Rebekah wakes up in the Fleur-de-Lis Sanatorium, which she remembers when it was once full of patients. It’s abandoned now, and she’s alone. She goes back and forth between the present and the past, imagining that she’s surrounded by people who…well, I’m no doctor, but I don’t think they’re going to make it much longer. She goes looking for an exit, wondering how she got there. She makes it outside, but before she can go down the front steps, someone stakes her through the back. It’s Genevieve, and she wants to take a walk down memory lane before Rebekah leaves.
Inside, Celeste has Klaus on a table. His chest is red where the Tunde blade entered him. In the City of the Dead, Elijah crashes Sophie’s funeral to ask Monique where Klaus and Rebekah are. He had no idea that Sophie had died. Monique says that she was “a casualty of war.” She gives him a message from Celeste – well, not so much a message as a bunch of names burned onto his skin. “To find what you’re looking for, follow the path she left behind,” Monique tells him.
Genevieve mixes up something for Rebekah at the sanatorium, adding her own blood to it. She pulls out the stake she stuck in Rebekah and lets her blood drip into the mixture as well. Rebekah’s weak from werewolf venom – thanks, Oliver! – so she can’t fight back. Genevieve has experience comforting the sick, though, so she’s prepared to take care of Rebekah. She always helps her friends, and she thinks she and Rebekah were friends once.
1919: Rebekah and Genevieve are both volunteers in the sanatorium, which is full of patients sick with the Spanish Flu. Rebekah realizes that Genevieve is a witch and asks for some guidance in tending to the sick. Genevieve thinks it’s a little strange for a vampire to be doing something kind. Rebekah says it’s her duty as an Original to help people in her city. Plus, if they all die, there goes her main source of food. Rebekah invites Genevieve to join her at a jazz club that night, but Genevieve is uncertain about befriending a vampire. She glances at another volunteer, whom Rebekah invites as well.
Present: Elijah meets up with Marcel, who has everyone in the crew out looking for Klaus and Rebekah. He’s even enlisted some cops and other humans to search. Elijah tells Marcel to get him a pen and paper. Marcel says he wants Klaus and Rebekah back just as much as Elijah does. Elijah summons Hayley, who comes in just as he’s taking off his shirt. HELLO. He asks her to write down the names Monique put all over his upper body. She sees Sabine’s name on his arm, and Elijah says he thinks the names are all people Celeste has inhabited since her death.
Marcel IDs this as a devinette, a riddle witches use to teach their kids. Once they’ve solved it, the names will disappear. Elijah thinks Celeste is mocking his decision to stay loyal to Rebekah and Klaus over her. The longer the game takes, the longer his brother and sister will suffer. Marcel sees the name Annie LaFleur next to Sabine’s; she’s a witch who was shunned by her coven about a year ago. He offers to find out why.
Genevieve checks on Klaus, who’s unconscious. She cuts open his chest, which wakes him up, and pulls out the Tunde blade. Meanwhile, Marcel and Elijah talk to someone from Annie’s family, who tells them that she killed herself after she was shunned by her coven. Elijah calls Hayley to give her the news. He thinks Celeste was tired of Annie’s body and was ready to move on to Sabine’s. It can’t be a coincidence that Annie killed herself in the same place Elijah and Celeste first kissed. Elijah’s upset that Celeste destroyed and took people’s lives just so she could get revenge on him.
Hayley tells him to ask Marcel about another name, Brynne Deveraux. Celeste told Hayley that she’s the one who put the curse on the Crescent wolves and was the only person who could break it. Maybe Brynne was actually possessed by Celeste when she did the spell, which means Celeste can undo it. Hayley feels bad that Elijah saved her from the fire but put Klaus and Rebekah in danger. Elijah says there was no choice to make – he couldn’t let her or the baby die.
Genevieve fixes up Klaus’ wound, which isn’t healing. The dark magic in the blade slows it down. Klaus wonders why Genevieve is being kind to him when she’s one of the witches who came back from the dead for revenge. She says he never did anything bad to her. Seeing him in a weak state makes her pity him. Klaus invites her to betray the other witches and team up with him. Genevieve laughs and says she should be flattered.
