The Axeman's Letter

The Axeman's Letter is the fifth episode of the third season of The Originals and the forty-ninth episode of the series overall.
==Summary==
KLAUS' PAST COMES BACK TO HAUNT HIM — As the war among the sire lines continues to grow, Klaus receives an unexpected visit by a figure from his past. When Elijah suspects that Tristan is hiding something, he enlists Marcel's help to find out what he's up to. Elsewhere, Davina struggles with her role as Regent and seeks advice from Hayley. Finally, an ancient secret that is uncovered threatens to tear the Mikaelson brothers apart for good. Cami and Vincent also appear.
==Plot==
In 1002 A.D., Klaus' letter to Aurora is narrated as it's being shown of their romance and how she stumbles upon their vampirism. In present day, Aurora talks to a woman at a store about how it was the most beautiful letter she ever received. She gives her a letter and tells her to deliver it according to her instructions.
Her delivery is in the form of the woman, dead, in the same manner as Aurora was when she tried to commit suicide (shown in a flashback later on) before Rebekah comes into her room and gives Aurora her blood. Elijah and Klaus read Aurora's letter, a poem telling them to find her before she finds them.
Elijah tried to tell Klaus of a secret, one that he remembers after Esther unleashed the Red Door in his mind, but Klaus won't hear of it because they have just recently reconciled and the secret happened a thousand years ago.
It's Axeman's Jazz Fest, a festival. Vincent tells her the origins: In 1919, a man terrorized the city for months with an actual axe, and then writes a letter to The Times Picayune, claiming he's a demon and saying he'll kill thousands of people the next night. He wouldn't, only if every house threw a party and played jazz as loud as they could. Every house did, and no one died. Vincent says the Axeman was a witch, because he chose the day of Fête de Cadeau to do it—a day where all witches give a gift to the city in the hopes they give one back.
They catch sight of Lucien, and they follow him around for awhile, but they lose him soon after, with Camille vamp-sped away. He murders a man, and Camille calls for the police, but it puts her in the eye of suspicion because she's involved somehow.
Elijah and Klaus are on the streets looking for a mark that will lead them to her. Klaus notices a perfume bottle, and leaves to go to the store it's from, without Elijah.
The Cadeau is Davina's first as Regent, and also her first public event since she had Hayley kill the witches. She has a feeling something will go wrong because Van Nguyen blames her for his mother's death, and he threatened to erase her. She needs Jackson and Hayley to be her bodyguards. Hayley watches over her, while Jackson checks out the crowd.
Aurora sweetly greets Klaus, but Klaus is less than happy. She reminds him of a time when she told him her mother died in childbirth, a fact that made Aurora feel horrible about, and he shares his secret with her—that he killed his mother and blamed his father for it. An intimate gift, as Klaus hadn't told anyone else, and one he was too afraid to share with his siblings. Aurora had asked him to turn her into a vampire, but he had refused.
She wants to know where is Rebekah, her sire. She's in New Orleans to protect her, like Lucien and Tristan are for Klaus and Elijah.
In 1002, Rebekah finds Aurora having tried to commit suicide. She feeds her her blood, and after telling Rebekah that she's as cursed as Rebekah is, sends Rebekah away. But instead of sleeping, Aurora goes to her window and falls, to become a vampire.
Davina is unhappy with getting farm animals as gifts, and leaves for awhile. Hayley follows her, and Davina tells her that these traditions aren't her. And she doesn't like the choker scarfs, only wearing it because Josephine did, and she only wants to be as respected as the former Regent was. Hayley advises that no one will respect Davina until she shows them who she really is, so she'll get goats as gifts as long as she tries to pretend to be someone she's not.
Marcel helps Elijah find out what Tristan is up to. His guy follows Tristan all day to a place called Candide Royale, but he never came out. There are hidden passageways leading out the back, used in the 1920s, that leads to a storehouse. So, Marcel did research into the place, and Kingmaker Land Development recently purchased it.
