Danielle Rose Russell debuted as Hope Mikaelson on The Originals before leading the spinoff Legacies. While on The Originals, young Hope bonded with and then lost her parents, Klaus Mikaelson (Joseph Morgan) and Hayley (Phoebe Tonkin), who were both first introduced on The Vampire Diaries. Russell was just at The CW's upfronts promoting Legacies Season 2, which will premiere this fall. She shared her hopes for Hope, who sacrificed herself in the Malivore pit in the Season 1 finale, with everyone back at the Salvatore School forgetting she exits.
I think that Season 2 will definitely explore Hope's absence in this world and the impact that she does have. I'd really love to explore her darker side a bit after jumping into Malivore. I'm sure it's taken some sort of effect on her mental psyche.
Oooh dark Hope could be fun Hope -- like father like daughter? The characters with a bit of a darker edge do tend to have more fun, just ask Klaus, but also Damon Salvatore and Katherine Pierce of The Vampire Diaries. If Hope were a phoenix we could call Season 2 her Dark Phoenix storyline, like the X-Men movie, but Landon is the phoenix on this show.
As Danielle Rose Russell told TV Guide, jumping into Malivore must've affected Hope's mental state, and she'd like to see more of how Hope handles traumatic situations. This is a young woman who has faced a lot of trauma in her life, even if we've only seen glimpses of how she's handled the deaths of Hayley and Klaus (not to mention others in her Originals family).
Because after the death of her parents, we kind of did a time jump, and we didn't really see that process [of how she handles trauma], and I'd love to see that process explored a little bit more.
Legacies Season 1 did give Hope a chance to ask the Necromancer about her father Klaus, giving fans an update on his status in the afterlife. We learned that he never regretted his decision but he will also never find peace until she does. Hope was shown suffering some guilt after the death of her mother Hayley in the final season of The Originals, but most of Legacies has focused on present-day problems at the school.
The amazing alternate universe Episode 10 did show us two versions of Hope that might fit perfectly with showing her darker side. We had the bloodthirsty vampire Hope...
... and the badass team leader Hope...
Both of those Hopes were a bit different from our usual Hope Mikaelson. It could be fun for Danielle Rose Russell to get to show even more of her range with a Dark Hope, similar to The Vampire Diaries' Nina Dobrev with Katherine being so different from Elena.
Danielle Rose Russell said she's also looking forward to seeing how the Legacies Season 1 finale twist impacts Hope and Landon (Aria Shahghasemi), since she did this for love of him and wanting to save everyone.
Klaus and Hayley would be so proud of the hero Hope has become. But even heroes have darker sides. Hope came out of her tough shell in Season 1 and made real friends, including finding love with Landon. Now she has to get back home to the school, and that's part of her job in Season 2.
During upfronts, The CW posted a full synopsis for Legacies, including some notes on Hope trying to find her way back to the Salvatore School in Season 2:
Set in the Salvatore Boarding School for the Young and Gifted, Legacies tells the story of the next generation of supernatural beings as they learn what it means to be special in a world that may never understand.Typically a school for vampires like MG (Quincy Fouse), werewolves like Rafael (Peyton Alex Smith) and witches like twins Lizzie (Jenny Boyd) and Josie Saltzman (Kaylee Bryant), the kids and their beloved headmaster Dr. Alaric Saltzman (Matthew Davis) were stunned to come face to face with a series of monsters and creatures they had only ever heard of in myth and lore. A dragon. A gargoyle. The Headless Horseman. The evil behind the real-life resurrection of these formerly fictional beings proved to have a horrifying connection to the school’s newest student, Landon Kirby (Aria Shahghasemi.).This led his first and only love Hope Mikaelson (Danielle Rose Russell), the school’s shining star, to sacrifice her place at the school — and in the world — to protect Landon from a terrible fate. The new season will show us a world without Hope Mikaelson and all the chaos that goes along with it. All the while, Hope will be trying to find her way back to the school she has learned to call home and the friends she has learned to love like family. It will be filled with new monsters and more romantic and emotional surprises than ever.
Bring it on! The Vampire Diaries Universe ruler Julie Plec previously tweeted that the writers would start working on Legacies Season 2 in early June and start filming in July for the show's premiere this fall.
The CW just confirmed that Legacies Season 2 will still air Thursdays at 9 p.m., starting in October, but there's no set date attached at this point. Stay tuned, and cross your fingers that your favorite characters return and get great storylines in the 2019-2020 season.
