The Originals 1.06 Review: No One Hurts Family and Lives to Talk About It

Anyone that has yet to watch Tuesday night’s episode of The Originals, entitled ‘Fruit of the Poisoned Tree’, now is your last chance to do so without the threat of spoilers before reading ahead. As always, this is not a spoiler free blog. THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS! You’ve been warned.

This series is such a guilty pleasure for me because I absolutely love it. It doesn’t always end up moving the way I expect, or want, it to go, but I keep tuning in every week and enjoying this series to no end. Perhaps it’s partly due to my deep love for all things New Orleans, or even my masterful crush on series lead Joseph Morgan, but either way I just love this series. It’s not the best, nor most intellectual of series I’ve ever had the pleasure of viewing, but it is a good, enjoyable watch.

One thing I absolutely love about this series is its strange, but strong family values. The Mikaelson’s are such a screwed up family unit, but the bond they have to each other is amazing. Being a person that has a strong family value myself, I quite admire their family unit. They won’t think twice about murder, but at least they have each other, even if they sometimes screw up.

My two favourite elements to this series are definitely Klaus and Elijah, and while it is Klaus’s series to an extent, Elijah is beginning to steal the focus of this show. I love Joseph Morgan and Klaus, but Elijah’s honour and dependability in his word just makes him such a class act that I both yearn for and enjoy watching. He definitely has that older brother vibe, always having to take care of his younger siblings, although I still swear Finn was the oldest, and while I, myself, only have one sibling I understand the desire to protect and almost take care of the younger siblings – although I don’t hold as steadfast to my word and am closer to Klaus in my selfish, stubbornness.

Two subtle moments to this episode that I absolutely adored were when Hayley smiled after Elijah corrected himself in saying they may need to kill everyone, and when Klaus smiled after Elijah ripped out the hearts of the witches in the church. Such brilliance in something so subtle, which makes me undoubtedly believe the cinematography in this series, is absolutely well done. It may not have the most original ideas when it comes to writing, but the acting and the way it is shot is especially well done.

Even a day after having watched the episode, I have this excited feeling in my chest that I get when I watch or read an especially moving piece of work. A feeling that tells me I am in love with an idea or a string of scenes, and this series is definitely beginning to get that. As I lose interest in The Vampire Diaries, this series gains my interest. It could be that these people are gorgeous and that it has yet to especially let me down due to it not having aired very long, but I have hope that it will continue to grow into something exciting and fresh. Back when I heard that this idea of a spinoff was in the works, I desperately hoped it wouldn’t come to fruition, but after having watched it these last six episodes, I find that instinct quite wrong. Still, the one thing that is missing is Caroline.

When it was first introduced, I thought the idea of Hayley pregnant, a character I couldn’t stand on The Vampire Diaries but have grown to love on this series, was just an idea stolen from Angel. Now I’ve grown to actually find this tantalizing storytelling, something The Vampire Diaries has mostly lost. Maybe all the good (and I say that very lightly) writers have left that series for this one, because this one is easily better than its predecessor. I’m just really not looking forward to having Tyler on this series, we finally just got rid of him on The Vampire Diaries, why does he have to come and probably ruin Hayley’s character on here?

The one thing I have real issue with on this series is the character of Cami. I just find her useless, and just something in the way of Klaroline, and to distract all of those shippers (of which I will honestly say that I am apart of) from that having been written into the mothership series. I could care less about her character now that Klaus has ruined her character by bringing her into things, but only when he’s near her. It’s just too much fluff for my taste. Yeah, sure, the actress is very good in the part, the emotion of her character’s woes comes across quite easily, but I just don’t find she’s necessary to the story.

All in all, I adore this series. This week’s episode fit quite well coming out of last week’s episode that told the story behind Davina and her extreme amount of witchy power. There was a definite race against the clock type feel to it that came from Elijah and Klaus trying to unlink Hayley from Sophie, to save Hayley’s baby. And I can hardly wait for the next episode to find out what happened to Hayley and where she went. It was probably necessary to get Rebekah to stick around, but I’m curious nonetheless. This series has a lot more going for it than it’s predecessor.

My rating: 7.5 out of 10.

Best Lines:

“Probably no one. (Pause) Alright, potentially everyone.” – Elijah utters, about who they’ll have to kill.

“I feel like I’ve been microwaved.” – Hayley states about the curse that was put on Sophie to get to Hayley’s baby.

Yay, only one more review to catch up on and it should be pretty easy. Stick around for my review of Supernatural. Then I’m going to watch Revolution and American Horror Story: Coven and review those. Happy watching!