Klaus is all ready to stake himself to get rid of the Hollow and doesn’t want to listen to anything Elijah has to say. But Hope arrives in the middle of their confrontation and realizes what’s going on. She’s upset that Klaus lied to her and that Elijah’s going along with his plan. Klaus argues that he’s saving her life. Elijah begs Klaus to go back to New Orleans with him so they can find another way to deal with the Hollow. Klaus says there isn’t one. He apologizes to Hope and says he’s made his decision. She replies that she’s made hers, too, then magically snaps his neck.
Hope and Elijah take Klaus back to New Orleans and lock him up in the dungeon before he revives. Kol says Klaus was so close to being mature, and now he’s made a decision that leaves the rest of the family “stewing in his melodrama.” Elijah blames the Hollow, since it feeds on anger, something Klaus has a lot of. Kol figures that, like always, Klaus will find some kind of escape hatch and survive: “He’s a cockroach that will outlive us all.” Rebekah notes that this could really be the end, but either way, Kol doesn’t plan to stick around. He’s going home, though Elijah predicts that he’ll come back.
Freya tells Hope that the Hollow will start making Klaus crazy and dangerous. Well, more dangerous than usual. It’ll probably happen within the next few hours. This is likely Klaus’ last day alive. Hope says they just need to pull the Hollow out of him and separate it again. Freya knows that won’t last, since it didn’t before. Hope suggests keeping him asleep, which will at least slow down the Hollow. Freya tells her there isn’t enough magic in the world to slow it down.
Klaus wakes up to the Hollow’s whispers, plus a louder voice that he would know anywhere: Mikael’s. A hallucination of him taunts Klaus for being overpowered by his own daughter. Cami arrives and urges Klaus not to let the Miklucination bait him. The Miklucination orders Klaus to find Hope and discipline her for her actions. Klaus tries to attack him but is held back by his chains. Plus, Mikael isn’t there anymore.
The chains disappear as the Miklucination returns to say that Klaus should have followed his first instincts and killed Hope before she was born. She’s the reason he’s in this weak state. Killing Hope is the only way to make this right. As Klaus’ eyes start glowing blue, his hallucination of Cami (Camlucination, of course) tells him not to listen to Mikael. He needs to run.
Kol is on his way out of the Quarter when he comes up against Rebekah, who’s standing in the middle of the road. She refuses to let him leave. Hope wants to find Klaus, but Marcel notes that it’s Mardi Gras, so it’ll be hard to find him in the crowds. She’d rather try than resign herself to losing her father. Plus, uh, maybe you guys should be out capturing him before he kills someone.
Hope goes into the Quarter, brushing off Marcel’s attempts to talk her out of looking for Klaus. She blames herself for the situation. Marcel knows she won’t be able to keep Klaus locked up for good, but if it’s this or Hope becomes an orphan at 15, she’s going to keep going. She asks who’s supposed to take care of her if Klaus dies. Elijah? Marcel? No, because he has his own eternal life to live. She gives him a magic migraine in an attempt to make him stop following her.
Freya tries a locator spell in the bell tower but can’t get a read on where Klaus is: “There’s death all around him.” Elijah regrets not taking the Hollow into himself. He’s only ever wanted to quiet Klaus’ despair and shame. He doesn’t want Klaus to destroy himself or die in this state. The candles around Freya’s map suddenly flare up and she sees that Klaus is in the Quarter, surrounded by dark magic.
He’s fighting the Miklucination in an alley when Hope finds him and asks him to come home with her. The Miklucination again urges Klaus to kill her. The Camlucination appears behind Hope and tells Klaus that he’s better than this. Elijah suddenly zooms up and snaps Klaus’ neck.
Freya looks through Vincent’s magic stuff for a spell Ivy told her about once that might be able to temporarily remove some of the darkness from Klaus. He could at least have a clearer mind and enjoy his last moments. Vincent isn’t in the mood to help, and he’s focused on his own project: packing up to leave New Orleans. Freya decides not to wait any longer to present him with a request she and Keelin have. They’ve agreed to have a child (that was fast!) and they want Vincent to be the father. Before he can answer, he finds the spell she was looking for.
Kol and Rebekah fight in the road about how selfish Kol is for leaving. He thinks she should stop focusing on Klaus and start planning her next stab at jilting Marcel. “Happiness is a choice you’re incapable of accepting,” he accuses. Rebekah tells him to go to Hell. Sorry, that’s not an option anymore. Kol says he’s going home to his wife. Klaus has daggered his siblings countless times, and if he’s finally going to die, they should be happy.
Rebekah thinks they should celebrate how Klaus has matured and is trying to be selfless. If they turn their backs on him, they’re no better than he’s been to them. Kol says he never implied he was better. The others bought into “always and forever” but Kol didn’t. Rebekah can’t believe that he really doesn’t care that their brother is dying. If he doesn’t, he’s even less of a man than she thought he was.
