Hayley is in the nursery just off her bedroom, writing a letter. Klaus asks if it’s a love letter to either Jackson or Elijah. Or maybe to Klaus! She teases him about his ego, then invites him to touch her stomach as the baby kicks. After their rare moment of peace together, Klaus leaves and Hayley goes back to her letter. She’s writing to her soon-to-be-born daughter, though she hasn’t settled on a name yet. She says that Klaus was right, and this is a kind of love letter.
As she voices over what she’s writing, current-day Hayley struggles through labor at St. Anne’s, fighting the witches. The letter says that she’s happy and can’t wait to meet her daughter. Klaus arrives at the church and kills one of the witches’ minions. The witches magically levitate him into the air. Hayley promises the baby three things she never had as a child: a safe home, someone telling her they love her every day, and someone fighting for her. “In other words, family,” Hayley summarizes. The witches pin Klaus to the wall and turn back to Hayley. Genevieve picks up a knife and promises to make the baby’s death quick.
Davina goes to the Compound, where Marcel and Cami are tending to the victims of Elijah’s battle with the vampires. They tell her that Klaus bit Marcel and he needs Klaus’ blood to heal. Davina asks if Klaus bled during his fight with Marcel. Marcel sends her to the location of their fight and Davina picks up an empty plastic cup off the street. As Josh stumbles out to meet her, she starts a spell. She tells him she’s going to save him. The spell makes Klaus’ blood rise off the ground and the car he and Marcel fought against. Josh thinks he must be hallucinating.
As Klaus yells threats at the witches, Genevieve coaches Hayley through childbirth. When the baby has been delivered, Genevieve holds her for a few moments so that Klaus can see her. Then it’s time to turn her focus to the sacrifice, which needs to happen as soon as the moon sets. Hayley asks to hold her daughter. She glances up at Klaus, as if to say, “She’s finally here.”
Monique grabs Hayley by the hair, yanks her head back, and slits her throat.
Genevieve takes the baby and the witches leave. Klaus cries out, so Monique magically snaps his neck and makes him fall to the floor. Sometime later, Elijah arrives at St. Anne’s too late to do anything. He finds Klaus on the floor, cradling Hayley’s body. Klaus is surprisingly upset. He sees that Elijah has been bitten by a Correa and offers him his blood.
Davina takes a cup of blood to the Compound and offers it to Marcel. He says there’s only enough blood for one person. Josh is there, too, and Davina is distraught at the thought of having to choose who to save. Marcel tells her to save her friend; he’ll take care of himself and the rest of his crew. Cami and Davina are both upset with this choice but Marcel doesn’t want to lose any more of his guys.
As he gives Josh the blood, Mikael appears behind him and tells Davina that the score between her and Klaus is tied. Marcel announces that he’s going to find Klaus and get more of his blood so he can save as many vampires as possible. Cami says he’ll need a weapon. Fortunately, she’s just come into possession of an arsenal.
Elijah puts Hayley’s body back on the altar where she gave birth and died. He asks Klaus what happened, but Klaus just says that he was “bested.” Elijah reminds him that he’s supposed to be invincible. Klaus tells him that the witches took the baby, but they still have time to save her (thanks to that pesky waiting period before the moon goes down).
They head to the City of the Dead, but there’s no sign that the witches are there. Klaus insists that they would have to come there, since it’s where their ancestors are buried and where all their other rituals take place. He notices a familiar statue and says they’ve passed it three times. Something’s wonky with the cemetery. Elijah realizes it’s an illusion. Klaus zooms to the top of a tomb and looks out past the cemetery. It’s actually multiple cemeteries now, a copy-and-paste job hiding the real City of the Dead among a bunch of decoys.
Cami takes Marcel and Davina to Kieran’s secret apartment and shows them his stash. There are a lot of weapons there, including dark objects the human faction stole from the witches. Marcel confirms that Cami’s okay with him knowing about them. She acknowledges that keeping secrets can be dangerous, but in this case, they might save people she cares about. Davina picks up something called a Devil’s Star, which can give someone a thousand cuts with just one strike. Marcel thinks that’ll do nicely to make Klaus bleed.
Klaus and Elijah take a break from looking for the real cemetery to fight over whether or not this whole situation is Klaus’ fault. Guys, you have an actual LITERAL deadline here. Save it. Elijah rants that Klaus should have expected this outcome, since he’s spent 1,000 years making enemies. The Mikaelsons were never going to unite as a family. Klaus says that was Elijah’s fantasy, but Elijah corrects him: “This was our hope.” Their family had a chance to come together, and now that chance is gone. Elijah let Hayley in, something he never does, and now she’s been taken from him – by Klaus. “I needed her, and you’ve broken me,” he says. Klaus just replies that when they save the baby, Elijah will be able to tell her how much he cared for her mother.
Hayley wakes up on the altar where Elijah left her. She remembers giving birth and being killed, then focuses her attention on what she needs to do next.
