Legacies Admitted How Badly The Show Handled Josie’s Season 4 Exit
Warning: Spoilers for Legacies season 4, episode 12, «Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost.»
Although Legacies season 4 fumbled Josie’s big exit, the show did at least admit this with a sharp line from Hope in a recent episode. It is not easy for shows with large ensemble casts like Legacies to explain away the absence of supporting stars or to write them out of shows. Sometimes, actors are recast while other shows don’t bother to explain their lack of screen time at all, instead biding their time until the actor in question can make another appearance.
However, the difficulty of writing around an actor’s availability is no excuse for the hoary cliché of “putting them on a bus.” A television writing convention so ubiquitous that it has a TV Tropes page in its honor, the “Put on a Bus” trope occurs when a character suddenly skips town, conveniently leaving when their actor decides to exit a series. While Legacies season 4 committed this cardinal sin with Josie’s exit, the series did at least acknowledge the weakness of his story in a later outing.
Related: Legacies: Lizzie Is Becoming The Show's Caroline (& That's Great)
When her actor Kaylee Bryant opted to leave Legacies in season 4, the character of Josie was put on a bus at a vital point in the season despite this being a classic tactic to awkwardly write out a central character when their actor becomes unavailable for shooting mid-season. Legacies did, however, admit this when Lizzie compared her losses to those of Hope, and Hope cut her off with a biting, “Your sister went on vacation. And your dad is still alive.” The fact that Legacies attempted to make Josie’s exit dramatic while also leaving the door open to her actor's return fell flat for many fans, making the
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