Klaus is on the hunt for Finn so he can get the Quarter vampires out of the Compound. He tells Marcel to keep Kol alive while he works on getting Davina to break Finn’s spell and figures out where Rebekah is. Marcel lets Klaus know that there’s another complication they’ll have to deal with: While he was keeping the vampires and werewolves from hurting each other, one of the wolves bit him. Klaus promises to heal him and get him out of the Compound, no matter what it takes. He’d better hurry because the effects of the werewolf toxin are starting to mess with Marcel’s mind.
1916: Marcel has enlisted in the Army to serve in World War I. Klaus is furious and thinks Marcel is acting out because Klaus won’t let him be with Rebekah. He reminds Marcel that New Orleans is his home, so he’d better come back. Family aren’t just the people who take care of you – they’re the people who fight for you and whom you fight for. Marcel is allowed to be upset with the Mikaelsons, but he’s not allowed to abandon them. Marcel just takes his bag and leaves. Klaus knows he’ll come back: “The prodigal son always returns home.”
Present: Marcel looks down on his crew from a balcony and comments that he’s definitely home, not that he wants to be there. Kol asks him why church bells are ringing. Marcel explains that it’s Carillon Eve, a tradition where the locals cover the angels’ eyes so the dead can walk among the living for the night. The bells wake the dead and guide them to eternal rest. That means Kol gets to party even if the vampires end up killing him. Kol guesses that Marcel won’t let them, since Kol is the only one who knows where Rebekah is. Plus, Davina wouldn’t be happy, since she seems to like him.
Marcel goes to the courtyard to be with his crew, but he suddenly can’t see them. Joe joins him, wearing an Army uniform, and calls him Corporal.
1916: Joe and Marcel are serving in an all-Black regiment fighting in the trenches. Joe has noticed some strange things about Marcel – for example, he was shot but just kept right on going. He has two theories about that: Marcel either has guardian angels taking care of him or he’s not human. The regiment’s major announces that they haven’t been given enough gas masks for the whole unit, which means some of them are going to die. They’re not surprised, since they know they’ve been set up to fail. That’s why they’re called the Brotherhood of the Damned. They’re being used to stall the enemy, not kill them.
Marcel objects, saying their name comes from how they would rather be damned than let anyone get past them. If their major doesn’t know that, they need a new leader. As the major is about to lecture Marcel, he gets shot. The other soldiers shield themselves from some explosions, though Marcel doesn’t bother ducking, since he knows they won’t hurt him. Joe pulls him to safety, telling him to protect himself so he can take over leading the unit.
Present: Gia snaps Marcel back to reality as Klaus waits impatiently for Davina to tell him where Finn is. She tried a locator spell at St. Anne’s but Finn blocked it, so she has to try something different. It requires concentration, and having Klaus breathing down her neck isn’t helping. He reminds her that they have the same goal, but she disagrees – her top priority is getting Kol out of the Compound alive. Klaus says he cares more about Rebekah, so Kol can wait. Plus, Finn is the “architect of this fiasco,” so Davina should see him as the bigger villain here.
Davina manages to get some glimpses of Finn and see that he’s combining totems for some sort of representational magic. She figures out where he is and that he’s channeling Mikael and Esther. “And here I thought I was the poster child for least grateful offspring,” Klaus comments. He starts to leave but Finn’s spell makes him collapse.
Cami has finally succeeded in doing what no one has been able to do for 1,000 years: get a Mikaelson in therapy. Elijah has agreed to talk to her about his recently resurfaced emotional trauma. First, though, he mentions that he was friends with Freud back in the day. Cami thinks she has one up on that guy since she can sympathize with Elijah over having someone mess with their memories without their consent.
She asks about the red door. Elijah says it’s a memory and a metaphor – it’s where horrible things get hidden away. Usually he can control himself, but sometimes he gets “consumed with a chaos” that disconnects him from that control. Then he shoves everything behind the door. Cami asks the significance, and Elijah explains that the door is where Tatia first told him she loved him. It’s also where he took her after he killed her. Cami is the only person Elijah has ever told about this, and he doesn’t want Klaus to know. Klaus needs to keep believing that Esther killed Tatia. Elijah knows Klaus would never forgive him, so he wants to forget for both of their sakes. Finn continues his spell, and Elijah is the next to collapse.
