Klaus voices over that bodies can’t be buried in New Orleans, so they’re placed together in tombs. We see a few shots of tombs in the City of the Dead, including Cami’s, Sean’s, Jane-Anne and Sophie’s, and Davina’s (which is just taking up space, since she’s not in it anymore). When someone dies, their family’s tomb is opened and old bodies are moved aside to make room for the more recently departed. Their bloodlines become “entangled.”
The same goes for houses in the Quarter, where tragedies get wallpapered and painted over. Wind from the storm that started during Hayley’s funeral blows through the Compound, where someone has left the box of Marcel’s old things sitting out. Klaus says that houses are “tombs of the living, wherein we rot alongside memories of our dead. Crowded with people we have failed and those who have failed us, we are forced to struggle with those we love.”
Klaus and Elijah haven’t been able to find a way out of the Compound. Elijah looked everywhere but only found a “pretentious” wine cellar. “You sorted it by vintage,” Klaus spits out. He’s surprised that Elijah hasn’t recovered his memories. Elijah does know that they’re not supposed to be there together, but Klaus has figured out that they’re not really together – they’re in a chambre de chasse. They just need to play a game or solve a riddle to get out. Klaus won’t work with Elijah, though. He considers them even, since Hayley died because of Elijah, and now Antoinette will die because of Klaus. Klaus will find a way out for himself, but Elijah’s on his own.
Klaus looks around the house, seeing blood on Elijah’s portrait like it was in Alexis’ prophecy. It turns out Klaus and Elijah aren’t the only Mikaelsons in the chambre de chasse – Rebekah’s there, too. “What I wouldn’t give to spend just a decade without being dragged into a godforsaken chambre de chasse,” she says. Suddenly Kol joins them, literally dropping out of the sky. Rebekah’s disappointed to learn that the wine bottles in the house are empty. She was in Corsica, mourning Hayley, and Kol was waiting for Davina to come home from work (which may explain why he was naked when he arrived).
Kol asks if Klaus has ticked off any witches lately. Klaus says his current enemies are “hatemongers” who see him and Hope as abominations. “The bigoted undead – well, that’s new,” Rebekah comments. She figures they hired a witch to put the siblings in the chambre de chasse. Kol says that witch had to have spent a lot of time at the Compound, since they got all the details right.
Freya enters and provides some hints about the identity of that witch: They’re someone who knows the Compound well, doesn’t trust Klaus to stay away from Elijah, and would risk everything to save New Orleans. Klaus guesses it’s Vincent. Freya thinks he’s using the chambre de chasse to neutralize the Originals so he can send them off in four directions to keep them apart.
Elijah joins the group and says he thinks he’s found a way out. He takes them to the courtyard, where there’s a door with five huge locks on it. Kol says this is representational magic, and there are probably keys for each of them, connected to who they are. Elijah might have a tough time finding his, since he doesn’t know who he is. Freya determines that the door won’t open until all five locks have been released. They can only get out together.
Kol suggests that Elijah get away from Klaus so they can get through this peacefully. Klaus tells his sisters to search the house for the keys – he wants to get out ASAP so Hope doesn’t think he abandoned her again. Upstairs, Kol tells Elijah that the weather is connected to Klaus and Hope being in the same city; it’s leaking into this reality. He gives Elijah a box of his stuff so he can look for something meaningful.
Elijah notes that Klaus and Rebekah visited him in France but Kol never did. Kol says they never had much in common aside from being handsome. Heh. Plus, Kol still has a bit of a grudge against his brother, since he and Freya basically murdered Davina. Elijah’s taken aback by that. Kol advises him to look through his journals, which should hold clues about what represents him, “somewhere amongst the martyrdom and self-righteousness.” Elijah’s still stuck on what he did to Davina, and he asks if he ever apologized. Kol says sort of, in his own way. The important thing is that Kol got Davina back: “Not everybody is so lucky.”
Klaus pauses at a Mikaelson insignia on a wall, which sparks up a memory.
