The Originals Season 2, Episode 8: "The Brothers That Care Forgot" Recap/Review
Hooray, let's get ready for some quality Mikaelson sibling bonding time! In "The Brothers That Care Forgot," not only are Kol and Finn both still shackled with the cursed, magic-proof manacles that were procured by Cami via Father Kieran's secret apartment, but Rebekah, too, is back into the fold as well. Have I mentioned how much I missed Rebekah? Because she has been and always will be my favorite character in this show-- more than Elijah, more than Hayley, more than Davina, more than ANYONE. So, having her back has been wonderful, because Claire Holt is a phenomenal actress and Rebekah brings a balancing force to the boy's club that is the rest of her siblings.
Anyway, since I'm still scrambling to catch up on these recaps before Teen Wolf starts, I'm just gonna cut to the chase, alright? Also, an update on scheduling and general housekeeping stuff before I begin-- I still have a Teen Wolf post-Season 4/pre-Season 5 write-up/meta thing that is almost finished, I'm just waiting on an excellent section-- which is written by my best friend, heterosexual life partner and fellow fantasy/supernatural television junkie Kathleen-- on why she thinks Jordan Parrish is Apollo from Greek Mythology, which should be posted here soon. While I'm working on catching up on the TVD/TO recaps, I'm also doing some general fixing-up of past recaps, such as adding links to the recaps so you can immediately move onto the previous review or the one that follows it without having to look around too much. I've also been considering making an archive page, where you can just see all of the recap links by TV show and season, but I'm not sure if it's completely necessary, since Blogger sites have all the posts on the right hand column. Is that something you guys would be interested in for ease of use? Let me know in the comments!
Anyway, let's get moving, shall we? Let's talk The Originals!
Previously, on The Originals: Esther has come back from the dead to heal her family, and she's resurrected her previously-deceased sons Kol and Finn (who are possessing new witch bodies) to help her out. Her intention is to use magic to transfer the spirits of Elijah and Rebekah into witches, and Hayley and Klaus into werewolves, but as you can imagine, she's facing a little resistance. Esther entrusted Finn with bringing in Cami, but when Marcel, Hayley, and Cami captured Finn and Kol and brought them to the compound wearing magic-blocking shackles, Esther was forced to have to snatch Cami on her own. Esther and Finn have also bribed the werewolves into swearing their allegiance to them by giving them all moonlight rings to allow them to partially transform at will and prevent themselves from being forced to turn on the full moon. Meanwhile, Kol, who was tasked with getting close to Davina, sort of shirked his duties in favor of starting a genuine romantic relationship with her, and the two have been plotting to use Kemiya magic to create a dagger that will actually work on Klaus. Elijah was tortured by Esther in pretty horrific ways, including Esther essentially breaking down the spell she cast one thousand years ago to cause Elijah to forget that he accidentally killed his beloved Tatia out of uncontrollable newborn-vampire bloodlust, along with a millennia of other horrendous acts of violence. Oh, and after Hayley and Klaus' daughter Hope was born, the Mikaelson family faked her death and sent her to live with Auntie Rebekah so she would be safe from all of the family's enemies. Which is sort-of where we pick up today!
The opening scene in this episode cuts back and forth between a park somewhere in the Southern United States and the Mikaelson compound, while Klaus narrates in voiceover for our benefit. As usual, his narrations will be bolded for your convenience. So, at the park, children are running around and playing on playgrounds while various mothers push their strollers around the path. Nearby, Rebekah is at a swing set, where she is smiling happily and pushing a very excited Hope in an infant swing. "We arrive in this world as innocents. Wide-eyed. Vulnerable. It is the job of our parents to nurture and protect us. Unfortunately, our own parents failed miserably at even the most basic of parental tasks. But, we are not beholden to the past the created for us."
The camera cuts to the dining room of the compound, revealing that Klaus is speaking to Elijah, Kol, and Finn as they sit and have breakfast. Naturally, Kol and Finn are still wearing the cursed shackles so they can't start any magical shenanigans, but at least they're not longer hanging from the balcony, so I'll call that progress in regards to Klaus. As he speaks, the usual compelled servants in suits are busy bustling around, placing platters of fruit and breakfast pastries all over the table that is half-full of vampires who don't even need to eat human food. Like I mentioned in the last TVD recap, it's almost like these shows have forgotten that their main characters are vampires? Although, I will be momentarily proven wrong, but other than Elijah's control issues, literally none of the vampires are seen drinking blood anymore. Even when Hayley was going on feeding frenzies at the beginning of the season, we never actually SAW her feeding-- we just saw the dead bodies afterward.
"Today, a new future awaits," Klaus continues amiably. "Forget your animosity toward Elijah and myself. Instead, join us against she who truly deserves your ire-- our mother!" Kol rolls his eyes at this predictable response, and Finn just sighs from boredom. "Do this, and we will welcome you with open arms!" Klaus adds. Kol is about to speak, but when he reaches for a pastry off of one of the platters in front of him, Klaus cuts him off and hilariously pulls the platter out of his reach, causing Kol to roll his eyes again. "BUT, if you continue to oppose us, a denial of pastries will be the least of your concerns," Klaus finishes dramatically. Kol just sighs and claims that if they wanted him to join Team Klaus and go up against Esther, they should have just said so and saved him a night shackled to the wall. Elijah, who has been silent thus far, drolly replies, "Yes, this was Niklaus. My recommendation was to remove your limbs one by one until you comply." Klaus, not wanting Elijah's aggression to ruin his goal of turning his remaining brothers against their mother, laughs heartily and insists that they have no desire to torture them as he squeezes Kol and Finn's shoulders affectionately with his hands. Of course, there's a catch-- "Provided you vow to stand beside us!" Klaus adds happily.
Finn isn't really into it, and asks them if the word "brothers" even applies to them after all of the bullshit they've pulled on each other after their millennia of life together, and brings up the fact that loyalty to Klaus has rarely ever been rewarded. He then turns the topic of conversation to Rebekah, as the camera cuts back to the park, where their sister is still pushing Hope in the swing set. "She was blindly loyal to you for a thousand years, and now? Nowhere to be found," Finn continues, clearly suspicious about Rebekah's conspicuous absence. "Where did our sister go? And, how did she escape your vile machinations?" Finn asks Klaus, who takes advantage of the fact that his back is turned to Finn to swallow down his obvious anxiety about this line of questioning and instead starts laughing fakely. Klaus brings up an excellent point, which is that if Finn thinks Klaus is the vile one, then what does he think of the woman who made Klaus the person that he is today, and who made them all into vampires in the first place? Finn is starting to lose his temper, though, and insists that Esther simply sought to make them mortal again, and the fact that they rejected her offer just goes to show how dark-side they've really gone.
Elijah is NOT happy about this response, not the least of which because of the way that Esther went about trying to get them to take the deal, which involved breaking down Elijah's version of the Sam Winchester Hell-wall and subjecting him to all of the memories of all of the horrible things he's ever done since becoming a vampire in order to pressure him into accepting her deal. So, he picks up a knife off the table and starts playing with it while Finn continues on. "But, I expect Rebekah will have a different response to her proposal," he says, before the scene cuts back to the playground, where Rebekah stops pushing Hope in the swing long enough to turn around and see that a starling has perched on a nearby swing set and is watching Rebekah intently. "See, unlike the two of you, she always did cling to her humanity." Elijah, whose willpower is clearly slipping, growls that Rebekah is off-limits to them, and if they try to pursue her, they will regret it immensely, and this uncharacteristic anger on Elijah's part makes both Finn and Kol concerned and surprised. Klaus takes notice of this as well, and tries to once again steer the conversation back into at least the appearance of politeness. "Do not let him goad you, Elijah," Klaus states, before turning to Finn. "Neither he, nor Esther, will find Rebekah unless she wants to be found-- and she does NOT."
Finn continues on to say that their mother is quite determined to find their dearest sister, just as the scene cuts back to the park, where Rebekah has just turned away from the starling peeping at her, looking truly unnerved as she continues to push Hope on the swing. When she turns back again, an entire flock of starlings have perched themselves on the playground and are staring intensely at Rebekah. This is the final straw for her, and so she picks up Hope and rushes away. Meanwhile, back at the Mikaelson compound, Finn continues to insist that Esther has been looking for Rebekah since she returned from the dead, and that he knows it's only a matter of time before she finally finds her. This comment is the last straw for Elijah, who completely loses his temper, grabs Finn by the collar, picks him up and slams him onto the table before vamping out and sinking his fangs into Finn's neck while Finn screams and struggles against his grip. Whomp whomp, Elijah's off the rails. On the other hand, it's actually kind of hot. Ohhhh, the things these shows have done to me. TITLE CARD!
(via keira84)
After the break, we return to find Klaus, who has pulled Elijah off of Finn and pulled him in the hallway to admonish him for his behavior in a hilarious (yet slightly worrisome) role-reversal. "I enjoy a good bloodletting as much as anyone," Klaus begins, as he tugs Elijah's handkerchief out of his pocket and hands it to Elijah to clean himself up, in yet another demonstration of Elijah's obsession with being clean, which will be touched on a lot in the next episodes. "But our brothers have power, as well as knowledge of Esther's plans. We need them alive," Klaus continues. Elijah quietly reminds him of what they would do to Rebekah, or Hope, if they found them, but Klaus assures him that Rebekah has been cloaked by powerful magic and that for now, they're as safe as they can be. He then insists that Elijah focus on the task at hand, which is convincing Finn and Kol to join their team through persuasion alone, not violence-- at least, not yet, anyway. Elijah growls that he's done with persuasion and rushes toward the dining room to continue, I don't know, feeding on them all until they comply. "Has the earth shifted on its axis?" Klaus blurts out exasperatedly. "You needing restraint from ME?" Elijah looks taken aback when he realizes just how unusual he's acting, but before they can discuss matters further, Elijah's phone rings. When he sees it's Rebekah, he immediately answers it, and Rebekah wastes no time filling him in on what's going on.
"It's me," she begins frantically. "I have the baby, and we're on the run. Esther found us. We're safe, for now-- I've lost her bloody starlings, but I have no idea where to go." Klaus, who has been listening in with his hybrid hearing, tells Elijah to instruct her to head west before stating that he'll call Hayley, something which Rebekah instantly rejects as an option. "Do NOT tell Hayley!" Rebekah screeches loudly. "Esther's too smart for that. The only advantage we have is that she thinks the baby died." She finishes loading Hope into the car and tells them to text her what the plan is before she hangs up. Back at the compound, Elijah sighs and puts his phone away before turning to Klaus and insisting that he go protect Rebekah and Hope while Elijah deals with Kol and Finn. "Splendid," Klaus snaps. "And, in your hands, I assume they'll be dead by nightfall!"
Elijah assures him that he'll show restraint and reminds him that Hope needs her father now more than ever, but Klaus, in yet another uncharacteristic (but not at all unwelcome) display of maturity and self-control, replies, "What she needs-- what WE need-- are allies to help us defeat our mother. Finn and Kol MUST be turned to our side. Without their help, there will be nowhere left for Hope to run." GOD, WHO KNEW HOPE WOULD MAKE KLAUS SO AWESOME? I am seriously so in love. Elijah insists that Klaus needs to go see Hope, but Klaus just interrupts him and reminds him that he's waited months to see his daughter before becoming overwhelmed and cutting himself off with a sigh. After a moment, he adds, "I can wait one more day." Elijah gives him a heartbreakingly sympathetic look and goes to do as he's told, but before he can leave, Klaus calls out, "Elijah. Do whatever it takes to keep her safe." Elijah nods somberly and gives him his word that he will, but it's hardly necessary, because we know full well that Elijah loves Hope just as much as anyone.
Out in the Bayou, Hayley, Jackson, and Aiden are outside of Jackson's trailer deep in the woods where they are discussing the werewolves' current issues. "The wolves are freaking out," Aiden explains anxiously as he paces around in the grass. "They know it had to be an insider who took down Vincent last night, seeing as no one could have been anywhere near him." Jackson looks worried and asks if any of them suspect it was Aiden, and though Aiden shakes his head and states that they haven't yet, he knows it's only a matter of time until they figure it out, which means that he's totally screwed unless they come up with a good plan. Hayley, who has remained silent this entire time while she thinks about their options, finally speaks up and tells Aiden to call a meeting with the entire pack that night. "If they're so scared, now's the perfect time to convince them that they need to ditch Esther," she explains calmly. Aiden holds up his hand, upon which he wears a silver ring with a familiar black kyanite stone, and reminds them both that Esther made them all moonlight rings, so the wolves aren't really going to be inclined to turn on her.
Of course, Hayley knows full well the downside of those rings, considering her desire to make them in the first place is what played a huge role in her own death, her subsequent transformation into a hybrid, and the fact that she was forced to send her daughter away, not to mention the reasoning behind the rest of the pack ostracizing her so much, so she gives Aiden a hard look and reminds him that the moonlight rings make them slaves. Aiden, on the other hand, disagrees, because from where he's standing, the wolves are in a better place than they've ever been, not to mention they don't have to turn on the full moons anymore. "No!" he argues. "They make us powerful! We were exiles before, but now we run the city! The vampires are afraid of us, and no one, including me, is just gonna walk away from that because--"
Jackson, who has heard enough bickering, stands to his feet and gets in Aiden's face before aggressively ordering him to just set the damn meeting. He then turns and walks toward the dock at the lake. Hayley gives Aiden a look, all, "Yeah, what he said," before she scurries off to catch up with him. "So, are you gonna work on a rousing speech, or just get day-drunk?" Hayley snarks, as she watches Jackson crack open a can of beer. He figures he'll do a little of both, but Hayley just snatches the can out of his hands and reminds him that's it's only ten in the morning. Uhhh, you're a hybrid, Hayley, which means you're constantly drinking to sate your eternal hunger for blood, and you live with the Mikaelsons, who have literally replaced their blood volume with bourbon at this point, so I'm not sure you're in a place to judge, to be honest.
Anyway, Jackson gets up and walks over to the boathouse, where there is a small table covered in books. He picks up a familiar-looking leather-bound journal and holds it up for Hayley to see. "You know, for months, I wrote down every word Ansel said-- the entire history of our people. If I'd known he was Klaus' father, I would have asked him a hell of a lot more." He goes on to say that he spent the entire last night poring through the journal and looking for ANY kind of law or ritual they could use to get the Crescents back from Esther and Finn's control. When he sadly puts the book back on the table, Hayley assumes that he means that he didn't find anything, but Jackson's response is very, very telling. "Nothing viable," he replies, after a long pause and heavy sigh, before adding, "And now, Ansel's dead... along with Ollie. So, forgive me if I need a beer, 'cause right now, I can use all the help I can get." He grabs his beer back from Hayley and walks away, leaving Hayley alone to ponder what he's said. Once he's out of sight, she walks over to the table and surreptitiously picks up the journal before opening it and beginning to read.
Over at Marcel's loft, Davina is anxiously pacing around the living room, while she makes her confession to Marcel and Josh as they sit on the couch. "I screwed up, you guys," she begins, looking super guilty as she looks at Marcel in the eyes. "I was with Kaleb last night, and he took the white oak stake while I was asleep." Josh sighs and closes his eyes for a brief moment before giving Marcel a knowing look, which Davina misinterprets as them being mad at her for putting their lives in danger. "I-I'm sorry," she continues. "I never should have trusted him." Fortunately for our undying love for Kol and Kolvina, Davina has it all wrong, and Marcel hesitates for a moment before he sets her straight.
OUCH! As much as I love Kol, and especially Sharman!Kol, Marcel does have a point-- Davina has known him for all of a month, and has maybe known his true identity for half of that, whereas Marcel was literally raised in the Mikaelson family and had a front-row seat to Kol's antics throughout his 200-plus-years-long-life. And, from what we've seen in flashbacks, and what we'll see here in a few minutes, Kol and Marcel have always had an antagonistic relationship because of Kol's jealousy of Marcel and how much Klaus, Elijah, and Rebekah cared for him, so Marcel isn't exactly wrong for being wary of his intentions. Anyway, so Marcel stands up and walks toward Davina, visibly guilty for how upset Davina is, while Josh sits back in his chair and generally looks uncomfortable. Marcel apologizes for lying to her and insists that he hates lying to her, but he's only trying to look out for her wellbeing. He then turns to Josh and informs them both that he's got some business to deal with, and instructs Josh and Davina to stay at the apartment while he figures it out before grabbing his coat and heading out the door. Ohhhh, Davina is fuming, and this is so not going to end well. I love Davina-- she is my favorite baby witch and one of my absolute favorite characters on this show, but man, sometimes she is just SUCH a teenager, you know? Which is a compliment, not an insult, because Davina has been through SO MUCH since we've met her and has been forced to grow up and become powerful so quickly that it's easy to forget that she's still just a 17-18 year old girl.
Back at the Mikaelson compound, Finn and Kol are alone in the dining room, still wearing their enchanted manacles, where Finn is grimacing in pain and blotting at the bite wounds on his neck with a towel. Otherwise, he looks pretty calm, though, unlike his youngest living brother, who is clearly beginning to panic. "Elijah is off his bloody rocker!" Kol exclaims quietly. "We need to get out of her." He waits for an answer from Finn, but he continues to just calmly sit in silence, leading Kol to demand if he actually plans on helping them try to escape. Finn basically calls Kol unintelligent and reminds him that there could be opportunities to learn more about their brothers while they're there. "Opportunity to what? Get a beating?" Kol asks incredulously, but Finn doesn't get to answer, because the doors to the dining room open and very pleased Klaus walks in to join them. "Gentlemen! I apologize for keeping you waiting. Good news is, I've returned with an old friend-- someone who wants to say hello."
Finn and Kol watch warily as Marcel strolls on into the room with a huge smile on his face, all, "How's it going, fellas?" Kol just rolls his eyes and asks Marcel if he ever gets tired of being on the receiving end of Klaus' bullying, but Marcel insists that he actually volunteered for this role, because as far as he's concerned, Kol has lots of torture coming. "First, you messed with Davina," Marcel says as he roughly shoves Kol backwards. "Now, I hear you wanna drag Rebekah into all of this?" Marcel says after shoving Kol backward again. "Uh-uh. Not happening." That's where Klaus picks up where Marcel left off, and informs his brothers that while he would really love it if they both joined him against Esther, he's totally fine with settling for one of the other, and naturally, the one who DOESN'T join him has a world of agonizing pain waiting for them. He turns to Kol, who is looking alarmed, and Finn, who is doing a pretty good job at maintaining his poker face, and asks him which one it's going to be.
