Episode Report Card Tippi Blevins: B | 32 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT Take Me Back to New Orleans
By Tippi Blevins | Season 1 | Episode 15 | Aired on 03.04.2014
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Elijah removes Papa Tunde's dagger from Klaus's heart, then leaves Cami to babysit his ailing brother while he sets off to deal with his own subplot. While Cami feeds Klaus tiny sips of her blood, he regales her with flashbacks to explain why he's set on finding Rebekah. Back in 1919, he had finally given Rebekah and Marcel his blessing to be together, unaware that they had summoned his murderous jerk of a father to destroy him. It took Mikael six months to finally make his entrance in New Orleans, but he did so with devilish flair. He compelled an entire opera house to cheer the torture and murder of all Klaus's friends and associates, then burned the place to the ground with all of them inside. Klaus, Rebekah and Elijah made their escape, but now Klaus knows the truth about what really happened. This time, he's not just going to dagger his baby sister, but kill her with a white oak stake he just happens to have lying around.
Meanwhile, Marcel and Rebekah get about a minute out of town before heading right back. They realize they need a cloaking spell to hide from Klaus, and for this they'll need a witch. They decide to fetch Davina's body, kill the witches who rose in her place at the Reaping, hope that she comes back to life, and then ask her to do the spell for them. It's super complicated and takes a really long time, even with Thierry helping them to track down and kill a few of the witches. In the end, Rebekah ends up trapped in Lafayette Cemetery thanks to a boundary spell, but Marcel makes it out with the teen witch's corpse.
Back in the bayou, Hayley is forcing the captive Celeste to make some wheat grass smoothies that will reverse the reverse-werewolf spell on her family. Celeste is actually happy to do this, because she figures that reuniting Hayley with her wolf kin will drive her away from Elijah. It's just a little extra "stickin' it to the ex" for the way he sides with his brother all the time. Elijah gets mad enough at her to vamp out and bite her, which I think is a new thing, at least for us to witness.
Now, before all this, Elijah talked to the recently risen Monique. He told her that Celeste was only out for herself, and not "keeping the faith" for the witches like she had professed. Monique is doubtful, but works a little spell so that Celeste can't just hop into a fresh, young body the next time she kills herself. Predictably, Celeste tries to move on to her next life as she has in the past, but winds up trapped in her original body. Elijah kills her, and at that precise moment, somewhere across town, Davina comes back to life. Hurray!
The episode ends with Klaus catching up to Rebekah in the cemetery. Elijah stands between them, protecting his sister, and a three-way vampire standoff acts as our cliffhanger for the week. Stay tuned for the full weecap.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!We begin in 1919, in the jazz club that the locals like to visit to drink elicit booze and mingle with the supernatural elite. Elijah and Klaus drink with a woman we haven't met before. She raises her glass for a toast: "To your docks, their booze, and our theaters to hide it under!" Klaus flirts with her, saying, "I shall have to think of a way to thank you personally, in a manner befitting a werewolf queen." Werewolves have queens? Or is he just talking fancy? The Mikaelson brothers are aglow about all their hard work – especially Klaus's – finally paying off. Somehow, Klaus seems to have lost the ability to unify the masses sometime in the last 95 years.
In the present day, Cami arrives at the compound at Elijah's request. Her uncle is off somewhere losing his mind, but Elijah needs her help on a more pressing (to him) matter. He explains that he stabbed Klaus with Papa Tunde's knife. While she watches in horror, Elijah cuts into Klaus's abdomen and pulls out the knife. "Why am I here?" she asks. "Because of the people that could be here, you're probably the only one he wouldn't immediately slaughter," Elijah says. That's... reassuring. Klaus is mostly unconscious through this, but writhes and groans in agony. Elijah asks her to feed him – but slowly – and with bits of her own vervain-laced blood so that he doesn't drink too greedily. "Perhaps you could use the time to persuade him not to murder his baby sister," Elijah suggests. With that, Elijah sets off to find Celeste, even though he calls her by her host body's name.
Eve's Bayou. Celeste wakes up tied to a tree with both Eve and Hayley aiming shotguns at her. Several wolves stand guard around the clearing. They don't plan to kill her, seeing as how she'll just jump into a new body, but they'll make things painful if she tries any witchy business. They want her to undo the curse she put on Hay-Hay's family back when she inhabited Brynne Deveraux.
Compound. Cami rolls up her sleeve and holds her wrist out to Klaus. "Things I never thought I'd be doing: feeding a vampire! My 16-year-old self would think I'm really cool right now." He takes a drink, barely reacting to the sting of the vervain. They eventually get around to discussing Rebekah. "She's your sister; how can you hate her?" Cami asks. He says, "Because she has done to me what no one else has managed to do for a thousand years: rip my heart out."
This brings us back to 1919 at the jazz club. Klaus makes note of Rebekah and Marcel pretending not to be a couple. He stands up to make a toast. Elijah is sure that he's going to do something to shame their sister. "I'd like to take this opportunity to draw attention to two people who have been sneaking around my back together! As we move into a new era, we require a more progressive attitude to match. So, to my loving sister, and my right-hand man and best friend Marcel: may they find joy in each other." Rebekah looks terrified, waiting for the punch line and/or dagger to the heart. But then Klaus pulls her aside for a private chat, saying he's only been protecting her all those times he killed her lovers. He didn't want her heart to get broken. He seems sincere in telling her he only wants her to be happy. Frankly, I wondered if he was painting himself as a good guy for Cami, but the POV shifts in the flashbacks would seem to indicate the narrator is an omniscient -- and therefore objective -- one.