"How do you know there's a pub around here?"
"We're in Ireland."

A young Derek Rayne and his daddy Winston go to Peru as part of Winston's work for the Legacy. Winston is then killed by a demon in front of Derek thus giving Derek life long extreme daddy issues. Over two decades later, Derek leads the San Francisco branch of the Legacy when he has a vision that leads him and his team to Connemara, Ireland in search of a relic containing an imprisoned fallen angel. Thus begins an quest that will see Legacy member Julia die, new member Rachel recruited and a demon named Azazel stage a huge attack on the Legacy house and all its members. An okay start. It's worth noting that the Ireland scenes were actually filmed in Ireland.

Highlights:

• Julia's two inch long miniskirt.
• Nick walks into a pub and silence falls. Standard rural horror trope but a classic one.
• Julia being menaced by the demon in the field.
• Derek facing down Azazel with a sword.

Comments:

• The 90's evening dresses.
• The horror trope of all the all knowing gravedigger occurs in this episode.
• Why does Phillip shout all his dialogue?
• Kat mispronounces Connemara.
• Where did the white cat go in future episodes?
• Dublin isn't two miles from Connemara.
• The huge mobile phones.
• A red phone box? (Obviously this wasn't shot in Ireland)
• Nick jumps out a window in the pouring rain and dramatically cocks his gun, it's meant to be iconic but all I could think was. How did he get that thing past customs?
• A local shopkeep is possessed by the demon and he fools Rachel into thinking he's her dead hubby. They get it on. Kat witnesses this and is no doubt mentally scarred for life. Later Rachel gives birth to a demon baby in a scene that is totally OTT.
• There is much foreshadowing in this episode of future revelations about Winston Rayne and Derek's fate in the final ever episode 'The Beast Within'.

"Poltergeist."
"Like hell."

An old friend of Derek's is accused of beating his son. But could it have been an angry ghost instead? Nick takes the case personally as it is revealed that Nick's daddy beat him up. Anyway Derek's old pal has to confront the spectre as the wind machine is cranked up again. Not a good episode.

Comments:

• Derek went to boarding school.
• The show has never explained why Winston Rayne was American yet his son has a Dutch accent.
• Alex's hair is short again.
• Did the man's disappearance go unnoticed?

"We smell smoke"
"Because there is a fire you fool!"

Rachel is freaked out over what happened to her (understandably) so Nick asks her to help him look for a lost colony in the woods. What could go wrong? Well they find the lost colony which is locked in time by its evil leader and he won't let them leave. In fact he chains Nick up and decides to burn Rachel at the stake. Thankfully Derek arrives in time to foil him. Good and the baddie of the week is really creepy.

Highlights:

• Sarah getting burnt at the stake and later glimpses show her charred body. Ugh.

• Alex's hair has grown two feet in length since the pilot.
• How is the colour printer working in a tent in the middle of the woods?
• How long was Rachel left chained to the stake?

As well as being a psychic and working for the Legacy Alex is also a social worker and community activist. She takes on a slumlord and has him confined in his slum under house arrest. However it soon turns out the slum and the slumlord's family are part of an old unholy pact and it is up to Alex to save the slumlord's soul. After a violent and bloody confrontation with an evil spirit, Alex staggers back to the Legacy house for a furious showdown with Derek. It seems he knew what was up all along. Not a good episode.

Comments:

• Alex's hair is long again.

"Curse and all, I bequeathed it to Derek Rayne!"

A former Legacy member gives the team an ancient scroll. Which turns out to be an elaborate revenge ploy. The ex-member has an axe to grind against Derek, the scroll is cursed and now Derek is going insane. It turns out the scroll is from 11,000 BC and is Cain's confession to the murder of his brother Abel. The Legacy members save Derek by sending the scroll up in flames. Good. Derek's mad act was so well received that the actor got to do it twice a season from now on.

Highlights:

• Derek goes bonkers.
• Alex takes a shower.

Comments:

• Derek is about a foot taller than Nick and all the camera angle tricks and Derek hunching over can't hide it.
• They were really pushing the Derek/Rachel ship at this point.
• Alex's hair is now long again.
• How does Rachel know Derek is a psychic?

