After four seasons, the Salvatore School is closing its doors on The CW with the series finale of Legacies. The episode, “Just Don’t Be A Stranger, Okay?” co-written by showrunner Brett Matthews and The Vampire Diaries franchise co-creator Julie Plec also holds the distinction of ending the supernatural franchise on The CW — at least for the moment. And while the finale ends on a positive note, for Matthews the ending is bittersweet.
“Julie and my hope at the beginning of the show was, the show came out of Parkland, and this show came out of so much violence for young people in the world, violence against self expression, violence against identity,” Matthews told Decider. “There was a lot of very negative stuff in the air, and Legacies always wanted to be something that said, ‘this can end well.’ As the show ends with the latest school shooting and the latest tragedy… That’s a very bitter pill.”
Despite the real world circumstances, though, the series does end well for pretty much every one of the characters involved. Spoilers past this point, but after vanquishing a vengeful god in the previous episode, the students are left to pick up the pieces and figure out what’s next. Along the way, they’re helped by two guest stars from the franchise’s past: Joseph Morgan as Klaus Mikaelson, the father of Hope Mikaelson (Danielle Rose Russell), who takes a break from his own personal heaven to tell his kid he’s proud of her; and Candice King as Caroline Forbes, who ends the episode taking over the Salvatore School from departing headmaster Alaric Saltzman (Matt Davis).
And not only that, pretty much everyone ends up with who you would expect, given the way the season has been going. Lizzie (Jenny Boyd) and MG (Quincy Fouse) finally kiss after four seasons of back and forth, and decide to date. Kaleb (Chris Lee) and Cleo (Omono Okojie) also end up together, with the latter getting an interesting tease that she may some day end up running the school. Jed (Ben Levin), now cured of his werewolf curse, has ceded his wolf pack to Finch (Courtney Bandeko) and is happily reading with Ben (Zane Phillips), who has lost a curse of his own when we last see them. Even Josie (Kaylee Bryant), who left earlier this season and doesn’t appear in the episode, is strongly hinted to be happily going to school in Belgium with her Season 1 love interest, Penelope Park (Lulu Antariksa).
The biggest plotlines, though, are saved for Hope and Landon (Aria Shahghasemi). After saving everyone’s lives last episode, Landon is now dealing with the fact that he’s lost a large part of his emotions as a consequence — so much so that he knows he loves Hope, but can’t actually feel it. Still, he does manage to snag that message from Klaus for her, and though he ends up in the afterlife ferrying lost souls, it’s what Hope needs to move forward as not just the hero the Salvatore School needs, but its public face. After four seasons being the reluctant hero, Hope is finally embracing her destiny.
To talk about those moments and many more, including where the show might have gone if it has continued, read on.
Decider: Mark Pedowitz noted on the Upfront call that producers were tasked with making an episode work as both potentially a series finale and a season finale. How did you tackle that, from a writing, producing, showrunning perspective? And how tricky is it to walk that line?
Brett Matthews: It’s obviously not an ideal scenario. But at the same time, we’re very happy we at least had a heads up that things were very tumultuous over there, and that the pickups could just differ from how The CW has always done this. So once we knew, we did try to find closure in as much as we could for the major character arcs of the season, and the series as a whole. And luckily, those two things kind of dovetail. Obviously the god mythology was a new thing this year that was going to launch us forward into future seasons of the show. But I think Aurora (Rebecca Breeds) also provided a bridge that connected Hope to some of the franchise lore, and allowed her to explore relationships that were really important for her over the course of the show and hopefully brought back that character full circle. So for us, what we really decided was what is Legacies about, and it’s a story of Hope Mikaelson who went through all these things and became the worst version of herself that she was very afraid to become, and came out the other side and is going to be okay. Once we settled on that that… It was finding ways to simply give the major storylines of the show as much closure as we could, while not completely shutting the door on a future season that getting a new start, we got very excited about doing. It’s a bit of a fool’s errand, but we’re as happy with the end result as we can be.
You’ve got this added challenge of knowing this is ending 13 years of The Vampire Diaries universe on The CW. Was that a concern going in here, or was it more about making sure Legacies works and goes out on its own terms?
Yeah, very much that. The Vampire Diaries universe is still rich and large, and I would doubt to say that’s over. There will certainly be more shows… There will definitely be more shows in that franchise. It’s a hugely important franchise to a a lot of people and I don’t know what form or fashion that will take other than things that Julie [Plec], Kevin [Williamson] and I have discussed in the run up to all of this. I sure would hope that that franchise would not end, and believe that there are many, many more stories to tell, many more tones to tell, many more things to do in that franchise.
