Please note that this article is The Originals recap for Season 1 Episode 15, which was written by Declan de Barra and Diane Ademu-John and directed by Chris Grismer. The post contains spoilers and specific scene descriptions. Do not read any further until you have watched “Le Grand Guignol“, which originally aired March 4, 2014 on The CW.
Photo: Quantrell Colbert/The CW
There curtains open up to a party scene set in 1919: a swing band is performing, people are jitterbugging, and the alcohol flows free. “Well, this is a first,” Klaus (Joseph Morgan) muses. “Werewolves, vampires, witches, and dirty cops. All happy as clams and drunk as stoats.”
“You gotta love this city,” says Lana, the fetching flapper standing beside him at the bar. Elijah (Daniel Gillies) pours up some shots for his lovely guest and his brother and toasts to good health, mirth, and prosperity. “To a new era,” he announces, raising his glass. “Collaboration in the face of prohibition.”
“To your docks, their booze, and our theaters to hide it under. You’re welcome, boys,” their beautiful friend responds, and then all clink their drinks together and gulp down their booze. Klaus, overtaken by the lady’s sexy, dangerous vibe, leans in and whispers, “I shall have to think of a way to thank you personally, in a manner befitting a werewolf queen.” She smirks and sashays away like the Beyonce of the Roaring Twenties. Elijah hugs his brother and they marvel over the unification of New Orleans. “We did it, brother,” Klaus rejoices. What a glorious night!
Back in the present, a teary-eyed Elijah watches as Klaus — who has Papa Tunde’s magical bone knife embedded in his body — tosses and turns in pain.
Bless the mother who birthed such strapping lads!
Camille (Leah Pipes) appears at Marcel’s (Charles Michael Davis) compound and she looks slightly panicked. Elijah hurries outside to greet her and hands her a drink (such quality service!), and she starts to hound him about a potential cure for her Uncle Kieran, who is unfortunately still suffering the side effects of Bastianna’s (Shanna Eubanks) hex. Elijah, however, has other plans for her and assures her he’s not in the business of playing games. The mother of his brother’s child is missing and Klaus is incapacitated. Cami demands to know who stabbed Klaus, and Elijah casually responds that it was he who tamed the beast. He then rolls up his sleeve and plunges his hand into Klaus’s torso, searching for Papa Tunde’s torture device like he’s digging around for the last treat in a cookie jar. He manages to find it and then, to Cami’s horror, tells her the reason he invited her there today was so that she could keep Klaus from murdering their little sister Rebekah and feed him from her wrist every few hours so that he can regain his strength. Apparently Klaus respects her enough not to tear her head off — and her blood is now laced with vervain thanks to the drink Elijah handed her earlier, which means Klaus will ingest it slower. “Don’t you guys have bags of blood in storage?” Cami quivers, but it is to no avail. Klaus witnesses the entire exchange and threatens to make Elijah pay.
Down by the bayou, Hayley Marshall (Phoebe Tonkin) is enjoying a little payback of her own. She and her fellow were-homie Eve (Tasha Ames) have Sabine (Shannon Kane) all tied up with a rifle aimed right at her heart. and are interrogating her. “Careful, Sabine or Celeste or whatever the hell you’re calling yourself. Sudden moves make me jumpy these days. And homicidal,” Hayley remarks as she shoots out a warning shot. She promises to really make it hurt if Sabine doesn’t cooperate and the witch bitch, who spies Jackson and Oliver wolves looking on, sighs and agrees not to hex anyone. Hayley then asks Sabine about Brynne Deveraux, the name of the witch who supposedly put a hex on the Crescent werewolves so that they’d only turn human on the full moon. She knows Celeste had taken control of the poor girl’s body at the time. Sabine stares at her all, ‘Yea, boo. What about it?’ “I want you to undo it,” Hayley utters. BAM!
