Klaus is lying on a couch, having a therapy session with Cami. She thinks he’s more affected by the world than he wants to admit. He wants to control it instead of letting it control him. He gets uneasy about the “inevitable, unavoidable parts of life.”
This obviously isn’t happening right now, since the last time we saw Cami, she was dead in Klaus’ bed. Klaus paces his room after finding her, overcome by sadness and anger. In the therapy session, he tells Cami that death is supposed to be inevitable, but he’s avoided it for 1,000 years. He’s a master of his fate, “a conqueror of death itself.” In the present, he yells in anger and overturns a table.
In the session, Cami says that Klaus pretends death means nothing to him when it really does – if not his own death, then others’. He asks if she thinks it’s a “deep-seated psychological trauma.” He knows that death stalks everyone and doesn’t care about them, so why care about her? Cami says he does. He surrounds himself with other immortals so he doesn’t have to feel the pain of losing them. He scoffs at this and she says she hopes it’s a long time before she’s proven right.
Klaus cradles Cami’s body again back in his bed. Suddenly she gasps for breath and wakes up.
Once Cami’s gathered herself a little, she tells Klaus what happened (and we see it in flashback). When she was at St. Anne’s with Aurora, Aurora compelled her. The moment moment Klaus looked at Cami the way he used to look at Aurora, and Cami saw that he was in love with her, she was to drink a vial of Aurora’s blood and slit her own throat so she would die silently.
Cami’s distraught to realize that she’s dead. Klaus points out that she won’t stay dead and vows to make Aurora pay. He tells Cami that she needs to drink human blood or she’ll die for good. While she takes a shower, washing off all her blood, Klaus fills Elijah in and calls for revenge. Elijah says they need to get the serratura first. Also, Freya lost her pendant, which contains Finn’s spirit. Klaus doesn’t see recovering that as a priority, so Elijah points out that Tristan needs the most powerful witch in the Quarter to activate the serratura. That’s Vincent, since he just became regent. Klaus guesses Tristan’s plan to put Finn back in Vincent’s body so he’ll do Tristan’s bidding.
Elijah tells Klaus to stay with Cami while he handles things. He’s a little late, though, since Vincent has already started putting together what he needs to activate the serratura. He confirms with Tristan that once he does, he’ll get possession of the Finn pendant. Vincent does the spell and gives Tristan the ready-to-use serratura. Tristan tells some Strix to hold him in the City of the Dead for now, and put Finn back in him if he acts up. Marcel asks what Tristan’s planning to do next. Tristan says the wheels are already in motion.
Hayley and Jackson go to the bayou to get all his stuff that he never moved to Kenner Kennel. They’re ambushed by a Strix member who shoots tranquilizer darts at them. Aya emerges and fights Hayley while Jackson takes on some other Strix. He’s outnumbered and Hayley can’t help him, especially when she takes a couple of darts to the leg.
Cami’s already struggling with her newly heightened senses, which will be painful until she completes her transition. Klaus is surprised when she says she doesn’t want to transition. She feels like she should have known this would eventually happen to her. Maybe she deserves it. Klaus says no one does, unless they choose to be turned. They just have to survive what they’re forced to endure. Cami knows that she has a choice here – she can choose not to feed and complete her transition.
Along with the Strix, Tristan has assigned a witch to babysit Vincent. Vincent recognizes her as an obeah witch, part of a coven who wouldn’t normally follow a vampire’s orders. He tells her that her ancestors must be spinning in their graves. What does it feel like to be a traitor? A Strix member cautions the witch to stay on task and not let Vincent get to her. Vincent uses magic to make an angel statue fall on the vampire’s head and knock him out. Then he makes a fence post fly into another vampire. He does more magic to take down the obeah witch, hoping her ancestors judge her harshly.
There’s another Strix hanging around who’s able to capture Vincent. As he’s about to stab Vincent with a fence post, Elijah comes up behind him and pulls out his heart. “We should chat,” Elijah says. He nabs the Finn pendant before Vincent can grab it.
