I have a little tangent I wish to start on, so please indulge me. It is in regards to the whole Niklaus/Klaus/Nik thing in how our dimpled demon is referred. I know my breakdown is not 100%, so don’t send me gifs proving me wrong (Lying! Always send me gifs!), but I don’t see it as a random foible, but actually telling you something about the other characters and how they perceive him or themselves.
Niklaus – The real name and most formal version. It sounds elegant and you can’t help picturing someone ordering tea and crumpets when they say it.
Who uses it? Elijah. Need I say more?
Klaus – This name feels guttural and harsh on the tongue. Sounds like the name of your mortal enemy or a super villain.
Who uses it? Elena, Stefan, Bonnie, Damon, Katherine, and…Marcel. Telling, isn’t it?
Nik – The most intimate version. It speaks of a closeness and affection; your old friend or ex love who you still share a fondness. I imagine he would stake some random person who called him this.
Who uses it? Rebekah
Marcel shows off his kingdom to Nik and with the way he is gloating and pouring salt in the wound it is as if he has no knowledge of the man with whom he shares such a colorful past. This hubris is often the thing that brings down the mighty. Just ask Nik. He receives word that some of his minions have met an end in a bar and we later see this was Bekah’s doing. Did one of them try to touch her hair?
We see more of them bonding the next day over liquor, of course, and Marcel’s interest in Camille is made clear, although I do not see why. I think it’s the actress more than the role. She is pretty enough, but the way she presents her lines make me wonder what the fuck he is supposed to see in her? She is not filled with fire nor particularly witty. She appears to be intelligent, but it is such clichéd intelligence. She just…is. And this is who Marcel is obsessed over after living a couple hundred years AND being King of New Orleans? Nope nope nope nope nope. I know she is to be the Caroline stand in, and although I am currently screaming SHUT UP CAROLINE at my screen every week, I can absolutely see what drew Nik to her. Not this one.
Bekah’s boobs look amazing this episode. It needed to be said. MORE CORSETS AND FLASHBACKS!
The house they are living in was the former Governor’s mansion and the transfer of ownership appears a bit shaky. We flashback to when it still belonged to this unseen man with a son who was the current paramour of our baneful blonde. (SELF SHOUT OUT! @ me if you get the reference.) Even in a puffy shirt, Elijah looks dapper. I missed him this episode, but not as much as I feared I would. Boy toy’s puppy dog eyes and wet behind the ears demeanor mean he is dead before he ever steps to Nik. Bye Bekah boyfriend #138!
Bekah tracks down Sophie who is partaking in grunt work in a bar while wearing a fetching silk blouse that should never be anywhere near grunt work. She lays out where Sophie may have miscalculated greatly in her belief Nik would stand against Marcel. There is a bit more to their relationship than merely maker and protégé.
We are given the scene of how Nik met Marcel and it is a good one. Nik sees something in this child of his own upbringing; beaten by a father that wishes to disown him and never being good enough. He raises Marcel up to be powerful, educated, and resourceful. There is a slight problem with all of this, however, as Marcel grows up to look damn fine and Bekah is not immune to his charms. She falls in love (JUST LOOK AT THE SMILE AND THAT CHEST), and wishes for an eternity together. There are vague promises of perhaps someday until there is some sweaty, wall-pressing that Nik interrupts. Bekah is daggered again, only to awaken 50 years later. The time lapse is not the real shock to her system. Nik tested where Marcel’s loyalty and love lies, the results of which once more break her heart. Marcel could have the rest of his human life with Bekah, Nik would undagger her immediately, or immortality without her. She is in denial until faced with Marcel’s smug face, nary an age line to be found, so the jerk jumped right on Nik’s offer.
“They come and go for her, but I am the constant.” Now Julie Plec is just fucking with me and my Klebekah loving heart. The reality is, as we have seen tonight and throughout their history, Nik has never allowed anyone the opportunity to replace him in Bekah’s heart. (Like I discussed earlier in regards to names, Nik pretty much exclusively calls her that. An affectionate nickname, even when growled at her in that close and passionate way they often interact. He calls her Rebekah to get under her skin.) It isn’t even about someone being good enough. If they had a normal relationship, he would allow one or two to break her heart or see the relationship play itself out, but the would-be suitors are DOA. It’s telling that Bekah goes to Nik to turn them, I am assuming to make an end run around the possibility of one being sire bound to her, but I also think subconsciously she knows this is how it will end and only the man her brother finally allows to live will be truly good enough. She is complicit in her own pain, which in my little backstory for her makes sense. In a way, she thinks she deserves this unhappy fate.