After the break, Marcel drags Kol upstairs into one of the sitting rooms, where he violently shoves him into a chair. Marcel is mostly just really excited to take out his frustrations on Kol, but we know him-- he's basically the definition of a trickster, so he wastes no time trying to manipulate him into joining Team Kol. "I gotta say, I'm gonna enjoy this!" Marcel crows happily. "Out of the whole twisted family--" he continues, until Kol tries to stand up, and Marcel forces him back into his seat. "--Sit DOWN!-- You were the one I liked least." Kol brings up the "pretty young lady" who would beg to differ with Marcel, but you know how he gets when he's in Overprotective-Dad mode-- bring up Davina, and your ass is grass, son. "Then let me make myself perfectly clear-- you go near Davina again, I'm gonna cut off parts of you that you'd rather keep," he spits angrily, but Kol just rolls his eyes again and brings up the fact that Marcel is a lot like Klaus in the way that they're nothing but threats of violence. He then reminds Marcel that since Klaus needs him, he's going to have to keep the torture to a minimum, but Marcel argues that it's only the case until Esther is taken care of, after which point Kol becomes useless to them. Kol concedes that Klaus may not need him after that, but Marcel probably will, which causes Marcel to look at him suspiciously before he continues.
"Come on, Marcel," Kol replies patronizingly. "You were king of the city once! Do you really think he's just going to give it back to you?" Marcel can't help but laugh at Kol's insistence on turning everything into an opportunity to get what he wants, but Kol just ignores him and points out that individually, they can't do much, but together, Klaus wouldn't stand a chance against them. "Probably not," Marcel concedes with a sigh as he picks up a scalpel that is just laying in the middle of the end table for whatever reason. "But then, I'd have to trust you, and I don't. At least with Klaus, I know exactly what I'm getting."
Marcel totally has a point, there-- Kol's always looking out for #1, and isn't much fond of Marcel, but Klaus is the devil Marcel knows, so I can totally see why he'd be the more stable option, as weird as that sounds. Plus, Klaus has mellowed out a ton in the time since Hope was born, which helps a lot, too. "Well, I thought you had more fortitude, Marcellus," Kol says condescendingly. "You disappoint me." Marcel leans in so he can look Kol in the eye and states that no one cares for his opinion, and that his job is just to find out what Kol's up to for Klaus. "Tell me everything? Maybe you get to live," Marcel adds. "If not?" Kol seems skeptical of Marcel's threats until Marcel vamp-speeds over to him and stabs him through the left hand with the scalpel, pinning it to the arm of the leather chair in which he sits. DAMN, MARCEL! That's cold, especially since Kol isn't even a vampire anymore, he's a mortal witch now!
Back in Algiers, Davina and Josh are still at Marcel's loft, where they are playing darts while Josh apologizes for his role in Marcel's snatching of Kol. "For the record, yes-- I knew what Marcel was up to. And, you can hate me if you want to, but--" Davina just cuts him off and assures him that she doesn't hate him at all, she's just tired of worrying about his and Marcel's safety. "And, I'm TIRED of Klaus always being in the middle of it." She angrily throws a dart at the dartboard and adds, "You know, every time I try to stand up to him--" Josh cuts her off right there and is all, "It hasn't worked out so well?" because Josh knows better than anyone that that is the case. I mean, he turned into a vampire because Klaus killed him after learning that he had vampire blood in his system, and then as soon as Josh transitioned, Klaus started compelling him to be his spy, which resulted in Davina having to painfully strip said compulsion away. And, of course, when Josh teamed up with Marcel and Rebekah to take Klaus down, it went off the rails almost immediately, which Josh brings up with a bitter laugh. "Failure, a party of two?"
Davina changes the subject to Josh and states that it looks like Josh is doing well, more or less, and he shrugs noncommittally in response. "Uh, yeah, except that every werewolf in town is trying to kill me. Well, except for the super-hot one I'm sort of dating, but that's got its own problems, though." Davina's face immediately perks up at this news and smiles at him, clearly interested in the details of his current romance, which Josh hilariously and depressingly refers to as a "Romeo and Romeo thing." DUDE, DON'T! Referencing Romeo and Juliet in any way while describing romantic relationships is literally the KISS OF DEATH. Don't even put those kind of vibes into the universe, amigo. Davina waggles her eyebrows at Josh and asks him how hot his Romeo is, so Josh adorably pulls out his phone and shows her a photo, leading Davina to wholeheartedly agree that Aiden is worth the drama. Suddenly, Davina's eyes light up as she gets an idea. "Invite him over!" she exclaims excitedly, and when Josh gives her a confused look, she insists that she wants to meet him. Josh still seems pretty unsure about it, but after some more convincing from his baby-witch BFF, he finally agrees to do it and starts dialing Aiden's number. Ohhhh, Davina, girl, what kind of game are you playing?
Back at the Mikaelson compound, Klaus has returned to the ballroom where Finn has once again been suspended by his wrists on the left-hand staircase. Klaus unrolls a sleeve of various sharp torture implements on a table and starts to go through them while he asks, "Do you think our mother is the least bit concerned for your well-being?" Finn assures him that Esther knows Finn doesn't need rescuing, and Klaus hilariously holds up what looks like a super-sharp two-pronged fork of some kind and waits expectantly to get Finn's opinion on it. When Finn remains silent, Klaus just shrugs and puts it down again. Man, why is Klaus so awesome these days? I am seriously loving him more than I ever have before. Finally, Finn brings up the fact that Klaus has had an infinite number of opportunities to kill him, which he has yet to take, but this is apparently the exact point Klaus is trying to make in getting him to switch teams.
"But I didn't, did I?" Klaus asks, before putting down a sharp knife and walking toward him. "Finn, I understand your devotion to her," he continues. "She must have clung to you with desperate need after our sister Freya died, making you believe it was YOUR responsibility to care for her. Always and forever, mmm? A burden which you accepted without question, because YOU were a good son. Small children lack the capacity to question their parents, but you're a man now, Finn." Finn is understandably unimpressed by Klaus' argument, which he claims essentially boils down to "I'm a man now, so I should join Klaus' wretched cause," but Klaus reminds him that it is likely better to join him than to spend the last years of his mortal life siding with the woman who has manipulated him for his entire life.
He goes on to say that he is offering Finn a chance to free himself by giving him the life Esther never once offered him, which is the ability to choose to do with his life whatever he wants. And really, Klaus does have a point, if you think about it. If we are meant to take the flashbacks from "Wheel Inside the Wheel" at face value, Finn has been seeking Esther's approval and affection his entire life. When Klaus killed her, Finn was devastated, and seemed to have only reluctantly stuck around his siblings until 1114, when he was daggered by one of the members of the Brotherhood of the Five and was left that way for almost nine hundred years. (If you're curious about the full history, I recommend you check out the full timeline on the TVD/TO Wikia page, which is a godsend.) When he was finally undaggered, he immediately reunited with his recently-resurrected mother and wasted no time in offering up his life to kill his siblings once and for all. Then, he died, and now that he's resurrected again, he's already been manipulated by Esther into doing her bidding once again. Sure, Finn has plenty of reasons to despise his siblings, and in the next few episodes, we'll see him branching out on his own, but you can't say that he hasn't completely chugged down the Esther kool-aid, you know? So, Klaus tells Finn that the choice is his before once again leaving the room to give him time to think and to check in on his other wily brother.
Meanwhile, in the Bayou, Jackson is chopping up firewood near his trailer when Hayley stomps over to him, carrying the leather-bound journal she swiped earlier and looking mighty unhappy. "You wanna stop playing mountain-man and explain why you kept this from me?" she demands, and Jackson, knowing exactly what she's talking about, stops chopping the wood and sighs, though he remains silent. "Why don't I jog your memory?" Hayley snaps, before reading aloud a passage from the journal full of notes Jackson wrote down from Ansel.
Hayley excitedly reminds Jackson that they just found what they've been looking for, and adds, "Let's find a shaman, we'll say some vows. Hell, we'll make it a party!" Jackson looks extremely unhappy now, and he brings up something that she's totally forgotten in all her excitement-- it has to be a real, legit marriage, in every way, for the rest of their lives. That means living together, consummating their marriage, working as a team, no side-relationships of any kind, etc. It's interesting that he used the specific phrase, "for the rest of their lives," because Hayley is an immortal hybrid and the mother of Klaus Mikaelson's only child, so we know she's not dying any time soon. Jackson, on the other hand, is not only a mortal, but he's also the rightful leader of the werewolf pack that Klaus still hopes to lead someday, which means his days are likely pretty numbered. "Are you ready for that?" Jackson asks, and when Hayley guiltily looks at the ground, unable to come up with a response, Jackson sighs in disappointment and snaps, "Didn't think so" before he returns to chopping firewood, leaving Hayley to think on it.
Cut to Cami's apartment, where Cami is zonked out in her bed. I would be remiss if I didn't remind you that in the last episode, Esther went after Cami after she found out that Klaus had killed Ansel and strung him up for her in the crypt where she works her spells, so it's interesting to find her mostly safe and sleeping away in her own home. Anyway, Cami is suddenly awakened by the sound of her phone ringing, and she sits up and groggily rubs her head before she reaches over to check her phone. When she sees it's Hayley, she answers it, and after greeting her, Hayley immediately asks Cami for a favor.
The scene cuts again to Father Kieran's secret apartment, where Cami and Hayley have met in the super-secret back room full of supernatural files and dark objects to do some research. As Cami unpacks a bunch of files, Cami groans and continues rubbing her head, like she's coming off of a hangover of some kind, and Hayley looks at her with concern as she asks Cami once again if she's okay. Cami insists that she's fine and figures she must be coming down with some kind of flu bug, so Hayley apologizes for dragging her out of bed. GOD, I LOVE THE LADY FRIENDSHIPS IN THIS SHOW SO MUCH. Can we get more Hayley and Cami being friends? Hayley is such a boys'-girl that I feel like she needs more ladies in her life, especially since Rebekah hasn't been around much lately, and Rebekah is like the closest thing to a best-girlfriend Hayley has. Anyway, Cami just scoffs and replies, "Please! You just discovered an ancient marriage ritual with pretty drastic supernatural and personal implications. The least I can do is get out of bed."
Hayley smiles at her, and Cami decides to turn the subject back to the Unification Ceremony and gestures to a pile of books and files that she has stacked on the desk as she explains that she looked up everything she could find in Kieran's files about werewolf ceremonies and rituals, but that most of it just sounds like old folklore and fables. Hayley just smiles in gratitude, and Cami, ever the psychologist, adds that Hayley is obviously not searching for some kind of proof that the ceremony is legit, and seems to be curious to learn what exactly it is that Hayley is looking for, here. Hayley sighs and admits that she actually has no idea what it is she's seeking, so Cami brings up Jackson and asks if she's gotten any information from him, since he'd know Crescent rituals better than anyone else they know. "He doesn't even want to talk about it," Hayley replies awkwardly. "He doesn't even want to put me in this position. He's a good, decent guy, if those even exist anymore." Cami is an observant lady, so she knows what's up with Hayley and Elijah as well, and asks her if Jackson knows about Elijah, which leads Hayley to shake her head in the negatory. "Elijah and I have barely spoken since I became a hybrid," Hayley confesses sadly. "But, still, he is..."
Cami, who has a similarly complicated relationship and romantic feelings for Klaus and knows how tough it is to love a Mikaelson man, finishes her sentence for her. "...Under your skin?" Hayley gives her a knowing look, as though she is totally aware Cami's personal understanding of the topic, and Cami, not wanting to get into her own relationship issues, clears her throat awkwardly and reassures her that there's no right or wrong answer to Hayley's current dilemma. She lifts up her arms and starts to pull her hair into a ponytail as she reminds Hayley that she needs to figure out what's best for her and to think about what her decision will be, since she's going to be the one to live with it. Hayley just sighs, all, "No pressure," and watches as Cami starts putting the files away. Now that Cami's hair is up off of her neck, Hayley can see as Cami bends over that she has a row of what looks like large, pin-prick sized wounds in a perfectly straight line down from the base of her neck to the base of her spine through a slit that is cut in the back of her blouse. Hayley, alarmed, asks Cami what's on her back, and Cami looks concerned as she turns around in front of the mirror and sees the small scabs on the skin covering her vertebrae. Oh gods, witchy-shit ahoy!
Back in Algiers, Josh leads Aiden inside Marcel's loft so he can meet Davina as "Panama" by Destroyer (last heard in the closing montage of Teen Wolf's Season 4 finale) plays in the background. Aiden is clearly enjoying the music and declares that Davina has good taste, but Josh hilariously scoffs and states that it was his call, because if Davina had her way, they'd be listening to Puccini. BAHAHAHA. I love Davina's classic music taste. There are no wrong answers where music is concerned, in my opinion, since my music preferences span pretty much every genre thanks to the fact that I spent my childhood and adolescence playing the piano, flute, French horn and bassoon in pretty much every form of band my school offered (marching band, symphonic band, jazz band, percussion ensemble), along with symphonic choir. Man, I miss it dearly.
ANYWAY, so, Aiden makes a joking face at Davina as she reaches out her hand to introduce herself. "You must be Aiden!" Davina exclaims happily. "Super-cool, super-handsome--" Aiden cuts her off and adds, "Werewolf traitor?" Both Davina and Josh are momentarily uncomfortable by this response, but when Aiden notices the awkwardness, he apologizes and says it was a bad joke on his part. Davina smiles at him and decides to break the ice by offering to order Thai food for them all. When Aiden and Josh both voice their agreement with this plan, Davina smirks and them and heads upstairs to order it, leaving Aiden and Josh all alone on the bottom floor.
"That wasn't planned at all, was it?" Aiden asks adorably, and Josh just smiles at him like a boy in love and crows, "Nooooope!" After a moment, Josh watches as Aiden examines Marcel's record player, and his face looks concerned as he brings up the "werewolf-traitor" joke and asks him if he's still having pack problems. Aiden sighs and says they'll know soon enough, because he just called a meeting for Hayley and Jackson that night to discuss what the fuck they're going to do, so one way or another, everyone is coming to a head. Josh nods in understanding and walks toward his best boyf to give him a pep talk on community, which he's learned a lot about while being one of Marcel's vampires. "You know, those people look up to you," Josh begins. "I mean, trust me, I've seen you in action-- you're a BADASS." Aiden chuckles cutely, so Josh continues on. "So, just go in there and tell them what's what." Aiden reminds Josh that he's not the Alpha, but Josh points out that Jackson is, and the pack respects both of them, so if he stands with Jackson, the rest of the pack will listen to them both. Aiden seems a little skeptical, so Josh adds, "One thing I learned from Marcel? Loyalty sends a powerful message."
God, I just love that so much! I mean, Josh has said on multiple occasions that he's never felt like he fit in, first because he was a gay club kid, and now because he's a vampire. This seems to be a common theme with regards to Marcel's vampires, because that's exactly how Marcel became one himself-- Marcel was just a nameless bastard child of a slave and the Governor of Louisiana until Klaus found him, gave him the name that meant "Little Warrior," raised him like any other upper-class child his age would have been raised, and turned him into a vampire so he could officially join their immortal family. As much as Marcel and Klaus have fought over the course of history and the series, Marcel has learned a lot from him, and he still pays the kindness he received from the Mikaelsons forward by creating the same kind of family with his vampire community. Remember Josh in the premiere episode "Rebirth," when he said he didn't know what he was fighting for? Over the last seven episodes, I think he's finally begun to figure it out, and I'm seriously loving the development his character has had.
BUT, I digress, AGAIN. Anyway, so Josh insists that he shouldn't be nervous, because he thinks Aiden is pretty amazing, which leads them straight to smoochie-town. YESSS! MORE LGBT CHARACTERS ON THIS SHOW, PLZ & TY. After a moment, they finally pull away, and Josh laughs before saying that he's a little surprised that he doesn't hear clapping right now. He turns toward the staircase and shouts to Davina that she can come downstairs now, but he gets no response, causing both Josh and Aiden to become alarmed.
As it turns out, Davina, like, jumped out of a second-story (at least) window and sneaked to Lafayette Cemetery, where she has begun preparing for a spell in Kol's playhouse tomb. She pulls out Esther's grimoire and flips through it until she finds the spell she wants and starts grabbing herbs, salt, several vials of multi-colored fluids, and a large metal bowl. She fills the bowl with a white, milky-looking fluid and crushes up several different herbs in her fingers before sprinkling them in as well. Once she's finished, she holds up her hands and starts to cast the spell. "A verte insinguinae, a tor a ver," she chants aloud, repeating the incantation over and over, which causes the bowl to spin rapidly on the table until its contents have been thoroughly mixed together into what now looks like a black, tarry potion of some kind. Davina looks hesitant at first, but after she gathers her nerves, she raises the bowl to her lips and starts to drink the sludgy concoction. Damn, girl! Davina is SUCH a badass, I love her so much.
Over at the Mikaelson compound, Marcel's torture of Kol is still ongoing, and Kol is continuing to wince in pain, since the scalpel Marcel stabbed through his hand is still causing it to be pinned to the arm of the leather armchair in which he sits. "Now, we can keep doing this as long as you want," Marcel states, before yanking the scalpel out of his hand, causing Kol to yelp in agony and cradle his injured hand in his whole one. Marcel then bites his wrist and forces his bleeding wound into Kol's mouth. Kol clearly knows where this is headed, and as a result, he's not really keen on drinking vampire blood, but since he wants his hand to heal, he reluctantly gulps it down. "OR, I can kill you now, and turn you into a brand-new baby vampire." OH MY GOD, PLEASE DO IT. I know that Kol doesn't get re-turned into a vampire, but that doesn't stop me from wishing he did. Can you imagine Sharman!Kol as a vampire? SUPER SUPER HOT. Ughhh, weeping for what could have been.
Kol, who is in an understandably pissy mood considering the current circumstances, calls Marcel's bluff and urges him to just go on ahead and kill him, because whether he likes it or not, his mother's got plans for him, and if he's turned into a vampire in this body, she'll just pop his spirit into another one. "Not that my family will care that much if the death was permanent," Kol mutters under his breath, which seems to surprise Marcel quite a bit. He stares at Kol and studies him for a moment before finally letting go of him and removing the knife from his throat. He moves around so he can look Kol in the eye and calmly asks him what he's really up to, and how Davina is involved in all of it. "Heh, you think I'm gonna break her little heart?" Kol replies mockingly. "That's downright maternal of you, Marcel!" This causes Marcel to lose his temper, and he's just about to stab Kol with the scalpel still in his hand when Klaus wanders back into the room and stops him.