Legacies -- “Do You Mind Staying With Me Another Minute?” -- Image Number: LGC416a_0008r -- Pictured (L - R): Danielle Rose Russell as Hope Mikaelson -- Photo: Ben Adams/The CW -- © 2022 The CW Network, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Photo: Ben Adams/The CW
Is there a chance that Legacies could come back in some form, or is the show done and it’s more looking at a potential future for the franchise?
That’s a question for executives more than myself, unfortunately. I mean, the problem you’d generally run into is, cast starts taking other jobs and it becomes impossible at a certain point. So if there were anything to happen on that front, it would have to happen really quickly. But, you know, in my experience, as much as we all wish that would be the case, it generally doesn’t work out that way. I don’t think it looks very likely because you start losing people to other jobs and they move on and they start looking for the next gig, and then, an ensemble like ours, it obviously becomes really tough to lose several key crew members, and becomes very difficult. So I would say that the outlook on that is pretty grim, though I’d love to that.
Jumping into the episode, you brought back Joseph Morgan as Klaus, and Candice King as Caroline. What was important about locking them in, and were there any other options for cameos, or characters to come back?
I mean, hey, we would have loved to have everybody back, in so many ways. But obviously our budget is always something we are banging our heads against. And so it allows for what is allowed for… Joe and Candice certainly seemed like the two most pivotal. We would have loved to have Phoebe [Tonkin] back. We would love to have everybody back… We certainly did reach out to a number of people, and Joe and Candice were kind enough to do it. And it felt emotionally right! It felt like, let Vampire Diaries, The Originals and Legacies and so they all very much have a foot, in all those shows, and those characters are the legacies of the characters in our shows, so we’re very glad that worked out. If this had to end, we sort of knew that was the thing that had to happen. We’re very appreciative to them that they found ways to make it work, because it was definitely logistically challenging.
We actually get to see a bunch of happy couples at the end, which is a lovely change of pace. Cleo and Caleb. Lizzie and MJ. Ben and Jed. What led to ending with these couples, and were there any other different iterations of how things could have gone?
When we were looking at the conclusion of the story we had told for four seasons, these were the pairings that felt right to the room. Given a longer timeline, who knows? This is a world where the show was coming to an end. Were the show to have continued, I’m sure that all those couples would have met with great adversity along the way. And it would have been interesting to see how things shook out for them. It was trying to find what felt like closure in as much as we could provide it, rather than just dropping some wild new direction at the very end that we would then not have the chance to explore. So, felt right to us, and your point about the show being, you know, ending on an uplifting note, I’m glad you say that because you know that’s very much what we tried to do. Legacies has always tried to be this relentlessly optimistic voice, sometimes to people’s frustrations, that is what the show is was always meant to be. It definitely felt like having Hope come through the other side of this and her friends come through the other side, it was important for us to see as many of those characters as we could be happy in the end.
Legacies -- “Do You Mind Staying With Me Another Minute?” -- Image Number: LGC416b_0096r -- Pictured (L - R): Matthew Davis as Alaric Saltzman -- Photo: Ben Adams/The CW -- © 2022 The CW Network, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Photo: Ben Adams/The CW
You end with Hope giving a monologue in voiceover. How did you come around to this moment in particular? And how did you hit on her final line of the series?
We’re just trying to get back to the pilot, and try to circle back to that voiceover in the pilot. Hope has always felt like an outsider in the school, and somebody who has,in a lot of times, reluctantly carried the responsibility of her birthright… Both, for better and for worse, because on one level, we’re afraid of you because you’re the most powerful creature in the universe, and then on the other, we rely very heavily on you in that role. So it’s always been such a nice edge for that character. Seeing her come all the way around, seeing her really cement her relationships, and seeing her accept the school as her home and step into a true leadership position in it… Not out of obligation, but out of want and out of what feels right to her, felt like a very natural conclusion to us. That happened very early on and is what we decided, if this is going to end this way. This is what feels right. Given all she’s been through, we want to see her come up the other side. She’s dealt with so much trauma. So many young people deal with so much trauma in the world nowadays. We want Legacies to be a story about somebody who dealt with it, and came out the other side and found a way to make herself better for it. So that’s really what it was about, was bringing things full circle.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Landon is arguably the one that has changed the most over the course of the show, going from a regular dude at the very beginning with — as far as we knew — no powers, to now he’s the avatar of the afterlife. What was it like embracing his arc over the course of his four seasons, as well as where you left him?
