Back from the dead, Davina is once again hiding out in the attic of St. Anne’s. Kol is desperate to find a way to unlink her from Inadu, but Davina knows that’ll be tough, given how much power Inadu has. She wants to keep him close, since they might not have much time together, but Kol wants to get right to work to ensure she can stick around after Inadu is defeated. Davina notes that if Inadu dies, she will, too, but if Kol helps her, he’ll betray his family. “That’s kind of my specialty,” he replies.
Downstairs, Inadu is done letting Kol and Davina have their little reunion. She’s waited a long time to become mortal, but now she’s vulnerable, and she knows the Mikaelsons are gunning for her. She tasks Kol with safeguarding the totem that protects her. If anything happens to her, Davina will suffer, too.
Things are very quiet in the Quarter – no parades, no live music, no shopping. Hope blames the Hollow. She tells Klaus that ever since Inadu came back to New Orleans, she’s been draining the life out of the city. She took Elijah already and soon she’ll come for the rest of the Mikaelsons. Klaus reminds Hope that they’ve faced a lot of villains over the years and defeated them all. The Hollow won’t be any different. Hope thinks she is.
Hayley’s hanging out with Elijah’s coffin when she hears a noise nearby – the pendant Freya put him in is cracking. Freya tells her and Klaus that it’s becoming unstable and won’t be able to hold Elijah much longer, so they need to resurrect him ASAP. Yay, let’s kill Inadu! Wait, no, let’s not! Let’s find a way to save Davina and THEN kill Inadu! Freya tells Hayley that while Hayley’s blood can weaken Inadu, it’s not strong enough to kill her, due to the fact that Hayley died years ago. They need to use the blood of the last living Labonair, Hope.
Klaus doesn’t want her involved, but Freya points out that she already is. She thinks Hope kept drawing the ouroboros because she’s the key to destroying the Hollow. Inadu is one end of the Labonair bloodline and Hope is the other. They need to close the loop. Hayley will stab Inadu with a knife covered in Hope’s blood. Hayley’s on board and leaves to tell Hope the plan.
Josh visits Davina’s tomb, adorably clueless about her being alive again. Good news: He and Eddie are still together. Also, he finally watched Practical Magic on Davina’s recommendation and loved it. Marcel joins him, looking for Vincent so he can get an update on the cure for Sofya. Sorry, Marcel, he’s not in this episode.
Freya does a spell to trace Inadu’s magic and finds her at the house of a Dr. LaForge, who once tortured and killed his family and friends. Rebekah says he claimed an evil spirit made him do it. The house has been abandoned since then, making it “the perfect lair for someone who relishes tragedy,” as Freya notes. Her spell also gives her the location of Inadu’s totem. It makes Inadu unkillable, so they’ll need to destroy it before taking her out.
Rebekah volunteers for that job and calls Kol to tell him to meet her there. He’s already there and has found the totem, a glowing blue crystal. When Rebekah arrives, Marcel stops her from going inside by herself. She tells him they’re ending this all tonight. He goes in with her, since Kol hasn’t shown himself yet. When he does, he lies that the totem isn’t there. Rebekah objects, since the map Freya used for her locator spell shows that it’s still there. Kol invites her and Marcel to search the house, but they suddenly find that they can’t move. Kol took a page from Freya’s book and put a circle on the ceiling to keep them stuck in one spot. He apologizes and Rebekah asks what Inadu has done to him.
Hope doesn’t want to participate in the next phase of Elijah’s rescue – not because it involves taking her blood but because she’s afraid that Inadu will hurt Hayley. Hayley says that when she was Hope’s age, she had to deal with a lot of things she didn’t want to. She didn’t want that for Hope, but she doesn’t have a choice. Sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to because we’re the only one who can do them. Hope knows Hayley does that herself, so she offers up her blood.