On the streets of the French Quarter, Hayley is walking through the neighborhood, looking pensive as she considers her current options. After a moment, she pulls out her phone and dials Elijah's number. Elijah, who is sitting at a booth at some out-of-town diner, pulls out his ringing phone and smiles when he sees it's Hayley. However, before he gets a chance to answer it, he sees a man at the bar eyeing him suspiciously, which makes Elijah paranoid enough that he ultimately ignores the call. In the French Quarter, Hayley is disappointed when the call goes to voicemail, and sighs before hanging up without leaving a message. Back at the diner, a waitress comes by to top off Elijah's coffee, and it's clear by the expression on Elijah's face that he's still unnerved by the man who keeps watching him at the bar. He turns to the waitress before she can start pouring and stares her in the eyes before compelling her for some answers. "Tell me, has there been anyone out of the ordinary today?" he asks as he maintains eye contact with her, but the woman simply replies, "Just you," which gets an amused chuckle out of Elijah. Unfortunately for her, the woman accidentally ends up spilling coffee on Elijah's sleeve, and she looks like she feels really guilty and immediately begins to mop it up with napkins while she apologizes. Elijah, who is predictably bothered by this messiness, politely and curtly replies, "It's quite alright, thank you," with just enough gravitas in his voice to indicate that she's being dismissed.
As the waitress leaves, Elijah picks up another napkin and starts blotting at the stain blossoming on his sleeve, but the act of cleaning himself up triggers flashbacks from his time being tortured by Esther. First, he sees visions of his dream while in captivity, the one where he's shirtless and covered in blood and chasing Tatia/Hayley down the hallway toward the red door. He then flashes back to the memory of when he fed on and killed Tatia just after he was turned into a vampire, followed by a flashback to what happened afterward, when he fell to his knees in front of the family's slaughterhouse while Esther helped dispose of Tatia's body. Then, Esther's explanation of this memory from "Red Door" begins to echo through his head-- "I told you to clean yourself up. If you were clean, no one would know what you are or what you've done."
He then suddenly snaps back to the present, where he's still furiously scrubbing at his sleeve with a napkin. He looks over to the waitress, who is whispering something to the man as the two stare at him, which makes him even more paranoid. Short cuts of memories begin flashing through his memory-- the red door in his dream, and the red door of the slaughterhouse from his childhood, memories from the 10th/11th centuries, all of which begin to visibly agitate him. Aw, Elijah. :( This is hurting my heart so bad, just like when Sam Winchester from Supernatural was dealing with the effects of Hallucination!Lucifer after Castiel broke down his Hell-wall. Someone pleeeease help poor Elijah. :(
Over at the Mikaelson compound, Klaus has returned back to the ballroom for round 2 with Finn, who is still shackled with the cursed manacles and being suspended from the staircase by his wrists. Klaus smiles mockingly and asks him if he's ready to embrace his life of freedom, but Finn insists that he's already free, which does nothing to improve Klaus' mood. "You're aware our mother cares nothing for you?" Klaus asks bitterly, and he is not at all pleased by Finn's reply. "Niklaus, I assure you, my mother loves me. She loves all of her children. You would not exist without her sacrifice." Klaus continues to smirk at him in disbelief, which leads Finn to finally read his brother in on the whole Dahlia story. "Do you even know the truth? That she was barren? And she grew so desperate for a family that she begged one of the most powerful witches in history for help-- her sister, Dahlia. Of course, Dahlia's price was high. She agreed to make our mother fertile, but in exchange, she sought the first-born as sacrifice. Having no other choice, our mother gave away our beloved Freya." Klaus scoffs and reminds Finn of the family line that Freya died of plague, but Finn insists that Esther gave her away and invites him to think about just how much pain and grief that would cause someone. Yeah, I have a feeling Klaus isn't going to have to work too hard to understand just how badly that would feel, considering he gave away his daughter to Rebekah to protect her from the family's enemies.
However, Klaus gave up his precious daughter for her own safety, not because he gave her away as payment, and it's clear that the thought of doing so is reprehensible to even Klaus. He scowls and replies that if what Finn is saying really is true, then that makes it so much worse that death is no longer a strong enough punishment for Esther. Finn continues to argue that Esther loves them more than any of them realize, but, just like Klaus' last encounter with Esther-- when she just couldn't understand why Klaus still holds such animosity for her-- Finn doesn't understand why Klaus hates Esther so much, even to this day. So, Klaus reminds him of the single, very important reason why Klaus will never, ever forgive Esther for what she did, nor will he forgive anyone who sides with her-- she tried to murder his baby girl. "And is love the reason she wanted MY child dead?" Klaus demands angrily, but Finn justifies this action by saying that Esther was trying to protect them all from Dahlia's curse.
Okay, I'm confused-- do they really think that Klaus would just be, like, "Eh, bygones," with regards to Esther trying to get Hope killed? Like, I know that these people aren't exactly moral compasses, here, but the fact that they just don't seem to understand why Klaus actually cares about the wellbeing of his child just seems so weird to me, even with the danger they're facing in terms of Auntie Dahlia. Anyway, Klaus has lost any patience he may have possessed coming into this discussion and demands to know what fucking curse he's talking about, so Finn explains that it wasn't just Esther's first-born child that Dahlia demanded, but every first-born child of every person in the family for as long as Esther's bloodline continues. "Had your child lived, she would have paid the price!" Finn exclaims fearfully. "And, if anyone had tried to protect her, Dahlia would come and destroy us all!" Klaus still doesn't seem to be buying it, and continues to glare at Finn furiously. It's not often that you see Finn scared, so the fact that he seems straight-up terrified by Dahlia is definitely worrisome, especially considering that he's probably afraid of Dahlia because ESTHER is afraid of Dahlia. And if Esther, who up until his point was the most powerful witch in this series or its parent series TVD, aside from maybe Silas and Qetsiyah, is afraid of Dahlia, then pretty much everyone is screwed.
It's nearly dark now, and Elijah is still sitting at the booth at the out-of-town diner, watching the waitress slowly pass his table, when he sees Rebekah finally arrive with Hope in a baby carrier. Wait, did they ever say where Rebekah and Hope have been living since "From a Cradle to a Grave?" Time and space work way differently in this universe than in ours (the fact that Whitmore College can be anywhere from ten minutes away to three hours away from Mystic Falls in TVD is a testament to that) but since it seems to have taken her all day to get to the diner, I'm guessing she's either living in the northernmost part of Louisiana or is in a bordering state like Georgia or Alabama or something. Anyway, so Elijah stands to greet her, and when Rebekah sets Hope and her carrier on the table, he gives his baby sister a hug before he turns his attention to his beautiful baby niece and picks her up to hold her. "Look at you!" Elijah says softly, clearly in awe of Hope and the fact that his monstrous brother could contribute to making someone so sweet. "So big. So perfect." The way all the Mikaelsons melt in Hope's presence seriously KILLS ME. The baby actress twins who play her are perfect as well-- I don't know if it's just good editing or what, but she always seems to be making the most perfect and appropriate faces for whatever is happening that she totally steals the scenes.
(via damon-mylife)
Elijah goes on to say that he can't even imagine how amazing it must be to spend every day with her, and Rebekah nods in agreement. "[It's] quite lovely. It feels so human." Elijah agrees and suggests that perhaps its even the most human of experiences, which makes both of them kind of sad to think about. "I know I have to give her back to Hayley when the time is right," Rebekah says as a preface to the conversation. "But, she's made me realize how much I want that child of my own... that I know I can't have." Elijah, who is rocking Hope gently in his arms, admits that it is a lovely dream, but that they need to think about their current circumstances and keep in mind the fact that their vampirism means they'll never get it. Rebekah seems slightly confused by this defeatist attitude of his and remarks that Esther seems to have done a number on him, and Elijah confesses that she tortured him for days with memories that had been locked away for centuries.
Aw, Elijah. :( All of these characters brush off torture so easily, since they're vampires with heightened pain tolerance and healing, so I think they're just like, "Well, I'm physically fine now, so no harm, no foul." It's kind of sad, really. I'd say the same goes for TVD characters and Teen Wolf characters. Why am I so attracted to shows that put their characters through the wringer? Good lord. Anyway, Elijah pauses for a moment and licks his lips before admitting the rest of his experience with their mother. "Then, she made an offer... to make us mortal again." Rebekah looks stunned by this revelation, and is predictably tempted by it as Elijah continues on. "You see, sister, Mother believes that by placing us in new bodies, we can then reclaim some kind of... purity. We can begin families of our own again. And, I have to confess, Rebekah... this invitation, however cruel in delivery, has a certain... appeal." Rebekah looks at her big brother sympathetically and reaches across the table so she can squeeze his hand comfortingly. He continues to gaze adoringly at Hope, and isn't paying attention to Rebekah when she notices a very uncharacteristic smear of blood on the cuff of his sleeve and becomes even more worried. However, when Elijah finally looks over at her, he misreads her concern and assumes she's concerned about Hope. "You needn't worry," Elijah insists. "We're safe."
Rebekah licks her lips and puts on a fake smile before standing to her feet and grabbing Hope's blanket, claiming that she needs to change the baby's diaper, which is the same as claiming you're having you need to use the restroom because of ~ladies issues~ -- basically, they'll immediately let you do whatever it is you want to do, no questions asked or protests given, because they don't want to know or be involved whatsoever. Rebekah scoops Hope up in her arms and carries her across the restaurant toward the bathrooms. As she's passing the front counter of the restaurant, she notices a smear of blood on the wall and becomes even more unnerved, especially when she notices that they've been the only patrons in the restaurant this entire time. The waitress from earlier is washing her hands in the sink next to the kitchen, and seems to have been compelled, because she is neither bothered by the blood smeared on the wall behind her, nor is she bothered when Rebekah heads toward the kitchen door instead of the restroom. All the while, Elijah is seated with his back to them, so he doesn't notice anything that she's doing.
When Rebekah walks into the swinging kitchen door, she finds that the kitchen is full of the blood-drained and dead bodies of the employees and patrons who were in the restaurant before she arrived. Rebekah gasps in horror and turns Hope toward her to keep her from seeing the carnage first-hand, and after a moment, she rushes out the door and leans against it as she sighs in anxiety. YIKES, ELIJAH. First the attack on Finn, and then he gulps down more than a half-dozen diner employees and customers? That's like a Klaus-level appetite, and is extremely worrisome, to be honest. And Rebekah is hardly a stranger to violence herself (remember that time she killed a half-dozen nightwalkers with a pool stick? Or when she chained up Damon in Klaus' old mansion and spent the day torturing him to bleed out the vervain from his system?), so the fact that she is just as horrified as the rest of us just emphasizes how NOT GOOD this is.
Meanwhile, Klaus is in the courtyard of the compound, where he's leaving Elijah a very pissy voicemail. "I'm done leaving messages, Elijah," Klaus growls. "To say that this is urgent would be a gross understatement. We need to speak immediately." When he hangs up the phone, he senses someone approaching him and sighs before turning around and finding Davina. He brings up the fact that he was wondering when she would show up before adding that he's not done torturing her "darling Kol" yet, and that she should probably scram before things get ugly. "I'm not going anywhere, Klaus," Davina says with a satisfied smirk, just as Marcel hears her voice and races down the stairs to intervene in whatever it is that she's about to do. "Whoa, D, today is not the day," he insists, but Davina assures him that it is before flicking her wrist and telekinetically snapping his neck, causing him to collapse unconsciously onto the floor and tumble down the stairs. Klaus just gapes at her, partially impressed by her chutzpah and partially alarmed and what she's going to do next. "Looks like it's just you and me now," Davina quips. I LOVE HER SO MUCH. She's so badass!
At St. Anne's Church, Jackson is standing at the sacristy overlooking the pews where he is giving a speech to the Crescents, all of whom have gathered for the meeting that Aiden called. "I know you're angry and scared," Jackson begins. "But we are a pack. No matter what." A werewolf named Jerick stands to his feet and brings up the fact that Jackson has been checked out for months before asking why they should even listen to them, which is when Aiden stands up to reply, "'Cause he's the Alpha! You got a problem with that?" HELL YEAH, AIDEN! You tell him! Just then, Hayley enters the church from the front entrance and tells them she'd like to hear what Jackson has to say before she walks down the aisle to join him. Jerick scoffs aggressively and replies, "This is a pack meeting. You're not one of us anymore." UGH, THAT MAKES ME SO ANGRY. Every time a werewolf says something like that to Hayley, I just want to shake them, because 1) HAYLEY DIDN'T ASK TO BE A HYBRID-- she decided to live as one so her baby could still have a mother, and 2) Hayley has sacrificed more for her pack than anyone.
So, it likely will not surprise any of you that what Hayley does next is one of my favorite moments of hers this season. When she makes it to the altar, she calmly spreads her arms out wide and says, "No?" just before her fingernails start to grow out like claws. Her fingers and palms begin to shorten as her hands transform into wolf paws, and her eyes blaze yellow-gold as she begins to shift into a wolf. She then easily shifts back into her human form before smirking at them in satisfaction. YES YES YES YES YES. Also, how awesome is it that she so quickly and easily transformed like that? Have you seen a werewolf or hybrid who has shifted in a way that wasn't super painful? Because I can't think of any-- even KLAUS has only shifted twice in his life because it was excruciating for him. So, basically, Hayley is more badass than any of them, and is more in-tune with her inner wolf than literally any werewolf or hybrid out there, because she actually voluntarily shifts into a wolf just for the sake of being a wolf. Her being a vampire now does nothing to change that-- if anything, it just makes her MORE of a wolf, because she's been pushing so hard to repress her vampire nature. Which, of course, is exactly Hayley's point. "I AM still a wolf," she continues. "And, I didn't need any magical rings to control when or how I change. You want the same? Then sit down, SHUT UP, and listen." QUEEN HAYLEY, EVERYONE. She smiles at them before she turns to Jackson, who looks both dumbstruck and in awe of her amazing leadership qualities.
(via baffledwithwifi)
Back at the compound, Davina and Klaus are still facing off in the courtyard. Klaus smirks at her and says, "You forget yourself. You're not as powerful as you once were, Harvest girl." Davina just smirks right back and replies, "Doesn't mean I can't still kick your ass!" before once again using her telekinesis to throw Klaus across the room. He flies through the air and busts through the closed double doors, breaking them before he lands in the hallway outside the courtyard. She stops her spell and walks toward him confidently, but once she makes it to the hallway, she finds that he's already vanished. She becomes slightly alarmed as she looks around for him, but isn't fast enough to see him vamp-speed toward her and throw her down the hall. She screams as she flies several yards through the air, and ends up hitting her head on the wall before she falls to the floor. Her forehead starts to bleed as she quickly pulls herself to her feet while Klaus stomps toward her.
"Such hubris!" he crows triumphantly. "And from one who bleeds so easily!" Davina is struggling to catch her breath, but she won't let Klaus talk shit about her without taunting him in return. "You talk such a big game, but you couldn't even kill Mikael when you had the chance!" Davina replies with a dark and uncharacteristically cruel smile. "He was right about you, you know. You're WEAK." Ohhhh, shit! Bringing up Mikael AND telling Klaus he's weak is basically an invitation to have your spine ripped out through your mouth, and Klaus predictably loses his temper and vamp-speeds towards her again. He grabs her by the hair and pulls her hair back as she screams so he can chomp down on her neck, but despite Davina's scared demeanor, this is exactly what she wanted to happen. After he drinks a few gulps of blood from her carotid artery, he begins to choke and gasp painfully until he finally keels over and falls unconscious to the ground. When Davina sees that he's been fully incapacitated, she smirks victoriously. HOLY SHIT! That was so damn amazing! As usual, I am in awe of everyone's favorite baby-witch.
After the break, we pick up right where we left off, with Davina standing over Klaus' unconscious body and staring at him as she considers her next move. After a moment, Kol walks down the stairs, rubbing his sore, now-unshackled wrists and stepping over Marcel's still-unconscious body as he approaches Davina. He's clearly impressed as he surveys the damage of their little spat, but he also seems concerned as he asks Davina what exactly she did to Klaus. As it turns out, the spell with the tarry potion Davina cast earlier in the playhouse was a spell to channel dark objects through her blood to poison Klaus when he fed on her. THAT IS SO CRAZY AWESOME. I don't know if that's a spell of Esther's or something she tweaked for her own use, or what, but that is some seriously awesome planning on her part. This girl isn't even eighteen yet and she's already smart and capable enough to cast a powerful spell that likely uses dark magic with the plan that she would go in and poke Klaus' vulnerable spots until he got pissed enough to feed on her? I am almost a decade older than she is (ugh, I'm ancient) and I'm not sure that I would have the smarts to make a plan like that, let alone the ovaries of steel it would take to be brave enough to actually try it. I guess what I'm trying to say is DAVINA IS A GODDESS.
Anyway, so Davina finally notices that Kol is no longer shackled and asks him how the hell he managed to get free, a question to which Kol replies with, "It's a long story," before changing the subject back to Klaus. He brings up the fact that since Klaus is obviously not dead and asks her what she plans on doing when he recovers. Davina already has it planned out, though, obviously-- she figures they have an hour max to chain Klaus up, drain him of all his blood, and dump him in the Mississippi River. Damn, girl! That is cold. Even Kol is like, "Uh, that's kind of harsh, no?" but Davina just asks him why he's suddenly giving a shit about Klaus when they were just planning to create a dagger together that would actually neutralize him. Before Kol can answer, Marcel finally awakens after healing from his snapped neck and stands to his feet so he can join the conversation. "Kol is with us now," Marcel explains, as he rubs his aching neck. "We're going to be going up against Esther, assuming Klaus is... upright." Davina's face goes from confusion to feeling straight-up betrayal that Kol would join Team Klaus.
"Look, Nik is a pain in the ass," Kol insists desperately, not wanting Davina to be angry with him. "But, well... she's a problem for us all." Davina is not having this, and states for the record that she literally doesn't give a fuck about Esther or what happens to her, which is when Cami suddenly appears in the courtyard to interject that she most certainly gives a fuck about what happens to Esther. She notices Klaus' unconscious body laying on the floor and looks both horrified and exasperated as she turns to Davina, Marcel, and Kol and hilarious exclaims, "Should I even ASK?" Marcel shrugs and rolls his eyes toward Davina, who seems concerned to see her very-human amiga Cami at the compound. She tells Cami that she should get out of there, since it's not safe, but I don't get why she would think that-- Klaus wouldn't hurt Cami or allow Cami to be hurt unless something unspeakably bad is going down, so if anything, Klaus is probably the safest of all of them. "No kidding!" Cami argues, obviously overwhelmed by the revelation she and Hayley had earlier. "I woke up with puncture wounds all up and down my spine and now idea how they got there! According to my uncle's files, they're part of this ancient spell, and I don't know about you guys, but when I see 'ancient' and 'spell' in the same sentence, I think Esther." The rest of the gang looks pretty horrified by this news, and Davina stares at Cami in concern.
