The Originals: Julie Plec blogs 'I'll See You in Hell, or New Orleans'

The Originals type TV Show network The CW

The Mikaelson family is extremely complicated, and who better to untangle that drama than Julie Plec? The Originals showrunner will blog each week’s installment throughout the season exclusively for EW. From answering burning questions to giving behind-the-scenes stories and more, this is a place for fans to hear directly from Plec about the episode they just watched.

Welcome to “I’ll See You in Hell, or New Orleans,” written by Michelle Paradise & Declan Debarra and directed by Michael Grossman. This episode really gives us a glimpse into the history of what I call The Trinity: the first sired of the Original Family. They are Lucien, Aurora and Tristan, as played by Andrew Lees, Rebecca Breeds, and Oliver Ackland. All Australian, incidentally. Between TVD, The Originals, and my new show Containment, I am currently employing half of Oz. Funny small-world coincidence — Todd Lasance, new to The Vampire Diaries this year (also Australian), is L.A. housemates with Rebecca Breeds and her husband Luke Mitchell, who was formerly on The Tomorrow People. I hope at least one future Australian baby has the middle name Julie.

Tidbits from the episode:

It was flashback Thursday on the CW tonight, with both TVD and The Originals jumping back to times of old. For 11th century France, we shot at a sprawling Atlanta cemetery. We shot inside a mausoleum, on the, ahem, unoccupied grounds of the cemetery’s property, and with a few VFX elements added for authencity, ta-da, Marseilles.

Everyone loves and hates flashback wigs with equal measure. We do our best. What most people don’t know is that wigs do not like humidity. At all. This summer in Atlanta was horribly hot and rainy. Please address all complaints about flashback wigs to El Nino.

St. Anne’s Fight Gym, formerly St. Anne’s Church, was born out of a real-life bond. Writer Declan and actor Daniel Gillies train at the same fight gym in LA. Rumor has it, Declan could kill a man with his left pinky, but thankfully he’s a pacifist. When we talked about building a fight gym, Declan insisted that we wouldn’t be cool unless it had an MMA ring. Apparently boxing rings are passé. Declan, the most interesting man in the world, more often than not wins the battles of how to be cool.

This episode also welcomed Tracy Ifeachor as ancient vampire Aya. Tracy originally was hired to appear in the final scene of last season’s finale, only we ended up dropping the scene. But we loved her, so we created a new role for her this year. Stay tuned later this season for flashbacks to the Crusades where we’ll learn Aya’s backstory.

Some of our Chinese monks extras who were slaughtered by Aurora had to lie around for so long that their faces became stuck to the floorboards when the fake blood congealed.

Declan’s Diaries:

It turns out Oliver is a pure natural at ax-throwing, which freaked everyone out. There is something about a quiet, polite and unassuming gentle man, who wields an ax like a Viking Ninja assassin that makes you question his past life. Nobody cut in line in front of him at catering after that. Everyone called him sir.

Additionally, I was disappointed we only had Japanese katana swords for our Chinese monastery slaughter scene, so I asked Dave, our stunt coordinator, who is the darkest horse in the world, if he had by any chance a Chinese sword on him. As you do. His response, “Sure, I have two Chinese straight swords in my car.” Never upset Dave.

If you see Dave and Oliver in the same bar, turn around and leave.

The Originals airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET on The CW.