Unable to reach Rebekah or Kol, Freya tells Klaus that they have to assume that the totem is still intact. She sends him to find the totem before the pendant fully breaks apart. That will leave Hope unsupervised, so Freya tells Klaus to “compel her a nanny.” He’s the best advantage they have, and he needs to act. He gives her knives to put Hope’s blood on so she and Hayley will both be armed against Inadu.
Kol takes the totem to Davina, who tells him to destroy it. She doesn’t want to risk Hayley’s death. Kol says they’ll have to find another way to keep Davina alive. She remembers that Elijah once gave her a spell from Esther’s grimoire that can break a magical link. She’s not strong enough right now to do it, but they could find a coven to help. Kol knows the spell and says they just need “one powerful little witch.” He gives Davina his car keys and tells her to leave town if he’s not back by midnight.
Freya and Hayley go to the LaForge mansion, and for the first time since reuniting with her family, Freya’s anxious about risking her life. She has Keelin now and is worried she won’t make it back to her. Hayley promises that she will. Freya tries to smooth things over with her; they’ve clashed before, but that’s what families do. They enter the house together and find a bunch of the Hollowers’ bodies. A blast of power knocks Freya out, and Inadu comes down the stairs and magically breaks Hayley’s neck.
Hayley finds herself in the bayou, where things are much too peaceful and pleasant to be confused for reality. And if that wasn’t enough, Jackson’s there. He thinks her mind took her to a happy place because she’s having a psychological break. He’s glad that her happy place is there with him instead of somewhere with Elijah. Jackson promises that Hayley will be back in fighting shape before Inadu finishes what she’s started.
Kol pays a visit to his niece, bringing her a sanguinem knot and trying to bond with her over magic. Hope is hesitant to do it with a stranger, even if that stranger is actually family. She asks why he left town. He tells her it was because he was sad and thought he’d never be happy again. He didn’t want to make everyone around him sad, too. Hope warms toward him and takes the sanguinem knot from him.
Freya regains consciousness and goes looking for Hayley in the mansion. Inadu has had her restrained and has a Hollower keeping her subdued with wolfsbane. Inadu won’t kill her, though: “She still has a part to play.” She uses Hayley’s knife to draw some of her blood. Freya finds Keelin bleeding on the floor, and though she’s worried at first, she quickly realizes that she’s imagining things. Keelin tells her it’ll be real soon.
Stuck together and with nothing else to do, Rebekah and Marcel have a mature, meaningful talk about their past and where they see their relationship going in the future. Ha ha, of course not! They fight. Rebekah suggests burning down the house to get out, but Marcel thinks that’s a little dramatic. She figures it’s just dramatic enough, since staying there leaves her unable to help her family in a life-or-death crisis. She doesn’t want to lose anyone. Klaus arrives and they tell him Kol is protecting Inadu’s totem. The map shows that it’s at the Compound.
Hayley is eager to regain consciousness so she can continue helping Elijah. Oof, sorry, Jackson. He asks if Elijah is good to her. She confirms that he is, and he made her feel safe when she first fell for him. Now she doesn’t feel safe anymore. Jackson doesn’t think safety is all she wants. He knows that Hayley was in love with Elijah while they were married. “It’s an old, sad story – the monsters who treated you like crap turned you into a girl who loves monsters,” he says.
Hayley realizes that Jackson is trying to stall her, and that he’s really the Hollow. She rips out his heart and wakes up. She frees herself from her restraints but can’t get out of the room Inadu has her in. Jackson/the Hollow (Jacklow? Why not?) appears again, and though she thinks he can’t hurt her physically, he uses a cleaver to prove her wrong.
Rebekah guesses that Sofya won’t be happy to learn that she and Marcel spent the day together. He tells her that Sofya’s been unconscious since the Hollow took over her body. Rebekah has no sympathy for her, not least because Sofya shot her. Marcel decides it’s time to get out, so he breaks a gas line to make the house burn down faster. The resulting explosion can be seen across the river.
