The Originals: Alive and Kicking
October 15, 2014 10:43 AM - Season 2, Episode 2 - Subscribe
Klaus mentors newly-hybrid Hayley, and Elijah remembers Marcel's boyhood tutelage under the Mikaelson brothers. To rebuild a vampire community, Marcel continues to recruit humans, and the last remaining non-hybrid vampire in the Quarter. Esther shores up the alliance between the wolves and witches by mass-producing moonlight rings and sending her sons into the Quarter as spies. Davina works on the de-linking spell while holding Mikael at bay, but becomes distracted by flirtations with a Quarter newcomer, Kaleb.
Rue72-I agree with you on not only not understanding how the hell Esther and Michael ever got it together to have a bunch of kids, but also some of this seems at odds with the original story. So...she hates vampires, but not witches or werewolves because of "their humanity." But it was a werewolf who killed her youngest son and started this whole process. I can see her being ok with witches, but werewolves? I'd think even if she slept with one, that one of her kids being murdered by one would make her see them as more beastly....of course considering her attitude towards her kids....maybe not.
Also, we're told that once upon a time they were a happy family. But, apparently, now we are to believe she was totally insane. When did that happen?
Elijah as martyr is getting old. I mean, I can see why at this point he would avoid involvement with Hayley, but I'd like him to find an actual love interest he can do something about. (I'm going through True Blood withdrawal...I need more wild sex scenes or at least people taking their shirts off. Is that so much to ask?)
posted by miss-lapin at 6:32 PM on October 18, 2014 [1 favorite]
Also, we're told that once upon a time they were a happy family. But, apparently, now we are to believe she was totally insane. When did that happen?
Elijah as martyr is getting old. I mean, I can see why at this point he would avoid involvement with Hayley, but I'd like him to find an actual love interest he can do something about. (I'm going through True Blood withdrawal...I need more wild sex scenes or at least people taking their shirts off. Is that so much to ask?)
posted by miss-lapin at 6:32 PM on October 18, 2014 [1 favorite]
Esther really does make zero sense as a character to me right now, and I'd love to learn more about her...
Her relationship with Mikael is so mind-boggling and I can't wait for them to reunite. It's so strange to me that she would have this *one* random middle child with someone else, and that Mikael would *hate* that child to the point of apparently beating the shit out of him too much/too savagely even according to the child rearing standards of Dark Ages Scandinavia (!), and yet, otherwise, Esther and Mikael apparently carried on having a loving relationship and kept making lots of babies? Even now, in the present day, when he's not busy literally WAILING about murdering his children, Mikael doesn't speak badly of her -- he referred to her as a "master" to Davina. And back when they were alive, not only were they having lots of kids and apparently doing great even after the Klaus debacle, they were working together to make their kids vampires, put the binding spell on Klaus, etc. It seems like their relationship didn't even take a hit from her having a child with someone else and from Mikael being incredibly violent? To be completely honest, the only explanation I can even fanwank is that she got pregnant with Klaus as the result of an assault or some other horrible (or, knowing Esther, another possibility is utterly bizarre/magic-related) event that Mikael didn't think was Esther's fault but that tainted Klaus to him. But who even knows. That doesn't at all explain why she would want to ally with the wolves even though wolves are who killed her son and started this mess off -- whatever the story is about her pregnancy with a werewolf's baby just makes her desire for an alliance now even stranger. I don't get this family at all!
Does Esther know that something strange is going on with Mikael right now? As in, that he's in NOLA? She must, seeing as Davina used spells from Esther's Grimmoire to bring back and control Mikael (I think?), and Esther also must have known that Mikael wasn't on "the other side" at around the same time as when she was resurrecting herself, seeing as she brought back the only two other family members who were still there along with herself.
I also think that, (out of her kids, and aside from Rebekah who I assume will remain by and large MIA), her relationship with Klaus should be pretty interesting (the ridiculous-yet-boring camomile tea scene notwithstanding), seeing as she must have chosen Mikael over him a bunch of times, and seeing as he's killed her *twice.* Klaus also already flips the hell out whenever he's not everyone's favorite/center of attention, and I can just imagine that dialed up to 11 with Finn, Kol, and Esther back around. Let alone Mikael. I want to see a family dinner. You KNOW that somebody is going to drop the dime on Hope 1) existing 2) still being alive. I can't wait to see what Mikael does with that information, I wonder if an Original can have a stroke.
