Klaus, Klaus, Klaus. Whatever can be done with you? Will you ever learn subtlety? You’ve got sneakiness down. You’re a great liar. You certainly know how to wield a cudgel or an ax when called upon to (far too frequently in fact).
But must you do it the second you gain power? Someone as smart as you should know how to rule by words as well as a force, and there you are out to sea in a perfect storm. Hayley now resides uneasily at your old downtown digs, surrounded by greedy vamps, and so of course she does what all prisoners of despots do: start plotting against you immediately with her own secretive allies.
Doomed vamp-pawn Josh and sheltered witch Davina realize they’re in leagues over their heads as well, so this little mini-alliance is actually quite the potential threat to Klaus and maybe Marcel. It’s a new alliance by the minor players, but the meek shall inherit the earth, and it’s fun to watch it unfold while Marcel and Klaus start spilling all their guilty secrets to each other.
Oh, they are honestly allied on spilling the blood of the human council, who act more stupidly than Klaus ever has. You don’t just start barking orders to an Original, as even two seconds of wary observation would have told a police captain, or Mayor, or whoever else ends up on the killing floor. These are the supposed oligarchs running the town graft, but they act more like schoolyard bullies who never met any opposition in their young, ignorant lives. The only un-weak part of this section is Marcel saving Kieran, who luckily is related to Klaus-crush Camille.
Marcel and Klaus do seem to form a true alliance by episode’s end, despite all the sullen insincere lip service at first. It does require Marcel dumping Bekah again, but she’s used to that. Elijah then takes the next step of (pointlessly) reaching out to Klaus and apologizing for doubting him, and at least is not rebuffed.
Cami is the other best part of the episode, because we’ve never seen someone fight vampire compulsion without vervain before in this world. She’s not at all immune, but using just her psychological training she realizes something is very wrong with her mind and comes up with a variety of clever strategies for finding out why and keeping herself informed. Just seeing the intensity of her struggle against Klaus’s hypnosis (seems to be a different sort of power to Elijah’s telepathy, which can share images and emotions widely) is pretty riveting. Especially given that when she’s in his presence doing his bidding her memory is back and she calls him repeatedly on his pathetic behavior. Given time, she’d probably come up with an anti-Klaus protective device all on her own.
This of course is what he refuses to give her, but guess who gets inducted into Gang Meek by the end of the episode? As Davina warns, this is going to hurt. Hopefully Klaus. A lot.