Legends of Tomorrow, Season 4, Episode 2: Witch Hunt
Here we are, back in this wacky well of insanity that is Legends of Tomorrow. They're not even trying to adapt any DC stories anymore, are they? They're just doing whatever the fuck they want, and I honestly can't fault them as long as they make it fun. It's good for a 40-minute laugh session while eating popcorn.
Anyway, this episode features Constantine joining the team under the condition that he doesn't wear a costume, and the cast return to the time of the witch-hanging era of Salem (which Sara helpfully noted that they have visited before -- briefly in the second season premiere). After a pretty horrifying bit with crows attacking the villagers when they capture an accused witch, Jane, they end up finding out that the actual 'witch' is her daughter Prudence. Well, less of a witch, and more of a girl who's struck a bargain with an obvious Disney-expy Fairy Godmother. Classic fairy tales (or "myth-eries", as Ray dubs them) with a hint of the macabre seem to be the theme for this season, instead of the fire-and-brimstone sort of demons that Constantine is traditionally associated with.
Jane Carr plays a hilariously fun Fairy Godmother, by the way, delivering some really fucked-up and brutal lines while still maintaining that nice, grandmotherly fairy godmother voice. And while the laughs of the Fairy Godmother trying to burn the villagers with hellfire, or turning Ray and Mick into pigs are quite fun, the episode is basically a Zari story. Sure, it's a rehash of basically every other Zari story from the previous season -- Zari argues about the whole "change time for the greater good" versus "we need to keep the timeline intact" deal, and this time around Sara ends up shrugging it off and following her suggestion. This time around, Zari is angry that the Legends would even consider abandoning Jane to her fate, or that Jane would resign herself into being burnt, and delivers some tolerance speeches. It's all competently delivered, and while nothing particularly spectacular or groundbreaking, is still a great theme to explore and builds quickly on a brief plot thread set up by the previous episode's short scene of Zari seeing young!her and her mom.
And, yes, we do get the general hints of Constantine being hunted by such a terrible demon that the Fairy Godmother would be far more willing to be banished to hell than to aid Constantine against his still-unknown enemy, but, eh, I really don't think we're going to go super-epic in this season. Fire-glowing-eyes Constantine's cool, though.
Meanwhile, the B-plot of this episode involves Nate being stuck in 2018, arguing with his father who sees him as nothing but a failure stuck in a dead-end job, and ends up shacking it up in the Time Bureau and hanging out with Ava Sharpe. Won't you know it, Papa Hank is apparently the government auditor for the Time Bureau. I'm really puzzled by the setup of this, though -- don't the Time Bureau keep records of things like, oh, I dunno, Damien Darhk and Mallus and Rip Hunter and the dinosaurs and the dominators? It's bizarre. And Nate agonizing on how to display magic really feels odd when, honestly, turning into metal would've been a pretty quick way of showing off his powers. It's funny as all hell and the actors are definitely competent, but it's definitely a pretty weak subplot. The Hank/Nate stuff is over with though, thankfully, although it seems that Nate's slowly being written out of the main team, staying behind with Sharpe in the Time Bureau. And with the show losing Wally as well between season 3 and 4, I'm curious if we're just keeping the main Legends team pretty light.
Overall, it's... it's a competently-done episode, but not one that I think does anything particularly spectacular.
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