Hope sums up what Kol wants her to do: Untie the sanguinem knot to free Davina from the Hollow. She has that cute little-kid interest in the fact that they’re in love. Kol says it’s like Hayley’s love for…well, another of Hope’s uncles. “You are miraculously well-adjusted,” he says when she confirms that she knows about Hayley and Elijah. She takes off her anti-magic bracelet so she can get to work on the knot.
Hayley asks Jacklow why he’s doing this to her. He says he only wanted to protect her, but now she’s going to die. As she fights him, Freya hears and tries to undo the spell keeping her sealed away. Keelin/definitely also the Hollow (Keelow) taunts that she’s not strong enough, and she’s facing her worst fear – Keelin’s death. Freya ignores her and uses a little mallet that was probably intended for torture to try to break the chains keeping the door closed.
Klaus returns to the Compound as Hope tries to untie the knot. Kol tells her to keep working and goes down to stall Klaus. Klaus is like, “Fight? Okay, fight.” Adorably clueless Josh remains adorable but drops the clueless part when Davina shows up at Rousseau’s. She tells him she doesn’t know how long she has, but she had to come see him and thank him for visiting her tomb. She heard him every time he came to talk to her.
Kol tells Klaus that he only went behind everyone’s backs for Davina. Inadu brought her back and linked them, but Kol is close to freeing her. Klaus calls him a “lovesick imbecile” and tells him that Inadu only raised Davina to get him to betray his family. He was pathetic enough to accept. Kol argues that they owe Davina this second chance, but Klaus doesn’t agree.
Jacklow reminds Hayley that the violent Elijah she saw behind the red door was the real him. “You fell for the suit,” he tells her. Hayley fights back, saying that Jacklow isn’t Jackson and doesn’t deserve to wear his face. Klaus and Kol’s fight leads to Klaus getting the totem as Jacklow gets the better of Hayley and starts to strangle her. He turns into Elijah as he says that Jackson was good but Elijah never was.
Klaus smashes the totem, making Hayley’s attacker disappear. Freya breaks through the chains and gets to her. It’s time for Hayley to stab Inadu. Back at the Compound, Kol begs Klaus to let him live long enough to find out if Davina’s still alive. “Mercy is a privilege reserved for family,” Klaus replies. “Your status has been revoked.” He tries to dagger Kol but Kol holds him off. He’s never experienced love like this in 1,000 years. Davina changed him. He asks if Klaus wouldn’t do the same things Kol did if he could get Cami back. Upstairs, Hope grins as she levitates the sanguinem knot.
Inadu mixes up something and drinks it. As Hope starts untying the knot, Hayley finds Inadu, who starts magically breaking her bones, causing her to drop her knife. Freya arrives and makes a scalpel fly into Inadu’s neck. At Rousseau’s, Davina feels the pain, too. Hayley is able to grab her knife and get Inadu on her back. Inadu tells her to go ahead and kill her. The knot keeps untying as Josh tries to give Davina his blood. Hope passes out, the knot untied. Freya pulls Hayley off of Inadu, confident that her multiple stab wounds have killed her. Hope regains consciousness as the doors around her slam shut and blue light appears.
Rebekah and Marcel escaped the house explosion a little sooty but intact. She’s ready to say good night, but he doesn’t like how things have turned out with them: “We were in love for two centuries, and now we’re setting fires to avoid each other.” Ooh, sweetie, that’s not why she blew up the house. She’s trying to save her family. Rebekah points out that after her five-year nap, she woke up to Marcel trying to kill everyone she loves. Marcel replies that Elijah killed him and she didn’t shed a tear. “I mourned the man I thought I knew,” she tells him. “Oh, I’m sorry, I must have missed that while you were trying to curse me,” he shoots back.
