Legends of Tomorrow, Season 6, Part 2 Review:

DC's Legends of Tomorrow, Season 6

Part two of my coverage of Legends of Season's sixth season, covering the second half of the season. As with the first half, this one is going to be a bit shorter than my usual seasonal-review fare!

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 Constantine stuff has always been weird, hasn't it? You go from the nuttiness of the previous two episodes into a relatively standard British magical demon-hunter storyline? Admittedly, Constantine himself has been more and more 'Legends-esque' over the couple of seasons he's hung around this cast, but any time he's got the spotlight, it does really feel like we've moved to a slightly different show. Legends' Constantine stories are definitely several degrees more tame than the actual Hellblazer comics that Constantine hails from, but when he's alone, it's always a bit odd how characters like Crowley the talking painting or Noelle the vampire are played a lot more straight compared to... well, all the aliens in this season, for example. So while this is a great episode for Constantine himself (and, to be honest, the type of story I personally like more) it does feel a bit odd compared to the wackiness of the rest of the season. Anyway, Constantine and Spooner end up going around 30's Spain to look for clues for the Fountain of Imperium, which includes being caught up in the middle of the Spanish Civil War. 

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

Plot! This is an... interesting episode. I didn't know that John Constantine was going to exit the show until after I have finished the season, so the huge twist at the end of the episode most certainly caught me off-guard. But the whole episode is pretty damn great. The almost off-handed reveal of how the Fountain of Imperium is actually just... well, an ancient magical colony of mushrooms. Oh, and all mushrooms are actually aliens, because why the fuck not? Bishop and Dark Constantine work together, hijacking the Waverider and going to early 20th century Texas. 

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

And the finale is... of course it ends with the huge wedding between Sara and Ava. How could it not? Of course they worked it into the climax of the season. Again, how could they not? After the Beebo nonsense, that was honestly what I expected. We get a 'last stand' being set up after the previous episode. The Fountain is dead*, an invasion force of Zagurons is literally coming, and our heroes just lost Constantine (Mick's fine). And... and Constantine does kind of come back, kinda-sorta. He ends up staying behind as one singular mushroom to deliver Sara a cryptic line about how 'we're all connected', and I thought that he was going to be left as a Swamp Thing analogue in this world. Except he doesn't -- his soul is providing nourishment to the Fountain of Imperium to keep it alive just a bit longer, and later on Constantine's dead soul ends up being bound to a demon as he exits the show. Genuinely thought that last episode was his exit, but okay. 

*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. 

Legends of Tomorrow, Season 6, Part 1 Review:

DC's Legends of Tomorrow, Season 6

I am ever so slowly making my way through the late-2020 and 2021 releases for the CW/DC shows, and... and among them, I think Legends of Tomorrow has and always will be the easiest to review due to how gloriously irreverent and joke-driven it is. And that's not a complaint at all -- that's why I keep coming back to this show despite it not reeeally being a superhero show since, oh, season three? But it's a buttload of fun. Which brings us here! Into Legends of Tomorrow, its wacky period costumes and its annual time-travel-with-sometimes-superhero-hijinks stories!

A bit of a rapid-fire review here. Again, I'm trying to experiment with how to handle these TV reviews. After this, I believe I'll do... probably Black Lightning? Or Supergirl? One of the two 'finale seasons'? We'll see. 

Episode 1: Ground Control to Sara Lance

I do like that the show does low-key do a re-introduction of all our characters via a series of scenes showing Mick picking everyone up one by one from where they've ended up. Considering Legends' rather insane secondary-team turnover rate and actors playing different characters, it's neat that we get a refresher of last season's newcomers Astra, Zari 2.0 and Behrad. Oh, and also Sara's abducted by aliens. David Bowie's here too. It's... it's an all-right debut episode, with a pretty heavy emphasis on 'Sara Lance is the leader of the team, the team kinda has to learn to work together without her'. But the concept of alien abductions (even ones that apparently abducted Spartacus -- is he even a real historical figure?) isn't the most interesting out there in a show that shares a multiverse with Supergirl. So the twist is... Gary's an alien! Who uses glasses to masquerade as a human! It's... it's kind of bullshit-random, but it's exactly the sort of bullshit-random comedy that only really works in a show like this. The episode still ends with Sara and Gary stuck on the alien ship, and a bunch of alien cages tossed into the timeline. Overall, an all-right, if slightly low-key, season opener. 

Episode 2: Meat the Legends

The main plot for this one actually would make for a pretty cool standalone alien monster concept in itself, although of course Legends basically takes it to its logically most ridiculous conclusion. The main idea is the dynamic between the desperate Ava and the unwilling new member Spooner, whose superpower is being an alien radar. Turns out, though, that the alien in this case is the secret meat juice being served in the proto-Big-Belly-Burger that causes anyone who eats it to have an intense craving for meat, fattening themselves up for a fake Mothra alien to consume. Pretty fun hijinks all around, even if I really didn't care for the Zari/Behrad subplot about sharing their ring or whatever. Because this is Legends, that particular plot point is quite literally handwaved by Zari 1.0 randomly splitting the wind totem into two. Sure!

The B-plot involves Sara and Gary running around the alien planet of Gary's employer, and they meet "Amelia Earheart", who also turns out to be a hostile force. It's slow burn, and this ends up feeling like the counterpart to the Constantine storyline in the previous season that has a different tone and is kind of divorced from the rest of the season. 

Episode 3: The Ex Factor

Not the biggest fan of this one, to be honest, although it might be my personal apathy towards the genre that this episode is parodying -- reality talent shows. The idea is fun -- a seemingly-robotic alien arrives and is driven by a prime directive to challenge and kill the king of the planet. Due to miscommunication, he decides to kill Zari 2.0's ex-boyfriend, DJ S'mores, otherwise known as the guy with a marshmallow on his head. Due to threat of an armada of alien warships blowing up Earth, our heroes decide to smuggle in Zari as the competitor to defeat Lord Knoxacrillion in a talent show. It's some Rick & Morty plot, and... and this episode tries to give a bunch of drama to Constantine and Zari's not-relationship, but while the acting and especially singing is pretty neat, I really didn't care for the romance. There are also a lot of weird sub-plots that really didn't go nowhere, like Zari's mother or her treacherous assistant or Zari's brand losing credibility in 2045... I dunno. The episode was fun, but it feels like there are chunks missing from this one. The B-plot is Ava and Spooner confronting Mick for being a jackass throughout the first couple of episodes, which is neat. 

