‘Legacies’ Season 3 Delivers Some Long-Awaited Answers (RECAP)
Review
The Legacies Season 3 premiere was never intended as a season opener, but it sure does work as one.
Season 2 of the series, which centers on a boarding school for people with supernatural powers, ended early because of the coronavirus, and its final four episodes were pushed into the third season. Luckily, we had left off with some pretty tantalizing cliffhangers, and this premiere gets right to some answers.
When The Vampire Diaries-spinoff picks up, Alaric (Matthew Davis) is still struggling to wake up Hope (Danielle Rose Russell) and Landon (Aria Shahghasemi) while keeping the student body in the dark to avoid alarming them further. To lift their spirits and distract them, MG (Quincy Fouse) takes the students on a field day, and Aaric tries to get answers from the Necromancer (Ben Geurens) on why Landon remains dead.
The reason is a classic Legacies twist: Landon is sacrificing himself for the greater good. When the Necromancer tries to put Landon’s soul back in his body, he refuses, knowing that if he’s dead, Malivore won’t have anyone to possess and the school will be safe. (Of course, Raphael manages to convince him to come back.) That Hope remains in her magical coma is less compelling — she doesn’t want to wake up in a world without Landon. (Since she went into the coma before Landon died, it’s unclear how she even knows he’s gone.)
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Meanwhile, things aren’t going according to plan on the field day. First, Josie (Kaylee Bryant) has to deal with the other students’ animosity for going fully dark and killing Alyssa Chang (Olivia Liang) who, back from the dead, is particularly pissed off at her. (It’s a pleasure to have Josie back to her sweet and humble self, but hopefully she can learn to be more confident without using dark magic. It’s also good to see they’re keeping Alyssa around, as she’s become a rather entertaining and snarky antagonist.) Lizzie (Jenny Boyd), meanwhile, goes full mean girl in trying to defend Josie, but she only makes things worse.
The real conflict at field day, however, comes when a new monster rises from the Malivore pit and pursues the students, and the Super Squad realizes that it’s going to take a true hero to defeat the monster — but Hope is out of commission, and they find themselves at a loss.
The Necromancer continues to be a rather low stakes, comical villain, but it looks like he might get a much needed assist from Alyssa when she finds out that being freed from the Necromancer’s control is a death sentence (poor Chad), and the two consider teaming up. This spells big trouble for Raphael (Peyton Alex Smith), who thinks he’s finally out of the woods with regard to the Necromancer. Meanwhile, the final line of the Sphinx’s prophecy from Season 2 about how love destroys still looms.
Things may seem grim, but cheer up and hold on — Episode 3 is the long-awaited musical episode.
Legacies, Season 3 Premiere, Thursday, January 21, 9/8c, The CW
