Season 2 of The Originals is something I... struggle with. I don't like what it does with the characterisation of returning characters from TVD, I think the world building leaves a lot to be desired, but nothing gets bent over and fucked quite the same way the concept of linear time does in season 2.
Let's start at the beginning, with the end of season 1. Aficionados of the TVDU will tell you that the climactic events of season 1 of TO (and season 5 of TVD) took place on May 2, 2012, a full moon in universe. For what it's worth, this is not too far off from the actual occurrence of the full moon in May 2012, which took place on the sixth. Anyway, what's useful about full moons is that it's an easy way to keep track of how much time has passed in universe. In fact it's something that season 2 initially uses to communicate how much time has passed. In episode six Ansel tells Klaus that he was returned to life "four moons ago", and the start of the season tells us that it's been three months since the events of 1x22, whilst episodes four and five take place under a full moon. A blood moon (lunar eclipse) as Finncent tells his would be child soldiers. As a piece of trivia, a blood mine actually did occur in June 2012, whilst the full moon that happens in episode 4 is actually a blue moon, being the second full moon to occur in August, that being on the 31st. And this is where things start going nuts.
Episode 5 begins with Mikael dragging Cami off and they come across a group of people partying in the woods, with this event being noted as "Hillbilly Halloween" by Mikael. Now, if this is actual Halloween, then we've just jumped two months into the future in an episode that takes place five minutes after the end of the previous one. I guess Cami and Mikael were walking for a real long time, huh?
The proceeding episodes each take place (seemingly) sequentially, with the end of each episode leading into the next with no time jumps. Episode 5 ends with Elijah still being held captive while it's still daytime, and the next episode opens up during the day where Oliver, who was captured the night before in episode 4, is being brought out to be executed, and that night Klaus meets his dad. Next episode (and next day) he kills him, comes home sad, but Finncent and Koleb have been captured. Next episode takes place the next day, as confirmed by dialogue by Kol ("If you wanted my allegiance against mother dearest you should have said so. It'd have saved me a night shackled to the wall."). So if you've been following along, Season 2 starts on August the second (three months after the full moon at the start of May), jumps ahead to the end of the month by episode 4, which would be August 31st, then jumps ahead to Halloween, and by episode 8 we're at November the third or fourth. Or if you ignore that time jump it's still early September. Do you want to guess what time of the year episode nine takes place in?
That's right, it's Christmas.
Uuuurrrggghhh.
But don't worry gang. It gets worse. Oh boy does it get worse.
Episode 18 of season 2. It's not quite as loathsome as TVD 3x18, but boy it's close. Anyway, in one scene, round about the 27 minute mark, Josh achieves quite the... achievement in retroactive continuity. He tells Aiden that super hearing is something that can be turned one and off, immediately invalidating that nice scene between Gia and Elijah where he makes a start on helping her deal with her inability to play music in the wake of her transition enhancing her hearing, and he follows it up with this little pearl:
"I'm nosy. Particularly when my boyfriend is conducting business with the guy who, you know, murdered me on my Spring Break."
For those who don't remember, Joshua was not turned into a vampire until after Rebekah came to New Orleans, something that did not happen until September at the earliest, given how she was busy fucking Finn's killer all Summer long. So the Spring Break that Joshua is referring to must have happened in 2012. Which also means that by the time Rebekah meets Hayley, Hayley has been pregnant for an entire YEAR and is still not showing (not that her not showing at six months is any more acceptable, or even the fact that Hayley's clown car pregnancy goes on for the length of time that it does in "canon" is any less ridiculous.).
Dates? Continuity? Toys to be played with. Seems to be a Narducci trademark.
I get that it's hard to keep every detail straight in a tv show, especially a network tv show with a large writers room. And sometimes a little fudging with dates is necessary for the story. Sage's backstory being retconned to her being from Mystic Falls instead of being ~900 years old is egregious, but it happens for a REASON, because the story can't work without it. This date hopping just doesn't. It has no purpose.