Meanwhile, Gary eats people, Sara is suffering from infections and hallucinations, and the planet's full of Ava Sharpe clones. 

Episode 4: Bay of Squids

Eh. I guess I probably would've cared more about this episode if they didn't go so over-the-top with the caricatures of the Cuban Missile crisis era historical characters? Admittedly, this kind of comedy is very much on-brand with the show, but this time I just really didn't care for any of them at all. I guess it's a lot less funny when these are the guys are only separated from us by a single generation? Not a huge fan of how global the change in history for this episode is either, though as this episode itself notes, legends has really stopped giving two shits about whether time travel works. Not a particularly huge fan of the Behrad B-plot, or the shipping-flirting bit between Nate and Zari, or the something-something-football sequence. 

Ava and Mick's arguments, though? With Mick trying to show that he's more of a thug, and Ava being so angry about everything that she drives Mick away? That's actually pretty well-acted. The twist that the alien is actually Gary's ex-fiancee Kayla and she's hanging out with Mick on the Waverider is okay, too. But otherwise, this one doesn't do it for me. 

Episode 5: The Satanists Apprentice

A bit of a weird one? I really didn't think we're going to get too much out of Astra after the previous season, but this episode is a huge focus for her, as she gets increasingly frustrated because John Constantine's way too horny with Zari and distracted to actually teach her how to live in the real world. The actor playing Astra is pretty fun, and at least Astra goes through a character arc here? I really didn't feel like it was interesting enough to be the main focus for the entire episode. Alistair Crowley the evil painting talking about the alien 'Fountain of Imperium' or whatever is a neat tie-in to the rest of the season, but most of the story in this one is pretty obvious. There's the whole Disney animated sequence in the end that is well-animated, but is also basically a joke stretched a bit too far. It's not the most exciting episode, but it's a neat one and I enjoyed it more than the Cuban one. 

After an episode of skipping them, we get to check in on Sara, who meets 'Bishop', the last human on whatever apocalyptic future he's from, who wants to recreate the human race after his extinction. He's also responsible for making the Ava clones, and he wants to make half-human, half-alien hybrids with the aliens he's captured. There's a B-plot of Sara being duped by the very obviously loyal-to-Bishop Ava clone. I mean, it sure is a B-plot and a revelation?

Episode 6: Bishop's Gambit

An... interesting one? I'm still not the biggest fan of the alien-planet storyline. Part of it is admittedly because Bishop isn't particularly engaging as a villain, and the twist that he's actually a clone of himself and the facility is set to make new Bishop clones if Sara kills them isn't really particularly threatening. But the revelation that the Sara we've been following throughout these episodes is actually technically Sara Lance 2.0, and the real Sara died when she fought Amelia Earheart is kinda well-done. We don't actually explore the angst behind this too much, though. The rest of the planetary stuff involves Mick and Kayla basically working through clenched teeth and eventually fucking in an alien pod. Okay, sure. There's also a sub-plot of Sara actually for-reals converting the Ava clones to her side, which I really didn't care about. 

The rest of the Legends hang out in Constantine's manor, driving him crazy. They eventually find Amelia Earheart and the Waverider, which conveniently crash-land in that specific time. Not... not a particularly huge fan of the story here, honestly, though I suppose the real focus of the episode is the off-world stuff. Spooner (who's still mostly a cipher) turn out to be the same sort of half-human, half-alien hybrid as Amelia, and communicate with alien-Amelia long enough for the guys to learn that Sara is dead. Also, there's a very vague sub-plot going between this one and the next of John Constantine losing his magic and having to let Astra do the magic for him, and he's hiding it from Zari? Eh. 

Episode 7: Back to the Future, Part II

Not the biggest fan of the previous two episodes, but this one is actually kind of fun. With everyone thinking that Sara is dead, the Legends team go back to... to whatever time period the previous season ended in order to enact some time paradox moment. It's mostly just fluff, since they didn't manage to actually do anything (going through with the mannequin plan would cause some sort of alternate timeline with eyepatch Nate). The focus here is less on the time travel hijinks and more on our heroes meeting and talking to Sara, though, and eventually realizing that they shouldn't go through with their history-altering plan? Or something? Behrad and Astra have a talk about how sometimes they have to do things otherwise they'll regret it in the future. Okay, sure. Spooner gets a pretty cool talk with Sara, too.

In space, Mick, Kayla, Gary and Sara plan to get out, but Sara, realizing that she's been spliced with another alien, thinks that she's a monster and wants to create a fully-human clone of herself before leaving the planet. There's an actually pretty cool moment when Sara has to choose between sacrificing her human body in exchange for stopping Bishop's resurrection permanently, leading to a pretty cool speech from Mick. Otherwise, though, it's mostly action scenes. Also, Kayla gets left behind and seemingly killed. And then everyone returns, gets reunited, and the episode closes with Sara proposing to Ava. 

_________________________

Overall... this half season had some fun moments. I don't think it's quite as solid as the previous seasons, though -- I still think that a lot of the newer additions like Behrad and Spooner still feel as ciphers, and the show really feels like it sometimes doesn't know what to do with some of the other characters like Nate and even Constantine in this arc. Sara, Mick and Ava all get pretty good storylines here, if you don't try to think too hard about how everything really works -- none of the timey-wimey stuff really hold up in previous seasons, but I think it's even worse in this one. Still, as the show itself wink-wink tells us, it's not like that's the top of the show's storytelling priorities. 

