The holidays are bringing viewers a long-awaited reunion on The Originals: Klaus (Joseph Morgan) and Hayley (Phoebe Tonkin) have spent the second season of The CW drama missing their daughter, Hope, and they have the opportunity to reunite with her — and Klaus' sister, Rebekah (Claire Holt), who has been Hope's caretaker in the interim — during the midseason finale.
But, naturally, everything isn't totally joyful for the family — the only reason the reunion is occurring is because Esther, the Mikaelson matriarch, is after Rebekah … which also places Hope (whom is presumed dead) in danger.
The Originals executive producer Michael Narducci spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about the "loaded" family reunion, Klaus and Rebekah's plan to defeat their mother as well as what's in store in the midseason finale.
What can you tease about the reunion between Hope and her parents?
It's the reunion we've been building toward since the end of last season. When Esther was a threat to the child, and the witches were a threat to the child, Klaus decided the best way to protect his baby was to fake her death and send her to parts unknown with Rebekah. And that's where they've been, [as] the family has been struggling with the return of Esther and the return of Mikael and the rest of the family.
But now, because they know Esther — through magic — is tracking Hope and Rebekah down, they need to find them on safe ground, on neutral territory, and have a big family confab to figure out the best way to protect Hope, and keep the secret of her survival from Esther, and to decide what they're going to do with her mother, who wants to put them all into different bodies. [Esther is] trying to give them a blank slate. Basically, Klaus was the one who completely rejected his mother's offer: she said she'd put him in a werewolf body and reunite him with his long lost father, and he killed that father and left him for Esther to find. So she knows he's not going to be turned; he's not going to take her offer. She's curious to know what Elijah's status is after the torment she Elijah through. And she's curious to know what Rebekah will feel.
Rebekah has always been the one who wanted a family of her own, wanted to be human. So [Esther] believes if she tracks down Rebekah, Rebekah will be the child who is most likely to take this deal. So with Esther hot on their heels, and Klaus having rejected the offer, we're not sure what Rebekah's thoughts are about this offer, the family has to decide how to best deal with the threat.
And then in between that, you have Hayley seeing her daughter for the first time in several months; Klaus being reunited with his child for the first time in several months; Elijah seeing Hayley for the first time in a while, and that's in the wake of everything Elijah experienced while he was being tormented by Esther, including that kind of beautiful reunion that was just a fantasy between Elijah and Hayley, where he admitted how much he craved for her.
So all of that stuff is informing this reunion of Elijah, Klaus, Hayley, and the baby. So it's a pretty loaded moment.
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Rebekah and Elijah were reunited last week, and after she quickly realized something was wrong with him, she snapped his neck to escape. Is there any lingering tension between the siblings going forward?
We do play a pretty cool moment where he calls out that fact. And Rebekah is like, "Hey, I love you, you're my brother, [but] it's a little bit strange you slaughtered a diner full of people when you could have compelled them. So, you weren't quite behaving as the noble, gentile brother I know, so I had to do that dirty trick of snapping your neck."
But it's not like he's angry with her. I think he understands he's not quite himself. And that's another one of the family's big problem.
What is the plan Rebekah and Klaus have to get rid of Esther?
What it basically comes down to is that the family knows Esther has a certain agenda, and there's no secrets in regards to how Klaus feels about that agenda. Rebekah is the one Esther hasn't had any interaction with. And so, if Rebekah is going to help her brothers and her niece, she's going to have to deal with Esther.
So Klaus and the rest of the family have to form a plan how best to take Esther by surprise. So the family has to concoct this tricky plan that is going to involve not only the family, but some of our characters who were last seen in New Orleans, and everyone uniting to pull off a great Trojan horse scam that is pretty exciting.
Meanwhile, Hayley has made the decision to marry Jackson to help the werewolves get their independence from Esther. What progress will be made in that storyline, and how will Klaus and Elijah react to Hayley's news?
We know that Hayley and Klaus are going to have a long car ride to get to this safe location [where Rebekah and Hope are], so he's definitely going to have an opinion on what Hayley is planning to do.
And, of course, Klaus is the master strategist, so he sees things a little bit differently than a normal person would. He's seeing, how could I benefit? I think that's something Klaus always thinks first.
And, of course, down the road, Hayley, because of her lingering feelings for Elijah, is going to have to talk to him about what she's planning and this duty, and this obligation she has to carry out. And she wants to know what his perspective is. So I think we can expect a pretty great interaction between them as he will be forced to kind of come to terms with what she is planning to do, and he will have a great perspective on that.
What impact will Dahlia's curse — where she agreed to make Esther fertile, as long as Dahlia could have the first-born of every generation — have on these plans that are already in motion?
It's one more thing — they have this great family moment, this family gathering, where it's like, "What are all the issues that we need to discuss? It's been a while since we've been together, there are definitely a lot of threats out there."
This is the first time Rebekah and Klaus have been together in a while, and they have to discuss how do we feel about Esther, how do we feel about Mikael, what about Finn, what about Kol? And what do we feel about this fairytale that we heard about this incredibly powerful witch named Dahlia who comes for the first-born of each generation? Do we buy this? Is this a problem? How are we going to respond to this?
And I think like any group of people in a crisis, they have to put the threats into a priority list, and the one who is the most dangerous, the one they know is the biggest threat to the child, is Esther. So this will be the story of how they deal with Esther, but there's a lot of other stuff that they're going to have to work around going forward.
The Originals airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on The CW. Stay tuned to THR's The Live Feed after the episode for more coverage.
