972 AD – Kingdom of Norway
A witch is interrupted mid-incantation by a visitor, her sister. The sister begs Dahlia to magically help her get pregnant and Dahlia agrees, after all how can she refuse her little sister Esther…but only for a price.
Back in the present Ollie is being held by Esther and Finn and is to be made an example of, killed at midnight to show what happens to those who betray the mad witch and her lackey of a son. Esther still has Elijah chained up in his dream state and she recalls Elijah as a kind little boy, far from what he is now. She says she would do anything for him…right before she slits his throat and casts another spell over him.
At the compound Hayley investigates screaming and finds a blood splattered Klaus who has been busy torturing a witch for information on where to find Elijah. He won’t let Hayley help with the rescue effort as he needs to keep her out of Esther’s clutches.
Gia and Marcel have also been looking for Elijah but without much luck so Hayley enlists them to help her save Oliver from his execution instead, she’s got a plan and that requires a certain absentee Alpha wolf who she is technically betrothed to. Oh yes, we’re going on a Jackson hunt!
At Rousseau’s Finncent ‘bumps’ into Cami, asks if she is having Klaus trouble. She starts spilling all of Klaus’s family issues, no real details or names but hey, those aren’t needed when the guy you are confiding in happens to be one of the very people that’s causing the issues. Cami love…shut up! She asks Finncent if they can cut the shop talk, he orders drinks, her favourite, without even asking which freaks her out and she bails.
Klaus is out at the old plantation house digging up his mother’s corpse. Elijah appears just as Klaus is about to torch the coffin and leads him into the burnt out ruins of their old home to try and convince him to listen. Klaus isn’t buying the illusion and Esther appears, she promises to return Elijah if Klaus will hear her out but he isn’t exactly responsive. She tries to show Klaus the error of his ways but all he wants is his brother back. Esther professes her love for Klaus but he’s having none of it, saying she is no better than Mikael and just like him is back from the dead to screw with their children. Oooh, seems like Esther didn’t know Dear Old Dad was back and Klaus delights in revealing that and the fact that Kol knows and has been keeping secrets from Mother Dear.
Across town Cami is in Dearly Departed Father K’s creepy cupboard of supernatural goodies and finds Vincent’s name in one of his books of New Orleans families. Marcel brings her up to speed on Vincent’s true identity and says she is done with being involved in the situation but she says she is just getting started.
Out at the plantation house Esther is so spooked she tries to suggest that she and Klaus need to work together to defeat Mikael, he finds that hilarious since she was the one who allowed Mikael to torment him as a child. Esther says that Mikael wasn’t always such a bastard, he loved Finn and he doted on their older sister, a girl named Freya (woah woah woah! I swear the older sibling that died of the plague before Klaus was born was a boy.) Esther says she will kill Mikael is he tries to hurt Klaus but Klaus dismisses her, he’s never needed any help to kill his parents before. Still trying to win him over Esther offers information about Klaus’s real father.
Out in the bayou Hayley finds a campervan just as someone shoots two arrows at her, it’s an old guy with a bow and it looks like they are about to fight when Jackson intervenes. The old guy is with him, his name is Ansel.
Esther asks Klaus if he remembers why he killed her 1,000 years ago. He rattles off a list of her many crimes against him and she stops him when he mentions his father. Esther says he killed her because she stopped him from ever knowing his true father. Klaus retorts that his hatred runs so deep it’s hard to pinpoint. Perhaps he hates being the product of a whore’s lechery – a zinger that earns him a ringing slap from Esther. (Seriously, I think I could watch Joseph Morgan and Sonja Sohn act together for hours. These two are amazing and the diagloue throughout their exchanges has been astonishing.) She clearly loved Klaus’s father and wants to tell Klaus about how they began their relationship in the months after they lost Freya to the plague.
Jackson has been surviving out in the bayou with Ansel since Oliver’s betrayal and everything went south for the Wolves. He’s been learning from Ansel, the old school ways of being a wolf. Hayley tries to convince him that the wolves in the city need him as a leader, they need their alpha, especially Ollie. Jackson isn’t interested in Oliver since he betrayed their people. Hayley says that she will save Ollie herself and Ansel joins her, he might hate vampires but he won’t sit by and let one of his own people be killed by witches.
Back at Mother Son Story Time Esther says that after Freya died Mikael was so grief-stricken they packed and moved across the seas. His despair drove him and Esther apart and that’s when she met her wolf baby daddy. Klaus asks why, if this guy was so wonderful, did he leave Klaus to be raised by Mikael? Esther forbade him from seeing Klaus to stop Mikael from finding out about the affair.
Marcel isn’t happy about Cami’s plans but she is on a mission, apparently guilty that she avoided all her supernatural inheritance which resulted in Francesca’s takeover and the ‘death’ of Hope. Marcel gets a call from Hayley saying she is on her way to rescue Ollie but they need a way to distract Finn – looks like Cami is about to get VERY involved.