She reminds him that seven years ago, she asked him to leave with her, but he loved New Orleans more than he loved her. He says he watched it burn down for her, then waited 100 years for her, but she didn’t come back. Yeah, because she thought you were dead! Also, she was in a coffin for most of that time. Rebekah’s hurt that he seemingly forgot her. But maybe that’s for the best. They agree on that, then kiss each other before heading off in separate directions.
So did Hope untie the knot before Davina could die along with Inadu? She…did! Josh keeps Davina company as she waits for Kol by his car. She’s worried that Klaus found out about Kol’s betrayal and killed him. Josh thinks she should leave on her own before there’s another threat to her life. When they first met, she told him she wanted to be normal, and he said that was relative. Now she’s “a twice-resurrected Harvest Girl with an Original vampire boyfriend. Normal’s always going to be relative.” She needs to take this third chance at life and go.
Davina doesn’t want to leave Kol, but Kol arrives just then, unharmed and undaggered. He says he “caught Klaus in a rare charitable moment.” It won’t last, so they need to leave while they can. Davina’s willing to go anywhere with Kol. “Everywhere,” he corrects. Josh rolls his eyes as they kiss. Kol thanks him, and Josh and Davina say a nice goodbye before she and Kol drive off into the…well, the sun is already down, but we’ll pretend they’re driving off into the sunset.
At the Compound, Freya prepares to resurrect Elijah. Hayley’s decided not to be there when he wakes up. Freya can understand, since Inadu messed with their minds. Klaus notes that Freya has someone to comfort her now, but Freya plans to spent the evening with her family, not Keelin. Klaus asks if Freya’s okay, since she seems shaken. She’s just ready to get on with things. She thinks it’s fitting that they’re using Inadu’s death to bring back Elijah, since she used Elijah’s death to be reborn. Freya chants something and the pendant glows.
Hayley goes to the bayou to drink some beer in Jackson’s memory. She tells him that he’s the one she should have wanted, but she was never able to walk away from Elijah. She met him when she was scared and alone, and she knows it’s weird that she fell for him, but she never had a good example of what love is supposed to look like.
Freya continues the resurrection as Hayley says she doesn’t want Hope to have the same experience she did. She wishes Hope could have known Jackson. Hayley knows what Elijah is – she’s always known – but she loved him anyway, or maybe because of it. As Elijah undesiccates and wakes up, Hayley admits that she’s a monster, too. Hope is the only one who’s never done anything bad, and Hayley wants to make sure she stays that way. She knows what she has to do, but she needs to be brave enough to do it.
Klaus checks on Hope, who’s awake past her bedtime. He confirms that Elijah’s back and will see her in the morning. She has nothing to worry about anymore. Hope notes that Klaus didn’t punish Kol. Klaus says he’s family. She knows that they protect family, like her parents protect her. “Always and forever,” Klaus promises. Tomorrow they’ll go around the Quarter, experiencing all the things he loves there, like the dancing, art, and music Inadu snuffed out when she returned. “After all, every princess ought to know her kingdom,” he says. He puts her back to bed, and as she turns over to go to sleep, her eyes glow blue.
Etc.: Josh complains that Eddie talks to dogs in a baby voice, which he considers a possible dealbreaker. See, for me, that would be a reason to love someone.
I have to laugh at the fact that, while most parents teach their kids not to go off with or take candy from strangers, Hayley and Klaus taught Hope not to do magic with them.
For some reason, the shot of the house exploding from across the river cracks me up. Everything else is normal and quiet, and then…boom. You just know someone glanced out the window, said, “The Mikaelsons are at it again,” and went back to whatever they were doing.
Davina acknowledging that she could hear Josh while she was dead is even nicer when you remember that he wasn’t supposed to go to the City of the Dead. He snuck into witch territory to visit his best friend’s tomb without any assurance that she could hear him. Turns out it was worth it.
I’m so happy they pulled an Alaric with Davina and let her come back for good (even though she’s only in a few episodes after this). I was disappointed that her story seemed to have a sad ending. She deserved better, and she winds up getting it.
An Eternity of Misery 