Cami goes home to the apartment she doesn’t plan to live in anymore. She starts crying at the sight of a picture of herself with Kieran. She knows he just wanted her to be happy and live a normal life. Instead, the O’Connell family line will end with her. She tells Klaus that she never understood the comfort Kieran got from his faith, but now she wishes she believed in something. Klaus tells her that vampirism is like an afterlife. Cami asks if it’s Heaven or Hell.
Back in the City of the Dead, Vincent tells Elijah that he activated the serratura for Tristan and can’t do anything to deactivate it. Also, he’s clocked out of taking vampire orders for the day. Silly Vincent. That’s not a 9:00-to-5:00 job. It comes with mandatory overtime. Just ask Bonnie. Elijah blames Vincent for the danger the Mikaelsons are now in, but Vincent says he had to do what Tristan wanted or risk being reinhabited by Finn.
Klaus warns Cami that the longer she puts off completing her transition, the more she’ll suffer the side effects. She jokes that it’s better for her to die now because she’ll be hot for an open-casket service. She wants an “epic” (gag) wake at Rousseau’s with lots of drinking and dancing. If anyone cries, she’ll come back and “poltergeist the hell out of them.” Look who’s using humor to deflect her feelings now!
Klaus snaps at her to stop talking that way. She has to feed and finish her transition because he needs her. I guess he took a vial of Freya’s blood when he left the Compound because he offers it to her. Cami considers drinking it, then smashes it. She tells Klaus this is about her, not him. She likes who she is. She’s been “this exact version of sane” her whole life, and she’s scared of who she’ll become if she turns.
He says she’ll just be an extension of who she is now. She’ll be strong and brave. Cami protests, saying he doesn’t know her. There’s darkness inside everyone, and she worries that hers will take over. Klaus promises to contain it, but she points out that he can barely control his own. She’d rather die as someone she’s proud of than live as someone she hates.
Klaus argues that it’s better for her to live a flawed life than waste it buried in the ground. He won’t let her give up like this. Cami says straight out that she’s not going to feed. Either he can respect that or they can spend her last few hours alive fighting. Well, why change the relationship dynamic now?
Hayley wakes up in the back of an auto shop, where she and Jackson have been chained up and given IVs full of wolfsbane. It’s keeping Jackson from healing from injuries he sustained fighting the Strix. Hayley’s sure they’ll get out of there but Jackson isn’t as optimistic. He tells her how he’s always loved her, and how she broke him the first time he saw her. He promises that every moment they had together was real.
Tristan comes in, ready to get revenge on Hayley for torturing him when he was the Mikaelsons’ hostage. But instead of hurting her physically, he decides to hurt her psychologically. He reaches into Jackson’s chest and rips out his heart.
Elijah takes Vincent to the Compound, where a compelled tourist dropped off a gift that has shaken Freya: Jackson’s heart. It’s accompanied by a note warning that Hayley’s will be delivered next if someone doesn’t come to the auto shop. Tristan probably doesn’t realize that threatening Hayley’s life is the #1 best way to get Elijah to do whatever he wants. Back at the auto shop, Hayley cries and apologizes to Jackson for pulling him into the Mikaelsons’ orbit. She was selfish. He’s the only person who’s always been there for her and made her feel loved. She vows to make everyone involved in his death suffer.
Klaus drags Cami back to the Compound and traps her there with a boundary spell courtesy of Freya. He needs to go save Hayley, and he can’t do it if he’s worried about Cami and whether or not she’ll die today. He recommends that she stop being stubborn and drink some O-negative, which he thinks she’ll learn to love. She says this is like force-feeding her. She begs him not to do this if he cares about her. When he doesn’t respond, she says she’ll never forgive him. He’s willing to risk it, though, because he’ll never forgive himself if she dies.
Klaus meets up with Elijah, Freya, and Vincent, looking forward to working with them to take on Tristan. Vincent reminds him that he’s mortal and doesn’t want to participate in any plan that could get him killed. He suggests going to the covens and proposing an alliance. They hate the Mikaelsons, but Vincent thinks they’ll lend a hand here. Elijah says there’s no time.
