Maybe there’s hope for Legacies after all.
Rafael got his happy ending on Legacies Season 3 Episode 2, despite having to be banished to a prison world to live out the rest of his days due to his body slowly shutting down on him.
“Goodbyes Sure Do Suck” was a poignant, well-written, and fantastically acted installment that made me yearn for the more serious tone from The Vampire Diaries and The Originals.
During the episode, what worked well was the way the series honored what came before it, something that often gets lost in translation between the campy storylines.
We had prison worlds, Bennett witches, and so much more as we said goodbye to this character. While it’s nice that he got to reunite with his mother and father, I suspect he will be back at some point in the series’ run.
Rafael was deemed worthy on Legacies Season 3 Episode 1. Given his royal bloodline, something tells me his storyline has to be revisited at some point.
It would be lazy storytelling to think otherwise. Zeroing in on his lineage only to write him out when things got interesting was unfortunate.
With the show being called Legacies, maybe the writers realized they had to harken back to the title before bidding adieu to him.
I’m calling it now: Rafael will return, and he will come back with an army when the Salvatore School needs assistance.
He’ll find other lurkers on this prison world. Well, that’s my theory, and I’m sticking to it.
The only good thing to come from Rafael’s exit is that it helped advance some of the other storylines. Hope was determined to save him, and it was perfect how she had a lightbulb moment while speaking to him.
I’m not fond of the needless drama between Hope and Landon, but it was a nice callback to their arguments on Legacies Season 2.
Hope had suffered so much loss that learning her boyfriend was a phoenix allowed her to breathe a sigh of relief, but now that the Phoenix properties have seemingly left his body, he could slowly become a liability again.
The proof in the pudding here was Hope’s silence when Landon quizzed her about it. Landon has struggled to fit in anywhere, and losing his abilities made him a regular human again. That, coupled with the loss of his brother, will send him in a new direction.
My best guess is that he’ll leave the school and head to Mystic Falls High, where he will come in contact with Ethan, because how else will Ethan come back?
I watched the episode twice, and the first time I hated Landon’s outburst at Hope, but after a rewatch, I could hear the pain in his voice when he realized he was back to square one.
Whether this will lead to another break between Landon and Hope, I don’t know, but it would be unfortunate given everything they’ve been through.
Hearing Hope speaking about always and forever and how that may be heaven was another gut punch. She knows her mother was seemingly happy in the afterlife, but she doesn’t know what became of her father and uncle after they both sacrificed their lives for her.
Alaric finally made some good moves, and it brought Sheriff Mac back into the narrative, so that was nice, but the connection between them appears to have fizzled out.
Mac is curious about how things play out everything she works with Alaric, and I hope this leads to more team-ups between the sheriff and the headmaster.
Alaric has mostly made weird decisions, but witnessing his plight to reunite Rafael with his mother before his death made me realize that maybe his decisions are for the greater good.
Alyssa and the Necromancer working together was surprisingly fun. I wasn’t that excited about it on Legacies Season 3 Episode 1, but it’s clear Alyssa is way more wicked than the Necromancer, and the way she changed his train of thought solidified that.
The Necromancer wants to use all the dark magic to his advantage, rewriting the triad spell and making Malivore his bitch, basically.
On the other hand, Alyssa is fine with that, so long as all of the monsters return and hellfire rains on the Salvatore School.
Both Alyssa and the Necromancer have overstayed their welcome. Still, given that the Legacies Season 2 holdovers are almost over, everything the Sphinx foreshadowed could come to pass in the next few weeks.
The school’s death will not be Alyssa, because technically she’s already dead, and while the Sphinx speaks in riddles, I’m sure he would have had a better way of wording it if it was her.
After losing Rafael, would the school be able to survive if it lost someone else? That’s an interesting question, and it’s only a matter of time before questions start arising if students are dying.
“Goodbyes Sure Do Suck” was the best installment in quite a while, but I wish Josie had popped up to say goodbye to Rafael. Josie wasn’t even mentioned, and it made things a little bit weird in my book.
What did you think of Rafael’s goodbye? Do you think he will be back? Is it the end of the line for Hope and Landon?
Who do you think will die?
Hit the comments.
Legacies Season 3 Episode 3 is up next on February 4, with the highly-anticipated Salvatore: The Musical.
Remember, you can watch Legacies online right here via TV Fanatic.
Paul Dailly is the Associate Editor for TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter.