written by Kate Danvers
SPOILER WARNINGS ARE IN EFFECT
Okay, so I was working on faulty information when I said Legends would be back on April 7th. Though to be fair, things are awful right now and everything is changing at a moment’s notice. Oh well, at least we have happy and wacky fun times ahead in this episode.
What? Why are you all making that face?
In 1977 London, three days after Charlie was abducted by the Legends, a knife-wielding woman walks into a Smell concert. She slaughters several concertgoers, along with the band, leaving Declan alive long enough to ask where her sister Clotho is.
Zari wakes up in a strange room full of HeyWorld paraphernalia and a Beebo doll. She’s in Nate’s bed and he’s just as surprised by that as she is. Gideon informs her that she was sleepwalking and crawled into bed with Nate. Freaked out, she runs out and sees her brother in the hallway, doing some work on systems that the sleepwalking Zari was rewiring the night before. Behrad and Charlie assume that a hookup has happened.
CHARLIE: “It doesn’t have to be a walk of shame if you enjoyed it. But if you’re walking at all, you didn’t enjoy it enough.”
I find Charlie both hotter and more terrifying with every episode. The other Legends aren’t buying Zari and Nate’s denials.
Upside to waking up next to Beebo, you’ve got someone to cuddle with.
Gideon breaks the news about The Smell to Charlie. She identifies the assassin as Atropos from her signature move – burning someone alive from the inside. Sara puts the search for the Loom of Fate on hold, but Constantine does a scrying spell to find the next piece. It’s in Vancouver, British Columbia. Awesome! That’s right outside!
Atropos goes to Hell to visit the coinmaker, who finally has a proper name: Lachesis, the third Fate. I’ll pause for a moment so you can answer that phone because I fucking called it. They put the information they’ve gathered together, find out Clotho is now Charlie, and begin tracking Constantine.
Sara and Charlie follow Constantine and stumble upon the filming location of Supernatural. So Supernatural is a show in the Arrowverse? Sara is a fan, but Charlie isn’t interested – she has other things on her mind. She reveals a bit of the working relationship she had with her sisters. Charlie spun up the threads of each life, Lachesis measured the length of lives, and Atropos cut the lives at their end.
Meanwhile, Zari is haunted by her past life…
Normally, when you discover you had a past life as a cat, it’s a whole other thing, but this is Legends of Tomorrow.
Zari then completely bodies her brother in Mortal Kombat 11 despite never having played a video game (I mean, his Shao Kahn lost to her Jade, so it’s not concrete evidence, but Old Zari was good at video games…and Shao Kahn suuuuuucks). Zari thinks she’s being haunted by someone who plays video games, dresses like a teenage boy, eats donuts, and cuddles with Nate. Wow, up until the Nate part I was feeling called the fuck out. The Air Totem then reacts to her, enabling her to shoot a gust of wind.
Charlie and Sara catch up to Constantine and find the Winchester brothers’ car, along with a prop zombie in the trunk. Charlie gets a telepathic message from Atropos, who then blows up the jump ship, stranding the three and cutting off their communication to the Waverider. Charlie splits off to confront her sister on her own to protect Sara and John.
Meanwhile, Ava decides to help Mick connect with his daughter Lita by taking him to key moments in her life so he can be there for her as she grows up. She poses as a corrections officer who allows Mick visitations with his daughter, as Mick is supposed to be in prison at this point. Mick reads Lita stories, puts a large stack of bills under her pillow when she loses her first tooth, helps her with a science fair volcano, and more while Ava documents all of it with photographs.
This shot is just a microcosm of the differences between these two characters.
Hoping to have changed the present, they then return to the house in 2020 only to find Lita very resentful of her father only popping up now and then before bailing on her. She still wants nothing to do with Mick.
Charlie faces Atropos. She defends her decision to destroy the Loom, citing all of the freedom it’s introduced into the world. Atropos only sees the bad things: genocide, pollution, nukes, etc. Sara and Constantine have followed, though, and Sara gets in a fistfight with Atropos. Constantine then attempts to fight her with magic. Sara and Charlie escape, fearing Constantine is dead, but he catches up, seemingly having given Atropos the slip…but then we see the real Constantine laying on the ground at the site of the battle, bleeding out.
Nate and Behrad think Zari is being “haunted” by the remnants of the other timeline and describe the hypothetical other Zari as an ass-kicking hacker who shared the Air Totem with Behrad. Yeah, just rub salt in that wound, Legends. Thanks. Zari feels a little inferior to the other Zari. Behrad suggests a vision quest to help her discover herself.
