Warning: Spoilers for Legacies season 4, episode 19, "This Can Only End In Blood."
With Landon coming to the rescue, Legacies' penultimate episode just wasted its best possible ending for the series finale. Legacies season 4 (and the show as a whole) is soon to come to a close. With it, Hope (Danielle Rose Russell) and the rest of the Super Squad will face their toughest challenge yet, taking on the father of the gods, Ken (Luke Mitchell), who is hellbent on the destruction of Tribrid Hope in Legacies and then ruling humans.
Despite their best-laid plans, Ken, with the help of Aurora (Rebecca Breeds), easily upended the Squad's plans and either directly or indirectly killed a number of main characters before Hope and Ken even squared off. MG (Quincy Fouse), Jed (Ben Levin), and Kaleb (Chris Lee) were all killed right before the critical moment. With their deaths, failure seemed imminent for everyone else (not to mention more death). But Landon (Aria Shahghasemi), who is Legacies' new Ferryman, became a convenient deus ex machina and revived all three characters as Hope and Ken fought. While it was a fun moment, it, unfortunately, ruined the best possible series ending for Legacies.
Landon's recently-acquired powers of resurrection as the new Ferryman have a lot of potential. Audiences had speculated that they would play a big role in the show's final episode, setting up an opportunity for a perfect Legacies series finale that sees Landon resurrect a number of characters from The Vampire Diaries and The Originals to bring the TV universe to a close. That's now been spoiled by the same twist already being used in Legacies season 4, episode 19, "This Can Only End In Blood." With Landon already bringing back three of the main characters, it would be completely underwhelming if Legacies were to pull the same exact trick in the very next episode. It will no longer be a surprise, and its potential to generate an unexpected moment in the finale has been seriously diminished.
Worse, not only did Legacies use Landon's Limbo trick one episode too soon, but it largely wasted the story's potential, as well. MG, Kaleb, and Jed have been with the show from the start and have grown to be some of the series' most beloved characters. Their deaths should have been devastating and meaningful. Instead, they were reduced to a gimmick, rendering their sacrifices devoid of real emotion and lasting impact. What might have been an incredibly emotional moment of the three returning after enough time that both characters and the audience thought they were truly gone was barely a blip in a single episode. Later, Ethan's (Leo Howard) death was barely an afterthought, and even though he hasn't had as big a role in Legacies, the episode already hinted that he'll be resurrected, as well. It was Rebecca's death, as the conflicted antagonist, that received the most time and actually showed growth and change, not just for the character herself, but also for Hope.
Despite the best intentions, the episode was just indicative of the problems that have plagued Legacies from the start. Interesting storylines are dropped without being properly explored and other storylines that audiences have far less interest in are inexplicably extended. Supporting Legacies characters that deserve full development are sidelined in order to give attention to secondary characters that aren't nearly as compelling. With the penultimate episode of Legacies jumping the gun on what would have been the biggest finale twist, it seems the show will end exactly as it began, never quite living up to its full potential.
The series finale of Legacies airs Thursday, June 16 on the CW.