The Originals season 2 episode 14 review: I Love You, Goodbye

This review contains spoilers.

2.14 I Love You, Goodbye

Shows in this universe tend to concoct more and more ridiculous ways to get all of their characters into the same space with each other, whether it’s the weird Founders Balls of The Vampire Diaries or random street parties of The Originals, but in this week’s episode there was the most legitimate reason of all – a wedding that just happened to also unite all of the vampires, werewolves and hybrids of New Orleans into one super-pack.

And the wedding actually came off with nary a hitch – unheard of in television-land – and I Love You, Goodbye was probably the most shamelessly romantic hour this show has ever produced. At every turn, the audience were expecting things to kick off, rivalries to surface and blood to be spilled, but instead we just got to see Hayley and Jackson get married, with friends and family gathered around.

Of course there’s still plenty of angst, but it comes from the characters rather than the situation they find themselves in. Elijah is sad that Hayley is getting married, as expected, but what’s even more tragic about the situation is that he has nowhere to really direct that sorrow.

He assumes, like everyone does, that Hayley is marrying Jackson out of pure convenience, so when she tells him that he might just make her happy, this is when Elijah’s heart really breaks. We don’t often get to see Elijah actually cry, his level of angst usually manifesting in more violent ways, but that’s the kind of episode this is. People cry, they explain and they consider. It’s actually pretty relaxing.

The fortunate side-effect of this halting of The Originals’ usual breakneck pace is that we get to spend some time with Aiden and Josh. I’ve commented before on how these two appear to belong to an entirely different show to the rest of the characters, and this episode gave us the rare chance to see them interact, more or less wrapping up the giant obstacle between them and coupledom.

They came out publicly with their Romeo and Romeo storyline and, hilariously, no one really seemed to care. I guess it could be a comment on real-life society and some of the internalised prejudices people have about their own families or communities, but it might also be about a werewolf worried about hurting his vampire boyfriend after an ancient unification ritual goes down.

It wasn’t the only secret to come out at the party, either, as now both clans know of Hope’s survival. There’s something so powerful about seeing both Hayley and Klaus with their child, especially in this episode when Klaus more or less invited Jackson and the rest of the werewolves into the family, but the moment also marks the start of a brand new level of threat for them to deal with.

Dahlia is coming and, if Freya is to be believed, she’s a much worse foe than Esther ever was.

But as one Mikaelson enters, another departs. Kol has succumbed to Finn’s hex after Davina and Rebekah failed to save him with their respective magical knowledge, and so we’ve sadly said goodbye to Daniel Sharman’s wonderful presence on the show. It’s highly unlikely that this will be the last we see of Kol the character, even in the current season, but his current face is no more, and that’s a shame.

I understand that the body-switching thing is a useful tool to have, and it’s allowed us to get Rebekah back even without Claire Holt, but the swift departure of great characters (or, in this case, great actors) can get depressing on this show.

But then we can assume that next week will pummel us with enough twists and turns to distract us from his absence and, after spending some time cleansing our palette with the quieter, relationship-focused moments of I Love You, Goodbye, I’m excited to see exactly what madness Dahlia is planning on bringing to the table.

Read Caroline’s review of the previous episode, The Devil Is Damned, here.

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