The Originals: Julie Plec blogs the return of Josh 

'The Originals': Julie Plec reveals what was cut from winter premiere

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. 

Thanks for tuning in to “Wild at Heart,” or, as importantly, the return of Josh. Writers Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson are our biggest Josh (Steven Krueger) advocates. They call themselves co-presidents of the Josh fan club. Every episode they write will either feature Josh, mention Josh, or have a Josh poster hidden on a set wall as an Easter egg until this series is over. The love of a recurring guest star is part of what makes writing so much fun. There’s nothing more satisfying than being able to work them into your episode. Since I can’t seem to go a week without mentioning

, let’s take a moment to relish the memories of the first time Spike went from being a frustrating and nasty foil to a sexy, dangerous leading man. Let’s celebrate Jonathan who first appeared as an extra and went on to become the star of his own Very Special Jonathan Episode.

, Lexi burst into the scene in one episode to wish Stefan a Happy Birthday and made such an impact on the audience that my own father, who never remembers anyone’s name, decided he would “never forgive Damon for killing Lexi.” He stills calls my friend Greg, “Craig” after 22 years of friendship, but he remembered Lexi after one episode. Let us not forget that at one point Klaus and Elijah were guest stars on

. Ashley and Bart will be teaming with Carina MacKenzie to pitch

One of our favorite parts of this job is all the people we get to work with — our amazing cast, our badass crew — but sometimes it’s one step beyond, and we actually get to fanboy/fangirl out a little over our coworkers. Bart and [executive producer Michael] Narducci were already huge fans of our director, John Hyams, based on his previous work — his documentary

franchise, respectively — and were geeks about it. (I quickly become a big fan too once I saw his work and also realized he’s smart and funny and has great Jean-Claude Van Damme stories.) My biggest fangirl moment was getting to work, for the first time this season, with Jason Dohring, a.k.a. Det. Kinney, a.k.a. Logan Echolls from

(one of my absolute favorite characters in one of my favorites series of all time). Luckily, I think I successfully hid my excitement and didn’t totally freak him out. And I’m sure admitting this in a national publication won’t make things weird at all. 

We shot a scene that didn’t make the final cut in which Klaus “trains” Cami,

-style, by throwing things at her (her goal being to use her newly acquired “vamp speed” to catch them). What we learned is that A) Leah doesn’t love having things thrown at her head, go figure (although she was a great sport), and B) Joe has quite the arm… but his aim could use a little work; he almost hit us writers during rehearsal. Although in retrospect, maybe that wasn’t an accident?

It rained while we were shooting Davina and Josh’s scenes in the witch marketplace. Usually we HATE rain when we’re shooting exteriors… unless said location is filled with bees, and the rain chases away the bees. The witch market was filled with bees. Yay, rain.

Everyone will tell you the first rules of filmmaking: no animals and no babies. This is because you can’t reason with them (no matter how hard you try). Blake and Charlie, who play baby Hope, are lovely, adorable, sweet kids… who have a tendency to cry their way through 95 percent of their scenes. So Bart and I thought we’d be reallllly clever, and write a scene in which Hope is supposed to cry, sensing her mother’s sadness and distress at Jackson’s death. Hahaha, silly us. We thought we could outsmart a baby. Spoiler alert: The babies wouldn’t cry. And since we’re not monsters, we didn’t try to upset them, but instead rewrote the scene.

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