The Originals
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“The Originals” Ep. 5.04: “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea”

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After last week’s relatively chill episode I nearly got whiplash with all the location and character changes we got in this week’s plot-packed outing. Not only were we back in New Orleans (and Mystic Falls), but A LOT happened, so let’s dive right in!

Vincent opens the episode with a voiceover about how the city of New Orleans is a survivor of floods, fire, hurricanes, war, etc. He continues that, no matter what befalls the city, everyone always comes together for Mardi Gras. We’re then treated to the absolute weakest-looking Mardi Gras preparation I’ve ever seen in my life. Full disclosure: I lived in New Orleans for about three years. Fuller disclosure: I was only five through eight years old when I lived there so I only ever went to the children’s parades (AKA the ones with no boobs or alcohol). Still though, even by kid parade standards, these floats are medium at best. Mardi Gras rant over!

Klaus shows up to the Witches’ float and tries to accuse them of being the ones who took Hayley. Vincent, as usual, is having none of Klaus’s shit, so Klaus heads over to the bayou where all the wolves live and accuses them also. And then he goes to the vampires and accuses them! Now on the one hand, who am I to judge how Klaus deals with his family drama and finding the mother of his child before she’s killed? But on the other hand, that’s my literal job with these recaps and in my opinion Klaus is going about this in the dumbest way possible. He’s being a super douche to everyone he comes in contact with, he’s making cracks about Marcel’s marital status (v rude) and he gives them all until sundown that very same day to return Hayley or else he’ll bring back his siblings to awaken the Hollow. Those are some steep stakes my dude!

It does turn out that Klaus is using at least half his brain, but we don’t find that out until much later in the episode, which makes his very erratic behavior pretty unsettling. But one thing that’s both unsettling and also super fun is that he’s compelled an entire New Orleans police precinct into the Mikaelson compound to work on finding Hayley. Marcel lightly scolds him for this and then asks what happened in France with Elijah. Klaus lies and says Elijah wasn’t there but Marcel is pretty sure they did find each other because apparently “Hope has been picking maggots out of her lunches at school.” Gross. As a form of avoidance Klaus makes another crack about how Rebekah didn’t marry Marcel…which, again, rude.

Over in Mystic Falls at the Salvatore Academy for Supernatural Youngsters, Freya has driven 11 hours under the guise of bringing Hope some beignets. I feel this is the right time to point out that the Mikaelsons are all well over 1,000 years old and should be better at subterfuge than they are. Obviously Freya is actually there to determine what kind of threat Hope might actually pose to New Orleans and the world. My guess is a decent amount but much less than she would if she knew the extent of her powers.

Luckily for us and the world, Hope is not super aware of all her power and is still trying to cobble together a spell to remove the cloaking spell from Hayley so they can find her. Freya doesn’t have high hopes for this but manages to stick around without too much more suspicion by enticing Hope with boy talk about Roman.

Back in New Orleans, a note falls from the sky into the Mikaelson courtyard. It’s for Klaus and there’s an address inside. Klaus and Marcel head over to investigate and Marcel brings up the good point that this could easily be a trap. Which, again, you’re over 1,000 years old…be smarter, Klaus. As it happens it’s not a trap but instead a location where someone held and tortured Hayley for quite a while, based on the amount of bloody hand prints on all the walls and the chair covered in barbed wire that was soaked in both wolfsbane and vervain for maximum pain. There’s also a really gross message on the wall. It reads “Freak Filth Crossbreed” in Hayley’s blood.

If I’m being honest, as a human, I get the fear of hybrids in general. If you’ve known about vampires and werewolves for so long and then suddenly someone’s both with fewer weaknesses, that’s a lot. But at the same time, if those people are trying hard to be as normal as possible and not treating anyone poorly, I don’t understand the fear then – meaning I get the fear about Klaus, but not about Hayley. It would have been better to kidnap Klaus in my opinion. He’s more of a wild card. Also when everyone has powers, it’s a lot less threatening when someone has a few more powers than you.

Freya and Hope are still wandering around the Salvatore Academy and they’re watching the boys play soccer, including a shirtless Roman. Hope is very cute and flustered which is charming until she describes Roman as “the hot one that sweats diamond dust,” which is gross. He waves at her and she doesn’t wave back, claiming “his ego can take it.” I love Hope – she’s deeply hilarious and self-aware for a 15-year-old girl. The whole gist of this scene was lost on me because honestly, I couldn’t stop thinking about how annoyed Damon would be by all these dumb kids playing soccer at his house. 

Meanwhile, back in New Orleans, *deep sigh* Greta (I only think that’s her name because I hate her) is still going on about Poppy the bartender, who was honestly super cute and nice, but at the same time the show is doing this thing that I hate where we’re meant to be caring about Poppy in a way like we’ve known her for the seven years the characters have, but we haven’t. Poppy had two scenes before she got murdered and one of them didn’t even have lines. It’s nice that Greta cares about Poppy but to me she is just collateral damage to start the drama of the season, which does not make for great character motivations in my book. Also I just find Greta super off-putting in general and I kind of hope she’s the one who stole Hayley so Klaus will just murder her and be done with it. 