DC's Legends of Tomorrow S05E14 Review: Wax Museum Fight

DC's Legends of Tomorrow, Season 5, Episode 14: Swan Thong

Well that sure was an ending. I'm not sure if Legends of Tomorrow's season was even affected at all by the whole pandemic thing, but it sure doesn't seem like it! I'm not the biggest fan of "Swan Thong", though, and that's probably because the two episodes that preceded it were such solid fare that this conclusion... is just there. It's not bad by any means and wraps up most of the over-hanging plot threads, and other than the relatively weak writing for Charlie/Clotho (her motivations in episode 13 and 14 is just kind of wobbly) it's relatively solid. That said, though, there's nothing here that's particularly spectacular or good or wow-ing, so the season finale just... sort of feels like it's there.

The episode first starts off picking up where we left off last episode, with our heroes sort of regrouping and splitting up, with one part of the team going off to find the Waverider, which is somehow not destroyed (the Fates kind of suck at this changing history thing) and is somehow just hanging out there in a Forbidden Dump, where everything the Fates don't like are just dumped there instead of being destroyed or whatever. Okay, sure. Meanwhile, another team goes off to destroy the Loom of Fate, because, well, I guess Astra's accepted her mother's death? It's never quite clear, but we get this bit of cool back-and-forth as Atropos confronts Sara and mocks her for drawing her newfound future-sight powers from her; while Astra is confronted by the spooky voice of Lachesis as she's unraveling the Loom.

Ultimately, Sara shoves Atropos into the Loom which implodes around her and kills her, and the Legends (sans Mick and Charlie) end up escaping through the Waverider into a couple of months into the future, seeing that the world has been warped again, by Lachesis giving everyone a smart-watch that tells them what to do as per what the Fates dictate, and that the Legends are branded as the enemy of the world as 'god killers', while Charlie has sort of lost all her self-confidence and stuff and would rather remain in captivity as penance due to what Lachesis says to her.

And Maisie Richardson-Sellers certainly is a good actress, selling all of the scenes that the script asks her to. Her scene as being panicked because she wants her friends to survive and they're clearly not willing to just stick around in a television dream; the later scene where she thinks it's all her fault that everything's fallen apart; the later scene with Lita; and the confrontation where she forgives Lachesis... all of these are very, very powerful scenes. But we just jump from one huge Charlie/Clotho moment to the next without filling anything in-between, and as such it really hurts the pacing of her character arc when I don't even really buy that she would so quickly be so guilt-ridden that she'd follow Lachesis and be shamed daily in the wax museum. The only real justification the show gives us is the whole 'some time has passed' excuse, and that's not very good writing, and that's why this episode ultimately is a bit of a disappointment. There's just enough here and there to infer as to why Charlie is doing what she did, but considering what a headstrong, devil-may-care person she's been before, I feel like it's not quite enough.

Thanks to a bit of wax-statue impersonation, the Legends end up calling Lachesis's bullshit out, revealing to the populace that the Lachesis doesn't have the Loom of Fate anymore and all she's doing is basically controlling everyone with her own computer algorithm (a repurposed Gideon) instead of using a mystical artifact. I'm also not particularly sold on this part of the storyline, but it's not really the focus of the episode, so whatever. We get the huge climactic fight, and it's the Legends fighting Caligula, Vlad the Impaler, Joseph Stalin, Marie Antoinette (yay Courtney Ford!) and a bunch of random cavemen while wielding a bunch of 'mistakes' like, uh... pogo sticks and other American references that fly over my head entirely. All set to the song 'Thong Song'... which -googles- it's apparently a real song sang by a real singer who made a cameo in this episode. I thought it's a parody. Okay, yeah, this part just fell absolutely flat with me. Anyway, after the fight, Zari 2.0 disconnects Gideon with the cheekiest smile you can ever get, and Charlie talks to Lachesis. And, again, it's a very powerful scene as Charlie calls Lachesis out on all her bullshit and her control freak tendencies, but ultimately forgives her and tells her to live as a human. It's a well-acted scene, but Charlie's character just jumps all over the place in terms of motivation and whatnot that it's hard to really say that it worked.

What actually ended up working well, if slightly rushed, is the Zari-and-Zari story, where the two Zaris don't really take up a whole ton of screentime and mostly just bicker with each other, Behrad, Nate and Constantine. The dynamic is fun, and while I genuinely never really cared about the whole love triangle nonsense, the fact that Zari 1.0 basically decided to sacrifice herself and return to the totem after realizing that her existence is causing a paradox that's threatening to cause original-timeline Behrad to die from the whole ARGUS-fighting thing. There's a lot of great moments here and there with the Zari situation (best of all has to be Behrad telling Zari 1.0. "I thought you were Zari."). A short but fast farewell at the end of the episode acts as a quick coda to basically make it so that Zari 2.0. is the Zari we're getting moving forward.

Also, Charlie decides to stay in the 60's or whichever time period the Smell is performing, as a way to write out the actress, and... again, you can kind of infer and get why Charlie's doing this, but the way that we jump from one Charlie scene to the next genuinely does feel super-awkward. Among other plot threads resolved here and there include Mick and Lita bonding as parent and child, and Sara regaining her sight before, well, being abducted by aliens or something as the requisite seasonal cliffhanger.

Ultimately, it's a bit of a messy ending that mostly concludes a lot of the plot points in this season perfunctorily, and it's still ultimately a pretty fun episode, but it's one that I feel like it had a lot of ideas but didn't have enough time to really explore them. Oh well, that's another CW season down!

DC's Legends of Tomorrow S05E12-13 Review: Sentient Zombies That Can Talk

DC's Legends of Tomorrow, Season 5, Episode 12: I Am Legends; Episode 13: The One Where We're Trapped On TV

Episode 12: I Am Legends

Surprisingly, Legends of Tomorrow, which already has a shorter episode run than the other CW shows, seems to be able to finish its intended run despite being hit with the same mid-season temporary hiatus, since we're rapidly barreling through some plot-important stuff in this episode... or at least, in the only way that Legends of Tomorrow can do. After a couple of episodes that are just essentially 'wacky hijinks to get plot coupons', episode 12, "I Am Legends", sort of gets things in a huge confrontation with the Fates. After the whole party-bro fest from the previous episode, all the Legends save for Zari drink from Dionysus's cup of immortality and are immortal for twenty-four hours. So of course just as they do this, Atropos and Lachesis call in their demonic-pact favour with Astra, show her the eventual death of her mother and hammer home that she's just delaying the grief, and commandeer the Waverider, with the only ones on board that can stop them being good ol' Gary and his new pet bunny, Gary Junior Two.

