The Originals Season 2, Episode 6: "Wheel Inside the Wheel" Recap/Review
I have been so excited to write this recap since "Wheel Inside the Wheel" aired, because OH MY GOD, ESTHER FLASHBACKS! I'm pretty sure the flashbacks to 972 AD are officially the oldest memories of the characters that we've ever seen, and it actually gave us a ton of insight into why Esther and Mikael are the way they are. I'm even starting to sympathize with Esther (although only a tiny bit), but still not so much Mikael, because even losing your beloved daughter doesn't justify being an abusive dick with a burning desire to kill his children in the most brutal ways possible. Also, we know the identity of the Mikaelsons' oldest sibling, Freya! But I need some input from the rest of you readers out there-- are Freya and Finn twins? Because I could have sworn they were twins (with Freya being the oldest, obviously, just like how Liv is the oldest between her and Luke in The Vampire Diaries), but now that I've gone back to look, there isn't really anything to say that they are and I feel like I'm going crazy. Did I just make that up? Or are they really twins and I just can't remember when they said that? PLEASE TELL ME SO I CAN STOP THINKING ABOUT IT.
So yeah, let's just talk about The Originals, yeah?
Previously, on The Originals: The Mikaelson kids' mother Esther, a ridiculously powerful witch, came back from the dead and possessed the bodies of several witches (the most recent being Lenore) in order to allegedly heal and reunite their family. To do this, her intention is to put the spirits of all of her children into the mortal bodies of witches so that they can live a new life untainted by the plague of vampirism or whatever. She's already converted her sons Finn and Kol (or, at least partially, in the case of the latter), and resurrected them by transferring their spirits to some manwitches named Vincent and Kaleb, respectively. So, now she wants to convince Klaus, Elijah, Rebekah, and Hayley (as she has had uncharacteristically healthy relationships with both Klaus and Elijah) to allow her to do the same to them, though, as you can imagine, Elijah and Klaus aren't exactly trusting of her intentions, and for good reason. Finn infiltrated their lives by going undercover as a therapist/adviser at the school where Cami is getting her doctorate so he can get closer to her, while Kol started wooing the powerful Davina to see what secret weapons she's been hiding.
Meanwhile, Esther and Finn have taken control of the werewolf and witch communities, forcing Elijah and Oliver to reluctantly team up to gelp the gang protect a large number of untriggered teenage werewolves from Finn's plan to have them kill his human opponents to activate their curses. This plan of theirs got Oliver and Elijah captured by Esther and Finn, which Hayley, Klaus, and Marcel have only just recently realized. Oliver's fate is still yet unknown, but Esther spent the better part of a day torturing the magically-bound Elijah by forcing him to remember all of the atrocities he'd committed in his life, including accidentally killing the love of his life, the Petrova doppelgänger Tatia, just days after he had been turned into a vampire. The only way she'll stop this psychological warfare is if Elijah agrees to take the body of a witch like his other brothers, which is kind of-sort-of where we pick up this episode!
So, we start off this amazing episode in flashbacks that give us quite a bit of insight into Esther's life just after she had married Mikael. We're in the Kingdom of Norway in 972 A.D., and a young woman is bundled up in layers of woolen clothes and a hood over her head as she walks through the freezing winds and snowfall the winter has brought. Inside a nearby cottage, another young woman with dark hair and pale skin and who is clad in a dark dress is seated in front of a large fire in the middle of the room, where a cauldron is hanging above it. The room is also full of lit candles, what appear to be actual human skulls, as well as reindeer antlers, which seems to suggest some very old school sorcery is going down. The woman, who is clearly a witch, is clutching a dark-beaded talisman necklace in her hands as she chants an incantation to a spell. "In unim edito, domino sae domina, cutlas sino liberos, sino liberos," the woman mutters under her breath.
Outside, the young woman walking through the snow finally makes it to the cottage and pushes the door open as she enters the home. The woman, whose name is Dahlia, is clearly startled when she sees the woman come inside. The young woman removes her hood and thick mittens, revealing blonde hair and blue eyes that identify her as a young Esther, before pleading, "Sister, I've come to beg for your help." Dahlia doesn't seem to be at all happy to hear this statement, and skeptically asks her what she could possibly want. "You know I've always wanted children of my own..." Esther begins, which seems to be the wrong way to go about it, because Dahlia just cuts her off and snaps, "Then GO. Have your Viking children." Esther steadies herself with a deep breath and explains that she and Mikael have been married for almost an entire year now, and they are still not with child, which is making her extremely concerned that she may be cursed. She tries to make eye contact with her sister, who just sighs in annoyance, and reminds her that with Dahlia's magic, she could help her.
Again, Dahlia seems to be hating everything about this conversation, because she just snits, "You come to ME needing favors? If you hadn't abandoned your talents with witchcraft, you could help yourself!" Whoa, so Esther and Dahlia were likely raised as witches and trained from an early age, yeah? So, why do you think she quit magic? For Mikael? Was it looked down upon in their culture? Was she just really intent on being a Viking? It seems like these Norwegian witches weren't that fond of them. Anyway, Esther insists that she knows she was never as powerful as Dahlia is, and when Dahlia turns her back to Esther, she adds, "Just as I know you will not turn me away. You are my sister, and whatever our quarrels, we are bound by blood." The whole family/blood/lineage theme of this show is honestly one of my favorite aspects, because in our culture, I don't think we put that much emphasis on it anymore-- our genealogy, our bloodlines, where we come from, it's a major deal for a lot of people, but for many families who have lived in a country for centuries (such as in the case of many, many Americans), or whose families were brought here against their will (such as in the case of MANY African-Americans), their exact lineage is still a mystery past a certain point.
To be honest, I know barely anything about my heritage-- I know on my dad's side I have Irish and some kind of Scandinavian background (the surname Nickson is kind of a dead giveaway), but that is neither very specific nor does it detail my entire lineage on both my dad's side and my mom's side. So, the fact that in this show, your blood can mean you have a supernatural curse, or gift, or some kind of legacy, or even just a connection to someone that is unbreakable, will never not be cool to me. ANYWAY, back on topic-- Esther begs Dahlia to help her, and she eventually turns back around so she can face her little sister, whose eyes are pleading desperately for her assistance. Dahlia seems concerned when she points out that the kind of magic for which Esther is asking requires a heavy sacrifice, but Esther assures her that she is willing to pay it, regardless of what it entails. When Dahlia sees that she's near tears, she sighs and opens her arms wide before telling Esther to come here. Esther rushes toward her, and the two sisters hug each other tightly. "I could never refuse you," Dahlia says quietly, as she pulls away and takes Esther's face in her hands, "My precious little Esther." Ohhhh, shit, this is so not going to end well. TITLE CARD!
Since it's been a while since we've heard from Oliver, let's see what he's been up to, yeah? So, right now he's in Lafayette Cemetery, where he's been chained up and bound to an old-fashioned set of wooden stalks, and he looks like he's been beaten pretty badly in the time since he's been captured. Lenore/Esther and Vincent/Finn, along with the werewolves under their command, are all gathered around him. Oliver insists that they should just kill him and get it over with already, but Finn is NOT happy about him addressing his mother in such a way, since he's ancient and all. "Speak to her again, I'll feed you your tongue," Finn snaps, before turning to address the werewolf congregation.
"Spread the word from here to the Bayou-- Midnight tonight, he is to be put to death for his part in aiding the escape of deserters." DESERTERS? They were fucking TEENAGERS. Finn is the fucking wooooooooooorst. Also, I'm really sad that they're killing Oliver when I just finally started to like him. WHY MUST YOU ALWAYS PLAY GAMES WITH MY HEART, SHOW? Finn instructs the pack to chain him up in the lycée until he's to be executed, so the wolves grab him and shove him into the building, just as Finn shouts behind them, "Tell the other wolves to come and have a look and see what happens to traitors!" Oh, Finn, you are as unimaginative as your terrible, horrible father. Once the wolves have gone, Esther smiles proudly at her son before reminding him that he has a meeting. When Finn nods in confirmation, she informs him that she'll go tend to his brother while he's gone.
She heads into the crypt where she's been holding Elijah to find that he's still passed the fuck out, kneeling on the floor with his restrained wrists uncomfortably twisted above his head. Esther begins to speak quietly to him as she walks around his body, cupping his face in her hands. "Still sleeping... lost in visions of horror and dreams of love. Still so strong, so full of life. Too willful to take my offer." She drops his head in frustration and walks over to a nearby table to pick up an athame. "I remember you as a little boy. Innocent, kind... if that boy had known the creature he would one day grow up to be, he'd have leapt in my arms and BEGGED me to save him." She runs her fingers through his hair as she circles around to stand behind him. "I'd do anything for that little boy, as I would you." So, naturally, she grabs him by the hair, pulls his head back, and mutters an unintelligible spell into his ear as she SLICES HIS DAMN THROAT WITH THE ATHAME. What the fuck, Esther? Is breaking down Elijah's version of the Sam Winchester Hell-wall not enough torture? I mean, I know he's an Original vampire, so he's certainly not going to die from that, but still. I don't like my babies being hurt. :( Anyway, Elijah gasps and sputters as blood soaks his poor suit, which at this point is probably not going to be able to be salvaged. Elijah is gonna be FURIOUS. We know how he feels about his suits.
Meanwhile, at the Mikaelson compound, Hayley is looking out at the streets of the French Quarter from the balcony in her bedroom, and is taking in the scene until she's suddenly startled by the sound of agonized screams from inside. She frowns and returns to her room, crossing through the nursery that connects her bedroom to Klaus', where she finds Klaus, who has blood splattered all over him from head to toe, rinsing his hands off in the sink in his bathroom. Hayley hilariously snarks, "Oh. So, I see your interrogation went well?" Klaus remarks that witches are delicate creatures, but it doesn't matter, because he already assumed that his mother had Elijah held captive. Hayley declares this to be great news and insists that they leave to go get him, but Klaus puts the kibosh on that pretty quickly. He reminds her that Esther is way too powerful and clever to be easily found, and maintains that he needs to draw her out in order to figure out where he is.
He starts to shut the sliding doors to his room, but Hayley immediately stops him and asks him where the fuck he thinks he's going. "I'm going to change my shirt, and then I'm going to find my brother," Klaus says, before smiling the fakest smile and trying to shut the doors again. Hayley is NOT pleased that her baby daddy is boxing her out, and argues that she needs to come with him, but as expected, Klaus is playing white knight. Honestly, it's not necessarily a bad thing-- I mean, the fact that Klaus is desperate to protect Hayley actually shows a lot of growth and character development on his part-- but Hayley, much like Allison Argent, can take care of herself. "I know you want to help, Hayley, but you can't," Klaus says gently. "My mother is wretched. She WILL target you in order to thwart me, and I can't very well save Elijah if I'm busy saving you, can I?" Hayley rolls her eyes at this, but she remains silent, so Klaus takes the opportunity to shut the doors so he can change while she considers her own options.
Julie Plec must have heard my talking about how much I love these unconventional team-ups, because the scene cuts over to Marcel's loft, where Gia has just returned to find Marcel waiting for him. "I did like you said," Gia begins, as she moves to sit next to him. "I kept a low profile, went ALL over the city. There's no sign of Elijah anywhere." Marcel sighs and admits that the humans he talked to said the exact same thing, and wonders aloud if Klaus has been having better luck. That's when Hayley strolls in the front door and replies, "No, he's not, which sucks, considering how low the bar is around here." Marcel and Gia both look at her in confusion, so she gets straight to the point-- are Marcel and Gia up for yet another rescue mission? Gia perks up immediately and asks if they're going after Elijah, but Hayley, remembering her discussion with Klaus just moments ago, claims that that is Klaus' job today. What she wants to do is try to find and rescue Oliver, who was fighting the werewolves with Elijah when the two of them got nabbed in "Live and Let Die."
Apparently, she heard through the werewolf grapevine that Oliver's been captured as well, and that he's set to be executed this night. She's hoping that if they can find Oliver, then maybe they can get at least a clue as to where Elijah is, if not find him as well. Marcel seems game for some scheming, because he always is, but he's confused about what exactly she needs from him and Gia. "Just a distraction," Hayley assures him. "Esther's son, Finn, he's the one that's controlling the werewolves. If you can keep him out of the way, I can go get Ollie myself." LOL, I love how she referred to Finn as Esther's son and not Klaus and Elijah's brother. Just goes to show how much everyone hates his guts, and rightly so. When Hayley turns to leave, Marcel vamp-speeds over to her to block her path, and points out, "You can't take on ALL those wolves by yourself. You'll get killed, and then I'll get get for letting it happen!" Hayley sighs in frustration and informs him that she won't be going in alone-- while most of the werewolves are now answering to the witches, specifically Esther and Finn, they still have an alpha, and that's who she's going to track down to help her. OHHH SHIT, SHE'S GOING AFTER JACKSON! I've been missing that kind, rustic dude.
In the Quarter, Cami is sitting at the bar of Rousseau's, where she's working on schoolwork, when Finncent sidles himself up to the bar and sits next to her. "Fancy meeting you here," Finn begins, but Cami just reminds him that it's hardly "fancy," considering she works here and all. She mentions that she thought she told him that, but Finn just brushes it off and insists that since half of his patients work in bars-- it IS New Orleans, after all-- he can't avoid them all. Cami is unnerved by this, but clearly isn't sure why, so she just laughs uncomfortably and returns to her work. Finn can see that she's weirded out, but misinterprets the why. "Are you okay?" he asks with concern. "Let me guess... more drama with... Klaus, is that right?" Cami just becomes even more suspicious by this question, and understandably so, considering how his pretending not to know who Klaus is was not very good-- Finn really should never go into acting-- but she confirms that yeah, she kind of does.
She vaguely explains that Klaus has family in town, and since they don't really get along well, he's sort of going out of his mind a bit. When she adds that she sort of got sucked into the crazy, Finn suggests that it's unfair that Klaus relies on her so heavily for emotional support, and asks her if he's got anyone else to go to for help. "His sister left town," Cami begins with a shrug. "His brother's been... occupied. The rest of his family I wouldn't say has a healthy dynamic. So, I guess I just feel a professional obligation to help him?" Finn reminds her that Cami described him as being dangerous, but Cami insists that he's not dangerous to HER, leading Finn to get weirdly protective of her as he states that he doesn't want her to put herself in a position where she could be hurt by him.
Cami is about done with Finn's creepy behavior and asks if they can stow the shop-talk, since it's happy hour and all, so Finn just smiles and agrees that it's not the time. He then turns to the bartender and says, "I'll have a whiskey, neat, and for the lady, a sazurac, two spoons of honey." Fun fact-- sazerac is a specialty bourbon that is made in New Orleans, which I didn't know until I was writing the transcript for this episode for the TVD/TO Wikia page (because I have no social life, obvs) and realized I had absolutely no idea what the fuck it was. The more you know! Anyway, this extra-specific order alarms Cami so much that she becomes even more suspicious and frantically begins grabbing all of her things. She cites the fact that she totally forgot that she has to run before stating that she'll see him on Monday. As she rushes off, Finn looks both hurt and confused, although he's way too much of a weirdo to realize that she's totally onto him, because everyone (except maybe Klaus, Elijah, and Marcel) totally underestimates just how smart she is. YIKES.
Out at the old plantation house, Klaus is in the middle of digging up Esther's grave in the backyard where they consecrated her body and buried her to finish the Harvest ritual by giving Sophie Deveraux the power of an Elder. (Aw, I kind of miss Sophie, to be honest. I'd take her over some of the less fun witches we've met, like Bastianna or Celeste.) Also, question-- so, is Esther's body still preserved with magic like it was in TVD? And if that's the case, does that mean that OG Esther could come back someday? She's my favorite, her everlasting serenity even when she's killing people and turning them into monsters is amazing. ANYWAY, so Klaus starts dousing his mother's body/coffin with gasoline and shouts, "Are you watching this, Mother? Nothing says, 'I loathe you' quite like desecrating a corpse!" He pulls out a lighter and is about to light it when suddenly, a familiar male voice calls out, "Niklaus!" Klaus stops what he's doing and turns to find Elijah at the other end of the yard, looking fine as ever in one of his dark suits as he walks back toward the plantation house. He's clearly both confused and suspicious as he follows his older brother inside the burnt-out husk of their old home, eventually finding Elijah at the mostly-destroyed piano as he absentmindedly hits the keys.
Klaus is no dummy, so when Elijah just smirks at him and casually states, "You seem troubled. If I didn't know better, I'd say you were worried," he immediately knows that some sort of malicious hijinks are afoot. He asks him what Esther has done to him, but Elijah just points out that since their mother still seems intent on saving their souls after over a thousand years of murder and mayhem, they should probably just hear her out and see what she has to say. Klaus, knowing that there is no way in hell that Elijah would suggest such a thing, angrily picks up a piece of overturned furniture and lobs it at him as he bellows, "ENOUGH!"
