The Originals
Photo credit: The CW Network, LLC.
TV TV Recaps

“The Originals” Ep.5.10: “There in the Disappearing Light”

kristinrjanssenby
Leave a Comment on “The Originals” Ep.5.10: “There in the Disappearing Light”

Look you guys, I really don’t like being a bummer in these recaps, but this season of “The Originals” is not doing great in my opinion. There is a lot I like, including teenage Hope, and everything with Keelin and Freya, and Klaus coming to terms with being a hands-on father. But there’s so much that’s extremely irritating and out of character that I’m having a hard time with it. I know I’m not the only one (because Twitter) but it’s still mega frustrating.

Luckily episode 10, “There in the Disappearing Light,” starts off with a really great scene of Hope beating the absolute shit out of Klaus in order to try and control the Hollow whispers. Evidently she’s not doing it hard enough because the whispers won’t stop and Klaus keeps telling her she has to throw him across the room harder. She ends up admitting that she doesn’t want to hurt Klaus so she’s having a hard time giving it her all. Klaus says to give him a name for who she does want to hurt and even though it’s aggressively obvious that she wants to hurt Roman, we cut to him like it’s a surprise. He’s being held “captive” by people loyal to Antoinette for his own protection. Unfortunately, they are very bad at their job and Klaus kills them in seconds, breaks Roman’s neck, and absconds with him.

Next, we come to one of my least favorite parts of this season and supernatural shows in general. Vincent is watching over the dead witches from three weeks ago when they start to wake up. It turns out they’ve all been killed with vampire blood in their system so they’re in between alive and undead and now they’ll have to make a choice whether to die or drink blood and become vampires. To me, this is a no-brainer, but apparently, the witches are also little bitches.

Ivy’s decision to die, while stupid to me, does at least make sense from a character perspective. What doesn’t is Marcel going to an abandoned warehouse alone when he knows Emmett has moved all the Nightwalkers there. He does call Josh and leave a voicemail but I would maybe have waited until I’d heard back from Josh before I went in. Unfortunately, Josh is busy working at Rousseau’s and trying to keep Declan from investigating all his missing time, AKA the side effects from getting compelled by Klaus. Declan’s hair is also absurd. It’s darker and hanging in his face. I know the implication is supposed to be that he’s sad and worried about his brain or whatever, but it’s egregious.

When Roman next wakes up he’s in the Mikaelson dungeon, chained up to the ceiling. Klaus taunts him a little and asks Hope if she’s decided how to kill him yet. She says “slowly” which is pretty badass. Throughout the episode, Klaus keeps talking about Hope’s Hollow powers like she just has a common cold. In this scene Roman asks what’s wrong with her and Klaus says she has “an affliction,” which is hilarious. She also makes Klaus leave so she can deal with Roman alone.

Elijah goes to see Vincent and ask about a cure for Hope again. Honestly, I feel like we’ve already done this, but in any event, Vincent has zero time for vampire shenanigans because all the witches are awake again and need to decide whether to be vampires or die. Again, I’m so bored by this story line because I think letting yourself die in that scenario is super dumb even if you won’t be able to do magic anymore. After Vincent shuts him down, Elijah gets a text from Antoinette asking to meet. She wants his help getting Roman back from Klaus because he was very obviously brainwashed his whole life and he doesn’t deserve to die (I agree).

Back at the warehouse, Marcel gets taken down almost immediately by Emmett and the witch he’s enlisted to help him. He’s also immediately hooked up to one of those machines that will extract his venom for what I’m sure are nefarious purposes. The only blessing in this scene is that Emmett isn’t still wearing that stupid hoodie with the zipper all the way around anymore.

At Rousseau’s a cute Army boy is flirting with Josh and Josh turns him down pretty flat because his uniform reminds him of Aiden. I had completely forgotten about Aiden in the first place and even more so that he was in the military. I also should have known at this point that Josh was doomed in this episode but I’m a sucker. In any case, Josh decides to finally go check out the voicemail he got from Marcel.

Vincent tells Ivy that she has only hours left to make her decision and she’s still completely unwilling to become a vampire (yawn). She claims she’s seen where she’ll go to the afterlife and her father is waiting there for her and it’s beautiful. Vincent, having been to the ancestral well, knows that none of that is true and decides to show it to Ivy. It is grim as hell and seems a terrible way to spend eternity. Ivy, showing none of her past intelligence, insists it’s a lie and makes them leave.

The Originals
Hope Mikaelson (Danielle Rose Russell) | Photo credit: The CW

Hope is still torturing Roman in the dungeon when he claims he wanted to see her again, but Antoinette wouldn’t let him back in the city. She doesn’t really believe him, but I do. He’s just a dummy who was absolutely brainwashed. He has at least accepted that what he did was wrong and he is willing to die for it.