The Crescent Wolf Clan meeting is still going on at St. Anne's Church, where Hayley and Jackson are still intensely arguing their case to the rest of the werewolves, including Aiden and Jerick. "You all need help, and you know it," Hayley begins. "Now, whatever it is that you think of me, I was BORN a Crescent. I'm the last of the Labonair line, which makes me an Alpha." Jackson looks both alarmed and confused as to where Hayley is going with this, but I think deep down he knows, he just doesn't want to believe it because it's too good to be true. "Jackson is YOUR Alpha. Now, I don't know how many of you bought the story you grew up with, the Unification myth? Well, it's all true." This shocks the crowd, who all begin to whisper amongst themselves for a moment as Jackson shoots Hayley a look, and she doesn't take her eyes off of him while she continues her pitch. "Which means... if Jackson and I get married, anyone with the guts to turn up to the ceremony has as much control over their wolf form as I do." The Crescents all begin to murmur even louder as they chatter with each other, and Jackson can't help but blurt out, "Hayley, what are you doing?" under his breath. Hayley looks him straight in the eyes and insists that she's doing what needs to be done, which is not a very romantic answer, girl! At least act like you're doing this voluntarily and not because there is a shotgun pointed at your back.
The two continue to look at each other for a long moment before she gets to the point. "This isn't just about uniting our pack. It's about forming a new community." Jackson finally gets what Hayley is doing and decides to roll with this plan by putting an arm around Hayley's shoulders and addressing the rest of the wolves. "This ceremony will change everything for us. It will give us the strength we need to defend ourselves." In the crowd, Aiden anxiously twists the moonlight ring on his right ring finger and stares at it. "Then, and only then, can we finally have peace," Jackson adds, before Hayley walks toward the audience and faces them. "The choice is yours-- keep the rings and be somebody's bitch, or be part of the greatest pack that has ever lived."
YASSSS GIRL YASSSSSS. I will forever be amazed at the incredible character development Hayley has had in the last two seasons. Did you ever expect that the girl who crushed on Tyler, helped him and his pack of hybrids break their sire bonds, screw over Tyler, Caroline, the Mystic Falls Gang, and the hybrid pack, and barter information with Klaus to save her from Katherine (which resulted in the conception of Hope) would end up becoming this strong, amazing, and complex woman who wouldn't stop searching for her family and biological identity and become the fierce leader of a millennia-old werewolf pack? I didn't, but in this case, I am 100% okay with being wrong, because I am so pleased by who she is now. ANYWAY, so Aiden hops to his feet and joins them at the sacristy before loudly proclaiming that he will be joining Jackson and Hayley, which seems to be the vote of confidence that finally turns the tide in Jackson and Hayley's favor. YAY! I want so much more werewolf story, please and thank you.
Back at the compound, Cami is sitting on a coach in the courtyard, chugging a glass of water, while Davina and Kol examine the small puncture wounds that run down the length of her spine and Marcel, who sits next to her, watches them with concern. After a moment, Kol determines that the wounds are most definitely his mother's work, and that she likely magically wiped Cami's memory before she let her go. "Not the first time that's been done by a member of this family," Cami snarks bitterly, before asking him what it means. You can tell it's not good news when even Kol hesitates before finally vaguely describing it as a "preparation spell." So, when Cami is understandably confused as to what the hell that means, Marcel gently informs her that it's meant to prepare her body to become someone's vessel. Kol assumes that Esther was preparing Cami so that she could jump into her when Lenore's body was no longer useful, which causes Marcel to glare at him suspiciously, as though he thinks Kol may know more than he's telling. Cami, overwhelmed with all this new information, considers this for a moment before asking where "Vincent" is.
The scene cuts to the ballroom, where Cami has just stormed in and is now approaching where Finn is chained by the wrists to the left-hand staircase. Before either of them get a chance to say anything, Cami straight-up SMACKS HIM IN THE FACE. YES, GIRL, YESSSSS! He has so had even worse than that coming for months now, so I'm glad that Cami finally got to get out a little of her aggression against him. In real life, I am a mega-pacifist who has no tolerance for anyone physically harming anyone unless it's out of self-defense, but when it comes to my ridiculously violent fantasy/supernatural shows, I am like YES! SMACK HIM! PUNCH HIM! STAB HIM! The things these shows have done to my brain, I swear to the gods. Anyway, so Cami demands to know why Finn and Esther chose Cami out of literally every other woman in the city, and to Finn's credit, he doesn't even try to lie to her. "Because you're perfect," he replies weakly. "Healthy, beautiful, smart... and alone. No one would question any personality changes. And, as I discovered from my sessions, Niklaus would never allow you to be harmed."
The fact that Finn was using the guise of a therapist in order to get more information on Klaus is like, the most despicable part of all of the bullshit he and Esther have pulled this season. Can you imagine it? You're baring your soul to this person that you think is supposed to be helping you work through your issues and become a better therapist yourself, and in reality, your therapist is compiling notes on you on how to best use you to his advantage? Maybe it's the nurse/patient advocate in me, but UGH, THAT IS HORRIFYING AND ETHICALLY REPREHENSIBLE. Cami absolutely agrees and orders him to fix it, but Finn insists that he doesn't have the power to do that, only his mother does. "I will step in front of a moving truck before I let your mother take over MY body!" Cami growls at him furiously, but Finn just looks at her in surprise and confusion before informing her that Cami wasn't meant to be a vessel for Esther herself, she was prepared to be a vessel for REBEKAH when she finally talked her into taking her offer. Cami looks absolutely terrified now, and glances over at Marcel, who has been standing watch in the doorway to make sure Finn didn't try anything shady.
Oh my goddddddds! On the one hand, that is still just as horrifying from Cami's perspective, but on the other, can you imagine how interesting it would be to see everyone interacting with Cami!Rebekah? I'm kind of sad we never got a glimpse of that. Would have been an interesting storyline for Leah Pipes! Also, am I the only one getting Cami/Elena parallels from this? It reminded me strongly of the Vampire Diaries Season 2 episode "The Dinner Party," when Elena threatened to kill herself if Elijah didn't reinstate their original deal (where Elena would help him lure Klaus to Mystic Falls in exchange for Elijah protecting her loved ones) and then when Elijah called her bluff, she actually did STAB HERSELF IN THE GUT despite still being human at the time. Brave and determined ladies are my absolute weakness.
It's been a while since we've checked in on Elijah and Rebekah, yeah? Elijah is still sitting alone in their booth at the diner when Rebekah finally finishes changing Hope's diaper (or, more likely, just hiding in the bathroom while she figured out what the hell to do about Elijah's random lunchtime massacre of the patrons and employees) and rejoins him at their table. Rebekah puts on her brightest fake smile and assures him that Hope is all cleaned up and ready for an adventure, and Elijah returns it with a genuine smile as he watches Rebekah fasten Hope into her carrier. "It's difficult to believe we were this innocent once," Elijah says with a sigh as he stands to his feet. "We mustn't let the world ever hurt her." Elijah is so enthralled by Hope that he doesn't look backward as Rebekah comes up behind him and rubs his arm affectionately. "You're right," Rebekah replies softly. "We mustn't." Then, before he can react to this response, Rebekah reaches out at vampire speed and snaps Elijah's neck, letting his now-unconscious body collapse to the floor. She sighs, clearly overwhelmed and concerned about her brother's wellbeing, as well as his danger to others, and especially Hope. YIKES! This is suuuuuch a bad situation. :( Pobrecitos. :(
Back in the French Quarter, Cami, Kol, Davina, and Marcel have reconvened in the courtyard to discuss their options going forward. Cami asks Kol how much time she has, but Kol doesn't have good news-- since Esther now knows where Rebekah is hiding, it's only a matter of time, now. He is convinced that the only way to stop the spell is to stop HER, so Cami takes a deep breath and channels her fear into planning. "Then let's do this! Marcel's a vampire, you both are powerful witches..." Marcel, who has been pacing around the room this whole time, processes this information for a moment before reminding them that Esther is stronger than anyone, witch or otherwise, that Marcel has ever seen, and looks over at Davina with concern for a moment and hesitates before adding that if they want to stand a chance, they're gonna need Klaus on their team. Davina immediately and angrily interjects that they can do this without them, but even Kol, who is hardly Klaus' biggest fan, is doubtful. "Uh, I'm never gonna say this again, but Marcel's right," Kol replies carefully, not wanting to incur Davina's wrath. "We do need the bastard." Davina sighs, still obviously hating this plan, but when Cami walks over to her and takes her hands into her own, squeezing them gently, Davina is powerless to say no.
"Davina, I know this is asking a lot, but please," Cami pleads gently, and Davina, not wanting her good friend to become a meatsuit, even if Rebekah is preferable to Esther, sighs before walking over to Klaus' body and kneels beside his head. She quietly murmurs an unintelligible spell into his ear, and Klaus immediately gasps and sits up, momentarily overwhelmed as he tries to piece together what the fuck happened to him. After a moment, he rolls onto his side and pulls himself onto his feet before addressing Kol, Cami, and Marcel. "What did she do to me?" Klaus asks weakly, but Davina just rolls her eyes and replies that the only important thing is that Davina beat him-- again. (In case you've forgotten, the last time was in Season 1's "The Casket Girls," when Davina was fit to bursting with the magical power of all four Harvest girls and started to magically force Klaus to partially transform into a wolf before snapping his neck.) Klaus, realizing that Davina wouldn't have just woken him up for funsies if she had already beaten him, replies, "And yet, you relented. You need me, don't you?" Davina, knowing that he's right and totally hating it, just rolls her eyes and sighs, which causes Klaus to smile at her in amusement. "Did I really lose?" Oh, Klaus and Davina's antagonistic relationship gives me so much life.
The Crescent meeting has finally ended, and all of the wolves are gone except for Hayley and Jackson, who have finally gotten the alone time they needed to officially talk about what they've just started. Hayley apologizes to him for springing all of this marriage stuff on him, but Jackson just smiles happily and snarks, "You know, I always thought it would be me popping the question instead of being the one on the spot." After a moment of staring at each other affectionately, Jackson asks her if she's sure this is what she wants to do, and instead of answering, Hayley turns the question on him and asks him if he's sure, too. Jackson gulps nervously, and the two stare at each other awkwardly for a long moment before Jackson gives his answer. "I know you're only doing this to help our people," he begins carefully. "But I promise I will be a good husband to you." Despite whatever feelings Hayley may have for Jackson, romantic or otherwise, she knows that he is being 100% honest about that, and so she continues to smile widely at him. Jackson stands up and moves in front of her so that they're on the same level before he takes her left hand in his own and rubs it with his thumb.
"Hayley Marshall, will you marry me?" he asks, and Hayley is so happy and excited about this new plan to unite their pack that she can't help but laugh and make a joke. "No ring?" she asks teasingly, and Jackson just laughs heartily in response as they continue to squeeze each others's hands. Awww! I know I've said this before, but despite all my Elijah/Hayley and Hayley/Klaus shipper-ness, I am also a huge fan of Hayley/Jackson. I mean, Hayley could certainly do a lot worse than a guy who has been in love with her since before he even knew her, and I feel like Jackson is the kind of guy who she could learn to love, even if their relationship isn't burning-hot like hers with Elijah, or ridiculously complicated like her relationship with Klaus. I don't know, I ship Hayley with happiness, so as long as her partner gives her that, I'm totally on board, so sign me up for the Jayley train, ya'll.
At the compound, Kol is in the dining room and is finally getting a chance to eat the breakfast food from earlier, and excitedly grabs a pastry off the tray before digging in. Davina joins him after a moment, and he adorably chirps, "Quite nice of you, coming to my rescue like that!" Davina just smiles and retorts that he's lucky he didn't actually steal the white oak stake from her, because if he had, she would have been the one torturing him. LOL, DAVINA! You are so precious. Kol just smirks at her and asks her if that means she trusts him, now, but Davina just gives him a look, which does absolutely nothing to argue that she doesn't. Oh, Davina, stop playing hard to get! Just then, Klaus swaggers into the room and quips, "Provided you're not busy concocting a new paralytic to use against me, I'd like a word with my brother." Davina just shrugs and hilariously replies, "Well, to be honest, I can't stand being around you anyway" before she swans out of the room. Klaus can't even help but smile at that remark, because she's so cute now that she's all confident and tough. Once she's gone, his face becomes more serious as he turns to Kol, who looks concerned to be alone with him. He insists to Klaus that he had no idea whatsoever about Esther's plan for Cami, but Klaus just sits across from him at the table and assures him that he's smart enough to figure out which schemes she'd entrust to him, and adds that he's pretty sure it was Finn's job, since he was the one who was assigned to get close to her.
When Kol asks where Finn is now, Klaus smiles and replies that he's awaiting his return to dole out the punishment he's earned for not siding with them against Esther before adorably asking him to pass the beignets. God, this family-- scratch that, this whole EPISODE-- is just killing me, even months after it's aired, which is a testament to how good it is. Kol remarks that it's only a matter of time before Esther gets bored of waiting for Klaus to let them go, and then amends his statement. "Well, Finn, at least. I don't expect she'd care if I never came home." Klaus sighs before replying with an uncharacteristic amount of concern for his brother. "A mother cares for her children-- a monster does not," Klaus explains. "Once you accept she's the latter, you'll stop expecting the former. And, despite what you might think, Kol, I did mourn you after your death, and I did attempt to avenge you. I would do nothing less, because we are BROTHERS. Always and forever." OH MY GOD, MY HEART IS MELTING. Klaus may be an impulsive, narcissistic psychopath, but he does love his family, sometimes too much for their own good. Kol seems to be very overwhelmed by this reaction, which he was clearly not expecting, and simply nods in understanding at a loss for words to describe his feelings. After a moment, Klaus' phone rings, and when he sees it's Elijah, he politely steps away to answer it.
However, when he immediately greets the caller with an annoyed, "Where have you been?" Rebekah reveals that it's actually she who is calling him, and not Elijah. "Nik, it's me," she replies urgently. "Something's wrong. Elijah slaughtered a dozen people whose only sin was their terrible taste in food. I mean, when have you known him to kill when he could otherwise compel? It's the kind of act that will draw our mother's attention." Man, Rebekah is so smart and crafty, isn't she? I feel like everyone is always talking up Elijah and Klaus' strategery, but Rebekah doesn't get the credit she deserves regarding her ability to quickly assess a situation and act accordingly. Klaus is visibly concerned, though not surprised, about this news regarding Elijah, and states that Esther's torture must have had a much more intense effect on him than he had realized before asking her where they are. Rebekah informs him that she snapped his neck in case he was a threat to Hope, but she has no idea what she should do now, so Klaus instructs her to drive to the house where they dined the Christmas after they fled Mikael in 1919, which seems to confuse Rebekah, but she agrees to head there now.
Klaus then hangs up the phone and rushes straight for the ballroom, where Finn is still shackled and literally hanging out while he waits for Klaus. "If you enjoyed last night's activities, then you're in for a treat!" Klaus exclaims brightly, as he grabs Finn by the shackles and drags him back toward the door. "Niklaus, listen to me. Our mother may--" Finn begins to say, but Klaus just cuts him off and insists that he has no interest in more fairy tales about witches and curses. However, Klaus doesn't do nearly a good enough job in covering up his fear, which doesn't escape Finn's notice. When he asks Klaus why he's so afraid if he simply thinks it's a fairy tale, but instead of answering, Klaus calls for Marcel to "bring it in." As it turns out, "it" is actually Finn's coffin, in which he was in a dagger-coma for nearly 900 years, and which seems to cause Finn the same amount of anxiety as Stefan got at the sight of that safe in which he was locked underwater at the quarry for four months of drowning and starving. Finn starts desperately begging Klaus not to do this to him again, but Klaus simply assures him that this time, he's made some air holes before shoving him inside the casket with his shackles and slamming the lid closed. Marcel pulls out a padlock and uses it to lock it shut as Klaus strolls determinedly out of the room and toward the front door to the compound so he can leave to meet up with Rebekah, Hope, and Elijah.
Just as he's about to leave, he runs into Hayley, who is entering the compound at the same time. She stops and asks him if he's seen Elijah, and admits that there's something she needs to tell them both. Klaus isn't willing to waste any more time and insists that Hayley can fill him in on the way, which naturally causes Hayley to ask him where they hell they're going. Klaus stops walking and turns back to her with a small, genuinely happy smile on his face, and replies, "To see our daughter." As you can easily imagine, Hayley doesn't need to be told twice, and as soon as she hears the word "daughter," she joins Klaus in rushing out of the compound and toward their vehicle. YESS! FINALLY, THE HAYLEY/HOPE/KLAUS REUNION IS UPON US. (Or, it was, five months ago when this episode aired)
Next episode: it's Christmas in New Orleans, where the Mikaelson family (which, as always, includes Hayley) celebrate together by having a bonfire at the safe house and plotting the assassination of their mother. Kol tells Davina a bit about his experience with the French Quarter witches in 1914 and a spat he had with Rebekah at the time, we meet a very important character who has about two lines and 15 seconds of screen time whose huge role in the Mikaelsons' story won't actually be revealed until later, and oh, Mikael's back.
[screencaps via Screencapped]
NOTES/COMMENTS:
- Here's the rest of the music from this episode!
"Do You Remember" by Ane Brun
---Elijah ignores Hayley's phone call while he waits for Rebekah and Hope at the diner and compels the waitress to answer his questions.
"By Your Side" by Little Children
---Klaus tells Rebekah where to meet him; Klaus and Marcel lock Finn in his coffin; and Klaus tells Hayley they're leaving to go see their daughter.
Anyway, since I'm still scrambling to catch up on these recaps before Teen Wolf starts, I'm just gonna cut to the chase, alright? Also, an update on scheduling and general housekeeping stuff before I begin-- I still have a Teen Wolf post-Season 4/pre-Season 5 write-up/meta thing that is almost finished, I'm just waiting on an excellent section-- which is written by my best friend, heterosexual life partner and fellow fantasy/supernatural television junkie Kathleen-- on why she thinks Jordan Parrish is Apollo from Greek Mythology, which should be posted here soon. While I'm working on catching up on the TVD/TO recaps, I'm also doing some general fixing-up of past recaps, such as adding links to the recaps so you can immediately move onto the previous review or the one that follows it without having to look around too much. I've also been considering making an archive page, where you can just see all of the recap links by TV show and season, but I'm not sure if it's completely necessary, since Blogger sites have all the posts on the right hand column. Is that something you guys would be interested in for ease of use? Let me know in the comments!
Anyway, let's get moving, shall we? Let's talk The Originals!