Flashback shows Klaus asking Aurora to run away with him, but instead, she flatly refuses and tells him she doesn't love him, among other words that break his heart. But present-day Aurora tells Klaus what he doesn't know, that she had spoken with Elijah a few minutes earlier and he had unintentionally compelled her to tell him Klaus' secret. Angry at Klaus for betraying him and his other siblings, Elijah then deliberately compelled Aurora to reject Klaus.
Jackson finds Van Nguyen and other witches about to strike a doll figure, and he takes Van to Davina. But instead of trying to kill Davina, he had been using a Figure Veritas, which you stab in the heart and the victim has to confess their darkest truths. He wanted her to admit to killing his mother. Davina tells Van that Kara attacked her first, she wanted a mutiny, which would cause an all-our war among the witches to decide the next Regent. Davina believes the covens are better off with her, as she's seen and done things the old way, but those ways just don't work.
Sometime later, Davina finds Hayley to thank her. Since becoming Regent, Davina has tried to control everything and everyone, but she doesn't want to be that person anymore. So, she asked the ancestors to grant her the power to lift the Crescent Curse, and because it's Cadeau, they granted it. The werewolves are free. Davina says she'd rather have Hayley as a friend.
In her uncle's hidden room full of dark witch objects, Will Kinney arrests Camille and marks the objects as property of NOLA PD, evidence of a murder case.
At the compound, Elijah and Klaus fight, with Klaus blaming Elijah for who he became over the centuries.
==Cast==
===Starring===
*Joseph Morgan as Niklaus Mikaelson
*Daniel Gillies as Elijah Mikaelson
*Phoebe Tonkin as Hayley Marshall-Kenner
*Charles Michael Davis as Marcel Gerard
*Leah Pipes as Camille O'Connell
*Danielle Campbell as Davina Claire
*Yusuf Gatewood as Vincent Griffith
*Riley Voelkel as Freya Mikaelson (credit only)
===Special Guest Star===
*Claire Holt as Rebekah Mikaelson (flashback)
===Guest Starring===
*Nathan Parsons as Jackson Kenner
*Andrew Lees as Lucien Castle
*Rebecca Breeds as Aurora de Martel
*Oliver Ackland as Tristan de Martel
*Caspar Zafer as Finn Mikaelson (flashback)
*Jason Dohring as Will Kinney
===Co-Starring===
*Lawrence Kao as Van
==Trivia==
*Antagonists: Elijah Mikaelson (flashback), Aurora de Martel, Lucien Castle, Van Nguyen, and the Ancestors (indirectly).
*Elijah uses compulsion for the first time on Aurora and learns that Klaus had killed their mother, revealing that since 1002 he knew his brother killed her, but said nothing to the others. Rebekah found out about it from Elena in 2010, then she told Finn and Kol offscreen when they were all undaggered by Elijah in the same year.
**Elijah revealed that the memory was repressed behind his mental "Red Door" along with the act of compelling Aurora, thus did not remember the confession.
*The witches of New Orleans celebrates Fête de Cadeau in this episode.
*The title of this episode refers to the Axeman of New Orleans, a well-known yet mysterious serial killer in the early 1900s.
==Continuity==
*Camille, Jackson, Vincent and Detective Will Kinney were last seen in I'll See You in Hell or New Orleans.
*Davina and Van were last seen in You Hung the Moon.
*Rebekah and Finn was last seen in flashbacks For the Next Millennium.
*Kol was mentioned. He was last seen in flashbacks For the Next Millennium.
*Eva Sinclair was mentioned. She was last seen in Exquisite Corpse.
*Esther was mentioned by Klaus in flashbacks. She was last seen in Ashes to Ashes.
*Mikael was mentioned in flashbacks. He was last seen in Night Has A Thousand Eyes.
*Josephine LaRue was mentioned by Davina. She was last seen in When the Levee Breaks.
*Alexis was mentioned by Aurora. She was last seen in A Walk on the Wild Side.
*The witch massacre was mentioned in this episode. It occurred in You Hung the Moon.
==Locations==
*Southern France (flashback)
**Court of Marseilles (flashback)
*New Orleans, Louisiana
**Jardin Gris
**The Abattoir
**De Beaucage No. 9 Parfumerie
**Lafayette Cemetery
**Rousseau's
**St. Anne's Church
**Kieran's Secret Apartment
==Behind the Scenes==
*This episode features Davina's 40th appearance in the series, excluding one archive footage only appearance.
