Legacies 1x04 "Hope is Not The Goal" Episode Review

Major Spoilers are included in this episode review. Please Read With Caution.

Legacies continues to surprise me with its freshness. The world of Mystic Falls is getting crowded with the supernatural threats coming for the knife, but MG is more frightened about Gorilla Grodd coming to eat him. I love MG so much, such a lovable virgin. His words, not mine. I thought it was an interesting way to open the episode with a villain from The Flash.

I wouldn’t even be mad if Legacies found a way to crossover with the Arrowverse.

Picking up from last week’s cliffhanger, Alaric and Sheriff Matt Donovan address the student body about the missing girls, Dana and Sasha, and how they need a couple of students to go over to Mystic Falls High to investigate.

Lizzie, Kaleb, MG, and Hope volunteer themselves for the task. Lizzie’s lines of “volunteer for tribute” and “hero time” are somewhat cringe-worthy but also play a nice part to how her character is structured. I’m honestly conflicted on how to feel about Lizzie and it’s only been four episodes.

In addition to this dream team, Alaric assigns Landon because he went to the school. Josie and Rafael are left behind to deal with their own drama at the Salvatore School. Alaric and Matt go TVD old school with their own investigation.

The dream team ends up separating because they don’t know how to listen. Lizzie and MG try to question some of the girls, but MG is too distracted by Lizzie to get his compulsion working properly. His crush on Lizzie too darn cute! Everyone on this show is shippable, not sure it’s appropriate to stick with one.

MG quickly spills that Kaleb might be the bad guy after learning Dana was killed by a vampire. To be frank, I thought he was the villain too. Even Hope and Landon came to that conclusion after seeing some girls wearing scarves to hide their bite marks. Turns out, we were wrong because a vampire didn’t kill her.

Dana comes back to life but is not in transition and ends up liquefying to death. Then everyone accuses Landon of being evil, and not even Hope defends him. Landon stalks off and runs into his former high school nemesis, Connor. Except he was possessed by the Spider-Monster, the one responsible for killing Dana and kidnapping Sasha.

Josie and Rafael find an unconscious Sasha in a web cocoon after his rough encounter with the Salvatore School’s Werewolf Pack. Rafael and Josie have insane chemistry but it keeps getting interrupted whenever the “hurricane of toxic masculinity” passes them. She helps calm him down, having done this for Lizzie multiple times.

The two of them get trapped in the web and are unable to break free. Josie needs to siphon some magic to fend off the Spider coming for them. This leads to an intense kiss between Rafael and Josie because she can’t touch him any other way. After getting free, the rest of the dream team arrives.

Hope, Josie, and Lizzie (Power of Three) join forces to destroy the Spider with an offensive spell. This scene was amazing and foreshadows the bond these girls will form with each other as the season progresses. It leads Lizzie and Josie to stand up for themselves to their father, who had been favoring Hope one too many times.

MG and Kaleb are on the rocks with each other. Their friendship starts to crumble. We also discover the school has the vampire students on an animal diet without telling them. This brings up a good moral dilemma, especially when Kaleb crosses the line and tries to attack Matt.

By episode’s end, Matt and Alaric are on edge too about how to deal with the students. This tension will come to blows soon enough. Matt Donovan is a natural enemy to the supernatural and barely tolerated the school before all of this happened.

Landon and Hope are working to trust each other, but Landon took a step back after being mistreated by the group like he was back in high school. I felt real sympathy for the boy and even Hope showed hints of regret for not supporting him.

According to the end of the episode, more supernatural monsters are coming… let’s hope Dorian makes it out with the knife alive. Then again, Hope is not the goal. What a play on words the show did there.