Please note that this article is The Originals recap for Season 1 Episode 16, which was written by Michael Narducci and directed by Jesse Warn. The post contains major spoilers so do not read any further until you have watched “Farewell to Storyville“, which originally aired March 11, 2014 on The CW.
Photo Credit: The Originals / The CW
The episode opens with a flashback of young Klaus (Aiden Flowers) comforting his little sister Rebekah (Callie Brook McClincy) during a thunder storm. He hands her a wooden chess piece. “I carved this for father. A brave knight, like him. Now you can be brave, too,” he assures her. He takes her hand and promises to stay with her no matter what, and the tiny blonde girl smiles in appreciation as she drifts off to sleep.
Back in present time, Klaus (Joseph Morgan) corners Rebekah (Claire Holt) at the City of the Dead cemetery and whips out a white oak stake. Elijah (Daniel Gillies) stands as a buffer between his two siblings and orders Rebekah to leave. ‘Don’t gotta tell me twice!’ she essentially says with the way she whooshes out of there. Klaus demands to know why Elijah is aligning himself with their traitorous sister and he responds, “I am not choosing sides. But I will never let you hurt our sister.” He informs Klaus that he’s willing to protect Rebekah as long as it takes and then raises Papa Tunde’s bone knife to let his bro he means business.
Night turns into day, and while Rebekah watches Elijah and Klaus quarrel, she gives her honey boo boo Marcel (Charles Michael Davis) a call. “I’ve never seen him like this. He’s out of his mind with rage. Up all night howling one obscenity laced tirade after another,” she observes. “He’s going to call me.” A worried Marcel tells her that Davina (Danielle Campbell) is going to find a loophole to get her out of the cemetery and that she needs to stay away from Klaus until then. (Gee, you don’t say…)
After he hangs up, Marcel enters Davina’s room. She’s sitting up in bed, looking sullen and distraught — just like any teenager who had her throat slashed during a sacrificial ritual and came back to life weeks later. “Hey, little D. How you feeling?” he asks, but she doesn’t respond. He then basically unpacks Bath and Body Works’ entire inventory (candles! organic soap! incense!) onto her night stand and informs her that another Harvest girl is alive, along with her and Monique. He says that word on the street has it that, while they were dead, the girls received one-on-one tutoring sessions from their ancestors, but Davina cuts him off. “There was nothing,” she whimpers. “It was dark. Empty. Cold. It went on forever.” She begs him not to make her talk about it ever again and Marcel, taken aback by the extent of her trauma, tries to comfort her.
Hope is for fools.
Back at the cemetery, Elijah and Klaus are embroiled in a “Tossing of the Words.” “Niklaus, I know you and I grew up fighting you. I can’t be beaten nor can I be persuaded. You cannot get past me,” Elijah points out. An enraged Klaus misinterprets Elijah’s comment as a challenge and assures him that he will rise victorious is this seemingly endless battle of sibling versus sibling. He then turns the tables on Elijah and says that maybe he ought to kill him off instead seeing as Elijah stabbed him with Papa Tunde’s bone knife and forced him to endure hours of pain. Rather than threaten Klaus, Elijah makes an honest observation that adds salt to wound. “The murderous expression. The self-righteous posturing. You like father.” The pained expression on Klaus’s face makes us want to wrap him up in a thousand bear hugs. Klaus utters that none of them, including Kol and Finn, were ever subjected to Mikael’s cruelty. Elijah softly assures him that he’s never forgotten what an abusive fiend their father was and suddenly we’re back in another flashback.
This time, we see a young Elijah (Perry Cox) hunting with little Klaus. He stands beside him, coaching him through the process, as a deer grazes in their midst. Klaus narrows his eyes and releases the arrow from his bow. Unfortunately, it goes wide and the frightened creature scurries away. Klaus seems disappointed but Elijah grins and assures him that practice makes perfect. Suddenly, Mikael (Sebastian Roche) steps out of the woods and orders Elijah not to encourage the boy because he grows more pathetic by the day. He snatches the bow from Klaus and shoves him onto the leaf-covered ground. He blurts out all sorts of a things a good parent would never say to an impressionable lad: “you’re not man enough” and “you are nothing but a burden” are just a few. He then kicks Klaus, and when Elijah tries to intervene, Mikael orders him to stay back and that the “boy needs to be made strong.” (Pity there was no such thing as child services in those years, because Mikael would have had his children taken away and been promptly thrown in jail.)
Baby Klaus, you're going to grow up to be the best hunter ever. Just you wait!
