The Originals: Julie Plec blogs A Walk on the Wild Side | EW.com 

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

The Mikaelson family is extremely complicated, and who better to untangle that drama than Julie Plec?

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. 

Tonight’s episode, “A Walk on the Wild Side,” written by Ashley Lyle & Bart Nickerson and directed by Matt Hastings, takes us inside the world of The Strix, a secret society of vampires. I love secret societies. In my opinion, all good vampire stories need a mysterious secret society lurking somewhere in the shadows. But between the Volturi of

’s Vampire Authority, we never felt comfortable diving into that kind of mythology on

seasons for fear of drawing comparisons. This year we felt like enough time had passed to give it a shot. We chose the name based on a mythological bird of ill omen that fed on human flesh and blood (thank you, Wikipedia). In Greek, the word is “owl.” Hence the design on the calling card. Plus, with Halloween around the corner, the Strix provided us the perfect opportunity for a costume party. 

Building on last week’s backstory about Daniel Gillies as a martial arts enthusiast, he choreographed his own boxing workout in tonight’s episode. This season also marks the first season since the character’s introduction in

season 2 where suit-and-tie expert Elijah Mikaelson repeatedly wears a sleeveless muscle shirt.

According to Ashley and Bart, it turns out that giant champagne glasses have more rules and regulations than one might expect. Not only did the set decorator have to bring it over state lines (thus getting us the only human-sized champagne glass East of the Mississippi) but the only person allowed in it was the girl who brought it. Basically, it’s a BYOGCG (bring your own gigantic champagne glass) situation.

Slushie machines are a staple of Bourbon Street in the French Quarter, so we named our machine Bonnie’s Slushies after our intrepid line producer Bonnie Weis. The most fun writers, set decorators and propmasters have is when we have to generate names for mailboxes, flyers, doors, offices, and slushie machines. I can guarantee when you see a name on screen that it has an 80 percent chance of having been inspired by a crew member.

Some people can say that battling for money during prep is like pulling teeth, and in this case it’s literal. Ashley landed in Atlanta only to learn her wisdom teeth needed immediate removal. She spent the rest of the shoot blissfully doped up on painkillers.

Joseph and Andy had a ball playing the “wasted party crashers” and ended up improvising some of the fun moments, including Lucien “booping” Tristan’s nose and Klaus’s pronouncement that Tristan’s champagne is “cheap.”

Australian small-world coincidence of the week: Daniel Gillies was on the phone with Oliver Ackland as Oliver boarded a plane, raving about Australian filmmaker Joel Edgerton’s excellent film

just as Oliver sat down next to his seatmate and friend — Joel Edgerton. Special shout-out to Joel and his movie, which you should all see because it was terrific.

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