DC's Legends of Tomorrow, Season 5, Episode 8: Zari, Not Zari; Episode 9: The Great British Fake-Off
Episode 8: Zari, Not Zari
I'm not sure how Legends of Tomorrow is affected by the whole Coronavirus situation, as they are just starting off their season but seem to not have really changed their episode lineup? Maybe their episodes are already mostly filmed and all that's left is post-production or something. I dunno. Anyway, though, after the hiatus, the first episode we jump into is "Zari, Not Zari" and it's an interesting episode? As with The Flash, this episode of Legends kicks straight into a lot of the story of the season, and it's far, far more noticeable when an episode of Legends of Tomorrow drops its Encore-of-the-week or the fancy time period settings in favour of just telling the season's main storyline.
And hey, this episode finally brings us face to face with our nominal big bad of the season, Charlie/Clotho's sister, Atropos the Shearer, who makes a debut by killing Charlie's band in whichever timeline they picked her up at. This weird bit of time-travel always made little sense to me, why now do they find out about this? Is Atropos also time-traveling? Eh, trying to figure out the time-travel logistics of Legends of Tomorrow is an exercise in folly, but this one particularly glares. Whatever the case, this leads to an episode filled with Constantine, Sara and Charlie going off to find the next plot device in the Loom of Fate, bringing them to... the filming location of the show Supernatural. There is absolutely nothing to say here because other than some 'hey, this is the set where they film Supernatural' lines to tell the audience, we meet neither the cast nor the actors of Supernatural, not that I really care considering I've only heard the show for the first time today, but it's still a bit of an odd choice for a cameo episode thing. Maybe there's like an in-joke about the plot device being hidden in a stump or maybe those zombies are characters from the show, but it's genuinely hard to tell.I also never quite appreciated just how much time-traveling is such a middle finger to a goddess of fate like Atropos, and man, considering the sheer amount of muddling with timelines and destiny that our heroes in the CW-verse have done, is it little wonder that the Fates are very rightly ruffled? We also learn that the third member of the fate, Lachesis, is Astra Logue's creepy coin-mentor, which... yeah, that tracks, and we were basically already expecting that she's someone important in either John or Charlie's backstory.
Atropos goes after our heroes and we don't really see her do a whole ton of variation beyond just stabbing people and doing a biblical "behold my true form!" to burn out the minds of those that see her (she just becomes a humanoid light-show), but the fact that she takes the time to slowly engage in action scenes with Sara and gets duped by Constantine's improvised spell using random forest plants really don't gel with her whole 'oh my god guys, she's a GOD' escalation from the demons that the Legends have been fighting in the past two seasons.
Killing a member of the main cast, however, is. Behrad has been more of a hanger-on than an actual character in the show, who is pretty fun to have around but is mostly defined by his relationship with others. He's Zari's sister, he's Nate's best buddy, he's also the replacement for original Zari's position as a totem bearer. He's likable, but also kind of the most disposable... although that is a badass moment of him defending his sister from Atropos.
The B-plot, of course, revolves around the Tarazi siblings. After one too many bizarre 'echo' moments including waking up in the same bed with Nate (no, they didn't shag each other) or suddenly being great in Street Fighter, our cast finally figure out that this isn't just Zari, she's Zari 2.0, created after the events of Constantine-point, and that the original Zari is totally a superhero in the original timeline. This ends up with Behrad and New!Zari going off to take drugs, causing New!Zari to enter the Avatar dimension within the totem to talk with Original!Zari and eat some calorie-free donuts. And it's a neat bit of character development for New!Zari, which has been... kind of annoying over the past couple of episodes. Nate and Behrad keep assuring her that this version of her has worth and stuff, and that's a very interesting (and probably traumatic) position to find yourself in, that the you that's existing now is a mere echo of a far more badass wind-manipulating time warrior. We don't quite get to dwell on that too much, though, because the totem ritual happens, Zari meets Zari, and Behrad gets killed just as New!Zari gets the confidence to be a badass.There's a B-plot of Ava and Mick going into hijinks to have Mick be a good dad, and they try to do a montage-style of basically having Mick be present in every single one of his kid's major moments in time (a hilarious abuse of time travel if I've ever seen one) based on Ava's own experience, but turns out that the moral of the story is that to be a good dad Mick needs to learn to apologize to his kid. It's interesting, I suppose, but also kind of... just there? The show really just wants to shove Heatwave into weird non-badass-thug situations like making him a cheesy romance author or a bumbling absent dad and stuff and sure, it's kind of fun, but at the same time a lot of these Mick B-plots feel just genuinely detached from the rest of the show.
