Marcel voices over that people from all over come to New Orleans to party. Some just want to have fun, while others want something darker and more dangerous. Marcel invites them into his home, the Abattoir (AKA the Compound), and shows them a good time. On this occasion, two tourists, Josh and Tina, arrive for the party and get their hands stamped with the letter M. Marcel continues that at midnight, the party turns into a feeding frenzy, with the tourists on the menu.
Marcel shows Klaus the chaos from a balcony overlooking the party. He keeps his crew happy with occasional buffets like this. The nightwalkers deserve some fun because they work hard to earn a daylight ring. The daywalkers just enjoy a good time. Klaus notices an M matching the hand stamps on the wall of the house. He asks about the tourists, whom Marcel says will be healed later and compelled to forget that they were fed on. The vampires can’t kill too many tourists or word will spread and tourism will drop. Klaus is impressed, but Marcel says he learned everything from him.
Thierry joins them and tells Marcel that six nightwalkers were killed outside a bar by an unknown attacker. Rebekah’s on her way to the Mikaelson Mansion and she has a little blood on her cheek, so this may not be a huge mystery.
She’s there to find Elijah, who hasn’t been answering her calls (it’s hard to use a phone when you’re dead in a coffin). Hayley greets her warily, and Rebekah thinks she’s the maid until she realizes she’s talking to Klaus’ baby mama. Hayley doesn’t know where Elijah is, and she’s not happy that he disappeared after making promises about protecting her. That concerns Rebekah, who says her brother doesn’t break promises. Klaus must have done something “dastardly and Klaus-like.”
Rebekah yells for Klaus, calling him a “narcissistic, back-stabbing wanker.” Klaus guesses she killed the vampires from Marcel’s crew. She justifies it by saying they were rude. She asks if they were friends of Klaus’, then taunts that he doesn’t have any friends. Klaus says he does – Marcel. He can’t wait to see how Marcel chooses to punish Rebekah for killing some of his guys. Rebekah claims not to care about Marcel or his rules. She’d just worried about Elijah. Klaus plays innocent and invites her to search the house for him. She knows the house as well as he does.
1820: Rebekah and Klaus attend a party in the mansion, which then belonged to the governor, who covered up all the Mikaelsons’ activities in exchange for gold. Rebekah voices over that she thinks he threw fancy parties to impress Klaus. She fell for the governor’s son, Emil, while Elijah romanced a woman named Celeste.
Rebekah announces to her brothers that she and Emil are in love. She wants to turn him so they can be together forever. Elijah thinks that might upset the peace they have with the governor. Klaus just doesn’t want to turn every guy Rebekah falls in love with because they would run out of humans to feed on. Emil stands up to Klaus, which is a big mistake. Klaus throws him off a balcony.
Present: Klaus tells Rebekah that Emil wasn’t good enough for her. She replies that Klaus made sure no one was ever good enough for her. Klaus ignores her and heads off to meet up with Marcel again. Rebekah knows the witches’ plans for Marcel, thanks to Elijah, and she doesn’t approve of Klaus and Marcel hanging out casually. Klaus notes that Marcel will probably spill some secrets if they keep drinking together. He wants to find out how Marcel is controlling all the witches so he can take it for himself.
As he leaves, Rebekah orders Hayley to help her search the house and find out what the bad brother did to the good one. She knows of some secret rooms and takes Hayley to one, where they find two coffins. (One is Rebekah’s, and the other must be a spare because it’s not Elijah’s, and Kol and Finn don’t have bodies to put in them anymore.) Rebekah explains how the daggers work and casually says that Klaus likes to keep the coffins around in case he needs to stuff a sibling into one. Since Elijah’s isn’t there, they’ll have to keep looking.
Hayley starts realizing what a dysfunctional family she’s suddenly connected to. She tells Rebekah that the witches hexed her to stay in New Orleans. If she tries to leave, they’ll kill her. Rebekah says Klaus probably has something to put her body in as soon as she gives birth. Rebekah herself plans to leave once she finds Elijah – she’s not running the risk of getting daggered again. She advises Hayley to find a way to break the hex so she can run, too.