Klaus and Elijah share a poignant moment of understanding, but then Rebekah appears, ready to meet the Reaper. She states that her guilt pales in comparison to Klaus’s and she’s about had enough with his diva-like antics. Klaus considers her words with great disdain and then proposes an idea: she can tell her side of the story, and if he doesn’t like it, he’ll just kill her and Elijah, too, if he gets in the way. Elijah casts an amused glance his way as though to say, ‘Oh really? I’d like to see you try.’
Cami (Leah Pipes) drops by Marcel’s compound to visit Davina. She’s in shock that the little witch is alive and, upon seeing her, sits beside her. She asks affectionately, “Do you want to tell me what happened?” Davina then breaks down into tears and reveals that the ancestors are angry with her, and if she ever dares misuse her magic, they will punish her. As this is happening, Marcel is engaged in a convo with Father Kieran (Todd Stashwick). “So, a century ago, you betrayed Klaus, the most dangerous vampire in history,” Father Kieran tries to figure out. “Now he knows and the only one who can save you is the girl had up in my attic. Except she’s a basket case. So really, your only hope is my niece, the psychoanalyst of resurrected teenager witches. That sums it up?” Marcel shrugs as though to say, ‘Yep. Pretty much.’ He also points out that Davina is padre’s only hope for getting rid of the witch’s hex. Father Kieran basically responds that there is no hope for him or the city, especially with Klaus as its vindictive ruler, and Marcel chastises him, “Every spell has a loophole. You of all people should have more faith.”
At the cemetery, the Trial of Rebekah Mikaelson has begun and Klaus invites his sister to plead her case. Rebekah blames Klaus for always standing in the way between her and true love and he says that is no excuse for betraying her own blood. She implores him to tell her whatever happened to the little boy who used to make her gifts and tell funny jokes. Klaus softens at these words and Elijah chimes in. “You hate Rebekah for her betrayal, but she has stood by your side longer than anyone. Even me.” He then brings up the awful time their father almost whipped Klaus to death, but thanks to Rebekah, who rushed into the tent and drew a sword on Mikael, he was spared.
You leave my brother alone!
Taking into account the tears brimming in his eyes, Klaus is clearly overcome by the memory and his sister’s loyalty. However, he can’t overlook the fact that she double-crossed him out of lust for Marcel. Klaus wants her to admit that she was a victim of her idiocy, and that Marcel used her to oust their family from New Orleans. Rebekah points out that Marcel didn’t manipulate her and they truly loved each other. Klaus doesn’t buy that tall-tale. And why should he? He’s never been shown kindness or allegiance. He accuses Marcel of stealing the city they all worked so hard to built and Rebekah pretty much loses her mind. She refuses to renounce Marcel and beg for forgiveness. In fact, if she had the chance to invite Mikael back to NOLA, she’d do so again in a heartbeat because “he was a lesser evil” than “the bastard [brother] who loomed over [her]” and threatens her on a daily basis. “I wanted love and happiness and you denied me the freedom to have either!” she cries. “I wanted rid of you!” Klaus, unable to contain his rage, leaps down and attacks her. He raises the white oak stake and just as he does, Elijah zooms in and tackles him to the ground — only to rise up with the white oak stake AND Papa Tunde’s knife. Like a boss!
Come at me, bro!
Cami tries to help Davina, but the little witch tells her that there’s nothing in her psychology books that can help her. Cami then uses real-life experience: mourning her twin brother Sean. “I cried for weeks,” Cami reveals. “Blamed myself, blamed him. Slowly I realized all that sadness was just swallowing me up, and I made a choice that I wasn’t going to let that happen. You can make that same choice, Davina.” Miss Davina, however, thinks her situation is very different…and it is. She has to face the French Quarter witches and doesn’t know who to trust. Does Marcel even have her best interests at heart? Does Cami have a favor to ask of her? Guilty as charged. Cami wants Davina to help her sick uncle, she actually does care for the little witch. It gets super emotional — especially when Davina looks up at Cami like a lost little puppy and asks her what she should do.
Rebekah gives Marcel another call. (Sadly, not a booty one.) She informs him that Klaus is accusing him of seducing her to get access to Mikael. Marcel rolls his eyes and tells her that his sire is a blithering lunatic. Rebekah gets whimsical and talks about what might have been had they left town like they had originally planned. The next second? she gets philosophical. “What an odd thing to be here one minute and gone the next,” she muses, before ordering Marcel to run as fast as the wind can carry him.