In a very cool scene, too, Atropos the Shearer waves her hand over a globe and straight-up just kills an entire country's worth of people just to stop the Legends from getting to the Time Bureau base they were trying to get to. Being a supposed goddess of death, it does baffle me why Atropos doesn't just kill the Legends themselves, or waste time with hand-to-hand combat in their last encounter with Sara... but we'll chalk it up to plot convenience. Unlike the other superhero shows, Legends tends to be so bizarre that these sort of inconsistencies really isn't worth thinking too much about.

The Waverider side of the episode is sort of a tense bottle episode for Gary and also... Gideon? Who seems to be able to manifest herself to Gary after a freak electrical accident. Which is an excuse to get actress Amy Pemberton to show up once a season, basically, and this time Gideon sort of helps Gary out in stealing the Loom rings while being all sneaky. There's a fun combination of just zany goofiness (Gideon bunny-hopping to distract Atropos, cluing in that she's really just Gary Jr. II through Gary's hallucinations) and genuinely tense moments when Atropos finally catches up with Gary and he still manages to do one last stand by using a spell to hide the rings.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Legends team, fresh off of a hangover and also completely immortal, end up having to hitch a bus ride (and just plain hijack a bus) before the whole zombie apocalypse setting kicks in. Why Constantine can't cast a teleportation spell is best left to the vague magical ways of the Legends world. We get a couple of fun scenes as our heroes fight against zombies, and thanks to their immortality, we get some black comedy injury as some of our heroes are brutally killed only to crick-crack themselves to being all right moments after. We get a hilarious bit when the military shows up and panics at the sight of 'sentient zombies', and, of course, the way they get out of it is Mick exploiting a weak point in the prison transport vehicle and then just jumping off the moving vehicle and becoming roadkill.

Throughout all of this, we get a couple of great scenes between our Legends. Sara clearly sees something uncomfortable and remains zen through it all, sort of more or less being a mentor figure to Ava, and the show seems to lead this more towards Sara seeing that she'll die soon and needs to be replaced. Constantine and Zari go off on their own and bugger off and have a lot of discussion about death and whatever while hijacking a truck, get besieged by one of those Walking Dead/Resident Evil giant zombie hordes, and Constantine uses a spell to stop Zari's heart and restart it again. It's all jolly good fun... up until they reach the final point and try to get a Time Courier. The Time Bureau facility is abandoned and the clock ticks down as they literally have to wait for the device to charge -- which also marks the end of their immortality clock. All the while, Atropos's zombie horde waits to charge in outside.

And this is when the episode makes great, great use of Sara's ominously calm and quiet demeanour throughout the episode. Sara's always been pretty happy to go as wild and insane as the rest of her crew, but for a vast majority of this episode it's the rest of the crew that does the brunt of the crazy fun they're doing, and as they sit down around a table and do a little talk as they literally wait for the clock to run out, apparently this is Sara making peace with their deaths. Now there's a bit of a question since we've seen Sara change the future from her Atropos-vision like during the hellhound episode, but ultimately the moment that Sara leads the team to is a pretty neat one, because all she wants is to lead the team to this quiet moment where they're all together and a family, and while she knows she will die there, she trusts Ava and the rest of the Legends to do what's necessary regardless of whatever happens in the future.

Again... thinking about it too much, it doesn't really make too much sense. Why wouldn't Sara lead the Legends in a completely different direction where none of them die? Did she know that the other Legends die there, too, in the zombie apocalypse? Did she see whatever Charlie did when she jumped through the portal? That's the trick about giving future-sight powers in a show that has been, in its core, about saying 'fuck you' to fate and destiny. But presented as a single episode with a powerful monologue, I'm inclined to handwave this.

And then, at the end of the episode? People die. None as shocking as the first one, of course, where Gary, under electroshock torture, manages to talk Astra back to the side of the good guys in a surprisingly earnest and well-done moment, reminding her of all the times and memories that she would've had with her mother, and the sum total of a human's life isn't just their death. And then Atropos shows up and kills Astra for her failure, and that's pretty shocking -- unlike the other members of the Legends, I've never quite felt that Astra is a 'safe' addition that would be immune to a surprise death like this, and it is very effective.

And then, of course, the zombies break down the doors to the bar that the rest of the Legends are hiding in, and despite their superpowers... everyone gets overwhelmed in this huge zombie apocalypse (okay, the rest I buy, but Nate's literally metal, though). It's not just Sara laying her life down as a heroic sacrifice, it's the entire team, just to give Charlie time to use the portal to the Waverider while all her friends die around her. You even see Ava's arm getting ripped off in the background and tossed in the air. And the episode ends with the Legends and Astra all dead, and Charlie on the Waverider... getting the Loom from Gary and deciding to team up with her sisters Atropos and Lachesis. That sure is a huge cliffhanger, and ultimately, plot holes aside, this episode was a blast to watch through. A lot of great moments for Gary, Ava and Astra in particular.
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Episode 13: The One Where We're Trapped on TV

Legends of Tomorrow is a show about time-travel, so it's obvious that every now and then you get the trope of an apocalyptic, dystopian future caused by their time-travels. The Legion of Doom did it, Vandal Savage sort of did it in the future, even Constantine-point was sort of one. So if all that there is to this episode was just our heroes finding themselves in the dystopian, everything-under-the-Fates'-thumb world and regaining their memories and breaking free, it'd be an exciting 45 minutes but it wouldn't be anything particularly refreshing. And we still kind of get that bit, thanks to the sub-plot in the 'real world' with Mona and Gary, transformed into an obedient citizen and that crazy street doomsayer respectively, end up realizing that something's not quite right in the TV shows they're watching and conspire to free the legends.

And the concept of the episode itself seems to be leaning towards that. Mona works in a office where everyone wears the same sort of quasi-prison outfit, burning all evidence of free will throughout history and sanitizing history for the populace (but don't the Fates control... fate? Whatever, best not to think too much about it), they feed everyone mush, Charlie's Clotho again, and everyone goes around saying 'Fates be praised' and sometimes big spooky ol' Atropos will show up on a TV screen and declare that someone's time is up and they drop dead. But there are four whole TV shows to entertain the populace.

