There are only thirteen episodes this season and the writers still found time to include a filler episode. Do they ever know how to drag out a plot. Phantomesque is filled with The Originals favourite plot device, a backward look at the life of a member of the Original family and this one comes complete with the most God awful wigs you have ever seen. I hope that Daniel Gillies got hazard pay for having to put that horror on his head.
Freya did manage to put Elijah's soul in the pendant, however; because the pendant is broken, Elijah's mind has been fractured. If they don't fix Elijah before putting the pendant together his mind will be fractured for eternity. In the meantime, Elijah's body is in a coffin.
Kol and Rebekah are in France at a club, feasting on humans and dancing the night away. I have to pause now to ask the writers and set designers why they think that the French Riveria for some reason is stuck in some kind of 80's loop with garish clothing and hair so big, some hairspray bottle is in a corner begging for mercy? The party quickly comes to an end when Elijah's sire line starts dropping dead. It doesn't take long for Kol and Rebekah to figure out that this means that Elijah must be dead. This of course means a trip to New Orleans.
Freya is busy trying to figure out how to get inside the pendant and drag Elijah out of his own nightmare.
The Hollow makes her presence known by a walk through the Quarter which results in all the flowers she walks past dying. I think that they are laying it on a little think that The Hollow is evil here. Marcel and Josh talk about what to do for Sofya. A little bit of the Hollow's blood should be able to reverse the spell but Marcel is determined to go it alone, even when Josh points out that the Mikaelsons just might make good allies. At this point, I really don't blame Marcel for not wanting anything to do with the Mikaelsons because they will sacrifice anyone to save a member of their precious family. Marcel decides to have Josh stand watch over Sofya. And with that, Josh is firmly back in the plotbox where he lives.
Now that she is back in her body, The Hollow has no need of the witches who helped her return to life. When Marcel finds The Hollow, she is busy dragging around the dead witches she killed. Well, Vincent tried to warn them but they didn't want to listen. The Hollow is however interested in Marcel joining up but he makes it clear that this is a non starter. You gotta hand it to The Hollow for asking for Marcel's loyalty after he caught her dragging around the dead bodies of the last people who thought serving her was a good idea. Marcel decides to bite the Hollow to get her blood, only to find that her blood burns and turns black. The Hollow laughs and then uses magic to toss him across the room.
Freya has decided that the best way to help Elijah is to enter the pendant and seek him out. Once inside, Freya finds a long corridor with white doors. Each door has a different marker, indicating that in each room is a different memory. In the first door, Freya finds Elijah killing people in a church but when she calls out to him, he walks through her as though she's a ghost. Behind the next door, Freya finds Elijah killing people in a courtyard. Are you sensing a pattern yet? The next memory takes Freya to a happy memory for Elijah where he is toasting with Klaus, Rebekah and Kol the fact that they are all together and are getting along for a change.
Rebekah and Kol have arrived at the compound and after the briefest of reunions they decide to go and gather up the rose bushes which can kill them in order to prepare for battle with The Hollow. Nothing brings the Mikaelsons together like killing witches. It all goes according to plan until they come across a witch who claims that nothing can stop The Hollow, including (gasp) the ancestors. Before the witch can elaborate, Klaus kills him but this doesn't stop Kol from asking questions. Klaus of course claims that he was trying to protect Kol because Davina is no unrecognisable. What the hell does that even mean? Davina tried to kill Klaus once again, how does that make her unrecognisable? Attempting to kill Klaus is Davina's hobbby. Klaus however believes that it's a non issue since the Harvest Girls are the only ones who can contact Davina, and Elijah killed them all. This brings a swift end to the family reunion of killing witches, leaving Rebekah and Klaus to search alone for the Rose bushes.
Freya's little hunt for Elijah isn't going well because she's not strong enough to keep the spell up and search for Elijah. The answer is to draft a witch from their bloodline and this means calling on Hope. Hayley is worried about this but Freya promises that she would never do anything to endanger Hope. Hope and Freya begin the spell, and Hayley enters the circle to hunt down Elijah.
Once inside the pendant, Hayley sees the red door. We all know that the red door is not a good thing when it comes to Elijah. Deciding to maybe avoid the red door for now, Hayley chooses another door and this one leads to a memory between her and Elijah. Hayley tries to reach out to Elijah but he simply vanishes. With no choice left, Hayley approaches the red door. From the other side, Hayley hears screaming and crashing, which is exactly what you would expect from the red door.
When Hayley enters the door, the floor is littered with bodies and viking style Elijah is busy feasting the torso of a woman. When Elijah sees Hayley, he goes into berserker mode, causing Hayley to run and call out for Freya to get her the hell out of there. Hayley makes her way to a wooded area and trips over a pile of bodies. Elijah takes this as his opportunity to on the attack, as Hayley tries to snap him out of it.
