That’s about as logical a way to avoid the horrors of the “baby plot” as it gets.  Writers love to wring the drama out of pregnancy in peril, because it is something that few viewers will fail to understand.  But there’s always the end result that has to be incorporated into the story, and it becomes a chain on the development of the characters affected.  But taking that item off the board can be problematic, if not controversial.

 

Shows like The Originals get a bit more leeway, if only because they are cult favorites, and the general public is unlikely to react to the possibility of a newborn being sacrificed at the behest of dead witch ancestors.  Yet even when the child was saved, as one would expect, there was the question of how to keep the notion of protecting the child from becoming the sole focus of the main characters.  Enter Rebekah, who makes the perfect bookend return to secret away Hope.  It makes perfect sense, allows Klaus to have an amazing moment with his wayward sister, and resets the series for its impending second season.

 

That was only one aspect of the finale; for all intent purposes, the witches’ plan went about as far as it could go without actually being completed.  Hayley was murdered in gruesome fashion, and if it wasn’t for the fact that mothers share blood with their children and any child of Klaus is going to be a hybrid by default.  And as such, Hayley is effectively immortal, just like Klaus.  Except, of course, she was in transition, and the only way to progress was Hope’s blood.  That adds a problematic element to the victory over the witches, which was wonderfully bloody and gruesome.

 

The end result of the war for control of New Orleans is that the vampire population is drastically reduced.  On the other hand, the Mikaelsons are about as strong as they’ve ever been, and I can’t imagine that Marcel will continue to trouble them without an army.  Klaus is a hybrid, Hayley is a hybrid, and at this rate, I have little doubt that Elijah will eventually be a hybrid.  Even Mikael will have difficulty beating that, though his return is going to make things a lot more interesting, since I doubt Davina will be able to control him forever.

 

As does the revelation that the ancestor behind all the schemes of the witches was none other than Esther, the mother to the Mikaelsons!  That means that the real threat to the Originals is, in fact, their own parents, which is a nice connection to the mythology that began back on The Vampire Diaries.  It seems either Finn or Kol was back in the mix as well, so more than ever in the first season, the story feels like it deserves to be entitled The Originals!

 

That’s not to say that the lingering aftermath of the power struggle will be set aside.  The battle for control of New Orleans will continue, only with new players in the mix.  The two werewolf families will be fighting each other as well as the vampires and witches, and one would think that the Mikaelsons would back the Crescents, even if Hayley is basically queen over both clans and the rings are tied to Klaus.  The witches will have to deal with the animosity between Esther and Mikael.  The humans are a wild card, but it has never made sense for them to be a huge factor anyway.  The power plays will continue, but at least it will continue with the right characters at the forefront.