The Originals 1.02 "House of the Rising Son" – Men come and go but brothers are forever.

This is a week of learning for pretty much everyone. Viewers learn more about Marcel’s story and how it connects to the Mikaelsons, Rebekah learns about Klaus’ plan AND the level of control Marcel has over the town, Hayley learns that she actually wants to have her baby, and Klaus learns about how Marcel likes to party – and how he covers up his vampires’ “partying”.
To start, in a series of flashbacks, we learn that Klaus has incestuous feelings towards his baby sister. [Of course, he does not say that explicitly, but he does have a tendency to kill every single man Rebekah falls in love with – with one exception: Marcel.] Anyway, one of the men Klaus kills happened to also be the Governor’s son Emil – who Klaus had hilariously tossed over a balcony because the man dared stand up for Rebekah’s honor.

While attending Emil‘s funeral, they discover that the Governor had one other son – illegitimately, through one of his slaves. When Klaus sees an overseer beating the boy, Klaus kills the overseer and chats with the boy, who admits he has no name because his mother died before she could give him one. Klaus names him Marcellus, and then goes on to basically raise him as though he was his own son.
Though this sort of means Rebekah is young Marcel’s aunt, it doesn’t stop the two from falling in love. Klaus‘ penchant for slaughtering Rebekah’s lovers put him in a difficult position once he learns of their love for each other. Instead of killing Marcel, he daggers Rebekah and gives Marcel a choice: undagger Rebekah and live out the rest of his days with her as a human, or else leave Rebekah daggered and become a vampire.

Marcel chooses to become a vampire, and Rebekah stays daggered for over fifty years. Once undaggered, she learns of Marcel’s betrayal, and that is pretty much the end of that relationship. Some time after that, their father Mikael tracks the Mikaelsons to New Orleans and they flee – believing Marcel to be dead. Obviously, he wasn’t dead, but Klaus takes it as a personal offense that Marcel never sought him out over the years, that he chose instead to take over New Orleans.
And with that, we have caught up to the present. According to a comment Marcel (Charles Michael Davis) makes halfway through the episode, the “present” portion of the episode picks up a couple of months after last week’s [presumably either to align their timeline with The Vampire Diaries’ timeline or else to be able to show the progression of Klaus (Joseph Morgan) and Marcel’s ‘friendship’ more quickly]. They didn’t make that very clear (it was sort of said in passing), nor does it seem to matter all that much right now, but it’s good that we know, I guess.

Anyway, this week Rebekah comes to New Orleans. Like we assumed, she is only there to figure out why Elijah hasn’t been answering her phone calls. Once there, Klaus tells her that he has no idea where Elijah is, and Hayley informs her that Klaus said he left town. Rebekah, used to Klaus’ methods, immediately understands that Klaus has daggered Elijah, and she recruit’s Hayley’s help as she searches the house for him.
Down in the basement, they find Rebekah’s old coffin – the one that Klaus uses to store his siblings after he’s daggered them – but Elijah’s is missing. Rebekah (Claire Holt) decides to find Marcel and see if he has any idea where Elijah is. He claims ignorance, so Rebekah seeks out the witches to see if they will do a spell to locate them. Sophie (Daniella Pineda) informs her of Marcel’s laws – and when Rebekah threatens her, she also informs her of her link to Hayley. Rebekah realizes she won’t get any help from them, so she leaves her alone.

Meanwhile, Hayley (Phoebe Tonkin) contemplates drinking poison to kill the baby, but before she can drink her poison-infused tea, Marcel’s vampires find her. [Werewolves aren’t allowed in the Quarter; they’re killed on the spot.] Fortunately for Hayley, Rebekah shows up just in time to stop them from killing her. At that point, however, Hayley realizes that she doesn’t want an abortion; she wants to keep the baby – so that she can be a better parent than either of her own biological and adoptive sets of parents.
Hayley and Rebekah go back home and talk, and they seem to really bond. It’s something we should expect, but I can’t help but feel that it’s being forced before it’s time. [They have known each other for less than 24 hours and they are already practically best friends, which is odd not only for what we know about Bex’s past, but even for what little we know about Hayley – who certainly seems to be someone who struggles to trust people.]

Regardless, Hayley has joined Rebekah’s team, and proves that by showing Rebekah the set of daggers she stole from Klaus – which means that Klaus won’t be able to get rid of her like he did Elijah. With that possibility taken away, she confronts Klaus, who is angry when he learns that she killed some of Marcel’s vampires.

At this point, Klaus reveals his big plan to take down Marcel. Because Marcel’s people are on vervain, Klaus isn’t able to compel him. However, he CAN compel new vampires, which he wastes no time in doing. He took things a step further and also compelled Marcel’s human love interest Camille (Leah Pipes), a bartender in the French Quarter.
Klaus also lets Rebekah know that Marcel is the one who has Elijah. He daggered Elijah to give to Marcel in hopes of gaining some trust from Marcel. Having learned this, Rebekah seeks Marcel and demands he bring her to Elijah. So, Marcel takes Rebekah to see Davina. Bex sees Elijah’s body and learns of Davina’s power, but Davina (Danielle Campbell) wipes her memory of Davina’s location, so she and Klaus are unable to go get Elijah back.

However, Klaus and Rebekah realize that they want their brother back, so they are going to team up to not only find out where Davina is so they can get Elijah back, but also so that Klaus can use Davina against Marcel. [Good luck with that one, sweetheart.]

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Next week: Episode 1.03 “Tangled Up in Blue” will air Tuesday, October 15, 2013 at 7pm.