DC's Legends of Tomorrow, Season 6
Episode 8: Stressed Western
After the 'mid-season finale' vibe of the previous episode, this one feels like just another regular legends adventure. Emphasis on it trying its best to be regular -- even the characters themselves lampshade it. And... as far as things go, it's pretty much restricted to the wacky concept of the episode. We're back in the Wild West, but instead of Jonah Hex, the guest star for this episode is a giant glistening alien worm that eats angry people and can only be controlled by a magic whistle. Pretty simple wacky stuff, and the main conflict is... well, Sara hiding her immortal half-alien body from the rest of the crew, and being increasingly cocky. All the conflict among the party members make it extra hard to have a discussion before the rage-worm bursts into the saloon and eat them, making the whole episode essentially forcing the various team members to confront their problems without summoning the rage worm. This includes Constantine/Gary's argument about the space magic fountain, and Zari/Behrad's sibling argument about Behrad's love-life. The story is pretty solid, the giant worm and cowboy guns are neat. Nate even gets some screentime where he gets pretty pissed off at being essentially benched in the past batch of episodes, which is actually kinda neat. Constantine also leaves the team, although he's going to kinda-sorta be the focus of the second half.
Spooner and Astra get a bit of B-plot, and... the actress does her best, but I really don't care about Spooner, y'know? Especially when her backstory is just told to us off-handedly like this? Plus, compared to every other member of the cast, it feels so mundane. They try so hard to emphasize that she's more than just an alien radar, but the show itself doesn't really allow her to grow beyond that. David Ramsey (John Diggle) plays the historical sheriff that, uh... doesn't really do much of anything? This episode is directed by him, so I guess it's a fun little cameo.
Episode 9: This is Gus
Not the biggest fan of this episode, but on the other hand, I'm also not the biggest fan of Behrad, who's probably one of the characters that feels the most like a weird hanger-on. Still, this episode at least tries to give him a spotlight -- the alien-of-the-week is a pink Furby creature that ends up landing and screwing up the filming of a particularly important sitcom that would be a formative experience for Behrad's childhood, leading to a cascade of time-changes which causes Behrad to go from a carefree dudebro into a businessman. Shayan Sobhian gets to do portray the alternate-timeline Behrad and he gets a lot of fun here, as does Tala Ashe as both versions of Zari. There's also a birthday plot stuffed in here, too, and, again, ultimately it's pretty standard Legends stuff.
There's also a B-plot with Mick finding out that his daughter, circa-2023, is pregnant. Mick's attempt to kill her boyfriend Niko ended up with the two men hugging it out... and the revelation that Mick's pregnant because Kayla injected an alien brood-eggsack into Mick's brain. Also, they adopted the little baby Gus. Okay!
Episode 10: Bad Blood
The episode itself is pretty neat, with Constantine constantly struggling on whether to 'juice up' with the magical blood-cocktail left by Noelle the vampire. He also cosplays as a Vatican priest, which was fun! We get a pretty great monologue about Constantine about how he is nothing without magic, with some pretty well-done nods to his abused past. Ultimately Constantine gets some magic back after sweet-talking Spooner and the little boy Fernando into giving up his powers to Constantine... but the power finds Constantine unworthy and dissipates. To protect Spooner and Fernando, Constantine drinks from the psychotic magic potion, and ends up going utterly berserk in a pretty well-executed scene while a childhood tune is playing in the background. In a typical jackass Constantine move, he mind-wipes Spooner to think that they are successful in restoring Constantine's magic, and he sells Alisteir Crowley's painting to Noelle the vampire banker for more magic potions.
Meanwhile, the rest of the cast is... well, Gary's stuck as an alien because he lost his glasses, Mick's pregnant while also having some angst about leaving Kayla behind, while the rest of the team has to muck around with keeping baby Gus and ultimately tossing him out into some forest. Ultimately, a very solid episode! Just one that, again, feels like it probably should be its own show instead of being attached to this one.