Hope looks at some family pictures at the Compound, picking up one the family took on her first Christmas. Klaus wakes up in the living room instead of the dungeon and sees that his veins have started darkening…as have Elijah’s. He ask what Elijah did. “What I’ve always done – followed you into the fire,” Elijah replies. Freya put some of the Hollow’s energy into him to clear Klaus’ mind.
Klaus calls him a “sentimental fool” and asks for the for-real, we-swear-it’s-the-last white oak stake. Elijah won’t give it to him yet. If this is really the end for Klaus, he owes it to Hope and the rest of the family to say goodbye. Klaus can’t face seeing Hope in pain, and though he thinks Elijah can’t relate, he can. Klaus admires Elijah for trying to make him a better person over the centuries, but Elijah needs to let him do this his way. Elijah threatens to stop him, but Klaus’ final request to his brother is to be allowed to die the way he wants.
Caroline arrives the next day to “collect a debt.” She plays the voicemail Klaus left her when he first came back to New Orleans, apparently having kept it for 16 years. He offered to show her around back then, and now she wants her tour.
Freya follows up with Vincent on her and Keelin’s request, which scares him. He knows what it’s like to be on the edge of starting something new; it’s never worked out. He thinks Freya must be terrified of bringing a child into the world (their world especially). She says this child will have a pack and a coven, and might have more compassion and understanding. She wants a better future with Keelin and Vincent. They’re a family. Vincent tells her that part of being a family is saying no sometimes. He’s lost and hurt too many people to pass on his curse to a new generation.
Rebekah laments to Marcel that of her three brothers, one is dying, one is enabling him, and one is a deserter. “Mikaelsons have always been complicated,” he comments. He wonders what it says about him that he’s always fight so hard to be one of them. Despite everything that’s happened, they’re Rebekah’s family and she loves them. So does he. Rebekah says Kol is right about happiness being a choice, then kisses Marcel passionately. Uh, the Compound has a hundred rooms; maybe don’t rip each other’s clothes off in a communal space?
Klaus and Caroline go to St. James Infirmary, where he asks if she’d be there if he wasn’t dying. She jokes that she’d let him chase her around for a few more centuries. She urges him to say goodbye to Hope so she can have closure. Klaus doesn’t think closure actually exists. Caroline tells him that while it’s admirable that he’s doing this, Hope will be haunted if he leaves her with pain and questions and anger.
Klaus tearfully admits that he doesn’t know how to say goodbye. Caroline suggests that one of them walk away without looking back, no matter how much they want to. “You’ll know that the not looking just means ‘I’ll never forget you,'” she says. She kisses him, then gets up and leaves. She pauses as if she’s going to turn back, but she doesn’t.
Hope thinks Klaus left the Compound because he doesn’t want to spend his last hours with her. Elijah tells her that he’s scared. She’s Klaus’ everything, and he wouldn’t be making this sacrifice if it weren’t for her. She accomplished in just 15 years what Elijah couldn’t in 1,000. Klaus isn’t abandoning her.
Klaus comes back and asks for time alone with Hope. He invites her to lash out if she needs to, anything other than look sad. She wishes he’d let Elijah take on the Hollow, but Klaus doesn’t think a good father would let another man die for his child. He loves Hope, but children bury their parents all the time. She notes that she just got him back – why does this have to happen today? “I have not lived an honorable life,” Klaus says. “You know that. But doing this, taking the darkness into myself so no one else is afflicted by it, that is an honorable death, and I can do that.” He can do it because she’s helped him feel something he never thought he could: unconditional love. Hope is his daughter, his heir, and his heart.
Rebekah and Marcel are cuddled up a little, reminiscing about Klaus, when Keelin comes over. The three of them, Elijah, and Freya start drinking together and sharing more memories of Klaus. Apparently he would get drunk, vow to “set the world ablaze” with his art, and then actually set the paintings on fire. He called these “inspirational rampages.” Kol returns and joins in, having decided that Rebekah was right and they should honor Klaus’ sacrifice. Plus, he didn’t want to miss his chance to complain about his brother.
Klaus comes in and invites his family to keep telling stories. They might as well have a nice funeral for him. They all sit down to dinner together, laughing and enjoying each other’s company instead of crying over the loss they’re about to suffer. Toward the end, Marcel goes to sit by Hope. “I will never abandon you,” he promises. He’ll come to her any time she needs him.
Rebekah announces that they’re going to have a wish-burning ceremony. Instead of throwing a slip of paper with his name on it into the fire, Elijah pockets it. Klaus tells his siblings that while he’s enjoyed torturing them over the years, they mean everything to him. He’s appreciated their loyalty and advice and love. They’re probably the only reason he’s stayed alive this long. He knows that they’ll keep coming together to take care of each other. That’s why he’s not afraid for Hope’s future.
“We’re bound forever to those with whom we share blood,” Elijah says, echoing his first voiceover of the series. “And while we may not choose our family, that bond is our greatest strength.” Klaus tells the group that even though this is his last night, this isn’t the end of the Mikaelsons. “Always and forever,” they chorus. As Klaus pulls Hope out of the courtyard, Elijah tells the others that they need to talk about something else.
