Brother vs Sister Showdown, The Originals “Long Way Back From Hell” 

The Originals went all horror flick this week in “Long Way Back From Hell,” with Rebekah and Klaus locked away in the creepy abandoned sanitarium, Fleur de Lis, by the resurrected witch Genevieve. Celeste, still wearing her Sabine mask, had Monique give Elijah the location of his tortured siblings by way of a witchy riddle. (Which was a pretty cool, by the way, because it was a fun little hunt to figure it out and it got Elijah out of his shirt.) Meanwhile, back at Sadistic Sanitarium Central, Klaus took a hijacked ride through Rebekah’s hallucinations of her past, including her direct involvement in bringing Mikael to New Orleans back in 1919. You can imagine how happy (read: psychopathically murderous) he was once he figured out all the nasty details of Rebekah and Marcel’s betrayal.

While Klaus stalking his sister through the basement gets points for the most shivers (“REBEKAHHHH!!!”), the lynchpin of the ep has to be the Rebekah and Klaus toe-to-toe standoff. Still tripping out on werewolf venom, weak, with nowhere to hide, Rebekah stops running and faces off against Klaus. While we’ve all said things to our siblings we may regret later, you get the idea this is the confrontation between the two we’ve been waiting for since The Vampire Diaries. Even though Elijah cut the battle short before Klaus could slaughter Rebekah, the repercussions of their knockdown, drag out are going to resonate through the Original family for a while to come.

Ever since Rebekah popped out of her box back in Mystic Falls, you had to wonder why she stuck around her brothers. Elijah is easy enough to understand. He’s the good, supportive brother. But Klaus tortured Rebekah, kept her away from her true love and was an overall selfish ass, as far as brothers go. Still, she never strayed far from his side. Now with all the cards on the table, the reasons are more clear. (Or at least, some of them are.) Guilt. She straight-up betrayed Klaus for her own needs and that seems to be the biggest transgression you can make in this family. What is their motto: Family Above All Else? (I’m paraphrasing.) She put herself before her blood and came to regret it. Rebekah implored Genevieve to reverse the spell to find Mikael hours after they had cast it but it was too late. Rebekah had to live with what she had done and deal with Klaus’s rage.

Next, what to do with Klaus? Daggered by Elijah with Papa Tunde’s black magic blade, he’s at Elijah’s mercy until he calms down. The interesting thing will be to see if he actually has a moment of growth and will show Rebekah and Marcel a little mercy for a mistake made a century earlier. More likely? Klaus raining his wrath down on all of the French Quarter. (As a personal preference, I’d like to see Cami working this through with Klaus therapist-style. But that’s probably wishful thinking.) The point is The Originals aren’t going to be the same after this, Elijah included.

Shallow TV Alert: Elijah and Klaus shirtless in the same episode. BOOM!

The Originals airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on the CW.