Legacies 1x03 "We're Being Punked, Pedro" Episode Review

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

Legacies have exceeded my expectations. This show is not messing around. Last week, we got dragons flying around Mystic Falls and now Gargoyles are terrorizing the Salvatore School grounds. They’re all after that mysterious knife, but nobody knows why. Nobody even knows why these monsters exist or why they’re choosing now to come out of the shadows.

After the brief flashback to 14th century France that introduces the Gargoyle, we are pulled back to the present day. Alaric is studying the knife and drowns it in acid to see if it’d get destroyed, but nothing works. In the meantime, he assigns Hope, Lizzie, Josie, MG, and Kaleb to community service as punishment for what they pulled in the game. Hope is being secretly punished for using black magic.

This secrecy puts a huge strain on Alaric and his daughters, particularly Lizzie. This intense father-daughter tension works incredibly well and gives us a refreshing sense of drama for Hope and the Saltzman Twins. It’s no surprise that Lizzie and Hope are clashing, but how the show is approaching this is what strikes me.

Here we thought Lizzie was going to be the mean popular girl who hates on Hope, which is partially true minus the “mean popular girl” part. I didn’t expect to like Lizzie as a character, at least not too much, having been drawn to Josie for being more sympathetic, but Lizzie is only proving to be a girl who loves her parents way too much.

She is jealous of the “daughter” attention Alaric gives to Hope and she really misses her mom Caroline. Josie discloses this to Hope and then expresses her regrets over them not growing close as kids and how they didn’t even send flowers or anything when Hayley died. The friendship between Josie and Hope is the best part of the episode.

The two of them have chemistry and have the potential to even get romantically paired up, which makes it heartbreaking that Josie and Hope have to pretend their day together didn’t happen by episode’s end. After the two of them teamed up to defeat the Gargoyle, Josie is furious that Alaric threw himself in front of the Gargoyle to protect Hope.

The bonding between them took three steps back, but we’ll always have that precious moment of Hope poking herself in the foot. The two of them laughing together fills my heart with much love.

Hope even tells Alaric that his daughters will have a hard time understanding that. Alaric explains that Gargoyles doesn’t hurt humans, but still, what he did won’t help his case.

MG is in love with Lizzie Saltzman. He makes out with Dana, the mean girl who hates Lizzie from the flag football game, but he feels guilty about using her, tells himself he wasn’t raised like this by his mom, and compels her to forget they made-out and to go home. He’s honestly the sweetest vampire ever.

Kaleb, the other vampire teeanger, is literally the opposite. He finds Dana and ends up feeding on her in the back of a bus. This makes MG uncomfortable, but Kaleb convinces him to keep this a secret from everyone. “Vamps over Tramps”… yeah I’m not liking how MG keeps getting trapped in these situations… such a nice vampire guy who can’t catch a break.

Somewhere away from all this, Landon and Rafael are trying to survive on their own. They use Rafael’s werewolf powers to con people out of their money, which draws them the attention of a werewolf hunter. Landon learns this from a note but does not tell Rafael. This dude has got to stop lying to people… he will drive everyone away if he keeps this up.

Luckily, Jeremy Gilbert (THAT’S MY BOY) swoops in and kills the werewolf hunters. His return to the TVDU is a good reminder on how vast their world goes. He tells the boys that he was sent by Alaric to keep an eye on them and to bring them back to the Salvatore School. Rafael only agrees to return if Landon is allowed to come with him.

The friendship between Landon and Rafael is remarkable. Rafael learns Landon lied to him about the warning but chooses to protect him anyway. The power of love between men.

After the boys come back to school, Hope and Landon have a super charged reunion in the hallway. They didn’t speak to each other, but the tension was clear cut until Hope broke free. She is not ready to deal with him yet.

Alaric reveals to the entire school of the threats coming for them: dragons and gargoyles. They react in fear, I mean, I would too if I found out vampires, witches, and werewolves weren’t the only supernatural creatures roaming the Earth. He might also have something going on with the therapist, Emma. After everything with his past love interests (Isabel, Jenna, Meredith, Jo, and Caroline (ugh!)), Alaric deserves some happiness.

The cliffhanger is killer… like who killed Dana and her friend? This show is addicting and has a lot of charm filled with emotional drama. All the relationships are worth rooting for too! If you have been conflicted on starting this series or not, I recommend you give it a shot!

Side note: Pedro is super cute in that bow tie. He’s a minor character and about 7-8 years old is my best guess.