Klaus Mikaelson is a nightmare. Honestly, if you watched The Vampire Diaries, you already knew that, but The Originals Season 1 took that nightmare and turned it into a Shakespearean tragedy set in the humid, booze-soaked streets of New Orleans. It wasn't just a spin-off. It was a complete tonal pivot. While its predecessor was busy with high school proms and love triangles that felt a bit "young adult," this show showed up with a bottle of bourbon and a death warrant. It felt older. Meaner.
The premise is basically a bloody homecoming. Klaus, the hybrid who can’t stop sabotaging his own happiness, returns to the French Quarter only to find his former protégé, Marcel Gerard, has built a vampire empire in his absence. It’s messy. It’s about power, not just romance. If you’re looking for a show where the "heroes" are actually the villains of everyone else's story, this is the peak.
The Power Struggle You Forgot Was This Intense
New Orleans isn't just a backdrop in The Originals Season 1; it’s a character that’s constantly trying to kill the main cast. You’ve got the vampires running the streets, the witches suppressed and desperate, and the humans just trying to stay relevant in a city that’s outgrown them.
Marcel’s rule is fascinating because he’s not a cartoon villain. He actually made the city work. He had "rules." He had a community. Klaus shows up like a wrecking ball because he thinks he's entitled to the throne just because his family built the place centuries ago. It’s a classic usurper story. But then you add the miracle baby—Hayley Marshall’s pregnancy—and suddenly the stakes aren't just about who wears the crown, but who survives the birth.
Why the Witches Mattered More Than You Think
The Harvest ritual is probably one of the darkest subplots the CW ever greenlit. Think about it: four young girls sacrificed to keep the ancestors happy. Davina Claire, the girl who survived, becomes a tactical nuke in the middle of a cold war. Her relationship with Marcel is actually one of the few genuinely sweet things in the season, which makes the inevitable betrayals hurt way more.
Witchcraft here isn't just waving hands and chanting. It’s ancestral. It’s tied to the soil. Sophie Deveraux’s desperation to get her niece back drives the entire first half of the season, and when that plotline resolves, it doesn't end with a parade. It ends with a reminder that in this universe, magic always has a price, and usually, that price is paid in blood.
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Families are basically just groups of people who know how to hurt you best
"Always and Forever." It sounds like a vow, but in The Originals Season 1, it feels more like a curse. Elijah Mikaelson is the moral compass, or at least he tries to be, but he’s just as complicit in the carnage as Klaus is. He wants to "redeem" his brother, which is a fool’s errand if we’re being real.
Then there’s Rebekah. Poor Rebekah. She just wants to be loved, but she’s trapped in a cycle of Klaus daggering her every time she tries to move on. The tension between the siblings is the real engine of the show. When the secret of what Rebekah and Marcel did in 1919 finally comes out, the confrontation in the cemetery is genuinely chilling. It wasn't about special effects. It was about three actors (Joseph Morgan, Daniel Gillies, and Claire Holt) absolutely chewing the scenery in a way that felt raw.
- Klaus: The king who hates himself.
- Elijah: The suit-wearing monster who thinks he’s a saint.
- Rebekah: The heart of the family that keeps getting broken.
- Hayley: The outsider who realizes she’s just as tough as the Originals.
It's a weird dynamic. You find yourself rooting for them even though they’re objectively terrible people. That’s the magic of the writing.
The Production Value and the New Orleans Aesthetic
Most shows film in Georgia and try to pass it off as somewhere else. While The Originals did plenty of filming in Conyers, they captured the vibe of the Quarter perfectly. The jazz, the funeral processions, the architecture—it felt heavy. It felt like history was leaning on the characters. Julie Plec and Michael Narducci (the showrunners) leaned into the "Southern Gothic" element hard.
Compare this to The Vampire Diaries Season 5, which was airing at the same time. While TVD was getting bogged down in doppelganger fatigue and college drama, The Originals Season 1 was giving us the trial of Rebekah Mikaelson. It felt like a prestige drama that just happened to have fangs.
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The music choices were also elite. They used "Bartholomew" by The Silent Comedy in the promos, and it set the tone perfectly: gritty, stomping, and slightly unhinged.
The Cami O'Connell Factor
Cami was the "human" anchor. Usually, the human character in a supernatural show is a liability or a boring moralist. Cami was different because she was a psychology student. She looked at Klaus not as a monster, but as a patient. She saw the trauma, the parental abuse from Mikael, and the centuries of isolation. She didn't excuse his behavior, but she understood it. Her presence forced the show to ground itself in actual human emotion rather than just "who can rip whose heart out faster."
What Most People Get Wrong About This Season
People often think this show is just for people who liked the Salvatore brothers. Wrong. You could honestly watch The Originals Season 1 without ever seeing an episode of TVD and you'd still get it. The exposition is handled naturally.
Another misconception: that Klaus is the hero. He isn't. He’s the protagonist, sure, but he spends most of the season being a paranoid tyrant. He hurts the people who love him because he’s terrified they’ll leave him first. It’s a cycle of self-sabotage that is painful to watch but impossible to look away from.
The finale, "From a Cradle to a Grave," is a masterclass in tension. The birth of Hope Mikaelson isn't a happy hospital scene. It’s a desperate fight for survival in a church surrounded by witches who want to sacrifice the baby. When Klaus has to give the baby away to save her—to Rebekah, of all people—it’s the first time we see him be truly selfless. It’s a massive character beat that the show spent 22 episodes earning.
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Facts and Figures: The Impact of Season 1
When it premiered in 2013, it was a massive hit for The CW. It averaged about 2 million viewers per episode, which was huge for the network at the time. It also did something rare: it maintained its quality throughout the full 22-episode order. Most shows have "filler" episodes in the middle. Here, even the smaller episodes felt like they were moving the pieces on the chessboard toward the endgame.
- Launch Date: October 3, 2013.
- Core Cast: Joseph Morgan, Daniel Gillies, Claire Holt, Phoebe Tonkin, Charles Michael Davis.
- Key Antagonists: Genevieve, Francesca Guerrera, and (eventually) Mikael.
- Major Deaths: Sophie Deveraux, Kieran O'Connell, and technically the "death" of the baby's presence in the city.
How to Approach a Rewatch or First-Time View
If you’re diving into The Originals Season 1 now, pay attention to the lighting. The show uses shadows better than almost anything else on TV. It reflects the moral ambiguity of the characters. Nobody is "good." Everyone is just trying to protect their own.
If you want the full experience, don't binge it too fast. Let the atmosphere of New Orleans sink in. Notice how the city changes from the day (the human/witch world) to the night (the vampire world).
Next Steps for Fans:
- Track the Mikaelson Family Tree: It gets complicated. Keep a mental note of who is currently "daggered" and who is in a different body (this becomes huge later).
- Study the New Orleans Lore: The show uses real locations like St. Louis Cathedral and Lafayette Cemetery No. 1. Looking up the actual history of these spots adds a layer of realism to the supernatural drama.
- Analyze the Klaus/Marcel Dynamic: Look for the moments where Klaus is actually proud of Marcel. It’s the most complex father-son relationship on television that doesn't involve actual DNA.
- Watch for the Foreshadowing: The writers were very good at planting seeds for Season 2 and beyond in the dialogue of the ancestors. Pay attention to what the witches say about "the hollow" and the future of the Mikaelson bloodline.
This season wasn't just a spin-off; it was a declaration that the vampire genre could be adult, gritty, and deeply concerned with the weight of immortality. It’s about the fact that "forever" is a long time to carry a grudge. And in the Mikaelson family, grudges are the only thing that actually last.