And sure, it's perhaps paced a bit too quickly, but unlike the other CW shows, it's totally in-character for Legends of Tomorrow to have wacky, random abrupt plot developments like this. Whatever the case, we get a death, we get a main villain (Atropos gets blown out into the timestream but is perfectly fine next episode) and we're basically racing to complete the
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Episode 9: The Great British Fake-Off
So this is an interesting episode? We're sort of back in a more episodic format with a funky 'concept of the week' while still focusing on the increasingly hostile Sisters of Fate, while also tying in Astra Logue being like the big badass gangster lord of hell. It's certainly a better-paced episode compared to the first half of the season where we'll have maximum hijinks and zaniness contrasted with a storyline lifted out of Hellblazer, and it's a neat, if obvious, way to bring the Astra storyline with the Atropos/Lachesis storyline together.
What I don't quite like is, of course, yet another episode whose big cliffhanger and cimax hinges on yet another 'oh no, romantic drama hijinks' moment. The actors are amazing, of course, and sell the hell out of that scene, but I'm sure part of the viewers out there are all up in arms over the fact that the Nate and Zari's timeline-crossed love ends up seemingly ditched in favour of Constantine and Zari's almost-kiss in the climax of this episode, and how Nate still totally carries a torch for Zari... but a different Zari from this one? Eh.
Still, the actual buildup to that point is entertaining. Constantine and Zari gets shunted back in time where Constantine's House of Mystery is a boarding house and they have to try and get the piece of the Loom hidden there, but the Fates send a bunch of Encore serial killers to hunt them down. Jack the Ripper, Bonnie and Clyde, King Henry VIII, Black Caesar and Brutus. As usual, they behave like the pop culture caricatures of these historical characters, and they're there mostly to betray each other because they're treacherous villains, while Constantine and Zari constantly snipe each other over the whole 'magician vs. social influencer' superpower or whatever. It's kind of a ridiculous premise, but it's also a very Legends premise. If nothing else, the guest stars are clearly loving every second of being hammy, and tossing Constantine and Zari-disguised-as-Cleopatra is pretty fun. Again, there really isn't much to say there, it's a typical episode of two characters with polar opposite world-views forced to work with each other and maybe sharing an attraction. Matt Ryan and Tala Ashe are amazing to watch as always, but it doesn't really leave me much to talk about.The B-plot is a bit more exciting in terms of plot development, but it's also kind of sort of obvious, one of those story developments that's just a part of the season that's meant to position the characters so that they're in an ideal position for the climax. After realizing that way too many Encores are congregating in the time period that Zari and Constantine are stuck in, interim captain Ava decides to bring Mick and Gary to hell in order to confront Astra Logue for breaking the deal she made with Constantine earlier this season.