Back at the Compound, Gia wonders what’s up with Marcel. Kol comes downstairs, and when Gia eyes him as a snack option, he threatens her with a magic migraine. She thinks it would be worth it, but he lets her know she’s wrong by actually giving her one. As Marcel steps in to make peace, Kol says he’s just going to teach his “protection detail” a lesson about eating their charge. Before he can, Finn’s spell knocks him out.
Klaus, Elijah, and Kol find themselves in what looks like a hunting lodge. Kol realizes they’re in a chambre de chasse, “where witches bring their prey for mental target practice.” Their bodies are in the real world but their minds are together. The brothers know it’s Finn’s doing, so Klaus demands that he join them. Finn informs them that not only is he untouchable there but he also calls the shots. That includes controlling when they leave.
Aiden has collected all the werewolves’ moonlight rings, which they’ll no longer need when Hayley and Jackson get married. There are still ten days until then, so they’ll be sitting ducks if the wolves still loyal to Finn and Esther come after them before then. Jackson tells Aiden to get the word out that any wolf who wants Hayley’s hybrid powers needs to be at the ceremony. Over the next ten days, the couple will have to face some trials and say some oaths to complete the ritual. But first they’re going to meet with an elder who will perform the ceremony – Jackson’s grandmother.
Davina tries to slap Klaus awake, annoyed that he’s unavailable the one time she actually needs him. She answers a call to him from Cami, who tells her that Elijah is also unconscious. Davina realizes that Finn did a spell to trap the brothers in a chambre de chasse. Unfortunately, she doesn’t know how to end it.
Klaus looks around the lodge, guessing that each animal head mounted there represents a Mikaelson brother. He’s the big, bad wolf; Kol is the wily fox; and Elijah is the noble stag. Finn is a boar, which Klaus thinks is a little too on the nose. He assumes that Finn brought them there to confront Klaus for turning Esther. Finn says this is actually about making Klaus feel powerless. Finn is going to take the thing Klaus loves the most – New Orleans.
Elijah interrupts, already tired of this, and orders Finn to release them. Finn says they’ll be freed after sundown. That’s when the barrier spell on the Compound will come down and Marcel’s hungry crew will be able to roam the Quarter, looking for meals. They’ll find plenty since it’s Carillon Eve and tons of people will be partying in the streets. Finn anticipates that after the ensuing massacre, the supernatural beings in New Orleans will have to move somewhere else.
Kol tries to convince Finn that he should get to leave since Finn’s fight is just with Klaus and Elijah. Finn decides to make him even more vulnerable instead. He makes Kol’s nose bleed to tempt the hungry vampires around his body even more. Marcel holds off Gia and Josh, telling them that if he and his regiment could survive actual, literal warfare, the vampires can fight through their hunger. They’ll do it together. Now if they’ll just excuse Marcel for a few minutes while he hallucinates Joe again and has another flashback.
1916: During a break in battle, Joe offers to let Marcel drink from his arm. Marcel says he’ll never feed on one of his men. He’s now officially in charge of the unit, even receiving respect from a white soldier who tells him to report to headquarters. Marcel expects to find a superior officer waiting there, but instead it’s Klaus. He’s brought a couple of women with him for Marcel to feed on. Marcel is tempted, but when Klaus tells him the offer comes with strings – he needs to come home – he declines. He wants to go back to his men.
Klaus doesn’t get why Marcel wants to fight alongside humans, who are only good for food. His place is home with his family. Marcel reminds Klaus that family is who you fight for and who fights for you. Klaus should go home because Marcel’s already with his family.
Present: Marcel’s hallucination of Joe starts bleeding from his mouth. Gia grabs Marcel’s arm, asking if he’s okay, and she and Josh realize that he’s suffering from a werewolf bite. Marcel swears them to secrecy. Outside, people parade by, ringing bells. Gia complains that Marcel is sitting by, protecting Kol, while his crew starves. Marcel tells her they can handle a little hunger. She reminds him that he made promises when he turned his crew, and they didn’t involve them all getting trapped in Algiers, then trapped in the Compound. He should have told his people that he was bitten. A good leader would have.
Marcel goes back to the balcony and looks down on his crew, who are itching to go outside and feed. Joe joins him and says, “We don’t all get to get out of this alive, son.”
