DC's Legends of Tomorrow S03E17 Review: King Denethor

DC's Legends of Tomorrow, Season 3, Episode 17: Guest-Starring John Noble

This episode's main storyline is presented to us as Gorilla Grodd hunting down and trying to kill a young Barack "Barry" Obama (without your obligatory Barry Allen confusion among the legends, of course) and that'd be zany enough. Grodd returns with that amazing voice and that amazing CGI model, and... and it lasts for all of five, ten minutes. Apparently the whole "Make America Grodd again" and Barack Obama's brief cameo is just quite literally a side-quest, because this episode ends up being more of a setup towards the grand finale of the third season of Legends of Tomorrow. And don't get me wrong, Grodd is gloriously fun as all psychic gorillas are, but hoo boy, we cover a lot of ground here. 

We've finally got a culmination, of sorts, of Amaya's storyline of whether she failed her family in Zambesi, or if she should return to her hometown and embrace her destiny. We've got Mallus finally being released from his cage, and Damien Darhk going through a serious chunk of loyalty blues when he realizes what Mallus's revival would mean for his baby girl. And, best of all, the title of the episode, "Guest Starring John Noble", isn't just because Mallus finally makes an appearance -- they actually got John Noble, the actor who voices Mallus, a role. When Ray comes up with the idea to impersonate Mallus to get Nora Darhk to cooperate and walk into a trap, he ends up realizing how uncannily similar actor John Noble from Lord of the Rings is to Mallus's voice, and thus gets him to read some lines. It's hilarious, it's insanely meta, and it still makes sense to someone who doesn't get the whole casting gag thing. A lot of times these meta jokes just plain don't work, but Legends rocks it hard this episode. How ridiculously fun is it to get an actor, playing himself, to help out defeat the character he voices? And still doesn't look ridiculous for anyone who doesn't 'get' the joke?

And I do like how we just go from one zany set-piece to the next, jumping from Grodd's attack on Barack Obama (why doesn't Ray use his shrink ray a lot more?) to Damien's attempt to make peace with the Legends, to Amaya and Nate going to the past Zambesi, to the whole John Noble bit. We're interrupted with your regularly scheduled dose of Ava/Sara shipping blues, although this time around at least we've got a relatively decent reason of it happening beyond meeting a CW Romance Drama Quota (tm) -- Ava finally confronts Rip about her being a clone, and realizes that her replaceable-ness is part of why Rip uses her. She's Ava the twelfth, and there has been eleven Avas that died before her. That also, indirectly, answers one of my pet peeves about Ava -- she was such a gigantic intolerant bitch earlier in the season, but so much more receptive towards Sara almost randomly halfway through. We didn't need Sara wringing her hands so much that she ends up going back to talk to Obama for an entire scene, though -- I felt that was a bit too much. Ava ends up leaving the group because she can't handle all of this, and only the rules matter. It's a neat little direction to take the character in, for sure. 

The Zambesi stuff is rather well done. Nate and Wally chase down Amaya from damaging the timeline, while Amaya sees that the village is destroyed because her daughter Esi refuses to accept the Spirit Totem. (As Vixen tells us, in the original timeline, a young Kuasa would've received the totem instead) Nate gives Amaya a pep talk, Amaya gives Esi a pep talk, and Nate gives the older Amaya a pep talk -- realizing that Amaya doesn't remember anything about the Legends or their time-travelling business. Like Wally notes -- jeopardizing the timeline so much can cause another Flashpoint (despite, again, what the Legends have been doing all throughout the series) but the drama's definitely there. Even if Zambesi and/or the timeline is saved, Nate and Amaya's relationship seems doomed no matter what, and... the two take it in relative stride. 

Damien and Sara's relationship is also well-done here. Damien ends up being desperate and go off to ask the Legends for help, and talks to Sara about how he actually regrets killing Laurel -- he didn't quite realize how important the whole family shebang is until his daughter is quite literally about to be ripped away by a demon, and his constant flip-flopping on whether they should summon Mallus to kill him once and for all, or to delay Mallus's arrival to try and save Nora... it's definitely well-delivered, and Courtney Ford amazingly portrays both the scared Nora and the psychotic Mallus taking over her body. When Damien realizes that he needs to save Nora from Mallus, he ends up panicking and releasing Grodd to destroy Zambesi. We get a cool bit of the Legends fighting Damien, and Nate using the earth totem to throw Grodd into the air (poor Grodd) but Nora ends up being possessed and transforming into Mallus, who is... honestly kind of a generic goat-horned bat-winged demon. 

And as painful as Nora's transformation sequence is, I actually do feel that the CG model of Mallus himself feels woefully unimpressive compared to how amazing Grodd looks... although, to be fair, I guess it's a lot easier making a CGI model of a gorilla since those actually do exist in real life, whereas Mallus doesn't. 

Overall, Mallus is free, Grodd is presumably free (although I'm sure he won't matter for the finale), and the Legends can't activate all their totems -- the water totem needs a proper bearer, and Ray isn't able to activate it. Rip, Ava or Wally, maybe? Any takers? Overall, though, a hilariously fun and exciting episode of Legends of Tomorrow, with a fair bit of character and plot development. 

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• John Noble, the actor who famously played King Denethor in the Lord of the Rings movies, is, of course, the voice of Mallus throughout this season, which is why they sound "so similar". 
• John Noble's crack about introducing an original female character that's not in the original Tolkien books is a jab at Evangeline Lilly's character Tauriel in the Hobbit movies. 
• Because of Barack Obama's childhood nickname as "Barry", we get a "Run, Barry, run" thrown in there, and we've got various characters mistaking Barry as Barry Allen.