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Family history can be a wellspring of drama, but throw in an extra thousand years, black magic, werewolves, and the responsibility for creating and becoming the world’s first vampires, and you’ve got a TV show. Having left the sprawling storylines of The Vampire Diaries and Mystic Falls for New Orleans, The Originals focuses on the centuries-long struggles among the Mikaelson family, and it benefits greatly from a sharp cast and a strong thematic focus: when even the best members of your family have gallons of blood on their hands, what kind of legacy can you leave behind?
Coming into the second season, original werewolf-vampire hybrid Klaus (Joseph Morgan) has entrusted his newborn daughter, Hope, to his sister, Rebekah (Claire Holt), while he, brother Elijah (Daniel Gillies), and Hope’s mother and newly-turned hybrid Hayley (Phoebe Tonkin) attempt to reclaim their hold over the city. Complicating matters are an empowered clan of werewolves, rogue witch Davina (Danielle Campbell), and the resurrection of their greatest enemies: their parents.
It’s tricky enough to spin off a show featuring supporting good guys, but The Originals took on the extra task of turning established villains into heroes—or at least reasonably sympathetic antiheroes. It’s to the show’s credit that they’ve resisted softening Klaus much, preserving Morgan’s charismatic performance as the character most likely to rip your throat out over a faux pas while allowing Elijah, Hayley, and Rebekah to emerge as the story’s sympathetic core.
The supporting cast gets a boost this year with the reappearance of Mikael (Sebastian Roché) and Esther (Sonja Sohn). Mikael’s focus on killing Klaus hasn’t wavered, while Esther is borrowing the body of a local witch as part of a plan to restore her children to humanity and redeem herself for having made them vampires in the first place. That thematic focus on family ties—both between parents and children and between siblings—gives The Originals the kind of strong center that its parent program has somewhat lost.
That said, several of the issues that continue to show up in The Vampire Diaries also appear here. Some supporting characters seem to hang around until the plot gives them something to do, while others pinball between subplot and subplot too quickly to follow. Klaus’s protégé, Marcel (Charles Marcus Davis), suffers from the latter this year, a shame given how likeable the character has been overall. It can also be tricky keeping up with the various factions contending for power in the city, and the show is at its best when it sidesteps politics completely to focus on the eternally dysfunctional Mikaelsons.
If the first season proved that The Originals could function on its own, this second lets it really start to stake out its own territory. The Mikaelsons may have predated the Salvatores by a few centuries, but their story here is just getting started. If these first two seasons are any indication, it’s turning out to be a very worthy successor.
Blu-ray Review:
The Originals: The Complete Second Season includes 22 episodes, along with a selection of deleted scenes. There’s also an enjoyable companion web series, The Originals: Awakening, which gives some history on one of the less well-known Mikaelson siblings. The rest of the featurettes include a nice mix of behind-the-scenes, a gag reel, and the show’s Comic-con panel. All together, it’s a nice package of material that adds a little extra depth to the show.