The minute Kol heard about his precious Davina, he became determined to somehow see her again. Kol approaches a couple of Harvest witches with some dark objects, hoping to trade them for the chance to see Davina. Given that they were killed by a vampire, they aren't exactly in the mood to cooperate or align with one. Kol presses his luck, only to have his neck snapped after a witch induced headache.
As luck would have it, Marcel, Rebekah, and Klaus find the last stake at the same time. Marcel is desperate to use the stake to save Sofya and of course, Klaus is against allowing anything which can kill an Original to survive. Rebekah however recognises that Marcel is acting from a place of love and decides to hand over the stake. Rebekah explains that there was a time when Marcel would have done anything for her. Dear writers, I see how you tried to manipulate me here and it didn't work. Marcel promises that once Vincent gets the magic from the stake that he will burn it.
At the compound, Hayley has begun to seize in the circle because in the pendant, Elijah is in full on attack mode. It's time to put Hope into action with the proviso that once she enters the pendant that she's not to open any doors. Hope is told to call out for her mommy. Elijah is busy beating the hell out of Hayley when Hope calls out for her mother. Fearing for her daughter, Hayley manages to throw off Elijah and make a break for the door. Unfortunately, Elijah manages to catch Hayley again, and this time he bites her. Hayley begs Hope to stay where she is but a frantic Hope calls out for her mother again. Finally, in an act of desperation, Hope screams, "mommy" as a bright yellow light emanates from her little body. This causes something to click and Elijah releases Hayley and she makes a break for the door. Elijah follows and when he crosses the threshold of the red room, Elijah is back to his dapper self in one of his suits, not a hair out of place. Hayley clearly does not trust Elijah and is quick to send Hope back to the real world. Elijah takes a step towards Hayley and she backs away. Elijah asks for Hayley's forgiveness and again swears that he is back to himself. Rather than responding, Hayley leaves.
Now that Elijah's mind is one piece, it's time to discuss options. Freya doesn't think that it's a good idea to put Elijah in a new body. They also have to deal with the fact that it's going to take a huge sacrifice (read: Killing the Hollow) to be able to return Elijah to his body. Freya however does make it clear that if necessary, she has no problem parking Elijah in Marcel's body. It seems given the choice, once again, the Mikaelsons are going to choose themselves.
Klaus and Hayley get together to talk about her heroic effort to save Elijah. Hayley however is quite shaken up after everything she has been though in her little visit to Elijah's mind. Who the hell did she think she was sleeping with? Klaus assures her that they are all monsters but Elijah is the best of them all because he only lets his monster come out in defense of his family.
Rebekah calls Kol to ask him to join in on a family celebration regarding saving Elijah but he's not down with it at all because he is in steady emo zone regarding Davina. Kol places a white Rose in Davina's headstone and predictably it dies. Yep, The Hollow has shown up. The Hollow claims that she can bring Davina to life in exchange for something. Then she actually does it. It's official, I now hate The Hollow. We didn't need Davina to return to life. The Hollow slices her palm, and Kol hears Davina scream. Kol finds Davina in crypt with every single hair in place looking like she just had a spa treatment. Kol tries to approach Davina, but a force field of sorts keeps the two apart. The Hollow drops the hammer. Davina will be allowed to live but the cost is that Kol will now belong to The Hollow if he wants to keep Davina safe.
That's it folks, Davina is back, Kol has to pledge allegiance to the Hollow, and Hayley learned that Elijah might not be a good guy. It's like I said at the beginning of this recap - a filler episode. I will admit that I was truly hoping that Davina would be gone for good. It's absolutely creepy that The Originals has put Kol a centuries old mass murdering vampire together with a teenage witch who has a penchant for killing other centuries old mass murdering vampires. It's not cute and people who write these stories need to stop. What could Kol and Davina have in common besides magic? Why would they even find each other appealing beyond sex? Finally, there's no way this relationship can be seen as anything other than predatory.
I don't even remember the last time I found Davina's character to be even remotely tolerable. At some point, attempting to kill Klaus should come with a consequence. Now she's back to be an annoying thorn in the side of the Mikaelsons. I cannot even claim the upside that having Davina back will give Josh more screen time because it will only reinforce the fact that Josh is little more than Davina's pet. Josh has no real storyline outside of Davina, as this season has proven.
I know I snarked in the recap but who the hell did Hayley think that she was sleeping with? Yes, Elijah wears a nice suit and he's clearly not as homicidal as Klaus or Kol but come on, that's a low bar. Hasn't Hayley figured out that there's a reason so many hate Mikaelsons? Of course Elijah is no damn angel. Sure, it's horrible to have a domestic violence situation and be attacked by one's partner but how did she not see that coming given his history? How many lovers has Elijah had over the years exactly? We all know that a relationship with Elijah never ends well. I am further irritated by the fact that Hayley allowed herself to be calmed by the idea that Elijah is the best of the Mikaelsons (umm again incredibly low bar) and that Elijah is only homicidal for the sake of his family. Wake the hell up. Now that Hayley can no longer deny who she's sleeping with, it will be interesting to see if she decides that she needs some space.