Sophie senses someone lurking around Rousseau’s and thinks Marcel’s trying to mess with her because he believes she killed his guys. Rebekah’s actually the lurker, and she just wants to talk. They go to the City of the Dead, where Rebekah instructs Sophie to do a locator spell on Elijah’s dagger. Sophie says she can’t use magic – Marcel will kill her. Rebekah’s like, “Now that you’ve met me, Marcel isn’t the person you need to worry about.” Sophie reveals that she’s been linked to Hayley (Rebekah: “Who?”), so anything that happens to her also happens to Hayley. Rebekah decides to leave Sophie alone, since Elijah cares about Hayley.
She asks how Marcel became so powerful. Sophie says he has a way to tell when someone in the French Quarter uses magic: “The ‘how’ isn’t relevant.” Rebekah asks why the witches don’t just move somewhere else. Sophie explains that they practice ancestral magic. The City of the Dead contains the remains of their ancestors, and the witches need access to them to fuel their power. Plus, running away means abandoning their legacy and family. Rebekah can’t relate, since “family’s overrated.”
She can’t believe she’s back in New Orleans, where she’s only ever known heartache, and looking for Elijah, who wants to protect a baby she doesn’t care about. She repeats what she told Hayley: As soon as she finds him, she’s leaving. She says Elijah was foolish to believe that the baby could be Klaus’ redemption, and Sophie was foolish to believe that Klaus would agree to go against Marcel, since they have history. Sophie knows that Klaus sired Marcel, but Rebekah says it’s more than that. Klaus thought of Marcel as a son.
1820: The Mikaelsons are part of the funeral procession taking Emil’s body to the cemetery. Rebekah tells Sophie that Emil wasn’t the governor’s only son – he also had one with one of his slaves. The boy is being whipped by a man on a horse, and while the rest of the people in the procession ignore this, because it’s normal to them, the Mikaelsons are upset.
Klaus kills the man with the whip and asks the boy his name. He doesn’t have one; his mother didn’t want to name him until he turned ten, in case he died before then. Instead, she died before she could name him. Klaus says the boy is a survivor, and survivors need names. He suggests Marcellus. It’s derived from Mars, the god of war, and means “little warrior.” Klaus extends a hand to the boy and helps him to his feet. Elijah comments to Rebekah that there might still be hope for their brother.
Present: Rebekah tells Sophie that Klaus saw himself in Marcel – they both had abusive fathers who thought of them as beasts. That’s why she thinks the witches’ plan will fail. Sophie’s brought “two long-lost souls” back together, and without Elijah to intervene, they could do anything.
Klaus meets up with Marcel at a pub, where Cami’s studying in a nearby booth. Klaus thinks Marcel likes her. Marcel tells Klaus that the coroner calls him any time a tourist with a hand stamp turns up in the morgue. Sometimes one with vampire blood in their system accidentally dies after a party with Marcel’s crew. Marcel needs to deal with two of them today.
Klaus stops Cami as she’s leaving and asks what she’s studying. When she says abnormal psychology, he asks her to diagnose Marcel. He’s having trouble keeping his mind off a woman he thinks of as “a queen fit for a king.” Klaus thinks he should give up and move on. He wants Cami’s professional opinion. She advises Marcel to be a nice guy, and maybe he’ll get the chance to win over his queen. He jumps to ask her to meet him there that night for a date, and she says she’ll think about it. Klaus can’t decide if he’s lost his touch or Marcel has.
Hayley goes to the Jardin Gris voodoo shop and asks a witch named Katie for crushed aconite flower, AKA wolfsbane. Katie notes that it’s a poison and asks if Hayley plans to kill a wolf. “Just a little one,” Hayley replies. Katie gives it to her and tells her how to use it. She won’t accept payment, since “it’s an ugly town for wolves.” After Hayley leaves, Katie calls someone and offers them a chance to earn points with Marcel by telling him there’s a werewolf in the French Quarter.
