The Originals boss on [spoiler]'s heartbreaking death, hope for Davina 

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'The Originals' victim 'cried' over that tragic death

Spoiler alert: This post contains plot points from the April 29 episode of

left for its winter hiatus with Cami’s fate up in the air. But this time around, there are no questions: Cami is dead. We spoke with

showrunner Michael Narducci about the decision, not to mention what just happened with Davina.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: When did you all decide that Cami was going to die?

MICHAEL NARDUCCI: We decided pretty early on in the breaking of season 3 that Cami was going to be thrust into the middle of the goings-on and we knew that if a human were put into the middle of a sire line vampire war, it was going to be a very dangerous situation for her. We love Leah [Pipes]; we know she’s an amazing actress, so we really wanted to explore this brave person with this optimistic outlook put into the center of all this peril. We wanted to challenge her in every conceivable way — by putting her in jeopardy, by tempting her with power, by making her a vampire. But we ultimately knew that the good aspect of Cami would win over, and unlike every other vampire I’ve ever seen, Cami got control of her vampire side. She never killed anyone [as a vampire]. She never gave in completely to the darkest aspect of herself, and in episode 19 she talks a little bit about how she did not want Aurora to win by making her into this vengeance-fueled monster.

That was very important to us that Cami suffers a major defeat in terms of dying, but she also throughout the episode has a lot of victories as a vampire who has retained connection to her humanity. We knew this was going to be a tragic season — we were pretty certain that we were going to get more episodes in the next season — so we wanted to take it to a really sad, terrible, dangerous, dark place so that we could try to redeem ourselves and heal the family in our next line of stories, which is what we’re planning on doing.

My first question when she died was why you all felt the need to turn her into a vampire before her death, but I love the idea that it was to push her to her darkest place yet, but ultimately have that light still win.

That’s absolutely it. In terms of unpredictability and expectation, if we turn her into a vampire then you’re going to think she’s going to be a vampire now so [you’re] not expecting this. And we don’t want you to know what’s happening on the show. But also, Klaus is a terrible, violent, savage beast of an entity and often I think he justifies his actions by saying, “My dad was a jerk and my mom made me into a monster, it’s really not my fault. I am what I was made by others.” And here comes Cami, who’s always been the person who has said, “I believe people want to be good.” And then something horrible happened to her and she did explore that dark side of herself, but ultimately evolved even as a vampire into something else. So now Klaus has to look at her and say, “There’s someone who was victimized but her courage and heroism allowed her to retain her best self.” I don’t think Klaus is going to become his best, most moral self, but he can never again go through life saying, “Well I was made this way so it’s not my fault.” He knows that people have endured hardship and still retained their best aspect and I think that’s an important lesson for him to learn. And I think Cami’s influence will be with him. He’ll never be able to forget that.

Once you all knew she was going to die, how did you come to the decision to have Klaus enter her mind for the farewell?

There’s only one slow death on our show and that’s the slow death of a vampire being bitten by a werewolf. This is a slow death, and I think a lot of us in the real world have experienced loved ones who’ve gotten sick and we were trying to tell a story about that: You know you might not make it and what is the state of mind in that difficult time? How do you draw comfort from your connection with the one you love? And how do you comfort someone you love who is dying? It was a very intimate, very emotional story between Klaus and Cami. This is really the only circumstance we could find that made sense for that to happen this way. We really liked the way it turned out.

I want to hear about the decision to have them say “I love you.”

We have always known there’s an incredible connection between these two people. I know there’s a lot of different fandoms who want Klaus to be with Cami or Hayley or someone who’s on another television show, Caroline. There’s people that like Klaus with Aurora. There’s people that want Klaus to be on his own. I think the truth of the matter is, when you’ve lived 1,000 years, you’re probably going to have a lot of loves. For Klaus on this show, the relationship that changed him, the relationship that gave him pause, the relationship that made him sense a kindred when he really needed a kindred [was with Cami]. Cami was someone who could look at Klaus and say, “I understand what you are and I think secretly it’s built on anger and frustration and deep, deep despair and I think you can be better.” That really changed Klaus. Of course she was beautiful and of course he couldn’t help but fall in love with her for that reason, but there was also a kinship. She knew that her power as a psychologist was she might be able to have influence on the most dangerous vampire in history and get him to stop being a savage monster, and she felt an obligation to try and lead him out of his own darkness. Whether or not she did that remains to be seen, but she certainly tried all the way through to the end of her life.

I loved how Cami’s death really brought everyone together. Will it continue to do that moving forward?

Cami’s long-term effects are yet to be seen. In the short term, I actually think everybody is so hurt by her death and struck by how one of them — first Finn and now Cami — was taken down by Lucien. Lucien only came to New Orleans for the purpose of having his twisted, sick revenge fantasy against Klaus. So whose fault is that? I think that’s going to make people a little bit sharp and harsh and bitter and angry towards one another in the short term. And in the long term, there’s going to have to be some healing and understanding that we brought this on ourselves but we can fix things ourselves. I think Cami’s influence will definitely bear fruit in that long view of the story.

Davina is a New Orleans witch. We have seen the tenuous relationship that New Orleans witches have with the concept of mortality. Their dance upon this mortal coil is a little bit less tenuous than a mere mortal. Witches in New Orleans are incredibly powerful, and even though we saw Davina attacked and bitten by Kol and he drank her blood to the point where she died on screen — she is dead, physically dead — we know that there’s a whole mythology when it comes to the ancestors of witches and the spirits of witches and we’ve seen those witches come back before. You can imagine that Davina’s story is not yet over.

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