Freya reminds her brothers that Tristan could be the foe in the friend/foe/family warning. Elijah thinks Klaus should stay back, but he wants to be a good father and rescue his daughter’s mother. He’s not going to let Tristan, of all people, beat him. Vincent notes that with Hayley and the serratura in his possession, Tristan has a huge advantage. Freya has a plan to take away that advantage, but she’ll need something of Aurora’s.
Speaking of Aurora, Tristan is sending her somewhere with Strix bodyguards who are keeping her sedated. Vincent appears in the middle of the road where they’re traveling and uses magic to flip their SUV. When the Strix get out to confront him, Elijah appears and stakes them. Meanwhile, Klaus grabs Aurora.
Freya checks on Cami, trying to sympathize over her inability to die with dignity. Dahlia took that same freedom from her, so if Cami really wants to die, Freya will let her. She removes the boundary spell keeping her trapped, which Cami says is the nicest thing anyone’s done for her all day. But Freya has a proposal for her: She can starve alone or risk the short amount of life she has left to do something helpful.
Tristan, Marcel, and Aya come across the aftermath of the scene of the Mikaelsons’ highway robbery. Elijah calls to tell Tristan where to meet to get Aurora back. The Mikaelsons will swap her for Hayley and the serratura. Tristan should hurry, since Klaus might not be able to keep himself from killing Aurora. Tristan tells Aya to up Hayley’s dosage of wolfsbane so she suffers. Buddy, she’s already suffering more than any wolfsbane can hurt her. Marcel thinks they should think this through, but Tristan already has. He’s willing to give the Mikaelsons what they want. As soon as he knows Aurora’s safe, the Strix will ambush the Mikaelsons and seal them away with the serratura.
Vincent and Freya go to the bell tower so she can channel him for a spell. It involves a representational doll with blond hair. Meanwhile, Tristan, Marcel, and a bunch of other Strix meet Klaus and Elijah at the docks for the hostage exchange. The Strix bring in Hayley, and Klaus assures Tristan that Aurora’s alive, though he hasn’t brought her in yet. Tristan reminds him that he’s greatly outnumbered, so Klaus opens a shipping container they’ve stashed Aurora in. Tristan enters it, and once he’s confirmed that she’s alive, he gives the signal for the Strix to release Hayley.
As Tristan is hugging Aurora, she nabs the serratura from his pocket. She sticks it to the wall of the shipping container, putting a boundary in the doorway. “What have you done to us?” Tristan asks. “Not to us,” Aurora replies, heading for the door. “To you.” She’s able to leave but Tristan isn’t. As Vincent burns the doll’s hair, Tristan realizes that he’s been fooled. Aurora isn’t really Aurora – she’s Cami in disguise. “Payback’s a b&^$%,” she tells him.
Klaus explains that the boundary created by the serratura can’t be breached by anything living or dead. Since Cami’s in transition, she’s not living or dead right now, so she was able to walk through it. Tristan may be trapped in the shipping container but he still has an army of Strix ready and willing to take out anyone on Team Mikaelson. As their sire, Elijah appeals to them to use common sense. Aya reminds him that they’re all super-old and almost a strong as he is. Uh, no, since you’re not Originals. It’s nice that you think so highly of yourself, though.
Elijah warns that most of the Strix will die trying to fight the Mikaelsons, and why? They’d be avenging Tristan, who dragged them into a prophecy he engineered because the Mikaelsons ticked him off once. He doesn’t care about any of them. They need to make a choice for themselves. Elijah isn’t their enemy – in fact, he’s responsible for their existence. He can also end that existence in a split second.
Aya still wants to fight, but Marcel tells her the moment has passed. She needs to be smarter than Tristan and not do anything that will make them lose more Strix. Aya tells the members to stand down. Tristan warns them not to abandon him, but Aya wishes him well (more or less) and leaves.