*This episode marks Marcel's 50th appearance, since his debut in The Vampire Diaries episode The Originals.
* was a serial killer that terrorized the city of New Orleans from May 1918 to October 1919. On March 3rd, 1919, he penned a letter and sent it to local newspapers telling the citizens of his plan to murder anyone who didn't play Jazz music in their home.
*In the teaser, when Finn and Elijah are seen playing some inexplicable game with sticks and cones in the background – that was a game that Daniel Gillies made up on the spot and tried to teach Caspar. There are numerous takes of Klaus giving Aurora a secret smile of love … while Finn and Elijah are failing miserably at this made-up game behind them.http://www.ew.com/article/2015/11/04/originals-julie-plec-blog-the-axemans-letter
*While Davina presides over the Fete de Kado ceremony in the City of the Dead, one of the pigs squealed so loud we had to stop several takes to quiet the animal. Finally it had to be led off in shame. The rabbit and chicken, however, performed like pros.
*The prop for the love letter Klaus wrote to Aurora got mangled right before filming. So we quickly had a contest to see who on the crew had the best handwriting to rewrite the note. Diane won (with a guy from catering coming in a close second), so that's her handwriting you see in the show.
==Cultural References==
==Quotes==
<tabber>
|-|Promo=
:Elijah (to Klaus): "Roses are red, Lavenders blue, Come find me before I find you."
:Aurora (to Klaus): "Hello, my sweet love."
|-|Extended Promo=
:Elijah (to Klaus): "Roses are red, Lavenders blue, Come find me before I find you."
:Aurora (to Klaus): "Hello, my sweet love."
|-|Sneak Peak=
:Tristan: "Elijah...I didn't realize we had a meeting on the books today." 
:Elijah: "We don't. Unfortunately your assistant refused..... to accommodate me." 
:Tristan: "What would you like to discuss?" 
:Elijah: "Recent events would suggest that you've been less than forthcoming about threats facing my family." 
:Tristan: "A threat to you is a threat to me." 
:Elijah: "A naughty, little liar." 
:Tristan: "I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about." 
:Elijah: "Oh you quite certainly, know precisely what I am talking about. Tristan....I can hear that heart of your racing away." 
|-| Sneak Peak #2=
:Klaus: "So my first sire wants to kill you, yours wants to kill me. Makes you regret turning any vampires in the first place." 
:Elijah: "Well, the division labor seems crystal clear. Two of them, two if us......Roses are red, Lavenders blue, Come find me before I find you." 
|-| Inside Clip=
:Aurora: "It was the most beautiful letter I have ever received. And I did love him with all of my heart. But then eventually our love like the letter crumbled to dust." 
:Aurora (to Klaus): "Hello, my sweet love."
:Aurora (to Klaus): "Go to Elijah. Ask him yourself."
:Davina: "Okay! I know this is sacred oil but can we please not do that right now!"
:Hayley (to Davina): "So you want us to be your bodyguards."
</tabber>
==Multimedia==
===Soundtrack===
===Videos===
The Originals 3x05 Promo "The Axeman's Letter" (HD)
The Originals 3x05 Sneak Peek 1
The Originals 3x05 Sneak Peek 2
===Pictures===
<tabber>
|-|Promotional=
3x05 The Axeman's Letter-Will.jpg
3x05 The Axeman's Letter-Vincent-Camille~Will.jpg
3x05 The Axeman's Letter-Jackson.jpg
3x05 The Axeman's Letter-Aurora.jpg
3x05 The Axeman's Letter-Elijah-Marcel.jpg
3x05 The Axeman's Letter~Camille-VIncent.jpg
3x05 The Axeman's Letter-Camille-Will.jpg
|-|Screencaps=
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</tabber>
==References==
==See also==
Category:The Originals (series)
Category:The Originals Episode Guide
Category:The Originals Season Three
Category:Flashback episodes
Category:Birthday episodes