15 years ago: Klaus takes Hayley to the Compound for the first time. He’s just killed Marcel’s crew – in fact, their skeletons are still lying in the courtyard – and declared the place his home again. She doesn’t want to live there, since it’s a war zone. Klaus points out the insignia and tells her that his heir belongs there. Hayley tells him she can be his hostage or they can be a team. Klaus softens and says he’ll clean up the aftermath of the fight. She should take Kol’s room, since it has a fireplace. Hayley hopes the baby means something to Klaus, and that she can believe in him. She asks him not to let them down.
Present: Klaus smashes the insignia, partly out of anger and partly because he thinks there’s a key behind it. There isn’t. Marcel suddenly drops in like Kol did (fully clothed, though), and Klaus asks what game Vincent is playing. Marcel says this has nothing to do with him. They need to get out of there, since the city is about to be washed away. Vincent didn’t make he chambre de chasse – Hope did.
Marcel explains that while Ivy was telling him and Vincent about the prophecy, a hurricane suddenly formed. Freya clarifies that a monsoon from the waters is the second-to-last Hollow side effect, to be followed by the death of all firstborns. Rebekah offers Marcel a towel, since he’s bleeding, and he nods in appreciation as he accepts it. Aww, he doesn’t completely hate her for breaking his heart! There’s hope for these two crazy kids yet!
Marcel went looking for the Mikaelsons and found Hope at St. Anne’s with Klaus and Elijah’s bodies. She’s going to take the Hollow out of the four Mikaelsons. Marcel tried to stop her, so she threw him in the chambre de chasse. Rebekah notes that she’s in Corsica, so Hope won’t be able to get to her easily. But those hybrid minions Klaus created with her blood are sired to her, so she can get them to retrieve Rebekah’s body. Klaus guesses that Hope will protect the firstborns, end the curses, and take back the power of the Hollow. They’ll lose her to the darkness forever.
The siblings go back to searching the house for the keys. Elijah finds a stuffed bunny and asks Klaus what his relationship was like with his niece. Klaus’s annoyed that he’s only now interested in his family. Elijah points out that he needs help figuring out what’s connected to him, so giving him a hand will help them all get out. Klaus reveals that Elijah gave Hope the bunny the day she was born.
15 years ago: While hiding out before putting their plan to protect Hope in motion just after her birth, Hayley and Klaus brainstorm what to name her. Hayley’s still stuck on the possibility of Zoe or Caitlin, names she was considering when writing her letter to Hope. She suggests Katherine, which Klaus shoots down with a little laugh. Ha! Hayley’s so overwhelmed with love for her daughter that she feels like it might kill her. Klaus notes that it almost did. He’s sorry that the beginning of their child’s life was so violent. Hayley assures him that it’s not his fault. She knows he fought for them.
Klaus tells her that when Elijah thought she’d died, he said they’d lost the family’s only hope. That makes Hayley decide that Hope would be the perfect name for their daughter. Klaus suggests her middle name, Andrea.
Present: Klaus tells Elijah that he gave Hope her name. He rips the bunny apart but there’s no key inside. Way to destroy something so meaningful to your brother and daughter, Klaus!
Marcel finds Kol looking through the collective works of Shakespeare, or as Kol calls them, because of their themes of betrayal and power, How to Thrive in the Mikaelson Clan 101. He thinks his key might be there because he and Davina gave the books to Hope for her ninth birthday. I bet that made her super-popular at school! Marcel asks how Davina is, since he doesn’t hear from her much. Kol tells him that’s how normal families are: “You learn what you can and then you grow up.” You get out and make your own family.
Marcel notes that that goes against “always and forever.” Yeah, well, Kol wasn’t one of the Mikaelsons who made that vow, and he can’t believe he spent a thousand years wanting to be part of it. Meeting Davina changed him. He finds his key taped inside a book. Marcel wonders why the books are in the music room, which doesn’t even exist anymore, after it was damaged at least 100 years ago. Why would Hope put a room she’s never seen in the chambre de chasse?
