Legacies is a brand new CW drama that is a spin-off of The Vampire Diaries and The Originals. It takes us back to the town of Mystic Falls, but Legacies has its own identity and is able to stand on its own. But nevertheless, it’s still in the world of those two shows so welcome back to Mystic Falls.
This episode begins with Hope Mikaelson’s voiceover and she’s a student at the Salvatore School for the Young and Gifted. She and her headmaster, the one and only Alaric Saltzman, are off to find a new recruit in Atlanta. There, a boy named Rafael is meeting his foster parents at a Catholic church to confess his sins after he apparently threw a lawn mower through their patio doors. His foster-brother Landon (who was on The Originals for a brief period of time), is with him. However, this isn’t really a confession as his foster parents believe he is possessed. In reality, he’s just a werewolf and it’s the full moon. Alaric and Hope show up in time to stop the priest, knock out the parents, and they chain Rafael up and bring him and Landon (who is very confused) back to Virginia.
Lizzie and Josie Saltzman (Alaric and Caroline’s twin daughters) give Rafael a tour of the Salvatore School so Ric and Hope can talk to Landon. Ric tells him that: The Salvatore School is a school for the supernatural, but the citizens of Mystic Falls think it’s a private school for the rich and troubled. He says that people compare it to Harry Potter, but this school has a wide range of supernatural creatures including vampires and werewolves. Alaric wants to know who Rafael killed recently as the werewolf gene isn’t activated until you kill someone and Ric wants to make sure that he’s not going to accept a cold-blooded killer into his school. Landon says that about a month ago, Rafael was driving with his girlfriend and they got into a car accident in which his girlfriend didn’t make it.
Alaric then brings in MG who is his vampire student aid and gets him to compel Landon and erase his memory of the school. However, the compulsion doesn’t work so Landon is taken to the cellar as Hope believes that Landon has ingested vervain as Sheriff Matt Donovan sometimes puts it into the coffee at the gas station that they stopped at. As fans know, vervain prevents vampire compulsion so until it leaves Landon’s system, he has to hang out for a bit.
Meanwhile, the Saltzman twins show Rafael everything about the school such as the sport of choice: Wickery which was a game that Caroline and Ric made up when the twins were 10. Josie hangs out with MG who has a thing for Lizzie, while Lizzie puts her foot in her mouth with Rafael (a similarity to Caroline). Lizzie tries to offer her condolences about Raf’s girlfriend, but when she says the wrong thing, and he ends up walking away.
Just as Ric is in the middle of sparring with Hope (like he used to with Elena), and trying to convince her to be more social, Josie gets him to check on her sister. Lizzie is in the middle of a witch temper tantrum that is destroying the school’s kitchen. Ric tries to get Lizzie to meditate with him because he says that she needs to work through her biological mother’s crazy witch ancestors who left her with a legacy of darkness. (If you didn’t know, the twin’s biological mother wasn’t Caroline. Instead it’s a woman named Jo who was a member of the Gemini coven). Lizzie says she doesn’t want to hurt anyone and Ric assures her that that’s why they opened the school. Lizzie then explains why she hates Hope as she tried to be friends with her for years, but Hope’s not letting anyone in because of how many people she’s lost.
However, Hope does like Landon. She visits him when she can’t sleep and they talk about the day they danced which happened two years ago. She says she has to keep her distance as she’s dangerous. She then asks Alaric for permission to run the woods as a wolf and he tells her to steer clear of the ‘secret party’ that he’s going to break up.
At the party, Josie uses magic to break Landon out so he and Rafael can have some fun. Landon sees that Raf is fitting in wonderfully, so Landon tries to make a break for it. Raf and Josie are bonding as they clearly share some sort of connection and he tells her about his ex-girlfriend and she encourages him to give Lizzie another chance, as a good sister would.
Hope finds Landon and tackles him though as she ran after him in her wolf form, so she has some explaining to do. She takes him to the Stefan Salvatore Memorial Library to explain to him that her father is Klaus Mikaelson (one of the world’s original vampires) and a werewolf alpha, and both of them are dead. Her grandmother is a witch so she is a hybrid of three creatures, or rather a tribrid, and she’s the only one of her kind. She shows Landon her memory of the day that they danced and shows him that she was the one who got revenge on the guy who’d bullied Landon when he worked at the Mystic Grill.
She takes Landon back to his cell and uses her magic to make the ceiling look like the night sky in hopes that it will help Landon sleep (as he isn’t good with small spaces as he was locked in closets as a kid). He realises that he won’t remember any of this tomorrow so he kisses her.
After the party, Penelope (Josie’s ex) tempts MG with a good time in the kitchen. She asks him to drink from her neck which isn’t allowed and he nearly does. The two make out but he doesn’t bite her because Josie catches them. Josie then goes to Lizzie where they have a sisterly chat and Lizzie tells her that she should find a new crush to focus on, but Lizzie also announces that she is setting her sights on Rafael.
The next morning, Landon asks Alaric if he can stay as he doesn’t have a home anymore, but Ric tells him that his students are predatory creatures and it isn’t safe for a human to be there (well, other than Ric). MG compels Landon and he says goodbye to Rafael. Then Dorian discovers that one of his supernatural artifacts (a knife) is missing and then realise that Landon never went home, like he was compelled to do. Ric realises this means that Landon must be a supernatural being since he can’t be compelled.
Alaric enlists all of the students to help find Landon and the knife, and when Hope witnesses an angry Josie set Penelope’s arm on fire, she sees a “kindred spirit in revenge,” and asks Josie to use dark magic with her in order to track Landon. It ends up working as they can see him sitting on a bus as the knife starts glowing red.
Then we cut to Matt Donovan (we missed you!) welcoming Ric and Hope to the crime scene. The local police think that whatever happened on the bus was a chemical spill, but it clearly wasn’t. As they walk onto the bus, they only find charred corpses, and no Landon. Hope’s voiceover then starts and she says, “Turns out Landon isn’t the hero of my story at all, but when I hunt him down, I’m going to be the villain of his.” Chills!
Final Thoughts:
Legacies feels like a brand new show that has bits of The Vampire Diaries and The Originals thrown in. I’m already totally invested in it and I hope it continues to be as compelling as it already is.
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