Astra is as confident as ever and it basically plays out as a gangster-plot pastiche (as the hell scenes in Legends basically are) but eventually, Astra realizes that someone impersonated her and took all of the soul coins of the villains she's been stockpiling. She's still not convinced about working with the Legends, of course, and has the three Legends bound to chairs while she confronts her mentor, the Coin-Maker... who, of course, turns out to be the middle sister of fate, Lachesis. They basically admit to lying to Astra all the while for her own good, that her mortal desires to resurrect her mom is pointless, and that everything is part of her grooming to make her suitable to be Clotho/Charlie's replacement as the third Sister of Fate. Okay? Very exposition-infodump heavy. Through a tense (albeit conveniently rapidly-paced) conversation, Astra agrees with Atropos and Lachesis in exchange for getting Constantine's soul coin back, then proceeds to free Ava's crew to teleport to the Waverider when Gary's spell runs out. It's a bit heavy and while Gary's antics are fun, it does end up feeling like it perhaps could've been a lot better-paced. Ava's speech to Astra about being betrayed by her mentor is a surprisingly well--done and continuity-based bit of connection between the two, and it's a genuinely cool moment.As a barely-mentioned C-plot, Nate and Charlie literally just sit out the episode, laying on beach chairs drinking beer and talking about superhero sex. There's also a bit of a weird framing device of Charlie/Clotho talking about how she has an ally, the Enchantress, who helped her hide the pieces of the Loom of Fate in prehistoric Egypt, and also turns out to be the hostel-owner that exchanges a knowing glance with Constantine. Whether this is just a one-off thing or if Enchantress will play a larger role in the final arc of the season, I'm not sure. She better be, otherwise it's a genuinely bizarre inclusion.
There's also Sara... being... changed or something after her encounter with seeing Atropos's true form and surviving. Presumably it has something to do with her being a totem-bearer-of-death, resurrected at one point and also generally just being a badass, but apparently this gives her time to... see glimpses into the future or something? It knocks her out during the opening scene (and is the reason Constantine's ritual is botched) and keeps her in a coma for the majority of the episode. It sure is important and probably will be, and maybe it's a way to give Sara Lance some superpowers? Whatever the case, the episode ends with Astra Logue on board, a love triangle tossed into the thick of things, and also our heroes now have an entire arsenal of hell weapons. Overall, probably not the strongest episode again, but still a pretty enteratining one.
DC Easter Eggs Corner:
- Nate jokingly call Behrad and Zari the "Wonder Twins" when they discover that pre-Constantinepoint Zari was the totem bearer, after the twin super-powered kids from the Superfriends cartoon.
- In the montage, Mick's daughter goes trick-or-treating in a Captain Cold outfit. Aww.
- Vandal Savage's soul-coin makes a cameo in episode 9. Savage was the main villain in season one, and season four had him make a cameo as a resident of hell.
- Enchantress, in the comics, is actually more of a villainous, malicious entity. An ancient dark spirit bound to the body of archaeologist June Moore, June is able to transform into her alter-ego by saying the word 'Enchantress', although the Enchantress is an unpredictable being. She is mostly associated with the Suicide Squad comics and the Shadowpact comics, and perhaps most remembered as the villain in the live-action Suicide Squad movie. This version of her, while a lot more benign, is clearly based on the comic-book Enchantress with her codeword-based transformation ability and her green outfit in her true form.
- The Greek Sisters of Fate have shown up here and there in Wonder Woman comics, being sometimes-neutral, sometimes-antagonistical forces that show up every now and then; but are never portrayed in the way they are here. Atropos the Shearer and Lachesis the Tailor are taken straight from Greek legend, although, of course, the Fates in legend aren't as action-packed as this one. In the legend, Clotho would spin the threads of fate, Lachesis would measure them, and Atropos would shear those whose threads of fate has ran out.
- Norfulthing, a demon that was mentioned by King Henry, is a hideous terror demon that in the comics slaughtered the entire inhabitants of a club when summoned by satanist Alex Logue. An inexperienced John Constantine attempted to summon a more powerful demon to combat Norfulthing, but a botched spell caused him to summon a far more powerful demon, Nergal, who ripped Astra Logue's soul and claimed it to hell.
- As far as I can tell, Manaxos the Mutilator is original to Legends; and so is Astra's secretary Tiberius.
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