The Originals' Hope Mikaelson is not the only crossover teen character making her way to the spinoff Legacies. Klaus and Hayley's daughter will be joined by Alaric Saltzman's twin daughters, Lizzie and Josie. The twins were born on The Vampire Diaries and share deep ties to the show. The spinoff will find the girls having grown up quite a bit since then. Now in their teens, Lizzie and Josie have developed distinctive personalities. Legacies' showrunner Julie Plec offered insight into them, saying:
They're these beautiful, deeply flawed, and wonderful young women. Lizzie Saltzman so desperately wants to be loved and adored, and I think that's born out of feeling a little bit like her dad has this special surrogate daughter relationship with Hope. And to quote her, she thinks Hope is 'stuck up.' Hope doesn't make any effort to be friends with anybody. So she loves to go out of her way to poke at Hope and to make comments about her, just all born out of a place of utter, delicate jealousy.
What Julie Plec shared with EW is some really telling info regarding what prospective Legacies viewers can expect. One interesting thing is that Lizzie will share a "sibling" rivalry with Hope. It makes sense for the show to explore such a dynamic and it is promising they chose to go that way. Having Lizzie feel that way towards Hope gives the show somewhere to go with their relationship. For fans of The Vampire Diaries, there are a lot of touchstones to the series.
Lizzie's personality, for instance, lines up with one particular character. While she is not biologically related to Caroline, she is named after Caroline's mother. That could have been a hint the franchise would pattern Lizzie after her. She often struggled with jealousy during her early days on The Vampire Diaries. Caroline also had instances of acting out, especially when she turned off her humanity.
Thankfully, Lizzie and Josie both have Alaric to rely on to help them through things. He tended to be a helpful resource on Vampire Diaries. Where Lizzie is dealing with feelings of jealousy, her sister wants peace. Showrunner Julie Plec opened up about the other half of the Saltzman sisters. What she teased about Josie is equally compelling. Plec said:
Josie is just juggling all the time to try to keep everybody friends, to try to keep everything working. She recognizes her sister is a very complicated and sometimes borderline dangerous individual, and she does everything she can to try to make her feel all the love and to just keep her from losing her shit on a daily basis.
Josie sounds a lot like both Alaric and his late wife, Jo, the twins' biological mother. Jo was also a considerate person, who dealt with a potentially dangerous sibling. Unfortunately, she was not able to defeat him before it was too late. Josie's father Alaric is a profoundly caring person. Throughout his run on The Vampire Diaries, Alaric helped many people through different things. He also managed to never be in short supply of sage advice.
Based on what the actors had to say about their respective characters, Alaric and Josie will have their hands full with Lizzie. Whether Caroline's absence may be playing a role in her acting out is unclear. The only way to know for sure is for Caroline to join her girls on the show. One aspect that makes the twins compelling is that they tie together multiple characters from The Vampire Diaries. So, it will fun to find out where Legacies takes them.
The premiere of Legacies is around the corner. The Vampire Diaries spinoff will premiere October 25 on The CW. It is among an outstanding amount of new series premiering this fall, so stay tuned.