As he expected, the furniture goes right through Elijah as he disappears, proving that it was all just a magically-induced vision. "The petty illusions, Esther!" he shouts. "Where is Elijah?" That's when Esther finally decides to make an appearance and comes out behind Klaus. She informs him that Elijah is preoccupied at the moment, because she's helping him "find his way." However, she insists that once she's done, she'll return Elijah to him, as long as in return, he listens to her pitch. Hasn't she already made this spiel like five times already? What more is there to say? Klaus pretty much agrees and tells her that he has no intention of listening to her "sermon of lies," but Esther just replies, "I have lied in the past, to my shame. But, I'm going to tell you the truth. I'm in the process of making Elijah into the man he was meant to be. And, I intend to do the same for you." WELP.
When we come back from the break, Esther and Klaus are continuing their talk inside the burned-out mansion. It's their first true one-on-one talk in AGES, probably not since she first came back in Season 3 of TVD, but despite claiming to have watched Klaus for a thousand years, she's still expecting WAY TOO MUCH from their discussion.
ANYWAY, I digress, as usual. So, Esther pulls the whole, "Such hatred. It breaks my heart to see you like this. The boy I loved,"-thing, but Klaus is SO not here for that. "Your love was a CURSE, an affect you feigned!" Klaus yells, and Esther just looks at him like she can't understand why he's being such a baby about this, as though he has no reason whatsoever to be upset. "The truth is," he continues. "You're no better than Mikael, and like him, you seem to have crawled back from the grave simply to ruin your children." Esther's eyes widen in shock, and when Klaus realizes that this is news to her, he just smiles gleefully and laughs before he continues. "Oh! You didn't know! Yes, the Destroyer has risen brought back to kill me by the witch Davina. Surely Kol has revealed everything to you?" Esther tries to keep her poker face, but Klaus can tell just by looking at her that he didn't. "Or, is Mother's loyal little boot-licker not quite so loyal after all?" OH SHIT! It's not often you can pull one over on Esther Mikaelson, so this is pretty impressive. I don't blame Klaus for being excited at all.
Meanwhile, Cami apparently rushed to Father Kieran's secret apartment as soon as Finncent started acting weird at the bar, and she's now in the secret room through the closet that is full of his old files on the various supernatural communities, co-opted dark objects he stole from the witches, and historical documents. She's currently engrossed in reading the pages of a pretty large book, and she skims through the page until she comes upon the name Vincent Griffith, and her eyes widen in shock as she reads about him. Suddenly, Marcel comes up behind her and snarks that she's probably wanting a new adviser at this point. Cami's startled by the fact that he just appeared out of nowhere, but she quickly shrugs it off and instead demands to know who Vincent really is. Marcel hilariously is like, "I would try to make a long story short, but that would be impossible, so..." Cami points out that when she checked her school's website, she learned that Vincent Griffith has no actual academic credentials (So, how did he get the job? Magic? Did Esther hoodwink a vampire into compelling him a job? Can witches use mind control spells? I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS), and when she checked "Uncle Kieran's big book of New Orleans' bloodlines," she learned that the Griffiths are a family of WITCHES.
Marcel hilariously just looks at her, like, "Oh, you sweet naive newborn baby," and breaks the news to her-- "Oh, it's worse than that. Your therapist has a thousand-year-old dead vampire inside of him named... Finn Mikaelson." Wait, when did Marcel even get read into this? I thought Klaus was trying to keep him out of it for his own safety? Oh, whatever, it doesn't matter. Anyway, Cami is understandably stunned and pissed that her adviser has been Klaus' eldest brother this whole time, and explains to Marcel that he came into Rousseau's and was asking all sorts of questions about Klaus before ordering her favorite drink like he had been watching her. CAMI IS SO SMART. Seriously, she is such an underrated character and it kills me that she doesn't get more love in the fandom. Anyway, when she asks Marcel why Finn's been keeping tabs on her, he just shrugs and figures he was trying to get the inside scoop on what's going on with Klaus, or maybe to use her for bait in some sort of trap. "I don't know, it doesn't matter," Marcel begins, before turning on his protective act. "Either way, you're done with that guy," he insists, but Cami just shakes her head, looking furious at the fact that Finn was trying to use her. She gets this determined look on her face and retorts, "No. I'm just getting started." YASS CAMI! WORK IT.
Back at the plantation house, you can see the cogs turning in Lenore/Esther's head as she digests the Mikael reveal. After a moment, she turns to Klaus and states, "If Mikael has returned, we will need to deal with him," which quite understandably makes Klaus laugh bitterly. He asks her if she's joking before pointing out that it's kind of asking a lot to want him to forego a millennia of hatred for her to team-up with her in order to take out the demon Esther herself allowed to raise him. Esther sighs, clearly fed up with the constant barrage of insults, and insists that she's not evil. "I am your salvation. And Mikael? He was not always a demon."
Cut to a flashback to 10th century Norway, probably five or six years after Esther met with Dahlia for a fertility spell. Young Esther is sitting n front of the fireplace in their cottage while two young blonde children rush around as Young Mikael returns from battle. "Long ago, he loved his children with all his heart," Esther explains in voiceover, as the young boy (Finn) lunges for Mikael and hugs his legs as Mikael ruffles his hair affectionately. "He doted on your brother Finn, but it was our first-born, Freya, who was the apple of his eye." When young Freya sees Mikael, her face lights up, and she jumps up into his arms as he picks her up and hugs her tight. It's honestly really hard to believe that Mikael was ever kind and loving, considering what we know about his Viking upbringing and whatnot, but this is definitely an interesting history lesson. I want to see more about Esther and Mikael's life when they first got together and their decision to start a family and whatnot.
In the present, Klaus just whines that "saccharine recollections of ancient history" won't have any affect on him, but Esther just retorts that she's pretty sure Klaus has just gone made from centuries of hating his parents. That's not exactly untrue, but I'd be lying if I said Klaus and his siblings didn't have ample legitimate reasons for loathing the people who gave him life and raised him. Still, Esther maintains that if Klaus joins her, she can grant him peace, and if Mikael comes after him with the intention of harming him, Esther will strike down and kill him herself. You can tell just by looking at Klaus that he is seriously tempted by this, because there is still an itty-bitty part of him that wants his family to be whole and love each other, but he knows this is just a pipe dream. "That's quite an offer," Klaus replies. "But, you know, I've never needed any help when it comes to killing parents." OOH, BURN! Esther has Klaus' number, though, and while she acknowledges that he's just rejecting her out of hatred, she's got something stronger to sweeten her offer: she has the truth about Klaus' father. Not the wretched step-father Mikael, but his biological father. OH SHIT, OH SHIT, OH SHITTTTT.
Meanwhile, Hayley has been wandering around in a more remote part of the Bayou than where the major encampments are when she comes upon a beat-up looking metal RV in the middle of a wooded area. Suddenly, she hears a creaking sound and turns around just in time to catch two arrows that were shot in her direction by a man several yards away out of thin air. She drops the arrows onto the ground in annoyance and calls out to the man, "Is that your best shot? You're gonna have to do a lot better than that if you're gonna kill a hybrid."
The man starts walking toward her, drawing a shortsword out of his sheath with his free hand while the other grips his bow, and as he gets closer, we can see that he has a quiver of arrows strapped to his back. He's about to start swinging the sword at Hayley when a very gruff voice yells at him to stop. Hayley and the man both turn to the source of the voice and find Jackson coming out of the trailer and approaching them. Hayley is so happy she can't even believe it's really Jackson, and after she greets him, Jackson remarks that he sees she's met his friend Ansel. Ansel looks confused as he turns back to Jackson and is like, "You know her?", but Jackson just smiles weakly and replies, "Yeah, actually, I do. She was supposed to be my wife." Whomp, whomp.
Over at the plantation house, Esther and Klaus have made their way outside to where he dug up her grave. She stops right beside it as Klaus follows behind her and reminds him that over a thousand years ago, in a fit of rage, Klaus killed her by wrapping his hands around her throat and strangling her to death. HOLD UP A SECOND-- in TVD, the cave drawings that the Mikaelsons did in the tunnels under Mystic Falls said that the Original witch had been killed by having her heart ripped out. At first, they believed it was Mikael who did it, but then after the Mystic Falls Gang deciphered the symbols, they realized it was actually Klaus. So, is this a retcon? Julie Plec is usually much better at continuity than that. ANYWAY, when Esther asks him if he even remembers why he did it, Klaus just laughs bitterly and gives her a list. "Let's see... you turned us all into monsters. You cursed me, denied me of my hybrid nature. You lied to me about my father--"
Esther cuts him off right there and points out that it's that last reason above the others that made Klaus loathe her so much: the fact that Esther denied him of the chance to ever know his biological father. "My hatred for you runs so deep, it's difficult to pinpoint its origin," Klaus snaps back at her. "Maybe I hate that I'm the product of a whore's lechery!" OH SHIT! Come on, Klaus, you're better than that! I know he's totally a misogynist compared to Feminist King Elijah, but that is super harsh. I don't even like Esther and even I was like OH NO YOU DID NOT JUST SAY THAT. Esther is so pissed she slaps him hard across the face and tells him to shut the fuck up. "You will do well to remember that you are STILL my son," she snaps, her face furious. Klaus isn't quite done yet, though, and points out that even though she claims he's evil, it was her lust that brought Klaus to existence, which actually leads us to see that Esther actually does have a heart, even if she is prone to act out in not-so-loving ways. "And not once have I EVER regretted the love I had for your father," Esther argues, which leaves Klaus speechless. "And, you have never known the truth of how that love came to be, or what happened in the months after Mikael and I lost your sister Freya to the plague." LOL LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE. "There are no words for the loss of a child, as you well know," Esther adds, which makes Klaus so simultaneously furious and sad that he just glares at her while he strains to keep from crying. Ugh, Daddy!Klaus is seriously killing me so hard. Who would have thought Klaus was capable of such love and devotion? I surely didn't.
Over in the Bayou, Jackson and Hayley are sitting in chairs around the fire pit near Jackson's trailer while Ansel sits on a nearby log and sharpens his blade. While they sit, Jackson catches Hayley up on what's been happening on his end since "The Battle of New Orleans." "After Francesca Guerrera took over the wolves, she offered me a moonlight ring as long as I'd call her Alpha," he explains grimly. "I declined. So, a couple of her brothers dragged me out here and left me for dead. By the time I healed up, word had spread about what happened to you... and to your baby." Hayley looks down at the ground, the reminder clearly making her both sad and uncomfortable because of the slight lie. "So, I knew it was over, and I just drifted," he continues on. "And that's when I met Ansel. See, he's been teaching me the old ways, the traditions. What it means to be a wolf." Hayley just scoffs a laugh and asks him if he means living in the "ass-end of nowhere," which doesn't seem to please Ansel much, so Jackson tells her to go easy, because "her kind" apparently makes Ansel ornery.
I'm appreciative of the fact that Jackson doesn't seem to care that Hayley's a hybrid like the other wolves do, but I still hate those kinds of comments, because they suggest that Hayley actually WANTED to be a hybrid and asked for this when that couldn't be farther from the case. She completed the transition solely because she didn't want to leave her daughter motherless, and has just gotten over the self-hating part of being part-vampire. If anything, being a hybrid has only made her embrace her werewolf side more, because she is literally the only hybrid we've ever seen who has relished the fact that she can turn into a wolf whenever she wants-- we haven't even seen KLAUS shift for the hell of it since he first broke his curse and stayed a wolf for two days. Most hybrids (like Tyler Lockwood and the others that were turned with him) were happy to become hybrids because they wouldn't have to turn anymore, but Hayley is the only one who has taken advantage of the fact that she has the ability to be more in touch with her wolf self. So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that the werewolves need to get rid of their ingrained hybrid-hate because it is BULLSHIT and Hayley is an amazing werewolf queen.
Hayley seems to agree with me, because she gets a little offended and replies, "MY kind? Jack, whatever you and your friend think of me, my kind is the WOLVES. Even if they did pledge allegiance to a witch. All that means is they need an an alpha. Ollie needs one too." Jackson's demeanor gets even chillier at the sound of his former pack mate and amigo and admits that while he had heard about Oliver's scheduled execution that night, but he can't reconcile with the fact that he betrayed him by plotting with the Guerreras and spilling his own pack's blood. Hayley sighs, since it's not like she disagrees with him, but argues that he's trying to make up for that, but Jackson insists that it doesn't matter, because if the witches have him, he's definitely a dead man. "Not that I care," he adds, though he's not really fooling anyone. Hayley gets a little aggravated and stands up to her feet. "You don't want to be the alpha? Fine. I'll save Oliver myself."
She turns to leave the way that she came, but Ansel stands and blocks her way. She hilariously snarks, "Hey, you got a problem, old man?" even though Ansel could pass for someone in his late 30s, but Ansel just shakes his head. "I have no love of vampires, but I will not allow a wolf to be killed by witches." OHH YEAH! I kind of like Ansel, honestly, and you guys already know how I feel about this show's use of unconventional team-ups! I LOVE THEM. Ansel pushes past Hayley and starts to head for the French Quarter, and before Hayley goes to follow him, she turns back to Jackson and snits, "At least SOMEONE is interested," before she takes off. Awww, Jackson is just so lost! Poor guy. I love Hayley taking charge, though, and I want so much more of it.
At the plantation, Klaus and Esther are still in the front yard, where Esther is further explaining the state of the family after Freya's "death."
In the Quarter, Marcel and Cami are still hanging out in Kieran's secret apartment, where Cami is still going through all of his files while Marcel just watches her in exasperation. "So, what? You're gonna spy on a witch with a thousand-year-old grudge-match against Klaus?" Marcel asks incredulously. "Huh-uh. I'm not gonna let you go anywhere NEAR that guy!" Cami pulls a page out of the Allison Argent playbook and insists that she can take care of herself as she spots a small dagger on one of the shelves and picks it up, but Marcel's still in protective-best-friend/ex-boyfriend-mode and points out that he gets where she's coming from, since she's clearly mad at him for lying to her and wants to get even, but as it turns out, it's even bigger than that. "It's not about getting even, Marcel!" she says as she cuts him off, raising her voice to show him that she's serious. "Look around! Everything in this room, this is my family's LEGACY. And, if I had just embraced it the first time around, I could have uncovered Francesca Guerrera's secret, and the wolves would have never taken over the Quarter, and Klaus' baby would still be alive! So, don't tell me not to get involved!"
Oh, Cami, bb! I had no idea that she was still blaming herself so much for what happened, even though anyone could tell you it wasn't her fault. Kieran had literally just died when all of that was going down, and that was AFTER he got hexed by the witches, lost his mind, accidentally got turned into a vampire, and tried to kill her. No one-- not even Klaus himself, who at one time was excellent at blaming other people for his mistakes-- would blame Cami for the Guerreras' coup and Hope's "death." Before Marcel can try to reassure her of this, his phone rings, and when he sees it's Hayley, he reluctantly tells Cami to hold that thought so he can answer.
Instead of greeting her, he straight-up asks her if she tracked down her Alpha, but Hayley (who is still walking through the Bayou with Ansel) replies that while Jackson is out of commission, she managed to get the next best thing in the form of Ansel. She asks him if he has a plan to keep Finn occupied, and Ansel gives Hayley a look when he recognizes the name. Marcel sighs and looks over at Cami, who is once again engrossed in reading the book of New Orleans' bloodlines, before replying, "Yeah... Yeah, I think I might have an idea." Aw, Marcel! Look at you trusting Cami to be able to handle Finn on her own. I am seriously loving him so much this season-- Klaus, Elijah, Hayley, and Davina aren't the only ones who have had some major character development since the series started.
Klaus and Esther are still talking out by her grave in the backyard of the plantation house, where Esther's trying to convince Klaus that his existence was actually a good thing for them. "When I learned I was with child, I went back to Mikael. I told him I was having his baby. He showed no joy, but neither did he suspect the truth." LOLLLL MIKAEL IS AN IDIOT.
We flash back to the late 10th century Mystic Falls, where Esther is holding the newborn Klaus in her arms, and Mikael is kneeling next to her to look at him, no doubt to search his eyes for warrior-ness, since that's totally his thing. "When you were born, it renewed his spirits," she narrates in voiceover, as Mikael holds his hand toward baby Nik and smiles the briefest ghost of a smile as the baby grips onto his finger tightly. "We had Kol, Rebekah, Henrik..." In the present day, Esther insists to Klaus that they became a family again because of Klaus, but Klaus understandably reminds her that the family they reformed was built on lies. That's when Esther brings it all around to her actual point, which is that she wants Klaus to forsake his vampirism, along with the rest of his siblings.
So, as tempting as it may be for him to give all of that up so he can live as a regular werewolf, have more children so Hope can have siblings, and live like one dysfunctional mortal family while they're all inhabiting random bodies that don't belong to them, he's not willing to sacrifice immortality and strength for any of it, especially considering the fact that, in his mind, he needs that strength to protect Hope from all of the assholes who want to hurt her. (Which, also, on the topic of possession, how is what Esther wants to do better than ~the plague of vampirism~? I mean, morally speaking, is it really any better to be commandeering the body of some innocent person and taking their chance at life just so they can cheat death and live as mortals? It's kind of bullshit.) Anyway, as expected, Klaus yells that he's heard enough. "Tell me where Elijah is, or I WILL kill you, in this body or any other you choose to jump into from now to bloody Armageddon!" TELL HER, KLAUS.
