Of course it couldn’t last. Morose Klaus gives way to the angry manipulator this week, as was inevitable. So unsexy when he’s being a dick. Well, except that this episode features a lot of Kol, and even a bit of Elijah, being even more awful than their hybrid brother, so he looks almost rational in comparison.
Lots of Kol flashbacks might not be so great (Elijah admits that keeping him daggered is probably best for everyone at one point), except they’re actually all about Marcellus, and how he (as a teen) was mentored by both Klaus and Elijah. Klaus on the arts of war, and Elijah on the finer things. Which is going very well, since Marcel is such a quick study, and the queer fact that being raised by two vampires is probably better than being raised in slavery in the Old South.
Until Kol rises, and screws everything up as he always does, leaving many innocents in his wake. The actor has such fun being vile that Kol is tolerable in small doses. Though that’s not exactly the case anymore, as he has two actors playing him now, Original version in flashback and the poor human who’s being possessed by him at Esther’s will currently. The one who’s flirting with Davina, also on Esther’s orders.
Davina’s trying to play her cards tight, what with the dark object holding Mikael at bay, but the stakes have always been rougher than Davina wants to play. So she almost loses all in a werewolf attack, except that Mikael gets his kill on and Kol keeps that revelation to himself. He’s evil, but he’s smart, and poor Esther needs to one day realize that all her children will always surprise her.
There are many parallels between Klaus training Marcellus in the past, and Klaus encouraging Hayley today. The biggest similarity may be that in both cases a sacrifice is required of Elijah. He had to back off from Marcel to encourage Klaus’s slight fatherly impulse, and he has to back off from Hayley for the same reason. Which she doesn’t quite get, but maybe somebody will explain it to her someday.
It’s going to be a witch/werewolf vs. vampire/hybrid war sometime soon, but I don’t think anyone can yet tell how that might play out. This part of the season of the Originals is all about fanning the flames.