When this season of The Originals started the Mikaelson Family was fractured down to its foundations: Klaus refused to accept that most of his problems were of his own creation. Elijah was one hundred percent done with Klaus’ shite and only around to keep an eye on Freya and Hope. Rebekah was on the hunt in her alternate body for a way to restore Kol while Freya tried to hold down the fort and keep Elijah and Klaus from killing each other. Marcel was in control of the quarter but his siding with his father, Klaus, at the end of last season had destroyed his relationship with his daughter, Davina who was now Regent of the witches of NOLA but was too young and too brash to handle the responsibility.

The family’s few allies weren’t doing much better as due to Klaus’ actions last year Hayley and Jackson were stuck in wolf form except at full moon and unable to see their daughter Hope. Cami was trying to maintain appropriate boundaries with Klaus, failing miserably and also tasked by Will to profile the serial killer that was on the loose. Lastly Vincent was struggling to recover from being body-jacked by Finn and to keep his powers in check as his control was destroyed by said jacking.

The gang was barely getting it together so the arrival of the first sired vampires, siblings Tristan and Aurora and their former servant now billionaire Lucien was the last thing they needed. Especially as their arrival was due to a prophecy that Lucien had received from his pet witch that stated that The Originals would die: One by friend, one by foe and one by family. If they did every single vampire they’d ever sired would also die, something that was proven by the deaths of Kol and Finn.

This season has seen the amping up of something The Originals does very well: creating a formidable foe. On shows like this where almost every character has superpowers it’s hard to take any threat against them seriously. Previously that threat had come from within in the forms of their parents Mikael and Esther and their aunt Dahlia. This year the threat comes from their own actions as the very first vampires they sired, one by accident, one by trickery and one by coercion are back and extremely and justifiably angry. The reason? When the family was on the run from Mikael they compelled Tristan, Aurora and Lucien to think they were Elijah, Rebekah and Klaus respectively and then told them to run. They literally spent centuries running from place to place with Mikael on their tails and as we’ve seen in previous seasons that is not a fate anyone would want.

Watching their revenge play out has been a triumph in terms of building ongoing dread. We, the audience, know that the First Sired are working together but the family does not and watching these three, who are very much the even more insane yet patient versions of the characters we’ve grown to care for, outplay at every turn our main crew has been brutal. The Mikaelsons don’t fully understand how much of a threat the First Sired are because for all intents and purposes they are them. The cruel fate they were handed by the compulsion has been turned into a weapon and it’s a finely sharpened one.

The other factor in play is The Strix, a line of vampires all descended from Elijah whose hubris and control freak issues, an ongoing problem this year, led him to siring a bunch of the best of the best: men and women who were geniuses in their chosen field. Led by Tristan they are a force of nature and their insidious infiltration of NOLA has been masterful and almost undetected.

I say almost because, despite every reason not to be, Marcel is still loyal to his family and has been the spanner in the works to the First Sired and The Strix. Tristan has been stalking Marcel for months and finds him fascinating on every level and is smart enough to immediately attempt to get Marcel on his side by inducting him into The Strix, making him the first of Klaus’ sire line to ever join. Where he missteps is in thinking that Marcel would ever put his own wants above what is best for the people of NOLA, humans, witches, wolves and vampires. Marcel is the one character on the show who has consistently put the needs of the many over the needs of the few and it’s this quality that has commanded the loyalty of almost every faction, something that Klaus learned in previous years in his ill advised attempts to wrestle NOLA from Marcel and something that I’m hoping in the back end of the season Tristan will learn. Underestimating Marcel has never worked out for anyone, especially when he’s truly angry.

After the events of the mid-season finale? Marcel will be beyond angry. I expect the fallout from the final scene to set off a roaring rampage of revenge from almost every one of our main cast. The question is whether that will be enough to deal with the threat of the First Sired or will several centuries of hatred trump a family truly united for the first time in the series run.
I give this half of the season 5 out of 5 Cursed Daggers