It’s Halloween in New Orleans, and the Strix are throwing a party with special guest Marcel Gerard. Unbeknownst to Elijah, Hayley, and even Marcel, this is not just a party but also an initiation. As Aya explains it, Marcel is not just sought after for his talents. He will be the first to be sired not by Elijah but by Klaus, and he is expected to bridge the gap between sire-lines (if you believe that is their true motive).
Elijah admits that, tragically, he is the one responsible for this gathering of “egomaniacal sociopaths.” They are naively attempting to create an elite brotherhood devoted to the idea of a better world, with the lifespan and means to allow them to change it. Unfortunately (and as usual with Elijah) only his intentions were good. You know which road is paved with good intentions, don’t you, Elijah? Will this fraternity of your own making take your family straight to hell?
Tristan fancies himself quite the Gatsby and makes his grand entrance to publicly extend the invitation to Marcel to join them, but not before letting us in on the catch.
There’s always a catch with these maniacal maniacs.
To prove his worth, Marcel will have to deduce the identity of the thief responsible for stealing his daylight ring. If victorious, he will be accepted as an equal, but if he fails, he will die.
Hayley expresses her concern to Elijah and is overheard by Tristan. How will Marcel survive? Perhaps with a bit of trickery, he suggests. Trickery, you say? We will come back to that later…
Meanwhile, Klaus finds Lucian partying it up at his favorite local haunt and charms him into sharing his seer. Unfortunately, by the time they arrive back at his place Alexis is gone without a trace. They enlist a resistant Freya to help find her, but not before she calls Lucian out on being a creeper. Preach it, sister!
Oh, look, the seer is across town at a certain party that is in full swing. How will they get in uninvited? Klaus has a plan: to play drunk, or be drunk. No matter. He, Lucian, and their pulsing posse arrive at the swanky gathering howling both literally and with laughter.
Using the distraction, Freya slips away to find our stolen seer. It seems her arrival has been expected and her services as “knight in hot-pink armor” are not welcome. Alexis’ visions have become clearer and she believes definitively that Klaus, Lucian, and the rest of his sire-line will burn. Not to leave anyone out, she has a little something for Freya as well. She is a Mikaelson too, after all.
We see Freya being buried alive, supposedly at the hands of the family she has yearned to rejoin for so long. For now, Freya refuses to be concerned. She swiftly takes down the traitorous telepath with some of her non-witchy Mikaelson traits. Good old-fashioned scrappiness.
Cheers! My love for Freya continues to grow.
Klaus and company exit stage left, and time is up for Marcel. The thief? Aya. The fight however, will be with her mentor. After a battle of physical strength, Marcel misteps, and gets a big bite taken out of his neck.
Remember that trickery Tristan mentioend earlier? Surprise! Hayley has bitten Marcel and his blood is now laced with wolf venom. I guess there won’t be a single victor after all. Marcel’s wits win, and Tristan brutally ends his opponent. He has proven his status among them, provided he survives his own wolfy predicament. Luckily, we know just the person to fix that problem.
Back home, the others gather round. Alexis has something to show them. But before they can see their fate, the seer falters. She’s been poisoned and convienently dies before her visions can be shared.
Morning arrives and Hayley and Elijah are having a discussion from across the street. I guess you can do that with vampire hearing. Hayley admits thinking about trying to explain this crazy family to Hope someday. She says she will never ever lie to her, but maybe she’ll start with “Always and Forever.”
If your smile didn’t match Elijah’s, you have no feels.
Freya leaves a note in the only place she knows will be explored by Klaus in the span of a day – on the bourbon bottle – keeping him apprised of her whereabouts (I guess bourbon is the choice drink of vampires in the Pleciverse). He replies with a note of his own reading, “Thanks. – K”. How cute are they? Her relationship with her brothers, especially Klaus, seems to be growing every episode. How could either of them betray her as the seer suggested?
What I’m loving:
Please excuse me while I take a quick time out to download all of this episode’s music. Seriously, fantastic! (Uh, take note Grey’s Anatomy!!!)
Okay, I’m back. Here is a playlist for ya’ll:
What makes me wonder:
Though I keep no secrets when it comes to my choice of mate for Hayley and love opportunities to see her with Elijah, the reasoning behind her need to escort him to the Strix’s mysterious party was WEAK. I understood her purpose in the end – to be the means to foil Marcel’s opponent during their test of worthiness, but first she bursts in on Klaus demanding an explanation of their impending threat (Really Hayley? As Tristan said, you’re the only one who is literally not affected by the outcome of any eradicated sire-lines) and then cites meeting this seer as her reason for playing tag-a-long when we don’t even know yet that the seer will be there. She had already raided Rebekah’s closet and donned a ball gown (in like, 5 minutes, I might add. Oh, yes, let me just put on this old thing…be just a sec. Maybe it’s like that for girls who look like Hayley, but I would have been in the bathroom pulling on Spanx for longer than it took her to be formal-wear-ready) before we even knew Alexis had gone missing. She would have been at Lucian’s. Plothole?
I don’t mean to be picking on Hayley this week, I swear, but when Elijah asks what she thinks of Tristan and she replies that he seems incomplete…are we supposed to believe she is really that perceptive? Camille, yes, absolutely, but Hales? I don’t know. It seemed to be more of a convenient segue to Aurora than anything else. I feel like Hayley is the one character who seems to change depending on who is writing her. They need to get a better grip on her as a character to make her words seem more authentic.
What is coming up:
If you were paying close attention, you would have seen Tristan’s Aurora walk and dance about unnoticed throughout this whole episode. Did you play spot the psycho, too? I guess being under the cover of a masquerade has its benefits. Including poisoning the only person who knows how Klaus’ sire-line will meet their end. Oops. I’m guessing things with Klaus didn’t end on a mutual note of friendship.
Quotable:
Klaus: “Oh, good, it’s my not so loving elder brother and my former one night stand. What a nice normal family gathering!”
Klaus: “All the kings’ horses and all the king’s men couldn’t find one prognosticating witch. Ah, well. Takes one to find one, I always say.”
Freya: “Niklaus, please tell your creepy friend that just because he’s good looking doesn’t mean I won’t turn him inside out and hang what remains from a pole.”
Tristan: “Tell me, as our founder and patriarch, what do you make of our latest candidate?”
Elijah: Well, let me see. Marcel…he’s arrogant, he stubborn, prone to self-aggrandizement. He should fit in perfectly.”
Lucian: “My god, it’s a room full of Elijahs.”
Klaus: “I had that exact same nightmare once.”
Klaus: “You know, I used to find it insulting that I was barred from your special little club, but now I realize I lack the flexibility to become a member. I could never get my head far enough up my own ass.”
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