I’m happy, broken, a little bit in love and emotionally unstable on a Thursday night which could only mean that Legacies is back!

This season two premiere wasted no time in trying to make me cry, but that doesn’t matter because Hope Mikaelson and the Saltzman twins are back and everything is wonderful again.   

The light of my life holding a ball of light.

The episode starts off at the beginning of summer with the students of the Salvatore Boarding School going off on their summer vacations – Lizzie is headed to Europe to see Caroline and MG to spend his summer with Kaleb’s family. 

Raf is still sadly stuck in his wolf form leaving Josie and Landon (you already know where this is going) the only ones in Mystic Falls with Alaric, who has traded his headmaster role for a funemployment beard and is going through a midlife (how old is he, again?) crisis now that he’s out of a job and in need of direction because Hope isn’t around to tell him what to do. 

Landon spends the entire first act cooking for his best friend that now doubles as his pet and drops as many Hope puns as the lexicon of the English allows him to. Oh, he also spends his nights drowning himself in the lake because that’s the most exciting nightlife entertainment Mystic Falls offers, I guess.

Josie, rather unsuccessfully, looks for answers to her merge problem. Lizzie, still in Europe, is going to therapy (hashtag self-love summer) and making out with hot, angry men she knows nothing about. Love that for her. The twins use witch-y facetime to keep in touch, judge each other’s life decisions and bitch about their dad, which is all very on brand for them. 

Missed my bratty twins who look adorable laughing at their dad.

All of them go on with their lives, business as usual, but sense the absence of something (or someone) even if they don’t know what it is, Landon even more so than the others.

Hope, who is now stuck in Malivore, is surprised to see Clarke there too and automatically assumes she’s in hell. They spend most of their time roasting the other about their daddy issues and escaping a light vortex that is specifically out to get Hope. Just your typical in-law antics.

We learn that Landon was only drowning himself because he sees visions of Hope and hears her laugh each time he… goes under. (BE STILL MY HANDON HEART.) But Landon isn’t special because I, too, would die every night just to see Hope Mikaelson.

Josie finds out about his rather adventurous nighttime activity and she does not like it at all, afraid that he might max out his Phoenix rebirth quota. After a tense argument, they both decide to focus more on actually living their lives than obsessing over their deaths and become “friends.” 

Josie saw those cheekbones and was like “whoa, hold up.”

Hope soon gets out of Malivore after she understands that the strange vortex opens every time she uses magic, concluding that she hasn’t defeated the memory erasing mud pit (lol, you should see me try to explain the Legacies plot to my coworkers) because she hasn’t activated her vampire side and isn’t a full tribrid yet. Which was kinda obvious, but even Hope is bound to make dumb mistakes.

She gets out of the hell pit, leaving Clarke behind but that’s okay because he kinda deserves it for stopping her from leaving all this time and turns up at the school in search of Landon, but instead runs into Dorian, who no longer recognizes her. Another day in Hope’s life and another punch to the heart: nobody remembers her even after she’s no longer in Malivore.

Josie confronts Alaric about the ascendant, who reveals that it to her crazy Uncle Kai, who’s their last living relative and is their absolute last resort to find answers about the merge.

Raf – still in wolf form – goes missing, leaving a worried Landon behind and of course this is when hot girl summer Josie, who finally goes after the things she wants, lets him know that Raf probably moved on because he knew that she was now there to make Landon happy – yeah, I know. I know. I’m not going to touch that either – and they, tragically, kiss.

I hate everything about this but unfortunately it’s also aesthetically pleasing.

And because the ethos of this show is to cause Hope Mikaelson as much pain as possible, this is also the moment that she spots them. Kissing. (Ew.) Understandably wrecked, she heads to the bus stop to get the hell out of Mystic Falls, now that nobody remembers or loves her. (False, I love her.) 

Goddamnit, they’re making her cry again. GUARDS.

In my personal favorite scene from this episode, she has a conversation with Landon’s adorable prismatic hologramic manifestation of Hope’s subconscious. (I have given up on trying to explain this show to people.) He convinces her to not leave town, points out that they love each other, even if he doesn’t remember her right now and that the actual Landon would be devastated to find out that Hope was right there all along. 

But Hope convinces herself that everyone is happy without her in their lives and they’re better off without her. (You’re not a Mikaelson if you don’t think your existence to burden to everyone in your life, at least once a day.) It’s so annoyingly noble and makes your heart hurt. 

It’s so Hope.

Aria and Danielle have the best chemistry out of any combination of actors on the show (still on the show, y’all know what I’m getting at) and they’re so good at acting like giddy, charmingly dumb teens in love and that’s the content I’m here for her. I mean, look how happy they are to see each other!

Malivore sends Clarke back out because he promises to not fail his father and actually kill Hope this time and oh, I’ve missed having a good old fashioned ‘lets all kill Hope Mikaelson’ plot that took five seasons on The Originals and there’s also a random, nefarious person in a red hood doing shady stuff in the ending scene but I’ve watched all of Pretty Little Liars so this doesn’t bother me one bit.

It’s a fun episode overall, even if Landon exhausts all the ways to use the word ‘hope’ in regular conversation without sounding like a Kryptonian. Slow for a typical season premiere, but it sets up all the season arcs nicely. A little light on Lizzie’s screen time for my taste, but enjoyable nonetheless. 

Absolutely stoked to see where this season goes especially with Hope’s reintegration into everyone’s lives and how she interacts with them when they don’t know who she is. That itself promises to be a lot of fun and boom, with that I’ve just made it through my first legacies recap! 

Can’t wait to see what monster killing shenanigans these crazy kids get up to next and my only request is that Hope Mikaelson (and Penelope Park, preferably) save me from whatever hell jaunt Josie and Landon’s budding relationship wants me to be a part of. And soon. 

What did you think of the Legacies season premiere? Share your thoughts below in the comments!