Marcel takes Klaus to a parking garage, where Josh and Tina are being kept in a coroner’s van as they enter the last stage of transition. Thierry doesn’t think they would make good additions to the crew, but Marcel just lost six vampires, so he has some vacancies. He tells Josh and Tina that if they drink human blood, they’ll become vampires; if not, they’ll die (again). Then he asks Klaus if he should take the “cute dorky girl” or her “gay best friend.” Klaus leaves the decision up to him.
Marcel holds up a coin and says whichever almost-vamp picks it up gets to live forever. The other will die. He places the coin between them and waits for them to act. Josh shakes his head, not wanting to choose who dies, but Tina grabs the coin. Josh is understandably upset, but she says he would have done the same thing if he weren’t a “little measly” – she doesn’t get to finish her sentence because Marcel snaps her neck. He doesn’t want a crew member who would betray a friend.
While Marcel makes a phone call back in the Quarter, Klaus takes Josh to his car so he can join Marcel’s crew. Rebekah watches Marcel from a balcony.
1820: Klaus coaches Marcel as he fences with Rebekah at the Compound. Marcel declares that he’s going to marry Rebekah someday. She teases that she would never marry someone who can’t beat her in a duel.
1835: Now an adult, Marcel fences with Rebekah again, then starts to kiss her. Klaus isn’t pleased with their closeness.
Present: Marcel finds Rebekah and asks if she’s there to teach him another lesson. They go to the parking garage to chat, and he complains that she fled the city to escape Mikael and never looked back to find out if the presumed-dead Marcel was really dead. She tells him she’s looking for Elijah, but Marcel doesn’t want to get in the middle of another Mikaelson family feud. Good luck with that, man. There are still 90 episodes to go.
1835: Marcel promises Klaus that nothing’s going on between him and Rebekah. He does like Rebekah, and he thinks she likes him, but neither has acted on their feelings. Marcel says he never would. Klaus tells him that Rebekah has been with a number of men, and while they come and go from her life, Klaus is constant. She’s his family. Marcel reminds Klaus that he called Marcel family, too. In fact, Marcel has begged Klaus to turn him. Klaus says he will when Marcel is ready. If he goes near Rebekah, he never will be.
Present: Rebekah can’t believe Marcel is still scared of Klaus after everything he’s achieved. Marcel denies that he’s scared of anyone. She threatens to kill him if she finds out he knows where Elijah is and won’t tell her. Marcel coolly says goodbye.
That night, he meets Klaus at Rousseau’s and blasts him for not mentioning that Rebekah’s in town. Klaus is like, “It’s more fun this way.” He says she’s gotten crazier over the last century. Marcel thinks Rebekah killed his vamps and Klaus is covering for her. Klaus doubts Rebekah would have gone to the biker bar where those vamps were killed, since she’s more interested in high school quarterbacks now.
Marcel gets a call from Thierry, and Klaus eavesdrops as Thierry says someone spotted a werewolf in a park. Marcel deploys some nightwalkers to kill it. Klaus implies that the werewolf is responsible for Marcel’s vampires’ deaths. Marcel again tries to remove himself from Mikaelson family drama, telling Klaus to keep Rebekah in line. “I have a greater chance of draining the Mississippi with a straw,” Klaus replies.
In the park, Hayley mixes some wolfsbane into her drink, but she hesitates to actually drink it. A vampire finds her, IDs her as a werewolf, and announces that she’s coming with him. Hayley tells him she’s done taking orders from vampires. She throws her drink in his face, burning him, and turns to run away. Two more vampires are there, but so is Rebekah, and she brings her death total for this episode up to eight.
They take the bodies (well, two bodies and a guy who’s still alive) to the Mikaelson Mansion, where Klaus complains that Hayley has ruined his plans for the evening. He’s not happy with Rebekah, either, since she her kills are going to leave a trail to the mansion, and Klaus doesn’t want anyone to know he’s there. Rebekah argues that she just saved the day. She doesn’t care about Klaus’ supposed plan – he’s had a bunch of time to put it in motion, and no one’s seen him do anything. Elijah made a deal to protect Klaus’ baby and save Klaus from himself. Klaus obviously doesn’t care about the baby or Elijah because he hasn’t done anything to honor the agreement.