He’s had a lot of change, certainly, that character, and it’s become so many different things. And I think he said that in that last scene with Hope, that I’ve just always wanted a home and I wanted to figure it out. And I would argue that this ending of the show is happy for Landon, in many ways. He has found purpose, he has found a place, he has found power and somewhere where he does not need to fear the constant threat of death that is coming for him over so many times in the show. He’s beyond death. And he has always been this big, bleeding heart of a character who really does want to help people and make the world a better place. You see by the end of this, that that is very much what he is going to do in Limbo. And he is going to do that in reflection to the world at large, and he’s still going to be able to visit and pop in and see his friends. He finds his place in the world, which is much different than he ever thought it would be. He always felt like he was just a powerless, lost kid without a home. He becomes an incredibly powerful character who is the linchpin of a place that is his home. So not the expected way to get there, certainly not what he expected, not the fate that has always been jammed down his throat. But I think ultimately, much like Hope, of his own choosing — and their relationship evolving in a different way. But that was really what was important to us. So very, very similar to Hope’s line.
Alaric (Matt Davis), the longest running character in the franchise at this point, leaves town at the end. What led to this choice?
Yeah, it just felt like it was the right thing. If the show were to continue, his role would obviously change quite a bit, and it felt like it would be time for that. So part of that was certainly set up for the world. The other part is, he’s always been about, how are these kids going to learn to exist in this world? And no matter how much he says that they will be okay, and that they have earned their place within it, him always being there watching over them feels counter to that. So him actually believing that they’re going to be okay, and maybe better off, taking the reins of their own destinies… And also just as a person realizing, as a dad your kids reach a certain age where you have got to try to let go a little bit. That’s where he finds himself. He finds himself in a really good midlife crisis, having literally died and been to the edge, and realizing he is not the young man he once was. There are things in the world he wants to do, and the Salvatore School has always been about hiding supernaturals in the world. Him coming to this acceptance point of: the world must know, and the world will need to know about these kids one day… It’s inevitable. So it’s a very big shift from where he started the series, but that change is going to be very hard for the world at large. He’s going off to write the handbook of how that works, to try to make that transition easier for people, whenever the kids or events decide that it will have to happen.
The tease at the end there which is so wonderful, and ultimately a little frustrating because the series is ending, with Caroline taking over the school. There’s an out for her where she says “interim headmaster,” but were there any discussions with Candice King about staying on, if the show was continuing? Or did things not get that far?
Candice is a dear friend and so that door has always been open. It wasn’t until I called her for the finale and I said, “Hey, this could go one way or the other.” She was very, she was a very quick, “Yes,” very easy. “This feels right, I want to do this, it’s the way this should end.” Obviously, if the show were to continue, the door was very much open for her to decide that Caroline Forbes was the best person for the job. I’m not sure her schedule would have ultimately allowed for that, but we would hope that she would be able to pop in here and there. She came down and shot the finale and had a blast doing it. That door was definitely open. It was always going to be as her schedule allows. That was the easiest piece of the puzzle, because in a world where it ends, she feels like the right person to take over that school and pilot it forward. And in a world where it continued, there was a way to get her into the world of the show and have her there as much as she chose to be there… Whether that would have been a guest spot or two a year, or that would have been something a little larger, I don’t know. We were obviously very open and hopeful to all of that. But knowing if it was the end, she was the right hands for the school to be in. There’s no question.
Before I let you go, very general question but I think it’s fair to look back at the end of these sorts of things… What did you take away from this experience? What was your big lesson that you feel like you’ve learned as a creator, as a showrunner? Or are there too many to count?
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It is sort of endless. You learn something new every day. You try to learn to let go, and rely on other people and other voices to fuel the franchise, for sure. It is just a relentless and endless amount of work to create a television show, and keep a television show operating. Julie and my hope at the beginning of the show was, the show came out of Parkland, and this show came out of so much violence for young people in the world, violence against self expression, violence against identity. There was a lot of very negative stuff in the air, and Legacies always wanted to be something that said, “this can end well.” As the show ends with the latest school shooting and the latest tragedy… That’s a very bitter pill, because part of you does reflect and wonder: maybe that’s unrealistic. But that was always what the show wanted to do, that the world can be a better place, that it’s probably not going to be the old people who make it one. It’s going to be this younger generation that is coming up and dealing with all this tragedy, and honestly often growing up under attack. That was always the message of the show. That was always the tone of the show. We were hoping that would feel a little more redundant by the end of the series, but unfortunately, it feels as fresh and new as ever. So take that for what you will. It’s very much a bummer, but I would say that the experience only sort of solidified my belief in those things. It is just going to be a lot harder than I think we all hoped. But it doesn’t mean the battle is not worth fighting… That has always been the message of the show, and that’s where the message of the show ends.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
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