DC's Legends of Tomorrow, Season 4, Episode 14: Nip/Stuck
For an episode that spends half its screentime in some genuinely decent Constantine/Neron drama, the fact that this other half of the episode features Gary's demonic nipple turning into an eyeball that hypnotizes the stupid Time Bureau with dialogue as wacky as "GAZE INTO MY NIPPLE!" doesn't really work all that well. Like, Legends of Tomorrow has been pretty great at using some pretty unexpected sources of humour and combining it with a more serious plotline, like using a fake Furby as a giant avatar to fight a demon, or the possessed puppet earlier in the season, or, hell, even the demon-unicorn biting off Gary's nipple... and the previous episode sort of using said injury as a plot point is cute, but I dunno. This episode having Nora, Ava and Mona having to deal with Gary hypnotizing the entire Time Bureau into brainwashed, Gary-worshiping cultists thanks to a demon nipple eyeball is a bit too out-there and honestly feels a wee bit too crass for this show. I dunno. It's not that bad when I think about it, but I definitely didn't like it all that much.
Like, it's neat to have the Time Bureau all fall under the bad guys' control. That's neat. And turning Gary into the sum of all of the character's worst impulses and desires is an interesting decision to take the character... but it feels like they committed way too much into the nipple joke that it ends up being way too awkward and not in a good way. We get Nora being a team player, we get a fun team-up and a weird confirmation that apparently Mona's werewolf alter-ego is... a separate personality? It's there.
Meanwhile, after Neron forces Constantine to use his magic to heal Ray's body when he attempts suicide (oh, the irony, considering what Constantine himself famously did when he attempted suicide... it's a long story), they draw in the Legends. Constantine begs for the team to open fire, to get rid of the two of them for good, but everyone hesitates... except for Mick, resident asshole and person on the far side of the alignment spectrum, which ends up burying the Waverider under a pile of snow.
It's honestly just a way to take the bulk of the cast out of the picture for the majority of the episode, again, showing just how little the show cares about the time travel aspect at this point, but it's a neat sequence. Nate and Zari engage in more romance tomfoolery with the dragon egg, which I just... it's fine. I don't care about it, but it's fine. Meanwhile, Mick and Sara get into a huge argument, with Sara condemning Mick for shooting at Ray and Constantine and being angry that he and Charlie took time off to do a book reading nonsense, while Mick spits back that Sara herself shows a lot of favouritism and always makes time when it's her own personal life on the line. It's Charlie with some shape-shifting, as well as callbacks to the first season's team, that ends up causing Mick and Sara to end up apologizing to each other.
The solution that they have to go wild and overheat the Waverider's engines and melt the snow is insanely ridiculously obvious, like it's a moral from an early episode of Care Bears or something, and I felt like its kind of off? I dunno. At least we got some decent drama out of it.
Meanwhile, after the rest of the Time Brueau and Legends are dealt with, Neron brings Constantine to the past, to see the dawn of humanity where Constantine's magicla ancestor, one Kon-Stan-Tyn, is sacrificing random benign creatures like a Puca straight to hell. I'm genuinely not sure why Constantine was so surprised and horrified in the beginning of this scene considering how cynical he's been, and I felt like even with this show's more optimistic take on the character, it's kind of an out-of-character moment for him to be shocked that a bunch of ancient people would do evil things to supernatural beings.
It is some great character moment, though, from John Constantine, as he tries (and fails) to convince Konstantyn to revert on his ways, because Konstantyn just quickly assumes that Constantine is a shapeshifter. The scene with Constantine chained up with the Puca as he monologues is some great stuff, and Constantine finally finding a way to stop Konstantyn from sending the Puca to hell during the ritual is some pretty great moment. With the little exposition that the Puca is sort of a creature that reflects emotions around it, it's clear that despite his self-loathing and his self-perception of himself as a bastard, Constantine's time with the Legends have changed him into a more traditionally heroic character.
Of course, this is all part of Neron's plan to bring back one of his most loyal consorts -- the enigmatic Tabitha (a name I don't think we've heard before this episode), who turns out to be the Fairy Godmother from earlier in this season. Brandon Routh makes a pretty wonderful possessed villain, but it's Matt Ryan that's the acting MVP of this season as he decides to take the hard decision and fall backwards into the portal to hell in order to properly save Ray, with some amazing expressions and line deliveries, seemingly finally embracing his true nature as someone who wants to save people, and this decision seems to be done when he realizes that Neron didn't actually kill the other Legends.
With two episodes left in the season, and Neron assembling a pretty unlikely villain alliance consisting of himself, Tabitha the fairy godmother and Gary Green's demonic nipple, and John Constantine jumping into hell (which looks like just a random nasty alley) to save Raymond, it's interesting to see if Legends of Tomorrow will be able to actually deliver a satisfying Constantine story arc. It's been going pretty great so far, and in the next two episodes, while I don't expect it to not be light-hearted, please, have more Constantine drama and less nipple jokes.
DC Easter Eggs Corner:
- Kon-Stan-Tyn is actually based on an actual magic-using ancestor of John Constantine in the comics, albeit it's one that the comics quickly glossed over.
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