"He was crucified by his own followers. The irony was that it was actually Reneau himself who encouraged them"

A man kills his girlfriend and then himself and the pair haunt a stretch of highway. Nick determines to put them to rest. Meanwhile in a far more interesting subplot Rachel and Derek discover a statue in a hidden room in the Legacy House. Derek gets to give a dramatic speech and smash the statue revealing it contains the remains of a Legacy member who turned to the darkside. But who hid the ghastly thing in the walls of the Legacy House for nearly a 100 years remains unknown. Goodish.

Comments:

• The tale Derek relates about the leader of the Belgian house turning to the dark, proclaiming himself the anti-Christ and corrupting all the members of his House is suitably creepy.
• Rachel has a face like a carrier bag full of spanners.

"She snuck down to the basement and tried to bring a cat mummy back to life?"

The Cairo House ships the contents of an Egyptian tomb to the San Francisco House for cataloguing. Derek immediately begins having horrific Egyptian themed dreams and Kat gets a new friend in the form of a Egyptian princess whose soul cannot rest. Soon Kat and her undead pal start raising the dead in the basement. Very good.

Highlights:

• Derek's freaky dreams.
• Derek in a loincloth, enough said.
• Senephra gets to be at peace at last, nobody seems stunned when Anubis arrives to take her to the afterlife.

Comments:

• Kat's schoolmates are horrible brats.
• The Legacy House has peacocks in the garden, aawwwww cute.
• It seems being a psychic draws evil things to you, look at all the bogeymen that have come after Derek, Kat and Alex.
• Derek has a photo of all the Legacy members (and Kat) on his bedside table. It is obviously a publicity still for the show and in it Derek is hunched over. Poor guy.
• Legacy Houses communicate via fax machines?!?
• Derek never blinks.

"The new chemistry teacher is some kind of demon that we summoned up."

Three bullied boys do a magical ritual that summons up a vengeful phantom. Bullies get their due, someone is nearly embalmed alive during the school talent show and Phillip saves the day. Goodish.

A woman in a coma sees a horrific vision. The Legacy investigate and learn a doctor is using demonic rituals to preserve his career. Not a good episode and when the demon pretend to be Nick's ex girlfriend to distract him, all I could think about was he supposed to fancy her xylophone chest?

"It's one of the unsettling comforts of the work we do, knowing death is just a doorway to somewhere else."

"God help me."
"You're far beyond the help of any god."

An old friend of Derek's (you think he'd be wary of his old buddies at this point) shows up. His daughter Samantha (De Boer) is dying. Everyone is very sad. But is seems dear old dad has a scarab ring and pendent which can steal life force and give it to another. He uses this to kill so Samantha can live. However Samantha is well aware of her dad's nefarious deeds and berates him into helping her steal Nick's life-force. Derek and co show up in time to stop the evil bitch and her crazed father. Very good.

Comments:

• Samantha has The Rachel haircut.
• The scarab ring takes its time draining Nick's life-force, it killed the punk and the crazy homeless woman much faster.

An old friend of Derek's requests help. Despite previous misadventures with old friends, Derek does help. It seems a kuei, a Chinese fox spirit is loose in Chinatown and the Legacy needs to lay the angry spirit to rest. Meanwhile Derek smiles for the first time and does some laying of his own with his old buddies daughter. An okay episode. Derek gets some. The kuei apparently has access to a candle shop and in one scene it looks like Derek is two foot taller then Victor Wong.

"Damn thee, unto the 13th generation."

"Let all who pass this way beware."

In 1696 a woman is drowned as a witch in Hellsgate pond. Now strange murders centre around the pond and the descendants of the head witchkiller. Derek stops the spirit's murderous revenge spree by stabbing the person possessed by the spirit through the heart with an antique silver crucifix. The man has style. Good.

Comments:

• Just how do the Legacy explain the swathes of bodies and disappearances they rack up?
• Why Nick left the Navy Seals is explained.
• The days before digital cameras.

Comments:

• It was Nick's father who originally killed the cult leader. So Papa Boyle was a member of the SF Legacy House before Nick. Mmmmmmm.
• How did the two brothers get to the House which is on an island in the middle of SF Bay?

"I swear to god this is all something my ex-husband set up."

