The unthinkable occurred on The Originals Season 2 Episode 17! The remaining Mikaelson siblings worked together to save their sister, no small feat for this distrusting family.

Esther's spell worked and now Freya knows Klaus' deepest, darkest secrets. But Rebekah is safe from the mind of Eva Sinclair. Whew.

Watch The Originals Season 2 Episode 17 Online

To be honest, this was quite a convoluted adventure to save Rebekah from Eva's mind, and while the Eva-Regains-Control story was interesting, this installment felt like a bit of a throwaway setup for Freya to decide that she and Klaus would never reach a point of being able to trust one another. Surely we could have done this in less time and with less theatrics, right?

Eh, maybe. Maybe not. This is a show about vampires, after all. Theatrics are sort of the deal.

But this whole "Dahlia is coming" thing is just taking forever. Can we just get her here, defeat her, and move on? Or is that rushing away the rest of the season? (Speaking of which, only FIVE MORE EPISODES! GAH!)

We've heard so much about Dahila and how evil she is, and now we've seen that Eva Sinclair was not only doing evil things she was also probably crazy, plus Freya actually seems fond of the magic her evil aunt taught her. Can Dahlia really be worse?

Sorry for so many questions, but I find myself at a loss of how to process a lot of this since so much of it seems like the subplot of Rebekah being in Eva's body got thrust to the forefront for a single, mostly inconsequential episode, and now it's over. Poof. Done.

Freya doesn't trust Klaus. Klaus doesn't trust Freya. Meh. We could've seen that coming from a mile away. I won't even be shocked if he somehow managed to mind control his way through Freya's spell so that what she saw is what he wanted her to see and not what his strategy for handling Dahlia actually is. But then I wonder how he can actually have a strategy for an evil he has yet to meet when he refuses to work with the one person who has actually met her.

Oh, Klaus. Sometimes your logic is just...not logic at all.

Seriously, though. How can they prepare for this when it is reported to be unlike anything they've ever seen before? Whatever Freya saw will not be his strategy in the long term. She has to know that, and if she doesn't, she's an idiot.

Klaus is absolutely right to distrust Freya, especially after she turned their mother into a hundred birds. She's not good and she doesn't want to help them defeat their aunt. She wants their aunt's power, plain and simple, and she's using them – and Hope – to get it. Maybe that's what Klaus sees since he's the one who has historically sought power whenever possible.

That gives a little more importance to his funny quip to Esther about giving Freya away.

[to Esther] All temper and no timing with this one. Honestly, I'm glad you gave her away so that I could be born. You should think of me as an upgrade.
Klaus

Permalink: All temper and no timing with this one. Honestly, I'm glad you gave her away so...

He's all temper and rarely has good timing. Whether or not he's an upgrade is debatable, but hey, at least he didn't kill their mother. Sort of. He turned her into a vampire, but he's presumably been feeding her?

Ugh. This episode has me all confused.

Hopes were high that an episode focused solely on saving Rebekah would be...more about Rebekah. Maybe that's where the disconnect with this hour comes from. It tried and just fell flat, maybe because we saw Rebekah as a child running through Eva's mind instead of Claire Holt as Rebekah running through Eva's mind. The latter would've made more sense.

When Rebekah went into Eva's body, she was an adult. There's no reason why child Rebekah would be running around in there. If they couldn't get Claire Holt then they should've gotten a body double and never showed her face, something to make us think adult Rebekah was trapped.

Maybe that will make sense as the Freya-Dahlia story develops, but I'm not hopeful.

I am, however, hopeful for a discussion between Elijah and Hayley where they talk about their post-Safe House at Christmas encounters. Gia was very diplomatic in her explanation about how she and Elijah have become close and her insinuation that Hayley let him go while Hayley was very non-possessive of Elijah in her typical Hayley way.

I liked it. Let's be adults. Elijah and Hayley can't be together and she's got a fine piece of man in Jackson, so there's no reason Elijah has to be celibate and pine after her. If Haylijah are meant to be, they'll be. And if not, I am totally on board with Elijah and Gia.

I'm also on board with keeping Yusuf Gatewood around in any and all capacities please and thanks. Forever. Let's welcome him into the family the same way the Treme witches welcomed Freya. There's a solid chance that's going to blow up in their witchy faces while having Vincent on our team is going to be a very, very good thing, as is Rebekah's decision to stay in the body of a witch.

The family is going to need her and if she's still linked to the powers of all the teenage witches Eva kidnapped and channeled, that's going to prove quite useful in fighting Dahlia if Rebekah can ever figure out how to witch.

Clock's ticking, Beks.

What did you think of "Exquisite Corpse"? What was your favorite moment from the return? Are you ready to get this Dahlia show on the road? Don't forget you can watch The Originals online if you missed a minute of tonight's action!