Esther lied when she found out she was pregnant with Klaus but Mikael was indifferent until Klaus was born which made him happy and brought his ‘parents’ back together resulting in Kol, Rebekah and Henrik. Again Esther offers Klaus mortality, a new life in the body of a werewolf not as a witch, so he can live the life he should have had, a family, peace, happiness. Klaus has finally had enough and demands that Esther give Elijah back or he will keep killing anyone she body jumps into until armageddon. Esther drops him with magic and snaps his neck. While unconscious Klaus remembers finding the body of his real father after Mikael had killed him – IT’S ANSEL!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Klaus wakes after dark, Esther says he can have Elijah back, tells him where he is and says that he can take him home, Elijah will wake once he is ready to make his choice. She promises everything she has said to Klaus has been the truth and he leaves.
Cami heads to Rousseau’s to meet Finn, Gia and Marcel are waiting in the back alley in case things get out of hand while Cami gets to know her advisor a little better.
Hayley and Ansel find Oliver chained up in the cemetery but he doesn’t know where Elijah is being kept. They free him just as the wolves loyal to Esther arrive.
Cami asks Finn to ‘diagnose’ Klaus and he rattles off pretty much everything we know Klaus to be and then asks Cami what she thinks. She says there is too much that she doesn’t know, like about Klaus’s siblings and asks how Finn manages. He gets suspicious but Cami refers to an earlier session of theirs where he mentioned that he didn’t get along with his brothers. She pushes on and asks about his parents and Finn withdraws since she recently told him off for crossing boundaries. Oh you are playing with fire Cami and no mistake. Outside Marcel and Gia hear things getting troublesome and are about to come to the rescue when they are waylaid by a werewolf. Marcel tells Gia to run and she takes off as the wolf attacks.
Ansel tells Hayley to get Oliver to safety and he will hold off the wolves (wait, so witches killing werewolves is bad but you doing it is fine? Explain how that’s better.).
Marcel gets his ass kicked while Finn asks Cami more about Klaus, Cami reaches for something in her bag but doesn’t need it, seems that Finn is merely surprised at her interest in him.
Outside Marcel gets a wolf bite and is looking to be in trouble when Gia returns, she gets bitten for her trouble right before Marcel relieves the wolf of his heart.
Aiden and a pack of wolves confront Hayley and Ollie in the cemetery, she’s ready to make wolf kibble out of them but Ollie steps up and has a go at them for infighting. The wolves let them go just as Klaus arrives at the cemetery on the hunt for big brother. He hears Ansel fighting and goes to help before realising who he is helping. He refuses to believe Ansel is real, supposing he is a phantom conjured by Esther to try to mess with him. Ansel tells Klaus that he has been watching him for 1,000 years from the Other Side until 4 months ago he woke up in the bayou. He knows nothing of Esther or her deals, he only wants to be reunited with his son. Sadly even though Klaus isn’t King of the Quarter any more he is definitely still King of Trust Issues and tells his father to crawl back to hell.
Marcel uses some of Klaus’s blood to heal Gia but he tells her he’s getting low so she can’t get bitten again. Dude, I thought you and Klaus were cool again, can’t you just ask him for some more? Gia says that she has finally found something worth fighting for, no more running away. Marcel gets a call, it’s Cami, she’s decided she can help take Finn out since he fancies her.
Out in the bayou a very rough looking Ollie watches as Hayley and Jackson bitch at each other, Jackson asks where Ansel is and Hayley says he was being a man last she saw. Oliver tries to get Jackson to be the alpha again, to lead their people – right as he starts bleeding from every orifice. Goddamn witches!
In the cemetery Klaus finally finds Elijah and breaks his chains but he cannot wake him. Esther appears to give Klaus one more chance – he says she promised to give Elijah back, was that a lie like his father? Esther tells Klaus that she brought Ansel back and sent him to live among the wolves, and used Ollie’s execution as a set up to draw him out to find Klaus and help him. This is his last chance at salvation before he ends up alone and unloved – oh if only she knew! She asks why Klaus still hates her so much after all this time and he finally snaps – it’s bacuse she came after his daughter. She manages to choke out that she had to around the death grip he has on her throat and Klaus promises to make her suffer as only he can before he leaves and takes Elijah away.
Esther remembers Dahlia coming for her ‘payment’ for the spell that gave Esther children – her firstborn child – and that of every subsequent generation of Esther’s bloodline for as long as it should last…meaning Hope. It was the loss of Freya that sent Esther back to her magic but Dahlia says that Esther’s power is nothing compared to her own and that if Esther defies her she will return and take all of her children. Finn finds his mother in the tomb while Hayley and Klaus look after Elijah. Finn knows about Dahlia, he was there when she took Freya. He tells his mother that she did the right thing killing Hope otherwise Dahlia would have returned to kill them all…wait…HOPE’S NOT DEAD!
Okay people – I know there were a lot of fans who laughed at the show’s title after Rebekah left “how can you have a show called The Originals when there’s only 2 of them in it?”…Happy now? 3 Parents, 5 living siblings, the impending return of a batshit crazy, vengeful witch of an aunt and possibly a 6th sibling. I’d say the show’s title is pretty safe no?
