The Originals season 5: Who departed before series finale?

Is Phoebe Tonkin leaving The Originals for good? Early on this season, we were worried about Hayley’s fate due to the actress’ status — she was no longer a series regular.

On Wednesday night’s new episode, we ended up seeing what may be the most shocking, tragic death on the show in quite some time as Roman’s terrible mother officially killed Hayley Marshall off right in front of Klaus. This was an epic, intense showdown over Hope and Hayley did everything that she could in order to protect her daughter. As a means of doing that, he murdered the murderous mom (as we like to call her) … but also herself in the process.

Hayley sacrificed herself for the sake of her daughter, and in turn, for also what she believed to be the greater good. This was hard to watch, but it’s also yet another reminder of precisely the purpose Hayley is. She’s a hero, and someone who was willing to do everything for those she cared about.

Losing Tonkin at this particular part in the story is a really hard pill to swallow. She originally got her start on The Vampire Diaries prior to coming over to The Originals, and she has been a part of the show from the very beginning. Unfortunately, being a female character on this show didn’t exactly lead to a long survival rate — just look at Cami or Davina for more evidence. We just want to see some happiness by the end of the finale and for a while, we thought that we were going to have that with Elijah and Hayley. Certainly not now for obvious reasons.

We would hope that there is still a chance to get some other cameo from Hayley down the road, maybe even if it comes in the show’s form of the afterlife. We got a small glimpse of this at the end of The Vampire Diaries, and we do like to think that this character is off somewhere with some of those people experiencing the other side. It’s at least a comforting thought amidst the pain of this exit.

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