Episode 11: The Final Frame
Bowling! This one arguably does overstay its welcome, but maybe it's because I actually 'get' the theme here that I had a good time with this otherwise pretty one-track episode. Thanks to our heroes accidentally opening a metal cube 'invitation', the Earth gets turned into a bowling ball in a cosmic bowling alley, and Sara, Mick, Astra and Spooner have to win a bowling match against a bunch of typical jackasses called the Pin-Killers to restore the Earth back. Toss in a typical inter-team 'learn to work together' story between Mick and Spooner, and we've got basically the main plot of this episode. Also, the Earth gets literally turned into a bowling ball. It's the sort of cosmic-ridiculousness that something like Dr. Who or some of the more ridiculously-cosmic episodes of Star Trek would give us, and it's surprisingly fun.
There are also a bunch of sub-plots -- the one that gets resolved relatively quickly is Constantine, who's reveling a bit too much in his newfound super-magic powers. Obviously, the godlike bowling owner notes that it'll be the death of Constantine eventually, but it's nice to see John get a bit more crazy in-between his focus episodes. Nate and Zari 1.0 go on a date in the woods to talk about their relationship, and they basically talk out the little doubts that Zari 1.0 has. They also get to shoot a cosmic alien being's finger. And, uh... oh, Gary and Ava cavort around in wedding dresses.
Episode 12: Bored on Bored Onboard
Another one I really, really like! As our heroes are stuck on board the Waverider for three weeks, they resort to playing a game of fake-Cluedo (or 'Among Us', for all of you younger viewers). Constantine, still drunk on his newfound boosted magic powers, decides to go full-on Jumanji and make the game actually real, transporting everyone into the game. It's typical Legends dress-up stuff, except this time we tie it intrinsically into John Constantine's own problems. The episode also builds up a decent conflict between Behrad (who's in an overprotective-bro mode), Zari 2.0 (who has to choose between John and Behrad) and Constantine (who's irritated all around). Constantine ends up having to face the literal 'beast' running around the ship -- himself. Or rather, his dark side who tries to strangle him. All of it would be pretty bland and gimmicky, but, as usual, the show really ends up being a whole lot more fun than the episode summary would have you believe.
Meanwhile, in the real world, Gary (who can't narrate the game) and Mick (who has hair) ends up meeting with Kayla. She's understandably pissed off at being left behind on the planet with Zagurons, and we get some pretty great moment from Mick's own combination of relief, reluctance to apologize and regret. Kayla ends up betraying everyone, and uses her detachable tentacle Lefty to resurrect -sigh- Lord Bishop. I guess the season needed a main villain, but honestly -- Kayla or Dark Constantine would've both been such superior choices to Bishop.
Episode 13: Silence of the Sonograms
An... interesting episode. I guess they had to do something to make Bishop, the hyper-hipster from the future, interesting. So they do it by staging an entire episode that's a fake redemption episode -- something that's 100% in-line with Legends of Tomorrow, by the way -- and hitting all the expected stops that Legends would. Except unlike Astra or Nora or whoever else Legends have turned to the side of good in the previous seasons, turns out that Bishop's evil all along. Which I'm thankful about; I really don't care for Bishop. Some really great moments for Ava through all this, though -- her bit with planning the wedding has been kind of a running gag more than anything, but I really do love how we get something more beyond that.
Lots of fun moments in this episode. Sara and Nate constantly talking about chess metaphors for one. Also, Mick finally delivers his 48 alien babies through his nose. And that ties into the Bishop plot with Bishop stealing Mick's ear-communicator while helping to deliver the alien babies; which I actually find pretty impressive.