Back at the compound, Cami spends her afternoon feeding — and probably burping — Klaus. Luckily, there are no adult diapers involved. “Wow, things I never thought I would be doing,” she utters, while rolling her eyes. “Feeding a vampire. My 16-year-old self would think I’m really cool right now.” Klaus ignores her and weakly utters, “The line between what brings you pain and what sustains you in far thinner than one imagines.” He then springs into retelling his tale of woe, namely how his sister ripped out his heart by bringing their father Mikael (Sebastian Roche) to town. Cami points out that he shouldn’t allow revenge to consume him, but it’s too late for that.
Hayley took all the hair her relatives shed and trimmed her coat with it. #resourceful
We then flashback to 1919. Klaus watches as Marcel and Rebekah flirt coyly with one another and he knows something’s up. He walks to the front of the speakeasy and Rebekah (Claire Holt) looks on in horror, assuming Klaus is angry. However, he gives them his blessing and wishes them lots of joy and adventures. He just wants his sister to be happy and the only reason he’s ever thwarted her relationships is because he wanted to protect her from a broken heart. It’s okay now though — they have a permanent home so she can feel free to shag whomever she so desires! She flashes him an uneasy smile and crosses her fingers, desperately hoping the spell to bring Mikael to town failed. (Sadly magic doesn’t work like that.) Then, when she and Marcel are smooching in private, she points out that maybe Lady Luck is really on their side after all because six months have passed and there’s been no sign of her murderous father. (Um, hon, you might wanna look up, because Papa Bear is catching the whole show.)
Back in present time, Klaus informs Cami that he foolishly allowed his love for his sister create a blind spot for betrayal. He let his guard down, plain and simple, and Cami nod her head. She knows now is not the time for a psychoanalysis.
I've been a very bad girl.
Elsewhere in New Orleans, Marcel and Rebekah reach the terrifying conclusion that when Klaus has a vendetta against you, no place on this Earth is safe. Just ask Katherine Freaking Pierce! Girlfriend was on the lam for over 500 years because Klaus was gunning for her pretty little neck. Marcel, however, believes anything is possible if you just try your hardest. He suggests that they resurrect Davina (Danielle Campbell) and have her cast a cloaking spell for them. (Is this the same as the Fidelius Charm from Harry Potter? Because let’s be real:L Elijah would make the best secret keeper ever.) There’s just one catch with this whole scheme — they have to take down the three witch leaders who started this whole mess in the first place: Bastianna, Genevieve (Elyse Levesque), and Celeste. Marcel makes an abrupt U-turn (and miraculously avoids a ticket) and heads back to New Orleans. He thinks his plan is amazing one but little does he know Klaus is in search of a powerful witch himself.
Great minds think alike, friends. As it turns out, Elijah is on the prowl for a witch as well, just like his siblings. However, he’s not looking for just any witch — he wants to enlist the services of the young and impressionable Monique Deveraux (Yasmine Al Bustami). He manages to find her (and without a locator spell to boot – bravo!) and asks for help in tracking down Celeste because he wrongfully assumes that his ex-boo abducted his were-crush. Monique remains hesitant about aligning herself with a vampire but he points out that Celeste will jump bodies and kill innocent people, just like she always does. And just like he did with Davina, Elijah forks over a page from his mother Esther’s grimoire and gives the magical lass a lesson in how Celeste has managed to survive all these years. Monique looks at him as though to say, ‘Go on. Tell me more.’
How do you keep your suit so clean, sir?
