The Originals "I Love You, Goodbye" Review: Death at a Wedding
The Originals S02E14: "I Love You, Goodbye"
First things first: Please be Disclaimed! I know the co-writer of this episode in real life (IRL). I probably don't have the proper objectivity to discuss this episode of television and, by the way, somebody should just go ahead and unplug the internet already because none of it is trustworthy and never has been. End disclaimer.
It's hard to blow out birthday candles with a hurricane in the room. That is the metaphor I'm going with here, because on The Originals the story is usually so dense and thick with exposition and plot-driving violence that we don't often get to truly luxuriate in emotional character moments. It's a storytelling method that The Vampire Diaries made famous: You will never see a character enjoying a quiet moment of discovery or reverie on that show, not when he or she can make an expository phone call to discuss a dark wizard or whatever. But The Originals does things differently. Yes, its plot is dense, but take "I Love You, Goodbye," for example. So much of the episode was devoted to the simple, sensual pleasures of a wedding between two friends; of a secret romance gone public; of the dying regrets of a reformed villain; of a family mourning one of its own. The hour finally allowed us to feel those emotions born of all the dizzying storytelling leading up to it. What a sad, beautiful pleasure.
Hayley's wedding to Jackson—I mean, "unification ceremony" I guess, I don't know the proper terms, I didn't go to werewolf cotillion—was the long-awaited centerpiece of "I Love You, Goodbye," and it did not disappoint. An arranged marriage to a gentlehunk is straight-up Jane Austen-esque for all its thrilling angst, and I think it came as a shock to no one that by episode's end, Hayley and Jackson seemed to be falling in love for real. There were the wry smiles exchanged at every turn, Hayley's expressive brown eyes signaling her increased comfort and excitement at the thought of partnering up with Jackson, and then that moment at the end, when she informed him that she'd agreed to marry him not for her pack, but for herself. It's difficult to make such a simple logistical declaration sound romantic, but Phoebe Tonkin is just that subtle. I was obviously on board the Tonkin train from the get-go, but by this point I think we can all accept that she's become an absolute MVP on this show. Hayley—QUEEN Hayley, now—is so strong yet emotional that it's impossible not to care about everything she does and says. It's frankly no wonder that Elijah looked borderline devastated throughout the entire episode.
As a character, Elijah hasn't seemed particularly involved in this season. A lot of that has to do with his need to heal himself, which has kept him away from his loved ones for long stretches of time. But this wedding was a perfect opportunity to get him back in the mix and for him to realize what exactly he's losing. There was a time when it seemed plausible that Hayley would drop anything, including this ceremony, and return to Elijah's arms, but she appears to genuinely love Jackson now. All of us were trained to expect this wedding to turn disastrous at any moment, but the only true threat was in Klaus's determination to murder Jackson right after the ceremony because, uh, it's not totally clear. Because Jackson was "weak"? Seemed kinda petty, even for Klaus. But that just made it all the more powerful when Elijah intervened to prevent this. He was clearly in pain at having to watch the lady he loved marry someone else, but he was clear-eyed enough to want to prevent that kind of devastation. Truly heroic.
In general the wedding was the most pleasurable part of this episode; just seeing the characters all gathered together in the pews, and later the jubilance with which the werewolves received their new powers. Good times! But this being The Originals, we knew the Grim Reaper had to arrive somehow, and that meant the death of Kol. We probably should have expected as much after he'd become suddenly so sympathetic in the past few episodes, but that didn't make it hurt any less. If there's one rule The Originals hasn't broken yet, it's that hexes can't be undone, so despite Davina's and Rebekah's best efforts, Kol finally succumbed to Finn's hex—and man, what a bummer. On the bright side, I enjoyed how, for the first time ever, someone in this universe openly admitted that death was reversible and the character would probably be back soon. (Rebekah even conveniently vowed to remain in her current body until Kol was resurrected.) But it was hard to forget one devastating truth: Daniel Sharman seems to have hung up his Kol hat for good.
Daniel Sharman, guys. I mean, that death scene alone. Full of gurgled pathos and giggled regret, it was a wonderfully dynamic and surprising tragedy, just as the character deserved. I can't even imagine what The Originals (or Kol) will be like without Daniel Sharman. Could the characters maybe figure out a way to resurrect Kol in a facsimile of Kaleb's body? Is that possible? Unclear! Literally anything is possible on this show, but the body-jumping thing has virtually ensured that a new person will be playing Kol the next time we see him. I guess now we should maybe just cross our fingers that Teen Wolf has called one of its hunks back to the fold. Because a life without Daniel Sharman on our screens is total junk.
But cheer up! Other things happened in "I Love You, Goodbye" as well. Josh and Aiden went public with their love, for starters. At first it seemed like Aiden wanted to break up out of fear that Josh would get hurt by the newly powerful werewolves, but a pre-ceremony pep talk from Jackson changed his mind. It was a small but fantastic character moment (again, small but fantastic character moments are distressingly rare in this world), and we learned that Aiden came out to Jackson when they were teenagers and Jackson had been exactly as cool about it as you might've guessed. And even when it seemed like Jackson miiiight disapprove of cross-species romance, he reminded Aiden that if their pack was going to be fighting dark forces for seemingly ever, they'd better have something to fight for. Chills, obvs. Next thing we knew, Aiden and Josh were kissing in front of everybody at the wedding for all to see. YES. (Send all your thank-you notes to Carina Adly MacKenzie for this, I'm guessing. She just gets it.)
Meanwhile Freya resurrected Finn from his body bag—something to do with an enchanted necklace, doesn't matter. Her main thing was that she was so afraid of Dahlia's arrival that she needed Finn's help. I mean, I think that's maybe foolish on her part, but I'm just glad Finn will have something better to do than to try to pry gossip out of people via torture. And this might be a weird thing to say, but the baby playing Hope is so good, right? That is some excellent baby acting! We didn't learn anything new this week about Hope's powers, or the fact that she's possibly a Scanner (I hope she makes someone's head explode soon), but I did love that Klaus and Hayley were able to publicly come clean about Hope's existence. Do any of us think that these "superwolves" can possibly keep Hope safe? Of course not. We've been through this with hybrids: They're powerful on paper, hilariously fragile in practice. But, you know, maybe Hope doesn't need help. I'm really hoping The Originals goes full-nightmare with Hope's mysterious biology... I'm praying that at some point she turns into a cocoon and then a full-blown lady pops out, like in Species. We'll see!
Between the marriage and the death, "I Love You, Goodbye" really got into some circle of life realness, but it was the episode's relaxed emotionalism that really set it apart. Everyone (mostly) put aside their drama-mandated negativity and seemed to appreciate one another's existence. Warm sentiments were exchanged; former enemies even wanted to help each other. On a show as dark and complicated as this one, sometimes the most powerful thrills are the simplest pleasures. Well done.
QUESTIONS:
... Are Hayley and Jackson falling in love?
... Will Kol be back? In what form?
... Will Klaus and Elijah avenge Kol's death?
... Will Hope become the monster from Species?
