2.14 I Love You, Goodbye 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. 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. 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.