Cami’s done her last good deed, so she wants to leave. Klaus thanks her, but she doesn’t want him to think that she did this favor because she forgives him for trying to force her to turn. This is the last choice she has available and she won’t let anyone take it from her. “Camille, I’m begging you: Don’t leave me,” he says. Though she’s sympathetic, she keeps walking away. Elijah stops Klaus from going after her, telling him that if he cares about her, he’ll let her make this choice. If he forces her, he’ll lose her forever. (I mean, if she dies, he’ll also lose her forever, but okay.)
Klaus, Elijah, and Hayley face Tristan as he learns his fate: They’re sending him to the bottom of the ocean to drown over and over for eternity. He asks about Aurora, and though Klaus says they haven’t done anything to her yet, “her death will be spectacular.” As he’s closing the door to the container, Hayley stops him. She tells Tristan he killed a good man. Jackson will be with her forever, but Tristan will be forgotten. She wants him to remember her face – it’ll be the last one he ever sees.
Cami leaves flowers at Sean’s tomb, telling Vincent it’s pointless since she and the flowers will both soon be dead. He reminds her of all the people who will miss her. She wants his opinion on her decision to die, since he’s pretty neutral. He says that as crazy as the world is, with all its monsters, it’s a better place with Cami in it.
She tells him that she risked her life fighting one of those monsters today, and it felt good. “It’s amazing what happens when you stop fighting what you are,” Vincent replies. Cami wonders if she’d be able to help people the way Kieran did if she stuck around. If she turned, she’d have the strength to make a difference. That would require feeding first, so Vincent cuts his wrist and offers up his blood. He asks if she’s sure about this. She isn’t, but she drinks anyway.
Marcel goes home and gets a visit from Elijah. “Back inside enemy lines, huh?” Marcel says. Elijah tells him they’re not enemies – he knows where Marcel’s loyalties lie. He believes Marcel when he says he would have warned the Mikaelsons if he’d known that the Strix were going to go after Hayley. Elijah says he had some longshoremen drop Tristan in “the deepest, darkest depths of I don’t give a damn.” They toast to “the devil in the deep blue sea.”
As for Aurora, she’s disappeared from the spot where Freya trapped her at the Compound. Freya kind of rolls her eyes at Klaus’ anger, like, “Sorry I couldn’t babysit; I was a little busy doing 15 other things you asked me to do.” She says Aurora had to have gotten help from either a witch or someone with dark objects. Klaus guesses it was Lucien.
In the bayou, Hayley writes Jackson’s name in her family’s Bible before joining the pack (and Elijah) for his proper Crescent sendoff. “‘Til death do us part,” she whispers as she pushes the boat carrying his body out into the water. Okay, that was kind of cheesy.
Klaus lets himself into Cami’s apartment and is surprised to find her drinking from a blood bag. She tells him she helped herself to the Mikaelsons’ family stash. That also wasn’t her first bag. He asks how she feels. She says that it first it was weird, but then it felt electric. It was like stars were exploding in her mind. It was amazing, and all she can think about is doing it again. Anyone who knows Cami should be concerned about how enthralling she finds her new life. Instead, Klaus is pleased.
Etc.: This episode is mean. “Cami’s dead… No, just kidding… Okay, now Jackson’s dead.” Give me a chance to breathe!
Leah Pipes does an excellent job showing how distraught Cami is at the thought of becoming a vampire. And Phoebe Tonkin (Hayley) almost steals the episode just with how she reacts to Jackson’s death. It’s the true, no-doubt-about-it confirmation that no matter what she feels for Elijah, she loved Jackson. Her level of hysteria over his death matches Klaus’ level of rage and helplessness over Cami’s death. (And I don’t like using the word “hysteria” because it has bad connotations, but it’s really the best fit here.)
R.I.P. to Jackson, who was a mostly unobjectionable character who didn’t deserve to go out like this. But also, he was standing in the way of a Hayley/Elijah pairing, so…yeah. I’ll get over it.
Is it bad that Tristan’s note about Jackson’s heart made me laugh? It starts with, “Dearest friends, please find enclosed the heart of Jackson,” and ends with, “Kind regards, Tristan.”
Oh, so that’s why I forgot almost everything about Tristan after I finished this season the first time around – because Hayley willed it.
An Eternity of Misery 