Meanwhile upstairs, Elijah is confronting Klaus about having Roman tied up downstairs. Through the episode, he does absolutely nothing to actively diffuse the situation. He only tells Klaus that Hope was supposed to be better than the rest of them. Klaus will not hear anything about it though; he’s very proud of Hope despite Elijah saying she’s on a path that will only lead to further darkness. Klaus says she’s just “ill” and this will help her get better.

Not long after, Elijah is sitting alone playing chess when he calls back Antoinette to ask if she still has pull with the Nightwalkers. She’s pretty disgusted by the question at first, wondering why Elijah would want her to take up her mother’s cause, but it appears he has a plan.

Back with Hope and Roman, there’s a lot more talk about how Roman betrayed her when he notices her arm is covered in black veins. It honestly looks like she’s been shooting up straight evil. She shows her arm to Klaus upstairs and admits she can’t kill Roman because she’s realized he’s a victim just like she is. Elijah comes into the room to tell them his plan, which Klaus isn’t super into but he doesn’t really have a choice.

Josh finally goes to find Marcel, well after dark. What did he do the rest of the time? He manages to kill the witch who was keeping everything enchanted so Marcel can break free. Then there’s a bunch more of Emmett’s minions and a fight ensues. It’s going pretty okay for Marcel and Josh and pretty soon they have all the other vampires dead. Unfortunately, Josh was injected with an entire syringe of Marcel’s venom pretty much directly in his heart. He abruptly dies in Marcel’s arms but not before he whispers something in his ear that we don’t hear. I won’t beat the same dead horse that I did a few weeks ago the last time someone died unnecessarily, but all I’ll say is that Josh has been on this show since episode two and his death serves absolutely no purpose beyond shock value and killing an innocent character.

Moving on, Declan is in the attic of a church looking for stuff about Cami and some of their other relatives and their mental health problems. I guess I feel bad that Declan thinks he’s going crazy, but he’s also being a huge idiot that shouldn’t still be a character because we’ve already done this storyline of an O’Connell trying to figure out their family history.

While Declan is upstairs, Antoinette is in the church itself addressing all the Nightwalkers. Emmett is metaphorically frothing at the mouth to start killing people again and he pulls out a vial of Marcel’s venom, which he’ll use to help the killing. At the same time, Vincent is also planning to empty/end the ancestral well so that all the witch ancestors will be at peace and so Ivy will just die and be happy (yawn again). Ending the ancestral well will change magic forever because they’ll need to draw their power from the earth instead of the spirits of their ancestors.

Elijah enters the church under the guise of supporting Antoinette, but it’s made clear pretty quickly that they were in cahoots to get all the Nightwalkers in one room so Hope could kill them all and fix herself. It looks like it’s going to be super cool, with Klaus and Marcel flanking her, but it’s actually pretty anticlimactic; she just screams and power comes out of her hands and the Nightwalkers kind of fall down dead. Vincent’s spell works also and doesn’t impact Hope’s magic at all which feels like a missed opportunity.

Hope is pretty overwhelmed by what she’s done but Klaus calls it a public service and I agree. He then tells Marcel to get Josh and some other vampires to clean up all the dead Nightwalkers. Marcel almost tells Klaus that Josh is dead but keeps it to himself for some reason. They all hear a noise upstairs and find Declan in the attic looking pretty close to dead. Klaus gives him some blood to heal him but Hope is still super worried it’s going to trigger her curse.

Antoinette thanks, Elijah. It’s cute but I don’t care anymore. Ivy dies in Vincent’s arms and it’s not as emotional as it should be because I think Ivy is being an idiot and I’m furious at the writers and showrunner. Marcel has Josh’s body in his apartment and talks to him about his loyalty while he has a drink. Josh’s spirit is there for a minute listening to Marcel and then he fades away into a forest somewhere. A Jeep pulls up and Aiden is driving, so at least they get a nice reunion in the afterlife. I’m still furious about his utterly useless death though.

Hope and Roman have a really nice scene together where he admits he’s truly sorry for his role in Hayley’s death. He decided to apologize again because apologies don’t mean anything when your life is on the line. He’s very happy that Hope is better and I’m annoyed he’s not on the cast list for “Legacies,” because their chemistry is intriguing.

Back in the attic, it turns out Declan is fine but the priest who was helping him is dead, and Hope’s wolf curse is triggered. I had a little issue with this because I didn’t remember that an accident could technically trigger the curse, but I’ll allow it because I only want Hope to be more powerful.

We’ve only got three episodes left and, if I’m being honest, I’m glad. I’m sure we’re going to lose an Original and maybe even Marcel or Vincent, and I just can’t imagine there will be enough narrative motivation for it at this point, but I’m in it for the long haul!

Catch me live-tweeting “The Originals” on Shuffle Online on Wednesdays at 9/8c. You can follow me on So… I’m Watching This Show!

Featured image credit: The CW

Leave a Reply

error: Content is protected !!
%d bloggers like this: