WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Legacies Season 3, Episode 13, "One Day You Will Understand," which aired Thursday on The CW.
In the previous episode of Legacies, Hope discovered the person she thought was Landon was a golem and that the real Landon was actually the Skull Hunter who'd been skulking in the woods around the Salvatore School for weeks. It turns out though that the real Landon has fundamentally changed after spending who knows how long in Malivore's prison world, and it ultimately causes him to make a move Hope never expected.
At the start of the episode, Landon puts on modern clothes and gets a haircut, but while he looks more like himself, something is clearly on Hope's mind. However, Landon is still processing his time away and needs something to take his mind off everything, and Hope turns out to have an idea. Alaric has tasked her with getting the artifact from Dorian, who is now the principal of Mystic Falls High. Landon accompanies her there but is hesitant to come in, so Hope leaves him outside while she retrieves the artifact. When she comes out of the school, Landon's beating up a former bully. This is unlike anything Landon's done before, and Hope is shocked and confused.
Still, she refrains from asking him the question that's clearly on her mind, until Landon tells her to go for it. She wants to know what happened to make him act like a completely different person. Landon reveals a small part of what he's been through. After they had sex and he dissolved into mud, Landon was trapped in Malivore and then the prison world for what felt to him like years. He kept waiting for her to save him but it never happened. So he learned to fight monsters and survive.
In the end, he never found a way out, he just managed to use the rift Hope, Josie and Lizzie created in the prison world the night they used the ascendant to leave. Apparently, even though they didn't complete the spell, they opened a door just enough to allow Landon to slip through.
Hope realizes that means that Landon has been back ever since that happened weeks ago, and has spent the whole time watching the school and Hope with the golem version of himself. Landon says he wanted to protect Hope by making sure nothing came through the rift with him, but Hope doesn't understand how he could let her be with an imposter. Landon's response is telling: Hope looked happy and Landon was a mess after the time he spent in Malivore and the prison world, so letting her be with the golem seemed like the better option.
Their conversation is interrupted by a monster, which they fight together, but in the process both of them sustain injuries that cause them to bleed. This leads Landon to ask Hope to stay a safe distance away, an acknowledgement that her toxicity to him is at the top of his mind. Nonetheless, they manage to take down the monster together. Yet, while Hope seems happy about the their team up, Landon just seems annoyed that the artifact was shattered in the fight.
Later, Hope tells Landon he can take as much time as he needs to feel comfortable again. No matter what, she still loves him. But Landon counters that he went through hell only to find her happy with an idealized version of himself. While he was angry at first, he eventually realized that, in the end, their relationship is doomed. Hope tries to convince him that they can't believe that, but Landon is resolute; they're two beings that are designed to destroy each other, so they should stay far away from one another. While he doesn't actually say he's breaking up with Hope, his meaning is clear, especially since his next move is leaving the Salvatore School.
Landon isn't the only one to leave the school that night, though. Cleo does too, and Landon runs into her at the bus stop. When Cleo says she plans to find another way to kill Malivore, Landon offers to help. While Cleo and Landon don't make the most obvious pair, their alliance makes sense. Both harbor a deep grudge against Malivore and have first-hand experience with him in a way few others do. Of course, both have also been deeply traumatized by Malivore, which may help fuel their quest but also could end up derailing it entirely.
Legacies stars Danielle Rose Russell, Jenny Boyd, Kaylee Bryant, Quincy Fouse, Aria Shahghasemi, Peyton Alex Smith, Matt Davis, Chris Lee, Ben Levin and Leo Howard. New episodes air Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.