Freya and Rebekah search Hope’s room, finding a half-finished painting of Hayley. Freya says her death doesn’t seem real yet. Rebekah admits to being jealous of Hayley for having a baby and getting married. Maybe she’s even jealous of her in death. Kol joins them and asks about the music room. Chambre de chasses are formed from memories, so if Hope had never seen it, she couldn’t have included it. But Freya, who came to the Compound for that Christmas party back in 1914, would have seen the room. Klaus appears and asks what Freya did.
She confesses that she helped Hope with her plan. The plagues are progressing, and just one more meeting between Mikaelsons would end everything. Klaus notes that he was about to leave New Orleans, but Freya couldn’t trust him not to return in the future. He doesn’t like being blamed for this, since he was trying to protect Hope. Maybe he was wrong to have faith in Freya. He guesses that her loyalty to her family was “infringed upon by other plans,” like reuniting with Keelin.
Freya reminds Klaus that she’s sacrificed everything for him and Hope. She gets that he was trying to protect his daughter, but that’s not what she needs right now. Klaus angrily says that as Hope’s father, he gets to decide what she needs. Freya challenges that, noting that she helped Hayley parent Hope while he was gone. Hope did everything they asked of her. The only time she acted out, it was because she missed Klaus. What will happen if she loses both parents? They need to let her make her own choices.
Klaus says she’s a child, but Freya tells him that ended when Hayley died. As long as the Hollow is inside Klaus, Hope is basically an orphan. They’ve all done dangerous things for their family and helped each other through it. They need to let Hope do this. Klaus asks Freya to stop her, but Freya says no. She disappears, along with her lock on the door. Well, on the plus side, now they just have to find three more keys!
Marcel finds Rebekah and asks why she can’t let herself be happy with him like Kol is with Davina. Uh, because Kol doesn’t care what happens to his siblings? Rebekah wants to delay this conversation, but Marcel notes that they won’t have much time once they’re out of the chambre de chasse – they’ll still have the curses to deal with. He turns his focus back to the search for the keys, remembering that he used to hide letters to Rebekah under the floorboards of her room. He pulls one up and finds her key, along with a necklace.
Marcel used to think he could choose when to love Rebekah. She would leave and he would just “fall back into the arms of the city.” That doesn’t work anymore. He’s always loved her and always will. He wants to know why she left him waiting for her at City Hall. Rebekah doesn’t get why he wants to be with her, since her family’s cursed. Marcel scoffs at that, saying he’s not Hayley or Cami – he’s not going to die on her. Rebekah says she isn’t worried about killing him; there are worse ways she could hurt him. He’s well aware: “You’re doing a pretty good job of it right now.”
Klaus’ search for his key has become frantic, but he slows when he finds a box full of letters Hayley sent him during his seven years away. He sent them all back to her unread.
Four years ago: Hayley calls Klaus after Hope’s 11th birthday party and tells him she liked the bike he sent her. He says she doesn’t have to know it was from him. Hayley doesn’t know why they’re not speaking, so I guess Hope didn’t tell her about that time she astral-projected and caught her father murdering people. Klaus doesn’t want them to talk on the phone anymore; he trusts that Hayley can handle all the parenting from here. “Since when do Mikaelsons bail on each other?” she asks. “You’re not a Mikaelson,” he replies. “You’ve escaped us, Hayley. For God’s sake, take the win.” Hayley refuses to give up on Klaus, but he hangs up on her without hearing more. Behind him, just off-screen so Hayley couldn’t see on their video call, is a dead body.
Present: Elijah searches the music room, ignoring Marcel when he says that he and Kol already looked there. Marcel doesn’t get why Elijah still doesn’t have his memories after Vincent’s spell. He really doesn’t remember teaching Marcel to play piano there, or welcoming him home from war in the courtyard, or exiling Marcel from the city he built, or killing him on the bridge? Nope! Marcel notes that if he were Elijah, he wouldn’t want to remember, either. Elijah asks what he’s suggesting, calling him Marcellus. Looks like his memories aren’t completely gone after all.