Rachel visits her old school when the place is threatened by a scandal. It seems a coven of witches are operating at the school and has been for decades. So Rachel determines to stop them. Meanwhile Derek visits his never before mentioned sister who is a nun in an enclosed order. Very good.

Comments:

• All the tropes of satanic panic stories are in this episode.
• Derek's sister doesn't have a Dutch accent either.

Two scientists clone a demon from a piece of horn. This was done at the behest of the evil Victor Arkadi (Rachins). The demon runs amok as the Legacy try to stop it. Arkadi knows about the Legacy but the Legacy know that he knows and they try to foil each other. Good. Arkadi never made a reappearance on the show sadly.

Comments:

• How does Arkadi know about the Legacy? He has blueprints of the House.
• The Cairo House has been destroyed since the events of 'Doppleganger'.
• How does Derek know Arkadi?
• This episode inspired a particularly filthy fanfic.

"Nobody leaves that house except in a casket!"

"I hated my sister to the day she died!"

The start of an unofficial 2 parter. Rachel's aunt Rebecca dies so Rachel and Kat head down South for the funeral and to collect their inheritance. While staying in Rebecca's house Rachel suddenly acquires a southern accent and starts dreaming about pentagram sex. It soon becomes clear that Rebecca was a necromancer and she is slowly possessing Rachel. After being mentally scarred for life by the events of the 'Pilot', Kat is again mentally scarred for life when her possessed mother tries to give her a head injury. Luckily Nick shows up to save the day. Good.

Comments:

• Rachel has the worst dress sense. Her funeral attire is tacky and makes her look like a hooker.
• Nick and the absent Phillip are the only Legacy characters who haven't stripped off.
• When the dream Rebecca screams you can see the actress has a lot of molar fillings.

David Praeger (Kilner) a dedicated psychic debunker sees a crisis apparition and starts to believe in the supernatural. He goes crazy and dies but manages to put right what once went wrong. Not a good episode.

"Beware the wrath!"

Derek wakes up one night when he gets a visitation from a midget immortal psychic (Rubinstein) who only speaks in rhyme (this is apparently nothing unusual). She gives him a warning of coming danger. Derek takes all this in stride. As the team try to find out what the coming danger is, Derek and Rachel learn that their families are connected. Winston Rayne killed Rachel's evil grandfather and mother (he mistook her mother Ruth for her evil sister Rebecca). Rachel's a bit upset about this. But when her evil granddad's ghost shows up to turn Kat to evil as he turned Rebecca (as shown in 'The Inheritance') she gets over it. Evil granddad skewers Derek through the chest with his own demon killing sword. Derek is apparently able to walk off near mortal injury and dispatches evil granddad back to hell. Good. Rubinstein's guest appearance was the only real link this show ever had to the movie trilogy.

Comments:

• Either 'Poltergeist' typecast Rubinstein for life or she can only play the one role.
• Kat seems to have changed schools.
• Phillip is back.
• Derek got the sword impaled through his chest AND through the pillar he was standing in front of, evil dude then pulls the sword slowly out and Derek is able to fight and kill evil dude within seconds. Shouldn't he be bleeding to death? He shows no ill effects whatsoever.

"I'm glad your father's not alive to see what's become of his son."

"I will throw him out of here myself."

"A curse on your House and you!"

Returning home to the Legacy House one night, Derek is frogmarched off by Legacy heavies to face a Tribunal chaired by other Legacy Precepts. Someone within the San Fran Legacy House has accused Derek of being in league with evil. So we get a Derek on trial episode combined with a clip show as Derek's actions of season 1 get brought to book. But wait, it was all part of a cunning plan. Derek accused himself to get the other Precepts to come to him so he could unmask one of them as a vampire and kill him. Which he does in spectacular fashion. Everyone grovellingly apologises to Derek and the guilty verdict is completely forgotten about. Good, Derek gets to do monumental levels of brooding in this episode.

Highlights:

• Derek's dagger hiding trick.
• Derek, The Vampire Slayer.

Comments:

• Derek is left handed.
• The ruling Legacy House is in London.
• Julia is mentioned for the first time since the 'Pilot'.
• The fact Derek was found guilty is brushed under the carpet with some rapidity.