Maybe Kol was keeping quiet about seeing Mikael because he thinks that Mikael and Esther will ally themselves if/when they find out about each other? What is Kol's next move going to be? He's a witch and his main "in" is with Davina, so maybe he'll try to get Esther's Grimmoire from her/get access to it through her, and use it himself? But of course, the Grimmoire apparently lives in the same attic as Mikael does, so...
Anyway, about Kol and Klaus saying that Esther is insane -- I don't actually believe them, or at least believe that they're referring to anything that we don't already know about (like that Esther made her kids immortal and then pledged herself to murder them, which *is* pretty insane, honestly, but not a new/different kind of insane than she's always been). Klaus says people are insane or evil or bloodthirsty or whatever all the time (this was also the episode when he said that during her most recent murder rampage, Haylay was soaked in witches' blood and grinning from ear to ear -- loooooovely image), but then he hangs out painting in the blood of his victims and flipping out when people dare to take a second not focusing on him to do basic life things like date (Rebekah) or tutor his adopted son (Elijah), so I feel like it's *at the least* the pot calling the kettle black when he describes people like that. Also, he's screwed up and ultra defensive and is obviously going to villainize everyone, especially all his relatives, to try and persuade everyone to take his side if there's any dispute. Kol, I think was just waving off Davina's interest/questions, though imo he seems like he also finds his entire family insane, probably because he's completely fed up with them. But then, I don't understand Kol too well as a character. I think it's because I sort of skipped the season of TVD when he was a relatively major character there, so I haven't seen a whole lot of him yet.
Also, I really, really hope that Esther jumps into another body soon and we get an actress playing her that's as capable as Sebastian Roche is at playing Mikael (though the show got pretty lucky with him). Esther's such a fascinating character, but they haven't cast her too well yet.
posted by rue72 at 2:05 AM on October 20, 2014
Her relationship with Mikael is so mind-boggling and I can't wait for them to reunite. It's so strange to me that she would have this *one* random middle child with someone else, and that Mikael would *hate* that child to the point of apparently beating the shit out of him too much/too savagely even according to the child rearing standards of Dark Ages Scandinavia (!), and yet, otherwise, Esther and Mikael apparently carried on having a loving relationship and kept making lots of babies? Even now, in the present day, when he's not busy literally WAILING about murdering his children, Mikael doesn't speak badly of her -- he referred to her as a "master" to Davina. And back when they were alive, not only were they having lots of kids and apparently doing great even after the Klaus debacle, they were working together to make their kids vampires, put the binding spell on Klaus, etc. It seems like their relationship didn't even take a hit from her having a child with someone else and from Mikael being incredibly violent? To be completely honest, the only explanation I can even fanwank is that she got pregnant with Klaus as the result of an assault or some other horrible (or, knowing Esther, another possibility is utterly bizarre/magic-related) event that Mikael didn't think was Esther's fault but that tainted Klaus to him. But who even knows. That doesn't at all explain why she would want to ally with the wolves even though wolves are who killed her son and started this mess off -- whatever the story is about her pregnancy with a werewolf's baby just makes her desire for an alliance now even stranger. I don't get this family at all!
Does Esther know that something strange is going on with Mikael right now? As in, that he's in NOLA? She must, seeing as Davina used spells from Esther's Grimmoire to bring back and control Mikael (I think?), and Esther also must have known that Mikael wasn't on "the other side" at around the same time as when she was resurrecting herself, seeing as she brought back the only two other family members who were still there along with herself.
