The Originals 1.08 “The River in Reverse”

God how much do I hate Klaus? Let me run it down for you. This is the big confrontation week where he was supposed to get his comeuppance. Where he would be added to Marcel’s punishment dungeon for wicked vamps. Where Rebekah and Elijah would finally be free of his petty recriminations. Where Marcel would finally assert his dominance over the Big Easy once and for all. And his loyal vamp tribe could breathe (or feed, or sashay or whatever they do in New Orleans) easy once again.

Fracking Klaus! Elijah and Bekster wouldn’t be aligned against him had he not freaked out like a whiny child when Elijah and Hayley dared to question his plans for her miracle baby, not even giving them a chance to explore their quite reasonable doubts, given his track record of murder, betrayal and manipulation. Rebekah wouldn’t be considering an alliance with Marcel if not pushed into it by Klaus and fearful of his demonstrated propensity to betray.

Actually, probably none of this would be happening save for two factors: Elijah, bitten by Klaus, has been left in the wolf shack to throw off his poison bile and have delusionary psychic flashbacks. And Davina, completely off-screen, has been losing rather than gaining control of her magic (despite her success under Elijah’s tutelage when we last saw her), and is unable to help Marcel deal with the whole taking down Klaus thing.

How convenient, right? That’s the primary reason for this episode’s lowered score. You can’t set up players of major power and then just pull them off the board whenever you need a different result, especially not so baldly. The episode remains entertaining, but the Church Lady would see right through all this facile plotting to the devil underneath.

So Klaus calls out Marcel, who thinks he’s ready for him, and sets every vampire who was willing to fight for him (which is most of them) against one wee little skinny hybrid. Which seems to work when it’s only vamp powers on display, but then Klaus wolfs out (as you knew he would) and they’ve got nothing against that. As no one ever has had. Except maybe a few witches, but see above. To save Marcel’s life Rebekah begs him to surrender, which he does in order to save his team. Because he’s a slightly better monster than Klaus, and rewards loyalty while refusing to kill other vamps.

Klaus accepts the offered gold coin of truce, because he really doesn’t want to be alone, he just wants a French Quarter pad. And he immediately orders Hayley into it as well, which means she’s a prisoner, again. He leaves Rebekah and a recovered (conveniently at the end of the episode) Elijah” to rot” in their plantation.

Oh, and while Elijah was delusional he mistook Hayley for Celeste, a witch from the past who was killed when he might have prevented it. Had Elijah been well I’m not sure this episode could have happened at all, but I suppose it will be interesting to see how Marcel copes with his reduced status, and if Rebekah still loves him. Interestingly, Klaus gives the one remaining dagger to Elijah, which is a peace offering no matter how anyone protests.

So, this episode was a lot of sound and fury signifying everything we already knew about Klaus, but now he’s got a better apartment?