She wants to talk about Rebekah, ignoring Klaus when he tries to be protective. She knows Rebekah wouldn’t do the same for him. Genevieve knows all about what a traitor Rebekah can be. It’s something Genevieve and Klaus have in common. She gives him the mixture she made, promising that she’s trying to help him. She wants him to see the truth he hasn’t figured out over the past 100 years.
Klaus drinks the mixture but isn’t a fan. Genevieve tells him it probably contains werewolf venom from the bites Rebekah received. That’s how Genevieve is going to show Klaus what he needs to know. Since Rebekah’s weak (though she’s trying to make a break for it again), Genevieve will be able to steer her through memories she wants Klaus to see. She’s going to show Klaus his sister’s betrayal.
As she runs through the sanatorium, Rebekah starts hallucinating, first seeing Klaus, then people from 1919.
1919: Marcel comes by the sanatorium to make out with Rebekah. He asks if she’s talked to Genevieve about doing their spell. Rebekah says the timing hasn’t been right yet, but Marcel is impatient. They need a witch, not a friend. After this spell, they can finally be together. Amazingly, Rebekah feels bad (!) about using someone so nice for something so horrible. Marcel suggests that they find another witch. Or they can call the whole thing off if Rebekah’s changed her mind. She declares that she wants to be with Marcel, and if this is the only way to accomplish that, then so be it. Genevieve catches them making out, and Rebekah chases after her as she leaves the room.
Present: Genevieve fades as Rebekah comes out of the memory. She softly says that she’s sorry.
Klaus isn’t impressed with Genevieve’s creative little movie screening – who cares if Marcel and Rebekah were sneaking around behind his back 100 years ago? Genevieve knows he warned them many times not to get together and punished them when they did. She asks if he’s ever read the Old Testament. “God wasn’t powerful because He was right – He was right because He was powerful,” she says. Genevieve, please don’t put ideas in Klaus’ head by comparing him to God. He thinks she’s wasting her time if this is how she plans to turn him against Rebekah. She tells him he doesn’t know all the ways his sister has betrayed him over the years.
Marcel and Elijah take a guy who works at City Hall to the Pit for an interrogation. They know the now-dead mayor kept records of supernatural deaths in the community, and they want access. The guy says he doesn’t know where the records are, so Elijah offers the vampires the chance to eat him. The guy wises up and says the records are now at St. Anne’s.
Rebekah keeps running through the sanatorium, coming across twin boys who scream demonically. Genevieve finds her and comments that her werewolf bites don’t look too good. Rebekah asks why Genevieve is making her relive the past when they both know what happened. Genevieve explains that she’s sharing the story with Klaus. She linked his mind to Rebekah’s so Rebekah can show him everything she did to him. Rebekah begs Genevieve to stop, but Genevieve didn’t wait 100 years for revenge just to call it off now.
Marcel and Elijah search through records at St. Anne’s, coming across Brynne’s name. Marcel knew her (possibly biblically) and says she’s the one who cursed the Crescent wolves just because they were annoying him. Speaking of the wolves, Marcel wonders how Klaus will react when he learns that Elijah saved them instead of him and Rebekah. Elijah says that’s not Marcel’s business, but Marcel knows all about their party last night. P.S. He’s pleased that Mikaelson Mansion burned down.
Marcel would like to know why Hayley is hanging around with Crescent wolves. Elijah calmly says that if Marcel lays a finger on Hayley, he’ll lose that finger, as well as the rest of his body, because Elijah will kill him. Marcel’s amused by Elijah’s clear affection for Hayley. Elijah finds the name Clara Summerlin in a ledger and says that while their theory was right that all the witches on his body died by suicide, Clara didn’t. The ledger says she died of the Spanish flu in 1919. And just like that, the names on Elijah’s body all fade away. He says that they have their answer. The only problem is he doesn’t understand it.