I also think that, (out of her kids, and aside from Rebekah who I assume will remain by and large MIA), her relationship with Klaus should be pretty interesting (the ridiculous-yet-boring camomile tea scene notwithstanding), seeing as she must have chosen Mikael over him a bunch of times, and seeing as he's killed her *twice.* Klaus also already flips the hell out whenever he's not everyone's favorite/center of attention, and I can just imagine that dialed up to 11 with Finn, Kol, and Esther back around. Let alone Mikael. I want to see a family dinner. You KNOW that somebody is going to drop the dime on Hope 1) existing 2) still being alive. I can't wait to see what Mikael does with that information, I wonder if an Original can have a stroke.
Maybe Kol was keeping quiet about seeing Mikael because he thinks that Mikael and Esther will ally themselves if/when they find out about each other? What is Kol's next move going to be? He's a witch and his main "in" is with Davina, so maybe he'll try to get Esther's Grimmoire from her/get access to it through her, and use it himself? But of course, the Grimmoire apparently lives in the same attic as Mikael does, so...
Anyway, about Kol and Klaus saying that Esther is insane -- I don't actually believe them, or at least believe that they're referring to anything that we don't already know about (like that Esther made her kids immortal and then pledged herself to murder them, which *is* pretty insane, honestly, but not a new/different kind of insane than she's always been). Klaus says people are insane or evil or bloodthirsty or whatever all the time (this was also the episode when he said that during her most recent murder rampage, Haylay was soaked in witches' blood and grinning from ear to ear -- loooooovely image), but then he hangs out painting in the blood of his victims and flipping out when people dare to take a second not focusing on him to do basic life things like date (Rebekah) or tutor his adopted son (Elijah), so I feel like it's *at the least* the pot calling the kettle black when he describes people like that. Also, he's screwed up and ultra defensive and is obviously going to villainize everyone, especially all his relatives, to try and persuade everyone to take his side if there's any dispute. Kol, I think was just waving off Davina's interest/questions, though imo he seems like he also finds his entire family insane, probably because he's completely fed up with them. But then, I don't understand Kol too well as a character. I think it's because I sort of skipped the season of TVD when he was a relatively major character there, so I haven't seen a whole lot of him yet.
Also, I really, really hope that Esther jumps into another body soon and we get an actress playing her that's as capable as Sebastian Roche is at playing Mikael (though the show got pretty lucky with him). Esther's such a fascinating character, but they haven't cast her too well yet.
posted by rue72 at 2:05 AM on October 20, 2014
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However, seeing him in thigh-high boots in the first scene was the highlight of the episode, so wtvr. I forgive him for not buying into Enlightenment era philosophy. Sorta/kinda.
Also, does anybody have any thoughts on the Esther/Klaus scene? The woman playing Esther was hamming it up in such a weird way, I couldn't tell if that scene was supposed to be funny or what. Esther seemed like she was trying to hint as hard as possible about her identity, but if it was supposed to be just kind of silly, you'd think that she would have gotten irritated at Klaus for being so slow on the uptake? I dunno, I like the idea for the scene a lot, but it just didn't land imo. Bad acting or bad direction or dully dialogue or something.
Though I cracked up laughing when Klaus got all ~intense~ in his scene with Elijah and the show had an act out after the OMG THE DRAMZ line about which parent to kill first. Again, I actually don't even know what tone they were going for in that scene, but it was just so *silly.*
Davina was really bringing it, but you'd think she'd be cracking up right now, having to be around Mikael all the time. Ugh. You'd think she'd at least give him some sort of busywork or SOMETHING to keep him occupied. He's such a self-obsessed PITA all the time.
Does anybody think that Mikael and Esther will be reunited? I actually really want to see that. I don't understand their relationship at all, and we've seen so little of it. I would think they'd be allies, but they both seem like control freaks and like they'd have trouble working as part of a team, so...I hope that Esther jumps into a new body soon, because even though Finn and Kaleb are working out really well with these actors (imo), the woman playing Esther can't really deliver. Plus, I really thought she'd be in Hayley and Klaus's baby, for extra creepiness (a Mommy!Baby who is trying to kill her father/son/uncle?! Hahahaha I wish!), but if that's not in the cards then I hope they at least give her a body more interesting than this random casket girl.
posted by rue72 at 7:17 PM on October 15, 2014 [2 favorites]