DC's Legends of Tomorrow S03E16 Review: Totem Wars

DC's Legends of Tomorrow, Season 3, Episode 16: I, Ava

So, previous episodes have hinted that there's something not quite right with Ava Sharpe, a character who I've expressed some disdain about in my reviews. It's not that she's portrayed by a bad actress, or that she's uninteresting -- as a tough, high-ranking officer in the Time Bureau, played by the wonderful Jes Macallan, she plays off other characters like Sara, Constantine and Gary extremely well. The problem is that her romance with Sara and how much it's taking up screentime in multiple episodes ends up really feeling like it bogs down the series in the same way that Oliver/Felicity bogged down multiple seasons of Arrow. The writing just sort of halts to quite literally revolve around this romance, and it's honestly quite telling when I saw Ray and Ava interact in this episode and realize that Ava really hasn't interacted with the rest of the cast ever since she's been promoted into a love interest.

Thankfully, this episode does bring some attempt at giving Ava a bit more to do beyond just "being Sara's girlfriend" or "being jealous at someone who banged Sara" or "being upset about Sara problems". Sara, Gary and Ray go on an investigation to find out where Ava has gone, and apparently in 2213, Ava, or rather, A.V.A., is a mass-produced clone robot deal that essentially patrols the Earth. For those at home keeping track, the dystopian future Zari came from is 2042, and Connor Hawke was the Green Arrow of 2046, making the A.V.A. ruled future significantly in the future of a war-torn dystopia. 

It's definitely a very interesting twist, as the title of the episode and the well-executed visit to Ava's actor parents seemed to imply that she's merely a robot, but when our Ava follows Sara to 2213 and finds out that she's not that special, but just one of many mass-produced clone-robot identical beings, she kind of breaks down. A simple speech about how "you're special to me!" is all that's needed to bring her back, though, After a fight against a literal army of Avas, they end up returning to the Waverider, intent on hunting down Rip Hunter and asking him some very pointed questions. 

The thing is that the Ava plot is honestly not even the A-plot of this episode. Or not the sole A-plot, anyway, because the rest of the cast goes off to deal with some totem business, and that honestly feels like where the highlight of the episode's drama ends up with. Ava's shock and horror is neat and well-done, but it feels more like a footnote in a backstory more than anything. While Mari McCabe herself doesn't get to make a physical appearance, the Spirit Totem being corrupted has caused her to become injured in 2018, causing Wally and Nate to hop on to 2018 to convince her to stop vigilante-ing for the moment...

And then they run into Kuasa. Wally West continues to be absolutely fantastic with his zipping around, and his "um, what" expression when he grabs Kuasa and she explodes into water, and his confused glance at Nate is probably my favourite part of this episode. Kuasa is apparently protecting Mari, though, and she ends up in a bit of an alliance with Nate and Wally to steal the Spirit Totem back from Nora Darhk and return it to their family. It's actually believable, but Kuasa ends up trading Nate for the totem, seeing his romance with her grandmother as (rightfully so!) jeopardizing her place in the timeline.

Kuasa gives the totem back to Amaya, but she gets extremely pissed, telling Kuasa that she's beyond redemption and that's why the totem never chose her, and chose Mari instead. This ends up spurring Kuasa to go with Amaya and Wally to save Nate from the bad guys. Can I just say, by the way, that while all this drama is going on, Damien Darhk continues to be an excellent, fun character by breaking down his tough-guy-act in front of Nate and going "oh my god my little girl is possessed by a demon and I'm so stresssed FUCK!" I really think the scene would've been a lot more dramatic if it was done with Ray instead of Nate, considering their previous spotlight episode together, but eh -- Nate has to be the dude in distress this time around. 

Of course, Mallus/Nora isn't having any of this shit. She tosses the goofball Damien around, and then quite literally rips out the Water Totem from Kuasa's chest, apparently killing her again. It's shocking, sudden, yet it does end up a pretty neat character arc for Kuasa. Tracy Ifeachor ends up portraying Kuasa's internal conflict -- both her Cain-and-Abel bit with Mari and her conflict with her grandmother -- extremely well. So yeah, the show says goodbye to Kuasa, and her death is the impetus for Amaya to hop onto the Waverider dropship to seemingly do something insane. 

The B-plot of this episode is... it overstayed its welcome. As hilarious as it is for Mick to completely miss the point of Ramadan and fasting ("You don't eat bacon? You jewish or something?"), it went on way, way too long and seems to just be a way to keep the two of the totem-bearers out of the way from fighting Mallus-Nora, and there's really not that much reason for them to do that. I really, really do appreciate that sudden somberness as Zari ends up pouring her heart out to Mick about why she honours centuries-old tradition and how it's as much a way to honour her dead family as it is her religion. 

So yeah. It's a very fun episode. Gary, Zari, Mick, Wally and Damien are especially fun in this episode, and the drama between Kuasa and Amaya is just amazingly handled. Plus, Ava finally gets to feel like a more fleshed-out character. Yay for that!