‘The Originals’ Review: ‘Sinners and Saints’ Changes Everything

The Originals continues to get better and better with each episode. “Sinners and Saints” basically took everything we thought we knew about what was going on in the French Quarter and tossed it out the window. By the time the screen faded to black, we were just sitting here gasping at the sheer awesomeness that we just witnessed.

Last week, we got to learn more about Cami and while she didn’t appear in this episode, another layer was added to her backstory (which we’ll get to). First, we need to talk about the witches and the Harvest and the Reaping and OMFG, how creepy was all of that? Critics who were lucky enough to screen the episode early hinted that there was a lot of information in it related to the witches and their true motives and they weren’t kidding.

Sophie (who Klaus kidnapped and brought to Casa Mikaelson) began to tell her tale to Klaus, Rebekah and Hayley as Davina and Elijah started their conversation in the attic (after Davina did a weird blood teasing to test Elijah’s honor). Like other important moments, we got to hear the witches telling the stories while the scenes flashed back to when they actually happened, only eight months earlier.

We’re going to attempt to make a long story short. Once upon a time, Sophie was reckless and not into the whole being a witch thing, even though her family was deeply into it and wanted to participate in a ceremony that would preserve and strengthen their ancestral magic. Unfortunately, this meant selecting four young girls, channeling all the magic into their bodies and then slaughtering them. Allegedly, they’d be reborn during the reaping, but Sophie wasn’t down with the torture, something she mentioned to Marcel when they were hooking up.

Davina was obviously one of the girls chosen and so was her BFF Monique, who happened to be Sophie’s niece (was anyone else surprised that Jane Anne was old enough to have a teenage daughter? We’re guessing she took part in that magic that makes a witch look younger or something). Since her family was no help, Sophie turned to Father Kieran and begged him to stop the ritual. He has no problem letting vampires run the town, but he wasn’t crazy about the witches killing children. In order to keep him in line, Agnes cast a spell on Sean (Cami’s twin) that led to him going mad and killing everyone in the church (whoa, good twist!).

Sophie attempted to stop the creepy killing ritual, but she was held back as the girls were slaughtered one by one. Marcel and his vampires came to stop things (on Kieran’s behalf), but it was too late for Monique. He did manage to save Davina and as each young witch died, all the power was transferred to the next one so after Monique’s throat was slit, Davina wound up with all the power (good explanation!). But since the power was meant for all the witches, it’s way too much for one teenage girl who doesn’t know how to use it.

Elijah recognized that and told Davina as much. Then he offered her a deal: if she let him out of the attic, he’d get his mother’s spell book for her so she could learn how to control her magic. Davina was skeptical, but Elijah pointed out that he wasn’t trying to manipulate her; he just wanted to make a deal. He got through to her because when Marcel showed up to move her, not only did Davina not let on that Elijah was awake, she faked a magic tantrum so Marcel wouldn’t be able to move her from the attic.

Father Kieran was not happy about that. He reminded Marcel that he was in charge of the humans and he was concerned too many people knew where Davina was. Marcel made it clear that his opinion meant nothing, but Kieran was not backing down. He gave Marcel another warning and ordered him to stay away from his niece. Marcel was basically all, ‘fine, whatever’ until Kieran told him that Cami was his niece (another good twist!).

Before all of this, Marcel had been drinking with Klaus and Rebekah eventually joined them (and hinted that she and Marcel have secrets. What are they?), after attempting to help Hayley and Sophie figure out what happened in the bayou (They discovered what appeared to be wolf marks, but we didn’t get too much information on this part yet). Anyway, Klaus wasn’t amused when he realized Marcel gave both of them the slip and he hunted his friend down outside the church. They played the ‘I’m going to steal all your toys’ game for a moment and Klaus quickly reminded Marcel how powerful he is and then this happened.

This was followed by a cute Hayley and Rebekah scene where Hayley talked about always being alone and wanting to know her family and Rebekah reminded her that she ruined a perfectly good pair of boots for her (aw). Klaus walked in and then this happened.

And then this happened.

We just need a minute to find our train of thought; it’s been stolen by all the hearts dancing in front of our eyes. Hayley and Elijah are everything.

Once he recovered from the slap, Elijah took off his suit jacket and tie (to quote Tumblr, that’s basically porn) and held a family conference, warning them how dangerous Sophie is. As great as all of the other twists were in the episode, this was by far the best one.

Sophie is the bad guy. We already knew the other witches were shady after what Agnes did to Hayley last week, but now we know that Sophie is just as bad. She and Jane Anne came up with the plan to use Klaus to bring down Marcel so he could lead them to Davina. Sophie is so determined to bring Monique back that she promised her sister that she would slit her throat herself if that’s what it took.

This is the definition of a game changer. Sophie is linked to Hayley so the Originals can’t kill her without harming Hayley, unless of course they find a witch to undo that spell. We’re guessing Marcel and Klaus would have no problem slaughtering the other witches to protect Davina and once Hayley is safe, Elijah might be in that camp too. But what about the power struggle for New Orleans? The two sides should team up and work together except that doesn’t seem likely. Marcel and Klaus each want to be king too much to concede any ground.

Everything about this show is the seriously the best. Next week, the witches are torturing Sophie to try and hurt Hayley, or more specifically, the baby since Sabine insisted that it would destroy all witches (Klaus is so proud). We’re going to be watching the preview on repeat because this happens:

In the meantime, hit the comments and share your thoughts with us!