Marcel comes across Klaus as he’s burning Hayley’s letters. He says the Mikaelsons are all the same, what with Klaus burning his guilt, Rebekah pretending not to love Marcel, and Elijah lying about not recovering his memories. Marcel thinks he’s getting them back, but not anything that’s substantial or that will hurt. If he’s not remembering, it’s because he doesn’t want to. There’s a clink behind Klaus and he turns to see that a key fell out of one of Hayley’s letters. He says Elijah will need to remember if he wants to save Antoinette.
Elijah’s the only one left without a key, and while Marcel is searching for it, Klaus confronts Elijah for lying about not having all his memories back. Elijah claims that he still doesn’t remember anything, and he has no reason to lie, since he wants to get out of there as much as everyone else. The four siblings meet up and Klaus announces that their brother is purposely repressing his memories so they stay trapped. Elijah yells that he’s not their brother.
Rebekah complains that he didn’t consult the family before asking Marcel and Vincent to erase his memories. Elijah doesn’t know why they would want him back, since it seems like all he does is make them miserable. Kol says they all make each other miserable. Rebekah brings up the “always and forever” vow, but Elijah says he made another one with Antoinette. She’s dying, and he’s begging them to help him so he can save her.
Klaus asks Elijah what he saw when Vincent and Marcel tried to restore his memories. Elijah mentions the white hallway, which Kol says is where he hides the things he doesn’t want to remember. Klaus asks for more, and Elijah says he tried to open the red door but it burned him more than being in the sun without a daylight ring. Klaus tells him that that pain is the last thing Hayley knew. The truth about what he did to the woman he loves is behind that door.
Elijah argues that Antoinette is the woman he loves now. Rebekah hasn’t even met Antoinette but she knows no one could make him feel the same way he did about Hayley. He asks if his feelings for Hayley weren’t just a product of his crusade to save Klaus. Maybe she was an excuse for him to stick around and uphold the “always and forever” vow.
The storm starts worsening, and Rebekah thinks they’re running out of time. Klaus complains that they’re not getting anywhere. He doesn’t think their current situation has anything to do with “always and forever.” Rebekah disagrees – Klaus never interfered with Elijah and Hayley’s…whatever because he knew they would both stay close to him. Klaus notes that Elijah ended up leaving. He was always there for Klaus, setting things right and trying to redeem him. He made Klaus need him. He was Klaus’ greatest ally and the only person to give him the chance of being worthy of Hope. He was Klaus’ best friend. “You killed him,” Klaus tells Elijah, “and I hate you for that.”
The four of them suddenly double over in pain and hear whispers from the Hollow. Kol realizes that Hope is taking the Hollow out of them. It’s too late to stop her. They all light up blue and the pieces of the Hollow retreat from them.
Marcel goes to the dungeon and opens Elijah’s coffin, which is full of snakes. He reaches inside and pulls out the key. He takes it to the courtyard and explains how he figured out where it was. Kol’s key was in a copy of As You Like It, in the pages of Act I, Scene III: “Now go we in content / To liberty, and not to banishment.” It’s Hope’s way of saying that Kol gets to go free. Rebekah’s key was with the necklace she gave Hope, hidden like Rebekah hid Hope when she was a baby. Klaus was in Hayley’s letters about Hope. Elijah only represents death to Marcel now, and Hope sees him the same way after what happened to Hayley. That’s why his key was in his coffin.
The five go to the door and open all the locks. On the other side is Elijah’s white hallway. He thinks Hope is trying to get revenge by forcing him to recover all his memories and take responsibility for what happened to Hayley. Kol fully doesn’t care, so he goes through a door with a K on it and exits the chambre de chasse. Marcel decides he’s done, too, and with a final look at Rebekah, he leaves as well.
Elijah can’t open the red door, and Rebekah doesn’t want to leave him alone there. Klaus has no interest in helping the man who’s not longer his brother and is now just “the man who got Hope’s mother killed.” Rebekah notes that she once felt the same about Klaus. He killed the mother who took such good care of them as children. They’re capable of doing horrible things but they’re also capable of forgiveness.
