The Originals season 5 premiere: Where You Left Your Heart

The first episode of the fifth and final season of The Originals was not a rolling boil, but rather a slow simmer that satiated viewer sentimentality.

Spoiler alert if you missed it: The slow pace of season 5 episode 1, “Where You Left Your Heart,” served to emphasize the length of time the Mikaelson siblings have been apart. Despite having been geographically scattered for 7 years since the end of last season, the family bond remains unbreakable and has priority over other relationships. The new teenage Hope is introduced as a mini-me of her absent father, Klaus. Hope’s cheeky and reckless actions are based on her passionate want for a reunited family rather than common sense. Here’s a review of what went down.

To earn some coin, Hope deals out a couple of vials of her trybrid witch-wolf-vampire blood to no-mate Henry of the Crescent Wolf Pack. Inspired by Tommen’s exit from Game of Thrones, Henry throws himself out of the tower window. After dead Henry is reborn as a hybrid, both naughty children are scolded and sent home to their families in New Orleans, yet not before Hope bats her eyes at a handsome fellow in the hall.

This is likely to be Roman, a newly turned vampire and potential love interest. Hope’s facilitation of teen suicide is all part of her ploy to gain her absent father’s attention. She appears to have no appreciation for the sacrifice the Mikaelson siblings made 7 years prior. After a shared absorption of the Voldermort-type force of The Hollow that inhabited Hope at the end of season 3, Klaus, Elijah, Rebekah and Kol must never be near each other again. If they do, a darkness will emerge like no other.

Elijah, who had centuries of family drama wiped from his mind at the end of last season, sits playing the piano in a bar in France. It would seem he has had his James Bond style wiped away too. He tickles the ivories wearing a collarless shirt while nursing a beer. Despite the danger of having even 2 Mikaelsons in the same room together, Klaus just can’t keep away from his stranger-brother.

Elijah is fully committed to his role as a sentimental piano player, listening to the problems of random strangers in empty bars. Knowing this random barfly is a good tipper, Elijah patiently listens to Klaus ponder on how far away his brother has gone. When the roses in a nearby vase instantaneously wilt, Klaus realizes he can’t interact with Elijah. He distracts himself by venturing off and killing the heirs of a family who wronged him over a century ago.

Since declaring his love for Rebekah seven years ago, Marcel abdicated from the New Orleans throne and the pair have been loving it up in New York. Marcel delivers a prolonged proposal of marriage and is surprised by Rebekah’s prolonged refusal to give him an answer — even though he declares, with his usual tone of modesty, that his proposal “knocked it out of the park.” Rebekah retreats to a bubble bath, where conveniently placed roses wilt and blood starts gushing from the bath spout.

If Rebekah was sitting on the fence before, this bloody and biblical omen is certainly a reminder that the Mikaelson clan are connected always and forever. A pesky proposal of marriage is just not convenient.

New Orleans’ regent witch Vincent leads a strategy meeting with Freya, Hayley and Josh about the upcoming Mardi Gras. Vincent is all gloomy about how after years of peace, witch, werewolf and vampire rivalry is heating up. This is poorly supported by a minor tiff across the bar which introduces newcomer Greta. A chirpy bartender named Poppy is introduced as she delivers their consumables. Crescent wolf alpha Hayley is rocking a new hairdo, and a new friend-with-benefits, a cute Irish human cook named Declan. (Okay, Declan is human. He does not cook humans.)

Later, Freya hooks up via witchy-Skype with her love Keelin who is saving lives in Lebanon. New hybrid Henry kills Poppy which ups the ante of the species rivalry to lukewarm.

Rebekah calls Caroline who surprises Klaus in Paris at the end of one of his killing sprees. As Klaus’ sanity sponsor, Caroline firmly counsels him to call his daughter Hope. After waiting so long to see this couple reunite, it feels a little too formal due to a shift in power dynamics. Klaus has been softened by fatherhood and is less of a bad boy. Caroline is no longer flustered in his presence. Her clean-up of the murder scene is practical rather than man-induced stress cleaning.

Hope tries out a bit of sire control with her new hybrid Henry. This hints at a potential Tyler Lockwood style slave-wolf in development. When she chats to Kol, who is honeymooning with an unseen Davina, the cogs start turning. The only thing that will bring her deadbeat father and the Mikaelson clan back to New Orleans is a crisis.

Cue … a crisis. On her way to meet Declan, Hayley is knocked out by a magical force and disappears.

Marcel is left standing at the altar as Rebekah opts for a hasty cross-continental visit to Elijah. Marcel advises Josh he is heading back to New Orleans. Rebekah’s meeting with stranger-brother ramps up the blood flow. Hope reaches Klaus by phone, and as she tells her father that her mother is missing, blood squirts from fountains and starts raining from the sky.

Klaus is heading back to New Orleans.

Next week’s episode, “One Wrong Turn on Bourbon,” will ramp up the action and start delivering on a few plot points planted in episode one.

Some questions for next week’s episode:

Will poor Declan still be waiting at the bar for Hayley to show up?
Who will be king vamp now that Klaus and Marcel have both returned to town?
Is Hope behind Hayley’s disappearance, or is it a case of misdirection?
What bloody fury will be unleashed by the band being back together again?

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