In attempt to set some dangerous events into motion, Rebekah and Marcel need a spy so they turn to their good ole pal Thierry Vanchure (Callard Harris). They beg for his help in massacring all those bat-shit crazy witches and naturally he’s not on board at first. Thierry thinks this plan is very flawed and he just so happens to like his his limbs intact, thank you very much. “Not many go against those odds and live to talk about it,” he explains. Marcel, however, stares him right in the eye and states, “I’m standing here right now, aren’t I? And I’ve come up against the worst of them all.” (He overcame childhood slavery. Nothing can ever rival that tale of triumph — not even fighting the most powerful supernatural hell-beast.) We once again flashback to 1919 and we watch as Mikael approaches Marcel and tells him his lady love is a great beauty. “Men search the world over for a woman like her,” he remarks with a hint of nostalgia. (Color us creeped out but what an awkward comment for a father to make.) “She’s taken, friend,” Marcel says quite territorially. Mikael raises his hands as though to suggest he means him no harm (yet) and that the girl reminds him of his dearly departed wife. Marcel pours him a drink and Mikael accepts it with a smile — then and promptly thanks him for the personal invitation to New Orleans. Suddenly, Marcel’s face clouds over and he realizes that he’s actually conversing with the man, the legend, the one and only Mikael, patriarch of The Originals. He rises to leave but Mikael compels him to sit his ass back down and then starts prattling on about how he’s basically the man who inspired Miley’s hit track, “Wrecking Ball.” “As I said, New Orleans does have its charms. But to call me,” he coldly utters. “The one they call the Destroyer. The one who’s burnt cities far more charming than this one to the ground in pursuit of my children. But now I see. You did it for love. The love of my daughter.” Marcel freaks out and begs him not to hurt his sweet Rebekah, and Mikael agrees but only on condition: that he show him the way to Klaus and Elijah. He then adds in that, unlike most dads who cherish all their children equally, he has a favorite and it just so happens to be Lady Bex. (Yikes.! Don’t tell Klaus that…)
Meanwhile, back in present time Klaus is still hungry and surprisingly reluctant about sucking Cami to the brink of death. He tells that he’ll just go fetch some blood from the kitchen, but she shushes him. “You won’t make it that far,” she points out. “Now be a good boy and get back into bed.” Naturally, because you can’t toss an order like that in Klaus’s way and not expect a cheeky comment in return, he replies, “I beg to differ. Some women actually find me quite charming.” Hear hear, good sir!
The Original Ladies' Man.
Suddenly we’re hurtling back in time and wake up in bed with Klaus and Lana doing naughty things to each other. Elijah opens the door and strolls on in before coming to a halt. Klaus having sex? He rubs his eyes together just to be sure that his brother is actually having fun for a change. “Sleeping with the enemy, I see,” he jokes and everyone’s like, ‘Sir, it’s called knocking,’ but he strolls on in, pours himself a drink, and acts as though no one is naked under those sheets. Lana laughs and, because she knows she’s in the presence of two fancy men, brandishes tickets to the opera for “Les Huguenots.” (A story about forbidden love in which a father murders his own child and a beautiful wedding day turns into what became the exact premise of Kill Bill? In the words of Alanis Morissette, “Oh, isn’t it ironic?”) Lana promises to introduce Elijah to the soprano (as long as he doesn’t eat her) and Klaus chimes in and tells him to invite Rebekah and Marcel along. It shall be a triple date!
Elsewhere in New Orleans (we’re in present time FYI), Celeste mixes up a potion that she claims will destroy the curse placed upon Hayley’s relatives. Just then, Elijah swooshes in out of nowhere and points fingers at Celeste, calling her a liar, but Hayley can’t see the bigger picture — you can’t hold a powerful spell caster like her hostage for a month without something going awry. Hayley is freaking pregnant and doesn’t have time for this nonsense. She tells Elijah that when the cure pans out, the witch is all his; for now though, she needs her alive in the event the potion doesn’t work. “Move, bitch! Get out the way! Get out the way!” she raps (well, in our fan fiction at least) and growls that she has an army to back her up. The wolves around her howl to show their loyalty, but Elijah doesn’t obey her command. He snatches up Celeste and the “potion,” and vamp speeds through the woods. Meanwhile, poor Eve’s all ‘Uh, guys. Did that just happen?’
