Discussing Ep. 4.4 - Another solid episode that has it's flaws and seems to continue a pattern set by Plague all the way back on TVD.
What I also liked, that I pointed out in my last review, was how they were going to create a problem for Hope when it came to her choosing to cross over to peace or return to the living world as a tribrid. They were clever in how they made it that Klaus stated that he could never find peace until Hope found peace and thus made a real problem for her, a real temptation that if she chose peace, that her father would find it as well. But if she didn't, then Klaus would potentially stay in whatever hell he resides in. So I like that there was that choice for Hope. But beyond that choice, I wasn't sure what the point was of having this scene with Charon and NecroTed. As a set up for what may occur between NecroTed and Malivore is perhaps the only reason why this was done. Although I do find it rather ironic that the title mentions the Other Side and there is no Other Side anymore. So do supernatural people now have to pay Charon to go onto peace? Do they stay in limbo if they don't? What happens now? What was Charon doing before the Other Side collapsed?
I also liked how Hope immediately turned her humanity off the moment she killed Landon, almost as though it were an automatic thing. Though it was a rather convenient plot device to turn Hope evil, I'm not upset about it considering that her being the world's first tribrid grants the writers the freedom to set the rules for tribrid abilities however way they want. Klaus had the same luxury, creating an automatic sire bond (that was considered rare among vampires) with any new sires he created because he was a hybrid. So Hope turning her humanity off without any fanfare or real effort on her part makes sense as no one knows what a tribrid can and cannot do.
And this brings up my issue with this entire episode. This episode feels like it should have been the season finale! After 3 seasons, Hope finally turns into a tribrid. She and Malivore finally have their face off. Hope unexpectedly turns her humanity off. She kills Landon, the guy she's been obsessed with for the past two seasons. Cleo is finally saved from Malivore. Finch and Josie finally do it. Lizzie and MG finally reveal their feelings for each other. Ethan is finally made into a supernatural creature and will become a super hero. Cleo and Kaleb are finally together. This episode had all the hallmarks of a season finale and it's only the fourth episode of the new season!
This seems to be a Plec trademark at this point. I remember in S5 of TVD, when they had ended the previous season with the emergence of Silas and locking Stefan in a safe and dumping him in the quarry. I thought they would spend the entire next season with Silas as the big bad and him and Stefan finally duking it out in the end. Nope! Silas and Qetsiyah were killed halfway through the first half of the next season! After that, it was a mish mash of threats and undefined big bads that resulted in no satisfying conclusion. I question whether the same thing is happening here. Having Hope finally turn into the tribrid, having finally conquered Malivore, having killed the love of her life in Landon and turning her humanity off, ending with a showdown with Alaric....this would have been a worthy and cliffhanging finale! But it's not!
So it does beg the question as to what they are going to do now. They shot their best shot and it was a good one....but now what? I'll maintain a certain degree of hope (no pun intended) because they've surprised me in the past with how they were able to recover from a seeming blunder and they made it work, so perhaps they can make this work as well. I refuse to believe that Malivore is gone. It was too easy to the point of being anticlimactic. So is Hope going to be the big bad now? I can get behind that seeing as how she is the tribrid and she is now the most powerful being on Earth. And the rest of the Super Squad teaming up to defeat her is a worthwhile storyline. I just hope they haven't shot themselves in the foot by introducing this storyline 4 episodes into the new season and not having enough episodes left to let this storyline breathe.
Dark Josie! This was a treat. I swear, I love this look better than anything Josie can pull off! Maybe it's because I'm a Tim Burton fan, but this look was sexy. Beyond that though, this whole thing was kind of dumb. Typical romance-novel type of stuff. So Finch is able to breach the dark side of Josie in all of 5 minutes and now everything is just hunky dory! It was rather cheesy and I can't help but feel like Josie 'needing' Finch to watch her while she performed the spell was just all conjured up for this moment of bringing them together in this fashion. Either way, it is what it is.
And the ending with Kaleb and Ethan brings up a question: if Kaleb kept his dragon powers and Ethan kept his invisibility powers....then why didn't all the people who Malivore converted keep their powers too? In some ways though, I am intrigued now. So you have witches, werewolves, vampires, a fairy, a vampire-dragon, the Invisible Man and a vampire hunter, all working towards hunting a tribrid. This could work as a storyline but it also sounds like it's going to get really muddled really fast if they're not careful.
Like I said, I refuse to believe that Malivore is defeated. He's been the big bad since the inception of this show, and in one rather underwhelming showdown with Hope, he's gone? Aria was doing too much of a good job to just abandon him like this now. But like I said, I wouldn't be surprised if they did indeed put him on the shelf because it's what they've done in the past. They have this habit of taking out the big bad early on in the season and then switching the villain role throughout the season to the point that it's hard to keep track of who is doing what and getting invested in the finale because it wasn't built up throughout the season properly.
That's why I don't believe that Malivore is dead and gone at this point. He seems to be someone who has contingency plans in place for whatever surprises come along. His being there with NecroTed seems to suggest that he's not done just yet. And so if Hope being the big bad for the duration of the middle of the season is where they're going, I'm fine with that, as long as they have Malivore making a comeback in the background that makes for a more satisfying showdown between him and Hope in the end.
Overall though, it was a really good episode. I liked that they finally acknowledged how Esther turned Alaric into a vampire because that has rarely, if ever, been mentioned at all on this show. With Ethan and Cleo joining the Super Squad and them all going up against Hope, it should make for some dynamic showdowns. And of course, Rebekah makes her Legacies debut and I'm excited for that. At this point, you'd think she and Marcel and Freya and Kol would all show up considering Hope is a bigger threat as a tribrid than Klaus ever was. I do wonder if Hope will be able to convert others into hybrids/tribrids like Klaus was able to. I recall on TO that her blood could convert werewolves into hybrids and that they were automatically sired to Hayley since Hope was still in the womb. So perhaps Hope is able to at least convert other werewolves into hybrids. It'd be neat if she could actually convert anyone (witch, vampire, werewolf) into a hybrid because she's that damn powerful!
I guess we'll see.
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