Elsewhere in the City of the Dead cemetery, Klaus and Elijah are still feuding. Klaus wants to know why Elijah is even bothering to defend Rebekah. “Because she’s our sister,” Elijah responds. Because I like to remember her before we became what we are: an innocent girl, quick to laugh, full of life. (At this point we get an adorable flashback of the Mikaelsons frolicking in the woods as children.) After chastising Klaus for not accepting some of the blame, Elijah reveals a secret he’s carried for all these centuries: Rebekah once tried to kill Mikael in his sleep in an attempt to protect Klaus. “Niklaus, sometimes our sister acts without thinking: she is short of temper and quick to fall in love, but she loved you. But your malicious treatment has broken her heart.” (Rebekah, who’s vamp-listening nearby, is either moved by Elijah’s beautiful words or she’s insulted. We can’t tell.) Klaus ignores his brother’s pleas and instead knocks his fancy suits and handkerchiefs, and accuses him of using his “civility” to cover that he’s as big an abomination as Klaus is. (#VampirePsych101) Elijah tosses the white oak stake far over all the tombs and crypts and reveals that he would never commit fratricide. Klaus on the other hand? He vamps in and plunges Papa Tunde’s knife right into his brother’s guts. Hearing this violent altercation, Rebekah appears with the stake in her hand and challenges Klaus to a duel and it’s Harry Potter versus Draco Malfoy all over again, basically.
Girl, how can you resist this millionaire dollar smile?
Meanwhile, Marcel drops by the boogedy boogedy store to ask Genevieve (Elyse Levesque) to lower Celeste’s boundary spell at the cemetery, and in exchange, he’ll broker peace between the witches and the vampires. She doesn’t trust him — and right so considering last time she showed up for a negotiation, he tried to kill her off. Although the Harvest was not completed, the ancestors were satisfied enough to return power to the coven and the vamps can no longer hold these bad ladies down. However, Marcel gives her his word that if she helps him vampires will no longer enter the Cauldron and there will be no more executions. She’s like, ‘Whatevs. Just bring me Davina Claire.’ She goes on to explain that Davina suffered in death because of her alliance with Marcel and she deserves to be surrounded by fellow witches who will revere and teach her the way, not blood-sucking fiends who abuse her powers. Marcel suddenly finds himself backed into a corner. However, after he returns to the compound and talks to Camille — who tells him that Davina needs round the clock care and medication — he realizes that placing Davina in the witches’ care is the right move. He returns to the magic shop to tell Genevieve they have a deal — she agrees to lower the boundary spell but, unfortunately, she can’t help Father Kieran (aww — Marcel looks sad!) because the hex has already taken root. He warns her that if she dares hurt Davina though, she’ll rue the day she was born. However, the redhead brushes his treat aside and utters that he lost and should have some dignity.
Back at the cemetery, Klaus toys with Rebekah’s insecurities by musing how Marcel has probably found another young, prettier girl by now. (Shaking our heads. Dick move, sir.) Rebekah points out that his taking joy in their pain is exactly why she despises him. However, Klaus isn’t playing games anymore. He’s emotionally wounded by Rebekah’s betrayal and demands to know if she ever wanted him — the wicked, vulgar monster — dead. She shakily admits that she did once upon a time but not anymore, but that doesn’t console Klaus at all. He grabs the white oak stake from her hands and impales her with it.
Hugs for Klaus.
Don’t worry though — he doesn’t kill her. She awakens surprised and tells him that he missed her heart. “Perhaps I just brought the stake so that you would know some inkling of the fear I felt when father came for me,” he mutters as one “Cry Baby” tear trickles down his smooth cheek. Klaus then sheds his hard shell and points out that he knows he can be a piece of work sometimes, but it was Mikael who ruined him. Rebekah knows exactly what Niklaus is feeling because she shares his sentiments. “He ruined me, too,” she says, in an attempt to connect with her brother. “That’s what you forget. He ruined all of us. Centuries later, each of us is broken. She cites Klaus’s anger and paranoia, her fear of abandonment, and Elijah’s dedication as examples. “We are the strongest creatures in the world and yet we are damaged beyond repair. We are the definition of cursed. Always and forever.” (Oh the irony.) Touched by his sister’s confession, Klaus removes the bone dagger from Elijah and tells him, “Now we’re even.”
Rebekah and Klaus stand along the cemetery’s perimeter and have a really poignant heart-to-heart. Klaus quietly reflects how Mikael ruining them means someone must have ruined him too, and after sensing that the barrier is down, admits that Marcel does care for her after all. “I know you hate me,” Rebekah states. “But what’s done is done. I can’t undo what I did.” However, Klaus believes differently. “What was done is never done. It remains within us. The story we tell ourselves. Vicious father. Bastard son. The sister who betrayed him. We tell ourselves the story so we know who we are.” Then, in a shockingly sweet gesture, Klaus asks Rebekah what it is she wants exactly. “Same things I wanted as a child,” she confesses. “A home. Someone who loves me. I want my own family. And I want to live.” Her dreams are essentially the bare necessities and Klaus is struck by how simple and wonderful they are. Moved by his sister’s sense of whimsy and hope — and saddened by the fact that their family is more damaged then a volatile mix of ingredients — he grants her the freedom to pave her own path from here on in. A tearful Rebekah accepts his offer and vamps off into the night as her brother stares after her.
