DC's Legends of Tomorrow S03E18 Review: Time Demon vs. War God

DC's Legends of Tomorrow, Season 3, Episode 18: The Good, the Bad & the Cuddly

Huh. That is... certainly a way to end a season. On paper, if you had shown me the synopsis to this episode and it was "the Legends use the Totem to create a giant Beebo avatar to beat Mallus to death while superfluous characters return to cameo and ooh and ahh" I would call this a failed attempt by Legends of Tomorrow to be too funny and too goofy.

The thing, though? The thing is that that goofy-ass sounding finale actually works, and I mean that in a completely sincere and un-ironic way. At this point, Legends of Tomorrow have fully embraced the Silver Age silliness that its sibling shows never did, even the lighter-hearted Flash or Supergirl. And yes, I'm sure it'll turn some people away, but shit... damned if this episode isn't a blast to watch.

Mind you, there's only so much that ridiculous fun can allow. There are definitely some stinkers in this episode, chiefly Rip Hunter's exit. It doesn't hold a candle to the other time that Rip was killed back in season two, and while we at least get a brief montage of his journey with the Legends and an acknowledgement of his dead family that motivated his season one character arc... Rip has been such a non-entity this season, and even when he was it was in the context of him as an asshole. It felt hollow, to be honest, and the fact that all we had was a brief drinking montage before we jumped straight to wacky hijinks really doesn't do Rip that much justice as a character.

Of course, all of this is just a way to get the presumably impractical Mallus CGI model out of the way, because there's only so many times he can show up -- and that's the brief battle where the Legends fail in the beginning, and the final battle at the end, because for the second act of this finale, Mallus acts entirely through proxies.

The thing, though, that sets this episode apart from most of CW's finales? The returning guest stars are actually characters that we've met throughout our journey in this season (and, in one case, from a previous one). The Legends have an idea to re-use a funky plot device from the first season by returning to Jonah Hex's cowboy town, a "time-out-of-time" or whatever justification they had to have the final battle in a cowboy town. Mallus recruits three historical villains -- Julius Caesar, Freydis the Viking and Blackbeard -- all of whom have figured in this season of Legends of Tomorrow, to be the leaders of his army for this final battle. Did it make any particular sense (instead of, y'know, bringing back Grodd)? Not really, but eh.

Oh, and Damien Darhk's arc gets wrapped up in an... okay way. Ray and Damien end up travelling back through time again, and intercept Nora before Mallus takes over her body. Ray's weird anti-magic nanite gun forces Mallus to hop out of Nora's body and into Damien... which still sets up the time demon's release, but with one critical difference -- Nora's alive, and Damien's dead. Again. I really wish, again, that Damien's death was treated with a little more fanfare, but I think Damien's gotten way, way more attention and a far better and less abrupt exit than Rip did. Hey, Damien got to save his daughter!

The Legends, minus Ray (the Water totem is happy to bond to Wally, it seems -- so much for ultimate compatibility or whatever) try to use the totems together to create a spirit warrior to fight Mallus, but end up creating a Cronenberg monster which Nate calls Voltron and Mick quickly puts out of its misery. They end up summoning allies from across time -- in addition to Jonah Hex and a reformed Nora, we've got Ava, Jefferson Jackson (extremely unexpected), Helen of Troy (now a fully-fledged Amazon Warrior!) and Kuasa... who's wearing the Vixen outfit. Apparently the meddling in Zambesi's history has caused an alteration in the timeline that... ends up with Kuasa and Mari sharing the totem? More on this bit later, because I actually think this is a shitty twist, but regardless, it is pretty badass to see the extended Legends of Tomorrow stand tall. In an ideal world we'd have even more allies show up -- the casts of Arrow, Flash, Supergirl, plus Constantine (who does show up later) and the Hawks (who were mentioned this episode but never actually showed up)... but actor pricing and all that.

The fight between Legends and Mallus's set of cronies is insanely fun to watch, and while it's actually extremely light on special effects (most egregiously, Mick and Ray don't wield their heat gun and Atom suit respectively) it's still pretty fun to watch. And then the final battle with Mallus happens and... okay, I won't lie. The CGI was definitely wonky, but it does allow me to suspend my disbelief. After all, this was a giant off-brand Furby fighting a demon from hell. There's no way it's going to not be goofy, so it's fun and insanely ridiculous. Plus, y'know, Ghostbusters reference. It's always good to have an unexpected Ghostbusters reference.

And then... the team ends up saying goodbye to Amaya. Well, mostly just Nate. Amaya's returning back to Zambesi, to build the life that she was always supposed to have, and... I won't lie. Amaya's story has been insanely turbulent and poorly-paced, and there is a distinct blurring of strong character moments that really mark the change from Amaya going from "what about my love and my life?" to "responsibility trumps love" and the show wiffle-waffles between both storylines... but it's at least a character arc that seems naturally messy as opposed to the Hawks from the first season, which is just flat-out messy. One big change, though, is that Amaya decides to keep her memories instead of wiping them.

The final scene shows the Legends' new member... John Constantine, who drops a dragon's head on the feet of the Legends in their sunbathing holiday in Aruba. Apparently, by unleashing Mallus upon the world, they've also opened the door of other magical creatures. Which is a neat enough stinger, I suppose.

Now, I've said enough praise about this episode that I'm comfortable into ripping into the stuff that this episode does poorly. There's obviously the Rip stuff, which I'm not too fond about, but am okay with handwaving. The Amaya/Kuasa stuff, though? Not only does it negate most of the Vixen TV series, I feel that it's such a weirdly shoehorned "oh by the way all your insanely reckless and emotionally-driven attempts at fucking up history? Hey, it resulted in a better history." It makes it look like Amaya's big sacrifice really isn't a sacrifice at all, since she gets to keep her memory, and she has the knowledge that she makes both her daughter and her granddaughter's lives infinitely better. But at the same time, for all the drama this season about how they have to keep history intact (and last season, with Sara struggling on whether she should kill Damien or bring Laurel back; or the previous season, with Rip struggling with saving his family; or this season itself with Zari's drama with her own family) it turns out that apparently fucking and dicking with timeline doesn't really have consequences, and I thought that's particularly dumb. I think there's definitely a way to give Kuasa a role without having to rewrite history, and to make Amaya's sacrifice actually have weight instead of just being a mild handwave.

But still, it's still pretty satisfying. There's a lot packed in here that I haven't really even mentioned. We've got Jonah Hex and Zari being adorable, Jonah Hex giving pep talks, the general character development behind Jonah Hex and Helen while off-screen, Mick's lines in this episode all being gold, the Ray/Nora shipping moments, the argument between "Mallus" versus "Malice", the fact that Jax is a daddy now, Freydis freaking out about Beebo the One True God... lots of great, fun stuff, here.

Next season will have Wally, Ava and Constantine (and maybe Gary?) as permanent Legends members, which I absolutely love. We'll see if the next one ends up being as off-the-rails-fun as this one, yeah?

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Jonah Hex last appeared in the previous season -- he does seem to show up in Legends of Tomorrow once a season, though. 
• Returning characters! Jax returns since his exit in "Beebo the God of War", Helen returns from being dropped into Themyscira in "Helen Hunt", Kuasa returns since her death in "I, Ava", Blackbeard from "the Curse of the Earth Totem", Freydis from "Beebo the God of War" and Julius Caesar from "Aruba-Con".
• In addition, Blackbeard refers to the whole Dread Pirate Jiwe plotline from his episode, Freydis refers to Beebo as the God of War multiple times (and Beebo's been a recurring character in season three of Legends), Mick gets a rematch with Julius, and Helen has since been trained in the arts of warfare in  Themyscira. Oh, and the group end up vacationing in Aruba, which is a running gag with Mick.