Esther is not one to be rejected or denied, as we well know, so she completely loses her patience, and when Klaus lunges for her, she uses telekinesis to hold him back. "I had hoped there was some part of you that yearned for an end to your vicious ways!" she exclaims angrily, as Klaus summons all of his strength to try to break through Esther's barrier she's put between them, to no avail. "But, if you are determined to perpetuate the cycles of the violence to which you have become accustomed? Well, then, I'll have to accommodate you." She quickly flicks the wrist of her outstretched arm and squeezes her open hand into a fist, which snaps Klaus' neck and causes him to fall limply to the ground. OH SHIT! I always wondered if Klaus could have his neck snapped, or if being the Original hybrid made him immune to such injuries, but it seems that it is possible, although it would take quite a powerful person to be able to catch him off guard long enough to do it. Or, in Esther's case, possess super powerful magic. Whichever.
After the break, we return to the backyard of the plantation house, where the sun has gone down and plunged the area into darkness. Esther stares at Klaus' body laying on the ground near her dug-up grave, and after a moment, Klaus is transported into a flashback to the early 11th century Mystic Falls as he dreams while his spine heals itself. In flashback, Klaus is grown up, now, and this must have been the same day (or maybe 2-3 days maximum) after Klaus was revealed to be a werewolf/hybrid when he made his first human kill shortly being turned into an Original vampire and it became clear that Mikael wasn't his true father. Klaus has just stumbled out of the woods, only to find that the bloodied corpses of various werewolves are impaled on pikes near a large bonfire.
Horrified, Klaus rushes over to the body that is nearest to him and grabs his arm, noting a tattoo on the inner forearm near the man's elbow that is three interlocking crescent moons surrounded by a circle. He brushes the man's long blondish-brown hair out of the way so he can see the man's face, and realizes that it's Ansel, who has clearly just been killed by Mikael. Klaus looks so distraught it kills me, and it appears that he knew just how connected he was to the man, OH SHIT! ANSEL IS KLAUS' FATHER AND ESTHER BROUGHT HIM BAAAAAAAACK! I know that there have been like ten episodes since this one aired and lots of stuff has happened, but I still really like this reveal, you guys. I would be very interested to learn more about the ~old ways~ of the werewolves, since they seem very similar to the ~old ways~ of witchcraft, which is much more in my alley.
Once he's healed, Klaus awakens with a gasp and sits up to find Esther standing there waiting for him. She apologizes for the injury and asks him if he was dreaming, so Klaus informs her that he was recalling the day he finally learned who his real father was, though it was after Mikael slaughtered him. "My darkest hour," Esther says softly, as she briefly gets distracted by her own recollection. "Had you yourself not killed me soon thereafter, I doubt I ever would have recovered." Innnnnteresting! Now that we know just how much Esther loved Ansel, I'm really interested to learn more about her relationship with Mikael and how they got together, what their relationship was like before Freya died. What did she see in Mikael, anyway?
Esther pulls a pocket watch out of her pocket and checks it, seeing that it is 8:34PM, or 19:35 for you guys who are on military time. She sighs and mutters that Klaus woke earlier than she expected, but either way, she claims it's finally time. When Klaus asks her for what, concerned that maybe she has some sort of ulterior motive, or maybe a trap planned, but Esther instead says that since Klaus said he wanted Elijah, he can have him. "He's sleeping, chained to the wall of a tomb in Lafayette Cemetery. I've lifted the spell that hides him. You are free to take him home. Now, his own mind will work out his choice for him. When he wakes, he'll make his own decision. Every single thing I've said to you tonight is the truth, Niklaus. Whatever you choose to believe is up to you." Yeahhhh, I'm not buying the whole "Elijah can make his own choice" thing whatsoever, but Klaus is so desperate to get Elijah back that he instantly vamp-speeds away before Esther changes her mind. FINALLY.
Meanwhile, in the Quarter, Cami is walking down the street toward Rousseau's before she enters the restaurant. Gia arrives at the back entrance where Marcel is waiting for her by the door and assures him that she swept the perimeter and there doesn't seem to be a werewolf in sight. Marcel seems relieved and thanks her for being there to help, but Gia turns the topic to "Blondie" inside the restaurant and asks how she's doing. Marcel promises she'll be fine though, and reminds her to just keep an eye out for any wolf guards prowling around. She leaves to keep watch, leaving Marcel to lean against the wall by the door and eavesdrop on Cami as she sits down at a table with Finn. She thanks him for coming and immediately apologizes for being so abrupt earlier, but Finn just apologizes as well for being so unprofessional. "You're sorry, I'm sorry," Cami replies with a smile as she holds up her glass. "Let's call it even and have a drink!" Ohhhhh Cami, you are both badass and completely crazy for doing this!
Elsewhere, Hayley and Ansel have just made it to Lafayette Cemetery, where they're navigating the foggy paths toward the lycée. They finally make their way in and go up to the greenhouse, where Oliver is still super beat up and passed out, chained up in a similar way to how Elijah is restrained in one of the tombs. Hayley shakes him to try to wake him up, and when he comes to, he's shocked to see Hayley has come to get him. He's still good-old Oliver, though, because as soon as he sees Ansel, he's like, "Who the fuck is this dude?" Never change, Ollie. Hayley informs him that they're both there to rescue his dumb ass and pleadingly asks, "Please tell me you know where Elijah is?" Oliver shakes his head in the negatory, just as Ansel, who was looking out the window to check on what's going on outside, gruffly interrupts them to tell them that the wolves officially know they're here, now. Hayley focuses her hybrid hearing and eventually is able to listen to the sounds of various moonlight-ring clad werewolves jumping down from the roofs of the crypts like they're taking tips from Marcel's now-deceased nightwalkers. She then turns to Oliver, taking in how he's chained up to the ceiling, and snarks, "Sorry, no time to be gentle," before she violently grabs onto his wrists and breaks the chains free. Badass as usual, Queen Hayley. Oliver slumps to the floor, since he's severely injured and probably hasn't been fed since he got caught, so Hayley picks him up off the floor and insists that the three of them need to vamanos ahora.
At Rousseau's, Cami is clearly nervous as hell as she finishes her whiskey while she continues to talk to Finn. Full of liquid courage, she brings up Klaus again. "So, how would you diagnose my friend Klaus, if I might ask?" As much as I may dislike Finn, he's not exactly wrong in his assessment-- "Well, he's clearly depressive. Low self-esteem, paranoia..." He laughs, and adds, "Impulse control. Wouldn't you agree?" Cami shakes her head in agreement, but concedes that a lot of it is beyond her, since there's still so much history she hasn't been clued in on, such as all of his drama with his siblings. Outside, Marcel is still standing guard at the back door to the restaurant and looks pretty displeased at how chummy Cami and Finn are getting. "You know, the resentment?" Cami continues. "How do you manage it?" Finn is totally taken aback by this question and is like, "Uh, I beg your fucking pardon?" so Cami backtracks a little and reminds him that in one of their first sessions, he mentioned that he doesn't exactly get along well with his own brothers before asking him if he's still in touch with them. Finn looks uncomfortable as he replies, "In a manner of speaking. We're not particularly close."
Cami does a great job of pretending like she's genuinely curious, considering she already knows the answers from knowing Klaus for so long and hearing the stories. Meanwhile, outside, Gia has joined Marcel in eavesdropping on Finn and Cami's conversation. Back inside, Cami asks Finn if his parents are still around, and then cuts herself off and scolds herself for prying, so Finn follows that thought. "All this talk about my family, when you so recently scolded me about boundaries..." Cami smiles brightly and insists that she's just looking from coping mechanisms and just trying to learn from the master, which hits Finn right in that place all the Mikaelsons have that LOVES to be praised and complimented. Especially Finn, because he's got some weird reverse-middle-child syndrome where he's still bitter that he lost his favorite sibling and was ignored in favor of his more needy siblings (*coughKlauscough*) Finn's like, "Oh, is that so?", and outside, Marcel begins to freak out in concern that Cami's cover has been blown. Before he can run inside and intervene, though, some big werewolf comes up behind him and smugs, "You must be lost! Vampires caught in the Quarter are to be killed on sight." Marcel, ever the protective one, quickly puts himself directly in between Gia and the werewolf before he turns to his favorite vampire protégée and orders to her leave and run as far and as fast as she can. Gia looks guilty as she does what she's told, while Marcel walks toward the werewolf as the two brace themselves for a supernatural brawl.
At the lycée, Hayley is helping Oliver up so they can leave while Ansel prepares his bow and quiver for a fight. Oliver is exhausted, weak, and with a heaping portion of self-loathing smothering it, because he turns to Hayley and begs her and Ansel to just leave without him. "To hell with that," Hayley says with a scoff. "They want a fight? I'll give them a fight." That's my girl! Ansel, on the other hand, is NOT game for this plan, because the only reason why he accompanied her in the first place was to save one of his fellow wolfies, not to watch Hayley slaughter a pack of them. So, apparently, his compromise is for Hayley to whisk Oliver to safety while he uses his weapons to hold off the werewolves? Okay, so is he planning on hurting them non-fatally or what? Because otherwise that makes no sense whatsoever. Hayley doesn't seem to be very fond of this idea, but she just sighs and helps Oliver up before sneaking him out the back. As they leave, Ansel heads out the front entrance, where he starts totally mowing down the wolves with his shortsword like they're nothing. I'm getting flashbacks to Klaus using the Sword of Alexander to slaughter all his werewolves in TVD's Season 4 episode "O Come, All Ye Faithful," and something tells me that's PROBABLY not a coincidence...
Back at Rousseau's, Cami is visibly nervous as she tries to navigate the conversation into a direction that doesn't make her look so suspicious. The scene cuts back and forth between their conversation and Marcel fighting the werewolf, so be warned-- we've reached the point where the recap gets pretty confusing. and apologizes for offending him, but Finn just replies, "You haven't offended me, it's just... you seem on edge." Outside, Marcel is throwing down with the werewolf, with whom he's got about equal fighting skill. Inside, Finn still seems suspicious of Cami, but once again, he's wrong about the why, because like most people on this show, he's completely underestimating how much Cami knows about the supernatural and in general. "Now, perhaps its this Klaus business. Is there something you haven't shared with me?" Finn asks, to which Cami just laughs nervously and surreptitiously reaches into her purse, which is laying on the floor under her seat. She admits that she's nervous around him, and starts to say that she's always asking him dumb questions as she grabs the little dagger in her purse that she snagged from Kieran's secret hide-out. Finn assures her that her questions are actually very smart, they're just personal before remarking that he wasn't really expecting her to be so interested in his life, and Cami just smiles innocently at him and sips her drink.
Outside, Marcel has broken off a pipe from the outside of the building and wields it like a baseball bat as he straight-up whacks the werewolf upside the head with it and then slams it into his stomach. Back inside, Cami suggests that maybe she's just passive-aggressively trying to change the subject because she's scared of where it's going. When he asks what she's afraid of, she confesses that she's thinking he's going to tell her to stop spending time with Klaus. "Cami, you're an intelligent woman," Finn replies with a smile. "You're articulate, poised... I think you can tell for yourself what's best for you." WHOA, is he like actually being nice and complimentary to the girl who is essentially his mark in this ridiculous mission of Esther's? Is he high? Outside, the werewolf guard and Marcel are still fighting, but the wolf has the upper-hand as he lifts Marcel up off the ground by the front of his shirt.
"You know, sometimes I ask myself why I let people like Klaus into my life," Cami admits shyly, as though she's aware what's going on outside and knows she needs to keep Finn talking so he doesn't notice. "I have this destructive pattern. I'm always drawn to the bad boys," she continues, as she grips the dagger tightly in her hand under the table. Finn frowns in confusion and puts his hand over Cami's free hand on the table, squeezing it affectionately as he replies, "Cami, I'm an expert in unhealthy patterns. I've broken some of my own, and I can help you do the same, if you'll let me." Uhhh, what unhealthy patterns has he broken? He's always been a self-righteous-yet-boring mama's-boy asshole, and dude has barely lived one hundred years of the thousand that he's existed due to being daggered for the majority of it. If anything, the only change to his personality is that he's become even MORE insufferable. Anyway, Finn keeps staring Cami in the eye, and suddenly, something clicks in her mind as she realizes what's really going on with Finn, and she smiles warmly as she sneaks the dagger back into her purse.
The fight is still going on outside behind Rousseau's, and it's not looking good. Marcel is still being held by the shirt by the werewolf, so he gouges out the eyes of the werewolf with his thumbs to break free. Unfortunately for him, this doesn't really make the guy very happy, so he whips his fangs out and sinks his teeth into Marcel's arm. Marcel yelps in pain just as the fabulous Gia vamp-speeds toward them out of nowhere and shoves the werewolf into a nearby van, causing his head to crash through the window of the passenger door. Marcel, who has fallen onto the ground after being dropped by the wolf, watches as Gia shoves the guy against the van again and thrusts her arm backward to prepare to rip out his heart like Elijah taught her.(*SQUEEE GIALIJAH*) Of course, the wolf grabs her arm before she can make the kill shot, twists it behind her back, and bites her on the neck before he throws her onto the ground. Fortunately, before he can kill her, Marcel vamp-speeds onto his feet and zoops behind the guy so he can rip out his heart through his spine. NICE WORK, MARCEL. He drops the heart carelessly onto the ground and smiles proudly at Gia as he helps her up to her feet. Ugh, I really do ship everyone on this show-- I was just screeching about Gia and Elijah and now I'm like GIA X MARCEL = OTP. Or maybe I just really love Gia and am living vicariously through the other characters. Who knows!
Over at Lafayette Cemetery, Hayley and Oliver have ducked for cover behind a crypt when they finally hear Aiden's voice shouting toward them. "Come out!" he yells. "We know you're here." Hayley sighs and looks over at Oliver, who looks like he can barely keep himself on his feet but is still bracing himself for a fight. Finally, Hayley hops out from being the crypt and walks toward Aiden, who is surrounded by about a dozen fellow werewolves. She's like, "So, why don't you just let us go so we can all go back to whatever we were doing before?", giving him a significant look as though she's trying to telepathically remind him that he kind of owes her after he came to her for help and she managed to convince Marcel, Gia, and Josh help Aiden and Oliver rescue their untriggered werewolf kin from Finn's ridiculous plan to get them to kill his human enemies. Aiden seems torn, but he remains firm and smugs that he's not gonna do that. Hayley rolls her eyes in annoyance and retorts that they'll have to do it the hard way, then.
The moonlight-ring-pack tenses up in anticipation of the hybrid ass-kicking they're about to get when Oliver comes out from behind the crypt to drop some truth bombs and generally make me love him, which of course means he's not long for this world. "You idiots!" Oliver yells in frustration toward his lupine brethren. "You're lining up to fight a hybrid? For what? So you can kill me? All because some witch gave an order? I know I ain't innocent, but I NEVER lost sight of what I was fighting for! We were gonna be a PACK." He starts walking toward them as he finishes up his speech. "We're turning on each other! Killing your own people? We do that, we're nothing." Aiden is visibly conflicted, to the point that Hayley and Oliver aren't convinced that the pack isn't going to try to fight them. But, after a moment, Aiden steps backward, and the wolves defer to his decision by parting themselves down the middle so Hayley and Oliver can leave without harm. GOOD AIDEN. GOOD BOY. Remember-- what would Josh do? Because he would definitely not be threatening to hurt/kill friends just because a vengeful witch ordered him to do it.
It's been a while since we caught up with Klaus, yeah? He's just entered the cemetery and is heading for the crypt to which Esther sent him, but when he hears the sound of fighting and groaning, he takes a detour to investigate. Apparently, Ansel has been kicking ass against the rest of the werewolves who didn't go after Hayley and Oliver, because he's still spinning around with that shortsword and slicing and stabbing the wolves who come after him with it. I still don't understand why he's doing that-- didn't he say that he didn't want Hayley to kill all of his fellow wolves? Isn't that exactly what he's doing? I mean, I know werewolves can heal much better than humans, but it's not like they're vampires, you know? Those wounds look pretty severe to me. Whatever. Anyway, once Klaus gets to the lycée, he sees Ansel fighting in front of the building and vamp-speeds over to snap the neck of the last wolf he was fighting.
Once the threat is eliminated, Klaus finally has the chance to really look at the man in front of him and realize who it is, and that revelation makes his blood run cold. "You," Klaus mutters under his breath in disbelief. Ansel looks just as stunned as Klaus is, but when he asks, "Niklaus?" Klaus immediately decides that he must be an illusion like Esther's little trick with Elijah earlier and starts to freak out. "No, no! You're not real!" he stammers as he panics. "You're a phantom, conjured by Esther, that is all that you are!" He pushes past Ansel and starts walking toward the lycée as he tries to find his mother to tear her a new one. "Mother! Stop this charade! I know that THING is not real!" Ansel chases after Klaus and stops him, insisting that he is very obviously flesh and blood and totally real.
