Legacies recap: Finding Hope in a Hope-less place

Lizzie encounters a wish-granting creature on the new episode of Legacies, but soon discovers that her dream come true may actually be a nightmare.

The twins have finally come home to roost after their European expedition with Caroline on Legacies. Lizzie wastes no time in expressing her dissatisfaction with their father and Hope, angered by the fact he wasn’t at the airport to pick them up because he was distracted by the missing malivore keys. However misguided, Lizzie blames Hope for this and the next “monster”, a jinn, is attracted to the scent of frustration and low self-esteem.

Because Lizzie believes Hope is the source of all her problems, she makes a wish that Hope had never come to their school! Cut to: Lizzie waking up in a Hope-less world to a bearded, aimless, depressed Alaric.

Without Hope’s attendance, there is no Mikaelson fortune. The Boarding School is a mere shadow of its former glory. Cobwebs adorn the windows, oatmeal is about as fancy as breakfast gets, and the alpha werewolf sports a pocket protector. To put it in Lizzie’s own words, “this place sucks.”

By using a locator spell she learned from Hope (maybe she’s not all bad hm, Lizzie?) the Saltzmans are able to track down potential recruits from an enchanted globe. The bigger the glow the more powerful the being and guess who happens to have the largest one? None other than Hope Mikaelson, who, without the guidance of the boarding school, has channeled her father’s spirit with aplomb and is busy raining blood in New Orleans.

History repeats. Alaric convinces Hope to come back to Mystic Falls. In no time at all the two are sparring like they used to and word of Hope’s tribrid nature travels fast, enticing more supernatural students to come and check out the school. Lizzie is miserable.

Wish #2: I wish there was never a Salvatore Boarding School to begin with!

Which means, we’re back at Mystic Falls High School. Have to admit, it was nice being back at the home of the Timberwolves amidst preparation for the Homecoming Dance. I almost expected Caroline Forbes herself to waltz out brandishing a dessert sign-up sheet.

Public school is another chance for Lizzie to shine, right? Not exactly. Turns out, amongst the normal human population, Josie is the homecoming queen and Lizzie the only girl in the whole school who can’t get a date to the dance. Their father in this new world is yet again, a teacher, but a jaded, boozy one with a beer belly to match his apathy.

Josie and Lizzie have an eventual falling out that leads to Lizzie having one of her trademark meltdowns and putting on a magic show for the entire student body to enjoy, triggering the arrival of a clean-up crew lead by none other than… Hope Mikaelson. She and a few other familiar faces (Kaleb, Jed, and Pedro) all rocking and rolling in glamorous Mikaelson Boarding School outfits like a team of international super-spies. Jo and Alaric are easily impressed by their quick thinking amidst the crisis but Lizzie is once again, left miserable at the result.

Apparently, all roads lead to Hope.

Wish #3: I wish Hope Mikaelson was never born.

In a post-Hope world, Klaus Mikaelson lost everything, turned off his humanity altogether and ignited a war between supernaturals and humans. Lizzie wakes up in the aftermath, a world where supernatural beings are hunted by Triad.

But I am a little confused about all of this being Klaus’s fault because Lizzie wished Hope was never born. If that was the case, why would it affect Klaus? Alaric said he “lost everything that tethered him to his humanity” meaning Hope, but spoken that way it sounds like Hope died, not that she never existed. Unless Haley lost her in the womb? I suppose it comes down to semantics.

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The biggest loss of all is Josie’s life. It turns out, Lizzie murdered Josie because she found out the dreadful truth of the Gemini coven (that twins born into the coven must eventually merge and only the strongest of the two survive it) and perceived her sister as a threat leading her to a paranoid breakdown.

She wants to undo her wish and lucky for her, the jinn is willing to do just that, for a price. She wants the urn in exchange for a reset.

But Lizzie outwits her. Instead she wishes for the jinn to never have met the monster who pushed her into the malivore, therefore giving the peace she sought, but also making it so she and the jinn never met. Meaning Lizzie won’t remember the devastating truth she learned about the Gemini coven, at least not entirely. Instead, she’ll be slowly driven mad by the vague lingering memories of her journey and possibly be doomed to repeat it.

Odds & Ends

• “What do you think it’s gonna be this time? Cyclops, Slender Man… Santa?”
• Is it bad that when Lizzie said, “You’re blue!” my head filled in with “da ba dee dab a dee…”
• A Damon and Elena reference! Apparently, in a world where Hope doesn’t go to the Salvatore Boarding School, they have tried to pitch in money to keep the place running but “they have kids of their own to take care of.”
• Lizzie lampshades the typical genie trope: “Wait I know how this goes. I waste my first wish by not being specific enough. I waste my second one trying to clean up my first, only to make things worse, and then my third gets wasted by wishing that I had never had any wishes in the first place.”
• Jo and Hope were getting awfully cozy on that couch, shippers of the pair (myself included) should be happy with those stolen moments.
• Stephanie Salvatore… Did Damon and Elena name a daughter after Stefan? I’m not crying there’s just a twig in my eye.
• The episode ends with all the pieces in place for an epic Lizzie meltdown but one thing the jinn didn’t count on was Hope Mikaelson. Even though Lizzie may be caught in a cycle, the alternate reality didn’t account for Hope’s presence, she could change everything and maybe save both of the twins.

A new episode of Legacies titled “We’re Gonna Need a Spotlight” airs Feb. 21 on The CW.