And this was a fun episode. As our characters later find out, Clotho/Charlie has put their souls into television programs as a way to appease her sisters, keeping them alive but not running around mucking things up. And she even fits everything that they want in a similar vein to what their stated last wishes were in the previous episode, which is fantastic. Zari and Behrad get to live a normal life as siblings, Constantine gets to 'do right' by Astra, Astra's reunited with her mother, Ava and Sara are badass co-captains of a spaceship where no one gets to die, Mick gets to be a thief again. Oh, and Nate's kind of there. Friends Ultimate Buds is perfect for him, though.

The way that our heroes break free from the control of the Fates' scripwriting program makes sense, too. All too often in this 'alternate reality' storyline in comics and CW shows, someone just... remembers the memories of the past life when they see or experience something similar to the original timeline, and then they start reminding everyone and stuff. It's cool stuff, but at this point (particularly in Legends) kind of predictable. So the way that our heroes regain their memory this time around is by exploiting another time paradox.

Nate, Behrad and Zari 2.0 find themselves in "Ultimate Buds", a pastiche on Friends where they're a sitcom or whatever with a laugh track, but then Zari 1.0's 'ghost' or whatever possesses Zari 2.0's body and she starts to get all confused and stuff. Her incoherent yelling brings Mona in the real world to realize that something's not quite right if what this TV character is saying fits with what that crazy loon Gary's been talking about, while poor, poor Zari ends up realizing that they're stuck in a television program. The setup for this is great, and the fact that other than Mona and Gary, apparently everyone else in the populace thinks this is just a wacky crossover is hilarious.

Also, while Zari manages to convince Nate and Behrad to join her to go to other shows (where, of course, their clothes immediately transform to fit the style of the other shows) none of them are really cured, so so speak, from the tropes of their original show. Nate and Behrad in particular keep repeating their sitcom characters' catchphrases and devil-may-care comedy attitude. It's Highcastle Abbey (Downtown Abbey) that they show up in first, where Lady Astra Logue is living in Constantine's House of Mysteries with a living and breathing mother, while Constantine is their faithful butler. Then it's Star Trip (Star Trek) where the Waverider is co-captained by Sara and Ava, crewed exclusively by handsome men in miniskirts, and they are fighting "Dahn", a.k.a. Mick with a hilariously bad wig.

Again, all of this correspond somewhat to their ultimate wishes, sort of similar to that one Dominator dreamworld in the "Invasion" crossover, but instead of 'history as it should be', this all takes place with hilarious television tropes and shows being lampooned. It's silly but very entertaining, and while I don't know too much about cinematography to comment, there's a distinctive style of camera movement that gives each of these fake shows their own distinctive style. Hell, there's even a fair bit of stylistic suck in the Star Trip sequences, and all of these bright, colourful and warm shows end up contrasting very well whenever we cut back to the bleak, somber tone of Gary and Mona running around in the real world, trying to infiltrate Clotho's TV production show.

As the Legends try to rebel in their TV shows, Clotho/Charlie show up where Mona and Gary are trying to break our heroes' strings free, and she quickly types in her own script in the fourth show, Mr. Parker's Cul-De-Sac, trying to convince the Legends that everything is fine, their lives are all happy and they're all alive and they have their dreams... but it's not real, and the real world is still a Fate-controlled shithole. Hell, apparently Clotho can just rip Zari's thread of fate into two, allowing Zari 1.0 and Zari 2.0 to co-exist, which is such a hilariously 'fuck it' mundane solution to the two-Zaris plotline that's been plaguing the season. Of course, the Legends being Legends, they refuse to be propaganda tools and each start their own rebellion in their own TV shows, each of them leading to their respective shows' cancellation. The biggest moment here, I think, is Constantine's offer to allow Astra to make her choice -- he was damn serious about doing penance, and while the Not-Friends and Not-Star-Trek Legends are rebelling against the rules of their show, Constantine was fully willing to serve his penance in this dream-world and allow Astra to live this life with her mother. They don't, of course, but the moment was amazingly handled. Sara's speech about how life isn't a formulaic story like these TV shows but you have to take the good and the bad together is also very great.

Ultimately, the Legends break free, meet up with Charlie, Gary and Mona in the studio, and they are ready to take the fight to the two Fates. It's a great episode, and it's just such a shame that I feel like the Charlie side of things feels rushed. We're not quite sure just why she did this, and a couple of additional lines explaining that this is the only way, or that she was traumatized by the death-by-zombie last episode, would've worked wonders, I believe. Considering that this episode had a lot of great character work for Constantine, Astra, Zari and even Sara and Ava, I really wished we learned what caused Charlie to submit to the idea of the world going on with the Fates at the head without free will.

On towards the finale, then. A very fun, funny and genuinely entertaining episode, and one with something hilarious at every corner as we muck around TV-land. If nothing else, Legends of Tomorrow does make me smile.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Not-Friends!Nate apparently ended up getting an audition to play "Robin Hood" in the vigilante show Arrow. That's actually kind of hilarious. 
• The "Zari 1.0" and "Zari 2.0" monikers actually come from a blink-and-you'll miss it part of Clotho's automatic-typewriting machine. 

DC's Legends of Tomorrow S05E10-11 Review: Gary Junior!

Legends of Tomorrow, Season 5, Episode 10: Ship Broken; Episode 11: Freaks and Geeks

Episode 10: Ship Broken
This one was pretty fun! In 'Ship Broken', we've got a typical "whodunnit" episode, something that Legends of Tomorrow have, I believe, dabbled a couple of times before. But between the current temporary addition of hell baroness Astra Logue into the crew, the argument at the beginning of the episode on who gets to use the Loom of Fate first, as well as Sara Lance's bizarre, unpredictable new future death-visions, there's a couple of fun red herrings. Oh, and Mick's kid is on board the Waverider trying to do her history homework and gets into a bit of an argument.