It’s almost time for the witches to sacrifice the baby. Genevieve leaves the crypt to prepare, and Abigail tells Monique that she’s sure Genevieve will go through with the ritual, since the ancestors promised to let her live. Monique asks about Cassie, who will stay dead as long as Genevieve is alive. Monique hopes Genevieve doesn’t do what she’s supposed to. Then Monique and Abigail can kill her and get Cassie back.
Genevieve takes a knife to an altar, where Monique and Abigail join her with the baby. Back at the Compound, Davina reads the spell she’ll have to perform to resurrect Mikael. She’ll need to channel energy from an occurrence that’s so unique, it’s almost a miracle. How about the birth of a baby conceived by a hybrid and a werewolf? Yep, that’ll work! The witches start their sacrifice ritual as Davina uses a few of Kieran’s dark objects to start her own spell.
Klaus and Elijah still haven’t found the right City of the Dead, and Elijah’s getting distressed. Klaus says they just need to move faster. “Or smarter,” Hayley says as she appears. The guys aren’t sure how she’s alive until she mentions hunger and being able to feel the baby and where she is. Klaus realizes that she died with the baby’s blood in her system, which means she’s now in transition to become a hybrid. She needs to drink the baby’s blood to complete it. Hayley says she doesn’t care about herself – she just wants to save their daughter.
Davina’s spell isn’t pleasant for Mikael, and it ends with both of them unconscious. As Klaus, Elijah, and Hayley hunt for the witches, Mikael wakes up alive. Genevieve is about to kill the baby when her parents and uncle arrive. Elijah throws an urn at her hard enough to knock her down. Monique and Abigail clasp hands and channel their ancestors to fight back.
Mikael finds the injured vampires in the courtyard and feeds on Diego. Hayley, Klaus, and Elijah split up to take on the witches from different angles. Hayley goes after Genevieve, but Klaus gets delayed when the spirits of Papa Tunde’s twins attack him. He grabs a fence post and throws it like a javelin, impaling and killing Abigail from yards away. Monique grabs the knife and goes to the altar to finish the sacrifice. When Klaus and Elijah try to run up and stop her, she throws up some magical flames to keep them away.
But she doesn’t get the knife anywhere near the baby. Marcel has found the group, and he hits her with the Devil’s Star. It takes just seconds for the thousand cuts it creates to make Monique bleed to death. Marcel scoops up the baby and zooms her out of the City of the Dead practically before Klaus and Elijah can blink.
Klaus goes home and finds Marcel in the courtyard, lamenting that he was too late to save his crew. Klaus mistakes Mikael’s bite marks for werewolf bites and thinks the Correas came back. He guesses that Marcel took the baby as leverage to make Klaus heal the vampires. Instead of being mad, Klaus offers up his blood to heal Marcel. “This is the last note in a song that I started a century ago when I brought your dad to town,” Marcel says. He apologizes for that, seeming to say that he understands if Klaus doesn’t want to heal him. But Klaus does – Marcel saved the baby, and he deserves to be healed. Klaus feeds him and vows to take down their enemies. Then he takes the baby from Marcel and holds his daughter for the first time.
Mikael watches from nearby, clutching the indestructible stake. He follows Klaus to the nursery, but when he tries to go in, he finds that he can’t. Davina whisks him away before Klaus can see that his father is back. She takes Mikael to her old attic room and tells him that while she resurrected him to punish Klaus, she’s not ready for him to die yet. She’s used a magic bracelet to basically make Mikael her puppet – he has to do what she says, and he can’t do anything she won’t allow. It’s like a sire bond, except with hatred instead of affection.
Elijah chains up Genevieve in a crypt, where Hayley confronts her for trying to sacrifice the baby. Genevieve says it was “her decree.” Elijah asks who she’s talking about. Genevieve thinks he should know, since he was the one who convinced Klaus and Rebekah to consecrate her in New Orleans. “So not even death can stop my mother from seeking the annihilation of her own flesh and blood,” Elijah comments.
Genevieve warns that this isn’t the end. The witches of New Orleans will never stop coming after the baby. She will die and be consecrated with her ancestors. Genevieve’s eyes start bleeding and she knows the ancestors are going to punish her for failing to sacrifice the baby. She begs Hayley and Elijah to understand that she just wanted to live. She asks them to tell Klaus she’s sorry. She starts coughing up blood, and Hayley puts her out of her misery with a knife and says, “I’m not.”
Later, while Hayley rocks the baby in the nursery, Klaus and Elijah sit in her room and discuss the control Esther now has over the witches. They know Genevieve is right that the ancestors won’t stop pursuing the baby. Plus, the Correas are still a threat since they don’t want Hayley or the baby to have any kind of power among the werewolves. Klaus acknowledges that Elijah was right about making enemies his whole life. The worst are now in their neighborhood. “I have brought into the world a weapon they can use against me,” he says.
Elijah tells him they’ll arm themselves. They’ve already fought plenty of enemies, and they can fight again. They’ll turn the Compound into a fortress. Klaus doesn’t want the baby to live like a prisoner, though, so Elijah says they can leave town. Klaus knows their enemies will just come after them. The baby has inherited all the family’s foes but can’t defend herself. She’s doomed no matter what.
