Oh my god, you guys, “Legacies” is back! I’m so excited; are you excited?! It definitely came out of the gates swinging for season two so I’m going to get right into it. When we left off, we had recently discovered that Landon (Aria Shahghasemi) is a phoenix, Hope (Danielle Rose Russell) had jumped into Malivore with Landon’s “brother” Ryan (Nick Fink), the twins learned about the Gemini merge, and Alaric (Matthew Davis) had been removed from his position as headmaster. That was a lot of information so I’m glad that the new season really hit the ground running without a lot of recapping or fluff.
The episode begins with us seeing all the kids going home for the summer, except for Landon and Josie apparently. Lizzie went to see Caroline and get some information about the merge, while Josie stayed in Mystic Falls to keep an eye on Alaric and his rapidly growing facial hair. MG went home with Kaleb for the summer since his family is full trash. Everyone was having a pretty good time, including the twins, who were doing that fun Freya astral projection chat from the final season of “The Originals.”
That, however, does not apply to Landon, who was instead spending the summer drowning himself in the lake repeatedly for some kind of phoenix-y reason? When he wasn’t doing that, though, he was hanging out and grilling for Rafael, who is still a wolf since Hope stopped existing. Landon even went so far as to host adorable movie nights for him, which is maybe the most charming thing he’s ever done — and that’s saying a lot.
While all this is going on in the real world, Hope is in a very different situation inside Malivore. Walking around in an endless blackness, Hope is continually confronted with all the monsters she and her fellow “avengers” defeated last season. Not to mention that every time she uses magic a giant light in the sky tries to take her away. Basically, she’s not having a very good time, and it gets even worse when she runs into Landon’s brother, who “rescues” her from the light.
What follows is a pretty annoying back and forth where Ryan keeps trying to convince her to help him and she keeps using magic against him. Finally she realizes that the light trying to take her is Malivore trying to expel her because she’s not meant to be there, and Ryan is keeping her from going because if she leaves he’ll be alone at his father’s mercy again. Hope doesn’t care at all and peaces out at the earliest possible moment, which is both totally on brand as her parent’s child and deeply hilarious since Ryan SUCKS.
Unfortunately, even though she’s back in the real world, no one remembers Hope still. She tries to get into the school but Dorian’s locking up and won’t let her in. She gets in anyway and goes looking for Landon; she obviously finds him just as he’s kissing Josie for the first time, after their montage of summer fun set to a cover of “Better Together.” It’s obviously heartbreaking, except that I got super excited Hope can be with Rafael now once she turns him human again! They have much better chemistry and I’m shockingly into Landon/Josie.
Rounding out the episode are the adventures of MG and Kaleb in his hometown. Kaleb is teaching MG how to grill meat…for reasons. He also keeps telling him to let loose and have some summer fun, at least until said summer fun starts to include Kaleb’s sister Kym. It’s kind of a bummer since Kym seems much more MG’s speed than Lizzie, who he’s still pining after for some reason. Before they go back to Mystic Falls Kaleb promises to help MG get Lizzie, which is a nice bro move that I’m certain won’t work. Lizzie is great, but she’s not very thoughtful and she’s too narcissistic for MG.
The episode ends with Hope, alone again, until she runs into what looks like a budget version of The Hulk. Turns out it’s a troll, and Hope thinks that some things maybe followed her out of Malivore when she escaped. All in all it set up what’s sure to be a super fun new season of “Legacies,” and I, for one, can’t wait to see what’s in store for us. I’m going to need at least one or two people to remember Hope like ASAP, but other than that we’re off to a great start!
“Legacies” airs on The CW on Thursdays at 9/8c! Stay tuned for all our season two recaps.
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Featured image credit: The CW Network
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.