And there really isn't much to "Ship Broken". It's just a fun, wacky installment of Legends of Tomorrow, and there's the 'of course' solution to the fact that the one-off gag of Gary showing up with a random new emotional support puppy called Gary Jr (awww) turns out to be a heinous hellhound sent to infiltrate the ship. Still, the whole sabotage mystery isn't the only part of the episode. There's still the constant argument between Zari and Astra on who gets to use the Loom first to resurrect their respective dead loved ones, plus Ava, who's intent on fixing Sara's blindness.

Of course, the episode offers no shortage of red herrings. Sara's clearly not in her right mind and might be going crazy from her exposure to Atropos (and she clearly doesn't trust herself). Astra is, well, a literal demon from hell, although she's the obvious red herring and the episode makes it clear that she's clearly offended by all of the instant accusations from everyone around her. Charlie/Clotho is clearly showing some reluctance initially to fuck with the Loom. And there's also Zari, whose attempts to talk to Astra seems to imply that she's thinking of making an alliance between the two of them, and we're not sure who's acting shifty to root out the actual perpetrator, and who's actually shifty because they are evil. And that's not counting mind-control or shape-shifters, either... and, of course, the solution is... Gary's dog! Who shows up in a couple of gag scenes where the dog has a nervous bladder and acts cute.

So turns out that Gary Junior is Marchosias, the Canine of Chaos from hell, who has limited mind-controlling abilities and the climax of the episode ends up with a blind, future-seeing Sara Lance spin-kicking a hellhound while Astra, proving her (relative) loyalty to the team, tells the pooch's true name to Constantine to banish it to hell.

Ultimately, a very fun episode even if it doesn't add a whole ton. The B-plot with Mick's relationship with Lita, clumsily attempting to be a dad to a teenage kid with abandonment issues, showing off his hoard and actually bonding with Lita over thievery before realizing that this isn't what he wants for her and shutting her out from that part of his life... it's supremely well done, I feel, and as long as it doesn't take up too much screentime in subsequent episodes (or it ties into the other subplots well) this is actually a side-story I'm actually a fan of. Nothing of real consequence happens in this one, and I'm not sure I have much to talk about here without just repeating specific jokes from the episode. The fun dialogue, vibe and the general, well, fun of the episode makes it one of the episodes in this season I'm a bigger fan of.
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Episode 11: Freaks and Geeks

On the other hand, this episode... didn't quite catch my attention as much as the previous episode did, but that's probably because I really never found the appeal in this sort of storylines about, like, sororities and being popular kids and whatever? I've never been someone who really attended these sort of things, anyway, and while the episode does have a fun guest star that works with Charlie's newfound Greek mythology backstory. Apparently, the Greek God of Wine, Dionysus, has set up shop in a university frat house, and because Dionysus is a ker-aaaazy god, and they need his immortality-granting chalice, our heroes have to go off and play frat-boys and sorority-girls or whatever the term for those are... and for what it's worth, the episode isn't terrible, but while I felt like "Ship Broken" was a solid fun hour of ridiculousness, this one is just... eh.

The sorta-main storyline is also painfully obvious and not particularly well-executed. Oh, so Astra is maligned by a majority of the cast because she's a former villain, and we have to go through some wackiness-turned-honesty-ramble while our heroes are trapped in a zany situation. Unlike any of the other times that this has happened, though (and one would argue that these sort of episodes form the emotional backbone of the best Legends episodes) this one feels shoehorned and forced, and I never bought into just how rapidly Astra is converted by arguing and later teaming up with the other Legends girls in the sorority of something-phi-or-other. And... I dunno, spinning the same old yarn of "she's not really evil, it's just a bad environment" that they did for Mick and Nora doesn't quite feel as organic, and the fact that Astra was randomly ready to play sisters with the Legends is a bit stretching it. Mostly, though, it's that Astra's prior portrayal leaned so much towards Astra feeling more like a token evil member that's allying with them thanks to Constantine and common interests, and this rather forced direction isn't something I'm particularly a huge fan of... and it's not done quite as well. I'm not sure if it's the scripting, the constant cutaways to other parts of this episode, or the fact that "the Legends are being frat boys hyuck hyuck" just plain don't appeal to me, but... eh.

There's still some fun here, particularly with how easily Nate gets fooled and roped into Dion's frat-bro craziness, or the B-plot with Mick and Lita (which honestly is more of a repeat and reinforcement of last episode's, but Mick's huge gesture of going back in time and donating just to make Lita not embarrassed is awww), and the appropriately no-fucks-given mentality that Dionysus has... it's not a terrible episode, and I still find it enjoyable. Just not as enjoyable as the rest of the season. 

DC's Legends of Tomorrow S05E08-09 Review: Two Zaris and Three Fates

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 Infinity Gauntlet Loom of Fate before the enemy, not just to save Astra but also to resurrect Behrad. Overall, kind of a clunky episode, honestly, but still a relatively entertaining one.
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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. 

DC's Legends of Tomorrow S05E07 Review: King Lear

DC's Legends of Tomorrow, Season 5, Episode 7: Romeo v. Juliet: Dawn of Justness

As we close off the batch of available episodes for Legends of Tomorrow (production of many of the CW shows are delayed thanks to the whole health situation worldwide) it's kind of fitting that this episode is a conclusion to as well, to one of the original members of the Legends of Tomorrow's cast for the past five seasons, and a member of Arrow's cast for at least a season or so. Brandon Routh hasn't been written as the best adaptation of DC's superhero the Atom, but he sure has been a very well-written character and one that has been a fun source of laughter in this show. And, again, while I keep emphasizing just how much Legends of Tomorrow is now a show that has been taken over by the zaniness of its actors and its own personal tone, it's still quite sad to see a main character leave. Between this episode and the previous one, though, I have to say that having Ray and Nora leave as a solidly wedded couple, and this final episode basically Ray angsting on how to tell his best bro-mate Nate that he's going to leave is a fun, if sad, story.

There's a huge theme of "if you truly love the characters, they deserve a great ending" going on throughout this episode, with the time hijinks plotline being that William Shakespeare is angsting on how to end Romeo and Juliet, and our heroes getting caught up in the expected wackiness that follows them wherever they go. It's definitely a bit too meta for my tastes, especially considering the irreverent endings that Legends and CW in general have given many of their other characters, but... eh, at least it fits the episode.