Hayley has another idea. Her biological parents tried to raise her in a war zone, but they ended up being killed, leaving Hayley to a lonely childhood where she never felt loved. Hayley promised her daughter and herself that her life would be different. She cries, then gathers herself and says their best option is to send the baby away until they’ve cleaned up the mess they’ve made. Elijah hates that idea – the baby will still be hunted. But Klaus says that won’t happen if people don’t know the baby is alive.
Francesca holds a press conference in the Quarter, vowing to help New Orleans recover from the “gang violence” from the previous night. Marcel pauses to listen for a moment, then walks away. Oliver follows him to Jardin Gris, where Marcel says he wants to make a deal. Francesca wants the vampires to leave the Quarter. Marcel will agree to that if the werewolves agree to leave them alone. The alternative is that the vampires go after the werewolves, which they can do easily now that Marcel and Klaus have made peace.
Oliver calls Klaus a warmonger and says there’s no way he’ll side with the vampires over his new werewolf army. Marcel disagrees, knowing Klaus will choose the vampires when he finds out that the werewolves killed the baby. He shows Oliver a box and asks how he thinks Klaus will react when he learns that the wolves are responsible for its contents. He should cremate what’s inside before Klaus smells it on him.
Cami walks by a makeshift sidewalk memorial to the victims of the “gang violence.” She’s saddened to see a little note for “baby Mikaelson.” She rushes to the Compound, where Klaus tells her the baby died after the Correas attacked. Cami blames herself, since she didn’t know enough about Francesca’s plot ahead of time. Klaus notes that she couldn’t have stopped the witches working with Francesca. He’s responsible for what happened. He appreciates Cami’s condolences, but he tells her they can’t be friends. She had it right from the start – he has demons, and they’re trying to kill him and everything he cares about, including her.
Klaus joins Elijah as Cami leaves, and they confirm that Marcel came through with his part of their plan. He found a stillborn baby to pass for Hayley and Klaus’ daughter. He’s also agreed to let Klaus compel him to forget what he knows. In exchange, he wants a stash of Klaus’ blood. Finally, someone took my suggestion! Elijah really hopes the witches will fall for their lie – Cassie will be resurrected soon and the coven will get to work rebuilding itself. They can’t know that the baby’s alive. Klaus is sure that the witches will believe the story they’re told as long as they can tell it convincingly.
Hayley packs a bag for the baby and slips her letter into it. Elijah pricks the baby’s finger so Hayley can drink a drop of her blood and complete her transition. The two of them go downtown to make an appearance at the sidewalk memorial as we hear a voiceover conversation solidifying the group’s plan. Klaus says they can’t all leave town together. He’ll go first while Hayley and Elijah make a public show of their grief. Elijah says that should be easy; they’re not mourning a dead child, but they still feel grief over being separated from her. He wonders who they can trust to protect the baby as well as they could.
The answer is Rebekah, who meets Klaus somewhere outside of New Orleans so she can temporarily take custody of her niece. Rebekah says the baby looks like Hayley, so maybe God exists after all. Klaus smiles and says, “She has a hint of the devil in her eyes. That’s all me.” He tells Rebekah to find a witch who can do a cloaking spell to keep her and the baby hidden. She plans to play house and do everything she can to protect her niece.
Klaus tells the baby that though the city wants her dead, he’ll make it a home for her and defeat all their enemies. “You will return to me,” he promises. He hands her off to Rebekah, along with the little wooden knight. He tells Rebekah that despite their struggles, he trusts her with the baby’s life more than anyone else. He wants her to be happy, and Rebekah promises that the baby will be, too. She asks the baby’s name. It’s Hope.
In the City of the Dead, Cassie is finally alive again…sort of. She’s joined by a witch named Vincent as she puts a rose on a headstone. “May you rest in peace,” he says. “What’s the fun in that?” she replies. She tells him to come with her since they have a lot to do. “Yes, Mother,” he says. Cassie is really Esther, Vincent is really Finn, and the other Mikaelsons are really screwed.
Etc.: So much happens in this episode that when I paused it to type during the scene where Mikael bites Diego and saw that I was only halfway through, I said out loud, “How are there still 20 minutes left??”
Phoebe Tonkin (Hayley) and Joseph Morgan (Klaus) are both really good in this episode, showing how hard it is for them to give up the baby even knowing it’s not forever.
Hope is a perfectly nice name, but I could do without the cheesiness of the reason for giving her that name. Though it does allow for some good punning opportunities.
I could also do without the Christ imagery when Klaus is pinned to the wall of a church.
Davina does many awesome things over the course of the series, but the way she gets Klaus’ blood for Josh and Marcel is definitely in the top 5.
Klaus loves using fences as weapons, doesn’t he?
It’s weird that Jackson doesn’t show up to be with Hayley after Hope’s “death,” but apparently there were scenes that got cut.
An Eternity of Misery 