The Originals recap: A shocking death leads to a heartwarming reunion

For a show about immortality, The Originals has always been friendly with death. In fact, death has always been one of its strong suits. So as we head into its final episodes, it’s no surprise that the show isn’t holding back from killing off beloved characters, both old and new. But before we get to all the sadness, let’s start with, well, some anger.

With the Hollow’s magic inside her, Hope is trying everything she can think of to handle her rage. Or rather, she’s trying everything Klaus can think of, which basically boils down to her throwing her father around the compound in the hopes that it calms her. But seeing as how she doesn’t want to hurt Klaus, she gets another idea. (Hint: It has curly blond hair and some truly gorgeous eyes.)

Yep, Klaus goes and retrieves Roman, who is essentially being held captive for observation by his sister. But of course, Klaus just kills his babysitters, because if there’s one thing Klaus will do for his daughter, it’s kill others. (Just kidding, he does that for fun.)

Klaus happily snaps Roman’s neck and delivers him, all chained up, to Hope. And much to his chagrin, Hope wants to be left alone with her one-time crush. Klaus, finally feeling like he’s in his element with this whole parenting thing, offers his daughter a piece of advice: “Start small.” He tells her to think fingernails or maybe even tongue. After all, you want to “build the suspense.” When it comes to being a dad, Klaus isn’t good at advice. When it comes to torture, he’s the very best. (Or the very worst?)

While Hope deals with her many, many feelings about Roman — some magic-induced, some hormone-induced — Marcel decides now is a good time to check out the warehouse where Emmett and his band of terrible followers hang. To be fair, Marcel does call Josh for backup before he heads inside, but seeing as how Josh has found himself a cute soldier at the bar, he’s not exactly dying to check his voicemail at the moment.

Despite Marcel’s super-Original status, he ends up strapped to a table where Emmett extracts his venom. Reminder: Marcel’s venom can be deadly to hybrids, Originals, and possibly even Hope, so come to think of it, everyone should’ve been far more protective of Marcel this entire time. What were they thinking?! He’s the ultimate weapon!

Eventually, Josh loses interest in the cute, charming soldier, mostly because he reminds him of the love he lost in Aiden. When he finally makes his way to the warehouse, he and Marcel are outnumbered. They put up a good fight, and Marcel ends up the victor, but not before Josh gets a syringe of Marcel’s venom injected directly into his heart.

There’s no time for Marcel to get the cure from Freya, which means we now have to say goodbye to our beloved Joshua, and all I can think is: Where is Davina?!

Now on his deathbed, Josh recalls the first day he met Marcel and how loyalty was the very thing that made Marcel spare his life. “You are my family,” Josh tells Marcel before he dies. Before the episode ends, we see Josh find peace — and peace looks like Aiden pulling up in a car and telling Josh to get in. “God I missed you,” Aiden says before engaging in one of the show’s greatest couples kisses and literally driving off into the sunset.

While all of that was going down, Antoinette — yes, she’s still around — calls Elijah and asks him to help save her brother. Elijah comes up with a plan that he thinks will help both families, and considering that Hope starts to get black lines on her arm while she tortures Roman, things aren’t exactly getting better for her.

So, Hope decides to spare Roman because he’s “no more guilty or responsible than me.” But she does need to do something with her power, and that’s why Elijah and Antoinette gather Greta’s followers under false pretenses and turn them over to Hope, Klaus, and Marcel. But Klaus and Marcel are really just there for moral support, because it’s Hope who goes all Hollow-ed out — get it? — and kills everyone in about three seconds. She also destroys the case of Marcel’s venom, so we don’t have to worry about that anymore either.

Sounds like things are really looking up, right? Wrong. Because the blast that Hope created affected everyone in the church, including Declan and a priest, who were in the attic looking through Kieran’s old files. Klaus finds Declan in enough time to heal him with vampire blood, but the same can’t be said for the priest, which is why the episode ends with Hope triggering her werewolf curse. Suddenly, those blue eyes are yellow.

However, there is a bit of good news: She and Roman seem to mend fences when he comforts her about the Declan of it all. And I know Roman’s made some mistakes, but those two are pretty adorable.

As for Antoinette, she and Elijah say goodbye with a kiss. She’s headed to Shanghai to hide out for now. He’s not sure they’ll meet again, but she sincerely hopes they do. (But does he feel the same?)

And that brings us to our final love story of the hour: Vincent and Ivy. After Ivy wakes up, Vincent realizes that she and the other poisoned witches are in transition. And despite the fact that Vincent shows her that the ancestral well means that her afterlife will be filled with anguish as the living draw from her power, she remains steadfast in her decision to die.

So Vincent does the only thing he can do: He convinces the witches to do away with the ancestral well, the source of their magic. This way, the dead ancestors will finally find peace, leaving the witches to draw their magic from the earth. Once that’s done, Ivy is allowed to die the peaceful death she deserves.

And with that, the final season’s death toll continues to rise. Overall, this felt like a fairly standard episode only made better by the Aiden surprise. Outside of that, it might not have left the biggest impression. I am happy that Greta’s followers are dead, and of course, I’m very intrigued to see what happens next with Hope. (Will her eyes turn … purple?)