Charlie, Sara, and “Constantine” find the tree in which the Loom piece is hidden, but it’s surrounded by the dead Supernatural crew. Sara wonders who’s going to finish Season Fifteen now. Oof. I know that was written and filmed before the pandemic shut everything down, but still…oof. When Charlie attempts to retrieve the Loom piece/ring, the dead rise as zombies. Sara holds them off using a bag of prop weapons stolen from the Winchesters’ car. Charlie gets the ring, but “Constantine” reveals himself to be Atropos in disguise. She pins Charlie to the tree with knives and reveals her true form to Sara, which is how she killed Declan at the beginning of the episode. Sara is thrown back by the blast, seemingly dead.
Atropos tries to convince Charlie to rejoin her sisters, but Charlie defiantly tells her she’s not a Fate – she’s a Legend. Atropos takes the ring as the Waverider arrives, set on getting the piece that’s aboard the ship.
In Zari’s vision, she meets Old Zari. Old Zari’s spirit has been in the totem with the other totem-bearers ever since the timeline changed. During their chat, New Zari says that Old Zari must be disappointed that she didn’t turn out to be a time-traveling superhero. Old Zari is content with her family being alive, and even with the new her.
Sara gets up in time to save Charlie from a zombie, using a hairdryer to kill it because this is Legends of Tomorrow. Charlie doesn’t know how Sara is alive, but the pair make for the Waverider to stop Atropos. Ava and Nate have found Constantine, and he’s a little roughed up but fine. Everyone is fine…oh no.
Behrad sees Atropos, and after calling it in to Ava, he tries to wake up Zari. Atropos threatens to kill Zari if she doesn’t get the ring, so Behrad steps aside and lets her have it. But once her back is turned, he goes after her with the Hellsword. She easily deflects his attack, telling him he doesn’t belong here before pulling a thread out of his chest and cutting it.
This would be so cool if it wasn’t so horrifying and sad.
Witnessing this, Sara orders the ship to take off as she goes after Atropos. The Fate is surprised to see Sara alive and asks what she is. Sara says “your worst nightmare,” but I have my own theory. More on that in a bit. The two fight in the cargo hold, Sara wielding the Hellsword and Atropos using those bone dagger things. Atropos seems mostly unaffected by the Hellsword. She can be cut and stabbed, but it doesn’t obliterate her or even slow her down since she’s a god. Sara’s losing, so she orders Gideon to open the door – with the Temporal Zone just outside. To prevent being sucked out, Sara grabs hold of a pipe, but Atropos grabs hold of Sara’s ankle. Just then, Charlie comes along. She grabs the Hellsword and cuts off Atropos’ hand, sending her hurtling into the Temporal Zone.
CHARLIE: “Fate’s a bitch, innit?”
She earned that one. The door closes and the severed hand – which just so happened to be the one with the rings on it – vanishes, leaving the rings behind.
In the totem vision, the Zaris hug. Old Zari asks her to visit again soon and maybe next time bring Behrad…then Zari wakes up and immediately receives the news that her brother is dead, because the writers of this show are monsters who won’t let any of us be happy for five fucking minutes!! After crying on the bridge for some time, Zari goes to see Constantine in the med bay, where he’s recovering. She blames him for getting them all into this mess and asks if the Loom can bring back Behrad. Constantine says it can once they have all of the pieces. Zari isn’t going to leave Constantine’s side until her brother is back.
I kind of wondered if they would eventually kill Behrad off, but this seems a little premature and also like a setup for grander things to come. A sizzle reel was released recently for the rest of Season Five and it shows Behrad in episodes we haven’t seen yet, so either that’s a big misdirect, or they actually plan to bring him back. I don’t think the Loom will be restored until close to the end of the season, though, since that would wrap up too many threads – yes, I know what I did there and it didn’t start intentionally, but once I realized what I was doing I finished the idiom anyway.
Maybe Behrad’s life is restored in some temporary way and once the Loom is complete, they will have to make a choice. I can see Charlie – with the help of Constantine and the pieces they have already – spinning a new life thread for Behrad and possibly tying it to someone else’s as a temporary measure.
So. About Sara. There were rumors of her getting a superpower this season, and what happened with her when she saw Atropos’ true form may have been the start of that. Here’s what I’m thinking: Sara was able to withstand seeing a Fate’s true form because what’s another word for fate? Destiny. What was Sara the Paragon of? Destiny. Or, you know, she’s just fuckin’ deathproof at this point. I don’t know.
It was a nice return that deepened the lore of the Fates, gave us Charlie’s backstory, let us see the old Zari again, and then ripped our hearts out at the end. Legends gonna Legends I guess. Also, any Supernatural references were completely lost on me because I’ve never watched that show and only know the vague premise of two brothers driving around in a car to kill demons.
Next time: NO. I AM NOT JINXING IT BY TALKING ABOUT WHAT THE NEXT EPISODE MIGHT BE. I’LL SEE YOU WHENEVER IT COMES OUT.
Legends of Tomorrow airs Tuesdays on the CW at 9 ET/8 CT. You can direct angry comments about Kate’s uninformed view of Supernatural to her Twitter @WearyKatie.