This week's episode of Legends of Tomorrow was exactly the type of fantasy driven entry that I've been hoping for ever since the concept of magical totems were revealed. Getting to see different characters attach themselves to one of the magical totems was pretty entertaining adding a drop of variety to the show's character presentations. Also, having Sara's inner demons accompanying the Death totem be the villain of the week was a great idea as the series usually does a solid job at visually expanding a character's development and evolution.
The idea of Sara's murderous history being a spotlight via a possessed version of herself and her exploration of Mallus' realm was conceptually brilliant. I loved that we got to see flashes of Sara's past as a League of Assassins member not shown on Arrow while having Nora essentially be her "demon on your shoulder" guide through her supposed villainous destiny.
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| Minus some of the make up, "Death Totem Sara" is actually kinda badass. Is this what she'll look like possibly using the totem against Mallus in the future? |
Yes, I'm still not a big fan of the cheap looking blue lit set being our representation of Mallus' world, but what the writers are able to do within this space has been pretty fascinating character-wise. The action scenes with a possessed Sara taking down each Legends member one by one were pretty solid and a cool reminder that Sara is indeed one of the deadliest members on the team. What's great about the "real world" portion of the episode is that Mallus, through Sara, is able to visually transform into the forms of everyone's greatest regrets which we see with most of the team's confrontation with her. I do like the idea of Mallus literally being a demonic entity diving into people's minds and bringing out what destroys them most emotionally. It's a different type of villain than your typical physical threat (although we still haven't seen Mallus in his true form yet).
My favorite component of the episode however has got to be the return of Constantine who, as always, steals the spotlight for the entire episode. John's charisma and connection to the supernatural corner of the DC universe has always been a welcoming sight which we get a satisfyingly heavy dose of here. Nicely ending things off with Sara accepting her demons in order to escape Mallus, this was an excellent episode giving us a much more expansive look at this season's new cosmic/supernatural direction. We're given a deeper look into Sara's mind in addition to Constantine's world making this one of the more fascinating entries yet. I'm looking forward to seeing how the Legends utilizes the totems to defeat Mallus which this episode does deliver offer up a fun little foreshadowing of.
Bonus Thoughts
Easter Eggs
1. The Canary Legacy: Constantine's Card
Seeing Sara's version of the Canary show up (my favorite iteration in the Arrowverse) was a nice dip into the nostalgia well for Arrow fans like myself. However, I also saw this as a nice reference back to the card that Constantine gave Sara in a previous episode showing the dual sides to her character. In essence, Sara deciding to accept her darker side as being a crucial part of her without fully succumbing to Mallus perfectly coincides with Constantine's confidence boosting card.
2. Arrowverse Cameos & Namedrops
Through Mallus' manipulation games, we see characters return that were either presumed dead or separated from our team such as Wally's broken relationship with Jessie, Nate's grandfather, Constantine's tragic loss with Astra, and Zari's brother. It's a nice indication as to what some of Mallus' powers are while also reminding viewers of each Legends member's greatest loss or regret. Also, during her encounter, Nora mentions to Sara that Oliver Queen killed her father which isn't the first time that we've heard this reminder during this season. I am starting to wonder if there's a small chance that we'll see Oliver himself show up to perhaps make things right with Nora. Hmmm. Final namedrop that I caught was Wally mentioning Flashpoint which was of course the basis of The Flash's Season 3 run.
3. A Deeper Look At Constantine's World
As Agent Sharpe and Gary reaches out to Constantine, we're given a brief bio of the charismatic supernatural dabbling detective. Through Ava's briefing, Constantine is revealed to having 1 older sister, both parents deceased, was the cause of accidentally summoning a demon that took the soul of a little girl name Astra (as fans will know from the cancelled series), lives in a castle which he won in a duel, and currently aids local customers with cheap voodoo rituals for their mundane needs due to a struggling economy. We also get to see a portion of Constantine's castle domaine in all of its magical relic smothered glory to which my eyes darted around for Doctor Fate's helmet.
While speaking with the two agents Constantine states to have learned about a faction of the Zambesi tribe who sided with Mallus with the Death totem which coincides with Sara's transition. As icing on the cake, Constantine reveals to have made Beebo (which Gary is apparently a fan of as shown on his socks) talk claiming that it "said things that would make your toes curl". Beebo is of course the popular children's toy within this universe that has shown up or has at least been mentioned more than 4 times in the Arrowverse franchise.
Also, is John now a part of Gary's D&D group? Is that...is that actually a thing? This is Legends of Tomorrow that we're talking about here, so I wouldn't put it pass them. One can possibly look at the D&D angle as a Stranger Things reference sooo...bonus easter egg? And yes...there is a Doctor Who reference in there.
4. Heatwave: The Fire God
In a not so unexpected yet still awesome twist, Amaya gives Mick the fire totem considering his pre-existing bond to the element thereby granting him the power to harness its energy. It's a nice bit of evolution for the character although most likely temporary. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out in the future. Let's also not forget that Nate was seconds away from harnessing the Earth totem. A foreshadowing of our future totem bearers to fight Mallus? Only time will tell.
5. Anti-Speedster Gun
After being tricked by the Jessie illusion, Wally gets knocked out by the anti-speedster gun which fans will remember to have been used against Thawne during Season 2.
6. An Unseen League of Assassins Mission?
As Nora attempts to bring out Sara's darkest regrets, we witness what appeared to an old mission during Sara's time as one of Ra's Al Ghul's assassins. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure if this was ever a mission brought up previously on either Arrow or Legends as I couldn't pinpoint when this moment was ever spotlighted. If it wasn't, then I personally think it's cool that we're given a rare look at Sara's history as a League of Assassins member leading up to Season 2 of Arrow's Canary debut. One of the greatest components to the Legends series is the ability to showcase character highlights through different eras of time that we'd probably never see on their originally debuted show.
7. The Nostromo Protocol
After Sara activates the "Nostromo Protocol", the entire ship is shut down pitting our team in a dark and eerie atmosphere. The title of the protocol and aesthetics of the visuals may be a direct nod to Ridley Scott's horror/sci-fi classic film Alien which involved a team of people isolated onboard a darkly lit ship hunted by an advanced predator species. The name of the ship was the USCSS Nostromo.
Episode Rating: 9/10
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