As Davina and Cami wait for Klaus and Elijah to wake up, Kol asks Finn again to let him out of the chambre de chasse. Elijah hands him a handkerchief for his bloody nose and says he’s enjoying watching Kol suffer, considering what he did to Rebekah. Finn asks for more details about that. Kol says he just repaid her for crossing him. Finn shuts Kol up, realizing that he’s the only one who knows where Rebekah is. He releases him from the chambre de chasse before he can tell Klaus and Elijah.
The vampires surround Kol as he wakes up, and he asks if it’s too late for an apology. Marcel zooms him out of the room to safety. Kol tells him that when the sun goes down, the barrier spell will drop and everyone can leave. Marcel guesses that Finn planned it that way so the vampires would attack people and get kicked out of New Orleans altogether. Joe appears behind Kol, who tells Marcel that he’s been outmaneuvered and his hunger is going to make it hard for him to regain control. “We’re not going to get out of this alive,” he says. Marcel insists that everyone will.
Jackson takes Hayley to meet his grandmother, Mary, who’s a no-nonsense type and wants to get the ball rolling on all the rituals they need to complete. One of them is a rite of divulgement, where the couple tells each other all their secrets. Then they’ll smoke a blue calamus root together to connect their hearts and minds. If they haven’t been completely truthful with each other, the ceremony won’t be successful, so they have to get everything out now. Hayley announces that she can’t do that.
Finn tries to engage Klaus and Elijah in conversation about their parents. Klaus mentions that Finn is channeling both Mikael and Esther, which he didn’t expect. Finn wants to talk about Ansel – specifically how Klaus killed him after spending a lifetime wanting to meet him. Klaus says it was probably for the same reason Finn wanted to sever ties with Esther, so he could recognize his true potential. Finn says Esther thought she knew what Klaus wanted. She thought Ansel was at the top of the list of Klaus’ “true affections.” There must be something else there instead.
Finn brainstorms, crossing New Orleans of the list, since Klaus barely reacted when he threatened to take it over. He’s calm about Rebekah, too, so it’s not her. Elijah tries to distract Finn, casually mentioning that he’s tempted to put his head on a wall with the taxidermied animals around them. Finn says Elijah also can’t be Klaus’ number-one priority, since he didn’t try to fix Elijah after Esther broke him. Maybe Klaus is hiding something from Finn. Maybe Ansel figured it out and that’s why Klaus killed him.
Klaus says Ansel slowed him down, so he had to be removed as an obstacle. “So the secret is there is no secret?” Finn asks disbelievingly. “You long for nothing, care for no one?” Finn is willing to keep his brothers in the chambre de chasse as long as it takes to figure out what Klaus is hiding.
Jackson tries to change Hayley’s mind about the divulgement rite, but she’s worried about what honesty can bring forth. He thinks he has secrets that are just as bad as whatever she’s hiding. Oh, do you also have a child you claim died but who’s actually alive? Small world. Jackson promises to take things a step at a time and stop if anything is too much for Hayley. He doesn’t run away or scare easily. Hayley can trust him with her secrets, and he’ll help her fight her demons. Well, when you put it that way, her secret isn’t so bad.
The vampires are turning on Marcel and wondering why they’re letting him remain in charge. He lied to them – how can he lead them?
1916: The Brotherhood of the Damned has been hit by a chemical attack, and they never got the gas masks they were promised. Marcel’s the only one still fit to fight. Joe notes that if he turned them all, they could stand a chance against the Germans. Marcel thinks about it, then feeds Joe his blood.
Present: Marcel apologizes to his crew and tells them he can help them survive what they’re going through. He promises it’ll make them stronger. He tells them that the barrier spell will drop soon and they’ll have to get through a crowd of humans to get back to Algiers. They need to hold it together. Gia whines about being hungry but Marcel reminds her that there’s a rule against feeding on locals. Sticking to their code lets them call New Orleans home. Gia asks if that code is also keeping him from telling the crew that he’s dying from a werewolf bite.
Marcel comes downstairs and tells the crew he’s not dying. He has a vial of Klaus’ blood at home, along with plenty of blood bags for the crew. They just have to get there without feeding on anyone along the way. Marcel once said he was fighting for the city, their home. They’ll lose it if they feed. He asks the crew to let him help them get home. The bells ring outside and Marcel checks to confirm that the barrier is down. He leads his crew out of the Compound and right to an all-you-can-eat buffet they’re not allowed to touch.
Finn is still thinking things through in the chambre de chasse, and he’s getting frighteningly close to figuring out that Klaus’ plans all revolve around Hope. Elijah tries again to distract him, this time talking about representational magic. If Finn has misrepresented his brothers, the spell will collapse and they’ll be freed. Finn insists that he didn’t misrepresent them, but Elijah challenges his knowledge of his brothers.
Elijah isn’t a noble stag – it’s a facade he’s worked to keep up. If he were really noble, he wouldn’t have kept his secret about Tatia from Klaus or let Esther remove it from his memory. He announces that he killed Tatia. Klaus is clearly furious but tries to hide it. Finn says Elijah is still noble, so the magic is holding. But Klaus says Elijah is a worse monster than he is. He’s not the noble stag and Klaus isn’t a big, bad wolf. Finn didn’t know that Klaus is capable of forgiveness.
Klaus says that family bonds outweigh everything. Because of his brotherhood with Elijah, he can forgive him. The wolf and stag heads catch on fire as the spell starts to falter. Klaus guesses that Finn is no longer untouchable, and he and Elijah move to attack him. Finn ends the spell and they both wake up.
Davina doesn’t care about Klaus, so she just asks him if Kol is okay. Klaus tells her that some of her friends are in trouble, so she needs to trust him and go with him right now. Davina’s like, “I’ve been waiting for you all day, so don’t act like I’m holding you back.” They head into the Quarter, were the vampires are slowly making their way through the crowds.
1916: Marcel tells his newly turned unit that they’re going to feel hunger like they’ve never felt before, but they can’t let it control them. It’s a weapon now. The Germans are coming, and they think they can just walk over the unit’s corpses and take the town they’re defending. The Brotherhood of the Damned is the only thing standing in their way. They’re one unit, one army – a family. He repeats what Klaus told him about a family being who you fight for and who fights for you. “Tonight we will feed on the blood of our enemies, and if we die, we will be reborn and we will feed again,” Marcel declares. “We are the Brotherhood of the Damned, and we cannot be defeated!”
Present: Marcel remembers heading into battle with his unit as he leads his new family through the Quarter. He gives it all he has and winds up collapsing. By the time Klaus and Davina get there, the vampires are gone, but there’s no sign of any attacks on the locals. Kol joins Davina, who’s thrilled to see him.
Marcel wakes up in his loft, healed thanks to a dose of Klaus’ blood. Gia took over the leadership role and got everyone home without feeding. She apologizes for being annoying, but Marcel tells her that only weak people don’t challenge authority. Finn shows up and praises the vampires for their self-control. He did something to the rest of the crew downstairs, but he promises it’s all “reversible.” He came for a chat with Marcel – more specifically, he came for an interrogation so he can learn the secret Klaus and Elijah are keeping.
Klaus calls Elijah to check on Hope, who’s happy with Cami. Klaus tells him the city’s safe, but all the vampires have disappeared. Also, he doesn’t know where Kol or Rebekah are, and Finn is getting way too close to figuring out that Hope is alive. But other than that, everything’s great! Klaus promises that he meant it when he said he could forgive Elijah for killing Tatia. It’s more important for them to be united against their common enemies.
Aiden arrives and Klaus tells him to find out from his wolves what Finn’s up to. Aiden can’t, since the wolves are all in the bayou. I guess they’re just going to hang out for ten days until the wedding. Klaus realizes that one of the rituals Jackson and Hayley have to perform involves smoking blue calamus root, which basically acts as a truth serum. The big secret he’s been trying so hard to keep hidden is about to come out. Klaus decides to take a trip to the bayou to remind Hayley that some secrets shouldn’t be told.
Etc.: A chambre de chasse seems like a convenient way to get people together when they’re not physically together. Think of all the Zoom meetings you could avoid with that kind of magic.
I admire Davina’s restraint in not, say, drawing or writing something embarrassing on Klaus while he was unconscious. You know Kol totally would have.
I’m so disappointed that we never hear about the Brotherhood of the Damned again. An Army unit full of vampires? Awesome! Follow up on that! At least tell us they were awarded medals for their bravery or something. Or throw in a scene in The Vampire Diaries where Alaric tells his class about a unit that was rumored to be supernatural.
Klaus not trusting Jackson with the secret about Hope is one thing, but Hayley not wanting to tell him seems weird. Who does she think he’s going to tell? The guy is marrying her to unite his pack. He’s not going to risk anyone’s safety, especially not the child who’s going to be his stepdaughter.
An Eternity of Misery 