The Originals – Episode 1.10 – The Casket Girls– Review

The Originals, season 1, episode 10: The Casket Girls or as I like to call it: Girl Power Rises and Falls (Or Does It?)

Hello and welcome to a new episode of The Originals. In this episode:

• Everyone looks for Davina
• Marcel and Elijah team up with Klaus and become his lackeys
• Joshua and Cammi team up with Davina and become The Unfortunates
• Davina owns everyone’s a$$ but gets owned by her own weakness
• The fiddler falls off the roof
• Rebekah turns mastermind
• Hayley tries to run the plot and gets bitten by it instead
• Sophie does something that starts something I can’t figure out yet

So much happened in this episode that I don’t think the list I posted even covers half of it. The gist of the episode was supposedly girl power even though I don’t think anyone won at the end, though the girls might have hatched a plan that might go somewhere.

The episode opens with the flashback of three girls being sent to marry some governor, who is either a vampire who wants to eat them or a jerk who is into polygamy. They end up getting attacked by a mob and saved by Rebekah, which for some reason spawns a festival even though no one other than Rebekah and the girls survived to tell their tale. I guess New Orleans has Rebekah to thank for this bizarre tradition.

Elijah tries to charm Hayley to be his date for the festivities. He fails. Marcel tries the same with Rebekah. He fails too, which tempts me to dub the festival the celebration of Blue Balls instead of Casket Girls.

Turns out Marcel and Klaus’ strongest weapon Davina is missing. Without her neither have any leverage against the witches even though the witches don’t seem much of a threat these days so I didn’t understand the fuss over this issue. Perhaps it was Klaus feeling offended that his authority was questioned by a 16 year old and decided to go homicidal. The only explanation I usually could find for the stuff Klaus does is pretty much that: he’s a petty homicidal maniac who somehow manages to make everyone dance to his tune.

Meanwhile Davina is with Cammi helping her give birth to her repressed memories. The ring-less nice vamp Joshua is with them and together they form an alliance I will call The League of the Unfortunates.

Hayley is watched by two thugs yet somehow manages to double cross both Elijah and Davina by helping Sophie with a spell. She does this because Sophie promises to lift the curse on her family. I still thought after all she and Elijah had shared, that it was pretty selfish of her to backstab everyone like that.

The witches looking for Davina alerts her to their spell. She and Cammi try to escape. But instead of doing something smart, like boarding a train to someplace far away, they decide to roam the streets during the celebrations, then go visit Father Kieran, the first place anyone would look for them.

As predicted the witches show up and knock Cammi out and that's as far as she goes in this plot. Davina kills the witches, gets a phone call from Klaus who tells her he has her barely-ever-there boyfriend in custody and if she wants to see him again she has to come to him.

Joshua finally gets out of Cammi’s place when the sun goes down and finds Davina and tells her not go to Klaus. Davina tells him something I had been thinking since the episode started: she is the most powerful witch in town. There is no point for her to be so scared of everyone and be constantly on the run. She could kick all their collective assess if she wants and that’s exactly what she goes to do.

A couple of interesting observations occurred to me as I watched Davina give the boys club a run for their money. First how much her infatuation with the fiddler boy cost her by preventing her to exercise the full extent of her bad-assery. I was thinking if I were her I would distance myself from that boy as much as possible, maybe make him go far away from me, so that no one could ever use him against me.

The second issue was when she tortured Elijah. I had considered Elijah the ultimate noble on the show, yet his status was knocked down a peg or two this episode. Unlike Marcel whose main objective in sticking with Klaus was to protect Davina, Elijah had no reason to do Klaus’ bidding. Yet throughout the episode he followed him around like a loyal puppy. I could only assume it is because he cares about him and wants to redeem him somehow. But considering Klaus’ murderous intents and actions Elijah’s loyalty was a bit questionable Sure he made a pact with Marcel to prevent Davina’s death, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that was Marcel’s initiative. And considering someone still died in the end I don’t fault Davina for making him choke on blood when she finally got to him.

The surprise in all this is Rebekah who decides to play a Power Puff Girl in order to lure Davina to her side. She takes Davina, Unfortunate Joshua, and the fiddler to Marcel’s garden, to cure Davina from her loyalty to Marcel. This is where Klaus proves how vicious he could be, even when knocked out. Turns out he had compelled the fiddler to drink poisoned water and offer some to Davina, which puts both of them out of commission. This is what I meant by this guy being a liability. Davina is playing too big a game to have someone as vulnerable as that hanging over her head. I feel terrible saying this but when the guy was finally taken out I actually felt better for Davina.

But Davina herself doesn’t die, this time because Marcel one-ups Klaus by forcing one of the witched to put a protection spell on her. So Davina lives, mourns the loss of Mr. Liability, and moves on to another stage of the plan.

At first, when I saw Rebekah coming back to the mansion handing Davina’s unconscious body to Klaus I thought the girls had lost. But later, listening to her monologue to Tierry, and seeing Davina awake and fine, I realized what was going on. This could turn to a win for the girls after all. Davina holds the affections of Marcel, who has some kind of brotherly attachment to her. So while Rebekah didn’t manage to influence him Davina just might do it. Plus she is a super witch with no liability to cripple her anymore. On the other hand Cammi has the same hold over Klaus and if Rebekah could get her to her side too she has leverage over two of the main players in the game, plus she has Tierry. The only one left will be Elijah who is easy to handle because he’s still more of a gentleman than a schemer. The only wild card would be Hayley, Sophie and the witches, who may cause them trouble.

Speaking of trouble, looks like it already happened. While everyone was running around town looking for Waldo Davina, Hayley and Sophie did a bad bad thing. Something about Elijah’s hygienic ex-lover is going to be unearthed that would apparently change everything. I could only assume she’ll be a new menace who will come sweeping across town, but before that happens we have to watch a bit more about how Davina’s overcharged powers will bite her in the back.

Next episode: Davina has too much power and no one knows what to do with her. Also New Orleans might burn to the ground. Stay tuned to find out why.

Let me know what you thought of this jam packed episode in the comments.

Tessa

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