Klaus tells her she’s wrong. Marcel has his crew ingest vervain, which means Klaus isn’t able to compel them. So he created a spy who could give him info from inside the crew. That spy is Josh. As Klaus explains everything to Rebekah, we see flashbacks to Klaus spotting Josh and Tina at a bar, recognizing their hand stamps, and killing them. He knew Marcel needed recruits, so he got to Josh before Marcel could give him vervain and compelled him to do whatever Klaus wants.
But that’s not all. Klaus also met Cami before he encountered her at the pub. In a flashback, he tries to sell her on Marcel, but she’s not interested in a bad boy. Even a damaged guy isn’t good for her. Klaus compels her to give Marcel a chance, then report back to him on Marcel’s activities. So while it looks from the outside like Klaus hasn’t done anything, he’s actually done a lot.
Now Klaus has to come up with a way to deal with the vampires Rebekah attacked while saving Hayley. He asks Hayley why she was in the French Quarter to begin with. She tells him the truth, that she was planning to terminate her pregnancy. He grabs her by the throat, but Rebekah pushes him off. She points out that he keeps saying he doesn’t care about the baby, but now he’s angry that Hayley considered termination. “It’s okay to care,” Rebekah tells him. The family has only ever hoped that he would realize it’s okay to want something good.
Klaus reveals that Marcel has Elijah. Marcel was nervous about having two Mikaelsons in town, so Klaus gave him Elijah as a demonstration of good faith. He promises that he has a plan. He’s going to gain Marcel’s trust, bring his empire down from the inside, and make sure the baby is safe. This is the only way he knows how to execute the plan, and if Rebekah doesn’t like it, she’s free to go.
Later, Hayley thanks Rebekah for protecting her from Klaus. Rebekah says women need to look out for each other. Hayley asks what’s up with her and Klaus’ relationship. Rebekah claims to hate him, but Hayley can see she still loves him. Rebekah says it’s hard to cut yourself off from someone you’ve known for 1,000 years. It would be like losing a part of yourself. Sometimes the hatred overwhelms her, though. Klaus killed so many men she fell in love with that she eventually stopped falling in love. Klaus claimed to be protecting Rebekah from her mistakes, and that no one was ever good enough for her. Then one day, someone was.
1835: Marcel and Rebekah finally make out. He’s willing to take the risk of Klaus finding out. Klaus catches them, but Rebekah begs for Marcel’s life, reminding Klaus that he’s family. Klaus backs down, then daggers Rebekah to teach her a lesson about what she’s allowed to take from him.
Present: Hayley asks why Rebekah doesn’t go get Elijah from Marcel herself. Rebekah reminds her that she’ll end up in a coffin again. Hayley hands over something she found under Rebekah’s coffin: two daggers.
Marcel and Cami meet up for their date, or whatever, but Rebekah bursts in and accuses Marcel of lying to her. “I see you still have a thing for blondes,” she comments about Cami. She demands to know where Elijah is, threatening to kill Marcel if he doesn’t tell her. Remembering the time they made out, Marcel says he knows she won’t hurt him. So Rebekah grabs Cami and threatens to kill her instead. Marcel immediately backs down, then compels Cami to forget all this and go home. He’ll make things up to her later.
Marcel takes Rebekah to Davina’s room, but she can’t enter without Davina’s invitation, which Marcel gets her to extend. Rebekah confirms that Elijah’s there, but when she starts to remove his dagger, Davina uses magic to stop her. Marcel tells her that Rebekah is an Original and can’t be killed. Davina says she doesn’t seem nice. Marcel says she can be, though not tonight and not to him. Davina doesn’t like that, so she magically throws Rebekah out of the room.
