The Originals Review: By Choice or By Force

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Oh, to be a fly on the wall in The Originals writers' room, you guys. To have listened to the ideas bounced around in order to come up with what is turning out to be one epic first season would have been a total treat. 

This new chapter, featuring the vengeful witches on a takedown quest against Klaus, is really something to behold every Tuesday night. While there are small issues I could point out, I'm doing my best not to let the little things interfere with my love of what's happening in this fictional New Orleans we're being given week to week.

The Originals Season 1 Episode 13 changed the game AGAIN with a risen Monique, a hexed Father Kieran, a kidnapped Klaus and Rebekah, a betrothal, and SPOILER ALERT: a possibly dead Sophie Devereux. 

Monique is back, first of all. The teenage witch literally burst from the grave while Sabine/Celeste gave a tour of the cemetery. It seems that Papa Tunde's death left a hole in Celeste's power of four, no doubt orchestrated by Celeste herself.

I'll get to Celeste's masterful planning in a bit, but it seems she's a little too good, right? Just me?

Anyway, Monique is alive again, and Sophie is obviously happy to have her niece back. It's hard to know much about Monique pre-death, but something felt off about the risen witch, like she wasn't with Sophie. We do know that before the Harvest, Monique was a believer who willingly gave her life in the ritual for the greater good of her coven, so perhaps that is what she still sees as her duty and that's why she brutally maybe-murdered her aunt by making Sophie bleed from every orifice on her body.

What a way to die. Maybe die. Is Sophie DEAD-dead? I hope not. I kind of liked her. Let's find a way to bring her back, Team!

Killing Sophie seemed to be the only part of tonight not somehow a part of Celeste's master plan. The rest of the episode's events were a well-oiled machine.

A little too well-oiled, maybe, beginning with Bastiana's hex on Father Kieran.

Once he was cursed, how did Celeste know that Father Kieran would go to the bar to see Cami where Genevieve would also just happen to be there, ready to intervene and hand over Papa Tunde's blade with the promise to remove the hex if Cami drove the blade into Klaus' heart?

Cami, however, couldn't do that, because despite the fact that the vampires sometimes kill innocent people, the witches made an innocent person kill innocent people, and in Cami's mind, that's the greater offense. She chooses to side with the vampires in the war for New Orleans, which really only makes me love her more. 

Cami is a fighter. She's brave and strong. She doesn't make poor choices in men and constantly need to be saved. She may turn to others for help, but now that she's no longer capable of being compelled, Cami is very much making her own destiny. For good or for ill remains to be seen, but she's making it.

Part of that destiny includes working with Klaus. (And part of Cami's destiny in my head has her working a little more closely with Klaus at some point in the future...)

He sees Father Kieran as a good man and finds the witches' hex to be unconscionable, so he feels compelled (ha!) to do something about it. While his plan to help Kieran wasn't painless and didn't remove the hex, it worked, at least to the point that Father Kieran likely won't go on a murderous rampage and kill his parishioners. 

He may still die, though, unless Cami can find a witch to help her reverse the hex permanently.

What I loved about Klaus tonight is that he showed that when it comes down to it, he does care about people. He has a great capacity to be an ass, but there are some lines he doesn't believe should be crossed, much like Marcel.

And this is where we get back to Celeste's plan and where things got a little bit more weird to me. We're going on a tangent so hang on for the ride.

Celeste told Elijah that his downfall would be his promise of "always and forever" and issues her former lover a choice: save Klaus, save Rebekah, or save Hayley. He cannot save all three and in saving any one of them the other two will be tortured or killed. 

She tells him that he'll awaken in enough time to make his choice and then he's passed out in a street in New Orleans, poisoned by the witch's kiss.

He doesn't wake up until Hayley is in trouble in the plantation house, by which time Klaus and Marcel have scuffled over Marcel's rules not to kill children and Sophie has plunged Papa Tunde's blade into Klaus' heart.

This was done presumably at Bastiana's urging, which means that Monique was blocking Sophie's magic until it was time to reveal Bastiana's presence so that she could tell Sophie what to do, Celeste is clairvoyant and knew Cami would fail them, or both.

Eh, given how these witches work, it's probably both.

Rebekah, meanwhile, has been attacked by werewolves in the woods near the plantation home where she and Hayley were throwing a party for Hayley's Crescent Moon werewolf pack. Because it's a full moon, it's their one night a month to turn into human form. Hayley, eager to finally learn more about her life, invites them all over for a kegger and Oliver sweeps Rebekah off her feet while Jackson drops a bombshell on Hayley.

He and Hayley are from the pack's two most prominent families. Their families go back to the beginning of the pack. At some point, their pack began fighting among itself, which weakened them and caused them to lose control of the city. To reunite their pack, Jackson's parents and Hayley's parents promised their children to one another.

Hayley is betrothed to Jackson and Jackson is the wolf who's been following her around and saving her. 

If that doesn't throw a(nother) wrench into the Hayley and Elijah, not much else will.

To say I'm not Jackson's biggest fan right now is an understatement. While I welcome the opportunity to learn more about the Crescent Moon werewolves, an arranged marriage and, dare I say it, imprinted werewolf, wasn't what I expected. There are holes in Hayley's story that I want to see filled in, but like this? No. Not like this.

Jackson is wrecking the intense heat from last week's Hayley-Elijah encounter in the warehouse and I don't like it. Truthfully, there was enough tension in the Hayley-Elijah pairing with the fact that she's carrying Klaus' child and Elijah is loyal to his brother without the addition of a hot werewolf to further complicate things.

Oliver and his naked abs, however, can stay, though Rebekah has the worst luck in men. Except Matt.

SEE! GET TO NEW ORLEANS, MATT! You're the best thing ever to happen to Beks!

Elijah doesn't think about Rebekah or Klaus when he wakes up to Hayley's phone call. He thinks only of saving her, and he does. And then he goes back and saves her friend. By that time, he's well beyond the point of being able to save Rebekah or Klaus, which unites him and Marcel in their shared desire to find the other Originals.

As the four witches were walking away from Sophie's body, I couldn't help but think--again--about just how flawlessly Celeste's plan came together. And about how she said Elijah would be able to choose who to save, but that didn't really seem to be the case at all. Continuity error, perhaps? Or just some wonky timing that I'm supposed to overlook?

These witches are powerful and they want it all. Their city, their coven, and no more vampires. They mean to take it and right now, without Sophie, our anti-heroes are feeling a little helpless. It's Elijah, Marcel, Hayley, and Cami against, well, the world for all the power they don't have when dealing with these witches. 

I'm excited to see how this turns out.

What did you think of The Originals Season 1 Episode 13? Are you loving these powerful witches? What are your thoughts on the Crescent Moon werewolves? Did Elijah make the right choice?

Crescent City Review

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Miranda Wicker was a Staff Writer for TV Fanatic. She retired in 2017. Follow her on Twitter.

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The Originals Season 1 Episode 13 Quotes

Josh isn't dead yet? Well, good on him! I love a good survival story!

Rebekah

Marcel: Back in the day the witches wanted to send a threat, they'd just kill a chicken and leave it on your doorstep.
Elijah: That's a rather large and ominous chicken, wouldn't you say?

The Originals Season 1 Episode 13 Music

  Song Artist
Cat’s Squirrel Dr. Ross iTunes
Vampyre Of Time And Memory Queens Of The Stone Age iTunes
Psylla Glass Animals iTunes