The Originals: "I Can't Believe I Fell For Another Damn Vampire"

Jenny and I are both binge-watching The Originals on Netflix. I called her today to find out where she's up to in the series. I myself have finished all four seasons in record time. I do not recommend pursuing such specious glory. You will rot your brain, plus your eyeballs might fall out the front of your damn skull. It's just that it's hot out, and I am unemployed at the moment. (Please hire me.)

"Marcel has just taken over the Strix," Jenny said, meaning she's in season four. Excellent, she's almost done Always and Forever'ing and then we can dish about the season ending. "Marcel is my new TV boyfriend," Jenny said. Since we're playing, my TV boyfriend is Niklaus. Don't tell anyone. I'm gonna be 48 next year. I can't believe I fell for another damn vampire.

So, a thing about me. I've always been a fiction sensualist. Over and over again I crush hard on a story and forge a deep connection with the most exquisite characters. When I was in 3rd or 4th grade I fell in love with Huckleberry Finn, for example. I mean Huck Finn the character, as conjured by Mark Twain and existing only within the pages of the book. I adored Jo March, and I loved Catherine's Heathcliff. I wanted to live with Willie Wonka, and in my 20s I developed a thing for Egon in The Real Ghostbusters. You understand I mean the cartoon. My brand is: I've always been a sucker for the brainy ones. I really enjoy immersion into a good story, and The Originals is a pretty good story. It's sexy, it's engaging, and it's a beautiful show visually. I love that New Orleans gets to be a character on her own. It's a charming enough show all around that the clunky bits are easily forgiven. For example, you need to ignore the fact that every Mikaelson has a different English dialect, despite having been Always & Forevering around the world together a great deal of the time. Just one of those threads that you don't want to pull too hard.

Don't Break The Spell

"No research for you!" Jenny scolded.
"I won't." She's known me a long time. Since college. You see, I tend to ruin for myself the whole experience of an immersive show like The Originals. What happens is that the show ends and I want "more." So then I go full dork becoming knowledgeable about the cast and the writers and the logistics of the production. It's hard not to do that! My adoration for a great fictional character has me on a slippery slope. I'm always one fandom-inch away from diving into online message boards. Then what follows? Fan fiction? Cosplay?

Getting drawn fully into fantasy stories requires a commitment. Do you realize that our movie Supermans have all been unknowns? Robert Redford was considered before Christopher Reeve, but "That's Robert Redford in a unitard," is how that would have gone. That's breaking the spell. Especially in a fantasy fiction TV series, you must willingly and repeatedly suspend disbelief, resist tugging too hard on any thread, and above all: do not break the spell.

Other Times I Broke The Spell

I don't even know the actor's name who portrays Klaus, and I'm going to do my best to keep it that way. Klaus is my favorite new vampire. I kind of have a thing about vampires, and I mean back from the 17th century, Romanticism and 18th century lit. Love that stuff. Up until Twilight I used to pride myself on my knowledge of vampire lore canon. Twilight is not canon. That's ridiculous.

Angel

David Boreanaz

I watched the entire Angel series, but not until years after it was on the air. Bones was already on before I started Angel. I loved that show. David Boreanaz was pretty good in that. To quote the three witches, "Mmmm, Annngel." Not a great actor, but he's got a certain charm and I like him. I like him on Bones, and I'm sure I'll watch whatever he does next. He's pretty cool. But while I was watching Angel, I made the mistake of looking online to find out more about the actors. I told Jenny I wish I hadn't done that. I told her about David's obsession with the Flyers hockey team, and about some goofy candid shots I found. "Dafuq am I gonna do with a vampire that got on a Snoopy shirt?"

Quentin Coldwater
(The Magicians)

Jason Ralph

Made the same exact mistake with The Magicians and Quentin Coldwater...I mean...okay well NOW I want to make him some nice soup and help him with his homework. But when I was his age, man, Quentin Coldwater was every guy I had a crush on, basically. He's gorgeous and shy and smart AND he can do magic? Come on over here and sit on mama's lap. I'm saying, I've always been a sucker for the brainy ones.

