The Originals
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“The Originals” Ep.5.13: “When the Saints Go Marching In”

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2 Comments on “The Originals” Ep.5.13: “When the Saints Go Marching In”

Look, it’s been well established in these recaps that I love shows aimed at teenagers. I watch almost all of the programming on The CW with a healthy dose of Freeform thrown in for good measure. I am a sucker for the over-the-top drama and the life and death stakes even when they aren’t truly life and death. I also love supernatural dramas and the way they use monsters as metaphors for real-life issues. Needless to say, I really loved both “The Vampire Diaries” and it’s spinoff “The Originals”…until now. This final season of “The Originals” has been so misguided and rambling and time wastey that I almost can’t properly judge the finale. I’ll sure try though.

The Originals
Photo credit: The CW

We pick up pretty much exactly where we left off in the spell circle with Klaus about to stake himself. Despite having left her approximately two minutes earlier, as a wolf and running through the forest in the opposite direction, Hope comes out of the house fully dressed and wondering what’s going on. When she finds out Klaus was planning to sacrifice himself she gets super mad, snaps his neck and she and Elijah take him back home thinking they can fix him.

Kol, Rebekah and Elijah are all pretty sad about Klaus as well, but Kol is angrier than the other two and he refuses to stick around because Klaus always gets out of these types of jams. Even if he doesn’t, he’s pretty sure Kol will be the last one he wants to see as he dies. Rebekah is a real bitch to him about it and then for the rest of the episode too. While they’re having this talk downstairs, Hope and Freya are looking through all their grimoires for a potential cure.

Unfortunately, because Klaus is so strong Freya is pretty sure it’s a matter of hours before he succumbs to the Hollow power. Hope thinks maybe they should separate the power again and put it into them all until they can find a way to fix it for good but Freya is weirdly against that because the family will be separated again. It seems to be that if the choice is between not being around your family until another option can be found and straight up death, I would choose being a loner. Make some new friends, Mikaelsons! It will be good for you!

Klaus, tied up in the dungeons, starts hallucinating his father Mikael which is extremely tedious and unnecessary. He keeps insisting Klaus needs to punish Hope and that he’s disappointed that his son was brought down by his own daughter which is rich since his own kids killed him several times. We also get some Camille in these scenes as she plays angel to Mikael’s devil on Klaus’ shoulders. It’s great to see Leah Pipes again, but it’s also frustrating in the extreme that this is what they’ve chosen to do with everyone’s last moments.

Kol is driving down the road to go home to Davina when Rebekah shows up right in front of his car. He slams on the breaks so as not to kill her and says she’s lucky not to be the world’s blondest roadkill which was hilarious. To be honest I love Kol, he’s so sarcastic. Rebekah continues to be a huge bitch especially after Kol reads the hell out of her and says “happiness is a choice you’re incapable of making”. That would make me mad too, but Rebekah has the nerve to tell him he’ll be less of a man than she thought if he’s not with Klaus when he dies. I’m really on Kol’s side in this. He’s not close with Klaus and even if he were, who wants to literally witness their sibling’s death?

 

It turns out Klaus was able to free himself from the dungeons (duh) and is out roaming around Mardi Gras which according to Marcel means it will be too hard to find him. Hope, the only character acting any kind of sense this week decides to go out on her own to find him because if he dies who’s going to take care of her, certainly not Elijah or Marcel. So she knocks him out too and disappears into the crowd.

 

Back at the compound Freya is tearing about the shelves looking for a blue binder with a raven on it because she thinks there might be a spell to ease some of Klaus’ pain so he can enjoy his last moments. Vincent starts packing up some of the books and tells Freya he’s leaving New Orleans for good which is a real kick in the pants for her because she was going to ask him to be the father of her and Keelin’s baby. Vincent continues to be a super chump and says he’ll never try again and he can’t believe she’d ever bring a child into the world as it is. It’s very rude and Freya is decidedly angry though she doesn’t really show it.

 

In the meantime Hope has found Klaus in the Quarter still hallucinating both Mikael and Cami and while he’s distracted by both of them Elijah comes behind him and snaps his neck. Once they’re back at the compound and he’s awake he finds out Elijah has taken some of the darkness into himself to allow Klaus the time to say goodbye to his daughter. Klaus does not want to say goodbye at all which is super dumb.

Luckily Caroline shows up at the house because Klaus owes her a tour of New Orleans before he dies. They decide to go drinking and he asks if she would even be there if he weren’t dying. She answers perfectly that she probably would have let him chase her around for a few more centuries first because that’s the best part. She also insists that he say goodbye to Hope because if he doesn’t it will only create issues for her down the line. Klaus admits he doesn’t know how to say goodbye so Caroline gives him a little speech that sounds exactly like what probably transpired between her and Stefan which is kind of gross but does the trick. They kiss then and while it’s lovely and I love them together and I’m happy it finally happened again it feels like a really cheap way out of all the various ships this show has set over the years. It’s also super rude to Caroline who’s now had half her boyfriends die despite being the very best character this series of shows has created.

