The Originals 1.15 “Le Grand Guignol”

Of course it all had to end. Niklaus was happy for a moment. Happy and forgiving. Happy and generous. He even decided to finally tolerate the affair between Marcel and Rebekah, openly toasting it before their werewolf, witch and corrupt police friends during Prohibition era New Orleans.

So of course Rebekah had already ruined it, as Mikael, he whom demons fear, finally shows up, and is fascinated by all he sees in New Orleans. By the happy home Klaus and his siblings have made. By the respect afforded Klaus. We’re finally seeing what was so great for them about New Orleans, and what Klaus has been so desperately trying to get back all season, ninety years later. It’s just a blink of an eye to him, after all, now that he’s off his siring hybrids shtick.

Killing Mikael must have been an amazing release for him, one he’s probably still working out in his twisted head. But he never knew it was Rebekah who called him to New Orleans, Rebekah who ruined all their dreams, Rebekah who shattered their brief glimpse of harmony. Interestingly, Elijah immediately forgives her. Perhaps he long suspected as much. But Klaus, of course, is intent on only her death as a fitting punishment.

Cami tries to talk him out of it, nursing him back to health after Elijah removes the cursed bone dagger. Elijah, that trick never works. But what does work is the show coming fully into its own as an equal to the Vampire Diaries. This episode does two things its parent excels in: flashbacks that have current resonance, and really very dysfunctional and fractured family dynamics. We even get a real cliffhanger at the end, at least if you care about Rebekah’s fate. She’s not going out without a fight I hope.

Mikael’s presence finally gives well-cast actor Sebastian Roche something to sink his teeth into. He was all patriarchal rage and Viking stereotype in previous appearances, with a little frisson thrown in from Katherine reviving his cursed and dormant corpse for her own bad reasons then. But now he slinks into town as quite the gentleman, someone handsome enough to win our sympathy, initially, until we realize his only goal is the destruction of his son; or rather, the bastard (lots of literal use of that term this week) begat from his wife’s coupling with a werewolf.

He’s wounded, he’s angry, he’s bitter, and he’s vengeful, all things Roche, who has been a credible villain on several TV shows, was born to do. He learns his children will be attending an opera of Les Huguenots that night, so he burns down the opera house. Not before staging a literal Grand Guignol spectacle featuring all their unfortunate friends. He basically singlehandedly destroys the town, a walking natural disaster, and the siblings are forced to flee to where we first met them in Chicago.

But that’s not where we’re left. We’re left with the three of them trapped in a graveyard until moonrise, Sabine dead (Elijah figured out how to finally end her threat), Davina alive again, Genevieve fled, Hayley possessed of a cure for her cursed wolves, and Cami more confused than ever by her feelings for Nick. We leave the three vamps in their gothic cage, bleeding into their game faces, preparing for battle.

Do as Cami says, Klaus, and realize that you’re done fighting in Mikael’s image. He didn’t just never love you: he actively hated you and strove for your destruction. Don’t ever give him another thought.