Previously, on The Originals: Esther has come back from the dead to heal her family, and she's resurrected her previously-deceased sons Kol and Finn (who are possessing new witch bodies) to help her out. Her intention is to use magic to transfer the spirits of Elijah and Rebekah into witches, and Hayley and Klaus into werewolves, but as you can imagine, she's facing a little resistance. Esther entrusted Finn with bringing in Cami, but when Marcel, Hayley, and Cami captured Finn and Kol and brought them to the compound wearing magic-blocking shackles, Esther was forced to have to snatch Cami on her own. Esther and Finn have also bribed the werewolves into swearing their allegiance to them by giving them all moonlight rings to allow them to partially transform at will and prevent themselves from being forced to turn on the full moon. Meanwhile, Kol, who was tasked with getting close to Davina, sort of shirked his duties in favor of starting a genuine romantic relationship with her, and the two have been plotting to use Kemiya magic to create a dagger that will actually work on Klaus. Elijah was tortured by Esther in pretty horrific ways, including Esther essentially breaking down the spell she cast one thousand years ago to cause Elijah to forget that he accidentally killed his beloved Tatia out of uncontrollable newborn-vampire bloodlust, along with a millennia of other horrendous acts of violence. Oh, and after Hayley and Klaus' daughter Hope was born, the Mikaelson family faked her death and sent her to live with Auntie Rebekah so she would be safe from all of the family's enemies. Which is sort-of where we pick up today!
The opening scene in this episode cuts back and forth between a park somewhere in the Southern United States and the Mikaelson compound, while Klaus narrates in voiceover for our benefit. As usual, his narrations will be bolded for your convenience. So, at the park, children are running around and playing on playgrounds while various mothers push their strollers around the path. Nearby, Rebekah is at a swing set, where she is smiling happily and pushing a very excited Hope in an infant swing. "We arrive in this world as innocents. Wide-eyed. Vulnerable. It is the job of our parents to nurture and protect us. Unfortunately, our own parents failed miserably at even the most basic of parental tasks. But, we are not beholden to the past the created for us."
The camera cuts to the dining room of the compound, revealing that Klaus is speaking to Elijah, Kol, and Finn as they sit and have breakfast. Naturally, Kol and Finn are still wearing the cursed shackles so they can't start any magical shenanigans, but at least they're not longer hanging from the balcony, so I'll call that progress in regards to Klaus. As he speaks, the usual compelled servants in suits are busy bustling around, placing platters of fruit and breakfast pastries all over the table that is half-full of vampires who don't even need to eat human food. Like I mentioned in the last TVD recap, it's almost like these shows have forgotten that their main characters are vampires? Although, I will be momentarily proven wrong, but other than Elijah's control issues, literally none of the vampires are seen drinking blood anymore. Even when Hayley was going on feeding frenzies at the beginning of the season, we never actually SAW her feeding-- we just saw the dead bodies afterward.
"Today, a new future awaits," Klaus continues amiably. "Forget your animosity toward Elijah and myself. Instead, join us against she who truly deserves your ire-- our mother!" Kol rolls his eyes at this predictable response, and Finn just sighs from boredom. "Do this, and we will welcome you with open arms!" Klaus adds. Kol is about to speak, but when he reaches for a pastry off of one of the platters in front of him, Klaus cuts him off and hilariously pulls the platter out of his reach, causing Kol to roll his eyes again. "BUT, if you continue to oppose us, a denial of pastries will be the least of your concerns," Klaus finishes dramatically. Kol just sighs and claims that if they wanted him to join Team Klaus and go up against Esther, they should have just said so and saved him a night shackled to the wall. Elijah, who has been silent thus far, drolly replies, "Yes, this was Niklaus. My recommendation was to remove your limbs one by one until you comply." Klaus, not wanting Elijah's aggression to ruin his goal of turning his remaining brothers against their mother, laughs heartily and insists that they have no desire to torture them as he squeezes Kol and Finn's shoulders affectionately with his hands. Of course, there's a catch-- "Provided you vow to stand beside us!" Klaus adds happily.
Finn isn't really into it, and asks them if the word "brothers" even applies to them after all of the bullshit they've pulled on each other after their millennia of life together, and brings up the fact that loyalty to Klaus has rarely ever been rewarded. He then turns the topic of conversation to Rebekah, as the camera cuts back to the park, where their sister is still pushing Hope in the swing set. "She was blindly loyal to you for a thousand years, and now? Nowhere to be found," Finn continues, clearly suspicious about Rebekah's conspicuous absence. "Where did our sister go? And, how did she escape your vile machinations?" Finn asks Klaus, who takes advantage of the fact that his back is turned to Finn to swallow down his obvious anxiety about this line of questioning and instead starts laughing fakely. Klaus brings up an excellent point, which is that if Finn thinks Klaus is the vile one, then what does he think of the woman who made Klaus the person that he is today, and who made them all into vampires in the first place? Finn is starting to lose his temper, though, and insists that Esther simply sought to make them mortal again, and the fact that they rejected her offer just goes to show how dark-side they've really gone.
Elijah is NOT happy about this response, not the least of which because of the way that Esther went about trying to get them to take the deal, which involved breaking down Elijah's version of the Sam Winchester Hell-wall and subjecting him to all of the memories of all of the horrible things he's ever done since becoming a vampire in order to pressure him into accepting her deal. So, he picks up a knife off the table and starts playing with it while Finn continues on. "But, I expect Rebekah will have a different response to her proposal," he says, before the scene cuts back to the playground, where Rebekah stops pushing Hope in the swing long enough to turn around and see that a starling has perched on a nearby swing set and is watching Rebekah intently. "See, unlike the two of you, she always did cling to her humanity." Elijah, whose willpower is clearly slipping, growls that Rebekah is off-limits to them, and if they try to pursue her, they will regret it immensely, and this uncharacteristic anger on Elijah's part makes both Finn and Kol concerned and surprised. Klaus takes notice of this as well, and tries to once again steer the conversation back into at least the appearance of politeness. "Do not let him goad you, Elijah," Klaus states, before turning to Finn. "Neither he, nor Esther, will find Rebekah unless she wants to be found-- and she does NOT."
Finn continues on to say that their mother is quite determined to find their dearest sister, just as the scene cuts back to the park, where Rebekah has just turned away from the starling peeping at her, looking truly unnerved as she continues to push Hope on the swing. When she turns back again, an entire flock of starlings have perched themselves on the playground and are staring intensely at Rebekah. This is the final straw for her, and so she picks up Hope and rushes away. Meanwhile, back at the Mikaelson compound, Finn continues to insist that Esther has been looking for Rebekah since she returned from the dead, and that he knows it's only a matter of time before she finally finds her. This comment is the last straw for Elijah, who completely loses his temper, grabs Finn by the collar, picks him up and slams him onto the table before vamping out and sinking his fangs into Finn's neck while Finn screams and struggles against his grip. Whomp whomp, Elijah's off the rails. On the other hand, it's actually kind of hot. Ohhhh, the things these shows have done to me. TITLE CARD!
(via keira84)
After the break, we return to find Klaus, who has pulled Elijah off of Finn and pulled him in the hallway to admonish him for his behavior in a hilarious (yet slightly worrisome) role-reversal. "I enjoy a good bloodletting as much as anyone," Klaus begins, as he tugs Elijah's handkerchief out of his pocket and hands it to Elijah to clean himself up, in yet another demonstration of Elijah's obsession with being clean, which will be touched on a lot in the next episodes. "But our brothers have power, as well as knowledge of Esther's plans. We need them alive," Klaus continues. Elijah quietly reminds him of what they would do to Rebekah, or Hope, if they found them, but Klaus assures him that Rebekah has been cloaked by powerful magic and that for now, they're as safe as they can be. He then insists that Elijah focus on the task at hand, which is convincing Finn and Kol to join their team through persuasion alone, not violence-- at least, not yet, anyway. Elijah growls that he's done with persuasion and rushes toward the dining room to continue, I don't know, feeding on them all until they comply. "Has the earth shifted on its axis?" Klaus blurts out exasperatedly. "You needing restraint from ME?" Elijah looks taken aback when he realizes just how unusual he's acting, but before they can discuss matters further, Elijah's phone rings. When he sees it's Rebekah, he immediately answers it, and Rebekah wastes no time filling him in on what's going on.
"It's me," she begins frantically. "I have the baby, and we're on the run. Esther found us. We're safe, for now-- I've lost her bloody starlings, but I have no idea where to go." Klaus, who has been listening in with his hybrid hearing, tells Elijah to instruct her to head west before stating that he'll call Hayley, something which Rebekah instantly rejects as an option. "Do NOT tell Hayley!" Rebekah screeches loudly. "Esther's too smart for that. The only advantage we have is that she thinks the baby died." She finishes loading Hope into the car and tells them to text her what the plan is before she hangs up. Back at the compound, Elijah sighs and puts his phone away before turning to Klaus and insisting that he go protect Rebekah and Hope while Elijah deals with Kol and Finn. "Splendid," Klaus snaps. "And, in your hands, I assume they'll be dead by nightfall!"
Elijah assures him that he'll show restraint and reminds him that Hope needs her father now more than ever, but Klaus, in yet another uncharacteristic (but not at all unwelcome) display of maturity and self-control, replies, "What she needs-- what WE need-- are allies to help us defeat our mother. Finn and Kol MUST be turned to our side. Without their help, there will be nowhere left for Hope to run." GOD, WHO KNEW HOPE WOULD MAKE KLAUS SO AWESOME? I am seriously so in love. Elijah insists that Klaus needs to go see Hope, but Klaus just interrupts him and reminds him that he's waited months to see his daughter before becoming overwhelmed and cutting himself off with a sigh. After a moment, he adds, "I can wait one more day." Elijah gives him a heartbreakingly sympathetic look and goes to do as he's told, but before he can leave, Klaus calls out, "Elijah. Do whatever it takes to keep her safe." Elijah nods somberly and gives him his word that he will, but it's hardly necessary, because we know full well that Elijah loves Hope just as much as anyone.
Out in the Bayou, Hayley, Jackson, and Aiden are outside of Jackson's trailer deep in the woods where they are discussing the werewolves' current issues. "The wolves are freaking out," Aiden explains anxiously as he paces around in the grass. "They know it had to be an insider who took down Vincent last night, seeing as no one could have been anywhere near him." Jackson looks worried and asks if any of them suspect it was Aiden, and though Aiden shakes his head and states that they haven't yet, he knows it's only a matter of time until they figure it out, which means that he's totally screwed unless they come up with a good plan. Hayley, who has remained silent this entire time while she thinks about their options, finally speaks up and tells Aiden to call a meeting with the entire pack that night. "If they're so scared, now's the perfect time to convince them that they need to ditch Esther," she explains calmly. Aiden holds up his hand, upon which he wears a silver ring with a familiar black kyanite stone, and reminds them both that Esther made them all moonlight rings, so the wolves aren't really going to be inclined to turn on her.
Of course, Hayley knows full well the downside of those rings, considering her desire to make them in the first place is what played a huge role in her own death, her subsequent transformation into a hybrid, and the fact that she was forced to send her daughter away, not to mention the reasoning behind the rest of the pack ostracizing her so much, so she gives Aiden a hard look and reminds him that the moonlight rings make them slaves. Aiden, on the other hand, disagrees, because from where he's standing, the wolves are in a better place than they've ever been, not to mention they don't have to turn on the full moons anymore. "No!" he argues. "They make us powerful! We were exiles before, but now we run the city! The vampires are afraid of us, and no one, including me, is just gonna walk away from that because--"
Jackson, who has heard enough bickering, stands to his feet and gets in Aiden's face before aggressively ordering him to just set the damn meeting. He then turns and walks toward the dock at the lake. Hayley gives Aiden a look, all, "Yeah, what he said," before she scurries off to catch up with him. "So, are you gonna work on a rousing speech, or just get day-drunk?" Hayley snarks, as she watches Jackson crack open a can of beer. He figures he'll do a little of both, but Hayley just snatches the can out of his hands and reminds him that's it's only ten in the morning. Uhhh, you're a hybrid, Hayley, which means you're constantly drinking to sate your eternal hunger for blood, and you live with the Mikaelsons, who have literally replaced their blood volume with bourbon at this point, so I'm not sure you're in a place to judge, to be honest.
Anyway, Jackson gets up and walks over to the boathouse, where there is a small table covered in books. He picks up a familiar-looking leather-bound journal and holds it up for Hayley to see. "You know, for months, I wrote down every word Ansel said-- the entire history of our people. If I'd known he was Klaus' father, I would have asked him a hell of a lot more." He goes on to say that he spent the entire last night poring through the journal and looking for ANY kind of law or ritual they could use to get the Crescents back from Esther and Finn's control. When he sadly puts the book back on the table, Hayley assumes that he means that he didn't find anything, but Jackson's response is very, very telling. "Nothing viable," he replies, after a long pause and heavy sigh, before adding, "And now, Ansel's dead... along with Ollie. So, forgive me if I need a beer, 'cause right now, I can use all the help I can get." He grabs his beer back from Hayley and walks away, leaving Hayley alone to ponder what he's said. Once he's out of sight, she walks over to the table and surreptitiously picks up the journal before opening it and beginning to read.
Over at Marcel's loft, Davina is anxiously pacing around the living room, while she makes her confession to Marcel and Josh as they sit on the couch. "I screwed up, you guys," she begins, looking super guilty as she looks at Marcel in the eyes. "I was with Kaleb last night, and he took the white oak stake while I was asleep." Josh sighs and closes his eyes for a brief moment before giving Marcel a knowing look, which Davina misinterprets as them being mad at her for putting their lives in danger. "I-I'm sorry," she continues. "I never should have trusted him." Fortunately for our undying love for Kol and Kolvina, Davina has it all wrong, and Marcel hesitates for a moment before he sets her straight.
MARCEL: "Kol doesn't have the stake. Klaus does." [Davina looks at him in shock and confusion] "Matter of fact, Klaus has him, too."
DAVINA: [horrified] "Wha--? How is that possible?"
MARCEL: [sighs] "D, I'm the one who took him." [Davina's confusion turns to anger] "I saw an opportunity, and I wasn't gonna pass it up. Trust me, we are all safer this way."
DAVINA: [worried] "Not Kaleb! Klaus will kill him"
MARCEL: "His name isn't Kaleb, it's Kol. And Klaus has had a thousand years to kill him, and he hasn't. So, worry less about him, and more about yourself, alright? This guy is NOT your friend. He wants to use you to get his own way!"
DAVINA: [angrily] "You don't know him like I do."
MARCEL: "I know him better than you do."
OUCH! As much as I love Kol, and especially Sharman!Kol, Marcel does have a point-- Davina has known him for all of a month, and has maybe known his true identity for half of that, whereas Marcel was literally raised in the Mikaelson family and had a front-row seat to Kol's antics throughout his 200-plus-years-long-life. And, from what we've seen in flashbacks, and what we'll see here in a few minutes, Kol and Marcel have always had an antagonistic relationship because of Kol's jealousy of Marcel and how much Klaus, Elijah, and Rebekah cared for him, so Marcel isn't exactly wrong for being wary of his intentions. Anyway, so Marcel stands up and walks toward Davina, visibly guilty for how upset Davina is, while Josh sits back in his chair and generally looks uncomfortable. Marcel apologizes for lying to her and insists that he hates lying to her, but he's only trying to look out for her wellbeing. He then turns to Josh and informs them both that he's got some business to deal with, and instructs Josh and Davina to stay at the apartment while he figures it out before grabbing his coat and heading out the door. Ohhhh, Davina is fuming, and this is so not going to end well. I love Davina-- she is my favorite baby witch and one of my absolute favorite characters on this show, but man, sometimes she is just SUCH a teenager, you know? Which is a compliment, not an insult, because Davina has been through SO MUCH since we've met her and has been forced to grow up and become powerful so quickly that it's easy to forget that she's still just a 17-18 year old girl.
Back at the Mikaelson compound, Finn and Kol are alone in the dining room, still wearing their enchanted manacles, where Finn is grimacing in pain and blotting at the bite wounds on his neck with a towel. Otherwise, he looks pretty calm, though, unlike his youngest living brother, who is clearly beginning to panic. "Elijah is off his bloody rocker!" Kol exclaims quietly. "We need to get out of her." He waits for an answer from Finn, but he continues to just calmly sit in silence, leading Kol to demand if he actually plans on helping them try to escape. Finn basically calls Kol unintelligent and reminds him that there could be opportunities to learn more about their brothers while they're there. "Opportunity to what? Get a beating?" Kol asks incredulously, but Finn doesn't get to answer, because the doors to the dining room open and very pleased Klaus walks in to join them. "Gentlemen! I apologize for keeping you waiting. Good news is, I've returned with an old friend-- someone who wants to say hello."
Finn and Kol watch warily as Marcel strolls on into the room with a huge smile on his face, all, "How's it going, fellas?" Kol just rolls his eyes and asks Marcel if he ever gets tired of being on the receiving end of Klaus' bullying, but Marcel insists that he actually volunteered for this role, because as far as he's concerned, Kol has lots of torture coming. "First, you messed with Davina," Marcel says as he roughly shoves Kol backwards. "Now, I hear you wanna drag Rebekah into all of this?" Marcel says after shoving Kol backward again. "Uh-uh. Not happening." That's where Klaus picks up where Marcel left off, and informs his brothers that while he would really love it if they both joined him against Esther, he's totally fine with settling for one of the other, and naturally, the one who DOESN'T join him has a world of agonizing pain waiting for them. He turns to Kol, who is looking alarmed, and Finn, who is doing a pretty good job at maintaining his poker face, and asks him which one it's going to be.
After the break, Marcel drags Kol upstairs into one of the sitting rooms, where he violently shoves him into a chair. Marcel is mostly just really excited to take out his frustrations on Kol, but we know him-- he's basically the definition of a trickster, so he wastes no time trying to manipulate him into joining Team Kol. "I gotta say, I'm gonna enjoy this!" Marcel crows happily. "Out of the whole twisted family--" he continues, until Kol tries to stand up, and Marcel forces him back into his seat. "--Sit DOWN!-- You were the one I liked least." Kol brings up the "pretty young lady" who would beg to differ with Marcel, but you know how he gets when he's in Overprotective-Dad mode-- bring up Davina, and your ass is grass, son. "Then let me make myself perfectly clear-- you go near Davina again, I'm gonna cut off parts of you that you'd rather keep," he spits angrily, but Kol just rolls his eyes again and brings up the fact that Marcel is a lot like Klaus in the way that they're nothing but threats of violence. He then reminds Marcel that since Klaus needs him, he's going to have to keep the torture to a minimum, but Marcel argues that it's only the case until Esther is taken care of, after which point Kol becomes useless to them. Kol concedes that Klaus may not need him after that, but Marcel probably will, which causes Marcel to look at him suspiciously before he continues.
"Come on, Marcel," Kol replies patronizingly. "You were king of the city once! Do you really think he's just going to give it back to you?" Marcel can't help but laugh at Kol's insistence on turning everything into an opportunity to get what he wants, but Kol just ignores him and points out that individually, they can't do much, but together, Klaus wouldn't stand a chance against them. "Probably not," Marcel concedes with a sigh as he picks up a scalpel that is just laying in the middle of the end table for whatever reason. "But then, I'd have to trust you, and I don't. At least with Klaus, I know exactly what I'm getting."