Unbeknownst to everyone else, Klaus comes up with another “master plan” to kidnap one person from each faction (witch, vampire, and werewolf) to use as hostages to entice them to search for Hayley. The vampires resist the hardest, which comes back later.

Marcel is off with Vincent (and not watching Klaus like he should be) but they have an excellent character-driven talk about how they can’t keep control of their factions how they’d like. That’s when Ivy bursts in and tells them what Klaus has done. Vincent gets very angry and makes a lot of noise about how Klaus and the Mikaelsons are just users and he’s done doing their bidding (LOL yeah right), and then he says that Klaus is the best war strategist in the world, only he needs Elijah to reign him in. That makes it sound like Elijah is the good strategist and Klaus is just a sledgehammer, but what do I know?

Hope and Freya apparently walked for miles because they come across a desperately abandoned house that Hope claims the Saltzman twins found and use as “their evil, mean girl lair.” Hope. LOL. I believe 100% that Caroline’s daughters would be described that way. Basically this is a come-to-Jesus talk between Freya and Hope where Hope is finally on the same page about her powers and how she can potentially demolish the world, complete with a fire-starting demonstration. The only other Hope we get in the episode is a cute scene with Roman, who I still don’t fully trust. The boy is just too cute. 

Most of the rest of the episode is pretty breakneck, going from one place to the next, so I’ll do my best not to get too jumbled. Firstly, Marcel has called the head of the wolves and *yet another deep sigh* Greta together to try and figure out what to do about searching for Hayley. Greta delivers a line that is so deeply meta and hilarious I almost lost consciousness. She looks Marcel straight in the eyes and says, “Why do we even care about Hayley? She’s not one of us.” To which Marcel perfectly responds, “One of us? I’ve only seen your face three times in my entire life, so let’s not start throwing stones about who’s who.” So…Marcel is my MVP this week. Greta was WAY overstepping her bounds and we don’t even know her!

Vincent and Ivy have a lovely talk about their pasts where Vincent talks about his wife and the dark magic that consumed them. Ivy tells a story that’s very sad about her husband leaving her for a burlesque dancer in a show she took him to see for their fifth anniversary. They both flirt with each other A LOT and Ivy is for sure the best new character this season if you don’t count the new Hope. Ivy reads the cards that show Klaus isn’t being erratic like it seems; he’s got plans, he’s enacting them and he’s on the right side for now. Spoiler alert: that doesn’t last long.

Marcel and Klaus finally come to an understanding (to me Klaus is still being a dummy, though he does admit everything that happened with Elijah which thank God). They then receive a box which is so upsetting I’m just going to say immediately what’s in it. It’s a slice of Hayley’s flayed skin where they took her Crescent mark from her shoulder. Klaus’s rage at Hayley’s mutilation makes him kill the witch and the vampire he has hostage before Vincent is able to intervene and control Klaus. Luckily Josh gets away or I don’t know what I’d do.

After such a close call, Josh rightfully lays into Marcel about how he tried to just waltz back into town and start running it again despite the fact that Josh has been doing it for seven years. When we next see him, Klaus is chained up in a coffin – quite rightly. He talks more about Elijah and then explains his plan about how he was putting pressure on the different factions to see which was guilty. Turns out it was the vampires because they’re the ones who didn’t help at all and because they’re very against “half-breeds.”  

Marcel decides that Klaus was right and lays down the law for all the vampires. Josh sees it coming just a moment before Marcel says he’s taking away all the daylight rings. And Klaus backs him up. Turns out the Head Garden isn’t sufficient punishment anymore either. It’s going to be death 100%.

Closing out the episode is a montage of different supernatural funeral rites that I’d honestly love more information about because I was a sociology major and it’s fascinating. Klaus shows up to the witch funeral to ask for help and Vincent literally says 100% no. Now that he’s killed a witch and another wolf he refuses to be a pawn in the Mikaelson schemes anymore. Klaus actually looks like he understands, which is pretty self aware for him. 

He goes back to the compound and throws the box that had Hayley’s skin in it at the wall and a coin falls out with a fucking swastika on it! It’s clear it means something to Klaus (in addition to Nazis) and it appears we’ll find out next week!

This season finally feels like it’s trucking along at a good clip, now that we’re sure to meet the season’s main villain in episode five. I suspect they’re related to Antoinette somehow which will bring Elijah back into the fold. It’ll only help the show when all the siblings are back together – hopefully soon!

Make sure you’re following @ShuffleOnline for more live-tweeting and recaps. Follow @Soimwatching for more live-tweeting throughout the week! 

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