Then there's the time I went looking into Christian Kane, who was on Angel and then Leverage and now The Librarians, where he plays another brainy one. I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm a "Kaneiac," which is what he calls his rabid fan base of probably-mostly-old-ladies like myself. But I kinda dig everything he does. He reminds me of *my brother, also a handsome, fit actor that rides horses and plays guitar and sings. It's just that in some concert video I found online, he seems sort of needlessly crass. Is Christian Kane a dick? Anyone know? I hope not. I was so in love with Eliot on Leverage.

I did the same exact thing with Lost Girl. Dammit, me. Next time just let the succubus be the succubus. And how great a wolf did Dyson make? Up until Klaus, that guy was the best wolf. Now Klaus is the best wolf.

I am definitely leaving out many other times I broke the spell.

It's Not Just A Vampire Thing

When I finished season four of The Originals, I figured I'd give The Vampire Diaries another shot. Maybe my opinion will have changed, I thought, after seeing The Originals. You know. Since I loved The Originals so much.

Oh, would that it were so.

I hate The Vampire Diaries. I seriously can't get more than three episodes in before bailing.

The Vampire Diaries is so stupid that I just want the idiot vampires to kill every last one of those idiot kids, then I want Buffy to come in from another franchise altogether and stake all the vampires. I truly dislike every character on that fool show, and the one I really cannot stand is the annoying blonde that, later in the series, becomes a Klaus Mikaelson love interest, as I understand it. Caroline, that's her name, right? That's ridiculous. Klaus would find her unbearable. There's no way Klaus wouldn't snap the bitch's neck and leave her in a drainage ditch.

It's a Klaus Thing

Klaus Mikaelson is my new favorite glowering leading man in the romantic vampire genre of fantasy fiction. His mother Esther was a powerful Viking witch a thousand years ago. She used dark magic to turn her children into vampires, including the sweet ginger son that she'd conceived not with husband Mikael the Viking, but through carnal indiscretion with a rather bookish werewolf. That's the storyline, that the Mikaelsons were the first immortals with blood lust, pre-dating the term "vampire." Mikael despised the bastard son Klaus, whom he chained and beat and called an "abomination." You'd think Esther would be an ally, seeing as how she literally created this tragically damaged immortal blood lusting beast. But she was a real bitch. None of the Mikaelsons got a fair shake in the parents department, but the beast within Klaus is wilder, fiercer, faster and stronger.

The actors have a big job to do, invoking the Always & Forever family screed spanning ten tumultuous lifetimes, without coming off as mawkish or punchworthy (see above, re: The Vampire Diaries). They're all great.

But can you summon a darker dude than vampire/werewolf hybrid fraught with both mommy and daddy issues? The guy that plays Klaus is amazing. He makes it believable that he's carrying a thousand years of baggage. There's a depth and stillness about his countenance even when he's exacting a bloody toll for some infraction, however minor. He's a beast, but just like his dearest siblings, you always want to be on his side. Hayley says a line to Cami at one point that fits: "Even when you hate him..." In a lesser actor's hands, this complex character might come off turgid and overblown. When the little black slave boy that you rescued, then sired, has grown up to become a powerful turbo-charged undead beast and he loves your sad sister and he wants to murder your fierce and noble brother, that's a lot to convey...and that's just Tuesday. Never a dull moment with these Mikaelsons, but Klaus has never had a chill day.

The Originals is a pretty good show. Klaus is my TV boyfriend. And I don't even wanna know his name.🐺

 Okay, I had to look up the actor's name or this is just ridiculous.
It's Joseph Morgan. This is Joseph Morgan.
That is all I want to know until The Originals is all done.

*My brother is Mike Lombardi. Here's how I know he's a talented dude, and not just because I'm his sister. I went to see Mike in Danny and the Deep Blue Sea in New York, and in the middle of the play I forgot that he was my brother. Spellbound.