There's no Encore this week (instead, the plot-device-of-the-week is the piece of the Loom of Fate hidden as Shakespeare's ring) and there's no real expansion of the Constantine plotline beyond a brief moment where Astra attempts to scry on Constantine (egged by her mysterious Old Lady Demon friend), and the primary focus is cutting back and forth the wild insanity of the Legends' bachelor/bachelorette party, which... it's absolutely batshit insane. It's honestly expected, but it's still really fun to watch, from Nate planning the crazy heist to Ray angsting about just when to break the bad news to the insanity that the girls get up to on the Waverider, which would take too long to describe, and words aren't enough anyway.

Instead, after a drunken bachelor party after they swiped the plot device, the boys end up causing a huge bar brawl with superpowers, and Nate accidentally mind-wipes the team instead of the locals, causing Shakespeare to write a huge superhero epic instead of a romantic epic. Typical Legends stuff, and, of course, they end up playing dress-up to solve the day, while Ray gives Shakespeare a pep talk, Nate ends up realizing Ray's going to quit the team and gets pissed off, and later on making up with Ray and having the bro-est of the bro hugs. It's sappy, it's crazy, it's basically what you expect from an episode like this. 

There's a short C-plot with Mick as well, and while it's admittedly a bit of an odd direction to take the character, it allows poor, under-utilized Dominic Purcell a lot of chances to flex his acting muscles as he drunkenly spills the beans about how he has a daughter, and the bit of vulnerability he shows Mona later on at the end of the episode is well-done. Mona also sees Mick as a bit of a father figure, which is a huge d'awww moment. Another great moment is actually giving time for Gideon to join in the sass when the team tries to get Ray to tell Nate about his leaving, and later on Ray actually saying goodbye to a crying Gideon.

Anyway, there's not really a whole ton to say. It's a great, appropriately sappy and appropriately goofy send-off to Ray Palmer.



DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• The title of this episode is, of course, a riff on the super-long title of the DC movie Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. 

DC's Legends of Tomorrow S05E05-06 Review: Fucking With Fate

DC's Legends of Tomorrow, Season 5, Episode 5: Mortal Khanbat; Episode 6: Mr. Parker's Cul-de-sac

Episode 5 of  this season of Legends of Tomorrow, "Mortal Khanbat" is... it's interesting. I do think I have to mention that this is Caity Lotz's directional debut, which explains her absence last episode, and it sure is a pretty fun episode, but the actual action scenes in this episode is a pretty neat standout compared to your regular Legends fare. We have a shootout in a Chinese restaurant between an undercover cop, some superheroes and a bunch of gangsters, which is always a good time, but the standout and most memorable action scenes has to be the fact that this is Legends of Tomorrow and things always go for the extra-ridiculous, so what started off as seemingly a one-off gag with Nate's scooter ended up with something insanely ridiculous when we get Genghis Khan leading a Chinese triad mob on a scooter-based action scene as they do crazy stunts on scooters in an attempt to kidnap the Prince of England. Legends of Tomorrow be like that sometimes.

And, as always, the comedy and zaniness bits of Legends of Tomorrow works relatively well. Bringing Genghis Khan back just to have a repeat of Rasputin earlier this season isn't something that's going to be particularly memorable, but the extra layer of zaniness of having him revive a couple centuries late (he was digging his way out of his impenetrable tomb, which was hilarious) and the whole bit with scooters ends up giving this an extra layer of oomph that makes this episode extra funny. Also, considering the recent political situation in Hong Kong, I'm actually thankful the episode doesn't try to get political. Anyway, the Legends beat Genghis Khan and his scooter sword, steal his Hellfire Sword, and that's another part of history that's preserved.

The Constantine storyline of this episode is, as usual, a tonally wildly different storyline compared to the typical time-traveling hijinks and I honestly really think that the series could've probably smooshed all the Constantine scenes in these six episodes into a single, serious episode. I know Legends is all fun and games, but the sheer tonal imbalance between the scenes do hurt both of them. Matt Ryan is amazing as he plays a John Constantine that's nearing his death. His jumping around from defiance to anger to desperation to eventual acceptance is amazingly done, and while I would kill to see Matt Ryan star in an adaptation of "Dangerous Habits", this is Legends and the fact that Constantine decides to sit and have one last dinner with his friends Gary and Ray after being a dick to them the whole episode is definitely well done.

(There's also John's talking bulldog ornament, which was super random)

Of course, John Constantine being John Constantine, he decides to make a deal before he dies, making a deal with Astra and telling her how he's so damn close to this reality-altering MacGuffin, and Astra, seemingly impulsively, decides to turn back the cute little pocketwatch clock-coin thingy. So yeah, Constantine's back alive, and his absolute joy of dancing around and burning his will and stuff is hilarious, and it's going to be interesting to see where we go from here.

Of course, the episode is hardly perfect. The random Chinese undercover cop literally came out of nowhere, and while she does get a cool, brief action scene, is dispatched very quickly afterwards without any fanfare. We get the revelation that everyone can see that Charlie and Behrad apparently fucked in this 'revised' timeline (even without much of a Crisis tie-in, Legends still has to deal with some timeline-fuckery) and it's yet another tired, repetitive 'haha, superhero romantic/sexual hijinks' bit that doesn't quite work as well as Legends' other efforts. Hey, there's a supporting member of the cast that isn't getting enough screentime and is otherwise one-dimensional? Have them pair up! Romantic hijinks will hopefully add some depth to the characters, right?

At least we do have the revelation that Charlie isn't just an ancient changeling, she's actually Clotho of the Three Fates of Greco-Roman mythology, and she isn't just aware of the Loom of Fate, she's one of its original wielders. That's an interesting twist to give to Charlie, and while I'm not sure if we're going to go full on God of War (spoilers: we won't) on this, it's definitely a fun revelation. All in all, a solid episode!
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Okay, episode six was... unexpected? Last episode, one of the conversations that the dying Constantine has with his best bud Ray was to tell him to 'carpe his diem', to quickly go and pop the question to Nora before it's too late (like it is for Constantine, or at least he thought so) and this episode ends up starting off with exactly that. Ray and his buddies trying to set up the most perfect, most dorky way for a 'will you marry me', with a ring hidden in pudding! That's adorable.

