When it debuted in 2018, The CW’s Legacies came with a lot of promise. The series, a spinoff of The Originals and part of the network’s larger The Vampire Diaries Universe arrived just following the conclusion of the much-loved The Originals and not only followed the daughter of beloved character Klaus Mikaelson, Hope, but also took audiences back to Mystic Falls where Hope was sent to attend the Salvatore School for the Young and Gifted. In a sense, Legacies was poised to take things back to world The Vampire Diaries set up, bringing in new characters with connections to franchise favorites. After all, who wouldn’t want to find out “what’s next” for not just Klaus’ daughter, but for Caroline’s kids, and more?
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Unfortunately, while Legacies certainly had its charms, it never quite reached the same levels as The Originals or The Vampire Diaries did and in 2022 after just four seasons, the series — and seemingly the franchise — ended. Now that a little bit of time has passed, it’s easy to look back and try to figure out why Legacies didn’t quite live up to its predecessors. Sure, there were some obvious things: the show had a very different tone than the others in The Vampire Diaries Universe, uneven plotting, and a confusing and frequently overly complex supernatural structure, but there’s one bigger issue that led to Legacies never quite gelling: it’s main character, Hope.
Hope Mikaelson, played by Danielle Rose Russell, may just be the real issue with Legacies because she is, fundamentally, a poorly developed character. As a concept, Hope is interesting. The daughter of one of The Vampire Diaries’ most beloved characters who herself has immense potential as the only Tribrid (werewolf-witch-vampire), Hope was understandably the centra character for Legacies. The problem is that she was unlikeable from the start and her character never really developed. From the start, the series leaned into the idea of Hope being difficult. She was frequently defensive, very much a know-it-all, and just didn’t play well with others. While that, to an extent, makes sense given her father Klaus had a similar arrogance, for Klaus that was balanced by charisma and charm. Hope had none of that. Instead, Legacies wrapped Hope in seemingly endless trauma which only exacerbated her worst tendencies.
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Everything in the early seasons of Legacies seemed designed to just cause more trauma for Hope. She gets a love interest in Landon, but then he dies, comes back as a phoenix, and then she must kill him to stop Malivore… Landon dies a few times more even with the cycle of his death just compounding Hope’s emotional damage each time. For a while, Legacies seemed to just be the Hope and Landon show with all the stories designed to torment the characters. While this could have worked to an extent if the series saw Hope learn something or grow from her continued traumatic events, but that didn’t happen. Instead of using the various challenges as a way for Hope to learn to lean on others, the series doubled down not only Hope’s “special” status as the Tribrid but also continued to have her just refuse assistance, no matter the cost. This not only prevented any real character growth for Hope but effectively kept any of the additional storylines about the supporting characters from feeling authentic.
That especially became true by the time the series reached Season 4. By then, the series had started to right the course and work on letting Hope grow emotionally as well as in terms of her relationships with her supposed friends. Unfortunately, by the time we get to the point where Hope was becoming something other than an entitled brat and the series’ stories were starting to flesh out to be genuinely engaging for characters other than Hope Mikaelson, Legacies was coming to an end. The series was cancelled, leading to an ending that felt a little rushed and like Hope gained years’ worth of emotional intelligence overnight.
Ultimately, Legacies never really lived up to its potential. The series came with a lot of expectation after the success of his predecessors and was hampered from the jump by how it overly expanded the franchise’s supernatural world and tried to do a “monster of the week” format that never really came together. But even with tone, pacing, and story issues, Legacies could have pulled it off had it done more with its main character. In the end, Hope Mikaelson was a stagnant figure that didn’t evoke the same sort of fan loyalty as her father before her and her stagnation actively interfered with the development of better characters and stories. Hope may have been the central figure, but she had a lot of growing up to do before she could really be the main character — and Legacies suffered for it.
What do you think? Was a flawed Hope Mikaelson really the main issue with Legacies? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section.