Marcel totally has a point, there-- Kol's always looking out for #1, and isn't much fond of Marcel, but Klaus is the devil Marcel knows, so I can totally see why he'd be the more stable option, as weird as that sounds. Plus, Klaus has mellowed out a ton in the time since Hope was born, which helps a lot, too. "Well, I thought you had more fortitude, Marcellus," Kol says condescendingly. "You disappoint me." Marcel leans in so he can look Kol in the eye and states that no one cares for his opinion, and that his job is just to find out what Kol's up to for Klaus. "Tell me everything? Maybe you get to live," Marcel adds. "If not?" Kol seems skeptical of Marcel's threats until Marcel vamp-speeds over to him and stabs him through the left hand with the scalpel, pinning it to the arm of the leather chair in which he sits. DAMN, MARCEL! That's cold, especially since Kol isn't even a vampire anymore, he's a mortal witch now!
Back in Algiers, Davina and Josh are still at Marcel's loft, where they are playing darts while Josh apologizes for his role in Marcel's snatching of Kol. "For the record, yes-- I knew what Marcel was up to. And, you can hate me if you want to, but--" Davina just cuts him off and assures him that she doesn't hate him at all, she's just tired of worrying about his and Marcel's safety. "And, I'm TIRED of Klaus always being in the middle of it." She angrily throws a dart at the dartboard and adds, "You know, every time I try to stand up to him--" Josh cuts her off right there and is all, "It hasn't worked out so well?" because Josh knows better than anyone that that is the case. I mean, he turned into a vampire because Klaus killed him after learning that he had vampire blood in his system, and then as soon as Josh transitioned, Klaus started compelling him to be his spy, which resulted in Davina having to painfully strip said compulsion away. And, of course, when Josh teamed up with Marcel and Rebekah to take Klaus down, it went off the rails almost immediately, which Josh brings up with a bitter laugh. "Failure, a party of two?"
Davina changes the subject to Josh and states that it looks like Josh is doing well, more or less, and he shrugs noncommittally in response. "Uh, yeah, except that every werewolf in town is trying to kill me. Well, except for the super-hot one I'm sort of dating, but that's got its own problems, though." Davina's face immediately perks up at this news and smiles at him, clearly interested in the details of his current romance, which Josh hilariously and depressingly refers to as a "Romeo and Romeo thing." DUDE, DON'T! Referencing Romeo and Juliet in any way while describing romantic relationships is literally the KISS OF DEATH. Don't even put those kind of vibes into the universe, amigo. Davina waggles her eyebrows at Josh and asks him how hot his Romeo is, so Josh adorably pulls out his phone and shows her a photo, leading Davina to wholeheartedly agree that Aiden is worth the drama. Suddenly, Davina's eyes light up as she gets an idea. "Invite him over!" she exclaims excitedly, and when Josh gives her a confused look, she insists that she wants to meet him. Josh still seems pretty unsure about it, but after some more convincing from his baby-witch BFF, he finally agrees to do it and starts dialing Aiden's number. Ohhhh, Davina, girl, what kind of game are you playing?
Back at the Mikaelson compound, Klaus has returned to the ballroom where Finn has once again been suspended by his wrists on the left-hand staircase. Klaus unrolls a sleeve of various sharp torture implements on a table and starts to go through them while he asks, "Do you think our mother is the least bit concerned for your well-being?" Finn assures him that Esther knows Finn doesn't need rescuing, and Klaus hilariously holds up what looks like a super-sharp two-pronged fork of some kind and waits expectantly to get Finn's opinion on it. When Finn remains silent, Klaus just shrugs and puts it down again. Man, why is Klaus so awesome these days? I am seriously loving him more than I ever have before. Finally, Finn brings up the fact that Klaus has had an infinite number of opportunities to kill him, which he has yet to take, but this is apparently the exact point Klaus is trying to make in getting him to switch teams.
"But I didn't, did I?" Klaus asks, before putting down a sharp knife and walking toward him. "Finn, I understand your devotion to her," he continues. "She must have clung to you with desperate need after our sister Freya died, making you believe it was YOUR responsibility to care for her. Always and forever, mmm? A burden which you accepted without question, because YOU were a good son. Small children lack the capacity to question their parents, but you're a man now, Finn." Finn is understandably unimpressed by Klaus' argument, which he claims essentially boils down to "I'm a man now, so I should join Klaus' wretched cause," but Klaus reminds him that it is likely better to join him than to spend the last years of his mortal life siding with the woman who has manipulated him for his entire life.
He goes on to say that he is offering Finn a chance to free himself by giving him the life Esther never once offered him, which is the ability to choose to do with his life whatever he wants. And really, Klaus does have a point, if you think about it. If we are meant to take the flashbacks from "Wheel Inside the Wheel" at face value, Finn has been seeking Esther's approval and affection his entire life. When Klaus killed her, Finn was devastated, and seemed to have only reluctantly stuck around his siblings until 1114, when he was daggered by one of the members of the Brotherhood of the Five and was left that way for almost nine hundred years. (If you're curious about the full history, I recommend you check out the full timeline on the TVD/TO Wikia page, which is a godsend.) When he was finally undaggered, he immediately reunited with his recently-resurrected mother and wasted no time in offering up his life to kill his siblings once and for all. Then, he died, and now that he's resurrected again, he's already been manipulated by Esther into doing her bidding once again. Sure, Finn has plenty of reasons to despise his siblings, and in the next few episodes, we'll see him branching out on his own, but you can't say that he hasn't completely chugged down the Esther kool-aid, you know? So, Klaus tells Finn that the choice is his before once again leaving the room to give him time to think and to check in on his other wily brother.
Meanwhile, in the Bayou, Jackson is chopping up firewood near his trailer when Hayley stomps over to him, carrying the leather-bound journal she swiped earlier and looking mighty unhappy. "You wanna stop playing mountain-man and explain why you kept this from me?" she demands, and Jackson, knowing exactly what she's talking about, stops chopping the wood and sighs, though he remains silent. "Why don't I jog your memory?" Hayley snaps, before reading aloud a passage from the journal full of notes Jackson wrote down from Ansel.
HAYLEY: [reads aloud] "The werewolves' power can be traced back to the myth of the Unification Ceremony, a ritual that bestowed certain unique abilities onto every member of the pack."
[Jackson remains silent, but looks seriously guilty]
HAYLEY: "Do you believe this?"
JACKSON: [sighs] "I didn't at first. And then Ansel swore he saw it with his own eyes. And then he dies, and I found out he was resurrected from a thousand years ago, which means he was alive to see it!"
HAYLEY: [confused] "How did I not know about this?"
JACKSON: "You didn't grow up out here. Yeah, every kid grows up hearing the stories. Back in the day, werewolf bloodlines were all distinct, right? Some had speed, some had strength, some could sense enemies from miles away. Now, to evolve, we would perform a ritual. A shaman would marry the Alphas of each bloodline, and then the special abilities of each would be... inherited, mystically, by everyone who participated in the ritual. See, after a few centuries, everybody had the same abilities, so Alpha marriages became political. The became about power, about territory..."Hayley takes a moment to silently consider this information before she realizes the implications of this ritual. "But I have a unique ability!" Hayley exclaims. "Because I'm a hybrid, I can control when I change! So, if this mystical marriage thing works, then-- then our people get my power, and they can ditch the rings!" Jackson is visibly conflicted about this entire thing for reasons that are obvious for us in the audience, but not so much so from Hayley's perspective-- namely, the fact that Jackson has been in love with Hayley before he even truly KNEW her, so he wants to marry her just for the sake of being with her for the rest of his life, but it's clear she's doing this less out of love for Jackson and a desire to be married to him, and more to just free their people from Esther and Finn's control.
Hayley excitedly reminds Jackson that they just found what they've been looking for, and adds, "Let's find a shaman, we'll say some vows. Hell, we'll make it a party!" Jackson looks extremely unhappy now, and he brings up something that she's totally forgotten in all her excitement-- it has to be a real, legit marriage, in every way, for the rest of their lives. That means living together, consummating their marriage, working as a team, no side-relationships of any kind, etc. It's interesting that he used the specific phrase, "for the rest of their lives," because Hayley is an immortal hybrid and the mother of Klaus Mikaelson's only child, so we know she's not dying any time soon. Jackson, on the other hand, is not only a mortal, but he's also the rightful leader of the werewolf pack that Klaus still hopes to lead someday, which means his days are likely pretty numbered. "Are you ready for that?" Jackson asks, and when Hayley guiltily looks at the ground, unable to come up with a response, Jackson sighs in disappointment and snaps, "Didn't think so" before he returns to chopping firewood, leaving Hayley to think on it.
Cut to Cami's apartment, where Cami is zonked out in her bed. I would be remiss if I didn't remind you that in the last episode, Esther went after Cami after she found out that Klaus had killed Ansel and strung him up for her in the crypt where she works her spells, so it's interesting to find her mostly safe and sleeping away in her own home. Anyway, Cami is suddenly awakened by the sound of her phone ringing, and she sits up and groggily rubs her head before she reaches over to check her phone. When she sees it's Hayley, she answers it, and after greeting her, Hayley immediately asks Cami for a favor.
The scene cuts again to Father Kieran's secret apartment, where Cami and Hayley have met in the super-secret back room full of supernatural files and dark objects to do some research. As Cami unpacks a bunch of files, Cami groans and continues rubbing her head, like she's coming off of a hangover of some kind, and Hayley looks at her with concern as she asks Cami once again if she's okay. Cami insists that she's fine and figures she must be coming down with some kind of flu bug, so Hayley apologizes for dragging her out of bed. GOD, I LOVE THE LADY FRIENDSHIPS IN THIS SHOW SO MUCH. Can we get more Hayley and Cami being friends? Hayley is such a boys'-girl that I feel like she needs more ladies in her life, especially since Rebekah hasn't been around much lately, and Rebekah is like the closest thing to a best-girlfriend Hayley has. Anyway, Cami just scoffs and replies, "Please! You just discovered an ancient marriage ritual with pretty drastic supernatural and personal implications. The least I can do is get out of bed."
Hayley smiles at her, and Cami decides to turn the subject back to the Unification Ceremony and gestures to a pile of books and files that she has stacked on the desk as she explains that she looked up everything she could find in Kieran's files about werewolf ceremonies and rituals, but that most of it just sounds like old folklore and fables. Hayley just smiles in gratitude, and Cami, ever the psychologist, adds that Hayley is obviously not searching for some kind of proof that the ceremony is legit, and seems to be curious to learn what exactly it is that Hayley is looking for, here. Hayley sighs and admits that she actually has no idea what it is she's seeking, so Cami brings up Jackson and asks if she's gotten any information from him, since he'd know Crescent rituals better than anyone else they know. "He doesn't even want to talk about it," Hayley replies awkwardly. "He doesn't even want to put me in this position. He's a good, decent guy, if those even exist anymore." Cami is an observant lady, so she knows what's up with Hayley and Elijah as well, and asks her if Jackson knows about Elijah, which leads Hayley to shake her head in the negatory. "Elijah and I have barely spoken since I became a hybrid," Hayley confesses sadly. "But, still, he is..."
Cami, who has a similarly complicated relationship and romantic feelings for Klaus and knows how tough it is to love a Mikaelson man, finishes her sentence for her. "...Under your skin?" Hayley gives her a knowing look, as though she is totally aware Cami's personal understanding of the topic, and Cami, not wanting to get into her own relationship issues, clears her throat awkwardly and reassures her that there's no right or wrong answer to Hayley's current dilemma. She lifts up her arms and starts to pull her hair into a ponytail as she reminds Hayley that she needs to figure out what's best for her and to think about what her decision will be, since she's going to be the one to live with it. Hayley just sighs, all, "No pressure," and watches as Cami starts putting the files away. Now that Cami's hair is up off of her neck, Hayley can see as Cami bends over that she has a row of what looks like large, pin-prick sized wounds in a perfectly straight line down from the base of her neck to the base of her spine through a slit that is cut in the back of her blouse. Hayley, alarmed, asks Cami what's on her back, and Cami looks concerned as she turns around in front of the mirror and sees the small scabs on the skin covering her vertebrae. Oh gods, witchy-shit ahoy!
Back in Algiers, Josh leads Aiden inside Marcel's loft so he can meet Davina as "Panama" by Destroyer (last heard in the closing montage of Teen Wolf's Season 4 finale) plays in the background. Aiden is clearly enjoying the music and declares that Davina has good taste, but Josh hilariously scoffs and states that it was his call, because if Davina had her way, they'd be listening to Puccini. BAHAHAHA. I love Davina's classic music taste. There are no wrong answers where music is concerned, in my opinion, since my music preferences span pretty much every genre thanks to the fact that I spent my childhood and adolescence playing the piano, flute, French horn and bassoon in pretty much every form of band my school offered (marching band, symphonic band, jazz band, percussion ensemble), along with symphonic choir. Man, I miss it dearly.
ANYWAY, so, Aiden makes a joking face at Davina as she reaches out her hand to introduce herself. "You must be Aiden!" Davina exclaims happily. "Super-cool, super-handsome--" Aiden cuts her off and adds, "Werewolf traitor?" Both Davina and Josh are momentarily uncomfortable by this response, but when Aiden notices the awkwardness, he apologizes and says it was a bad joke on his part. Davina smiles at him and decides to break the ice by offering to order Thai food for them all. When Aiden and Josh both voice their agreement with this plan, Davina smirks and them and heads upstairs to order it, leaving Aiden and Josh all alone on the bottom floor.
"That wasn't planned at all, was it?" Aiden asks adorably, and Josh just smiles at him like a boy in love and crows, "Nooooope!" After a moment, Josh watches as Aiden examines Marcel's record player, and his face looks concerned as he brings up the "werewolf-traitor" joke and asks him if he's still having pack problems. Aiden sighs and says they'll know soon enough, because he just called a meeting for Hayley and Jackson that night to discuss what the fuck they're going to do, so one way or another, everyone is coming to a head. Josh nods in understanding and walks toward his best boyf to give him a pep talk on community, which he's learned a lot about while being one of Marcel's vampires. "You know, those people look up to you," Josh begins. "I mean, trust me, I've seen you in action-- you're a BADASS." Aiden chuckles cutely, so Josh continues on. "So, just go in there and tell them what's what." Aiden reminds Josh that he's not the Alpha, but Josh points out that Jackson is, and the pack respects both of them, so if he stands with Jackson, the rest of the pack will listen to them both. Aiden seems a little skeptical, so Josh adds, "One thing I learned from Marcel? Loyalty sends a powerful message."
God, I just love that so much! I mean, Josh has said on multiple occasions that he's never felt like he fit in, first because he was a gay club kid, and now because he's a vampire. This seems to be a common theme with regards to Marcel's vampires, because that's exactly how Marcel became one himself-- Marcel was just a nameless bastard child of a slave and the Governor of Louisiana until Klaus found him, gave him the name that meant "Little Warrior," raised him like any other upper-class child his age would have been raised, and turned him into a vampire so he could officially join their immortal family. As much as Marcel and Klaus have fought over the course of history and the series, Marcel has learned a lot from him, and he still pays the kindness he received from the Mikaelsons forward by creating the same kind of family with his vampire community. Remember Josh in the premiere episode "Rebirth," when he said he didn't know what he was fighting for? Over the last seven episodes, I think he's finally begun to figure it out, and I'm seriously loving the development his character has had.
BUT, I digress, AGAIN. Anyway, so Josh insists that he shouldn't be nervous, because he thinks Aiden is pretty amazing, which leads them straight to smoochie-town. YESSS! MORE LGBT CHARACTERS ON THIS SHOW, PLZ & TY. After a moment, they finally pull away, and Josh laughs before saying that he's a little surprised that he doesn't hear clapping right now. He turns toward the staircase and shouts to Davina that she can come downstairs now, but he gets no response, causing both Josh and Aiden to become alarmed.
As it turns out, Davina, like, jumped out of a second-story (at least) window and sneaked to Lafayette Cemetery, where she has begun preparing for a spell in Kol's playhouse tomb. She pulls out Esther's grimoire and flips through it until she finds the spell she wants and starts grabbing herbs, salt, several vials of multi-colored fluids, and a large metal bowl. She fills the bowl with a white, milky-looking fluid and crushes up several different herbs in her fingers before sprinkling them in as well. Once she's finished, she holds up her hands and starts to cast the spell. "A verte insinguinae, a tor a ver," she chants aloud, repeating the incantation over and over, which causes the bowl to spin rapidly on the table until its contents have been thoroughly mixed together into what now looks like a black, tarry potion of some kind. Davina looks hesitant at first, but after she gathers her nerves, she raises the bowl to her lips and starts to drink the sludgy concoction. Damn, girl! Davina is SUCH a badass, I love her so much.
Over at the Mikaelson compound, Marcel's torture of Kol is still ongoing, and Kol is continuing to wince in pain, since the scalpel Marcel stabbed through his hand is still causing it to be pinned to the arm of the leather armchair in which he sits. "Now, we can keep doing this as long as you want," Marcel states, before yanking the scalpel out of his hand, causing Kol to yelp in agony and cradle his injured hand in his whole one. Marcel then bites his wrist and forces his bleeding wound into Kol's mouth. Kol clearly knows where this is headed, and as a result, he's not really keen on drinking vampire blood, but since he wants his hand to heal, he reluctantly gulps it down. "OR, I can kill you now, and turn you into a brand-new baby vampire." OH MY GOD, PLEASE DO IT. I know that Kol doesn't get re-turned into a vampire, but that doesn't stop me from wishing he did. Can you imagine Sharman!Kol as a vampire? SUPER SUPER HOT. Ughhh, weeping for what could have been.
Kol, who is in an understandably pissy mood considering the current circumstances, calls Marcel's bluff and urges him to just go on ahead and kill him, because whether he likes it or not, his mother's got plans for him, and if he's turned into a vampire in this body, she'll just pop his spirit into another one. "Not that my family will care that much if the death was permanent," Kol mutters under his breath, which seems to surprise Marcel quite a bit. He stares at Kol and studies him for a moment before finally letting go of him and removing the knife from his throat. He moves around so he can look Kol in the eye and calmly asks him what he's really up to, and how Davina is involved in all of it. "Heh, you think I'm gonna break her little heart?" Kol replies mockingly. "That's downright maternal of you, Marcel!" This causes Marcel to lose his temper, and he's just about to stab Kol with the scalpel still in his hand when Klaus wanders back into the room and stops him.
KLAUS: [amused] "Easy, Marcel! Easy! Let's give Kol a little longer to decide before we lop off his head, hmm?"
MARCEL: [smirks] "Comments like that? He already thinks you don't care!"
KLAUS: [intrigued] "Is that so, brother?"
KOL: "You only daggered me a dozen times. You always cared more for Marcel than you did me."
KLAUS: "Well, I didn't realize I had hurt your feelings."
KOL: [annoyed] "Yeah, well, that's the thing, innit, Nik? You don't know SQUAT about me."
KLAUS: [smiles] "Thanks to Marcel, I know all I need to! You're DESPERATE to be part of this family, aren't you?"Kol, looking grumpy and slightly embarrassed, just looks down at the floor and remains silent, which immediately confirms Klaus' suspicions, making him both surprised at this display of vulnerability by Kol, but also satisfied for having figured it out. "All your mischief was just attempts for attention," Klaus adds, stating the obvious. "You know, the truth is, Kol, you're right to feel slighted." Kol gives Klaus a skeptical look, but believe it or not, Klaus is actually being completely genuine here. "I mean that. You're right. But, perhaps there's still time to make it up to you." Kol is absolutely shocked by this actual kindness from his most ruthless brother, and the two stare at each other for a long moment. Aw, yay, brotherly love! I always figured of the two newly-resurrected brothers, Kol was much more likely to join Klaus' team than Finn, who needs no excuse to turn on his younger siblings, so I'm not surprised that this is the outcome, but that doesn't mean I don't love it all the same.
On the streets of the French Quarter, Hayley is walking through the neighborhood, looking pensive as she considers her current options. After a moment, she pulls out her phone and dials Elijah's number. Elijah, who is sitting at a booth at some out-of-town diner, pulls out his ringing phone and smiles when he sees it's Hayley. However, before he gets a chance to answer it, he sees a man at the bar eyeing him suspiciously, which makes Elijah paranoid enough that he ultimately ignores the call. In the French Quarter, Hayley is disappointed when the call goes to voicemail, and sighs before hanging up without leaving a message. Back at the diner, a waitress comes by to top off Elijah's coffee, and it's clear by the expression on Elijah's face that he's still unnerved by the man who keeps watching him at the bar. He turns to the waitress before she can start pouring and stares her in the eyes before compelling her for some answers. "Tell me, has there been anyone out of the ordinary today?" he asks as he maintains eye contact with her, but the woman simply replies, "Just you," which gets an amused chuckle out of Elijah. Unfortunately for her, the woman accidentally ends up spilling coffee on Elijah's sleeve, and she looks like she feels really guilty and immediately begins to mop it up with napkins while she apologizes. Elijah, who is predictably bothered by this messiness, politely and curtly replies, "It's quite alright, thank you," with just enough gravitas in his voice to indicate that she's being dismissed.
As the waitress leaves, Elijah picks up another napkin and starts blotting at the stain blossoming on his sleeve, but the act of cleaning himself up triggers flashbacks from his time being tortured by Esther. First, he sees visions of his dream while in captivity, the one where he's shirtless and covered in blood and chasing Tatia/Hayley down the hallway toward the red door. He then flashes back to the memory of when he fed on and killed Tatia just after he was turned into a vampire, followed by a flashback to what happened afterward, when he fell to his knees in front of the family's slaughterhouse while Esther helped dispose of Tatia's body. Then, Esther's explanation of this memory from "Red Door" begins to echo through his head-- "I told you to clean yourself up. If you were clean, no one would know what you are or what you've done."
He then suddenly snaps back to the present, where he's still furiously scrubbing at his sleeve with a napkin. He looks over to the waitress, who is whispering something to the man as the two stare at him, which makes him even more paranoid. Short cuts of memories begin flashing through his memory-- the red door in his dream, and the red door of the slaughterhouse from his childhood, memories from the 10th/11th centuries, all of which begin to visibly agitate him. Aw, Elijah. :( This is hurting my heart so bad, just like when Sam Winchester from Supernatural was dealing with the effects of Hallucination!Lucifer after Castiel broke down his Hell-wall. Someone pleeeease help poor Elijah. :(
Over at the Mikaelson compound, Klaus has returned back to the ballroom for round 2 with Finn, who is still shackled with the cursed manacles and being suspended from the staircase by his wrists. Klaus smiles mockingly and asks him if he's ready to embrace his life of freedom, but Finn insists that he's already free, which does nothing to improve Klaus' mood. "You're aware our mother cares nothing for you?" Klaus asks bitterly, and he is not at all pleased by Finn's reply. "Niklaus, I assure you, my mother loves me. She loves all of her children. You would not exist without her sacrifice." Klaus continues to smirk at him in disbelief, which leads Finn to finally read his brother in on the whole Dahlia story. "Do you even know the truth? That she was barren? And she grew so desperate for a family that she begged one of the most powerful witches in history for help-- her sister, Dahlia. Of course, Dahlia's price was high. She agreed to make our mother fertile, but in exchange, she sought the first-born as sacrifice. Having no other choice, our mother gave away our beloved Freya." Klaus scoffs and reminds Finn of the family line that Freya died of plague, but Finn insists that Esther gave her away and invites him to think about just how much pain and grief that would cause someone. Yeah, I have a feeling Klaus isn't going to have to work too hard to understand just how badly that would feel, considering he gave away his daughter to Rebekah to protect her from the family's enemies.
However, Klaus gave up his precious daughter for her own safety, not because he gave her away as payment, and it's clear that the thought of doing so is reprehensible to even Klaus. He scowls and replies that if what Finn is saying really is true, then that makes it so much worse that death is no longer a strong enough punishment for Esther. Finn continues to argue that Esther loves them more than any of them realize, but, just like Klaus' last encounter with Esther-- when she just couldn't understand why Klaus still holds such animosity for her-- Finn doesn't understand why Klaus hates Esther so much, even to this day. So, Klaus reminds him of the single, very important reason why Klaus will never, ever forgive Esther for what she did, nor will he forgive anyone who sides with her-- she tried to murder his baby girl. "And is love the reason she wanted MY child dead?" Klaus demands angrily, but Finn justifies this action by saying that Esther was trying to protect them all from Dahlia's curse.
Okay, I'm confused-- do they really think that Klaus would just be, like, "Eh, bygones," with regards to Esther trying to get Hope killed? Like, I know that these people aren't exactly moral compasses, here, but the fact that they just don't seem to understand why Klaus actually cares about the wellbeing of his child just seems so weird to me, even with the danger they're facing in terms of Auntie Dahlia. Anyway, Klaus has lost any patience he may have possessed coming into this discussion and demands to know what fucking curse he's talking about, so Finn explains that it wasn't just Esther's first-born child that Dahlia demanded, but every first-born child of every person in the family for as long as Esther's bloodline continues. "Had your child lived, she would have paid the price!" Finn exclaims fearfully. "And, if anyone had tried to protect her, Dahlia would come and destroy us all!" Klaus still doesn't seem to be buying it, and continues to glare at Finn furiously. It's not often that you see Finn scared, so the fact that he seems straight-up terrified by Dahlia is definitely worrisome, especially considering that he's probably afraid of Dahlia because ESTHER is afraid of Dahlia. And if Esther, who up until his point was the most powerful witch in this series or its parent series TVD, aside from maybe Silas and Qetsiyah, is afraid of Dahlia, then pretty much everyone is screwed.
It's nearly dark now, and Elijah is still sitting at the booth at the out-of-town diner, watching the waitress slowly pass his table, when he sees Rebekah finally arrive with Hope in a baby carrier. Wait, did they ever say where Rebekah and Hope have been living since "From a Cradle to a Grave?" Time and space work way differently in this universe than in ours (the fact that Whitmore College can be anywhere from ten minutes away to three hours away from Mystic Falls in TVD is a testament to that) but since it seems to have taken her all day to get to the diner, I'm guessing she's either living in the northernmost part of Louisiana or is in a bordering state like Georgia or Alabama or something. Anyway, so Elijah stands to greet her, and when Rebekah sets Hope and her carrier on the table, he gives his baby sister a hug before he turns his attention to his beautiful baby niece and picks her up to hold her. "Look at you!" Elijah says softly, clearly in awe of Hope and the fact that his monstrous brother could contribute to making someone so sweet. "So big. So perfect." The way all the Mikaelsons melt in Hope's presence seriously KILLS ME. The baby actress twins who play her are perfect as well-- I don't know if it's just good editing or what, but she always seems to be making the most perfect and appropriate faces for whatever is happening that she totally steals the scenes.
(via damon-mylife)
Elijah goes on to say that he can't even imagine how amazing it must be to spend every day with her, and Rebekah nods in agreement. "[It's] quite lovely. It feels so human." Elijah agrees and suggests that perhaps its even the most human of experiences, which makes both of them kind of sad to think about. "I know I have to give her back to Hayley when the time is right," Rebekah says as a preface to the conversation. "But, she's made me realize how much I want that child of my own... that I know I can't have." Elijah, who is rocking Hope gently in his arms, admits that it is a lovely dream, but that they need to think about their current circumstances and keep in mind the fact that their vampirism means they'll never get it. Rebekah seems slightly confused by this defeatist attitude of his and remarks that Esther seems to have done a number on him, and Elijah confesses that she tortured him for days with memories that had been locked away for centuries.
Aw, Elijah. :( All of these characters brush off torture so easily, since they're vampires with heightened pain tolerance and healing, so I think they're just like, "Well, I'm physically fine now, so no harm, no foul." It's kind of sad, really. I'd say the same goes for TVD characters and Teen Wolf characters. Why am I so attracted to shows that put their characters through the wringer? Good lord. Anyway, Elijah pauses for a moment and licks his lips before admitting the rest of his experience with their mother. "Then, she made an offer... to make us mortal again." Rebekah looks stunned by this revelation, and is predictably tempted by it as Elijah continues on. "You see, sister, Mother believes that by placing us in new bodies, we can then reclaim some kind of... purity. We can begin families of our own again. And, I have to confess, Rebekah... this invitation, however cruel in delivery, has a certain... appeal." Rebekah looks at her big brother sympathetically and reaches across the table so she can squeeze his hand comfortingly. He continues to gaze adoringly at Hope, and isn't paying attention to Rebekah when she notices a very uncharacteristic smear of blood on the cuff of his sleeve and becomes even more worried. However, when Elijah finally looks over at her, he misreads her concern and assumes she's concerned about Hope. "You needn't worry," Elijah insists. "We're safe."
Rebekah licks her lips and puts on a fake smile before standing to her feet and grabbing Hope's blanket, claiming that she needs to change the baby's diaper, which is the same as claiming you're having you need to use the restroom because of ~ladies issues~ -- basically, they'll immediately let you do whatever it is you want to do, no questions asked or protests given, because they don't want to know or be involved whatsoever. Rebekah scoops Hope up in her arms and carries her across the restaurant toward the bathrooms. As she's passing the front counter of the restaurant, she notices a smear of blood on the wall and becomes even more unnerved, especially when she notices that they've been the only patrons in the restaurant this entire time. The waitress from earlier is washing her hands in the sink next to the kitchen, and seems to have been compelled, because she is neither bothered by the blood smeared on the wall behind her, nor is she bothered when Rebekah heads toward the kitchen door instead of the restroom. All the while, Elijah is seated with his back to them, so he doesn't notice anything that she's doing.
When Rebekah walks into the swinging kitchen door, she finds that the kitchen is full of the blood-drained and dead bodies of the employees and patrons who were in the restaurant before she arrived. Rebekah gasps in horror and turns Hope toward her to keep her from seeing the carnage first-hand, and after a moment, she rushes out the door and leans against it as she sighs in anxiety. YIKES, ELIJAH. First the attack on Finn, and then he gulps down more than a half-dozen diner employees and customers? That's like a Klaus-level appetite, and is extremely worrisome, to be honest. And Rebekah is hardly a stranger to violence herself (remember that time she killed a half-dozen nightwalkers with a pool stick? Or when she chained up Damon in Klaus' old mansion and spent the day torturing him to bleed out the vervain from his system?), so the fact that she is just as horrified as the rest of us just emphasizes how NOT GOOD this is.
Meanwhile, Klaus is in the courtyard of the compound, where he's leaving Elijah a very pissy voicemail. "I'm done leaving messages, Elijah," Klaus growls. "To say that this is urgent would be a gross understatement. We need to speak immediately." When he hangs up the phone, he senses someone approaching him and sighs before turning around and finding Davina. He brings up the fact that he was wondering when she would show up before adding that he's not done torturing her "darling Kol" yet, and that she should probably scram before things get ugly. "I'm not going anywhere, Klaus," Davina says with a satisfied smirk, just as Marcel hears her voice and races down the stairs to intervene in whatever it is that she's about to do. "Whoa, D, today is not the day," he insists, but Davina assures him that it is before flicking her wrist and telekinetically snapping his neck, causing him to collapse unconsciously onto the floor and tumble down the stairs. Klaus just gapes at her, partially impressed by her chutzpah and partially alarmed and what she's going to do next. "Looks like it's just you and me now," Davina quips. I LOVE HER SO MUCH. She's so badass!
At St. Anne's Church, Jackson is standing at the sacristy overlooking the pews where he is giving a speech to the Crescents, all of whom have gathered for the meeting that Aiden called. "I know you're angry and scared," Jackson begins. "But we are a pack. No matter what." A werewolf named Jerick stands to his feet and brings up the fact that Jackson has been checked out for months before asking why they should even listen to them, which is when Aiden stands up to reply, "'Cause he's the Alpha! You got a problem with that?" HELL YEAH, AIDEN! You tell him! Just then, Hayley enters the church from the front entrance and tells them she'd like to hear what Jackson has to say before she walks down the aisle to join him. Jerick scoffs aggressively and replies, "This is a pack meeting. You're not one of us anymore." UGH, THAT MAKES ME SO ANGRY. Every time a werewolf says something like that to Hayley, I just want to shake them, because 1) HAYLEY DIDN'T ASK TO BE A HYBRID-- she decided to live as one so her baby could still have a mother, and 2) Hayley has sacrificed more for her pack than anyone.
So, it likely will not surprise any of you that what Hayley does next is one of my favorite moments of hers this season. When she makes it to the altar, she calmly spreads her arms out wide and says, "No?" just before her fingernails start to grow out like claws. Her fingers and palms begin to shorten as her hands transform into wolf paws, and her eyes blaze yellow-gold as she begins to shift into a wolf. She then easily shifts back into her human form before smirking at them in satisfaction. YES YES YES YES YES. Also, how awesome is it that she so quickly and easily transformed like that? Have you seen a werewolf or hybrid who has shifted in a way that wasn't super painful? Because I can't think of any-- even KLAUS has only shifted twice in his life because it was excruciating for him. So, basically, Hayley is more badass than any of them, and is more in-tune with her inner wolf than literally any werewolf or hybrid out there, because she actually voluntarily shifts into a wolf just for the sake of being a wolf. Her being a vampire now does nothing to change that-- if anything, it just makes her MORE of a wolf, because she's been pushing so hard to repress her vampire nature. Which, of course, is exactly Hayley's point. "I AM still a wolf," she continues. "And, I didn't need any magical rings to control when or how I change. You want the same? Then sit down, SHUT UP, and listen." QUEEN HAYLEY, EVERYONE. She smiles at them before she turns to Jackson, who looks both dumbstruck and in awe of her amazing leadership qualities.
(via baffledwithwifi)
Back at the compound, Davina and Klaus are still facing off in the courtyard. Klaus smirks at her and says, "You forget yourself. You're not as powerful as you once were, Harvest girl." Davina just smirks right back and replies, "Doesn't mean I can't still kick your ass!" before once again using her telekinesis to throw Klaus across the room. He flies through the air and busts through the closed double doors, breaking them before he lands in the hallway outside the courtyard. She stops her spell and walks toward him confidently, but once she makes it to the hallway, she finds that he's already vanished. She becomes slightly alarmed as she looks around for him, but isn't fast enough to see him vamp-speed toward her and throw her down the hall. She screams as she flies several yards through the air, and ends up hitting her head on the wall before she falls to the floor. Her forehead starts to bleed as she quickly pulls herself to her feet while Klaus stomps toward her.
"Such hubris!" he crows triumphantly. "And from one who bleeds so easily!" Davina is struggling to catch her breath, but she won't let Klaus talk shit about her without taunting him in return. "You talk such a big game, but you couldn't even kill Mikael when you had the chance!" Davina replies with a dark and uncharacteristically cruel smile. "He was right about you, you know. You're WEAK." Ohhhh, shit! Bringing up Mikael AND telling Klaus he's weak is basically an invitation to have your spine ripped out through your mouth, and Klaus predictably loses his temper and vamp-speeds towards her again. He grabs her by the hair and pulls her hair back as she screams so he can chomp down on her neck, but despite Davina's scared demeanor, this is exactly what she wanted to happen. After he drinks a few gulps of blood from her carotid artery, he begins to choke and gasp painfully until he finally keels over and falls unconscious to the ground. When Davina sees that he's been fully incapacitated, she smirks victoriously. HOLY SHIT! That was so damn amazing! As usual, I am in awe of everyone's favorite baby-witch.
After the break, we pick up right where we left off, with Davina standing over Klaus' unconscious body and staring at him as she considers her next move. After a moment, Kol walks down the stairs, rubbing his sore, now-unshackled wrists and stepping over Marcel's still-unconscious body as he approaches Davina. He's clearly impressed as he surveys the damage of their little spat, but he also seems concerned as he asks Davina what exactly she did to Klaus. As it turns out, the spell with the tarry potion Davina cast earlier in the playhouse was a spell to channel dark objects through her blood to poison Klaus when he fed on her. THAT IS SO CRAZY AWESOME. I don't know if that's a spell of Esther's or something she tweaked for her own use, or what, but that is some seriously awesome planning on her part. This girl isn't even eighteen yet and she's already smart and capable enough to cast a powerful spell that likely uses dark magic with the plan that she would go in and poke Klaus' vulnerable spots until he got pissed enough to feed on her? I am almost a decade older than she is (ugh, I'm ancient) and I'm not sure that I would have the smarts to make a plan like that, let alone the ovaries of steel it would take to be brave enough to actually try it. I guess what I'm trying to say is DAVINA IS A GODDESS.
Anyway, so Davina finally notices that Kol is no longer shackled and asks him how the hell he managed to get free, a question to which Kol replies with, "It's a long story," before changing the subject back to Klaus. He brings up the fact that since Klaus is obviously not dead and asks her what she plans on doing when he recovers. Davina already has it planned out, though, obviously-- she figures they have an hour max to chain Klaus up, drain him of all his blood, and dump him in the Mississippi River. Damn, girl! That is cold. Even Kol is like, "Uh, that's kind of harsh, no?" but Davina just asks him why he's suddenly giving a shit about Klaus when they were just planning to create a dagger together that would actually neutralize him. Before Kol can answer, Marcel finally awakens after healing from his snapped neck and stands to his feet so he can join the conversation. "Kol is with us now," Marcel explains, as he rubs his aching neck. "We're going to be going up against Esther, assuming Klaus is... upright." Davina's face goes from confusion to feeling straight-up betrayal that Kol would join Team Klaus.
