The reason why Hope and Josie don’t interact in the first couple episodes, a thread:

Hope doesn’t wake up in the first episode. Alaric doesn’t tell Josie that Hope’s asleep because he’s afraid that it’ll trigger another Dark Josie breakdown. Alaric tells everyone Hope went to visit her family in New Orleans to explain why she’s gone.

Alaric forces Josie to leave town for a meditative retreat to recover from Dark Josie. The plane crashes and she’s stranded on an island with a group of girls. She has to fight for survival without her magic.

Josie’s S3 storyline turns into a knockoff of The Wilds. Her new love interest is one of the other girls on the island but she harshly dumps Josie as soon as they get back

Josie finally gets back to the school by the end of the season, she’s reunited with Hope & Hope gets super emotional, cue reunion kiss, the end

Okay but really this would explain why kaylee wasn’t on set those couple of times people were concerned & them interacting doesn’t make sense if they’re within a ten mile radius