupts Damon during strip poker.