Once he has her far away from the wolf pack, Elijah slams Celeste against a nearby tree and she smirks, probably thinking they’re going to be like Klaus and Caroline and have hot and intense woodland sex. However, Elijah is not in the market for dry humping villainous vixens. He just wants to know if the cure is actually a damn poison and if Hayley’s wolf buds are going to need to swallow a bezoar if they consume this deadly concoction. Celeste assures him that she’s not lying, but if he does elect to smash the jar, she will ultimately get her revenge because Hayley won’t ever be able to forgive him.
Help. I'm falling and I can't get up!
You know who else is in an uncomfortable position? Thierry. Not only does he look like he’s about to spring into a festive rendition of “Seize the Day” with his fancy newsboy cap, but he also meets in private with Genevieve and Bastianna. He barely sits down and works them over with his boyish charm than they begin to chant gibberish. Almost immediately, Thierry collapses onto the ground and Rebekah and Marcel use this momentary diversion to zoom on in and decapitate the matriarch mid-sentence. Genevieve, however, conjures up some potent magic and threatens to turn them into ash if they so much as touch a strand of her red head. She sets Rebekah’s hand on fire and then Marcel’s arms and vanishes. Rebekah suggests that they leave before they die a bloody death but Marcel ain’t leaving without his Davina, that’s for damn sure!
As this is happening, Klaus continues to regale Cami with stories from his tragic past. He pours out some scotch as a form of self-medication and informs her that he doesn’t hate Elijah quite as feverishly as he does Rebekah, but his brother still sucks for trying to kill him. Apparently on the night of the opera, Mikael surprises Elijah, who’s dressed to impress in a fine tux, with a sneak attack and forces him to take his side in this supernatural battle of family versus family. Papa M actually tries the argument that Klaus is a bastard because their mother made passionate love to a werewolf back in the day, and Elijah stares at him semi-disgusted, semi-stunned. You can tell the idea that Klaus is only his half-brother doesn’t bother him but Mikael won’t stand for such treachery. “It is your bastard brother I have hunted, not you. Never you. You are my blood. One I have been proud to call son. So I came here to give you the chance to help me put down the whelp for good,” he spits with sheer rage. He continues, “Niklaus is an abomination. You do not talk to abominations, you do not reason with them or try to change them. You erase them. So, yes, I am asking you to help me kill your brother.”
Elijah looks utterly wounded because Klaus is his kin and they’ve been through thick and thin together. He tries to fight his father but loses when his pops debilitates him and promptly recites the rules of their own personal Fight Club. “Niklaus is an abomination. You do not talk to abominations, you do not reason with them or try to change them. You erase them. So, yes, I am asking you to help me kill your brother.”
Is that a white oak stake in your hands or are you just happy to see me?
However, as Klaus points out to Cami, Mikael was, at the time, in possession of white oak stakes that would have kill his children, including Elijah, for good. (#NotQuiteImmortalAfterAll.) Then, in the middle of his story, Klaus receives a text (from Gossip Girl, perhaps?) that Bonnie and Clyde aka his sister and her lover have been spotted and he wastes no time in smashing a nearby head bust of Alexander the Great and yanking out a white oak stake. (Props for the hiding spot. So much better than a soap dish, ahem ahem.) He tells Cami that this is his own very special stake (he secretly calls it Mr. Pointy…obviously) and this version cannot be destroyed. He then turns and races out of the room. *mic drop*
Cami, worried that Klaus is too weak to take on his powerful siblings, chases after him and orders him to eat something. Klaus is already on it — he’s licking up a local civilian like his blood is made out of lollies and pleasant dreams. He orders her to get lost but Cami actually understands him better than he understands his own self and tells him she finally saw good in him, and speaking as a person who has lost a sibling, the loss is incomparable to anything else in the world. (Um, he knows, girl. He’s lost three brothers already. Relax.) Still, she really gets to him when she points out that if he chases down Rebekah he is no better than Mikael. “When Davina showed me all you’d done to me, all you took from me — I wanted to kill you. I actually thought about burying that blade in you like the witches asked me to!” she cries. She reveals that she weighed the good in him versus every horrible thing he’s done, and no matter what, in the end, she didn’t want to live with all the terrible regret. Cami then shows her vulnerability by informing him she lost a sibling and knows how heartbreaking the loss is. She tells him if he chases down Rebekah then he’s no better than his father. Klaus laughs at that statement. Incredulous! “I’ve been called every shade of monster there is — but my father? That’s new. Mikael was the monster that monsters were afraid of.”
