The Originals 1.18 “The Big Uneasy”

Elijah is intent that the new signees of his treaty between the supernatural powers of New Orleans start playing nice with each other, even if he has to force them every step of the way. The witches are the ones feeling wronged and left out this week, so he takes their Benediction Day (when any request for a blessing is granted) as an opportunity for everyone to pay them ceremonial tribute. The problem is, not everyone stands (or even understands) on Elijah’s level of ceremony and flawless etiquette. He could show a thing or two to British nobility, but these bayou werewolves and witches? It’s a recipe for potential disaster.

The humans try to rise to the occasion with their new sexy representative, who finds Elijah’s bullying kinda sexy. She’s probably the smartest human we’ve yet met. Camille is still holding her own with Klaus, even when Genevieve lets leak her spying on the affair with the exiled Marcel. In fact, Camille makes the strongest gesture of all at the ceremony, a gift of a beautiful turquoise hairpin to her ginger tormentor in order to plead for her cursed uncle. Not counting hot Klaus-sex, it’s probably the nicest thing that’s happened to Ginny since her revival.

Of course, Klaus has to go and screw it up by threatening where Camille humbly begged. But that he even tried is the weirdest part of this whole episode, not to mention eating crow to Cami when he screws it up. While Elijah threatens, coerces, murders and longs (for Hayley, caught up with her wolves in a way she’d never be with vampires, even him), we’re actually seeing the softer, gentler side of Klaus. Though he is, of course, conniving to undermine Elijah’s armed truce, he’s doing it to protect his wolven lineage, and his unborn child, and even Camille and Kieran. Weirdly enough, he’s trying to help his friends, just as he’s left Rebekah go and let Marcel live (albeit powerlessly). When did Klaus want friends?

He’s so much in his special artsy snowflake mode that when the witches decide to publically shun the truant Davina, he comes to her purely social rescue, offering her a gift everyone else has denied. And when she rejects him (okay, he did kill her boyfriend, no take backs on that one), he insists beseechingly (rather than ripping her head off for it) because he knows she needs his help. Wounded but sincere Klaus is the best acting Jeffrey Morgan has ever done in this role, so much more entertaining than the rage-aholic we so often see.

For not only does he give her a daylight ring and the spell from his mother’s book, he publically spares her BFF Josh’s life, which was literally hanging by the thread of Klaus’ rage only days before. Davina may be figuring out it’s finally time to keep her enemies as close as her friends.

Silly Marcel, however, has figured out nothing, and tries to stage yet another coup that only gets Thierry (and almost Diego) killed, right before his eyes, as a lesson that Elijah doesn’t play. This is a lesson everybody on Vampire Diaries learned the instant they met Elijah, so Marcel is just being willfully obtuse here. If he keeps it up he’s going to be willfully suicidal.

Is Elijah so insistent on this governmental decree of harmony because Klaus has destroyed any hope of family life for him? Rebekah’s departure seems to have ended the chance at sibling solidarity, and Hayley is fast becoming an agent and leader of the wolves rather than a damsel in distress (finally). The field is in fact strewn with rivals, and all of them are growing in power. What’s a would-be prince to do in a kingdom of one?