"Look, Nik is a pain in the ass," Kol insists desperately, not wanting Davina to be angry with him. "But, well... she's a problem for us all." Davina is not having this, and states for the record that she literally doesn't give a fuck about Esther or what happens to her, which is when Cami suddenly appears in the courtyard to interject that she most certainly gives a fuck about what happens to Esther. She notices Klaus' unconscious body laying on the floor and looks both horrified and exasperated as she turns to Davina, Marcel, and Kol and hilarious exclaims, "Should I even ASK?" Marcel shrugs and rolls his eyes toward Davina, who seems concerned to see her very-human amiga Cami at the compound. She tells Cami that she should get out of there, since it's not safe, but I don't get why she would think that-- Klaus wouldn't hurt Cami or allow Cami to be hurt unless something unspeakably bad is going down, so if anything, Klaus is probably the safest of all of them. "No kidding!" Cami argues, obviously overwhelmed by the revelation she and Hayley had earlier. "I woke up with puncture wounds all up and down my spine and now idea how they got there! According to my uncle's files, they're part of this ancient spell, and I don't know about you guys, but when I see 'ancient' and 'spell' in the same sentence, I think Esther." The rest of the gang looks pretty horrified by this news, and Davina stares at Cami in concern.
The Crescent Wolf Clan meeting is still going on at St. Anne's Church, where Hayley and Jackson are still intensely arguing their case to the rest of the werewolves, including Aiden and Jerick. "You all need help, and you know it," Hayley begins. "Now, whatever it is that you think of me, I was BORN a Crescent. I'm the last of the Labonair line, which makes me an Alpha." Jackson looks both alarmed and confused as to where Hayley is going with this, but I think deep down he knows, he just doesn't want to believe it because it's too good to be true. "Jackson is YOUR Alpha. Now, I don't know how many of you bought the story you grew up with, the Unification myth? Well, it's all true." This shocks the crowd, who all begin to whisper amongst themselves for a moment as Jackson shoots Hayley a look, and she doesn't take her eyes off of him while she continues her pitch. "Which means... if Jackson and I get married, anyone with the guts to turn up to the ceremony has as much control over their wolf form as I do." The Crescents all begin to murmur even louder as they chatter with each other, and Jackson can't help but blurt out, "Hayley, what are you doing?" under his breath. Hayley looks him straight in the eyes and insists that she's doing what needs to be done, which is not a very romantic answer, girl! At least act like you're doing this voluntarily and not because there is a shotgun pointed at your back.
The two continue to look at each other for a long moment before she gets to the point. "This isn't just about uniting our pack. It's about forming a new community." Jackson finally gets what Hayley is doing and decides to roll with this plan by putting an arm around Hayley's shoulders and addressing the rest of the wolves. "This ceremony will change everything for us. It will give us the strength we need to defend ourselves." In the crowd, Aiden anxiously twists the moonlight ring on his right ring finger and stares at it. "Then, and only then, can we finally have peace," Jackson adds, before Hayley walks toward the audience and faces them. "The choice is yours-- keep the rings and be somebody's bitch, or be part of the greatest pack that has ever lived."
YASSSS GIRL YASSSSSS. I will forever be amazed at the incredible character development Hayley has had in the last two seasons. Did you ever expect that the girl who crushed on Tyler, helped him and his pack of hybrids break their sire bonds, screw over Tyler, Caroline, the Mystic Falls Gang, and the hybrid pack, and barter information with Klaus to save her from Katherine (which resulted in the conception of Hope) would end up becoming this strong, amazing, and complex woman who wouldn't stop searching for her family and biological identity and become the fierce leader of a millennia-old werewolf pack? I didn't, but in this case, I am 100% okay with being wrong, because I am so pleased by who she is now. ANYWAY, so Aiden hops to his feet and joins them at the sacristy before loudly proclaiming that he will be joining Jackson and Hayley, which seems to be the vote of confidence that finally turns the tide in Jackson and Hayley's favor. YAY! I want so much more werewolf story, please and thank you.
Back at the compound, Cami is sitting on a coach in the courtyard, chugging a glass of water, while Davina and Kol examine the small puncture wounds that run down the length of her spine and Marcel, who sits next to her, watches them with concern. After a moment, Kol determines that the wounds are most definitely his mother's work, and that she likely magically wiped Cami's memory before she let her go. "Not the first time that's been done by a member of this family," Cami snarks bitterly, before asking him what it means. You can tell it's not good news when even Kol hesitates before finally vaguely describing it as a "preparation spell." So, when Cami is understandably confused as to what the hell that means, Marcel gently informs her that it's meant to prepare her body to become someone's vessel. Kol assumes that Esther was preparing Cami so that she could jump into her when Lenore's body was no longer useful, which causes Marcel to glare at him suspiciously, as though he thinks Kol may know more than he's telling. Cami, overwhelmed with all this new information, considers this for a moment before asking where "Vincent" is.
The scene cuts to the ballroom, where Cami has just stormed in and is now approaching where Finn is chained by the wrists to the left-hand staircase. Before either of them get a chance to say anything, Cami straight-up SMACKS HIM IN THE FACE. YES, GIRL, YESSSSS! He has so had even worse than that coming for months now, so I'm glad that Cami finally got to get out a little of her aggression against him. In real life, I am a mega-pacifist who has no tolerance for anyone physically harming anyone unless it's out of self-defense, but when it comes to my ridiculously violent fantasy/supernatural shows, I am like YES! SMACK HIM! PUNCH HIM! STAB HIM! The things these shows have done to my brain, I swear to the gods. Anyway, so Cami demands to know why Finn and Esther chose Cami out of literally every other woman in the city, and to Finn's credit, he doesn't even try to lie to her. "Because you're perfect," he replies weakly. "Healthy, beautiful, smart... and alone. No one would question any personality changes. And, as I discovered from my sessions, Niklaus would never allow you to be harmed."
The fact that Finn was using the guise of a therapist in order to get more information on Klaus is like, the most despicable part of all of the bullshit he and Esther have pulled this season. Can you imagine it? You're baring your soul to this person that you think is supposed to be helping you work through your issues and become a better therapist yourself, and in reality, your therapist is compiling notes on you on how to best use you to his advantage? Maybe it's the nurse/patient advocate in me, but UGH, THAT IS HORRIFYING AND ETHICALLY REPREHENSIBLE. Cami absolutely agrees and orders him to fix it, but Finn insists that he doesn't have the power to do that, only his mother does. "I will step in front of a moving truck before I let your mother take over MY body!" Cami growls at him furiously, but Finn just looks at her in surprise and confusion before informing her that Cami wasn't meant to be a vessel for Esther herself, she was prepared to be a vessel for REBEKAH when she finally talked her into taking her offer. Cami looks absolutely terrified now, and glances over at Marcel, who has been standing watch in the doorway to make sure Finn didn't try anything shady.
Oh my goddddddds! On the one hand, that is still just as horrifying from Cami's perspective, but on the other, can you imagine how interesting it would be to see everyone interacting with Cami!Rebekah? I'm kind of sad we never got a glimpse of that. Would have been an interesting storyline for Leah Pipes! Also, am I the only one getting Cami/Elena parallels from this? It reminded me strongly of the Vampire Diaries Season 2 episode "The Dinner Party," when Elena threatened to kill herself if Elijah didn't reinstate their original deal (where Elena would help him lure Klaus to Mystic Falls in exchange for Elijah protecting her loved ones) and then when Elijah called her bluff, she actually did STAB HERSELF IN THE GUT despite still being human at the time. Brave and determined ladies are my absolute weakness.
It's been a while since we've checked in on Elijah and Rebekah, yeah? Elijah is still sitting alone in their booth at the diner when Rebekah finally finishes changing Hope's diaper (or, more likely, just hiding in the bathroom while she figured out what the hell to do about Elijah's random lunchtime massacre of the patrons and employees) and rejoins him at their table. Rebekah puts on her brightest fake smile and assures him that Hope is all cleaned up and ready for an adventure, and Elijah returns it with a genuine smile as he watches Rebekah fasten Hope into her carrier. "It's difficult to believe we were this innocent once," Elijah says with a sigh as he stands to his feet. "We mustn't let the world ever hurt her." Elijah is so enthralled by Hope that he doesn't look backward as Rebekah comes up behind him and rubs his arm affectionately. "You're right," Rebekah replies softly. "We mustn't." Then, before he can react to this response, Rebekah reaches out at vampire speed and snaps Elijah's neck, letting his now-unconscious body collapse to the floor. She sighs, clearly overwhelmed and concerned about her brother's wellbeing, as well as his danger to others, and especially Hope. YIKES! This is suuuuuch a bad situation. :( Pobrecitos. :(
Back in the French Quarter, Cami, Kol, Davina, and Marcel have reconvened in the courtyard to discuss their options going forward. Cami asks Kol how much time she has, but Kol doesn't have good news-- since Esther now knows where Rebekah is hiding, it's only a matter of time, now. He is convinced that the only way to stop the spell is to stop HER, so Cami takes a deep breath and channels her fear into planning. "Then let's do this! Marcel's a vampire, you both are powerful witches..." Marcel, who has been pacing around the room this whole time, processes this information for a moment before reminding them that Esther is stronger than anyone, witch or otherwise, that Marcel has ever seen, and looks over at Davina with concern for a moment and hesitates before adding that if they want to stand a chance, they're gonna need Klaus on their team. Davina immediately and angrily interjects that they can do this without them, but even Kol, who is hardly Klaus' biggest fan, is doubtful. "Uh, I'm never gonna say this again, but Marcel's right," Kol replies carefully, not wanting to incur Davina's wrath. "We do need the bastard." Davina sighs, still obviously hating this plan, but when Cami walks over to her and takes her hands into her own, squeezing them gently, Davina is powerless to say no.
"Davina, I know this is asking a lot, but please," Cami pleads gently, and Davina, not wanting her good friend to become a meatsuit, even if Rebekah is preferable to Esther, sighs before walking over to Klaus' body and kneels beside his head. She quietly murmurs an unintelligible spell into his ear, and Klaus immediately gasps and sits up, momentarily overwhelmed as he tries to piece together what the fuck happened to him. After a moment, he rolls onto his side and pulls himself onto his feet before addressing Kol, Cami, and Marcel. "What did she do to me?" Klaus asks weakly, but Davina just rolls her eyes and replies that the only important thing is that Davina beat him-- again. (In case you've forgotten, the last time was in Season 1's "The Casket Girls," when Davina was fit to bursting with the magical power of all four Harvest girls and started to magically force Klaus to partially transform into a wolf before snapping his neck.) Klaus, realizing that Davina wouldn't have just woken him up for funsies if she had already beaten him, replies, "And yet, you relented. You need me, don't you?" Davina, knowing that he's right and totally hating it, just rolls her eyes and sighs, which causes Klaus to smile at her in amusement. "Did I really lose?" Oh, Klaus and Davina's antagonistic relationship gives me so much life.
The Crescent meeting has finally ended, and all of the wolves are gone except for Hayley and Jackson, who have finally gotten the alone time they needed to officially talk about what they've just started. Hayley apologizes to him for springing all of this marriage stuff on him, but Jackson just smiles happily and snarks, "You know, I always thought it would be me popping the question instead of being the one on the spot." After a moment of staring at each other affectionately, Jackson asks her if she's sure this is what she wants to do, and instead of answering, Hayley turns the question on him and asks him if he's sure, too. Jackson gulps nervously, and the two stare at each other awkwardly for a long moment before Jackson gives his answer. "I know you're only doing this to help our people," he begins carefully. "But I promise I will be a good husband to you." Despite whatever feelings Hayley may have for Jackson, romantic or otherwise, she knows that he is being 100% honest about that, and so she continues to smile widely at him. Jackson stands up and moves in front of her so that they're on the same level before he takes her left hand in his own and rubs it with his thumb.
"Hayley Marshall, will you marry me?" he asks, and Hayley is so happy and excited about this new plan to unite their pack that she can't help but laugh and make a joke. "No ring?" she asks teasingly, and Jackson just laughs heartily in response as they continue to squeeze each others's hands. Awww! I know I've said this before, but despite all my Elijah/Hayley and Hayley/Klaus shipper-ness, I am also a huge fan of Hayley/Jackson. I mean, Hayley could certainly do a lot worse than a guy who has been in love with her since before he even knew her, and I feel like Jackson is the kind of guy who she could learn to love, even if their relationship isn't burning-hot like hers with Elijah, or ridiculously complicated like her relationship with Klaus. I don't know, I ship Hayley with happiness, so as long as her partner gives her that, I'm totally on board, so sign me up for the Jayley train, ya'll.
At the compound, Kol is in the dining room and is finally getting a chance to eat the breakfast food from earlier, and excitedly grabs a pastry off the tray before digging in. Davina joins him after a moment, and he adorably chirps, "Quite nice of you, coming to my rescue like that!" Davina just smiles and retorts that he's lucky he didn't actually steal the white oak stake from her, because if he had, she would have been the one torturing him. LOL, DAVINA! You are so precious. Kol just smirks at her and asks her if that means she trusts him, now, but Davina just gives him a look, which does absolutely nothing to argue that she doesn't. Oh, Davina, stop playing hard to get! Just then, Klaus swaggers into the room and quips, "Provided you're not busy concocting a new paralytic to use against me, I'd like a word with my brother." Davina just shrugs and hilariously replies, "Well, to be honest, I can't stand being around you anyway" before she swans out of the room. Klaus can't even help but smile at that remark, because she's so cute now that she's all confident and tough. Once she's gone, his face becomes more serious as he turns to Kol, who looks concerned to be alone with him. He insists to Klaus that he had no idea whatsoever about Esther's plan for Cami, but Klaus just sits across from him at the table and assures him that he's smart enough to figure out which schemes she'd entrust to him, and adds that he's pretty sure it was Finn's job, since he was the one who was assigned to get close to her.
When Kol asks where Finn is now, Klaus smiles and replies that he's awaiting his return to dole out the punishment he's earned for not siding with them against Esther before adorably asking him to pass the beignets. God, this family-- scratch that, this whole EPISODE-- is just killing me, even months after it's aired, which is a testament to how good it is. Kol remarks that it's only a matter of time before Esther gets bored of waiting for Klaus to let them go, and then amends his statement. "Well, Finn, at least. I don't expect she'd care if I never came home." Klaus sighs before replying with an uncharacteristic amount of concern for his brother. "A mother cares for her children-- a monster does not," Klaus explains. "Once you accept she's the latter, you'll stop expecting the former. And, despite what you might think, Kol, I did mourn you after your death, and I did attempt to avenge you. I would do nothing less, because we are BROTHERS. Always and forever." OH MY GOD, MY HEART IS MELTING. Klaus may be an impulsive, narcissistic psychopath, but he does love his family, sometimes too much for their own good. Kol seems to be very overwhelmed by this reaction, which he was clearly not expecting, and simply nods in understanding at a loss for words to describe his feelings. After a moment, Klaus' phone rings, and when he sees it's Elijah, he politely steps away to answer it.
However, when he immediately greets the caller with an annoyed, "Where have you been?" Rebekah reveals that it's actually she who is calling him, and not Elijah. "Nik, it's me," she replies urgently. "Something's wrong. Elijah slaughtered a dozen people whose only sin was their terrible taste in food. I mean, when have you known him to kill when he could otherwise compel? It's the kind of act that will draw our mother's attention." Man, Rebekah is so smart and crafty, isn't she? I feel like everyone is always talking up Elijah and Klaus' strategery, but Rebekah doesn't get the credit she deserves regarding her ability to quickly assess a situation and act accordingly. Klaus is visibly concerned, though not surprised, about this news regarding Elijah, and states that Esther's torture must have had a much more intense effect on him than he had realized before asking her where they are. Rebekah informs him that she snapped his neck in case he was a threat to Hope, but she has no idea what she should do now, so Klaus instructs her to drive to the house where they dined the Christmas after they fled Mikael in 1919, which seems to confuse Rebekah, but she agrees to head there now.
Klaus then hangs up the phone and rushes straight for the ballroom, where Finn is still shackled and literally hanging out while he waits for Klaus. "If you enjoyed last night's activities, then you're in for a treat!" Klaus exclaims brightly, as he grabs Finn by the shackles and drags him back toward the door. "Niklaus, listen to me. Our mother may--" Finn begins to say, but Klaus just cuts him off and insists that he has no interest in more fairy tales about witches and curses. However, Klaus doesn't do nearly a good enough job in covering up his fear, which doesn't escape Finn's notice. When he asks Klaus why he's so afraid if he simply thinks it's a fairy tale, but instead of answering, Klaus calls for Marcel to "bring it in." As it turns out, "it" is actually Finn's coffin, in which he was in a dagger-coma for nearly 900 years, and which seems to cause Finn the same amount of anxiety as Stefan got at the sight of that safe in which he was locked underwater at the quarry for four months of drowning and starving. Finn starts desperately begging Klaus not to do this to him again, but Klaus simply assures him that this time, he's made some air holes before shoving him inside the casket with his shackles and slamming the lid closed. Marcel pulls out a padlock and uses it to lock it shut as Klaus strolls determinedly out of the room and toward the front door to the compound so he can leave to meet up with Rebekah, Hope, and Elijah.
Just as he's about to leave, he runs into Hayley, who is entering the compound at the same time. She stops and asks him if he's seen Elijah, and admits that there's something she needs to tell them both. Klaus isn't willing to waste any more time and insists that Hayley can fill him in on the way, which naturally causes Hayley to ask him where they hell they're going. Klaus stops walking and turns back to her with a small, genuinely happy smile on his face, and replies, "To see our daughter." As you can easily imagine, Hayley doesn't need to be told twice, and as soon as she hears the word "daughter," she joins Klaus in rushing out of the compound and toward their vehicle. YESS! FINALLY, THE HAYLEY/HOPE/KLAUS REUNION IS UPON US. (Or, it was, five months ago when this episode aired)
Next episode: it's Christmas in New Orleans, where the Mikaelson family (which, as always, includes Hayley) celebrate together by having a bonfire at the safe house and plotting the assassination of their mother. Kol tells Davina a bit about his experience with the French Quarter witches in 1914 and a spat he had with Rebekah at the time, we meet a very important character who has about two lines and 15 seconds of screen time whose huge role in the Mikaelsons' story won't actually be revealed until later, and oh, Mikael's back.
[screencaps via Screencapped]
NOTES/COMMENTS:
- Here's the rest of the music from this episode!
"Do You Remember" by Ane Brun
---Elijah ignores Hayley's phone call while he waits for Rebekah and Hope at the diner and compels the waitress to answer his questions.
"By Your Side" by Little Children
---Klaus tells Rebekah where to meet him; Klaus and Marcel lock Finn in his coffin; and Klaus tells Hayley they're leaving to go see their daughter.
Comments
Post a Comment