Poor Marcel.
Down at the bayou, Elijah returns with Celeste to the wolf camp and he faces Hayley. She seems miffed, but it’s nothing a little shirtless action wouldn’t fix. Elijah hands her the jar with the potion and tells her believes in its curing powers…as well as in fairies and ghosts and world peace. Just not leprechauns. Never leprechauns. Hayley is elated because she’ll finally get to spend more time with her family (and, yes, her would-be husband Jackson) in human form. She and Elijah hug and he plants the most chaste kiss on her forehand, and says, “I wonder if they have any idea how lucky they are to have you.”
Celeste observes this touching moment with slight jealousy because her ex just went to third base with a pregnant chick and it’s totally unfair! So, she makes a wisecrack about Elijah’s convent-style affection. He calls her cruel and she replies, “Oh, this game never ends, Elijah. We’re both immortal.” Don’t worry, he has a rebuttal ready: “Then what’s the point if you can’t win?” She doesn’t argue, but chooses to instead blurt, ‘Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah’ in his handsome face. She reveals that Rebekah is still in New Orleans and she and Marcel are trying to bring Davina back. Klaus already figured out their plot and the Mikaelson family is well on their way to complete ruin. Elijah grabs her throat and plunges his teeth in her.
Sexy time with Elijah.
Klaus takes Cami for a whirl around town and quizzes her on local history. She’s like, ‘Dude. I’m a psych student. No.’ Klaus seizes the teaching opportunity and tells her all about the night the infamous local opera house burned to the ground. Suddenly, we flashback to 1919 and Klaus and Rebekah at in a balcony overlooking the stage. Klaus is perturbed because this is his sister’s first public date with his former protege and homeboy is late. Rude much? Klaus tells her Marcel might be bored now that their affair is no longer illicit and might have run off with a Havana show girl. A worried Rebekah orders Klaus to stop being such a “toe-rag” and dashes off to the lobby to check on him. Just as she does, Mikael enters the box and thinks it’s a jolly swell idea to reenact the Abraham Lincoln assassination with the boy he raised as his son. Even before he orders Klaus not to make a move or else he’ll stake him, Klaus senses something is amiss and his blood runs cold. When Klaus addresses him as his father, Mikael scoffs, “Father? Still clinging to that word after all these years. A bastard desperate for a daddy. I wonder if your real father would be as embarrassed of you as I was even before I discovered you were not mine? Most likely.” The pained expression on Klaus’ face is too much to bear.
Welcome to a little opera I like to call The Maury Show, boy.
While choking back tears, Klaus informs his father that he no longer is begging for scraps of love from him. He has the respect of an entire town and his achievements are commendable — he’s a hero, damn it! Mikael practically laughs in his face and hisses in his ear: “As I walked the streets, your name was spoken of in reverent tones by the city’s finest. After I kill you, I will remain in New Orleans until every last person that remembers you is dead. I will expunge you from history. The deeds of the mighty Klaus will be remembered by no one. And you, Boy, will simply never have existed.” That’s a tough pill for Klaus, for even Achilles chose kleos over a long life of anonymity.
