'Legacies' Season 2 Episode 2: Hope and Alaric hunt a monster together as we are introduced to four new characters
Spoiler alert for Season 2 Episode 2 of 'Legacies'!
The second episode of Season 2 of 'Legacies' is sure to make OG fans overcome with emotion. So many scenes in the episode feel like throwbacks to 'The Vampire Diaries' and 'The Originals' with scenes set in Mystic Falls High and the Salvatore School.
This week's episode sees Hope on the hunt for the troll we saw at the end of the season premiere. The hunt leads her to Mystic Falls High and though she tries to pretend to be a janitor, she is caught. When she meets Alaric Saltzman who is now the Principal of Mystic Falls High, he doesn't recognize her, and she tells him she is a vampire hunter looking for a monster. She tells him her name is Hope Marshall (parents Tom and Kathleen) and he tells her that if she's in town she has to go to a school.
Meanwhile, at Salvatore School, Landon is suddenly popular because everyone thinks that he defeated Malivore. Boys are asking his autograph, girls are flirting with him -- much to Josie's dismay -- as he is awarded the "Salvatore Medal" for his actions. Meanwhile, Josie has transferred her codependency onto Landon -- she gets his timetable for him, she makes coffee for him, all things Landon has already done for himself. When another girl flirts with him, Josie takes it a step further and casts a spell to make her nose bleed -- and this is noticed by the new Headmaster, Professor Vardemus who gives us major Gilderoy Lockhart mixed with Severus Snape vibes.
When Alaric tells Hope that he will hunt the troll on his own, she tells him he will need her help. Alaric finds the troll but the monster is too fast for him. Hope shows up just in time to stop it and save Alaric and she uses her witch powers to do so, befuddling Alaric even more. We also see Hope run into two humans -- first the quarterback, Ethan (Leo Howard) and then a girl, Maya (Bianca Santos) -- and both of them seem taken by her. When Alaric and Hope talk about the troll, Maya shows up, sees the troll and freaks out. Alaric then calls MG who compels Maya to forget what she saw.
However, this makes MG late for his date with Lizzie. Confused? Well, Lizzie took an oath to have a "semester of yes", where she says yes to everything. MG is just late enough to meet Lizzie and she gets enticed by Sebastian with his smooth British accent and piercing eyes. It looks like MG is going to be the Matt Donovan of 'Legacies' -- forever pining and forever out of luck -- but we love MG way more. He realizes that what Lizzie needs is a friend and decides to put his feelings aside for her wellbeing.
The troll turns out not to be a troll, however, and it escapes, forcing Hope to stick around and hunt it with Alaric. Later, they realize that the monster is actually a cyclops and Hope destroys it by shooting an arrow to its eye. During the whole hunt, Alaric realizes he must know Hope because, at one point, he instinctively tossed the arrow towards Hope while fighting the monster. He connects his "muscle memory" incident and Malivore to come to the conclusion. Hope -- who is overcome with grief when Landon talks to her but does not recognize her -- reveals to Alaric who she really at the end of the episode. We're glad this happened because one of the strongest things about 'Legacies' is the relationship between Alaric and Hope.
In the closing scene of the episode, we see the mysterious red-hooded figure we saw in the premiere episode as the entity stabs and kill a man who was on a run through the cemetery. Was the man just jogging or was he being chased even before? If the former, then it is very weird that someone would choose to jog around graves in the middle of the night.
The second episode seems to suggest that the writers have found their groove much earlier than they did last season -- there were light moments, some really heavy moments, and moments of just plain fun. We met four new characters and each of them promises much more, with Professor Vardemus being the most puzzling. Maya seems like a lot of fun and if Hope does choose to stick around Mystic Falls High, the two of them could have great scenes together.
'Legacies' airs on The CW on Thursday nights.