The B-plot consists of Zari II, Astra and Spooner trying to figure out what's wrong with Constantine. Things go in a surprisingly fast pace (Spooner's memory block is handwaved extremely quickly, as is Zari stealing Constantine's flask) and just like Bishop, John Constantine actually tosses his flask in the trash can and for a moment, it does seem like he's genuinely reconsidering everything and trying to fight his literal demon-in-a-bottle. Except, well, this is magical stuff and Dark Constantine is less of a personification of John's alcoholism, but something more literal. John does seem like he genuinely wants to kick the habit of juicing up, but Dark Constantine takes over, and gets into contact with Bishop. A lot of great stuff from Matt Ryan these past couple of episodes, and I'm definitely a big fan.
Episode 14: There Will Be Brood
Also very interestingly, we get Astra and Spooner. Legends has always been pretty great at making me like side characters that I really didn't care about, but this season I really only have shrugs to deliver to Behrad* and Spooner in particular... up until this episode. We get the proper origin story of Spooner, and while it's not the most exciting thing out there, turns out that Spooner's backstory is tied to the Fountain of Imperium. She clearly doesn't believe in the sanctity of the timeline, and as she points out, Astra is probably one of the few people on board the ship that would agree with her. So that's why she got swayed very easily when John gave her an option to change history and save her mother in exchange for her blood.
*He's MIA since the Constantine fight all the way up until the finale, and I didn't even notice.
Everything is honestly tied together very well, and, yes, even Bishop's plan is included in this. Still don't particularly care much for Bishop -- he's not the worst villain that CW or even Legends has had, but at least tying his master plan to the Fountain of Imperium (he wants to destroy it to draw all the aliens to Earth and accelerate its destruction) makes his team-up with Constantine make sense.
Ultimately, in-between the multi-layered plot gambit of Astra and Spooner trying to preserve Spooner's history while also saving her mother; as well as Bishop and Constantine double-crossing each other, this all leads to Bishop's victory as Constantine seems to have died of poison, ultimately being consumed by the roots of the Fountain as he disintegrates into nothing, thanking and apologizing to his quasi-daughter Astra. Extremely great performance from Matt Ryan and, frankly, an appropriately downer of an ending -- well, of a sort -- for Constantine.
(The B-plot for this one explains what the rest of the cast is doing -- they had to call in Kayla for help with a fake space-Twitter post, and then Mick seems to get blown up rescuing one last egg from Bishop's trap.)
Episode 15: The Fungus Amongus
*Ignore, by the way, the fact that all of this is technically happening on Earth-Prime where Supergirl consistently has a literal alien embassy on Earth.
The Zagurons and Bishop are more or less just huge distractions -- even when Young Bishop gets brought in to help cure the fungal problem. The primary focus is, of course, the wedding, as well as the Legends themselves. Bishop really isn't a character I care about, and his mastermind powers basically amounts to 'haha, I have 6% of Sara's gene so I know exactly how she thinks'. Admittedly this does lead to the rest of the cast deciding to have a wedding right then and there, which was funny.
The climax ends up hinging on a 'we are all connected' line that means that Spooner is able to use her alien mushroom powers to swap everyone's powers around... very Rise of the Silver Surfer, very eye-rolling. I don't have much to comment on this segment. And then we get the very Legends way of ending the show, with the Fountain of Imperium, now cured, deciding that Sara and Ava's love is neat enough to help wipe out the Zagurons. And then Mick and Kayla's babies hatch and devour evil future Bishop, and thank goodness for that.
Anyway, that's how the episode ends. Constantine exits the show, and so does Mick Rory who goes off to be a parent (in an honestly pretty random scene that I felt came out of nowhere), and the rest of the Legends go off... to see the Waverider get blown up. Because of course it does. Ultimately, this is a finale that's kind of expected -- the show taking something that, by rights, should be cheesy as all hell but dialing up the ridiculousness that everything ends up feeling sincere. How great was Ava and Gary's conversation before the wedding? Or the vows they ultimately make? It does wonderfully what The Flash has kind of been failing to do for the past couple of seasons. Again, this season has been... fun. Legends of Tomorrow is such a bizarre show. I can't say with all honesty that I like all of it, but damn if it isn't enjoyable.
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