Legacies - To Whom It May Concern

 

Discussing Ep. 3.6 - So for an episode that was boring as fuck, I have a surprisingly number of things to say about it.

I could not have expected Hope to be doing anything else other than mourning the loss of Landon in this episode. It was to be expected so I can't really gripe on that. What did surprise me was that she wasn't looking for him. The entire episode wasn't her just exhausting all possibilities of her trying to find him. That was somewhat refreshing if not surprising. But what I took away from this storyline with Hope was something that I experienced in my own life.

It's rather funny if not ironic what this franchise has done to the element of death. It made death irrelevant. Thus the idea of mourning the loss of a character comes off as bizarre if not ridiculous. Why mourn a character that will eventually come back to life at some point down the road? Why mourn a character who is not really dead? So when we see Hope mourning the loss of Landon, it comes off as stupid because he's obviously not dead but yet she still mourns. We, like the other characters, expect her to just 'get over it' because death has become so meaningless in that world. Funny enough though, I was on Hope's side on this one. I felt bad for her because everyone just expected her to put a smile on her face and go on like everything was normal so as to recruit new students to the school. And it was possibly the most insensitive thing the other characters could have done.

I kept thinking about my own experiences when a family member had died. I remember people telling me to "be strong" and "they wouldn't want to see you sad or to see you cry" or "they're in a better place" and all these trite sayings that meant nothing in that moment of grief. You know they're trying to help but it just doesn't. More than anything, those words become annoying if not downright irritating. So I understood Hope's outburst and why she was shutting down. While I still think her and Landon breaking up is the best move for either character at this point, I am somewhat glad that she didn't just move on too quickly. 

I was also happy with Landon's development. It was surprising how they actually addressed the fact that Hope was always the one to save him and he had to finally step up and be the one to save himself. Again...refreshing and necessary. What I didn't like was NecroTed's role in it all. I suppose it was funny seeing NT in his original job as an ice cream store employee. And while it made sense that Malivore would punish him by making him do the things he hated the most, I though it was monumentally stupid how the one thing he had to do to break out of his shackles was to sing a song! Not sing a good song in its entirety. Not sing a song really, really well. 

No....he just had to put out a weak ass performance and he'd be free. What the fuck?

See, I remember on Justice League Unlimited when Batman had to do something similar to free Wonder Woman from a curse. The way the played that up was beautiful!

Ya see....there it was funny! You thought Circe was talking about Batman's identity when it fact, she was talking about his ability to sing really well. I was kind of expecting the same thing here. But that's not what we got at all. NT forcing himself to sing a tune was barely Earth shattering for him. And having Landon finally stand up for himself and beat the shit out of NT as a way to break free of his shackles was kind of stupid as well, given the fact that Landon has been in fights before so I don't get why him beating up NT was such a big deal. I suppose they were trying to show how Landon was more passive in his own struggle for survival in the past and was always waiting for Hope to save him but they really hyperbolized that. Regardless, if this means Landon and Hope find their identities apart from each other, all the better.

Finally, I was happy to see MG's development. I did like how they played it up a bit for laughs, which was subtle but it worked. Maybe it's because I know people like MG. Maybe it's because I was like MG at one point so I get the idea of learning to say 'no' to people and learning to speak up for yourself....maybe that's why I actually enjoyed this character growth. How far they will go, whether MG will go overboard is tough to say because they can have him go to such lengths that he becomes a selfish prick about helping others. But for the time being, I liked it.

So now we get to my gripes. First off, what the fuck was this all about? Dorian's the new principal? Emma and Dorian specifically left Alaric high and dry to deal with all the supernatural disasters all by himself because they didn't want to endanger their own lives or endanger their future family or some bullshit like that. So what do they do? Dorian finds work....IN MYSTIC FALLS!!!! The fuck is wrong with these writers?!? Oh, just as long as it wasn't at a supernatural school, then it's okay with Emma that Dorian works there?!? That's like telling someone they can't work at a hospital for fear of getting Covid but it's okay to work at the restaurant next to the hospital where all the health care workers frequent because it's not at the hospital! That's fucking asinine! And I'm more than bitter that both Alaric and Josie embraced this tool with open arms as though he and his idiot girlfriend didn't break Alaric's heart and left him to die when he needed them the most!

