I recently rewatched the first five (six if you include the backdoor pilot- which is probably one of the top five best post 3x01 episodes of TVD btw) and I wanted to jot down some brief(ish) thoughts
4x20/1x01
I much prefer the backdoor pilot version of this episode written by Julie Plec than the “episode one” version, Always and Forever written by Michael Narducci. Episode one has an issue that kind of extends to the entire show, in that it’s not really sure what it wants its relationship with its parent show to be. We get some pretty severe retcons in the scene where Elijah exposits all over Hayley. For one, he says that after Klaus killed Mikael, he assumed that this would make Klaus happy. You what, mate? You got the siblings together, ganged up on him and said you were ditching his ass. The most interesting change, I think, is the reframing of the hybrid curse. In TVD Elijah said that the spirits cried out at the imbalance that was created. Here, Elijah states that it was something Mikael demanded happen. Not only that, but Elijah himself helped his parents do it. I don’t necessarily think this is a problem- I do think it makes the brothers’ dynamic resemble Stefan and Damon’s backstory a little too much, but they have a great dynamic, so that’s not really a bad thing- until we consider Finn. If any of the siblings were to help in this ritual, it would be Finn. But, by making the backstory what it is, the writers have raised a couple interesting questions. 1. Why wasn’t Finn there, and 2. What was it that made Klaus turn on him? Because now we’ve seen that both Elijah and Rebekah have played vital roles in the most significant traumas of his life, and yet Finn is the one who’s daggered indefinitely at the earliest opportunity?
Michael Narducci introduces a curious retcon in this episode when he has Elijah be stopped at the entrance to the witch cemetery, to which Sophie explains is because it’s sacred ground and vampires need to be invited in. All of which contradicts the backdoor pilot when Klaus waltzes in with Elijah sans invitation. This explanation also seems rather strange because it looks like Sean O’Connell is buried here too- meaning it’s not just for witches and is in fact a public area. Julie Plec and Sheriff Forbes seem to have recognised this when it came to writing episode 5, when they put in the explanation that Sophie and Jane Anne put up an invitation-esqe barrier up that keeps out vampires.
The scene where Cami psychoanalyses the street artist (and it coincidentally perfectly applies to Klaus) doesn’t make it into Always and Forever, but Michael Narducci does reference it in No More Heartbreaks, the episode where Cami dies. Which I just find kind of neat since this scene was written by Julie Plec and excised in the Always and Forever cut by Michael Narducci, yet he brings it up when writing No More Heartbreaks.
1x02
This show, at least early on, has a real exposition problem. You know, lots of “as you know” type dialogue where characters explain things to one another that they already know. Some jarring examples of this in the first couple of episodes include Elijah reminding Rebekah that Klaus, in fact, turned Marcel into a vampire. Hayley telling Elijah that killing someone is how you trigger the wolf curse. This is how that goes btw in case you need a refresher on this sublime dialogue: Hayley: “He was also a werewolf. That's how the werewolf curse works. It isn't activated until you take a life.” Yes I’m pretty sure the 1000+ y/o Original vampire knows this Hayley.
Quick sidebar, if this was meant to be played as her putting the pieces together Phoebe does not deliver it that way. In fact, Phoebe Tonkins as Hayley- in these first few episodes at least- gives one of the worst main character performances in the franchise. Just going off of the first five episodes for TVD and TO, if I was to rank the ten main character performances (Nina, Paul, Ian, Kat and Candice in TVD and Joseph, Daniel, Claire, Phoebe and Charles) Phoebe would be dead last and by a stupid margin. Mark Wahlberg gives a more convincing Texan accent in Transformers: Age of Consent than whatever Phoebe is doing here. Sorry, acting sidebar over. It’s not something I like to talk about but her performance really bothered me here. Back to exposition.
