‘The Originals’ 1.15 Episode Recap and Review: Le Grand Guignol

Still reeling from its previous episode, The Originals use ‘Le Grand Guignol’ as an anchor in explaining exactly why Klaus (Joseph Morgan) is so torn up over his latest revelation. Rebekah (Claire Holt) and Marcel (Charles M. Davis) had a clean get away from Klaus’s wrath, but they soon realize that the only way to be truly safe from him involves turning back to the French Quarter. Meanwhile, Hayley (Phoebe Tonkin) does some interrogating, while Elijah (Daniel Gillies) does damage control. Flashbacks and familiar faces are a massive theme during this extraordinary episode.

Memory Lane:

Klaus is reminiscing on the past and giving the audience an inside look on the cruelty of Mikael. While Cami (Leah Pipes) tries desperately to convince Klaus that harming Rebekah and Marcel would be dehumanizing, Klaus tells her exactly what happened all those years ago. It’s been six month’s since Rebekah tricked and killed Genevieve after summoning her father. She continues to sneak around with Marcel, to no avail, because Klaus soon announces his knowledge of the affair and surprises everyone by granting his approval. All seems well in New Orleans– wolves, vampires, witches, and humans are blending in utter harmony– but everything is about to change. Mikael has arrived, and he sure makes one hell of an entrance. After eavesdropping on a conversation with Rebekah and Marcel, he decides to have a personal chat with the young vampire. He compels Marcel into giving him some answers regarding Klaus. Afterwards, Mikael sneaks up on Elijah and tries to gain his allegiance. Luckily, Elijah is noble and tries to stop his father from harming Klaus, but ends up with a stake in his chest. Fast forward, Klaus continues to be unaware of Mikael’s arrival right up until he literally has a white oak stake pointed at his heart. Mikael begins to taunt him and promises to erase every memory of him, good or bad, from those throughout New Orleans. By this point, I was already feeling terribly for Klaus and it hadn’t even gotten to the worse part! Instead of watching a play, Mikael created a gory display of Elijah, Marcel, and Klaus’s lady-wolf friend… He even went as far as compelling the audience to laugh hysterically at the display. In the end, Klaus, Elijah, and Rebekah all managed to escape but their home was put up in flames marking the day that Klaus lost all of his humanity. The story was quite poetic in a way, but so tragic! It really adds perspective and begs the question: How did Marcel manage to escape? And how did he (or who helped him) pick up the French Quarter and build it into what it is today?

Interrogations and Negotiations: 

This whole scenario left me flabbergasted. Good on Hayley for trapping Celeste, but how in the world can a powerful witch, channelling the power from the MOST powerful witch, find it difficult to escape a shotgun and a few werewolves! I just don’t understand. Regardless, Hayley asked Celeste to reverse the curse that she placed on her family line all those years ago. Surprisingly, she obliged to Hayley’s request, but that didn’t stop Elijah from busting in and kidnapping Celeste for a bit of questioning. Beforehand, Elijah requested that Monique perform a spell to ensure that Celeste couldn’t body jump any longer, and that she would return to her original form if she decided to sack herself again. Monique believed that Celeste wouldn’t do that, but obeyed Elijah’s request in the hopes of proving him wrong… Spoiler alert: he wasn’t. Celeste assures Elijah that the potion she created will help Hayley, but that no matter what he does, he’ll lose her in the end. But Elijah being the noble man that he is, he decided to give the potion to Hayley despite the consequences to himself. Once the potion is delivered to Hayley, Elijah takes Celeste back to the cemetery where he gets trapped inside until the next moonrise. Sadly, he’s not the only Original in the same scenario!

Hello, Goodbye:

Rebekah and Marcel execute a plan to bring Davina back. They try to kill the remaining resurrected witches. Unfortunately, they only manage to kill one. Once they retrieve Davina’s body, it turns out that Rebekah can’t leave. She begs Marcel to get Davina to safety, whilst he promises to come back for her. As if the circumstances couldn’t get any worse, Klaus becomes trapped in the cemetery as well, and it looks like the Hunger Games are about to start between the Original family. Celeste, seeing as her work in trapping the Originals is done, decides to kill herself in order to body hop. She was obviously very surprised to be back in her own body curtesy of Monique. This was quite possibly the only time I’ve ever liked Monique if I’m honest. Celeste awakens inside the cemetery and pleads to Elijah to spare her life. Too bad Elijah isn’t as forgiving as he used to be. He kills her and that’s that. I actually really liked Celeste, she was a thoroughly enjoyable villain to watch. As we say goodbye to Celeste, we say hello to Davina! Marcel and Rebekah managed to kill the right witch and Davina awakens! I didn’t necessarily notice Davina’s absence too much on the show, but I am happy to have her back.

As always, The Originals does not disappoint! I’ve always enjoyed flashbacks, and getting an inside look on exactly how horrible Mikael really was came as a startling revelation. We saw him on The Vampire Diaries and yeah, he was cruel, but I felt that these flashbacks brought him to a whole new level. This was a fantastic episode, to say the least.

Rating:

A+

What were your thoughts on this episode, FanBolters? How did you feel about Celeste’s death? And are you happy that Davina’s back?