Of course, we need to have an Encore, and the Encore this time around borrows from Legends' own history, Damien Darrhk. Who missed out on all the whole actors-returning-to-Arrow train over in Arrow's final season, but we know Neal McDonough is always game for this franchise so I'm assuming it's just a scheduling conflict. After a bit where he dies up 2017-era Gary onto a train after the whole Bibbo-vs-Mallus ridiculousness, Damien shows up in 2020, and we get a surprisingly fun focus on Nora! Nora's one of the more under-utilized characters in the show, and I was very pleased last season when we get a lot more of her.

And this episode we learn that Nora... still really wants to please her psychotic, demented dad in a way, and despite the whole "gave you up to a demon" thing, I do really like how Damien and Nora very clearly love each other a lot, and throughout the episode Nora maintains a charade of making it big in the world of the Dark Arts (tm), claiming to have obtained Constantine's house of magic as her base, to have subjugated Ava and Sara as her henchwomen, to be dating John Constantine, et cetera, et cetera. She's just a bit too ashamed to admit to her dad that she's a goddamn fairy godmother that's dating Ray Palmer, the walking human puppy. It's just such a hilarious over-the-top route to take for the well-known trope of the 'try and make my life feel so much more interesting, hijinks ensue when the lies pile up' sitcom plot, and it's executed amazingly well.

It's amazing, and I do love the juxtaposed bit where Nora is building up the lies, while Ray is baby-sitting Nora's charge Pippa and watching some sappy-ass show, and little Pippa quickly hit the nail on the head -- is Nora just straight-up ashamed of Ray? And... a little bit of column A, a little bit of column B, but Nora does love Ray, she just doesn't know how to really break the news to her long-lost dad without upsetting him. And Daddy Darrhk is, y'know, a powerful warlock that can throw people around with his mind.

The fact that the conclusion ended up basically with Pippa's fairy godmother wish putting everyone in therapy is hilariously over-the-top, including the 'safe zone sombrero' or whatever it's called, Gary as a creepy puppet train, Ava and Sara as puppets again, and, well, Damien basically getting through a rehab and accepting Ray and Nora's new way of life and we get a whole wedding! Gary got to be the flower boy, which is an adorable little detail. It's a sweet, sweet way to finish the Darrhk-centric storyline, and the fact that Damien sneaks off to steal the hellfire sword to obliterate his soul before Astra can recall it and torture him is a bittersweet way to end Damien's storyline.

And I didn't know I needed this. Season four was a chaotic season, and the relationship between Damien and Nora sort of just crashed and burned thanks to all the Mallus nonsense, and a proper conclusion, a proper emotional conversation between Nora and Damien, is amazingly done and topping it off with a wedding proposal and the fact that this is basically building up to Brandon Routh and Courtney Ford's exit from the show is extra poignant. Hell, Damien Darrhk even got a bit of a redemption, even if Legends isn't quite as forgiving as some of its sister shows -- Sara will acknowledge that redeemed!Damien might be a good dad, but he still fucking murdered Laurel and Sara will not shake Damien's hand; and the showwriters (and the character himself) recognizes that Damien's sins aren't so easily forgiven.

The B-plots for this one is... it's interesting. Mick and Zari goes off to fight some troll that's bashing Rebecca Silver's novels, and it leads to hijinks before they go off to confront a teenager only to find out that Mick's greatest critic is actually his illegitimate bastard daughter Lita. Mick, understandably, doesn't want the commitment and is afraid that he's going to be a shitty father (his own father, after all, was an abusive fucker, and his best buddy Leonard Snart's father was also an abusive fucker) so he just quickly mind-wipes Ali and Lita's minds and buggers off. It's a surprisingly deep well of emotions to draw for Mick, and while I did note that the whole 'Mick's a well-regarded smut author' bit has been long played out, this would be a far more interesting storyline to explore.

There are also two C-plots to go through, both of which easily get resolved thanks to Pippa's therapy wish. Ava is angry that Sara is keeping secrets from her, particularly Wild Dog offering Sara a job at Star City, but it literally came out of nowhere (I guess it's part of the whole Sara's been MIA for the past two mission thing?) and it is resolved very quickly. Constantine and Charlie/Clotho argue a bit about the Loom of Fate, but basically they agree to use it to fix Astra... and then properly destroy it, which is... okay, yeah, I guess with these two chuckleheads, you do need to forcibly sit the two of them together to get them to discuss things calmly.

Overall, an amazing episode, and easily the strongest episode of Legends this season. It does help that we don't get the bizarre mood whiplash that the previous five episodes have had whenever we jump from the Constantine-dies-of-cancer or Constantine-faces-his-dark-past emo drama to wacky hijinks, and this episode is a lot more tonally consistent. The fact that it helps to tie up two characters' exit, and also ends in the wedding of one of the most natural romances CW's non-stellar track record with romances have ever given us is also the cherry on top. But alas, we say goodbye to Damien Darhk at the end of the episode, and it seems like in the next episode, we'll have to say goodbye to Ray and Nora too. It's an amazing exit for them, though, regardless. The episode is just on fire, and every single line out of Brandon Routh, Courtney Ford and Neal McDonough's mouths are just amazing. Overall, honestly, a pretty damn great episode.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Ray off-handedly notes how he's technically knighted by the Knights of the Round Table, which happened in season two. 
• Constantine, on seeing that Sara and Ava have been turned into puppets, bemoans that they did this recently in season four. 
• Wild Dog, a.k.a. Rene Ramirez, is mentioned multiple times here. Apparently he's trying to get Sara a job in Star City. It's been a long while, but one of the main reasons why Sara Lance ended up abandoning the present day post-resurrection is because she can't get a job because she was, well, y'know, dead. Presumably, between the many friends the Arrow Team has on high places and Oliver's whole Earth-Prime reboot, it's less of an issue now. 
• Nate mockingly calls Constantine "Captain Cold" when he goes off to Antarctica. Constantine's parka is of the right colour.