Klaus unhelpfully tells Elijah to just open the door. He sends Rebekah through her door, promising they’ll be right behind her. Klaus tells Elijah that he killed Klaus’ brother when he let Hayley die. He loved her because of her, not because of a family obsession. She believed in something better for the Mikaelsons and she fought for it when they couldn’t. Klaus doesn’t know who Elijah will be on the other side of the red door, but he does know that Elijah can’t open it alone. He needs Klaus. They run at the door together, breaking it down.
Elijah’s memories flood back in, and when he and Klaus wake up at St. Anne’s, all he can think about is Hayley. He’s devastated by the memory of her last moments and how he did nothing to help her. He sobs in a pew, howling with grief. When he’s done, Klaus gives him a vial of his blood for Antoinette. If Elijah wants to let go of his past and build a life with her, he should go to her. Elijah tries to respond as Klaus is leaving, but all he can say is his brother’s name – his full name, which Klaus hasn’t heard him say in seven years.
The storm has passed but Marcel knows another will be on its way sooner or later. He and Rebekah watch from a balcony overlooking the Quarter as an older man puts a strand of beads around his wife’s neck and kisses her. Rebekah says she wants what they have – “a life with context.” She wants a family and the chance to grow old and die a mortal death. She’ll never get to have that.
Marcel thinks she’ll have more, since they’ll get to see all of history unfold. They can watch it together. “Isn’t that worth it?” he asks. Rebekah points out that he likes being a vampire because he chose it. She’s cursed and she’s not happy about it. She doesn’t want to subject Marcel to eternity with her when she doesn’t want eternity. She loves him and she doesn’t want her sadness to destroy him. She kisses him passionately, then leaves.
Elijah goes to Antoinette, who’s reached the delirium stage of her illness and is remembering their conversation in New York about noise now being music. He gives her Klaus’ blood and she quickly heals. She says she thought she’d lost him. He doesn’t reply, just turning to leave. When she stops him and he turns back, he says, “Forgive me,” then walks out.
Hope is sleeping after a night of messing with her family, neutralizing the Hollow’s power, and saving the city. Freya tells Klaus that she’s a hero and no one knows it. Klaus is upset with Freya for helping her, but he has something else to do before he yells at her. He finds the box that held Hayley’s letters in the chambre de chasse and is relieved that they’re there in reality. As Elijah puts on one of the suits he hasn’t worn in seven years, along with his daylight ring, Klaus opens a letter. In the bayou, Elijah traces Hayley’s name where Klaus carved it in a tree, then stands on the dock where her loved ones said goodbye to her.
In the letter, Hayley wrote that she brought Hope home for the summer and took her to the bayou, hoping she would play with the other Crescent kids. Instead, Hope sat with Mary while she was dying and sang and read to her. “Sometimes I think about all the unlikely things that led to her existence – you and I born a thousand years apart and all of the petty crap that brought us to that one night in Mystic Falls,” Hayley wrote. She wouldn’t change a thing. “In all my life, I’ve never felt lucky before her,” she wrote. Klaus cries as Elijah stoically looks out at the water, paying his respects to Hayley in his own way.
Etc.: Try to picture Klaus with a daughter named Caitlin. You can’t, can you?
Klaus’ reaction to Hayley suggesting Katherine as a name for the baby is one of the funniest things to ever happen on this show.
Klaus coming up with Hayley’s birth name as Hope’s middle name is another reason I think he cares about Hayley more than he lets on. The fact that he even knows her birth name is kind of impressive, given how dismissive he is of the bayou werewolves.
Continuity alert: In the chambre de chasse version of the Compound, Klaus’ full moon painting hangs over Hope’s bed.
If I had a dollar for every time Marcel brought up Elijah killing him, I’d have enough money to build my own compound.
Rebekah and Marcel watching the older couple together makes me think of Damon being inspired to take the cure after watching an older couple together, and now I really want him and Rebekah to know that they have that in common because I think it would horrify them both.
It’s weird that Hope doesn’t appear in this episode. Everything she does happens off-screen.
An Eternity of Misery 