What to Expect From Klaus' Appearance in the Legacies Series Finale

Legacies is about to come to an end, but not without one last visit from dear old dad. Last week, Joseph Morgan revealed on Instagram that he would be making one final appearance as Klaus Mikaelson in Legacies' series finale, which airs on Thursday. "If you had the chance to tell the daughter you loved more than anything in the world one last goodbye, would you take it?" he said in a lengthy video. He revealed that he had been dropping clues for weeks with cryptic tweets, and could confirm the rumors were true and he had, in fact, shot a scene for the finale. Fairly quickly, "Klaus" was trending on Twitter, and Morgan was feeling the love. "Worldwide trend for #Klaus," he wrote. "Thank you everyone who did this. It means so much to me." 

Morgan also shared a video that he made before he shot his scene in which he explained that while Klaus had never left his head or heart, appearing on Legacies had never felt right, "until now." Obviously, there will be no spoilers here about the nature of the appearance—beyond the teases that Morgan has already given—but TV Guide did talk to executive producer Brett Matthews about how the cameo came to be. 

Since so much of the show had been about Hope's complicated relationship with her previously immortal father, Matthews and the writers knew they needed to get closure from the character. The question was whether or not it could happen, with Morgan starring in DC's Titans, which is currently filming in Canada. "It just became a logistical battle, but he was very amenable to it," Matthews said of Morgan. "And once he read the scene, he was very excited about doing it. He said, 'This feels right, I want to do this, but how do we do that?' He's on another show, so we had to shoot that scene up in Toronto or Vancouver or wherever they were shooting Titans. There were some constraints on what we could do, but we knew what we wanted to do, and so you're seeing the version we could achieve in our finale, which at the end of the day, we're very happy with." 

But despite all the constraints, if you think Morgan didn't go as hard as he could, you don't know Klaus Mikaelson. "Joe is a magnificent actor, and it is very easy to write that character. He has a very specific voice, kind of the worst of villains and the best of people, but you always know Joe is just gonna dial in and nail it. So that was very easy on us. He just made it everything it was supposed to be with very little direction or effort. He works very hard on the material. He understands it very deeply, and he tapped right into that emotional performance. So once we saw that, we were very happy to have done it." 

Of course, Morgan's appearance is not all there is to the Legacies finale, which became its series finale after the show was canceled in May. While there were absolutely hopes for a Season 5, there is a sense of finality to the episode that might at least leave fans with some peace, if not total satisfaction. 

"I think that people are going to be kind of mixed about it," star Danielle Rose Russell tells TV Guide. "I think some fans will be happy. I think others will feel like they want more, and I think it just depends. I think an ending to the TVDU is such a big task to place on one episode after 13 years of shows and seasons. So I think Legacies' ending is right for Legacies, for sure, but there is definitely a lot of pressure on it." 

For more from Matthews and Russell, come back to TV Guide after the episode airs Thursday, June 16 on The CW.