Hope wants to go with Klaus when it’s time for him to die, but he doesn’t think that’s a good idea. She promises to make him proud. She might have a phase where she gets tattoos and dates older men, though. She’ll go back to school and be okay because she’s a Mikaelson. She’ll do right by the name. Klaus knows she will. He tells her he loves her “more than all the days and nights, deeper than the oceans and the skies.” She wonders how they’re supposed to say goodbye. He wishes he knew.
Rebekah, Elijah, and Klaus go into the Quarter, to the same bench where Klaus told Elijah he wanted to be king again. Klaus regrets getting in the way of Rebekah’s happiness and wants to make it up to her. He asked Caroline to get her the cure. Once Damon’s done with it in a few decades, Rebekah can take it from him and have the human life she’s always wanted. She thanks him and hugs him and Elijah, then leaves.
Klaus tells Elijah that he doesn’t want Elijah’s last memory of him to be his death. He doesn’t want a sad goodbye. Elijah agrees to that and pulls out the white oak stake. He breaks it in half and announces that he’s going to die by his brother’s side.
Klaus points out that after he dies, Elijah will be free. “Free of what?” Elijah asks. Well, free of the violent, impulsive brother he’s spent a thousand years trying to rein in. Elijah doesn’t want freedom, though – he wants a choice that was stolen from them by Esther and Mikael. Tonight he saw a vision and path for everyone they love, but not himself. The purpose of his life has always been Klaus’ redemption. Klaus asks if Elijah thinks he’s really redeemed after everything he’s done. Elijah does.
He’s a hypocrite, according to Klaus, because he made Klaus say goodbye to everyone, then left without saying his own goodbyes. But that’s what Elijah was doing while Klaus and Hope were talking. He told the others that he was going to “redefine ‘always and forever'” and follow Klaus from “this adventure” to whatever comes next. Their siblings gave him their blessings. Klaus asks about Hope, but Elijah says she’ll have the rest of the family. He even threatened to haunt Kol if he doesn’t look after his niece. “She is the very best of me,” Klaus says. Elijah agrees.
In her room, Hope finishes up a painting of everyone at Freya and Keelin’s wedding. She’s added in Hayley, whose spirit is in her room, watching her happily. In the courtyard, Vincent tells Freya and Keelin that with two witches and a werewolf for parents, their kid will have a big temper. He realized that if Klaus could find the courage to sacrifice everything for his family, Vincent might be able to find the courage to deal with the possibility of loss.
Marcel hands out train tickets to the vampires at Rousseau’s, telling them that he’s leaving New Orleans, so they have to go, too. Rebekah shows up and asks if he has a ticket for her. She wants to be with him, but there’s a catch: She’s going to take the cure in a few decades and live a human life. She tells him he’s her friend, her partner, and her love. Hopefully he’ll also be her husband for the next hundred years, until she dies a mortal death. She gives him an envelope she’s kept all this time – the one that says, “If you say yes.” He does.
Elijah hands Klaus half of the white oak stake. Klaus worries that there’s nothing after this – darkness instead of peace. Elijah tells him they’ll face it together, like always. Klaus doesn’t think he deserves the love his brother has given him, but he’s grateful for it. “It’s been a glorious ride, Niklaus, and my greatest honor,” Elijah replies.
They hold the two halves of the stake to each other’s hearts and thrust them in at the same time. They desiccate looking into each other’s faces, then dissipate into ashes and embers.
Etc.: Davina should have been in this episode. She’s a Mikaelson, too.
I don’t know if this is significant, but the last time Klaus had a Miklucination, Mikael looked like he did a thousand years ago. This time around, he looks like his modern self.
Speaking of Mikael, at first I didn’t see the point in bringing him back for the finale, but when Klaus says that Hope helped him feel unconditional love, it made more sense. He never got unconditional love from Mikael (or Esther, really). That’s part of the reason he was never able to show it to anyone. His ability to fight the temptation Mikael gives him to kill Hope and sacrifice himself for her is his way of breaking the cycle.
Pretty bold of Vincent to assume that Freya and Keelin will want him involved in their child’s life. Maybe they just want him for the conception and that’s it.
What’s unspoken about Caroline encouraging Klaus to spend time with Hope and say goodbye is that she didn’t get that with Liz. She knows what Hope will go through after Klaus dies, and she wants Klaus to make it different for her.
I’m interested to know how Marcel feels about Rebekah eventually taking the cure and having a family, because any kids she has won’t be his.
Who ever though Kol would be the last Mikaelson brother standing?
I’m okay with Klaus dying, because…whatever, but Elijah dying, too, is ridiculous. I could buy it better if he’d said he wanted to be with Hayley, but it’s just, “I have no purpose in living if I don’t have Klaus to wrangle”? Come on!
An Eternity of Misery 