The series creator dishes on the revelations of the season finale and more.
Warning: Spoiler alert! Do not proceed if you have not watched the Legacies season finale.
What just happened?!
That was the question Legacies fans had after Thursday's season one finale, "There's Always a Loophole." In a shocking cliffhanger -- and after telling Landon Kirby (Aria Shahghasemi) that she loved him -- Hope Mikaelson (Danielle Rose Russell) sacrificed herself to stop Malivore from rising.
The episode also saw Lizzie (Jenny Boyd) and Josie (Kaylee Bryant) Saltzman deal with the possibility of Josie dying after being shot by Triad, and Alaric Saltzman (Matthew Davis) putting his headmaster fate in the hands of the honor council after telling the students of his contingency plan in case they rebelled.
The episode ended with Alaric finding a note with Triad Industries' address and the words "Find Landon," as everyone's memory of Hope was erased. With so many revelations and questions left unanswered, ET spoke with Legacies creator Julie Plec, about what happened to Hope and what her plans are for season two of The CW show.
ET: First question, obviously Hope isn’t dead! Right!?
Julie Plec: [Laughs] Well, she is definitely not where you think she would be, back at school in her bed like everything is fine. But the question of what happened to her, where is she and can we get her back is exactly what will launch us into the second season.
Speaking of season two, have you started working on it? When can fans expect it and do you know how many episodes it will be?
We don’t know how many episodes yet. I think we learn later in the spring, but I do know that everyone at the studio and the network really loves the show and is very excited to see it back on the air. My hope is that you don’t have to wait that long.
We already know what we want to do, in a broad sense. Once we know how many episodes we have, we will really get started. But after a very long vacation, we will get started on breaking out the individual episodes.
So now that the twins know about the merge, how will that affect their relationship in season two?
It certainly was a wake-up call for Lizzie I think in that she probably never questioned her status, which was that she probably believed she was the alpha of that relationship. And now that she has seen a glimpse of Josie’s strength and Josie’s fortitude, I think she will have to take a long and hard look at what her future holds and what her relationship with her sister looks like moving forward.
We’ve seen Hope go on an emotional journey all season, finally accepting and realizing that she has so many people in her life that care about her. How has it been seeing her go on that and how will it kick it off for next season?
That has been one of my favorite parts of this season, very deliberately starting Hope in a place where she felt like she didn’t necessarily need friends, but that she couldn’t have them and that her life was meant to be to lived in solitude, which is classic survivor's remorse. She really didn’t feel like loving anybody with faith. And to end this season and get her into the season finale having her realize that she has this great group of friends, real friends, that she doesn't have to carry the burden of responsibility entirely on her shoulders, and that she could be in love, it's such a great arc for her. We’ll see how where it goes, but it’s a nice journey for her to be on.
How did the three additional episodes you received after your premiere affect the overall storyline of season one?
When we got the three episodes we had already written 10 of them, 10 of the 13, so we were in the final stretch of our season when we got three additional episodes. What we decided to do was add two episodes in between what had been [episodes] eight and nine. So in between the episodes where they go in search of Landon’s mother and the talent show episode, we actually added the Night Hag and the Lizzie’s Saltzman alt-view episode. That was not easy at all! But when all said and done, two of our favorite episodes came out of that, and it gave us one additional episode to tell the end of our chapter, which we really needed. So at the end of it all, it was a good thing. I loved those kinds of episodes and I am hoping to be able to do more.
For the future episodes, are you planning on keeping the monster-of-the-week format?
We are always going to want to make sure that the personal, emotional, romantic and friendship storylines are the most important stories that we are telling on the show. But we definitely want to keep trying to find ways to combine that with monsters and spells gone awry and all those things that we had this season. We have not seen the last of our weekly monsters!
Every show has a fan favorite. Are you aware of the impact of "Posie" and how much everyone loves Penelope Park (Lulu Antariksa)?
Absolutely, it’s been a thrill watching how much everybody has enjoyed that relationship. While I am unhappy that we had to say goodbye to Penelope, I am happy that it was a successful relationship and... we could see her sometime in the future. I really thought that it would be… Never mind I’ll just end with "the future," period. [Laughs] I don’t want to make promises that I can’t keep.
So what's the possibility of having Penelope back in season two?
I think whenever you have a character that is that successful there is always hope that you will see them again. For those who have watched my shows over the years, they have found that to be true. I can’t make any promises, but we love that relationship. [But] I look forward to seeing Josie -- now that she's stepping into her own light and really finding herself -- go through the range of romantic emotions that all high school girls do when they start to figure out who they really are. And, I think that there are plenty more people in the future that she will be drawn to that will give Penelope a run for her money.
See more of ET's exclusive interview with the Legacies cast -- where they share their best moments of the season -- below.
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