‘Legacies’ Succeeds by Letting Its Characters Make Smart Choices

It’s reductive to say that most TV shows don’t let their characters play to the height of their intelligence, but it’s true. Even with ostensibly smart characters, often drama is mined out ignoring clues, not making logical leaps the non-expert audience is easily making at home, or just being dumb dumbos who are dumb. The CW’s Legacies, however, is the opposite — and succeeds because everyone in the cast makes the smartest choices possible given their circumstances, often in direct opposition to what they want emotionally.

Spoilers for Legacies Season 2, Episode 6 “That’s Nothing I Had To Remember” past this point.

Take, for example, the insanely hard choice Josie Saltzman (Kaylee Bryant) needed to make in this week’s episode, “That’s Nothing I Had To Remember.” Last season, her fellow classmate and witch/wolf Hope Mikaelson (Danielle Rose Russell) tried to stop a villain named Malivore, and in the process erased herself from everyone’s memory. Only, it didn’t work — and by the time Hope returned, Josie had already struck up a relationship with Hope’s former boyfriend Landon Kirby (Aria Shahghasemi).

Though I’ve had my issues with the relationship — despite game efforts by the charming actors, it’s never felt like anything more than a plot contrivance — once Josie discovered that Landon wrote a love song for Hope before their memories were wiped, lesser shows would have dragged the secret out. They would have made Josie petty and mean, or obstinately not figure out what this “new” information meant. Instead, when we pick up she’s visiting Hope’s aunt Freya (Riley Voelkel) in New Orleans, in order to get a spell that can bring everyone’s memories back; even if she’s not sure she wants to use it yet.

This is the show letting Josie be driven by her intelligence and moral compass, instead of her emotion, and as an end result you get even more dramatically fruitful complications. Josie does return everyone’s memories of Hope, which immediately makes Landon furious at Hope and confused towards Josie, Josie heartbroken, and Landon’s friend Raf (Peyton Alex Smith) confess his own feelings for Hope as well as tell her he never wants to talk to her again.

There are other results of the memory-returning spell, but other than seeing all your faves crying, everything about this is great because it leaves Legacies in an emotionally fragile, dramatically strong place going forward. Knowing Josie and Landon were together to complicate things for Hope was fine; but seeing Josie sobbing on a pier asking Landon what’s next actually sells the connection the couple has better than anything that’s come before. Now, with all of their memories returned, they can make a real decision about whether they’re meant to be together, or not. For Josie, that path is unclear — she definitely thinks they’re going to break up. But for Landon, he’s furious at Hope for not immediately coming to see him, and still has feelings for Josie at the same time. Also, he’s a good guy and a big nerd with emotional intelligence who assuredly doesn’t want to break the already fragile Josie’s heart.

Does it hurt to watch? Hell yeah, it hurts, but that’s what smart writing and intelligent character choices lead to. If they were all settled and happy, the show would be boring. And that also plays into Josie’s dad Alaric’s (Matt Davis) storyline, where he confesses his feelings for the new chief of police, only to wipe her memory of the event immediately afterwards. He too wants love, and wants to be happy… But it’s better for the town if a cop who is going to try to shut down the Salvatore School for supernatural students doesn’t know anything about said school, or students. It’s debatable how good a dad Alaric is, really — he often chooses Hope’s interests over his daughters’ — but he is a smart character who knows what is best for the world at large. And again, what’s more interesting to watch: a happy Alaric canoodling with the chief of police? Or sad Alaric drinking at a bar and growing a beard, getting in some increasingly difficult situations? The latter, I think.

This intelligence also applies to small choices, like this week where Hope just grabs an amulet meant to destroy a monster, and rather than waiting for an explanation just goes for it. Or a few weeks back when Lizzie Saltzman (Jenny Boyd) did the same, noticing Landon was acting weird and immediately figuring out he was possessed and acted on it, rather than dragging out “boy he’s acting weird” over multiple commercial breaks.

Behind the scenes, the delicate balancing act the Legacies writing staff pulls off is that these choices hardly ever feel written; which is to say that other than the aforementioned Josie/Landon romance, the gears are hidden. It feels like Hope, Josie, Alaric, Lizzie and all the rest are making these choices, rather than acting as pawns moved around a chess board to propel the plot forward. If anything, the plot is churning all around them, and the main characters are easily catching up, pushing personal feelings to the side for the greater good.

And all the while, potential future plot-lines and complications are being seeded in, from the potential return of Josie’s ex-girlfriend Penelope Park, to Hope revealing rather casually that she had a crush on Josie when she was 14 (love octagon, anyone?), to the oncoming threat of Josie and Lizzie’s evil uncle Kai Parker (Chris Wood). Whatever comes next, the students at the Salvatore School will face these decisions and challenges the way they always do: with their smarts on their sleeves.

Legacies airs Thursdays at 9/8c on The CW.

Where to watch Legacies