Klaus is actually truly scared for the first time in forever and slowly turns to face him before he reminds Ansel that he's been dead for over a thousand years. Ansel doesn't disagree with him; instead, he gives a brief explanation. "And through that time, I lingered on the Other Side, watching you let the world fall apart, until I woke, four moons past, in the land of wolves like myself." Klaus still isn't ready to believe it and maintains that this is just some spell Esther cast to get in his head and make him take her deal, which really isn't even that paranoid of a fear, considering Esther was literally just talking about Ansel earlier and how because of him, she wanted to put Klaus into the body of a werewolf so he could ~be the man he's meant to be~. Ansel just looks at his son in confusion, though, and states that he has no idea what he means by Esther's plans, nor does he speak for her.
He reminds Klaus that he IS his son and reaches out to caress his face with his hand when Klaus snatches his wrist and pulls it away before he can do so, taking note of the three-crescent-moon tattoo on his forearm. The sight of the mark makes him briefly flash back to when he found Ansel's body on a pike after Mikael had killed him. In the present, Ansel is looking at Klaus curiously, and it allllllmost looks as though Klaus is gonna do some father-son bonding, but NOPE-- this is Klaus, so why would we expect differently? "And, if what you say is real, you are NOTHING to me," Klaus replies coldly. "For all I care, you can crawl back to hell." OH MY GOD! Harsh toke, dude! Will he EVER learn now to be such a wanker? Jesus H. Needless to say, Ansel is very hurt by these words, but he barely has a chance to process this before Klaus vamp-speeds away in the blink of an eye.
At Marcel's loft, he's digging around a drawer for a vial of Klaus' blood that he's had in storage since the events of "From a Cradle to a Grave," which he received from Klaus as payment in return for Marcel allowing him to compel him to believe that Hope died. He brings it over to where Gia is sitting on his couch, wincing as she touches the still-bleeding werewolf bite on her neck. He holds the vial to her mouth and helps her sip it, and judging by the look on her face while she swallows it, I'm gonna say it's probably a little too aged for her taste. She's been a vampire long enough to know that werewolf bites are lethal to her new species, but apparently not long enough to know that Klaus' blood is the only cure, so she's skeptical of Marcel's claims that it will heal her, but he promises it'll work. He does concede that they're starting to run low on their stash, so his new rule is that they don't get bitten, which LOL, good luck with that, guys. "I got bit saving your ass," Gia retorts with a sly little smirk, and Marcel can't help but smile as he praises her for her good work tonight. "I gotta admit, though, when you took off, I thought you were GONE." Gia nods, because she totally gets why he would think that and confesses that she's spent the majority of her life running when things went south, because since she never felt like she fit in anywhere, it was easy for her to make a clean break and just pick up and go.
Then she says pretty much the best thing you could possibly say to Marcel, which is that she finally feels like she belongs in the vampire community he's building, which is the entire point of why Marcel turned her in the first place-- I mean, Klaus picked him out of a nightmare of a situation, working as a slave for a father who never recognized him as such, and gave him a family, eternal life, and the foundation for what he eventually built into an empire. Ever since then, it's kind of like Marcel's been repaying the favor by turning people in need and giving them a family and a community they've never had before. And sure, he was also looking for "warriors," but if we look at the definition Klaus gave us, which is someone who will fight for their families, then that is a perfect description of Gia-- she has a family for the first time ever, and she's fighting for it, because there's no way in hell she's losing this good thing she just found. Josh is the one exception to the rule, since he wasn't exactly turned with his consent, but he has come to embody the same basic principles anyway. You know, trial by fire and all that. ANYWAY, so Marcel thanks her for sticking it out for him, and she just smiles and whispers that she will. AWWW YOU KIDS.
Their sweet conversation is cut off when Marcel's phone rings, and once he sees it's Cami, he tells Gia he needs to take it and stands up and walks across the room for some privacy; Gia looks visibly disappointed and a tiny bit jealous as he does so. Marcel answers the phone and asks Cami if she's okay, but she assures him that she is. "To be honest, NOT the worst date I've had in this city." LOL, oh, Cami. She's at Rousseau's, by the way, and pulls out a bottle of bourbon from behind the bar as Marcel jealously points out that Cami had Finn wrapped around her finger by the time he left to tend to his and Gia's bites. Anyway, as it turns out, Cami called him to bring up exactly that fact-- it's not just that Cami charmed Finn, it's that he actually has legitimate romantic feelings for her! OH SHIT. Who knew Finn was even capable of that? He's only had one love interest in his entire life and they got to be together for like five minutes before he died, so... Anyway, Marcel's like, "Can we really call that good news, though?" so Cami makes her point-- if Finn likes-her likes-her, then she's his blind-spot, which means she can use his vulnerability to help them take him down. YEAH GIRL, MAKE THE PATRIARCHY WORK FOR YOU. Marcel is NOT game for this plan, but Cami doesn't give a fuck.
Over in the Bayou, Hayley and Oliver have just returned to Jackson's trailer, and Hayley has settled Oliver down in front of the fire where she's cleaning up his wounds. Jackson is seated off to the side, sulking due to the fact that he's still understandably pissed at Oliver for everything he did to him and the pack. "Well, you got him. Great," Jackson snits. "Where's Ansel?" Hayley assures him that Ansel was right behind them when they left. Oliver is still clearly weak as he turns to Jackson and tries to apologize, but Jackson insists that he already knows-- he sold him out to Francesca. Oliver concedes that he's right and that what he did was unforgivable, but argues that he still needs to hear what he has to say. "You're the one," Oliver says, as he tries to stand to his feet, which makes Jackson grab a nearby wooden staff as he defensively jumps into a fighting position, but Oliver couldn't hurt Jackson even if he wanted to, which he doesn't. "You're the Alpha," he argues. "Our people are not meant to be slaves! You can free them!"
Before Oliver can say anything else, he starts coughing up blood and falls to his knees, which is characteristic of a French Quarter Coven death-hex. Jackson forgets that he's supposed to be mad at Oliver and rushes over to help him as he asks Hayley what the fuck is wrong with him. Ollie continues to choke, and Hayley realizes that this is totally the witches' doing, and reminds Jackson that they said he'd be executed at midnight-- they interpreted it literally, not even considering the fact that it could be a magical execution. Jackson props Oliver up in his lap to try to resuscitate him and begs him to hold on, but it's futile. Oliver manages to gasp out "Jack..." before he starts bleeding profusely from his eyes and nose and quickly dies in Jackson's arms. He gently puts Oliver's lifeless body on the ground and squeezes his hand, but when he looks over at Hayley, it's obvious that they're both about thisclose to crying. Ugh, and Oliver was just starting to act like a real being with a human soul, you know? I'm actually still sad that he's gone, although I am pleased about Jackson's return to the fold.
Back in the Quarter, Klaus has just finally made it to the tomb where Elijah is being held and finds him unconscious and still restrained with long chains that bind his wrists to the ceiling. It takes him all of one second to notice the poppet above his head and destroy it so he can finally break the chains and get him ready to go home. He tries to wake Elijah up, but no amount of shaking will snap him out of it, which, naturally, was the entire point of this exercise. Esther appears behind Klaus and states that he's not ready to wake yet, which will give them one last chance to discuss her offer. Come on, Esther! Stop trying to make body-jumping happen. It's not going to happen. Klaus reminds her that she promised him Elijah's safe return, and asks if it was just a lie like the illusion of his biological father Ansel that he just saw minutes ago.
What Esther doesn't realize, however, is that he's actually loved and has a family of his own as they speak, which she can't comprehend because she has been seeing him as he used to be before her (first) death, and not how he is now. I'm not saying that Klaus isn't still an paranoid, impulsive idiot sometimes, who makes the dumbest mistakes ever out of fear, but he is leaps and bounds different from the Klaus we met in Season 2 of TVD, you know? And, she's forgetting a crucial part to her relationship with Klaus and why it's going nowhere now that she's alive again, and it has little to do with her lies to him about his real parentage, or turning him and his siblings into monsters, or allowing Mikael to abuse him all those years. No, it has to do with what happened last spring. "Not SPITE," Klaus corrects her angrily. "Hatred. A pure and perfect hatred that's greater now than the day I first took your life!" Again, Esther is completely missing the point here, and it ends up being her downfall, because Klaus isn't just the scared little boy who became a control freak after his parents literally destroyed him-- now, he's a father, with the violence of a vampire and the temper of a werewolf who will not stand for ANYONE who will put his little girl in danger.
"BECAUSE YOU CAME FOR MY CHILD! MY DAUGHTER! YOUR OWN BLOOD!" he bellows at the top of his voice as he loses his temper and grabs Esther into a choke-hold, the exact same way as when he (apparently) killed her the first time. Esther manages to gasp that he doesn't understand what made her do it, but Klaus doesn't care-- he just repeats, "MY. CHILD," which forces her to admit that it was something she ''had'' to do. She lifts the index and middle finger of her right hand and flicks it to give Klaus one of those nosebleed-headache things that she gave Kol in "Alive & Kicking," but Klaus is the Original hybrid, you guys, and one who is dying for vengeance against the woman who ordered a hit on Hayley before Hope was even born. So, he just channels all the strength and hatred he can muster and he fights through the spell easily, choking her even harder to make up for it. When she whimpers in pain, Klaus continues, "You declared war when you came after my family. And for that, I will make you suffer as only I can." He sneers through the blood pouring out of his nose and adds, "After all, I AM my mother's son." OH MY GOD! TELL HER, KLAUSY-POO. Before she is strangled to death, Klaus lets go of her and drops her to the floor, leaving her to gasp desperately for breath as he rushes over, picks up Elijah's body, and vamp-speeds them both the hell out of there. Esther leans against the wall as she tries to regulate her breathing, and that's when we see the tail end of her flashbacks and learn why she was so eager to kill her own newborn granddaughter.
(via joffersbaratheon)
It's 977 A.D. in the Kingdom of Norway, and Young Esther is standing in front of her sister Dahlia, who has a hand gripping little Freya's arm. Esther is sobbing and clearly distraught, while little Finn stands at her side and cries silently. Esther begs her sister not to do this, but Dahlia reminds her of their deal-- Esther wanted to have a family, but since she was barren, fate clearly felt otherwise. So, since Dahlia told her using her magic to make her fertile would have a price, and now she's finally there to collect. Yeah, I'm getting the distinct feeling Dahlia is prooooobably taking advantage of a desperate woman for more power and isn't just a regular old witch who is trying not to upset the balance of Nature. Anyway, Esther is pulling out all the stops to try to keep this deal from going through, but Dahlia seems to have thought of everything.
Daaaaamn, that is so nuts! I'm still surprised by the reveal that Elijah was likely born in the Old World before Esther and Mikael moved the family to Middle-Ages-Virginia. Also, Esther totally turned her kids into vampires on purpose to try to save them from this fate, y/y??? Because they can't have more first-borns if they're vampires, unless you're special-snowflake Klaus, anyway. Plus, if she sticks them in new bodies and they have more babies, they won't have Esther's blood and thus will not apply either. She's is an evil genius. Anyway, Esther continues to beg her sister not to do this, but she just picks up little Freya and drags her away as Esther and Finn start screaming for her. Poor Freya is wailing like a banshee, all, "MOMMY!!! MOMMY!!!", but there's nothing any of them can do.
In the present day, Finn finds Esther half-gasping for breath, half-sobbing on the floor of the crypt and immediately runs over to her to make sure she's okay. When he asks her what happened, Esther informs him that Klaus rejected her offer for the billionth time. We cut briefly over to the Mikaelson compound, where Klaus and Hayley lay Elijah's unconscious body (still wearing his blood-stained suit-- couldn't they have put him in some sweats or something? Surely even Elijah Mikaelson wears pajamas?) onto his bed and stare at him in concern. Back in the crypt at the cemetery, Esther explains that Klaus is still "burdened with hatred" for her after what happened to Hope, which is kind of an understatement, and I mean, come on-- just because she didn't actually WANT Hope to die doesn't mean she's not culpable for the whole deal with Dahlia thing. Yes, none of the Mikaelson children would have existed without that spell (although maybe Esther could have found a witch willing to do it without some kind of Soloman-style first-born clause attached), but it's still a choice Esther made with eyes wide open, and she probably should have anticipated consequences to the consequences of that choice. Anyway, Finn insists that Klaus is a fool, and reminds her that her actions saved the rest of their family. "If that child had lived--" Finn begins, but Esther cuts him off before he could finish. "Dahlia would return, and she would come for us all." DUM DUM DUM DUMMMMMMMM. THIS IS SO WILD.
Next episode: Klaus is forced to team up with Ansel for a special flower root to wake up Elijah, Hayley, Aiden, Marcel, and Cami team up to take down Finn, and Kol and Davina make some magic (not a euphemism,)
[screencaps via Screencapped]
NOTES/SPECULATION/QUESTIONS:
-I know I haven't really been doing this section much anymore, mostly because I'm so behind that the majority of questions that I have have already been answered in the episodes that follow the episode I recapped, but in this case, I still have a lot of questions have yet to been discussed in the show, so, here goes:
Why does Dahlia seem so scared of Mikael if she's so powerful? Does he have power of his own aside from the vampire thing that we don't know about? If Dahlia is such an unstoppable witch, why doesn't she have her own children instead of poaching Esther's? Is it just a matter of not wanting to be pregnant and have to be in a relationship with someone? Because I've gotta say, I wouldn't blame her if that was the case-- for her, having a man and a bunch of babies is probably a drag if you're some all-powerful witch focused on world domination or whatever.
Also, I really want to know more about Esther and Dahlia's home life before she met Mikael and became a Viking wife or whatever. Like, can we have another webseries about Esther's life before she had kids? Or about what Dahlia has been up to in the last thousand years, since we don't even have to have seen any future episodes to know that there's no way Dahlia is dead? What are your theories?
-Here is the music from this episode, since once again, I forgot all about adding the songs/links in until after the recap was already finished and posted:
"Give Me Your Poison" by Mississippi Twilight-- Finn approaches Cami at the bar at Rousseau's when she's working on homework, and he asks her about Klaus before buying her a sazerac.
"Brain Cells" by Maxïmo Park-- Cami and Finn have drinks at Rousseau's again later that night to distract him while Hayley and Ansel save Oliver; Marcel and Gia eavesdrop on them from outside while they're standing guard.
"Letters from the Sky" by Civil Twilight-- Esther begs Klaus to take her offer, and he nearly kills her as he reminds her of everything she did to his daughter; in flashback, Esther pleads with Dahlia to not take Freya from her.
So yeah, let's just talk about The Originals, yeah?
Previously, on The Originals: The Mikaelson kids' mother Esther, a ridiculously powerful witch, came back from the dead and possessed the bodies of several witches (the most recent being Lenore) in order to allegedly heal and reunite their family. To do this, her intention is to put the spirits of all of her children into the mortal bodies of witches so that they can live a new life untainted by the plague of vampirism or whatever. She's already converted her sons Finn and Kol (or, at least partially, in the case of the latter), and resurrected them by transferring their spirits to some manwitches named Vincent and Kaleb, respectively. So, now she wants to convince Klaus, Elijah, Rebekah, and Hayley (as she has had uncharacteristically healthy relationships with both Klaus and Elijah) to allow her to do the same to them, though, as you can imagine, Elijah and Klaus aren't exactly trusting of her intentions, and for good reason. Finn infiltrated their lives by going undercover as a therapist/adviser at the school where Cami is getting her doctorate so he can get closer to her, while Kol started wooing the powerful Davina to see what secret weapons she's been hiding.
Meanwhile, Esther and Finn have taken control of the werewolf and witch communities, forcing Elijah and Oliver to reluctantly team up to gelp the gang protect a large number of untriggered teenage werewolves from Finn's plan to have them kill his human opponents to activate their curses. This plan of theirs got Oliver and Elijah captured by Esther and Finn, which Hayley, Klaus, and Marcel have only just recently realized. Oliver's fate is still yet unknown, but Esther spent the better part of a day torturing the magically-bound Elijah by forcing him to remember all of the atrocities he'd committed in his life, including accidentally killing the love of his life, the Petrova doppelgänger Tatia, just days after he had been turned into a vampire. The only way she'll stop this psychological warfare is if Elijah agrees to take the body of a witch like his other brothers, which is kind of-sort-of where we pick up this episode!
So, we start off this amazing episode in flashbacks that give us quite a bit of insight into Esther's life just after she had married Mikael. We're in the Kingdom of Norway in 972 A.D., and a young woman is bundled up in layers of woolen clothes and a hood over her head as she walks through the freezing winds and snowfall the winter has brought. Inside a nearby cottage, another young woman with dark hair and pale skin and who is clad in a dark dress is seated in front of a large fire in the middle of the room, where a cauldron is hanging above it. The room is also full of lit candles, what appear to be actual human skulls, as well as reindeer antlers, which seems to suggest some very old school sorcery is going down. The woman, who is clearly a witch, is clutching a dark-beaded talisman necklace in her hands as she chants an incantation to a spell. "In unim edito, domino sae domina, cutlas sino liberos, sino liberos," the woman mutters under her breath.
Outside, the young woman walking through the snow finally makes it to the cottage and pushes the door open as she enters the home. The woman, whose name is Dahlia, is clearly startled when she sees the woman come inside. The young woman removes her hood and thick mittens, revealing blonde hair and blue eyes that identify her as a young Esther, before pleading, "Sister, I've come to beg for your help." Dahlia doesn't seem to be at all happy to hear this statement, and skeptically asks her what she could possibly want. "You know I've always wanted children of my own..." Esther begins, which seems to be the wrong way to go about it, because Dahlia just cuts her off and snaps, "Then GO. Have your Viking children." Esther steadies herself with a deep breath and explains that she and Mikael have been married for almost an entire year now, and they are still not with child, which is making her extremely concerned that she may be cursed. She tries to make eye contact with her sister, who just sighs in annoyance, and reminds her that with Dahlia's magic, she could help her.
Again, Dahlia seems to be hating everything about this conversation, because she just snits, "You come to ME needing favors? If you hadn't abandoned your talents with witchcraft, you could help yourself!" Whoa, so Esther and Dahlia were likely raised as witches and trained from an early age, yeah? So, why do you think she quit magic? For Mikael? Was it looked down upon in their culture? Was she just really intent on being a Viking? It seems like these Norwegian witches weren't that fond of them. Anyway, Esther insists that she knows she was never as powerful as Dahlia is, and when Dahlia turns her back to Esther, she adds, "Just as I know you will not turn me away. You are my sister, and whatever our quarrels, we are bound by blood." The whole family/blood/lineage theme of this show is honestly one of my favorite aspects, because in our culture, I don't think we put that much emphasis on it anymore-- our genealogy, our bloodlines, where we come from, it's a major deal for a lot of people, but for many families who have lived in a country for centuries (such as in the case of many, many Americans), or whose families were brought here against their will (such as in the case of MANY African-Americans), their exact lineage is still a mystery past a certain point.
To be honest, I know barely anything about my heritage-- I know on my dad's side I have Irish and some kind of Scandinavian background (the surname Nickson is kind of a dead giveaway), but that is neither very specific nor does it detail my entire lineage on both my dad's side and my mom's side. So, the fact that in this show, your blood can mean you have a supernatural curse, or gift, or some kind of legacy, or even just a connection to someone that is unbreakable, will never not be cool to me. ANYWAY, back on topic-- Esther begs Dahlia to help her, and she eventually turns back around so she can face her little sister, whose eyes are pleading desperately for her assistance. Dahlia seems concerned when she points out that the kind of magic for which Esther is asking requires a heavy sacrifice, but Esther assures her that she is willing to pay it, regardless of what it entails. When Dahlia sees that she's near tears, she sighs and opens her arms wide before telling Esther to come here. Esther rushes toward her, and the two sisters hug each other tightly. "I could never refuse you," Dahlia says quietly, as she pulls away and takes Esther's face in her hands, "My precious little Esther." Ohhhh, shit, this is so not going to end well. TITLE CARD!
Since it's been a while since we've heard from Oliver, let's see what he's been up to, yeah? So, right now he's in Lafayette Cemetery, where he's been chained up and bound to an old-fashioned set of wooden stalks, and he looks like he's been beaten pretty badly in the time since he's been captured. Lenore/Esther and Vincent/Finn, along with the werewolves under their command, are all gathered around him. Oliver insists that they should just kill him and get it over with already, but Finn is NOT happy about him addressing his mother in such a way, since he's ancient and all. "Speak to her again, I'll feed you your tongue," Finn snaps, before turning to address the werewolf congregation.
"Spread the word from here to the Bayou-- Midnight tonight, he is to be put to death for his part in aiding the escape of deserters." DESERTERS? They were fucking TEENAGERS. Finn is the fucking wooooooooooorst. Also, I'm really sad that they're killing Oliver when I just finally started to like him. WHY MUST YOU ALWAYS PLAY GAMES WITH MY HEART, SHOW? Finn instructs the pack to chain him up in the lycée until he's to be executed, so the wolves grab him and shove him into the building, just as Finn shouts behind them, "Tell the other wolves to come and have a look and see what happens to traitors!" Oh, Finn, you are as unimaginative as your terrible, horrible father. Once the wolves have gone, Esther smiles proudly at her son before reminding him that he has a meeting. When Finn nods in confirmation, she informs him that she'll go tend to his brother while he's gone.
She heads into the crypt where she's been holding Elijah to find that he's still passed the fuck out, kneeling on the floor with his restrained wrists uncomfortably twisted above his head. Esther begins to speak quietly to him as she walks around his body, cupping his face in her hands. "Still sleeping... lost in visions of horror and dreams of love. Still so strong, so full of life. Too willful to take my offer." She drops his head in frustration and walks over to a nearby table to pick up an athame. "I remember you as a little boy. Innocent, kind... if that boy had known the creature he would one day grow up to be, he'd have leapt in my arms and BEGGED me to save him." She runs her fingers through his hair as she circles around to stand behind him. "I'd do anything for that little boy, as I would you." So, naturally, she grabs him by the hair, pulls his head back, and mutters an unintelligible spell into his ear as she SLICES HIS DAMN THROAT WITH THE ATHAME. What the fuck, Esther? Is breaking down Elijah's version of the Sam Winchester Hell-wall not enough torture? I mean, I know he's an Original vampire, so he's certainly not going to die from that, but still. I don't like my babies being hurt. :( Anyway, Elijah gasps and sputters as blood soaks his poor suit, which at this point is probably not going to be able to be salvaged. Elijah is gonna be FURIOUS. We know how he feels about his suits.
Meanwhile, at the Mikaelson compound, Hayley is looking out at the streets of the French Quarter from the balcony in her bedroom, and is taking in the scene until she's suddenly startled by the sound of agonized screams from inside. She frowns and returns to her room, crossing through the nursery that connects her bedroom to Klaus', where she finds Klaus, who has blood splattered all over him from head to toe, rinsing his hands off in the sink in his bathroom. Hayley hilariously snarks, "Oh. So, I see your interrogation went well?" Klaus remarks that witches are delicate creatures, but it doesn't matter, because he already assumed that his mother had Elijah held captive. Hayley declares this to be great news and insists that they leave to go get him, but Klaus puts the kibosh on that pretty quickly. He reminds her that Esther is way too powerful and clever to be easily found, and maintains that he needs to draw her out in order to figure out where he is.
He starts to shut the sliding doors to his room, but Hayley immediately stops him and asks him where the fuck he thinks he's going. "I'm going to change my shirt, and then I'm going to find my brother," Klaus says, before smiling the fakest smile and trying to shut the doors again. Hayley is NOT pleased that her baby daddy is boxing her out, and argues that she needs to come with him, but as expected, Klaus is playing white knight. Honestly, it's not necessarily a bad thing-- I mean, the fact that Klaus is desperate to protect Hayley actually shows a lot of growth and character development on his part-- but Hayley, much like Allison Argent, can take care of herself. "I know you want to help, Hayley, but you can't," Klaus says gently. "My mother is wretched. She WILL target you in order to thwart me, and I can't very well save Elijah if I'm busy saving you, can I?" Hayley rolls her eyes at this, but she remains silent, so Klaus takes the opportunity to shut the doors so he can change while she considers her own options.
Julie Plec must have heard my talking about how much I love these unconventional team-ups, because the scene cuts over to Marcel's loft, where Gia has just returned to find Marcel waiting for him. "I did like you said," Gia begins, as she moves to sit next to him. "I kept a low profile, went ALL over the city. There's no sign of Elijah anywhere." Marcel sighs and admits that the humans he talked to said the exact same thing, and wonders aloud if Klaus has been having better luck. That's when Hayley strolls in the front door and replies, "No, he's not, which sucks, considering how low the bar is around here." Marcel and Gia both look at her in confusion, so she gets straight to the point-- are Marcel and Gia up for yet another rescue mission? Gia perks up immediately and asks if they're going after Elijah, but Hayley, remembering her discussion with Klaus just moments ago, claims that that is Klaus' job today. What she wants to do is try to find and rescue Oliver, who was fighting the werewolves with Elijah when the two of them got nabbed in "Live and Let Die."
Apparently, she heard through the werewolf grapevine that Oliver's been captured as well, and that he's set to be executed this night. She's hoping that if they can find Oliver, then maybe they can get at least a clue as to where Elijah is, if not find him as well. Marcel seems game for some scheming, because he always is, but he's confused about what exactly she needs from him and Gia. "Just a distraction," Hayley assures him. "Esther's son, Finn, he's the one that's controlling the werewolves. If you can keep him out of the way, I can go get Ollie myself." LOL, I love how she referred to Finn as Esther's son and not Klaus and Elijah's brother. Just goes to show how much everyone hates his guts, and rightly so. When Hayley turns to leave, Marcel vamp-speeds over to her to block her path, and points out, "You can't take on ALL those wolves by yourself. You'll get killed, and then I'll get get for letting it happen!" Hayley sighs in frustration and informs him that she won't be going in alone-- while most of the werewolves are now answering to the witches, specifically Esther and Finn, they still have an alpha, and that's who she's going to track down to help her. OHHH SHIT, SHE'S GOING AFTER JACKSON! I've been missing that kind, rustic dude.
In the Quarter, Cami is sitting at the bar of Rousseau's, where she's working on schoolwork, when Finncent sidles himself up to the bar and sits next to her. "Fancy meeting you here," Finn begins, but Cami just reminds him that it's hardly "fancy," considering she works here and all. She mentions that she thought she told him that, but Finn just brushes it off and insists that since half of his patients work in bars-- it IS New Orleans, after all-- he can't avoid them all. Cami is unnerved by this, but clearly isn't sure why, so she just laughs uncomfortably and returns to her work. Finn can see that she's weirded out, but misinterprets the why. "Are you okay?" he asks with concern. "Let me guess... more drama with... Klaus, is that right?" Cami just becomes even more suspicious by this question, and understandably so, considering how his pretending not to know who Klaus is was not very good-- Finn really should never go into acting-- but she confirms that yeah, she kind of does.
She vaguely explains that Klaus has family in town, and since they don't really get along well, he's sort of going out of his mind a bit. When she adds that she sort of got sucked into the crazy, Finn suggests that it's unfair that Klaus relies on her so heavily for emotional support, and asks her if he's got anyone else to go to for help. "His sister left town," Cami begins with a shrug. "His brother's been... occupied. The rest of his family I wouldn't say has a healthy dynamic. So, I guess I just feel a professional obligation to help him?" Finn reminds her that Cami described him as being dangerous, but Cami insists that he's not dangerous to HER, leading Finn to get weirdly protective of her as he states that he doesn't want her to put herself in a position where she could be hurt by him.
Cami is about done with Finn's creepy behavior and asks if they can stow the shop-talk, since it's happy hour and all, so Finn just smiles and agrees that it's not the time. He then turns to the bartender and says, "I'll have a whiskey, neat, and for the lady, a sazurac, two spoons of honey." Fun fact-- sazerac is a specialty bourbon that is made in New Orleans, which I didn't know until I was writing the transcript for this episode for the TVD/TO Wikia page (because I have no social life, obvs) and realized I had absolutely no idea what the fuck it was. The more you know! Anyway, this extra-specific order alarms Cami so much that she becomes even more suspicious and frantically begins grabbing all of her things. She cites the fact that she totally forgot that she has to run before stating that she'll see him on Monday. As she rushes off, Finn looks both hurt and confused, although he's way too much of a weirdo to realize that she's totally onto him, because everyone (except maybe Klaus, Elijah, and Marcel) totally underestimates just how smart she is. YIKES.
Out at the old plantation house, Klaus is in the middle of digging up Esther's grave in the backyard where they consecrated her body and buried her to finish the Harvest ritual by giving Sophie Deveraux the power of an Elder. (Aw, I kind of miss Sophie, to be honest. I'd take her over some of the less fun witches we've met, like Bastianna or Celeste.) Also, question-- so, is Esther's body still preserved with magic like it was in TVD? And if that's the case, does that mean that OG Esther could come back someday? She's my favorite, her everlasting serenity even when she's killing people and turning them into monsters is amazing. ANYWAY, so Klaus starts dousing his mother's body/coffin with gasoline and shouts, "Are you watching this, Mother? Nothing says, 'I loathe you' quite like desecrating a corpse!" He pulls out a lighter and is about to light it when suddenly, a familiar male voice calls out, "Niklaus!" Klaus stops what he's doing and turns to find Elijah at the other end of the yard, looking fine as ever in one of his dark suits as he walks back toward the plantation house. He's clearly both confused and suspicious as he follows his older brother inside the burnt-out husk of their old home, eventually finding Elijah at the mostly-destroyed piano as he absentmindedly hits the keys.
Klaus is no dummy, so when Elijah just smirks at him and casually states, "You seem troubled. If I didn't know better, I'd say you were worried," he immediately knows that some sort of malicious hijinks are afoot. He asks him what Esther has done to him, but Elijah just points out that since their mother still seems intent on saving their souls after over a thousand years of murder and mayhem, they should probably just hear her out and see what she has to say. Klaus, knowing that there is no way in hell that Elijah would suggest such a thing, angrily picks up a piece of overturned furniture and lobs it at him as he bellows, "ENOUGH!"
As he expected, the furniture goes right through Elijah as he disappears, proving that it was all just a magically-induced vision. "The petty illusions, Esther!" he shouts. "Where is Elijah?" That's when Esther finally decides to make an appearance and comes out behind Klaus. She informs him that Elijah is preoccupied at the moment, because she's helping him "find his way." However, she insists that once she's done, she'll return Elijah to him, as long as in return, he listens to her pitch. Hasn't she already made this spiel like five times already? What more is there to say? Klaus pretty much agrees and tells her that he has no intention of listening to her "sermon of lies," but Esther just replies, "I have lied in the past, to my shame. But, I'm going to tell you the truth. I'm in the process of making Elijah into the man he was meant to be. And, I intend to do the same for you." WELP.
When we come back from the break, Esther and Klaus are continuing their talk inside the burned-out mansion. It's their first true one-on-one talk in AGES, probably not since she first came back in Season 3 of TVD, but despite claiming to have watched Klaus for a thousand years, she's still expecting WAY TOO MUCH from their discussion.
ESTHER: "This plantation, ruined by fire. How sad... not to mention symbolic. After all, you never intended to build a true home here. Even as Hayley carried your child, as Rebekah and Elijah sought to defend you, your thoughts were focused on only your conquest of the Quarter. Tell me, how did that go?"
KLAUS: [annoyed] "I'm sorry, is this some sort of motherly critique? Please feel free to choke on it."
ESTHER: "I mention your failures only to make a point, my dear. You've endured several lifetimes of misery, never mind the suffering you've caused others, even to your own blood. You yourself remain trapped in a perpetual cycle of despair. I have come to offer you a means to escape that cycle."
KLAUS: "And THAT'S about all the hypocrisy I can take. I suggest you give me my brother before I get angry."Now, I do kind of get where Esther is coming from, because prior to the start of The Originals series, Klaus really was miserable. He had minions, but he had no true allies whose loyalty he didn't compel or scare them into giving him. He had alienated Elijah to the point that he actually wanted to kill him, he daggered the rest of his siblings because their behavior mixed poorly with his control-freak nature, and he was totally alone because of it. That all changed when he realized Hayley was pregnant, though-- although it's true that it took him quite a while for his brain to catch up. But look at Klaus now: he's got actual friends, borderline lovers, and allies who are willing to defend him because they care about him (Hayley, Marcel, Cami, to a very, very small degree, Davina), he's reconciled with the siblings who actually matter (Elijah, Rebekah), he has a daughter for whom he would do literally ANYTHING (even if he can't actually see her). This is probably the happiest he's been in his life, so why would he want to take Esther's deal now? His family is immortal, including his baby mama/dear friend and daughter, so this is literally the prime of his life.
ANYWAY, I digress, as usual. So, Esther pulls the whole, "Such hatred. It breaks my heart to see you like this. The boy I loved,"-thing, but Klaus is SO not here for that. "Your love was a CURSE, an affect you feigned!" Klaus yells, and Esther just looks at him like she can't understand why he's being such a baby about this, as though he has no reason whatsoever to be upset. "The truth is," he continues. "You're no better than Mikael, and like him, you seem to have crawled back from the grave simply to ruin your children." Esther's eyes widen in shock, and when Klaus realizes that this is news to her, he just smiles gleefully and laughs before he continues. "Oh! You didn't know! Yes, the Destroyer has risen brought back to kill me by the witch Davina. Surely Kol has revealed everything to you?" Esther tries to keep her poker face, but Klaus can tell just by looking at her that he didn't. "Or, is Mother's loyal little boot-licker not quite so loyal after all?" OH SHIT! It's not often you can pull one over on Esther Mikaelson, so this is pretty impressive. I don't blame Klaus for being excited at all.
