Unfortunately, I didn’t have the opportunity to post my review of last week’s episode because I was too caught up in putting together my Mary Poppins Halloween costume. Worst excuse ever. Fortunately, we have TWO episodes to review.
It was not my original intention to review these episodes in tandem, but it’s fortunate they work together so well. Last week’s “Every Mother’s Son” focused on matriarch Esther Mikaelson, and this week’s “Live and Let Die” focused on Mikael. Audiences often don’t get extended looks at either of the Mikaelson parents, especially Mikael, and taken together it works to demonstrate how deep the dysfunction runs throughout the family.
The Originals was smart to focus on the family dynamic in Season 2. Season 1 worked well by introducing us to all of the different factions of New Orleans, and how that hierarchy explicated character motivations. If these episodes accomplished nothing else it was showing just how lonely and damaged our main characters (the Mikaelson’s) truly are, and how that loneliness extends to all of their relationships.
The loneliness was compounded most in “Live and Let Die,” when we see not one but TWO Mikaelson’s, Elijah and Mikael, help those less experienced (Gia and Davina, respectively) with the advice, “Always have your guard up.” It becomes clear the lack of trust permeates the Mikaelson Family and naturally results in the crippling loneliness we see each of our characters experience.
Cami, making her first appearance this season in “Live and Let Die” is now seeing a therapist (who is actually Finn), and when she is tasked with talking about the people she has in her life, the only people she indirectly refers to are Marcel (“abs for days”) and Klaus. Although her description of Klaus was slightly too didactic (the audience already knows how tormented and damaged he is), the scene worked by allowing audiences to see how Cami’s life is simultaneously merged with the Mikaelson’s, yet divorced from the outside world. Her description of New Orleans was also a nice touch, insinuating how a scene like New Orleans enables detachment. Her decision to follow Klaus to kill his father was essentially her deciding it was better to be part of something, no matter how heinous, than nothing at all.
Elijah’s ongoing feud with Haley also demonstrates his own loneliness. Rather than exploring possibilities with Gia and experiencing normal (read: human) intimacy, their mentoring session devolves into violence and gore, where Gia must literally push her way into touching his heart. Davina’s decision to keep Mikael literally anchored to her through magic, paired with relocating to the woods, is more of a sign of her feelings of alienation, rather than any determination to see Klaus defeated. Her mentoring session with Mikael, where he attempts to teach her “how to be strong,” shows how desperate she is to feel any type of human connection. After being used and manipulated by everyone around in her Season 1, Mikael is probably the most honest, albeit threatening, person in her life. Moreover, her naivete with Kol, and the body he inhabits, also evidences Davina’s desire for normal human connection. Marcel’s eagerness to put together an army demonstrates his adjustment as an outsider. Prior to the Elijah and Klaus showing up in New Orleans, he was at the top of the hierarchy, with his own mass of loyal followers. Now that he has been exiled outside the Quarter, it’s difficult to view his army-building as anything more than an attempt to temper loneliness.
And then there’s Esther. Crazy Esther, who walks the fine line between love and hate, delirium and soundness, diabolical and gentle. Not only was it her (and Mikael’s) own fear of crippling loneliness that caused them to curse their children with immortality and vampirism, but no matter how much her children rebuff her advances for familial solidarity she is determined to bring them back together. As opposed to last time (as seen on The Vampire Diaries) when she tried to bring them together in death, now she wants to purify them, evidenced by the last scene in “Live and Let Die” when Elijah has been captured.
This all goes back to the recurring guilt-purification-redemption cycle (aka scapegoating) we’ve witnessed this season. Esther is transferring her own wrongdoings onto another group (in this case, her children), and it is only through purifying them she can be redeemed. Mikael, too, is participating the cycle but, rather than targeting all of his children, he is narrowly focused on Klaus. I would like to see more fleshing out of Mikael’s character because Sebastian Roché and Joseph Morgan share such great on-screen chemistry, and it work well to see more layers within both Mikael’s and Klaus’s motivations.
Action-wise, there was a lot more happening in “Live and Let Die” than “Every Mother’s Son.” However, “Every Mother’s Son” worked to enhance the guilt-purification-redemption cycle. In last week’s episode it was revealed through flashbacks Esther created a starling pendant for a toddler-aged Klaus. The pendant cursed Klaus by keeping him weak and mild-tempered so he would never have the desire to kill and therefore never activate his werewolf side. Esther defended her actions out of love, but it was Klaus’s mystical weakness that made Mikael resent and despise Klaus. It was a huge revelation, and it was a prime example of the dialectic of tragedy, another Burkean concept utilized to understand human motivation.
The dialectic of tragedy explores the knowing-not knowing dialectic, where the tragic actor (i.e., Klaus) makes the fatal mistake of asserting knowledge, but comes to realize the reverse of his knowledge is actually more representative of reality*. It is only when the tragic actor opens up his mind to this reverse knowledge, he can transcend the act and be “reborn.” When Klaus finally realizes it was his mother making him weak, and therefore his weakness was not an intrinsic character flaw, he can transcend. By the end of “Every Mother’s Son,” Klaus is “reborn,” much in the same way the guilt-purification-redemption cycle offers opportunities for rebirth.
Overall, both “Live and Let Die” and “Every Mother’s Son” were great episodes, and The Originals continues to explore human dynamics in interesting and engaging ways.
There are some residual thoughts on these two episodes:
1. It was an extremely smart decision to move the role of Esther into another body in “Every Mother’s Son,” and I am doubly happy to see Sonja Sohn (aka Kima Greggs) back on television. Cassie worked for awhile but, in addition having difficulty delivering her lines convincingly and smoothly, she cannot command the same ominous tone as Lenore.
2. I was not surprised Mikael was still alive by the end of “Live and Let Die.” If Klaus was able to dispose of him that easily, he was never as formidable a threat as he is supposed to be. I’m wondering if Mikael is somehow going to team up with the Mikaelson siblings to defeat Esther (or vice versa), or how the rest of this story line is going to play out.
3. Although I was unsure of Gia when she first appeared several episodes ago, her scenes with Elijah this week were on-point. Elijah also admitting he was a devout feminist was delicious.
4. As heartbreaking as the Mikaelson Family drama truly is, there is nothing more entertaining than the epic sparring when talking to an about each other. Personal favorites:
– Klaus complaining about wearing a suit to the dinner in “Every Mother’s Son,” while Elijah says dressing nice is a sign of respect and, in turn, she’s more likely to reveal her intentions. Klaus responds with “Well, I doubt she’ll let her guard down if I’m dressed like a bloody lawyer.”
-Klaus on picking the wine for the family dinner in the “Every Mother’s Son”:
*This is an extremely simplified breakdown of Burke’s dialectic of tragedy – stay tuned for a more in-depth analysis (which will probably be during the midseason break).
I Have Notes 