Legacies - Facing Darkness Is Kinda My Thing

Discussing Ep. 2.16

This sucked! This really, really sucked! And I don't even know where to start with all of this.

I'll start with the end of something that was good while it lasted.

So Dark Josie was just a means to an end. That's it. That's all she was. She was just there to eventually transfer her dark magic over to Ted, the Necromancer. She was just there to get Lizzie to a point where the truth about how everyone felt about her was revealed so that MG could come in as a white knight and show just how special and good she really is. Dark Josie was just there so that Hope could gripe about sexist pigs (literally) and non-consensual fairy tale kisses and tell Good Josie that all she needed to do to beat Dark Josie was "change the story." She was just there so that the show could pull out another gimmick episode revolving around Red Riding Hood and flex their wanna-be Disney muscles.

That's all she was there for.

Like Baby often says about her, she's become like Bonnie....sidelined and neglected for the sake of the other characters. Just like when Bonnie became a vampire hunter and could have had a really cool story arc, only for it to be cut short for the story to return to the other characters, so it was with Dark Josie.

This fucking sucks!

My only compliment in regards to Dark Josie in this episode was that I liked her outfit in the fairy tale world. She had that Sauron look to her and it was really, really cool. Other than that, this was a major fucking disappointment. I can't stress that enough. She had such potential. She had IMMENSE power. She even manipulated Ted! And they throw that all away? Why? For what? Just to make Ted powerful? I don't get his plan at all. He wanted Josie to absorb that dark magic, or so it seemed. I think initially he wanted that hourglass thingy that contained her dark magic for himself. But he seemed pleased to have Dark Josie appear, and I don't get why. She did exactly what I thought she would do. She took over!

There was no way that Ted could have anticipated the plan that Hope had implemented. He thought he had the upper hand. He didn't know how powerful Dark Josie would actually turn out to be. So for him to strike a deal with Alaric and eventually get the dark energy that Josie had was just far too convenient! And plus, I don't even understand what that dark energy was. From what I remember, Josie had touched black magic when she was saving Lizzie. And that black magic was making her feel sick so Vardemus/Clarke had her transfer all that black magic into that hourglass thingy. It had NOTHING to do with Josie's dark side of her personality. But now, all of a sudden, she's become like Stefan and Ripper, two sides of her personality vying for control, and it made no sense.

Dark Josie should have had a longer run, like going into S3. This was cut far too short. And the way they cut it short was just asinine. I'm trying to be sensitive to the situation since it was corona virus that affected their writing of the season, but I do wonder if their original plan was all that much better. I said before that it couldn't be Hope who brought out Good Josie because she didn't have that connection. Not that they had to copy the Dark Willow story arc beat for beat, but when they had Xander be the one to save Willow, it made sense and gave off a very emotional and powerful scene. They could have had something with Josie too. Having Hope tell Josie that she merely needed to "change the story" and in the end, that's all that was needed.....all Josie needed was a real good pep talk in order to conquer her dark side?

WEAK!

Dark Josie should have run to the end of the season and into next season. She should have magically beat the shit out of Ted and taken over his whole operation. She should have absorbed Malivore or did something with it that would have made her even that much more powerful. She should have laid waste to Mystic Falls and threatened to lay waste to the rest of the world. Then, and only then, would all of them (Hope, Lizzie, Landon, MG, Kaleb, Raf, Alaric...hell, the entire school) come together to stop her. Have Caroline finally show up and reach Good Josie in a way that nobody else could. Instead, they do this, and it was anti-climactic as all hell!

And then you have the Lizzie storyline. Again...WEAK! If only because we've travelled down this road before. How many times does she need to go through this? How many times does she have to be told or shown that she's a horrible person only for it to be told or shown that she's NOT a horrible person? The idea that she "died" and everybody at the school couldn't have cared less about it was not merely unbelievable, it was stupid! Throughout the two seasons, we've been shown glimpses of Lizzie being this self-centered, selfish person, but we were never shown her being THAT bad! Alyssa had been shown to be far more horrible to her classmates and people in general, and she still had Kaleb and Jed falling all over for her! Writing it that Lizzie was so horrible to the point where her classmates would struggle to not only shed a tear over her death, but to find any tragedy whatsoever in her dying? I mean, that's fucking cold! It says more about them than it does about Lizzie. But I get the sense this was all built up for MG to, yet again, show what a good guy he is and come to the rescue and show how much Lizzie overlooks and under appreciates him.

We get it! He's a good guy and he genuinely cares about Lizzie and deserves to be treated better! WE GET IT! STOP BEATING US OVER THE HEAD WITH IT ALREADY!!! For fuck's sakes, how many episodes are we going to get with this? And if we get to the point now where Lizzie starts to develop romantic feelings for MG, I'm fucking done! I'm done, man! That would be the worst bit of writing that this show could do. Have them be friends. Have MG stay in the Friend Zone. Have him fall in love with some other girl or have Lizzie be like his wing girl in getting him some dates. Have them be like Xander and Buffy. But be done with this! The one thing that made me laugh and I don't know if anyone caught this, but they revealed Lizzie's middle name. Her middle name is....Jenna! What?

As in, Aunt Jenna? As in, Alaric's first love on the show who was killed in that ritual by Klaus? As in, someone who has no relation whatsoever to Jo or Caroline and therefore has no relation to either Lizzie or Josie either? THAT Aunt Jenna? I mean, who else is there? Elizabeth JENNA Saltzman! I fucking howled with laughter at that. Is Josie's middle name Isobel then, in honour of Alaric's first wife? Is it Meredith? Why would you give your daughters, as a middle name, the name of your ex-girlfriend? Why not give them Bonnie or Elena? No, you had to go and give the name Jenna. That made no sense.

