Legends of Tomorrow S03E09 Review: The Weirdest Grief Episode Ever

Legends of Tomorrow, Season 3, Episode 9: Beebo, the God of War

So yeah, this episode is... a strange one. Not a bad one, mind you -- it's just the premise of the episode and what it's aiming to do doesn't exactly mesh. The premise? A little trademark-friendly version of a Furby (Beebo) gets transported into the time of the Vikings, who mistake it as a war god, thereby causing them to change history. Somewhere in there, Damien Darhk shows up posing as Odin complete with long blonde wig and a staff that shoots out lightning. Goofy shit! But what it's aiming to do, narratively, is trying to tell a story about how the Legends will move on from Martin Stein's death. 

And bizarrely enough, it works. As Nate and Ray lampshades in this episode, it's odd that all the anachronisms seem to be dealing with things relating to the Legends' past, and that might not be entirely coincidental at all... and, well, this time around, the Legend to be involved in this is a young Martin Stein... an episode after Martin Stein dies. So yeah. It tries to build this whole story about acceptance, with Jax trying to struggle with whether to inform this young Martin about his future death without upsetting the timeline, with Leo Snart trying to fix Mick's alcoholism before realizing that he's also failing to move on from the death of Earth-X Mickey, and puppets are involved. Oh, and Agent Sharpe of the Time Bureau shows up to initially be her usual bitchy self, before developing a rapport with Sara, and we're told that, well, the Time Bureau has been completely fucked over by Mallus off-screen. Trying not to hurt my head on the fact that they're time-travelers and really shouldn't view time linearly, it sort of works. 

The problem with this episode is perhaps it tries to do too much... yet at the same time, it still manages to work reasonably well. Leo and Mick work off each other remarkably well as the two of them wish they were with their own Lenny and Mickey. Sara's moments of sexual tension/rivalry with Sharpe works well. Jax's grief through everything that's going on and the build-up to his own moving on is touching, and his final scene as he confronts the young Martin Stein in his house is definitely moving. 

Everyone else even gets a lot of great moments. Zari's insistence that Jax doesn't have to make Sara's orders the end-all-be-all and her speech about how she would save her brother if given the chance, the hilariously odd 'what would happen' scenario as the team discuss what would happen if Sara snuck into Darhk's base by himself, Darhk's concern when her daughter was knocked out by the genuinely cool Captain Cold/Heat Wave team-up, Ray going into a hilarious "Jesus is real but that doesn't mean evolution isn't!" tirade when he poses as Beebo, Jax giving little Lily Stein a Beebo doll, Mick's alcoholic problem... and best of all, the Arrow theme music playing as young Martin Stein uses physics and a toy arrow to get himself the last Beebo doll. 

So yeah, the episode ends in an actually pretty positive but still melancholic note. The team sends Jax off with a Christmas/Hannukah party as he leaves the team to 'find his own adventure' (between Jax and Wally, lots of characters are MIA this season) and the final scene shows the completely out-of-the-left-field return of John motherfucking Constantine, asking for Sara's help for stopping a demon possessing a little girl which is... what? That was out of the left field, and I never expected Constantine to show up in live-action mode after the whole deal with 'yeah we can only use Constantine in animated format'. 

So yeah, definitely an episode that I like a lot more now that I sit down to watch it. It manages a perfect balance of melancholy and the absurdity that Legends of Tomorrow does so well. Definitely looking forward to seeing Constantine hopefully as a permanent member of the Legends team for sure. Oh, and we also have a brief creepy scene with Sara transported into a weird ghostly Twilight Zone dimension where she comes face-to-hand with Mallus. That's cool! (Oh, and apparently Grodd went all King Kong on the Great Wall of China) Yeah, definitely looking forward to the next half-season.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• 1992-era Martin Stein with the toy bow is a huge parody of, y'know, Arrow. Complete with the Green Arrow's dramatic theme in the background. 
• John Constantine was last seen (and retconned into) the Arrowverse two years ago in Arrow's fourth season, and his involvement in returning Sara back to life in that season (or rather, recovering her soul that's consumed by the Lazarus Pit resurrection) is referenced by Constantine. 
• The Legends team meeting the younger Martin Stein happened in season one of Legends of Tomorrow. Presumably Stein just went through his life knowing all this but... wasn't he super-hesitant that Jefferson Jackson be his partner back in The Flash? Eh. Best not to think about it, I suppose. 
• When Jax and Zari play Mortal Kombat... Jax plays as... Jax.