Rebekah returns to their plantation, which was burned to the ground in “Crescent City”, to collect some of her belongings and runs in Elijah. She sobs out an apology and tells him that she never meant to hurt him by bringing Mikael to New Orleans. However, Elijah is a peaceful being, and forgives her. She invites him along on her adventures, but even she knows Elijah can’t leave Niklaus on his own nor a pregnant Hayley (Phoebe Tonkin). “You’ll help him find his way,” Rebekah whispers as she bids Elijah farewell.
'Ya fired!' Yikes. Even the guy on the right looks worried!
Back at the compound, Klaus returns to find a crowd of vampires gathered in the courtyard. “Any particular reason you lot are loitering in my home?” he scoffs. He turns around and finds himself face to face with his former bestie, Marcel, who is ready to finish this one and for all. He tells Klaus if he plans on killing him, then he’s going to do so in front of all Marcel’s people. Klaus is not excited to see him, that’s for sure, but considering the long day he’s had, he just wants a bubble bath and a long nap so he heads upstairs. Suddenly, Elijah zooms in and hurls Marcel against a wall. Elijah dusts off his suit, greets everyone, and makes an important announcement: riff-raff are no longer welcomed at his house. As for Marcel, out of respect to Rebekah, Elijah lets him live but warns him never to set foot near the French Quarter again. ‘You’ve been exiled, yo!’ is the gist of it. “That is all. Run along.” Klaus watches in approval and comments how Elijah sounded just like him. Hmm.
After his beat down from Elijah, Marcel meets up with Rebekah at the site where her mother was buried and consecrated. Unlike her though, Rebekah isn’t bound this land anymore — she is free to roam the earth as she so pleases. Marcel wants to accompany his lady love but he bemoans the fact that her brothers came into town like they own the place and him. He unfortunately can’t leave with her — not yet at least. Rebekah understands and jokes how she’s no fool — she know how much Marcel loves this city and she’s not the kind of girl who likes to share. (Damn straight!) As she turns to leave, she makes a heartfelt remark — about how she wishes Marcel had ended building their dream home so that there could be something beautiful standing in the end. Aww! Marcel is breathless at this point (as are we) and he swoops her in for one last kiss. “Goodbye, Marcel Gerard. Do try to stay alive.” (Excuse us. We need to fan ourselves.)
Speaking of Hayley, she’s the last person Rebekah visits on her way out of town. Rebekah reveals that she is leaving and Hayley is taken aback. “What happened to us girls stick together?” she asks, stunned by her disappointment to this news. Rebekah explains that Klaus presented her with an all-or-nothing opportunity and she doesn’t plan on passing it up. Hayley nods with understanding. “A thousand years with Klaus, I guess you earned a few vacation days.” Rebekah holds back tears as she tells Hayley to be careful because her baby will inherit lots of enemies; the silver lining though is that Klaus’ daughter might soften his bitter heart. (Ironically, as she tells Hayley to watch out for the big, bad hybrid, Klaus opens up a box of trinkets and pulls out the chess piece he carved for Mikael decades ago.) Hayley jokes that Rebekah can always come back and visit, and with her hand upon Hayley’s belly, Rebekah smiles appreciatively as her eyes glisten with sadness. “You tell this little girl stories of her crazy auntie Bex. Let her know, despite my absence, I do love her very much.” (BRB. #Dying.) And with that, Lady Bex hops into her little red convertible and hits the road. As she cruises down the freeway, wind blowing through her beautiful, blonde hair, her sad expression turns into relief. It’s the dawning of a new era and she releases a joyous laugh. She is free at last!
Watch out, world! Rebekah is coming for you.
Safe travels, Bex! Come back soon, Miss Claire Holt!
Were you shocked by Rebekah’s heartbreaking exit at The Originals episode 16? Do you think she’ll risk her life to return to New Orleans and meet her baby niece? What did you make of Elijah ostracizing Marcel? Was it cruel and unnecessary? Post your thoughts in the comments!
The post The Originals Season 1 Episode 16 Recap: Elijah Battles Klaus, Rebekah Leaves New Orleans appeared first on The Vampire Diaries.