Then we have this horndog of a girl who fucking needs a cold shower! Like, seriously...decorating Josie's locker as a welcome gift? SHE'S KNOWN JOSIE FOR ALL OF ONE FUCKING AFTERNOON!!! Who the fuck does that?!? Like I said before, if this were a guy....so much shit would be hitting the fan it would stop working from the sheer weight of all that shit! This is stalker-type behaviour and it's a red flag but Josie's apparently fine with it because she's Josie. Fuck...whatever! I'll give credit where credit is due to Finch for admitting that she came on too strong with the whole decorated locker nonsense. Still, why even go that far? I just thought this was really dumb.

I also don't understand what it is with this trend of high school students not having any parents. Ethan, Finch, all those prospective students....it seemed like none of them had any parents around. Even with Ethan I was wondering how he is surviving, given that he's only 17 years old. Is he renting a place in Mystic Falls? How is he paying for that? Is he working? Does his mom send him money? Who lets a 17 year old do this without a legal guardian? With the exception of Alaric, there are literally no parents around...anywhere! It's fucking BizarroLand is what it is.

Now we get to my biggest gripe of this episode. I mentioned to Jenzy how there doesn't appear to be any vampires on this show because we don't see any kind of vampire activity at all. No vamp speeding, no blood feeding, no super strength, no fangs, no vampire eyes....nothing! Oh, sure...we're TOLD there are vampires but we're not SHOWN this. So here we have Günter, a vampire kid whose family was apparently hunted and/or killed by none other than Alaric Saltzman back in his vampire hunting days. So we have a chance to see a vampire go full on vampire. We have a chance to see the fangs, the eyes, the vampire speed....all of it! And we see......NOTHING!!!! Absolutely fucking NOTHING!!!! No fangs! No vampire eyes! He lunges at Alaric with a speed so slow I thought we'd have to wait until the next episode to see if he actually made it to Alaric, that's how fucking slow he was! You never would have guessed that he was a vampire and you would not have believed it if someone told you he was a vampire because you'd be asking for proof of such a claim!

I mean, do you remember when vampires in this franchise used to do this? When they got really pissed off or were really hungry or were ready to fight, they put on that whole vampire face? Or when they wanted to attack someone, they went in with full vampire speed and used vampire strength? That's what made them threatening. That's what made them scary. That's what made them vampires! What a concept! Maybe Jenzy is right and they just don't have the budget for that type of high-end special effects anymore. But even aside from the special effects, none of the vampires on the show are real vampires. They're not real werewolves either. They're all so docile and human it's disgusting. Is it any wonder now that people view Legacies on a completely different level than TVD or TO?

And while I'm skeptical of them adding new cast members, I am intrigued by Cleo.

I don't know what it is. Maybe it's the accent that adds a different aura to her. I liked how she approached Hope and essentially helped her come to terms with her grief. But I was disappointed in that I was seriously expecting Cleo to be from NOLA. I don't know why. Again, maybe it's the accent and the look because she sounded like someone who would be from the French Quarter. I think it would have been cool to have someone from New Orleans be on the show as a sort of anchor to Hope's past. Mainly because it irks me that Hope believes that Salvatore School is her only home. Uhm....HELLO?!? You still have family in New Orleans! That is where your father made his name. That is where your mother became the alpha of her pack, the Crescent Wolves. That is where your aunt and cousin now live. The fuck is this that Salvatore School is the only place in the world that Hope can live?!? 

Overall, like I said, it was a boring episode. I did like the character developments but there was hardly any action to keep my interest. And by the looks of the next episode, we're back to the goofy fairy-tale-monster-of-the-week format again.

Oh...joy!