WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Legacies Season 3, Episode 5, "This Is What It Takes," which aired Thursday on The CW.
The students of the Salvatore School defeated the Necromancer, Malivore and all the monsters in Malivore's pit in Legacies' previous episode. An effort that left Hope and Landon trapped in the prison world where Lizzie, Josie and Alyssa sent all the monsters. After Hope used the Malivore pit in the prison world to get back to the real world, she and Landon took a moment alone that led to them having sex for the first time. It was a moment of pure happiness for Hope. That is, until Landon dissolved into a pool of black goo right next to her. So in the latest episode, "This Is What It Takes," Hope is determined to get her boyfriend back by any means necessary -- and it leads her to utilize a magical tool that wasn't all that helpful the first time.
As the episode begins, Hope joins the party the Salvatore School students are having to celebrate their victory over the Necromancer and Malivore. Unfortunately, no one remembers her because of her recent dip into the Malivore pit, so before she can get their help, Hope has to explain who she is and convince everyone to trust her. Thankfully, instead of repeating Hope's Season 2 reentry into the real world after being forgotten because of the Malivore pit, this time, the show largely glosses over this period of time by flashing forward to three weeks later.
Unfortunately, within that three weeks, no one's been able to figure out what happened to Landon, so Alaric proposes an unexpected course of action. He suggests Hope go into the therapy box that she and her classmates used during the black and white episode last season. Of course, that ended with terrible results. But, according to Alaric, the therapy box can be used for a single person and he seems to believe examining her own subconscious will give Hope the information she needs to bring back Landon. Hope is skeptical, but willing to try anything, so into the therapy box she goes.
She wakes up in a creepy cabin in the woods just as Lizzie, sporting huge '80s hair, barges in to ask Hope how her first time with Landon was. Strangely, though, Landon is nowhere to be found, and Hope learns she's in the cabin of the Mystic Falls Maintenance Man, who drowned in the river years ago but supposedly still haunts the cabin and the surrounding area.
And it turns out the Maintenance Man is much worse than he initially sounds. As Lizzie babbles to Hope, she's stabbed through the abdomen from behind and, as she falls over, the Maintenance Man is revealed to be a slasher out of a horror movie, complete with a creepy mask. As soon as she sees him, Hope runs away screaming. But like any good slasher, the Maintenance Man just keeps showing up. No matter where Hope goes or who she comes across, from Josie to Jed to Alaric to even Ethan from Mystic Falls High, the Maintenance Man shows up and kills them, until Hope finally has enough of being being the frightened final girl from a slasher movie.
Going into her usual tough-girl mode, Hope fights with the Maintenance Man, and after a struggle, she grabs his knife, stabs and kills him. Then she unmasks him only to find the person underneath is Landon. Landon comes back to life and suggests they talk about what happened to him in the real world. He prods Hope into realizing that all her friends died in the therapy box's slasher-movie scenario because all she cared about was finding and saving Landon. But Landon observes that in the real world, the one thing Hope has to do is give up on him. Landon points out that since he's Malivore's biological son and Hope's toxic to Malivore, deep down, Hope knows what this means for Landon. The truth is so terrible though, Hope can't say it.
Even though the word to leave keeps appearing in the therapy box after her realization, Hope refuses to say it. She reasons that if she can't be with Landon in the real world, she plans to stay with the approximation of Landon created by the therapy box. In the real world, however, Alaric pulls her out to inform her that he's acquired an artifact they've been seeking that grants the user's heart's desire. So Hope wishes on it, hoping Landon will come back that way. It doesn't work.
Later on the docks, Hope confesses to Alaric that she has to admit that Landon is really gone and she and everyone else has to move on. She then tosses the artifact in the water and starts to grieve yet another loss.
As the artifact sinks deeper, however, out of sight of Hope, it opens and light spills out. The scene then cuts to Landon walking in the dark. Ahead of him, he sees a brightly lit door. He approaches and opens it as the episode ends. Could the artifact have worked after all or is there something else going on? Either way, it seems there is hope that Landon won't be gone too much longer from Legacies. First, however, Hope will likely spend some time mourning, which could make his reappearance that much sweeter -- or perhaps it will be a shock if Landon takes long enough to return that Hope has moved on.
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.