In this episode, Klaus reminds Rebekah of the properties of vervain. Quick question. Klaus says that ever since he got back to town all of Marcel’s vampires have been taking vervain to protect them from compulsion. And they’re not wearing it because Klaus could just take it off. Which means Marcel is getting enough vervain for 200+ vampires. How does he do this? Maybe he’s got the same hook up that Bonnie’s dad got in TVD s4.
But let’s talk about Klaus’ plan for a sec. As Rebekah states “you’ve had all the time in the world to execute a plan and nobody’s seen you do a damn thing.” And Rebekah is not kidding either, at least about the part of “all the time in the world”, because it’s been roughly four months since the first episode. This is something that’s, not just backed up by the show’s timeline, as episode five gives us a timeline of eight months between the harvest ritual and episode five (which only takes place a few days after episode 2) and the Devereaux’s only met Hayley four months after the Harvest, but it’s also backed up by TVD. Episode 4x20 takes place at the start of May, while Rebekah stays in Mystic Falls with Matt and goes traveling with him, only being available to go to New Orleans after TVD 5x01, which takes place in early September, or four months after The Originals/Always and Forever. And Klaus responds to Rebekah by explaining all the things he’s been doing… in that episode. Which does nothing to disprove the notion that he’s done nothing but dick around for the past four months. Didn’t Sophie have a plan? One that is rapidly approaching its expiration date given the nature of the Harvest?
But the biggest play that Klaus has made is giving Elijah to Marcel. His only brother left alive. This man that the series says again and again is a paragon of strategic thinking. The man who pissed and moaned about Stefan taking his brothers in the middle of season three of TVD just… hands Elijah over. Putting aside how out of character this is for Klaus, who has such a toxic need to literally possess his siblings, this is such a baffling move tactically. Marcel now has an incredible amount of leverage over Klaus! The second Klaus steps out of line, he can threaten to throw him into the ocean (which is a lot easier to do from New Orleans as opposed to Mystic Falls.). You gotta hand it to Klaus man. When he farts, he shits. And the reason Klaus does this is frankly pathetic. “Marcel’s guys were getting antsy.” Fuck off, like you give a shit. And if Klaus really wanted to assuage them, he can just dagger Elijah in front of everybody at one of the many vamp parties Marcel throws and go “yeah you don’t need to worry about Elijah no more. Btw dicks these daggers don’t work on me.” Doing that would be a show of force. Giving Elijah over as “a sign of good faith” is not.
Speaking of tactical blunders, Marcel asks Davina to erase her location from Rebekah’s mind, but not Davina herself. Kind of strange. Marcel knows that Davina isn’t going to be this super weapon forever, so it’s not like telling the Mikaelsons what his trump card is does much good.
There is a moment in this episode that I really really like and want to gush over for a second though. We’re shown that Marcel was given a choice when he was human, choose Rebekah or choose to become a vampire, or to put it simply, a choice of love versus power. And when Klaus is talking to Hayley at the end of the episode, he says “instead of sticking together, he made a choice, to take everything my family had built,” seemingly unaware of the fact that the reason why when this coin of love and power (two concepts that have been interlinked sine the backdoor pilot) flipped it landed on power for Marcel because that is the type of choice he was raised by Klaus to take. Marcel, seeking approval from his abuser was moulded into the sort of person who will choose power over love and family. And this is what’s so frustrating about the show for me. It’s really dumb, but it has these brilliant, deep flourishes of writing.
1x03
What I wanted to talk about here is the impressive display of magic that Katie does to try and save her boo Thierry. She rocks up, in front of Marcel and over a dozen of his guys, and starts attacking them all with magic, putting them down completely. Davina gives some sort of temporary buff to Marcel, but it’s not enough to stop Katie and she grabs a stake from her… dress? and comes pretty much closer than anyone to actually killing Marcel until Klaus snaps her neck and saves the day. All of which makes me wonder why the witches tolerate Marcel killing them for practicing any sort of magic whatsoever. Just one of them can take on a dozen vampires. Sure Davina can sense them doing magic, but she can’t do anything about it. I mean this conflict is over the fate of ancestral magic in New Orleans. You’d think that the witches would at some point just start killing the vampires that stand between them and their heritage/legacy. Oh well. Klaus assumes that his actions will buy enough goodwill between him and Marcel that he’ll just give Elijah back. And he’s right! But Davina says no. And Marcel doesn’t seem to push bak after hearing her argument. In fact, the only reason Elijah gets freed is because Davina takes out the dagger in Elijah’s chest which allows him to recover. So, if a completely random event that was beyond Klaus’ control didn’t happen, his plan would have failed. Again.