Luckily the show is about to begin and the opera stage curtains draw open slowly. Mikael chuckles and points out he’s taken the liberty of making some edits. Suddenly, we see Klaus’ beloved werewolf queen Lana dead along with all of his Prohibition allies. Their heads are arranged on pikes in some of creepy marionette fashion and Marcel remains crucified to a wagon wheel. The audience hoots and hollers at the tortured vamps — but mostly because Mikael, who doesn’t appreciate the critic community, compelled them to like his sadistic version as though it’s the drollest of comedies.
Klaus panics and tries to free Marcel but Mikael picks a fight with him. Rebekah then swoops in to lend a hand and Mikael stakes her. Thankfully, Elijah is able to come to the their aid and the two brothers fight their father when he injures poor Rebekah, using shards of a cello. Unfortunately for Marcel, after Mikael tears into his throat, they peg him for dead and leave the poor guy burning along with the theater. (Little do they know, Marcel is still alive and that Mikael staged the whole murder to get rid of his kids, before handing Klaus’ pal the keys to the New Orleans.) In present time, Klaus confesses to Cami that what his dad tried to pull at the the opera robbed him of his last shred of humanity. He assures Cami that he will make Marcel and Rebekah’s deaths painful and he won’t humanize/dehumanize them. Right after this impromptu speech about glory, he speeds over the local necropolis.
Elijah arrives to the City of the Dead cemetery and is shocked to find Rebekah and Marcel still lounging about. He tells them to scram and Marcel scoops up Davina’s body and bolts out of there at Rebekah’s request. Elijah drops a freshly bitten Celeste against a headstone. She points out she would have come along even with all the compelling (but mostly because she likes looking at Elijah in suits) and gets extra feisty when she reveals that she can jump into any body that she wants, and he’ll never know if a woman he’s attracted to is actually her. Elijah has a clever retort but it’s obstructed by Celeste being able to leave the graveyard, but Elijah isn’t.
No one laughs at Elijah. No one.
“Boundary spells” she utters, a luscious smirk spreading across her face. She mentions how the spell is based on a lunar cycle and how he will be released during the next moon, and slinks her way down a dark tunnel. After harassing Elijah about his future romantic predicaments, she starts laughing because she’s past the boundary line and he can’t get at her. (What she doesn’t know is that he plotted with Mikael for control of the city. Ahh!) Hilariously (at least for her), Rebekah can’t leave either. Sabine picks up a shard of glass and stabs her neck with it. Hasta luego, sucker!
Unfortunately for her, Monique overhears the entire conversation and realizes Elijah was right about Celeste. She points Elijah towards a bunch of bones she arranged ever so carefully inside a crypt. Elijah walks in there and he finds he ex-lover waking up. He reveals that she failed the test he and Monique set up for her, and even though she begs for mercy, Elijah doesn’t relent. He stabs her in the gut much to her horror. BAMF ALERT.
You messed with the wrong gent, girlfriend.
Celeste is dead. Does this mean Davina is alive? Yes! Hallelujah! We’re in tears! The poor girl wakes up in an extreme panic, gasping for air, and Marcel is there by her side to console her and watch over her like a guardian angel without wings. Sadly, the sweet reunion is marred by Klaus storming the cemetery and bellowing Rebekah’s name. As this is all happening, we get glimpses from 1919 that mirror this situation — only back then it was Mikael screaming for his children to come out come out wherever they were and Elijah fending for both Klaus and Rebekah. As Klaus demands that Rebekah present herself, Elijah appears before his brother and tries to talk sense into him. It fails miserably — so Klaus tells Elijah to stand aside because he has some unfinished business with his back-stabbing sister. NO WAY. The three Mikaelsons fang out: it’s family wartime, biotches! (Preview next week’s promo here!)
Is this hell?
What a crazy night! What was your favorite moment from The Originals Season 1 Episode 15: “Le Grand Guignol”? Did Mikael anger you as much as he did us? Were you excited to see Davina Claire back on the show? Hit the comments and let us know!
The post The Originals Season 1 Episode 15 Recap: Elijah Kills the Real Celeste, Davina Returns appeared first on The Vampire Diaries.