u/EitherAfternoon548

Never before or since in the history of the TVDU has there quite been a one episode wonder like Papa Alphonse Bellatunde. He gets brought back to life and immediately gets to work on going belt to arse with the Originals. And of all the villains in the show, he probably genuinely gets the closest to ending them all.

Rebekah sees him, rushes him and is stopped with a *touch*. Already, on his own this guy is a match for an Original. Last time a witch went one on one with an Original and successfully put them down, her name was Abby Bennet and she LOST her powers for a decade and a half. But Papa T has more up his sleeve. He actually traps the paralysed Rebekah within a boundary spell and starts channeling all her power. And the degree to which this power enhances him is pretty fucking ridiculous. His durability is such that when Marcel snapped his neck, it IMMEDIATELY moved back into place. Not even Silas, the perfect, true Immortal can do this

When Klaus shows up to stop him, it’s not even a contest. He starts throwing Klaus around with ONE HAND. He puts the blade to Klaus’ head, Klaus’ eyes glaze over and it looks like it’s the end for ol’ wolf boy McGee.

So why doesn’t the story end here? Well because the writers basically just pull a solution out of their arse, came up with nothing, and so reached even further to come up with the following.

Elijah lets the heavily pregnant Hayley-who at this point is anywhere from six months to six years pregnant, I’ve honestly lost track with where she’s at in this clown car pregnancy- come with him to retrieve Rebekah, who has, in a city full of angry witches who just got their powers back, been left unattended. But she’s stuck behind the aforementioned barrier spell. How to get past and disconnect GOAT Tunde from his power source? Well it’s actually very simple to get around a boundary/barrier spell you see, you just have to pour something onto the salt barrier to “upset the balance”. Elijah, whose mother was a witch and has been alive for over a thousand years needs Sophie-Anne to tell him this. I mean fair play because not only has this never been given as a solution before but when we see similar circular salt-barrier spells in the future this solution is never used again. Maybe instead of pouring her heart and soul into trying to free Klaus from the barrier spell he was trapped behind in 4x02 Freya should have spilled her blood in the border. What an idiot.

Because that is the solution to this dilemma in this episode. Sophie Anne confirms that witch blood will do the trick. But which witch? There isn’t one with Elijah and Hayley at pres- oh they’re going to take it from HOPE, oh just like Tyler did. “Hope” Elijah has a syringe. Wait, Elijah what are you doing? Why are you going for Hayley’s wrist? Women don’t store their babies in their wrists Elijah! NO ELIJAH, YOU CANT JUST POUR HAYLEY’S BLOOD ON THE BARRIER SHE’S NOT A WITCH, SHE DOESN’T ACTUALLY SHARE BLOOD WITH HER FETUS oh it worked. I guess that angsty moment you shared with Hayley was completely unnecessary I guess. Hell why not use your blood?

Papa Tunde was a really solid villain, and Owiso Odera (RIP) gives a great performance. Unfortunately Papa Tunde was the start of a series of witch villains that completely outclassed the Originals to the point that the writers had to whip out some bullshit to resolve the storyline (looking at you ass-stake)

With the recent news about Hongmei Wang’s research going viral, as well as ongoing discourse in the Invincible subreddit, it got me to thinking about the immortal women of the franchise and wether or not they go through “that time of the month” and if so, for how long?

As far as I am aware, there are three individuals in the franchise who I think were fertile while they were/are immortal, Amara, Freya and Hope. Amara and Hope, while they are vampires (of a sort) their fertility does not seem to be impacted the same way as other vampires. When discussing his own fertility, Klaus points out that since he is undead he cannot have children, so by that logic, Amara, who like Silas was not undead should not be infertile.

If she had lived, would Amara simply have gone through all her eggs a months at a time until she hit menopause (while looking the ripe old age of 25) and then just continue eggless for eternity? If she took the cure would her cycle resume, just sans-eggs? Would she be putting out top tier eggs like someone in their 20s and 30s right up until she ran out? If Klaus can pump out some prime swimmers at 1000+, surely Amara wouldn’t be no chump in her forties (not including her time fossilised that is)?

My gut personally tells me that due to being unconditionally immortal Nature would not allow Amara or Silas to have children, since they’d be creating a species of immortals who’d just grow unchecked with nothing to keep their population down. But Klaus kinda fucks with this. If he can do it, there’s no reason Silas can’t, and therefore no reason Amara couldn’t.

Hope, I would think, should be fertile for the same reasons her father was. If one Original Hybrid can have kids by virtue of being an Original Hybrid, why can’t his daughter. However when her family brings it up in Legacies 4x15 that Hope can have children she seems surprised. Now I don’t profess to be an expert in the ins and outs of fertility as it applies to undead tribes freaks of nature, but shouldn’t she have gotten a sharp reminder of her own fertility by that point? There was like, 12 episodes between her turning and this conversation. Is Hope just constantly ovulating, and any PIV sex runs a high chance of getting her pregnant? And in that case does she only become infertile when she’s used up all her eggs, or basically had about, like, a couple hundred kids?

The most interesting case to me is Freya. When Dahlia casts her spell that makes them immortal but at the cost of sleeping for 100 years, Freya is, at least 29. She certainly doesn’t age during her time awake either as she would’ve been in her late thirties by the events of The Originals. And while immortal she was provably fertile as she gets pregnant (quite heavily so, in fact) during her year awake in the early 1400s. At this point Freya was Dahlia’s last chance to get more firstborns. After 15-20 more “years” for them would Dahlia have just been fucked? Like “go home everyone we tried. There’s no more eggs. No more first borns.”