While the Raf storyline was, ironically enough, the only one that I was genuinely interested in, I hated the end result of it. I liked that there was some genuine emotion and fear involved when Landon was not waking up. He didn't do his phoenix thing and burn away and then wake up in a pile of ash like he usually did. And after Raf showed Alaric how he killed him with the golden arrow, the look on Alaric's face said it all. If anything, I felt bad for Alaric. Not only is he dealing with trying to get Josie back and putting up this front that Lizzie died and worrying about Hope, but now he's presented with this new problem that Raf has given him. And Raf too was really conflicted, having killed his best friend and having no control over his actions. Not only that but Raf himself was also dead, as was Chad and Alyssa. Well, wouldn't you know....all that tension and drama would go away and it would all amount to a hill o' beans by the end of the episode.

I hated this. Again....WEAK! The idea that Chad and Alyssa and Raf not only were released from Ted's control, but that they're alive and well, as if they didn't die at all, was really stupid and really cheap! THEY'RE DEAD! They died! There should be some kind of quirk to them now...some kind of consequence. None of them should be given a free pass into life again. Perhaps their lives are tied to Ted or there is indeed some kind of consequence. If so, then I'll hold back my criticism. But if not...if they're alive and well with no consequences just because Ted made some bizarre deal with Alaric, then that fucking sucks too! I suppose I shouldn't be surprised though. Death was rendered useless and impotent in the TVD universe a LOOOOOOONG time ago so why should I be surprised by this now?

Finally, we get to Hope. The saviour. The hero. The star of the show. The one that everyone SAYS is special but we don't really get to see it. And while sticks and stones may break her bones, its names that apparently hurt her! I will say, DRR felt a lot more 'alive' in this episode, if that makes any sense, so my criticism won't necessarily extend to her. But whoever wrote her lines needs to take this time in self-isolation and get some fucking perspective! I mean...what was up with Hope and her waking up to wokeness?!?

The pig spouting out old-timey terms like "toots" and "broad" seemed to really get on Hope's nerves, and I couldn't understand why. Okay, obviously they are outdated and sexist terms. I'm not disputing that. But considering that the character was clearly a play off of a typical 1940's character (an era that they just mimicked in that Chambre de Chasse episode), I don't see why that was considered so offensive to Hope. But it seemed like that wasn't all that offended Hope in this episode.

When Hope finds Josie's body and the pig facetiously suggests that she give Josie a kiss to wake her up, a la Sleeping Beauty style, Hope responds with: "I know this is a fairy tale but a non-consensual kiss is never the answer."

What was that? Like, really? Who wrote that line? Is it the same person who complained about the song Baby It's Cold Outside back in the winter time? I mean, the irony of it all was that Hope would later make a reference to bacon, which offended the pig (and PETA people as well, I'm sure). But when it was later revealed that the pig was actually Josie herself, Hope chastised her because she said "patronizing and sexist things" to Hope!

QUICK! SOMEONE CALL AN AMBULANCE FOR HOPE! HER FEELINGS WERE HURT!

The fuck is this writing?

The pig called her "toots." First off...HE'S A PIG! Secondly, he didn't call her bitch, or slut, or whore, or any other really offensive terms. Toots, by comparison, is quite tame! But you'd have thought that he said that women shouldn't have the right to vote or that women should stay in the kitchen all barefoot and pregnant with the way Hope reacted to everything he was saying!

Then, to top it all off, Josie goes on about how she remembers Caroline reading her these fairy tales as bedtime stories and that's essentially how she learned about the concepts of good and evil and the so-called "rules" that such tales followed. Hope decided to shit all over that, seemingly having a real problem with these fairy tale stories of yesteryear as a means to teach little kids about the concepts of good and evil. I'm surprised she didn't mention something about the patriarchy the way she was going on her SJW way. Of course, Hope saves Josie by telling her to "change the story," and it works! Josie realizes that as a good person, she doesn't have to be weak and that hate and evil doesn't always equal strength. A good lesson, but the way they taught it felt very lacklustre. It didn't have the impact that it should have.

I don't know if that was intentional irony, but they managed to accomplish it. Hope's advice was about as fairy tale as those fairy tales she was shitting on. This storyline had such potential. Some real fucking potential. Having someone confront their dark side is nothing new. It's been done. But they had a chance to do a good job with this, to have Josie go all the way and become the big bad of the season running into next season and have Hope tap into all her latent tri-brid powers and bring the others together as a team in order to save Josie or to stop her.

But no. Instead, we're left with Josie conquering her dark side thanks to some fortune cookie advice from Hope and finally removing her siphoning powers and putting them into a coin. She mimicked what her mother, Jo, did but that never made sense to me when Jo did it either. Siphoning magic is not magic in and of itself, or at least it shouldn't be. It's what allows a Siphoner to DO magic by siphoning magical ability from a person or an object. So how can you magically remove that? It's like using your hands to cut your hands off. It doesn't make any sense!

So with everything going on with corona virus, this episode will apparently serve as the season finale. I'm not going to shit on that. I applaud the crew and everyone involved for getting it out there during these difficult times. Perhaps that's why they cut Dark Josie's run so short. Still, I think Dark Josie should have gone on into the next season, leaving it as a cliffhanger as to what trouble she was going to do in S3. And perhaps they had a longer run written for her this season. Who knows, other than the writers? If so, it's a shame that plans had to be altered. At least Hope got to end the season off as the main focus rather than as a bit player in the background. We'll see if things change with the next season.

I hope so. See what I did there? HA!