Rebekah delivers some rather revealing dialogue this episode when she goes to the bar and chats with Cami. After talking about relationship drama Miss “us girls have gotta stick together” says “I like you Cami. Most girls have the unfortunate tendency of being whiny little twits.” I find it strange that people like to call Rebekah a girl’s girl when throughout TVD and TO its clear she fucking despises women whenever the writers don’t also want to paint her as this feminist protector of women in two episodes in the first two seasons (Casket Girls and that one episode where she doesn’t want to kiss Marcel while she’s possessing Eva in season 2). Pay attention to how dismissive Rebekah is of Hayley, nonchalantly mentioning the possibility of Klaus storing her in a coffin as soon as the baby is born.
Speaking of that baby, Sabine/Celeste delivers a prophecy about her that may be a ruse by Celeste to get rid of Agnes, or might be entirely legit. Anyway, Hayley runs what she heard through some sort of online translation service, and doesn’t think to try Latin. Maybe she thought it would be really spooky and dramatic to get the message “no results found” several times, and that picking the language most associated with magic would ruin that.
1x04
We meet one of the most pivotal characters in the series: Tim. Last name not included. He play the violin and Davina LIKES him. Awww. Klaus tries to use him to manipulate her, she loses control and lets out a big magic blast. Klaus comes to first, and takes Tim up to the balcony and then throws him over the edge, and Tim quite helpfully avoids landing on his neck and dying instantly, which would have mightily inconvenienced Klaus’ plans to further manipulate Davina. What a Pal.
Marcel tells Klaus that the reason he likes Cami is that she isn’t a part of all this. Which makes me wonder what Klaus hoped to gain by using her as a spy. And why Marcel brings Cami “into this” by having her babysit Davina, I cannot say. Cami’s in her mid twenties. Davina is at best 17 by this point. I’ve never been put in this position, but if one of the first few dates I was taken on was to essentially babysit a child that has a rather nebulous connection to the person I’m dating I can’t say I’d be all that thrilled.
1x05
Big exposition episode! We get a timeline, the Harvest is explained- kind of. Why does it have to be four 16 year old girls? Why does the power go from one girl to the next? Why wouldn’t it just go straight into the Earth? And why does the power of four witches turn Davina into a super witch who is “bigger and more powerful than an Original”? When Bonnie was taking on Originals she was either channeling ONE HUNDRED dead witches or channeling the massacre sites of the dozen humans and dozen hybrids.
Sophie’s attitude regarding the importance of consecrating dead witches is a little odd, I think. She says that unless they’re consecrated by sundown they lose access to their magic forever. And then a few episodes later she wants to consecrate the bones of someone who’s been dead for almost 200 years. Which is just a couple hours after sundown at least.
Marcel also seems rather befuddled about the possibility of a werewolf attack happening outside of a full moon, which is odd considering he’s the guy responsible for allowing that to happen. Rebekah sees Marcel’s informant and is unable to catch up to him. She’s at least eleven times his age but nope, Thomas is too quick. Bummer. Marek brings up that he and Rebekah have secrets best left buried, something that’s not revealed until episode 12. I do wonder, given the nature of Network TV, how far ahead the writers had thought.
Something else that Marcel is taken aback by is the fact that Cami, the girl he’s into, is the niece of Father Kieran. Which is odd since he says he knows that his nephew Sean had a twin sister. Marcel just… thought it was a massive coincidence?