Wow. They actually address the idea of abortion for Hayley. She gets wolfsbane from the voodoo shop shown the first episode. Are the tourists the guide abandoned there still wandering around? Marcel is tipped off about a wolf who dared enter his domain and the punishment is death. Of course, they go the cop out route and have Hayley not do it by giving her an enlightening moment where someone was about to take the choice out of her hands, via the goons Marcel sends to behead her. It is a cheap contrivance, but she was never going to get rid of the baby that easily. Like it or not, the baby was the catalyst for all this, so it will be around for a while. She lingers over the worst cup of tea ever, before splashing it in the face of the first vamp who is encountered.
SIDE BAR – You all know my feelings on keeping your mythology shit together on these shows and this one jumped out to me. Why the hell did her drink burn the vampire? It had wolfsbane in it which is only poisonous to werewolves, not vampires. Damon very easily handled it when he stuffed it in Mason’s mouth. Someone said to me it was tea, so probably hot, but come on now. I can totally stop a vampire with a strong cup of Celestial Season’s Sleepytime tea? I am not a nitpicker, but the major rules need to be adhered to when you create a supernatural universe. I’m easily able to accept the idea of a race of super creatures allergic to the color blue, but then don’t have them be aquatic, do you feel me?
Bekah makes a very deadly version of Miss Manners. Although I am sure that Nik appreciates her saving his progeny’s incubator, he is fairly pissed that a rescue was even necessary in the first place. He wants to know why Hayley was gallivanting around the quarter at night when she has been told to stay put. She pulls out the were-bortion card and that’s a throttling! Did anyone else giggle at the ludicrousness of it all? “You’re going to abort my kid?! Then I will kill you…which will abort my kid!” Bekah steps in with the whole, “Bro. Baby mama. Get a grip.” She then so eloquently and lovingly explains to him the gift Elijah was trying to give him. How it is always about love and family with them if Nik would only let them in. They are not Mikael and loving them will not destroy him.
“It’s OK for you to feel.” Right here is the problem. Nik feels. He feels everything. As I tweeted the night this aired, anyone who mistakes Nik’s flat affect as being without feelings has no understanding of what is going on inside his head. It is like how white light is NOT the absence of color, but all colors. The only way that Nik can get a handle on his emotions is to not show them at all, until one boils over. That is what other people call temper tantrums or when you see the tears that are threatening to spill onto his manly, rugged, sexy…what was I talking about? Oh yes, his emotions. His ability to express his feelings in a healthy way was beaten out of him as a child. It is another thing he sees as a weakness and you have seen how Nik deals with his apparent weaknesses.
Bekah wants to go after Elijah, but she also doesn’t wish to go against Nik. There are 800 layers to this, but let’s stick with the most obvious one; when Nik gets pissy a Mikaelson ends up in a box for anywhere from 50-400 years. Bekah imparts this information to Hayley who instantly goes from “eh” character for me to “OMG I LOVE YOU” when she tracks down the sibling stabbers and hands them to Bekah. She quite figuratively (heh) hands over her freedom. YOU GUYS! BEKAH HAS A FRIEND! A REAL ONE!
Bekah goes to Marcel who immediately sees past her physical threats against him, but she has no compunction with fucking up the blonde who replaced her in this play. THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE! It works, and Marcel takes her to where he has stuffed Elijah’s coffin. Once invited in, she moves to undagger him and Davina is able to stop her. That does not bode well and Bekah has a bit of an attitude about it which causes Davina to proclaim her as “not nice”, bouncing her around the walls and then out a window. Um, fuck off Davina.
So Davina is Marcel’s daughter, right? I mean, it appears so to me. The way he speaks to her and how she is completely loyal to him bespeaks of a blood relation. Don’t ask me how, people, that is mythology and a good show runner can find a believable, mystical loophole just like they did with Nik. It also ups the stakes on both sides and takes this conflict up to completely Shakespearean levels; Family against family to rule a kingdom, fathers being betrayed by those they raised, brothers and sisters being a bit too familiar with each other, and blood feuds splattered across centuries. If The Originalscan capture this, and honestly I do see it as possible, then this show could be the more mature version of The Vampire Dairies many of us hoped it would be.
