Lots of backstory about the vampire/witch situation, how Devinna came to be with Marcel, and the murdered seminarians. Nice....
Rather than go character by character as I normally do, I am going to take this episode storyline by storyline. All of the storylines are connected, so we'll start with Devinna, move onto the vampire/witch situation, and end with the seminarians. After that, I have a few character comments, so we'll address those.
In an earlier episode, Sophie (I think) mentioned that the witches in New Orleans derive their magical power by creating links with their ancestors. Turns out that once every 3 centuries, the witches need to go through a ceremony called the Reaping in which they channel their ancestors power into 4 girls and then kill the girls. As each girl is killed, the power is passed from one to another, so each witch gets more and more powerful. After they are all killed, there is a second ceremony called the Harvest where the power is redistributed and the girls come back to life. This time, there was a complication. Sophie didn't believe in the ceremony and her niece was one of the girls. She told Marcel (who she was sleeping with!) about the ceremony and he interrupted it in time to save Devinna from being killed (she was the fourth girl).
That is why Devinna is so freaking powerful. As the last girl, she is the receptacle of all of the power of the ancestors of the coven. That is also why she is working with Marcel. The girls were told that they would be bled a little and would be put into a limbolike state. They were also told that after the Harvest was performed, they would come back stronger than they were before. Naturally, when they were being killed via having their throats cut, the girls panicked. Devinna now hates the witches and is biding her time so that all of the power will vanish since the ceremony will not be completed.
This means that the vampire/witch situation is much more recent that had been implied earlier. From the pilot, it sounded like the situation with the witches being tracked was a long term thing, when in fact it has only been in place for a few months. The witches found out about Hayley and then used her to manipulate Klaus into coming back to New Orleans in order to find Devinna and complete the Reaping and the Harvest. This is the sort of thing guaranteed to make Klaus grumpy (to say the least!). If there is one thing Klaus hates, it is being manipulated by other people. Manipulating Klaus is like playing with fire. In other words, it is so not the right thing to do if you care about your long term health.
I will say that I thought that Devinna had been in Marcel's care for much longer than she actually was. I thought that he had raised her and that was why she hated witches. Having this new information makes her little rebellion last week make more sense. She is working with Marcel because she hates the witches and because Marcel saved her, but she does have her own agenda. Makes a difference....
It turns out that Cami and her brother are the niece and nephew to the priest who runs that church that Devinna is being kept in. When he sided with Sophie against the witches, one of the witches put a hex on Cami's brother in order to drive him insane and put the priest on the sidelines. As a result of the hex, he slaughtered the seminarians. Before he left town, the priest asked Marcel to save the girls. He only saved Devinna though. It also turns out that the priest occupies a very high place in the human hierarchy. He seems to be the spokesman (and possibly) leader of the humans who made an agreement with the witches and vampires to protect New Orleans in exchange for keeping their existence a secret.
One last plot thing. According to Sophie, the witches from last week are from an extreme group of the witches. Whether or not Sophie can be trusted is up for debate at this point. I do think that she did not sanction the attack because had Hayley died, Sophie would have died too (assuming she told the truth about the linking spell). If the attack was not meant to kill Hayley, but had some other (as yet unrevealed) purpose, then that could change things dramatically.
I am happy that Elijah is back. He's always been my favorite Original. I really hope that he can keep his word and get the grimoire to Devinna. I also think that, no matter how much he would like to punish Klaus, he is going to set what Klaus did aside in favor of working with him against the witches and Marcel. And what was up with the look that he and Hayley exchanged?
How long has Marcel actually been in control of New Orleans? Was he in charge before he saved Devinna or did he come to be in charge because he had Devinna and her power in his corner? If the latter, then he managed to impose order *VERY* quickly and I am highly impressed. My guess is that before he had Devinna, he was prima inter pares (first among equals) where the witches and humans were concerned. After he saved Devinna, I think he managed to gather enough power together to impose his will on the witches and the city. I could be wrong, but that is my guess.
Until next week!
No comments:
Post a Comment