Julie Plec Breaks Down ‘The Originals’ Season 3 Premiere Twists

Plec and Dohring talk with THR about the events of the season three premiere. Courtesy of The CW

Plec and Dohring talk with THR about the events of the season three premiere.

[Warning: This story contains spoilers from The Originals' season three premiere.]

The Originals' Lucien (Andrew Lees) just came to town but is already causing trouble.

During Thursday's season three premiere, mutilated bodies were found in New Orleans, leading Detective Will Kinney (Jason Dohring) to start an investigation. But by the end of the hour, viewers watched Lucien mutilate himself in a similar way.

While Will doesn't know what's going on, "Lucien is an interesting character," Dohring tells The Hollywood Reporter. "And when you play against a character like that, you don't know what you're getting, too, because he could be setting you up. You're investigating this and he's putting you over here [on an entirely different track]. And then you go over here, and it's not what you thought. So there's an interesting [game they're playing]."

But Lucien's games weren't the only thing that went down in the hour. Here, The Originals creator Julie Plec talks with THR about some of the season three premiere's biggest moments.

What does Davina (Danielle Campbell) want with Hayley (Phoebe Tonkin)?

Davina, having taken Marcel's (Charles Michael Davis) advice perhaps a little bit too much to heart, really needs an assist in dealing with the witches that have shown their disrespect to her. She wants to make a point and she wants to make it loudly, and she's going to use Hayley to help her do that.

Is she at all thinking of the ramifications of this?

Davina doesn't think much about the Originals family these days. She's riding a wave of power and a little bit of arrogance, and isn't thinking her actions might have repercussions. When all is said and done, the family has been trying for months to undo this curse, and here Davina strolls along and undoes it with a blink of the eye. Even if they're angry, the end result is the return of Hayley, so that is a good thing.

Speaking of the curse, we saw a lot of dead wolves in this hour. Are all of the wolves we know safe? And when will we see them again?

We will see the familiar faces we are hoping to see very soon in the season; by the second episode, we'll know our favorite wolves are intact.

After months of positive behavior, Klaus (Joseph Morgan) snapped and killed a critic of his art. How will he be handling this step back?

Klaus has spent a lot of months on his, allegedly, best behavior. As Marcel says, when Klaus is on his best behavior, it's only a matter of time until he has to act out. And in this case, he's feeling the sting of rejecting yet again when he does so much to try and turn over a new leaf, and yet still gets called a disappointment -- it's that little kid whose parents just didn't raise him right and treat him well, coming out to fight back.

How will Lucien's arrival -- and Lucien's own bad behavior -- impact Klaus?

Klaus is never better than when he has the mystery of an enemy in his presence. With Lucien, it's tough to tell if Lucien's on the up and up, and is everything he says about being a friend to Klaus true? Or is manipulative and full of lies? Klaus wants nothing more than to get to the bottom of those mysteries. I think it gives him a proper focus.

How will the show be playing with the serial killer storyline?

It's definitely an ongoing incident. I think for Cami (Leah Pipes), the coincidence that innocent bodies are dropping the same week Klaus' old friend comes to town is a little bit too big to ignore. So it puts her on a mission of who this new person is and why he's in their town.

Flashbacks played heavily in the premiere. How much can you utilize that device going forward, since only Morgan and Daniel Gillies (Elijah) are series regulars?

We actually are fairly flashback heavy in the first half, in that there are three episodes that tell a nice rich story about the past. In a lot of ways we're telling the origin stories of these new characters, in addition to telling of a time when the Originals were brand new and didn't understand the depth of their own power and had to figure out how to survive -- these raggedy, Viking, kid runaways [to evolve] into the posh, rich family they are today.

Freya (Riley Voelkel) is a newer addition to the family. How is she holding up with the turmoil?

Freya was just barely welcomed with half-opened arms … she's on precarious ground in her own mind -- she made a commitment to Rebekah: let me take care of this family, let me be the big sister for a while, so that's what she's doing. She's trying to be mediator between the boys who haven't been getting along for months. She's trying to  keep the harmony in this family dynamic. She'll realize soon she needs to find her own way, but not without getting into a heap of trouble, attached to the Mikaelson family and also the new enemies in town.

Where is Aurora (Rebecca Breeds) headed this season?

Aurora is just a ball of crazy, God bless her. Aurora is deeply bonded with her brother, who is not a nice person. She struggles with her own emotional demons. She believes herself to be wildly, psychologically cursed. In fact, she is quite disturbed. But she also has a massive, massive heart that loves deeply, and obsessively. And so as we learn more about her history with the Originals family and specifically Klaus, we'll start to see what that means.

The Originals airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. on The CW. What did you think of The Originals' premiere?

The Originals

Marisa Roffman