Legacies: Landon’s prison world experience should be explored

For three seasons, Landon Kirby’s storyline on Legacies has largely been a repetitive one, hitting the same narrative beats over and over.  Initially arriving at the Salvatore School alongside his best friend Rafael, a newly turned werewolf, Landon’s identity remained questionable.

He wasn’t able to be compelled, so that meant he wasn’t a human – but he wasn’t a witch, a werewolf, or a vampire either. So the series’ big question became: What, exactly, is Landon?

Eventually, Landon’s death revealed the truth about him being a phoenix. And a subsequent conversation with his biological mother explained that his father was Malivore, the most consistent villain Legacies has dealt with.

However, the bulk of Landon’s storyline has been entwined with Hope’s, and this has not done either character much good. Landon and Hope’s dynamic has been the same since the beginning of the show, and generally features Landon needing saving and Hope coming to the rescue.

It is exciting to see the female character in the designated hero role for once, but since that is mostly what Landon and Hope’s relationship has consisted of, it got old quickly. Between Landon’s inability to fight for himself, his constant deaths, Hope having to come to save him all the time, and their constant break-ups and reconciliations, something needed to change.

Season 3 introduced a new aspect to their dynamic. While Hope searches for a way to reunite with Landon, he is trapped with the Necromancer in Malivore and eventually escapes to find himself in a monster-infested prison world. From then on, Landon promises to save himself from his situation rather than wait around any longer for Hope to rescue him.

But, as “I Was Made To Love You” and “One Day You Will Understand” explain, Landon’s story is actually a lot more complicated than what viewers knew until that point.

Hope’s dangerous plan to rescue Landon from the prison world did work. Still, instead of reuniting with the real Landon, Hope was met with Cleo’s Golem of Landon, a mixture of Hope’s idealized interpretation of her on-again-off-again boyfriend and Cleo’s magic. When Hope reunites with the real Landon, he is a much different person than she had spent their first anniversary with a few months prior.

And while Hope was searching for ways to save her boyfriend, Landon struggled to survive by himself in the prison world, learning to defend himself and fight when necessary.

Landon’s situation could be considered similar to when Bonnie Bennett was trapped in the 1994 prison world during The Vampire Diaries. But, the main difference was that the viewers got to experience Bonnie’s emotional highs and lows along with her. Once Bonnie successfully returned to the real world, it was a major payoff because the audience had been waiting for this for a long time, getting increasingly invested in her safe return home.

Legacies did not give the same opportunity to Landon’s time in the prison world. Granted, his experience was significantly different, as he had dangerous monsters surrounding him. Since Landon seems far more interested in defending himself and speaks of experience fighting monsters after reuniting with Hope, it would be an intriguing storyline to watch Landon’s experience from when he left the note on the fence to the moment he revealed himself to Hope.

Landon’s transformation is meant to be huge in terms of both his appearance (when he arrives to save Hope from Cleo) and his personality (his struggle to return to society). A deeper look inside his time in the prison world could give more depth to his character and further flesh out his experience.

At the end of “One Day You Will Understand,” Landon leaves the Salvatore School and Hope once again, claiming that their relationship is doomed because they are meant to destroy each other, since her blood is literally toxic to him.

At the episode’s end, Landon sits beside Cleo, and the two discuss a partnership to find a way to destroy Malivore forever. This could be the opportunity Landon needs to evolve as a character and maybe even show more of the person he has become because of his time in the prison world.