The Originals recap: 'Out of the Easy' 

Julie Plec reveals how 'The Vampire Diaries' and 'The Originals' influence each other

Here’s the thing about ancient vampires: They’ve spent so much of their lives as immortal predators that they can’t but have a heightened sense of self. Translation: They have big egos. So when you put a group of them in one room — particularly when said group is made of up many different personal relationships and alliances — things get dramatic real quick. 

This Thanksgiving dinner was the perfect example of how the addition of the Trinity has made this season so great. By both reflecting the Mikaelsons while also bringing out new aspects in each of them, they’ve upped the stakes in a number of ways. And quite frankly, they’re also just plain fun to watch.

Still reeling from the loss of Rebekah, Elijah is intent on finding his sister…and fast. He sends Marcel to secure Davina so that Tristan and Lucien cannot use her to activate their handy weapon. As for him, well, he heads home to find out why Klaus isn’t answering his phone.

It doesn’t take long for Aurora to catch Elijah up on her whole I-have-Rebekah-now plan, but just as Elijah thinks his brother could be blinded by his feelings for Aurora, Elijah and Klaus devise a plan. They’re going to do what they do best: Throw a dinner party and turn everyone against one another! It’s their specialty: fancy manipulation.

So while Marcel tries and fails to get Davina to agree to leave town, the Mikaelsons send out invitations to each member of the Trinity. Lucien leaves Cami at home — he’s still waiting on the vervain to fully leave her system so that he can compel her — but she’s not alone. Nope, she has a threatening vampire nanny to keep her company (not to mention that witch’s slutty clothes).

All gathering at the compound, we quickly get our Elijah Moment of the Week when he walks down the stairs in what might be one of his best suits to date to welcome everyone to dinner. It takes about 30 seconds for Elijah to call Tristan and Lucien out on their alliance, shush Lucien, and smirk the sort of smirk that would make me confess to a murder I didn’t commit. Shall we begin?

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What you need to know about a Mikaelson family Thanksgiving is that it has five key ingredients: Turkey, cranberry sauce, lies, deceit, and betrayal. (Oh and Klaus’ stuffing, which apparently has too many walnuts for Elijah’s liking.)

Getting right to it, Tristan tries to explain why he and Lucien pretended to be enemies, or futhermore, why the Strix keeps murdering people and stringing them up like puppets. And yet, as Elijah’s patience wears thin, he gets straight to the point, demanding Rebekah’s return along with the medallion that can supposedly trap the Mikaelsons.

But when the Trinity laughs off threats of compulsion and just about everything else, it takes the arrival of a very frustrated Freya — who’s trying and failing to locate Rebekah with a spell — to really get the ball rolling. The long lost Mikaelson sister finally gets Aurora to admit Rebekah’s location: She’s currently one-upping Stefan Salvatore by spending her days at the bottom of the ocean. (Although, Stefan was drowning over and over, so maybe he still wins?)

With that revelation, each Mikaelson picks a mini-Mikaelson to torture: Klaus gets Tristan, Elijah gets Lucien, and Freya gets Aurora (with a little help from Hayley). Tristan tries to talk Klaus into letting his siblings be sealed away just until the prophecy ends, while Lucien tries another tactic: making Elijah question Klaus. Meanwhile, it’s Freya and Hayley who are getting physical with their more classic torture techniques, at least until Aurora reveals that they need both her and Tristan to find Rebekah. Turns out, she knows the latitude of Rebekah’s location…and he knows the longitude.

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