Legacies recap: A mummy invades spring break
One very strong sign about an ensemble show is that no matter which characters are on the screen, it works. And with each week, Legacies has tried different groupings, and as odd as this week’s seemed at first — Ric, Dorian, Emma, Kaleb, Hope, Lizzie, and Josie — it absolutely worked, which goes to show that this show has established such interesting characters on their own, the grouping doesn’t really matter.
We start with spring break at the Salvatore School! Only, it’s the worst kind of spring break you could imagine because it involves plagues! First up, Dorian and Emma share a beetle-infested picnic and then Alaric, who’s been losing ever his mind since he threw the urn over a bridge, does some research and realizes that mini-plagues have been happening all over. Even worse? They’re a harbinger of what’s to come … A MUMMY!! But we’ll get to that.
First, Dorian and Emma abandon their romantic mountain getaway to help Ric and the girls with the mummy, for which Ric also enlists Kaleb. It’s mostly because Ric doesn’t trust Kaleb not to feed on humans while he’s away, but still, ROAD TRIP!
With everyone piled into a mini-van — as Kaleb says, “Dr. Saltzman, this van is very white of you” — they all get to enjoy a 6-hour car ride that includes snacks, singing, Hope and Lizzie arguing about how Lizzie thinks Hope always tries to ruin Saltzman family spring breaks, and Josie vomiting because she gets car sick. (So why isn’t she in the front seat?)
They eventually make it to Maple Hollows, South Carolina, where there’s a dam, which is why they think the urn is there. If the current swept it away, it will be stuck here. So while Dorian goes scuba diving, the rest of the clan checks out the town for anything unusual. And they find just what they’re looking for when the town is swarmed by bees. Or should I say hornets?
But when the hornets suddenly die, there are a million more questions at play. Suddenly, there’s a FEMA Recovery Center set up in the middle of town and at the center of it is none other than the Hot Bad Guy from Triad who finally has a name!! Meet Ryan Clarke, whom Hope quickly recognizes from the gas leak in Kansas. And he recognizes them too. In fact, Clarke confronts Hope and Ric about the Salvatore School, which he knows all about. But according to him, Triad is an organization that keeps monsters from public view, so if Ric does his job right at the school, he’s actually helping Triad. And now, Triad needs Kaleb’s help convincing this entire town that they didn’t see hornets today. Oh and also, could they help Triad fight the mummy because Triad is more of a clean-up operation? Cool, thanks. (Next: Lizzie and Hope get over a major hurdle)
Speaking of the mummy, he makes his big appearance just in time to take the urn from Dorian, and when Hope reminds Ric that Triad also hides the portal to Malivore, they come up with a plan to make sure they leave with the urn at the end of the day. While Emma runs off to find Dorian, Ric tells Kaleb to compel everyone in town to forget today. But he also asks him to compel a Triad worker to steal the urn for them once all is said and done.
As for Ric, he and the girls head off to face the mummy, which is where we get more of this Hope-Lizzie hatred backstory. Lizzie thinks Hope started a fire years ago to keep them from going on a spring break trip, but Hope tells her that she lost half of her belongings in that fire, including the only painting she did with her dad. Lizzie also claims that was the day she had her first occurrence and that Hope went around telling everyone she was “witch bipolar.” Hope tries to explain that she would never do that, but their conversation gets interrupted when the mummy shows up and Hope utters my favorite line of the episode. When Ric wants to stand between the girls and the mummy to be protective, Hope tells him, “No offense, Dr. Saltzman, but you and your crossbow are kind of manspreading in front of three powerful witches.”
Ric, agreeing, steps aside and lets the witches handle things. It doesn’t go perfectly — Hope and Lizzie both cough up bugs which is my literal worst nightmare, but Josie is there to turn the mummy to ash. Together, they return the urn to Triad … but only temporarily. This is where the rest of the plan comes into play.
The mummy comes back to life — which Ric figured would happen — and Kaleb rips the scarab off its chest and lets the twins siphon its magic. Only then is the curse lifted and the mummy truly gone. And after that, Ric and company get to walk away from Clarke looking like heroes … at least until Clarke follows them and realizes that Kaleb compelled one of his workers to hand over the urn.
And seeing as how Clarke now has Emma and Dorian, Ric hands over the urn in exchange for his friends. As for Clarke, he ends the episode by disobeying his boss, someone named Mrs. G, and throwing the urn in Malivore, so now the question is: Is he a monster? And if so, what? (And is he single?)
As for Ric, he drives back to the school, where we get the rest of the Lizzie-Hope story. It seems it was Josie who lied all those years ago and said Hope said terrible things about Lizzie’s episode. Why? Because Josie had a crush on Hope and slipped a note under her door, an act she immediately regretted, so she set a fire spell … which resulted in the fire in Hope’s room. She didn’t want Lizzie to know about her crush because, as she puts it, anytime she’s liked someone, Lizzie goes for them and Lizzie always wins.
As for everyone else, Kaleb tells Ric that he needs to let the vampires drink real blood and the witches learn offensive magic if they’re going to keep fighting monsters. (Anyone else flashback to Vampire Diaries season 2 when Stefan told Elena he needed to drink human blood?)
Then there’s Emma, who tells Dorian about her kiss with Ric but explains that she wants to be with Dorian. But when Dorian finds out Ric didn’t have a slug in his ear when they kissed, he punches Ric and quits. To be fair though, Ric didn’t know about Dorian yet! (He knew about another man but not Dorian.) Also, in a fun twist, Dorian is a lefty!
All in all, this show delivered another fun, occasionally emotional episode that moved the story forward in major ways. I still don’t know what all this Triad/Malivore business is about, but I’m looking forward to finding out.