Genevieve puts some jazz on a victrola at the sanatorium, sending Rebekah into a memory of that club she mentioned in 1919. She fights it as Genevieve tells Klaus that Rebekah and Marcel conspired to get rid of him so they could be together. Rebekah finds the victrola and smashes the record, but she can’t keep her mind from pulling up her memories.
1919: Rebekah, Genevieve, and their co-volunteer head to the jazz club. Oh, and that co-volunteer? Is Clara Summerlin. Genevieve tells Rebekah that she was raised to believe that vampires were evil, but the Originals have proven to be much different. She spots Elijah and says he’s elegant. However, her tastes run a little darker, and she prefers Klaus. Rebekah’s surprised that a “saintly little witch” like her would go for a bad guy. She says she and Genevieve were meant to be friends.
At the bar, Elijah offers Clara his handkerchief when someone spills a drink on her. She doesn’t speak to him, but she gives him a look that says she knows who he is. Rebekah offers to introduce Genevieve to Kol as Klaus watches the memory from the present. Rebekah says the family has had some difficulties, and she was thinking about getting in touch with someone they haven’t seen in a while. It would have to be a secret, though. Genevieve thinks she means Kol, but Rebekah wants her to find Mikael.
Present: Klaus accuses Genevieve of lying. She notes that she’s just the messenger. He must have had at least a tiny suspicion that Marcel and Rebekah had something to do with Mikael’s arrival in New Orleans in 1919. Klaus says he and his family have done horrible things to each other over the centuries, but Rebekah would never sic Mikael on him. Genevieve thinks it’s sweet that he has that kind of faith in her, but when she’s done with her little picture show, he’ll know he’s wrong.
Back at the Compound, Elijah quietly tells Hayley that she was right about Brynne. Marcel comes in and asks if Hayley’s found out anything about Clara. She tells him Clara was a nurse at the sanatorium and even finds a picture on the Internet. Elijah doesn’t recognize her. Marcel realizes that the witches must have taken Klaus and Rebekah to the sanatorium. He hesitates to say how he knows, but he wants to warn Elijah what they’re walking into. The witches are using something he and Rebekah did against her – something Elijah won’t like.
Genevieve asks Klaus if he’s ready to see more.
1919: In the City of the Dead, Genevieve uses the picture of Klaus and Marcel in the opera house for a spell.
Present: Klaus recognizes the blade she has with her as one of Mikael’s. It went missing when Klaus was a child, and Mikael accused him of taking it and beat him. Rebekah was kind to Klaus afterward; he should have known she was responsible. She always wanted to play with the same weapons the boys got to.
Rebekah has a flash of Genevieve doing the spell in 1919. Klaus has seen enough to confirm that Rebekah was, indeed, responsible for Mikael’s arrival in New Orleans.
Marcel has told Elijah and Hayley the same thing, and Elijah is very displeased. He could never figure out how Mikael found the siblings. He even blamed himself for making some imperceptible mistake that led Mikael there. He reminds Marcel that Klaus treated him like a son. Marcel says this was the only way he and Rebekah could get together. But he doesn’t think Elijah knows anything about the threat Klaus can pose to one of his siblings’ romantic relationships. Elijah warns that when Klaus finds out, he’ll be furious. Elijah won’t let Rebekah suffer his wrath.
Celeste finds Rebekah looking for a way out of the sanatorium and tells her she might as well give up. She reveals herself as Celeste in Sabine’s body and says she prefers her original name, maybe because of the way Elijah said it. Rebekah says that he’s a good person, and Celeste isn’t surprised that she’s still defending her brother. In fact, she’s counting on the siblings’ love for each other to tear them apart. She predicts that Klaus will kill Marcel and do something horrible to Rebekah, which will turn Elijah against him. No more Mikaelson bond.
Rebekah threatens to kill Celeste, but Celeste says she already did that.
1919: Rebekah pulls Genevieve away from a patient for a private talk. Clara offers to take over for Genevieve, reminding her to incinerate the cloth she’s holding so the patient’s germs don’t spread. There’s a glitch in Rebekah’s memory and she sees who Clara really is – Celeste.
Present: Rebekah says Celeste should have stayed out of her business. Celeste thinks she was justified in getting involved, since Rebekah was exploiting Genevieve.
1919: Having realized she’s made a gigantic mistake, Rebekah wants Genevieve to call off the spell to summon Mikael to New Orleans. She doesn’t want her happiness to lead to her family being torn apart. She begs Genevieve to stop what’s been put in motion. Genevieve realizes that Klaus will kill her and her family if he finds out she was involved. But it’s too late to stop it. They need to tell Klaus what they did. Rebekah refuses, knowing she’ll end up daggered in a coffin.
Genevieve realizes that Rebekah pretended to be her friend just to use her. Genevieve won’t let herself suffer because she was naïve enough to trust Rebekah. Rebekah begs her again to stop the spell, but Genevieve gives her a magic migraine and tells her she’ll have to suffer the consequences of her actions. Rebekah grabs the cloth from Genevieve’s pocket and places it over her mouth. She figures Genevieve is dead no matter what, either from the flu or Klaus. Just then, “Clara” enters the room.
Present: Celeste reminds Rebekah, who I’m sure never forgot, that she infected “Clara” as well, then compelled the orderlies to keep her and Genevieve in quarantine until they died. Celeste was able to jump to another body, but Genevieve was dead for good. Now it’s Rebekah’s turn to suffer for her bad decisions.
Genevieve seems apologetic for making Klaus face the truth about his sister. She wants him to know who Rebekah really is so he can get revenge for both of them. She offers him her blood so he can restore his strength and get to killing. Then she releases him from his restraints and hands him the Tunde blade. He points it at her throat, then lowers it and goes off to find his sister.
Elijah and Marcel go to the sanatorium and split up to search for Rebekah and Klaus. Those two have already found each other, and Klaus pursues Rebekah like a killer in a horror movie. Outside, Hayley knocks out Celeste because Hayley is awesome.
Rebekah makes her way to the basement of the building, looking for a place to hide, but she seems to realize she can’t keep running. Klaus catches up to her and tells her that instead of the dagger, this time she’s getting the Tunde blade in her heart. It will immobilize her and make her experience anguish that Klaus compares to a living Hell. He thinks it’s a fitting punishment. Rebekah tells him to do it already, though Klaus was looking forward to hearing her beg for mercy and forgiveness. She says she knows begging won’t gain her anything, so why bother? Klaus mocks her for giving up and asks what Mikael would think of her.
She tries to attack him but she’s way too weak to do any damage. He throws her through a wall, and though she’s able to grab a piece of metal as a weapon, he easily makes her drop it. Marcel tries to join the fight but Klaus is way stronger and basically pushes him aside. He’s thrilled because now Rebekah can watch Marcel die.
She tries to take full responsibility for their betrayal, since summoning Mikael was her idea. Klaus admires her loyalty, saying that if she’d offered him some of it, she would have spared herself. He raises the blade, but as he’s about to sink it into Rebekah’s chest, Elijah zooms in and puts it back into Klaus. He tells Rebekah and Marcel to run as far away as they can. He should probably join them, because when Klaus recovers, he’s going to have two siblings on his hit list.
Etc.: I often forget that Rebekah and Elijah both fell in love with Black people in a time period that wasn’t far removed from slavery. It’s too bad we never got to see Rebekah and Marcel out in public as a couple, Rebekah getting hassled about being with a Black man, and her beating the crap out of her hassler.
It’s hard enough to buy Rebekah volunteering in a sanatorium, but it’s even harder to buy her feeling bad about using Genevieve because she was a nice person. The same Rebekah who then killed Genevieve and Celeste, the innocent bystander who could have been compelled instead (since Rebekah didn’t know she was an uncompellable witch)? The same Rebekah we saw wreaking havoc with Stefan jut a few years later? Nuh-uh.
Like I said before, I think the payoff of the buildup to Rebekah and Marcel’s big secret from 1919 is worth it. Sending Mikael after Klaus is huge. Their insistence on him never finding out is completely justifiable.
An Eternity of Misery 