1887: Klaus undaggers Rebekah and tells her she was in a coffin for 52 years. Klaus gave Marcel the choice between undaggering her and being with her for the rest of his life or becoming a vampire. Marcel chose the latter.
Present: Rebekah wakes up in her old bedroom at the Compound. Marcel is glad that she and Davina got to meet, because now Rebekah knows what she’s dealing with. The room is his now, as are Davina, New Orleans, and Elijah. Everything the Mikaelsons used to have is now Marcel’s. P.S. She is never to touch Cami again.
At the Mikaelson Mansion, Klaus snoops in Hayley’s things while he thinks she’s sleeping and finds the wolfsbane. She catches him and tells him she didn’t use it. He asks what stopped her, since she would have freed herself from all this chaos – and from him. She says when she fought back against the vampires, she realized she wasn’t just protecting herself. She always felt abandoned by her parents, and she didn’t want to let her own child be hurt. Klaus says they’re more alike than he thought. They’re both rejects who fight when they get cornered. Hayley says they’re cornered right now. “It’s time to fight, little wolf,” he replies.
She asks about Klaus’ deal with the witches to take down someone he used to be close with. What happened between him and Marcel? Klaus says he made Marcel everything he is and treated him like a son. When Mikael chased the Mikaelsons out of New Orleans, they thought Marcel was dead, and they all mourned him. But when Klaus came back, he learned that Marcel had survived. Instead of trying to find the Mikaelsons, Marcel took over everything they built. Now he’s living in their former home and even using their M insignia as his own. Klaus wants everything back, even if it means pushing Marcel out to get it.
Rebekah returns and tells Klaus that Cami is the key to everything. Because Marcel likes her, Rebekah got to see his secret weapon. She’s never felt power like Davina’s; she’s more than just a regular witch. There’s no telling what she could do to Elijah. But that’s not the only problem: Davina has the ability to mess with people’s memories – even Originals’. Rebekah remembers meeting her, but not where.
She yells that Elijah keeps forgiving Klaus for his mistakes, and she wonders when Elijah’s hope for Klaus’ redemption will finally die. Klaus says he did what he had to do. Marcel took their home. Rebekah replies that the home is worthless without family. She vows to do whatever it takes to find Elijah. Klaus agrees to help her.
Marcel returns to Davina’s room, where she’s drawing something dark with charcoal. He apologizes for Rebekah’s behavior and says the Mikaelsons seem to be here to stay. She says they don’t belong in New Orleans. Marcel isn’t sure how to make them leave, so he wants Davina to help him figure out how to kill an Original.
Keep in mind: In Marcel’s gang, you have to earn a daylight ring.
The magic used by the witches in the French Quarter is tied to their ancestors, who provide their power.
Etc.: I assume this episode takes place after Rebekah gets back from her summer traveling with Matt, so does that mean Elijah has been daggered for months? Klaus has really taken this long to get a spy into Marcel’s crew?
I’m going to start calling my apartment the Abattoir, just to spice things up.
Heh, Hayley’s first words to Rebekah are the same as her first words to Elijah in the previous episode: “Who the hell are you?”
As gross as it is when vampires like Stefan and Damon go for teenagers like Elena, I find it even grosser that Rebekah fell for a guy she knew when she was 800-something years old and he was a preteen.
If Klaus doesn’t want anyone to know where he’s living, he probably shouldn’t live in a house people know he used to hang out in.
So Rebekah just believed Klaus when he said Marcel chose vampirism over her? Klaus, the guy who lies about everything?
I can just imagine the conversation Marcel and Davina had when he brought Elijah over to stash in her room:
Marcel: “Hey, I need to keep this in your room. Don’t worry about it.”
Davina: “That’s a dead man.”
Marcel: “Yep.”
Davina: “You want to keep a dead man in my room.”
Marcel: “Sure do.”
Davina: “I don’t want to know. Fine.”
Marcel: “…You have to invite him in.”
Davina: “I have to invite the dead man into my room?”
Marcel: “Just trust me on this.”
Davina. “Okay. You can come in, dead man.”
An Eternity of Misery 