Marcel and Rebekah end up having some drinks together and reminiscing about the old times like vampires are wont to do. Rebekah remains horrible for the rest of the episode. She calls Kol a deserter and Elijah an enabling mess and while those are both true statements it’s fucking rude to say them at what amounts to a funeral. She does end up agreeing with Kol that her happiness is a choice and she predictably pounces on Marcel.

Upstairs Hope is understandably upset that Klaus has chosen to be out of the house during his last few hours instead of home with her. While posed very deliberately in the doorway Elijah explains that this is actually the first selfless thing Klaus has ever done. I definitely get the sentiment and I understand how that would be comforting to Elijah or the rest of the one thousand-year-old Mikaelsons, but Hope is only fifteen human years old and she doesn’t care that Klaus is being selfless only that she’s going to be an orphan. Luckily Klaus shows up and they have a chat amongst the million-candle fire hazard that is her bedroom.

Evidently Elijah offered to take the whole curse from Klaus so he would die instead and although Elijah has been off and on my favorite character since he showed up in Mystic Falls they should have let him do it! There’s just so much weirdly misplaced nobility going on in this episode and season. There’s literally no excuse for Klaus to die when Elijah is literally offering. Furthering that argument there’s no excuse for either of them to die when there’s a non-death solution of just being apart until they find the right thing to fix the Hollow power. I get that it’s a series finale, and if I didn’t know they were doing a spinoff maybe I would have felt more charitably toward this finale, but knowing that Hope is going to have basically watched both her parents die is supremely frustrating from a universe that I once considered on par with Buffy.

The next bit of this episode is literally the very best part of this whole season. Rebekah and Marcel look like they had a quickie when Elijah, Freya and Keelin come in. They all start trading Klaus stories and then Kol shows back up. It’s nice he’s there but I don’t like that this version of Rebekah was proven right. Klaus and Hope come downstairs too and the scene evolves into basically a living funeral. They all trade stories and have dinner and they’re laughing and happy. It’s wonderful and WE COULD HAVE BEEN DOING THIS ALL ALONG!

Again, I definitely understand that this is a supernatural show where bad things happen but no show needs to be all bad things all the time. That’s why I don’t watch “The Walking Dead” anymore! Marcel promises Hope that no matter what he’ll never abandon her and then they have a wish burning ceremony which I had completely forgotten about. Elijah doesn’t burn his own and while Klaus and Hope are having a super sappy goodbye he says he needs to talk to the others about something.

The rest of the episode is mostly a series of goodbyes between Elijah, Klaus and Rebekah at a park bench. Klaus apologizes to Rebekah about keeping her from her happiness all these years and to make it up to her he knows where the cure is in Mystic Falls so she can quit being a vampire and grow old and die. I’ve made my feelings about this perfectly clear in the past, Rebekah is a fool.

Klaus tries to get Elijah to leave so he can die in peace but instead Elijah breaks the white oak stake in half. He plans to die with Klaus because he has no further need of redemption or something. I’ll be honest, I hated this ending so much I may have missed a few of the finer points. This is what Elijah needed to talk to the family about and they’ve given their blessing.

We get a bunch of cuts after this. Hope is painting a family portrait and Hayley shows up behind her smiling…I guess! Again it’s really a kick in the teeth to all the shippers out there that she didn’t even for a moment see Elijah and that tiny moment in the previous episode was not enough. Vincent shows back up and tells Freya and Keelin that he will be their baby’s father which is sweet. Marcel is at Rousseau’s handing out bus tickets because apparently the vampires are going to just give the city back to the humans and/or witches. It’s hilarious. Rebekah comes up to him and asks if he’s got a ticket for her too. She tells him about the cure in such a way that she wants to take it and still be with him as a vampire as long as he’s ok watching her grow old and die.

Elijah and Klaus are still sitting on the bench saying their goodbyes. Klaus wonders if there’s nothing after death and Elijah says if that’s the case at least they’ll be together. Then they both stake each other. A strangely jaunty song plays over the whole scene and they slowly die gazing into each other’s eyes.

This finale was deeply lame and brought up a few questions that I think will linger. Firstly, did anyone ever reverse that spell that says when an Original dies their whole sire line dies? Because if they didn’t every single vampire we know is now dead (if they weren’t already). Secondly, will Klaus and Elijah be able to stand each others sanctimony for the rest of eternity if they are in fact together in the afterlife? I doubt we’ll get answers to either of these questions on “Legacies” unless Headmistress Caroline has dropped dead and we’re left with just Alaric.

So I’m mostly left with questions, no good answers and a lot of unresolved irritation at the creators of this show. I’ll be back in the fall covering “Legacies” and I’ll be delighted to be proven wrong, but for now, this final season and series finale specifically was a huge miss for me, unfortunately.

Read all of “The Originals” Season 5 recaps here. And for more TV coverage click here. 

2 comments

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