Meanwhile, Cami apparently rushed to Father Kieran's secret apartment as soon as Finncent started acting weird at the bar, and she's now in the secret room through the closet that is full of his old files on the various supernatural communities, co-opted dark objects he stole from the witches, and historical documents. She's currently engrossed in reading the pages of a pretty large book, and she skims through the page until she comes upon the name Vincent Griffith, and her eyes widen in shock as she reads about him. Suddenly, Marcel comes up behind her and snarks that she's probably wanting a new adviser at this point. Cami's startled by the fact that he just appeared out of nowhere, but she quickly shrugs it off and instead demands to know who Vincent really is. Marcel hilariously is like, "I would try to make a long story short, but that would be impossible, so..." Cami points out that when she checked her school's website, she learned that Vincent Griffith has no actual academic credentials (So, how did he get the job? Magic? Did Esther hoodwink a vampire into compelling him a job? Can witches use mind control spells? I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS), and when she checked "Uncle Kieran's big book of New Orleans' bloodlines," she learned that the Griffiths are a family of WITCHES.
Marcel hilariously just looks at her, like, "Oh, you sweet naive newborn baby," and breaks the news to her-- "Oh, it's worse than that. Your therapist has a thousand-year-old dead vampire inside of him named... Finn Mikaelson." Wait, when did Marcel even get read into this? I thought Klaus was trying to keep him out of it for his own safety? Oh, whatever, it doesn't matter. Anyway, Cami is understandably stunned and pissed that her adviser has been Klaus' eldest brother this whole time, and explains to Marcel that he came into Rousseau's and was asking all sorts of questions about Klaus before ordering her favorite drink like he had been watching her. CAMI IS SO SMART. Seriously, she is such an underrated character and it kills me that she doesn't get more love in the fandom. Anyway, when she asks Marcel why Finn's been keeping tabs on her, he just shrugs and figures he was trying to get the inside scoop on what's going on with Klaus, or maybe to use her for bait in some sort of trap. "I don't know, it doesn't matter," Marcel begins, before turning on his protective act. "Either way, you're done with that guy," he insists, but Cami just shakes her head, looking furious at the fact that Finn was trying to use her. She gets this determined look on her face and retorts, "No. I'm just getting started." YASS CAMI! WORK IT.
Back at the plantation house, you can see the cogs turning in Lenore/Esther's head as she digests the Mikael reveal. After a moment, she turns to Klaus and states, "If Mikael has returned, we will need to deal with him," which quite understandably makes Klaus laugh bitterly. He asks her if she's joking before pointing out that it's kind of asking a lot to want him to forego a millennia of hatred for her to team-up with her in order to take out the demon Esther herself allowed to raise him. Esther sighs, clearly fed up with the constant barrage of insults, and insists that she's not evil. "I am your salvation. And Mikael? He was not always a demon."
Cut to a flashback to 10th century Norway, probably five or six years after Esther met with Dahlia for a fertility spell. Young Esther is sitting n front of the fireplace in their cottage while two young blonde children rush around as Young Mikael returns from battle. "Long ago, he loved his children with all his heart," Esther explains in voiceover, as the young boy (Finn) lunges for Mikael and hugs his legs as Mikael ruffles his hair affectionately. "He doted on your brother Finn, but it was our first-born, Freya, who was the apple of his eye." When young Freya sees Mikael, her face lights up, and she jumps up into his arms as he picks her up and hugs her tight. It's honestly really hard to believe that Mikael was ever kind and loving, considering what we know about his Viking upbringing and whatnot, but this is definitely an interesting history lesson. I want to see more about Esther and Mikael's life when they first got together and their decision to start a family and whatnot.
In the present, Klaus just whines that "saccharine recollections of ancient history" won't have any affect on him, but Esther just retorts that she's pretty sure Klaus has just gone made from centuries of hating his parents. That's not exactly untrue, but I'd be lying if I said Klaus and his siblings didn't have ample legitimate reasons for loathing the people who gave him life and raised him. Still, Esther maintains that if Klaus joins her, she can grant him peace, and if Mikael comes after him with the intention of harming him, Esther will strike down and kill him herself. You can tell just by looking at Klaus that he is seriously tempted by this, because there is still an itty-bitty part of him that wants his family to be whole and love each other, but he knows this is just a pipe dream. "That's quite an offer," Klaus replies. "But, you know, I've never needed any help when it comes to killing parents." OOH, BURN! Esther has Klaus' number, though, and while she acknowledges that he's just rejecting her out of hatred, she's got something stronger to sweeten her offer: she has the truth about Klaus' father. Not the wretched step-father Mikael, but his biological father. OH SHIT, OH SHIT, OH SHITTTTT.
Meanwhile, Hayley has been wandering around in a more remote part of the Bayou than where the major encampments are when she comes upon a beat-up looking metal RV in the middle of a wooded area. Suddenly, she hears a creaking sound and turns around just in time to catch two arrows that were shot in her direction by a man several yards away out of thin air. She drops the arrows onto the ground in annoyance and calls out to the man, "Is that your best shot? You're gonna have to do a lot better than that if you're gonna kill a hybrid."
The man starts walking toward her, drawing a shortsword out of his sheath with his free hand while the other grips his bow, and as he gets closer, we can see that he has a quiver of arrows strapped to his back. He's about to start swinging the sword at Hayley when a very gruff voice yells at him to stop. Hayley and the man both turn to the source of the voice and find Jackson coming out of the trailer and approaching them. Hayley is so happy she can't even believe it's really Jackson, and after she greets him, Jackson remarks that he sees she's met his friend Ansel. Ansel looks confused as he turns back to Jackson and is like, "You know her?", but Jackson just smiles weakly and replies, "Yeah, actually, I do. She was supposed to be my wife." Whomp, whomp.
Over at the plantation house, Esther and Klaus have made their way outside to where he dug up her grave. She stops right beside it as Klaus follows behind her and reminds him that over a thousand years ago, in a fit of rage, Klaus killed her by wrapping his hands around her throat and strangling her to death. HOLD UP A SECOND-- in TVD, the cave drawings that the Mikaelsons did in the tunnels under Mystic Falls said that the Original witch had been killed by having her heart ripped out. At first, they believed it was Mikael who did it, but then after the Mystic Falls Gang deciphered the symbols, they realized it was actually Klaus. So, is this a retcon? Julie Plec is usually much better at continuity than that. ANYWAY, when Esther asks him if he even remembers why he did it, Klaus just laughs bitterly and gives her a list. "Let's see... you turned us all into monsters. You cursed me, denied me of my hybrid nature. You lied to me about my father--"
Esther cuts him off right there and points out that it's that last reason above the others that made Klaus loathe her so much: the fact that Esther denied him of the chance to ever know his biological father. "My hatred for you runs so deep, it's difficult to pinpoint its origin," Klaus snaps back at her. "Maybe I hate that I'm the product of a whore's lechery!" OH SHIT! Come on, Klaus, you're better than that! I know he's totally a misogynist compared to Feminist King Elijah, but that is super harsh. I don't even like Esther and even I was like OH NO YOU DID NOT JUST SAY THAT. Esther is so pissed she slaps him hard across the face and tells him to shut the fuck up. "You will do well to remember that you are STILL my son," she snaps, her face furious. Klaus isn't quite done yet, though, and points out that even though she claims he's evil, it was her lust that brought Klaus to existence, which actually leads us to see that Esther actually does have a heart, even if she is prone to act out in not-so-loving ways. "And not once have I EVER regretted the love I had for your father," Esther argues, which leaves Klaus speechless. "And, you have never known the truth of how that love came to be, or what happened in the months after Mikael and I lost your sister Freya to the plague." LOL LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE. "There are no words for the loss of a child, as you well know," Esther adds, which makes Klaus so simultaneously furious and sad that he just glares at her while he strains to keep from crying. Ugh, Daddy!Klaus is seriously killing me so hard. Who would have thought Klaus was capable of such love and devotion? I surely didn't.
Over in the Bayou, Jackson and Hayley are sitting in chairs around the fire pit near Jackson's trailer while Ansel sits on a nearby log and sharpens his blade. While they sit, Jackson catches Hayley up on what's been happening on his end since "The Battle of New Orleans." "After Francesca Guerrera took over the wolves, she offered me a moonlight ring as long as I'd call her Alpha," he explains grimly. "I declined. So, a couple of her brothers dragged me out here and left me for dead. By the time I healed up, word had spread about what happened to you... and to your baby." Hayley looks down at the ground, the reminder clearly making her both sad and uncomfortable because of the slight lie. "So, I knew it was over, and I just drifted," he continues on. "And that's when I met Ansel. See, he's been teaching me the old ways, the traditions. What it means to be a wolf." Hayley just scoffs a laugh and asks him if he means living in the "ass-end of nowhere," which doesn't seem to please Ansel much, so Jackson tells her to go easy, because "her kind" apparently makes Ansel ornery.
I'm appreciative of the fact that Jackson doesn't seem to care that Hayley's a hybrid like the other wolves do, but I still hate those kinds of comments, because they suggest that Hayley actually WANTED to be a hybrid and asked for this when that couldn't be farther from the case. She completed the transition solely because she didn't want to leave her daughter motherless, and has just gotten over the self-hating part of being part-vampire. If anything, being a hybrid has only made her embrace her werewolf side more, because she is literally the only hybrid we've ever seen who has relished the fact that she can turn into a wolf whenever she wants-- we haven't even seen KLAUS shift for the hell of it since he first broke his curse and stayed a wolf for two days. Most hybrids (like Tyler Lockwood and the others that were turned with him) were happy to become hybrids because they wouldn't have to turn anymore, but Hayley is the only one who has taken advantage of the fact that she has the ability to be more in touch with her wolf self. So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that the werewolves need to get rid of their ingrained hybrid-hate because it is BULLSHIT and Hayley is an amazing werewolf queen.
Hayley seems to agree with me, because she gets a little offended and replies, "MY kind? Jack, whatever you and your friend think of me, my kind is the WOLVES. Even if they did pledge allegiance to a witch. All that means is they need an an alpha. Ollie needs one too." Jackson's demeanor gets even chillier at the sound of his former pack mate and amigo and admits that while he had heard about Oliver's scheduled execution that night, but he can't reconcile with the fact that he betrayed him by plotting with the Guerreras and spilling his own pack's blood. Hayley sighs, since it's not like she disagrees with him, but argues that he's trying to make up for that, but Jackson insists that it doesn't matter, because if the witches have him, he's definitely a dead man. "Not that I care," he adds, though he's not really fooling anyone. Hayley gets a little aggravated and stands up to her feet. "You don't want to be the alpha? Fine. I'll save Oliver myself."
She turns to leave the way that she came, but Ansel stands and blocks her way. She hilariously snarks, "Hey, you got a problem, old man?" even though Ansel could pass for someone in his late 30s, but Ansel just shakes his head. "I have no love of vampires, but I will not allow a wolf to be killed by witches." OHH YEAH! I kind of like Ansel, honestly, and you guys already know how I feel about this show's use of unconventional team-ups! I LOVE THEM. Ansel pushes past Hayley and starts to head for the French Quarter, and before Hayley goes to follow him, she turns back to Jackson and snits, "At least SOMEONE is interested," before she takes off. Awww, Jackson is just so lost! Poor guy. I love Hayley taking charge, though, and I want so much more of it.
At the plantation, Klaus and Esther are still in the front yard, where Esther is further explaining the state of the family after Freya's "death."
ESTHER: "After Freya died, Mikael was inconsolable. Compelled by his grief, we were forced to pack our things and set across the seas. Eventually, his despair would drive us apart, and that's when I saw him for the first time-- your father. I'd never seen a man like him. Powerful, yet wise, but loved by his people. And-- because Mikael had chosen to leave me alone in his grief, shunning me from his life-- I found myself drawn to another."Klaus rolls his eyes and tells her to spare him the dirty details of his origin, but Esther insists that she's only speaking the truth. "Then tell me this, Mother," Klaus demands in frustration. "Why did your Adonis abandon his son? Why did he allow me to be raised by a monster who hated me? Why not claim me for himself, raise me among the wolves? Or, was he as ashamed of his bastard as you were?" Excellent questions, honestly. Can you imagine what Klaus might have been like if he had been raised by his biological father instead of Mikael? I have a hard time doing it, because it would just be SO different. I'm guessing he likely had other sons/children of his own before Klaus was born, because otherwise I feel like he would have tried harder to claim Klaus. Anyway, Esther insists that his father loved him, and that it was she who forbade it. "I knew if Mikael had learned of my infidelity, he would have destroyed us in his rage. I had no choice." Klaus just glares at Esther furiously, but remains silent. Okay, so I understand why Esther did what she did, because I mean, we've all seen Mikael-- he didn't get the moniker "Mikael the Destroyer" from being kind-hearted and understanding, you know? But just seeing how scared of Mikael Esther seems to be (along with, as we'll see later, her sister Dahlia, who also seems afraid of his retribution) makes me wonder just how much of a monster he really is, if the two most powerful witches in history are afraid of him. MORE ESTHER/MIKAEL BACKSTORY PLZ & TY.
In the Quarter, Marcel and Cami are still hanging out in Kieran's secret apartment, where Cami is still going through all of his files while Marcel just watches her in exasperation. "So, what? You're gonna spy on a witch with a thousand-year-old grudge-match against Klaus?" Marcel asks incredulously. "Huh-uh. I'm not gonna let you go anywhere NEAR that guy!" Cami pulls a page out of the Allison Argent playbook and insists that she can take care of herself as she spots a small dagger on one of the shelves and picks it up, but Marcel's still in protective-best-friend/ex-boyfriend-mode and points out that he gets where she's coming from, since she's clearly mad at him for lying to her and wants to get even, but as it turns out, it's even bigger than that. "It's not about getting even, Marcel!" she says as she cuts him off, raising her voice to show him that she's serious. "Look around! Everything in this room, this is my family's LEGACY. And, if I had just embraced it the first time around, I could have uncovered Francesca Guerrera's secret, and the wolves would have never taken over the Quarter, and Klaus' baby would still be alive! So, don't tell me not to get involved!"
Oh, Cami, bb! I had no idea that she was still blaming herself so much for what happened, even though anyone could tell you it wasn't her fault. Kieran had literally just died when all of that was going down, and that was AFTER he got hexed by the witches, lost his mind, accidentally got turned into a vampire, and tried to kill her. No one-- not even Klaus himself, who at one time was excellent at blaming other people for his mistakes-- would blame Cami for the Guerreras' coup and Hope's "death." Before Marcel can try to reassure her of this, his phone rings, and when he sees it's Hayley, he reluctantly tells Cami to hold that thought so he can answer.
Instead of greeting her, he straight-up asks her if she tracked down her Alpha, but Hayley (who is still walking through the Bayou with Ansel) replies that while Jackson is out of commission, she managed to get the next best thing in the form of Ansel. She asks him if he has a plan to keep Finn occupied, and Ansel gives Hayley a look when he recognizes the name. Marcel sighs and looks over at Cami, who is once again engrossed in reading the book of New Orleans' bloodlines, before replying, "Yeah... Yeah, I think I might have an idea." Aw, Marcel! Look at you trusting Cami to be able to handle Finn on her own. I am seriously loving him so much this season-- Klaus, Elijah, Hayley, and Davina aren't the only ones who have had some major character development since the series started.
Klaus and Esther are still talking out by her grave in the backyard of the plantation house, where Esther's trying to convince Klaus that his existence was actually a good thing for them. "When I learned I was with child, I went back to Mikael. I told him I was having his baby. He showed no joy, but neither did he suspect the truth." LOLLLL MIKAEL IS AN IDIOT.
We flash back to the late 10th century Mystic Falls, where Esther is holding the newborn Klaus in her arms, and Mikael is kneeling next to her to look at him, no doubt to search his eyes for warrior-ness, since that's totally his thing. "When you were born, it renewed his spirits," she narrates in voiceover, as Mikael holds his hand toward baby Nik and smiles the briefest ghost of a smile as the baby grips onto his finger tightly. "We had Kol, Rebekah, Henrik..." In the present day, Esther insists to Klaus that they became a family again because of Klaus, but Klaus understandably reminds her that the family they reformed was built on lies. That's when Esther brings it all around to her actual point, which is that she wants Klaus to forsake his vampirism, along with the rest of his siblings.
ESTHER: "Oh, you were my secret joy! And, to protect your secret, I denied you a life with your father. But, what if I could make up for all that? By curing you of this sickness that's infected your soul? Whereas I put Kol and Finn into the bodies of a witch, YOU I shall place into the body of a werewolf! So you can live our your days as who you were always meant to be!"
KLAUS: [turns his back to her] "What could possibly make you think I would agree to such a thing?"
ESTHER: "With mortality, you could start over. You could have a family of your own. Happiness, peace, all the things you have long been denied?"Okay, hold on a minute-- whatever happened to the Esther who just-- three episodes ago, mind you-- was telling Klaus that she gave him the starling necklace to keep him from "becoming a beast" for as long as she could? As she talks, she walks toward him, but with every step she takes, Klaus takes a step backwards away from her, clearly unhappy with where this is going. Do you guys remember the conversation Klaus had with Caroline alllll the way back in Season 4 of TVD, when that infernal cure for immortality story line that literally EVERYONE hated was going on? When he told Caroline he knew she had no interest in the cure because she liked herself better as a vampire-- being strong, ageless, and fearless, knowing that she couldn't be hurt or killed by ordinary means and had the strength and mind control powers to ensure that nobody human could give her any problems. I feel like Klaus knew this because he feels the exact same way-- he's been alive for over ten centuries, and he loves being eternally young, experiencing history as it is being made, living hedonistically and taking solace in the fact that he's essentially indestructible.
So, as tempting as it may be for him to give all of that up so he can live as a regular werewolf, have more children so Hope can have siblings, and live like one dysfunctional mortal family while they're all inhabiting random bodies that don't belong to them, he's not willing to sacrifice immortality and strength for any of it, especially considering the fact that, in his mind, he needs that strength to protect Hope from all of the assholes who want to hurt her. (Which, also, on the topic of possession, how is what Esther wants to do better than ~the plague of vampirism~? I mean, morally speaking, is it really any better to be commandeering the body of some innocent person and taking their chance at life just so they can cheat death and live as mortals? It's kind of bullshit.) Anyway, as expected, Klaus yells that he's heard enough. "Tell me where Elijah is, or I WILL kill you, in this body or any other you choose to jump into from now to bloody Armageddon!" TELL HER, KLAUS.
Esther is not one to be rejected or denied, as we well know, so she completely loses her patience, and when Klaus lunges for her, she uses telekinesis to hold him back. "I had hoped there was some part of you that yearned for an end to your vicious ways!" she exclaims angrily, as Klaus summons all of his strength to try to break through Esther's barrier she's put between them, to no avail. "But, if you are determined to perpetuate the cycles of the violence to which you have become accustomed? Well, then, I'll have to accommodate you." She quickly flicks the wrist of her outstretched arm and squeezes her open hand into a fist, which snaps Klaus' neck and causes him to fall limply to the ground. OH SHIT! I always wondered if Klaus could have his neck snapped, or if being the Original hybrid made him immune to such injuries, but it seems that it is possible, although it would take quite a powerful person to be able to catch him off guard long enough to do it. Or, in Esther's case, possess super powerful magic. Whichever.
After the break, we return to the backyard of the plantation house, where the sun has gone down and plunged the area into darkness. Esther stares at Klaus' body laying on the ground near her dug-up grave, and after a moment, Klaus is transported into a flashback to the early 11th century Mystic Falls as he dreams while his spine heals itself. In flashback, Klaus is grown up, now, and this must have been the same day (or maybe 2-3 days maximum) after Klaus was revealed to be a werewolf/hybrid when he made his first human kill shortly being turned into an Original vampire and it became clear that Mikael wasn't his true father. Klaus has just stumbled out of the woods, only to find that the bloodied corpses of various werewolves are impaled on pikes near a large bonfire.
Horrified, Klaus rushes over to the body that is nearest to him and grabs his arm, noting a tattoo on the inner forearm near the man's elbow that is three interlocking crescent moons surrounded by a circle. He brushes the man's long blondish-brown hair out of the way so he can see the man's face, and realizes that it's Ansel, who has clearly just been killed by Mikael. Klaus looks so distraught it kills me, and it appears that he knew just how connected he was to the man, OH SHIT! ANSEL IS KLAUS' FATHER AND ESTHER BROUGHT HIM BAAAAAAAACK! I know that there have been like ten episodes since this one aired and lots of stuff has happened, but I still really like this reveal, you guys. I would be very interested to learn more about the ~old ways~ of the werewolves, since they seem very similar to the ~old ways~ of witchcraft, which is much more in my alley.
Once he's healed, Klaus awakens with a gasp and sits up to find Esther standing there waiting for him. She apologizes for the injury and asks him if he was dreaming, so Klaus informs her that he was recalling the day he finally learned who his real father was, though it was after Mikael slaughtered him. "My darkest hour," Esther says softly, as she briefly gets distracted by her own recollection. "Had you yourself not killed me soon thereafter, I doubt I ever would have recovered." Innnnnteresting! Now that we know just how much Esther loved Ansel, I'm really interested to learn more about her relationship with Mikael and how they got together, what their relationship was like before Freya died. What did she see in Mikael, anyway?
Esther pulls a pocket watch out of her pocket and checks it, seeing that it is 8:34PM, or 19:35 for you guys who are on military time. She sighs and mutters that Klaus woke earlier than she expected, but either way, she claims it's finally time. When Klaus asks her for what, concerned that maybe she has some sort of ulterior motive, or maybe a trap planned, but Esther instead says that since Klaus said he wanted Elijah, he can have him. "He's sleeping, chained to the wall of a tomb in Lafayette Cemetery. I've lifted the spell that hides him. You are free to take him home. Now, his own mind will work out his choice for him. When he wakes, he'll make his own decision. Every single thing I've said to you tonight is the truth, Niklaus. Whatever you choose to believe is up to you." Yeahhhh, I'm not buying the whole "Elijah can make his own choice" thing whatsoever, but Klaus is so desperate to get Elijah back that he instantly vamp-speeds away before Esther changes her mind. FINALLY.
Meanwhile, in the Quarter, Cami is walking down the street toward Rousseau's before she enters the restaurant. Gia arrives at the back entrance where Marcel is waiting for her by the door and assures him that she swept the perimeter and there doesn't seem to be a werewolf in sight. Marcel seems relieved and thanks her for being there to help, but Gia turns the topic to "Blondie" inside the restaurant and asks how she's doing. Marcel promises she'll be fine though, and reminds her to just keep an eye out for any wolf guards prowling around. She leaves to keep watch, leaving Marcel to lean against the wall by the door and eavesdrop on Cami as she sits down at a table with Finn. She thanks him for coming and immediately apologizes for being so abrupt earlier, but Finn just apologizes as well for being so unprofessional. "You're sorry, I'm sorry," Cami replies with a smile as she holds up her glass. "Let's call it even and have a drink!" Ohhhhh Cami, you are both badass and completely crazy for doing this!
Elsewhere, Hayley and Ansel have just made it to Lafayette Cemetery, where they're navigating the foggy paths toward the lycée. They finally make their way in and go up to the greenhouse, where Oliver is still super beat up and passed out, chained up in a similar way to how Elijah is restrained in one of the tombs. Hayley shakes him to try to wake him up, and when he comes to, he's shocked to see Hayley has come to get him. He's still good-old Oliver, though, because as soon as he sees Ansel, he's like, "Who the fuck is this dude?" Never change, Ollie. Hayley informs him that they're both there to rescue his dumb ass and pleadingly asks, "Please tell me you know where Elijah is?" Oliver shakes his head in the negatory, just as Ansel, who was looking out the window to check on what's going on outside, gruffly interrupts them to tell them that the wolves officially know they're here, now. Hayley focuses her hybrid hearing and eventually is able to listen to the sounds of various moonlight-ring clad werewolves jumping down from the roofs of the crypts like they're taking tips from Marcel's now-deceased nightwalkers. She then turns to Oliver, taking in how he's chained up to the ceiling, and snarks, "Sorry, no time to be gentle," before she violently grabs onto his wrists and breaks the chains free. Badass as usual, Queen Hayley. Oliver slumps to the floor, since he's severely injured and probably hasn't been fed since he got caught, so Hayley picks him up off the floor and insists that the three of them need to vamanos ahora.
At Rousseau's, Cami is clearly nervous as hell as she finishes her whiskey while she continues to talk to Finn. Full of liquid courage, she brings up Klaus again. "So, how would you diagnose my friend Klaus, if I might ask?" As much as I may dislike Finn, he's not exactly wrong in his assessment-- "Well, he's clearly depressive. Low self-esteem, paranoia..." He laughs, and adds, "Impulse control. Wouldn't you agree?" Cami shakes her head in agreement, but concedes that a lot of it is beyond her, since there's still so much history she hasn't been clued in on, such as all of his drama with his siblings. Outside, Marcel is still standing guard at the back door to the restaurant and looks pretty displeased at how chummy Cami and Finn are getting. "You know, the resentment?" Cami continues. "How do you manage it?" Finn is totally taken aback by this question and is like, "Uh, I beg your fucking pardon?" so Cami backtracks a little and reminds him that in one of their first sessions, he mentioned that he doesn't exactly get along well with his own brothers before asking him if he's still in touch with them. Finn looks uncomfortable as he replies, "In a manner of speaking. We're not particularly close."
Cami does a great job of pretending like she's genuinely curious, considering she already knows the answers from knowing Klaus for so long and hearing the stories. Meanwhile, outside, Gia has joined Marcel in eavesdropping on Finn and Cami's conversation. Back inside, Cami asks Finn if his parents are still around, and then cuts herself off and scolds herself for prying, so Finn follows that thought. "All this talk about my family, when you so recently scolded me about boundaries..." Cami smiles brightly and insists that she's just looking from coping mechanisms and just trying to learn from the master, which hits Finn right in that place all the Mikaelsons have that LOVES to be praised and complimented. Especially Finn, because he's got some weird reverse-middle-child syndrome where he's still bitter that he lost his favorite sibling and was ignored in favor of his more needy siblings (*coughKlauscough*) Finn's like, "Oh, is that so?", and outside, Marcel begins to freak out in concern that Cami's cover has been blown. Before he can run inside and intervene, though, some big werewolf comes up behind him and smugs, "You must be lost! Vampires caught in the Quarter are to be killed on sight." Marcel, ever the protective one, quickly puts himself directly in between Gia and the werewolf before he turns to his favorite vampire protégée and orders to her leave and run as far and as fast as she can. Gia looks guilty as she does what she's told, while Marcel walks toward the werewolf as the two brace themselves for a supernatural brawl.
At the lycée, Hayley is helping Oliver up so they can leave while Ansel prepares his bow and quiver for a fight. Oliver is exhausted, weak, and with a heaping portion of self-loathing smothering it, because he turns to Hayley and begs her and Ansel to just leave without him. "To hell with that," Hayley says with a scoff. "They want a fight? I'll give them a fight." That's my girl! Ansel, on the other hand, is NOT game for this plan, because the only reason why he accompanied her in the first place was to save one of his fellow wolfies, not to watch Hayley slaughter a pack of them. So, apparently, his compromise is for Hayley to whisk Oliver to safety while he uses his weapons to hold off the werewolves? Okay, so is he planning on hurting them non-fatally or what? Because otherwise that makes no sense whatsoever. Hayley doesn't seem to be very fond of this idea, but she just sighs and helps Oliver up before sneaking him out the back. As they leave, Ansel heads out the front entrance, where he starts totally mowing down the wolves with his shortsword like they're nothing. I'm getting flashbacks to Klaus using the Sword of Alexander to slaughter all his werewolves in TVD's Season 4 episode "O Come, All Ye Faithful," and something tells me that's PROBABLY not a coincidence...
Back at Rousseau's, Cami is visibly nervous as she tries to navigate the conversation into a direction that doesn't make her look so suspicious. The scene cuts back and forth between their conversation and Marcel fighting the werewolf, so be warned-- we've reached the point where the recap gets pretty confusing. and apologizes for offending him, but Finn just replies, "You haven't offended me, it's just... you seem on edge." Outside, Marcel is throwing down with the werewolf, with whom he's got about equal fighting skill. Inside, Finn still seems suspicious of Cami, but once again, he's wrong about the why, because like most people on this show, he's completely underestimating how much Cami knows about the supernatural and in general. "Now, perhaps its this Klaus business. Is there something you haven't shared with me?" Finn asks, to which Cami just laughs nervously and surreptitiously reaches into her purse, which is laying on the floor under her seat. She admits that she's nervous around him, and starts to say that she's always asking him dumb questions as she grabs the little dagger in her purse that she snagged from Kieran's secret hide-out. Finn assures her that her questions are actually very smart, they're just personal before remarking that he wasn't really expecting her to be so interested in his life, and Cami just smiles innocently at him and sips her drink.
Outside, Marcel has broken off a pipe from the outside of the building and wields it like a baseball bat as he straight-up whacks the werewolf upside the head with it and then slams it into his stomach. Back inside, Cami suggests that maybe she's just passive-aggressively trying to change the subject because she's scared of where it's going. When he asks what she's afraid of, she confesses that she's thinking he's going to tell her to stop spending time with Klaus. "Cami, you're an intelligent woman," Finn replies with a smile. "You're articulate, poised... I think you can tell for yourself what's best for you." WHOA, is he like actually being nice and complimentary to the girl who is essentially his mark in this ridiculous mission of Esther's? Is he high? Outside, the werewolf guard and Marcel are still fighting, but the wolf has the upper-hand as he lifts Marcel up off the ground by the front of his shirt.
"You know, sometimes I ask myself why I let people like Klaus into my life," Cami admits shyly, as though she's aware what's going on outside and knows she needs to keep Finn talking so he doesn't notice. "I have this destructive pattern. I'm always drawn to the bad boys," she continues, as she grips the dagger tightly in her hand under the table. Finn frowns in confusion and puts his hand over Cami's free hand on the table, squeezing it affectionately as he replies, "Cami, I'm an expert in unhealthy patterns. I've broken some of my own, and I can help you do the same, if you'll let me." Uhhh, what unhealthy patterns has he broken? He's always been a self-righteous-yet-boring mama's-boy asshole, and dude has barely lived one hundred years of the thousand that he's existed due to being daggered for the majority of it. If anything, the only change to his personality is that he's become even MORE insufferable. Anyway, Finn keeps staring Cami in the eye, and suddenly, something clicks in her mind as she realizes what's really going on with Finn, and she smiles warmly as she sneaks the dagger back into her purse.
The fight is still going on outside behind Rousseau's, and it's not looking good. Marcel is still being held by the shirt by the werewolf, so he gouges out the eyes of the werewolf with his thumbs to break free. Unfortunately for him, this doesn't really make the guy very happy, so he whips his fangs out and sinks his teeth into Marcel's arm. Marcel yelps in pain just as the fabulous Gia vamp-speeds toward them out of nowhere and shoves the werewolf into a nearby van, causing his head to crash through the window of the passenger door. Marcel, who has fallen onto the ground after being dropped by the wolf, watches as Gia shoves the guy against the van again and thrusts her arm backward to prepare to rip out his heart like Elijah taught her.(*SQUEEE GIALIJAH*) Of course, the wolf grabs her arm before she can make the kill shot, twists it behind her back, and bites her on the neck before he throws her onto the ground. Fortunately, before he can kill her, Marcel vamp-speeds onto his feet and zoops behind the guy so he can rip out his heart through his spine. NICE WORK, MARCEL. He drops the heart carelessly onto the ground and smiles proudly at Gia as he helps her up to her feet. Ugh, I really do ship everyone on this show-- I was just screeching about Gia and Elijah and now I'm like GIA X MARCEL = OTP. Or maybe I just really love Gia and am living vicariously through the other characters. Who knows!
Over at Lafayette Cemetery, Hayley and Oliver have ducked for cover behind a crypt when they finally hear Aiden's voice shouting toward them. "Come out!" he yells. "We know you're here." Hayley sighs and looks over at Oliver, who looks like he can barely keep himself on his feet but is still bracing himself for a fight. Finally, Hayley hops out from being the crypt and walks toward Aiden, who is surrounded by about a dozen fellow werewolves. She's like, "So, why don't you just let us go so we can all go back to whatever we were doing before?", giving him a significant look as though she's trying to telepathically remind him that he kind of owes her after he came to her for help and she managed to convince Marcel, Gia, and Josh help Aiden and Oliver rescue their untriggered werewolf kin from Finn's ridiculous plan to get them to kill his human enemies. Aiden seems torn, but he remains firm and smugs that he's not gonna do that. Hayley rolls her eyes in annoyance and retorts that they'll have to do it the hard way, then.
The moonlight-ring-pack tenses up in anticipation of the hybrid ass-kicking they're about to get when Oliver comes out from behind the crypt to drop some truth bombs and generally make me love him, which of course means he's not long for this world. "You idiots!" Oliver yells in frustration toward his lupine brethren. "You're lining up to fight a hybrid? For what? So you can kill me? All because some witch gave an order? I know I ain't innocent, but I NEVER lost sight of what I was fighting for! We were gonna be a PACK." He starts walking toward them as he finishes up his speech. "We're turning on each other! Killing your own people? We do that, we're nothing." Aiden is visibly conflicted, to the point that Hayley and Oliver aren't convinced that the pack isn't going to try to fight them. But, after a moment, Aiden steps backward, and the wolves defer to his decision by parting themselves down the middle so Hayley and Oliver can leave without harm. GOOD AIDEN. GOOD BOY. Remember-- what would Josh do? Because he would definitely not be threatening to hurt/kill friends just because a vengeful witch ordered him to do it.
It's been a while since we caught up with Klaus, yeah? He's just entered the cemetery and is heading for the crypt to which Esther sent him, but when he hears the sound of fighting and groaning, he takes a detour to investigate. Apparently, Ansel has been kicking ass against the rest of the werewolves who didn't go after Hayley and Oliver, because he's still spinning around with that shortsword and slicing and stabbing the wolves who come after him with it. I still don't understand why he's doing that-- didn't he say that he didn't want Hayley to kill all of his fellow wolves? Isn't that exactly what he's doing? I mean, I know werewolves can heal much better than humans, but it's not like they're vampires, you know? Those wounds look pretty severe to me. Whatever. Anyway, once Klaus gets to the lycée, he sees Ansel fighting in front of the building and vamp-speeds over to snap the neck of the last wolf he was fighting.
Once the threat is eliminated, Klaus finally has the chance to really look at the man in front of him and realize who it is, and that revelation makes his blood run cold. "You," Klaus mutters under his breath in disbelief. Ansel looks just as stunned as Klaus is, but when he asks, "Niklaus?" Klaus immediately decides that he must be an illusion like Esther's little trick with Elijah earlier and starts to freak out. "No, no! You're not real!" he stammers as he panics. "You're a phantom, conjured by Esther, that is all that you are!" He pushes past Ansel and starts walking toward the lycée as he tries to find his mother to tear her a new one. "Mother! Stop this charade! I know that THING is not real!" Ansel chases after Klaus and stops him, insisting that he is very obviously flesh and blood and totally real.
Klaus is actually truly scared for the first time in forever and slowly turns to face him before he reminds Ansel that he's been dead for over a thousand years. Ansel doesn't disagree with him; instead, he gives a brief explanation. "And through that time, I lingered on the Other Side, watching you let the world fall apart, until I woke, four moons past, in the land of wolves like myself." Klaus still isn't ready to believe it and maintains that this is just some spell Esther cast to get in his head and make him take her deal, which really isn't even that paranoid of a fear, considering Esther was literally just talking about Ansel earlier and how because of him, she wanted to put Klaus into the body of a werewolf so he could ~be the man he's meant to be~. Ansel just looks at his son in confusion, though, and states that he has no idea what he means by Esther's plans, nor does he speak for her.
He reminds Klaus that he IS his son and reaches out to caress his face with his hand when Klaus snatches his wrist and pulls it away before he can do so, taking note of the three-crescent-moon tattoo on his forearm. The sight of the mark makes him briefly flash back to when he found Ansel's body on a pike after Mikael had killed him. In the present, Ansel is looking at Klaus curiously, and it allllllmost looks as though Klaus is gonna do some father-son bonding, but NOPE-- this is Klaus, so why would we expect differently? "And, if what you say is real, you are NOTHING to me," Klaus replies coldly. "For all I care, you can crawl back to hell." OH MY GOD! Harsh toke, dude! Will he EVER learn now to be such a wanker? Jesus H. Needless to say, Ansel is very hurt by these words, but he barely has a chance to process this before Klaus vamp-speeds away in the blink of an eye.
At Marcel's loft, he's digging around a drawer for a vial of Klaus' blood that he's had in storage since the events of "From a Cradle to a Grave," which he received from Klaus as payment in return for Marcel allowing him to compel him to believe that Hope died. He brings it over to where Gia is sitting on his couch, wincing as she touches the still-bleeding werewolf bite on her neck. He holds the vial to her mouth and helps her sip it, and judging by the look on her face while she swallows it, I'm gonna say it's probably a little too aged for her taste. She's been a vampire long enough to know that werewolf bites are lethal to her new species, but apparently not long enough to know that Klaus' blood is the only cure, so she's skeptical of Marcel's claims that it will heal her, but he promises it'll work. He does concede that they're starting to run low on their stash, so his new rule is that they don't get bitten, which LOL, good luck with that, guys. "I got bit saving your ass," Gia retorts with a sly little smirk, and Marcel can't help but smile as he praises her for her good work tonight. "I gotta admit, though, when you took off, I thought you were GONE." Gia nods, because she totally gets why he would think that and confesses that she's spent the majority of her life running when things went south, because since she never felt like she fit in anywhere, it was easy for her to make a clean break and just pick up and go.
Then she says pretty much the best thing you could possibly say to Marcel, which is that she finally feels like she belongs in the vampire community he's building, which is the entire point of why Marcel turned her in the first place-- I mean, Klaus picked him out of a nightmare of a situation, working as a slave for a father who never recognized him as such, and gave him a family, eternal life, and the foundation for what he eventually built into an empire. Ever since then, it's kind of like Marcel's been repaying the favor by turning people in need and giving them a family and a community they've never had before. And sure, he was also looking for "warriors," but if we look at the definition Klaus gave us, which is someone who will fight for their families, then that is a perfect description of Gia-- she has a family for the first time ever, and she's fighting for it, because there's no way in hell she's losing this good thing she just found. Josh is the one exception to the rule, since he wasn't exactly turned with his consent, but he has come to embody the same basic principles anyway. You know, trial by fire and all that. ANYWAY, so Marcel thanks her for sticking it out for him, and she just smiles and whispers that she will. AWWW YOU KIDS.
Their sweet conversation is cut off when Marcel's phone rings, and once he sees it's Cami, he tells Gia he needs to take it and stands up and walks across the room for some privacy; Gia looks visibly disappointed and a tiny bit jealous as he does so. Marcel answers the phone and asks Cami if she's okay, but she assures him that she is. "To be honest, NOT the worst date I've had in this city." LOL, oh, Cami. She's at Rousseau's, by the way, and pulls out a bottle of bourbon from behind the bar as Marcel jealously points out that Cami had Finn wrapped around her finger by the time he left to tend to his and Gia's bites. Anyway, as it turns out, Cami called him to bring up exactly that fact-- it's not just that Cami charmed Finn, it's that he actually has legitimate romantic feelings for her! OH SHIT. Who knew Finn was even capable of that? He's only had one love interest in his entire life and they got to be together for like five minutes before he died, so... Anyway, Marcel's like, "Can we really call that good news, though?" so Cami makes her point-- if Finn likes-her likes-her, then she's his blind-spot, which means she can use his vulnerability to help them take him down. YEAH GIRL, MAKE THE PATRIARCHY WORK FOR YOU. Marcel is NOT game for this plan, but Cami doesn't give a fuck.
Over in the Bayou, Hayley and Oliver have just returned to Jackson's trailer, and Hayley has settled Oliver down in front of the fire where she's cleaning up his wounds. Jackson is seated off to the side, sulking due to the fact that he's still understandably pissed at Oliver for everything he did to him and the pack. "Well, you got him. Great," Jackson snits. "Where's Ansel?" Hayley assures him that Ansel was right behind them when they left. Oliver is still clearly weak as he turns to Jackson and tries to apologize, but Jackson insists that he already knows-- he sold him out to Francesca. Oliver concedes that he's right and that what he did was unforgivable, but argues that he still needs to hear what he has to say. "You're the one," Oliver says, as he tries to stand to his feet, which makes Jackson grab a nearby wooden staff as he defensively jumps into a fighting position, but Oliver couldn't hurt Jackson even if he wanted to, which he doesn't. "You're the Alpha," he argues. "Our people are not meant to be slaves! You can free them!"
Before Oliver can say anything else, he starts coughing up blood and falls to his knees, which is characteristic of a French Quarter Coven death-hex. Jackson forgets that he's supposed to be mad at Oliver and rushes over to help him as he asks Hayley what the fuck is wrong with him. Ollie continues to choke, and Hayley realizes that this is totally the witches' doing, and reminds Jackson that they said he'd be executed at midnight-- they interpreted it literally, not even considering the fact that it could be a magical execution. Jackson props Oliver up in his lap to try to resuscitate him and begs him to hold on, but it's futile. Oliver manages to gasp out "Jack..." before he starts bleeding profusely from his eyes and nose and quickly dies in Jackson's arms. He gently puts Oliver's lifeless body on the ground and squeezes his hand, but when he looks over at Hayley, it's obvious that they're both about thisclose to crying. Ugh, and Oliver was just starting to act like a real being with a human soul, you know? I'm actually still sad that he's gone, although I am pleased about Jackson's return to the fold.
Back in the Quarter, Klaus has just finally made it to the tomb where Elijah is being held and finds him unconscious and still restrained with long chains that bind his wrists to the ceiling. It takes him all of one second to notice the poppet above his head and destroy it so he can finally break the chains and get him ready to go home. He tries to wake Elijah up, but no amount of shaking will snap him out of it, which, naturally, was the entire point of this exercise. Esther appears behind Klaus and states that he's not ready to wake yet, which will give them one last chance to discuss her offer. Come on, Esther! Stop trying to make body-jumping happen. It's not going to happen. Klaus reminds her that she promised him Elijah's safe return, and asks if it was just a lie like the illusion of his biological father Ansel that he just saw minutes ago.
ESTHER: "Your father's return is real. I pulled him from the Other Side before it collapsed, left him in the Bayou to join the wolves. And, I used the execution of one of his own to draw him here, where I knew he'd find you."
KLAUS: [furious] "To what end, besides my torment?"
ESTHER: "I bought him here to be the father you never had. To teach you to be the man you always longed to be. Once you are remade as a werewolf, you can join him!"
KLAUS: "His return changes NOTHING."
ESTHER: "It changes EVERYTHING. It is my gift to you, Niklaus! This offer is your last chance at salvation. Reject me now, and you will live out your endless days unloved and alone. Do not refuse me out of some ancient spite--"
What Esther doesn't realize, however, is that he's actually loved and has a family of his own as they speak, which she can't comprehend because she has been seeing him as he used to be before her (first) death, and not how he is now. I'm not saying that Klaus isn't still an paranoid, impulsive idiot sometimes, who makes the dumbest mistakes ever out of fear, but he is leaps and bounds different from the Klaus we met in Season 2 of TVD, you know? And, she's forgetting a crucial part to her relationship with Klaus and why it's going nowhere now that she's alive again, and it has little to do with her lies to him about his real parentage, or turning him and his siblings into monsters, or allowing Mikael to abuse him all those years. No, it has to do with what happened last spring. "Not SPITE," Klaus corrects her angrily. "Hatred. A pure and perfect hatred that's greater now than the day I first took your life!" Again, Esther is completely missing the point here, and it ends up being her downfall, because Klaus isn't just the scared little boy who became a control freak after his parents literally destroyed him-- now, he's a father, with the violence of a vampire and the temper of a werewolf who will not stand for ANYONE who will put his little girl in danger.
"BECAUSE YOU CAME FOR MY CHILD! MY DAUGHTER! YOUR OWN BLOOD!" he bellows at the top of his voice as he loses his temper and grabs Esther into a choke-hold, the exact same way as when he (apparently) killed her the first time. Esther manages to gasp that he doesn't understand what made her do it, but Klaus doesn't care-- he just repeats, "MY. CHILD," which forces her to admit that it was something she ''had'' to do. She lifts the index and middle finger of her right hand and flicks it to give Klaus one of those nosebleed-headache things that she gave Kol in "Alive & Kicking," but Klaus is the Original hybrid, you guys, and one who is dying for vengeance against the woman who ordered a hit on Hayley before Hope was even born. So, he just channels all the strength and hatred he can muster and he fights through the spell easily, choking her even harder to make up for it. When she whimpers in pain, Klaus continues, "You declared war when you came after my family. And for that, I will make you suffer as only I can." He sneers through the blood pouring out of his nose and adds, "After all, I AM my mother's son." OH MY GOD! TELL HER, KLAUSY-POO. Before she is strangled to death, Klaus lets go of her and drops her to the floor, leaving her to gasp desperately for breath as he rushes over, picks up Elijah's body, and vamp-speeds them both the hell out of there. Esther leans against the wall as she tries to regulate her breathing, and that's when we see the tail end of her flashbacks and learn why she was so eager to kill her own newborn granddaughter.
(via joffersbaratheon)
It's 977 A.D. in the Kingdom of Norway, and Young Esther is standing in front of her sister Dahlia, who has a hand gripping little Freya's arm. Esther is sobbing and clearly distraught, while little Finn stands at her side and cries silently. Esther begs her sister not to do this, but Dahlia reminds her of their deal-- Esther wanted to have a family, but since she was barren, fate clearly felt otherwise. So, since Dahlia told her using her magic to make her fertile would have a price, and now she's finally there to collect. Yeah, I'm getting the distinct feeling Dahlia is prooooobably taking advantage of a desperate woman for more power and isn't just a regular old witch who is trying not to upset the balance of Nature. Anyway, Esther is pulling out all the stops to try to keep this deal from going through, but Dahlia seems to have thought of everything.
ESTHER: "When Mikael returns home from his journey, I swear--"
DAHLIA: "You will tell him Freya grew ill and died."
ESTHER: [sobs] "No, Dahlia!"
DAHLIA: "You were forced to burn her body to stop the spread of plague."
ESTHER: "Sister, please! I cannot give up my child!"
DAHLIA: [smirks] "You've already offered me more than just this one child! Our bargain was for this first-born, and EVERY first-born of EACH generation that is to come, for as long as your line shall last."
ESTHER: [furious] "If you do this, if you take my daughter, I swear to you, I WILL return to the black arts! I will grow in power as a witch, and I will MAKE YOU PAY."
DAHLIA: [scoffs] "Your power is NOTHING against mine! Foolish girl-- you knew the bargain you made! And, should you defy me, I will take ALL your children. INCLUDING little Finn! [She points to Esther's swollen, pregnant belly] Even unborn Elijah!"
Daaaaamn, that is so nuts! I'm still surprised by the reveal that Elijah was likely born in the Old World before Esther and Mikael moved the family to Middle-Ages-Virginia. Also, Esther totally turned her kids into vampires on purpose to try to save them from this fate, y/y??? Because they can't have more first-borns if they're vampires, unless you're special-snowflake Klaus, anyway. Plus, if she sticks them in new bodies and they have more babies, they won't have Esther's blood and thus will not apply either. She's is an evil genius. Anyway, Esther continues to beg her sister not to do this, but she just picks up little Freya and drags her away as Esther and Finn start screaming for her. Poor Freya is wailing like a banshee, all, "MOMMY!!! MOMMY!!!", but there's nothing any of them can do.
In the present day, Finn finds Esther half-gasping for breath, half-sobbing on the floor of the crypt and immediately runs over to her to make sure she's okay. When he asks her what happened, Esther informs him that Klaus rejected her offer for the billionth time. We cut briefly over to the Mikaelson compound, where Klaus and Hayley lay Elijah's unconscious body (still wearing his blood-stained suit-- couldn't they have put him in some sweats or something? Surely even Elijah Mikaelson wears pajamas?) onto his bed and stare at him in concern. Back in the crypt at the cemetery, Esther explains that Klaus is still "burdened with hatred" for her after what happened to Hope, which is kind of an understatement, and I mean, come on-- just because she didn't actually WANT Hope to die doesn't mean she's not culpable for the whole deal with Dahlia thing. Yes, none of the Mikaelson children would have existed without that spell (although maybe Esther could have found a witch willing to do it without some kind of Soloman-style first-born clause attached), but it's still a choice Esther made with eyes wide open, and she probably should have anticipated consequences to the consequences of that choice. Anyway, Finn insists that Klaus is a fool, and reminds her that her actions saved the rest of their family. "If that child had lived--" Finn begins, but Esther cuts him off before he could finish. "Dahlia would return, and she would come for us all." DUM DUM DUM DUMMMMMMMM. THIS IS SO WILD.
Next episode: Klaus is forced to team up with Ansel for a special flower root to wake up Elijah, Hayley, Aiden, Marcel, and Cami team up to take down Finn, and Kol and Davina make some magic (not a euphemism,)
[screencaps via Screencapped]
NOTES/SPECULATION/QUESTIONS:
-I know I haven't really been doing this section much anymore, mostly because I'm so behind that the majority of questions that I have have already been answered in the episodes that follow the episode I recapped, but in this case, I still have a lot of questions have yet to been discussed in the show, so, here goes:
Why does Dahlia seem so scared of Mikael if she's so powerful? Does he have power of his own aside from the vampire thing that we don't know about? If Dahlia is such an unstoppable witch, why doesn't she have her own children instead of poaching Esther's? Is it just a matter of not wanting to be pregnant and have to be in a relationship with someone? Because I've gotta say, I wouldn't blame her if that was the case-- for her, having a man and a bunch of babies is probably a drag if you're some all-powerful witch focused on world domination or whatever.
Also, I really want to know more about Esther and Dahlia's home life before she met Mikael and became a Viking wife or whatever. Like, can we have another webseries about Esther's life before she had kids? Or about what Dahlia has been up to in the last thousand years, since we don't even have to have seen any future episodes to know that there's no way Dahlia is dead? What are your theories?
-Here is the music from this episode, since once again, I forgot all about adding the songs/links in until after the recap was already finished and posted:
"Give Me Your Poison" by Mississippi Twilight-- Finn approaches Cami at the bar at Rousseau's when she's working on homework, and he asks her about Klaus before buying her a sazerac.
"Brain Cells" by Maxïmo Park-- Cami and Finn have drinks at Rousseau's again later that night to distract him while Hayley and Ansel save Oliver; Marcel and Gia eavesdrop on them from outside while they're standing guard.
"Letters from the Sky" by Civil Twilight-- Esther begs Klaus to take her offer, and he nearly kills her as he reminds her of everything she did to his daughter; in flashback, Esther pleads with Dahlia to not take Freya from her.
Um, 8:34pm is 20:34 in 24-hour clock, not 19:35.
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