The Originals – S4E12 – Voodoo Child

Previously on The Originals, “A Spirit Here That Won’t Be Broken”

Recovery                

Now that they think The Hollow is dead, everyone is in recovery mode. Hayley is still avoiding Elijah while she strategizes about how to get Hope away from the Mikaelsons. Marcel wants to move on with Sofya even though he still has feelings for Rebekah. The only person who actually seems happy is Freya because she thinks her family is safe so she can be with Keelin. But because this show only has a 13-episode season, it quickly comes to light that The Hollow isn’t as dead as they thought.

Images: The CW

The first one to figure it out is Hayley because even though her child is regularly wooden, she’s even more wooden pretending to be a child. Klaus is busy trying to kill The Hollow’s remaining minions and help Elijah and Hayley get back together so he’s genuinely shocked to find out The Hollow has taken over Hope’s body. Freya’s disappointed she didn’t realize, but she’s really disappointed because her plans to stay in bed with Keelin 4eva are not going to happen. Of course Vincent and Marcel have a plan. Vincent is going to “kill” himself so he can connect to the ancestors to reach Inadu’s mom who cast the original spell to incapacitate her. Once he does that he can transfer The Hollow into that book of spells it forced him to write and then he can destroy the book. Easy peasy.

Happy Father’s Day

Of course it’s not that easy. Sofya tells Klaus that when The Hollow takes over your body it’s like fighting not to be taken over by darkness, so Klaus goes into Hope’s mind to connect with her and keep her from being dragged into darkness. Meanwhile, Freya, Marcel, Sofya, and Vincent go to the mansion to distract and trap Inadu.

Having Klaus be the one to connect with Hope makes sense because the show is ultimately about the Mikaelsons, but in terms of who actually has the stronger connection to Hope, it’s clearly Hayley. Klaus showed up two weeks ago; Hayley and Hope have been on the run together for five years. So while the scene was touching, no one is surprised when Hope is overtaken by The Hollow. Now Hayley is determined to take on Inadu by herself and Vincent says he has a way to get Hope back but it means that the Mikaelsons will never have “always and forever” again. My best guess is that one of the Mikaelsons will have to sacrifice their life for Hope’s. The question is, which one? 

Because of their limited episodes, plot lines like “whose body is The Hollow in?” are being fast tracked which is good for a show like this. Three episodes of Summer Fontana trying to act like a wily witch in a child’s body would have become hard to watch, but a lot of this season still hinges on Hope and Fontana’s acting doesn’t seem strong enough to pull off this storyline. When I think of evil children or adults stuck in children’s bodies, the actor playing the role has to have a wise-beyond-their-years worldliness and Fontana is painfully her age. What’s far more interesting is Marcel and Rebekah’s unrequited love and Hayley and Elijah’s deteriorating relationship. And even if they manage to get Hope back from The Hollow, the Mikaelsons will have another fight on their hands when Hayley wants to take her away from their shenanigans.