Can it be? Does Klaus have a real soft side? In a dreamlike opening sequence, he feels his baby kick in Hayley's belly and he has a real moment with it. Tender. Hayley's writing a letter to her future daughter… It's not real, though. Hayley's actually still being tortured by the witches, as is Klaus — so he's powerless to help her. Going into labour, she's fantasizing about a happier time and place.
Back at the battle scene where Marcel and Cami are cleaning up after last week's brawl, Davina turns up looking for Klaus's blood so she can help Mikael. Josh turns up, presumably from the other side. Innocent, naive Davina doesn't see what a horrible idea it is to help anyone on the other side. She wants to save them.
As soon as the baby is born, the witches slit Hayley's throat and snatch the baby. But that doesn't mean Hayley's gone — Davina's theoretically opening up the door for her to come back, too. Come back with a vengeance, obviously. Elijah arrives after her death and is, understandably, devastated. He's also been bitten by a werewolf, so Klaus offers him some of his own blood to heal him. Then they go in search of the baby only to discover that the witches have created a never-ending illusion of Lafayette Cemetery to cover their tracks and prevent the vampires from finding them while they make their sacrifice.
Marcel lets Josh take the other portion of Klaus's blood and forfeits it for himself. Presumably, he'll find another cupful somewhere else. Cami offers him an "arsenal" of weapons to help take down Klaus, then takes him and Davina to the secret closet.
Hayley wakes appears to wake up alive (although it's unclear if she is or not) and gets a bloodthirsty look in her eyes. She's determined to hunt down her baby. Turns out, she died with the baby's blood in her system — she's in transition to become a hybrid.
She still can't find her baby, though. The witches, tackily dressed all in white, are getting ready for the sacrifice. As they're beginning, Davina realizes from Mikael that she needs the baby, too, to help bring Mikael back from the dead. She has to harness power from the newborn.
Finally they find the witches and the baby. Klaus is able to stop the most immediate danger to her but the young witches hold back the vampires and Hayley with the power of all their ancestors. Then Klaus takes one of them out while creepy little Monique goes after the baby. She's really close but then Marcel steps in and saves teh day. He snatches the baby and runs, obviously to use as leverage to get Klaus to heal all of his army who are dying from werewolf bites.
But he was too late. They're all dead by the time the vamps get back to them. Klaus offers to heal Marcel anyway. On his deathbed, Marcel apologizes for bringing Mikael to town a hundred years prior, but Klaus won't hear any of it. He's greatful to Marcel for saving the baby and heals him. They seem to have a renewed kinship and alliance.
Then we get to see Klaus being tender and warm for real, just like in Hayley's vision.
Of course that doesn't last long because Mikael is peering in at the scene, ready to dagger Klaus once and for all. Davina has other plans, though. She's going to keep Mikael as a secret weapon, just as Marcel kept her. She seems perfectly capable of controlling him, too.
Genevieve tells Hayley and Elijah that the order to kill the baby comes directly from Esther, Elijah and Klaus's mother. "As long as that child lives, the witches of New Orleans will never stop coming for it," she tells them.
Klaus pairs this threat with the one from the competing werewolf pack and tries to tell Elijah that they need to get Hayley and the baby out of New Orleans. Hayley, of course, has a breakdown over deciding what to do with the baby. She thinks she needs to send the baby away while the rest of them stay behind.
Marcel sets up Oliver and his pack, framing them for the murder of the baby. The vampires want everyone to think the baby is dead so that they don't come after her.
Cami takes the news really hard, devastated by the baby's death. Klaus really sells it. He also has plans to compel Marcel to forget what he knows about the baby, to really help hold up their story.
Klaus leaves with the baby and hands her off to the one person they think they can trust with her: Rebekkah. Finally she's back in the show! What an absence. Meanwhile, Elijah and Hayley take their grief public (true grief, dead or not, since they had to give up the baby).
And with that, baby Hope is whisked away from New Orleans and, in theory, all her demons.
Just to kick our curiosity into high gear and the end of the season and torture us until next year, we're presented with two new creepy characters we haven't yet met: a young woman with a pixie cut and a tall lanky young man. They lay down a rose on a grave, then she proclaims they have work to do. He replies with "yes, mother" just like Finn Mikaelson called Esther when they were alive and well on The Vampire Diaries. Curious!