Where was I? Oh, yes. Marcel threatens Bekah and he gets a “fuck off” to match Davina’s. Look, I am going to get a lot of flak for hating Marcel, so I am going to explain this once and hopefully silence the critics. (Who am I kidding? The same dumbasses who come at me for hating their favorite character whenever I criticize an action are never going to understand what I am about to explain, but I trust the people reading this to get it.) Yes, I am hating on Marcel, but he is being portrayed EXACTLY CORRECTLY. We should hate him. He is the protagonist to get us to rally behind those we already know and love. We want him to fail and hope he dies in a fire. THE SAME WAY WE FELT ABOUT KLAUS WHEN HE WAS INTRODUCED ON THE VAMPIRE DIARIES. There is nothing interesting about the boring character who is shoved down our throat as the embodiment of righteousness. Interesting characters have flaws.
Damon = Interesting from day one. Willing to do anything to anyone and feel no guilt, right? Except he did feel guilt and his cause was fueled by his love for a woman he had not even seen in 150 years. INTERESTING
Stefan = Boring and bland as fuck until it was discovered he had a bit of a blood problem and a tendency to rip people apart when on a bended. INTERESTING
Klaus = Killed Aunt Jenna (!) and would fuck over anyone in his path; turns out he has a very complicated past which does not excuse his issues, but does somewhat ameliorate them. INTERESTING
Bekah = Would follow in her brother’s wake to slaughter whomever displeased her. In actuality, she has had 900 years of pain and just wants her family together. INTERESTING
Plot Point, er, April Young = Sweetness and light and all that is good in the world. Forest creatures gamble at her feet. The only good thing she ever did was undagger Bekah. BORING
Are you now all on the same page as me? Good.
Bekah goes to fill in Klaus on the source of Marcel’s power and finally knows how it feels to have her brain screwed with. There is a bit of a concern between our protagonists on what could be more powerful than an Original. I carry that same concern.
And here is why Bonnie’s death is even more tragic – it fucks up what could be another layer to this incredible storyline. Let’s think about this, shall we? It is quite obvious that Davina is a kind of magical being, if not a straight up witch. She is being manipulated in some way by Marcel to do his bidding, which feeds into my family ties hypothesis, in controlling the witches of New Orleans. He has basically made magic illegal which should completely chap the hide of every witch present. A vampire is subjugating witches. Who better to help take down someone so audacious to do such a horrible thing than the possible queen of the badass witches? Yes, the ball was dropped on dark Bonnie last year because I feel they didn’t wish to make her a bad person, but her coming to town and using the expression power in righteous indignation on this egomaniacal bastard would be stellar. YOU KNOW YOU ALL WANT TO SEE THAT SHOWDOWN; Davina versus Bonnie in a “who will look better wearing black leather with wind blowing back their hair” duel right on Bourbon Street. Brute force alone is not the way to tackle a witch problem. You need another witch who is motivated for all the destruction vampires have wrought against her people.
She would never work with Klaus and the Mikaelsons you say? Bullshit. I think Bonnie would be willing to work with the devil himself in order to get her sisters in magic out from under the thumb of Marcel. She would not be taking Klaus’s side in a battle; she would be fighting against Marcel’s rule AND trying to free Davina. Davina may be doing this of her own free will, in theory, but there is a real Flowers in the Attic vibe about her. (If you get the reference, tweet me @MaddieSBH or @SalvatoreBH so that we can be new BFFs.) Has she always been hidden away from the world and knows nothing of freedom or agency? If so, Bonnie would want to help her, too. If you cannot imagine the possibilities of this, and then the different factions it sets up, with the constantly shifting alliances, then you have never been a fan of Regency melodramas and I don’t know you at all. BE GONE FROM MY RECAP! (I kid! Stay!)
There is finally a scene between Nik and Hayley that I imagine set her haters on edge. When you take a step back and try to be rational, they are very similar. Besides, she is willing to call him on his bullshit when so many others aren’t. The little bit of information he imparts to her shows what is really gnawing at Nik; the “M” Marcel is plastering all over his empire is the one used for Mikaelson. Not only did the upstart take over the territory already claimed by Nik, but Marcel also appropriated his mark. Ouch. That’s gotta sting.
So the promos from the coming weeks look outstanding. I think the show has great potential and I will be a weekly viewer. Join me while we wait for Elijah and his hair to re-emerge from the coffin.