Holy crap you guys! That is how you do a spinoff pilot! “Legacies” started off so strong this week and I think it was, at least in part, thanks to having such a strong base going into the pilot. I fully believe anyone who didn’t watch “The Originals” or “The Vampire Diaries” could watch this pilot and not be lost.
Pictured: Danielle Rose Russell as Hope | Photo courtesy: Annette Brown/The CW
I was not aware that there was a two-year time jump between the finale of “The Originals” and this pilot which could have been helpful to know before going into “Legacies.” I was lost for a little while on how much time had passed. Hope (Danielle Rose Russell) and the Saltzman twins are now seventeen and still attending the Salvatore Academy. For the record, the Salvatore mansion also looks SUPER different which Matt Davis addressed on Twitter.
Hope is also apparently fulfilling all her extracurriculars by attending new wolf transformations with Headmaster Alaric (Matthew Davis)! This is how we meet our first new character Rafael (Peyton ‘Alex’ Smith) whose foster parents are trying to have him exorcized in a church. It turns out Landon (Aria Shahghasemi) is his foster brother so when Hope and Alaric show up there’s a fun new meet cute. Unfortunately, Hope immediately uses magic in front of Landon and then he sees his foster brother turn into a giant wolf right in front of him so he has to go back to the Academy with them.
Alaric explains everything about the supernatural world in a pretty quick little speech. He claims since almost everyone has read Harry Potter he doesn’t need to convince people as hard as he used to. Landon does seem to get on board pretty quickly at least until they try to erase his memory. For some reason it doesn’t work, I assumed vervain, so they have to lock Landon in one of the werewolf transition cells until it runs out of his system. He is reasonably annoyed by this because he’s like a prisoner in a place he didn’t even want to see in the first place.
The twins, Lizzie (Jenny Boyd) and Josie (Kaylee Bryant) agree to take Rafael around the school where he’s now welcome to go as a werewolf and Lizzie sticks her foot in her mouth in approximately three seconds. Knowing that he had to have killed someone in order to trigger his werewolf curse she asks about it. It turns out he inadvertently killed his girlfriend in a car accident. Lizzie takes this opportunity to tell him everyone’s really glad he’s single which is in such hilariously bad taste I’m almost impressed. Naturally, Rafael is not impressed and shuts her down pretty aggressively which leads to my favorite sequence in the episode where Lizzie explodes every single dish in the kitchen and almost stabs her father through the head with a knife.
I guess this is something that just happens a lot because Alaric seems to know exactly what to do to calm her and get her to stop blowing up everything. He also tries to get her to meditate which doesn’t go so well. She’s clearly her uncle Kai’s niece. Josie, on the other hand, is pretty emotionally stable, though she has been spurned in love by Penelope (Lulu Antariksa) who seems like a bit of a dick if I’m being honest.
Our last character of note is Milton “M.G.” Gladstone (Quincy Fouse) who is friends with both Hope and Josie. He’s also the vampire that tries to compel Landon. Whether because she’s actually into him or because she just wants to be a bitch to Josie, Penelope comes onto M.G. in the kitchen and offers her blood to him. He can’t resist and so they start making out just as Josie comes into the kitchen. It’s forgiven pretty easily when M.G. explains there’s nothing special about Penelope, “she’s just available.” It’s pretty much the sickest burn I’ve witnessed on a CW show in a while.
During Landon’s night of imprisonment in the school, there’s also a welcome party for Rafael in the woods and he convinces Josie to summon Landon. She does, which is pretty cool, but he’s literally just careening down hallways and through the woods. It’s not possible he didn’t smack into something at some point. Anyway, he’s mostly fine until he tries to escape through the woods only to run into Hope in wolf form. She’s really got her transformations down because she’s able to jump on him as a wolf, pin him to the ground, take his shirt off and wrap it around herself in the time it takes for Landon to sit up.
She takes him to the library at the school, shows him all the artifacts and books and explains about her family and her tribrid status. He’s suitably impressed, and even more so when she takes him back to his cell and makes the ceiling look like stars. They share a nice kiss and all seems well until the next morning when Landon tries to get Alaric to let him stay at the school. He offers to work in the kitchens or as a custodian, anything really to avoid leaving because he really doesn’t have a home anymore. Alaric says he can’t help him and M.G. comes back and compels him again.
Except he doesn’t! There’s something about Landon that can’t be compelled and he’s also stolen a knife from the dangerous relics in the library!
The last we see of Landon is on a bus when the knife starts to glow in his pocket. When Alaric and Hope show up at the scene of the bus crash later Sheriff Matt Donovan (Zach Roerig) is already in attendance. He lets them on the bus to see every single passenger has been burnt to a crisp and Landon is nowhere to be seen.
It looks like we’ve set up Landon as a bad guy which I don’t love. I’d much prefer if he were a good guy in a bad situation, but I suppose we’ll see as we go. I, for one, can’t wait to see where this show goes and how it handles the balance between the weekly stories and also the overarching plot for the season!
Featured image credit: Quantrell Colbert/The CW
Kristin was a military brat growing up but now she lives in Orlando with her husband Will and their dog Egon. She and her best friend Wil (not the husband!) have written a novel together and recently started the podcast “So…I’m Watching This Show” where they discuss movies, TV shows and pop culture in general. Most nights you can find her drinking wine and live tweeting way too many things.