written by Kate Danvers
Darmok with the candlestick at Tanagra.
Look, all of my other references are going to be way too nerdy; I might as well start above the cut.
SPOILER WARNINGS ARE IN EFFECT
Picking up from the previous episode, the Legends have bowled a few games, Z swaps places with “Fancy Z” (I’m still calling them Z and Zari), and they all prepare to return home. Unfortunately, the magic warp across the universe fried the jump drive, so they need to take the long way. The long way being a three-week trip through space.
Sara and Ava plan their wedding. Invites are in four groups: Group A) people who need to be there; Group B) people who they want there but it’s okay if they can’t make it; Group C) the polite invitations to the people they hope don’t show up; and Group D) people they’re going to tell they’re getting married after the wedding. Ava explains Group D.
AVA: “You know that if Barry and Iris show up, there is a 100% chance that our special day will be blown up by a supervillain.”
Or Nazis. Or Oliver Queen proposing to his girlfriend and co-opting the wedding. Actually, are there any safe bets in your circle of friends? But yeah, definitely don’t invite Barry and Iris.
Tensions run high when the Legends are forced to conserve power. With no electronics to keep them busy, Sara takes Gary’s suggestion of a board game. Gary introduces them to Beast/Slayers, a gothic horror game where the players have to figure out which of them is the Beast. Constantine – still high as fuck on forbidden blood magic – casts a spell to put all of them into the game.
Time to get a Clue. …get it? Because it’s like the board game. Sort of. I guess if you’ve never played Mafia or Werewolf. Oh hey, anyone remember Town of Salem?
While the players sit down for dinner, an alarm goes off on the Waverider. There’s a ship approaching them. Since Gary and Mick are the only ones outside of the game, they handle it. Mick recognizes the ship as Bishop’s and prepares for a fight, but when the ship docks, it’s Kayla.
In the game, the lights go out and the Beast claims its first victim: Ava, the Detective. I say “claims a victim,” but she just has a little “DEAD” card safety-pinned to her vest. Since she’s “dead,” she can’t speak, so she goes into the other room while the others deliberate on the killer’s identity.
Not taking the game seriously, the players vote for Nate. He’s immediately stabbed in the back and falls to the floor dead. Actually dead. With blood and a dagger and stuff. Constantine coughs up blood, which is taken as him becoming more like his character, a Consumptive Doctor. The game is becoming more real, so Sara checks on Ava, who’s now actually dead in the foyer. Sara demands the game end, but the lights go out and Sara dies as well.
Constantine is unable to end the spell, so they’re trapped until the game is over. Spooner reads the rules and learns that if the Beast wins, the role cards are dealt again and the game continues, meaning they could be trapped forever.
This is by far the most tragic death in the Arrowverse. I cried.
After Mick and Gary patch Kayla up in the med bay by printing a replacement tentacle for her (remember that thing that printed Leonard a new hand waaaaaay back in Season One?), she gets to work trying to fix the Waverider. Gary advises Mick not to tell Kayla about the pregnancy on the off chance she takes it poorly or does some kind of mantis thing. Kayla is hiding secrets of her own, though, as she plants a device on the engine while she’s working on it.
The surviving players split up. Astra and Spooner try to find an exit, but they just keep looping through the house. Behrad goes off to find them and leaves Zari alone with Constantine. Zari leaves Constantine alone to get some ice for him. Astra and Spooner are both killed, and Zari comes across Behrad just after he’s discovered the bodies.
I’d like to take a moment to do a little non-promotional thing. The CW website is garbage. Absolute unusable trash. Their player is so buggy that I have to refresh the page multiple times while reviewing because I pause and play a lot while writing recaps. Unfortunately, it’s the only thing I can use because I can’t get screengrabs from YouTubeTV anymore. Like a lot of websites now, the CW’s is more interested in serving ads than providing a good user experience. Fuck that website.
Gary finds Kayla’s missing tentacle, which is using the “meat printer” in the med bay. The tentacle attacks Gary just as Kayla finishes fixing the jump drive. She aims Mick’s flamethrower at him, saying that while Mick left her to die, “he” saved her and now she owes “him.” Oooooh shit. Mick reveals he’s pregnant, which causes Kayla to hesitate before doing a little neck pinch on him to knock him out.
Mick’s pregnancy also causes him to grow a full head of hair because funny, I guess?
Constantine and Behrad accuse each other of being the killer, forcing Zari to choose between them, but she refuses. Constantine runs off alone, leaving the two siblings to bicker. Behrad points out how sus Constantine has been acting ever since he regained his magic. Zari admits she loves Constantine, and that changes the tone of the discussion. Behrad switches to the supportive brother role and encourages Zari to tell Constantine how she feels…but Constantine is acting mad sus, so it’s time to put him out the airlock.
In the attic, Constantine is confronted by the Beast – a man in a plague doctor getup. The Beast says that every drink of the magic-boosting potion just makes the Beast stronger. He says Constantine loves this world and the power and the magic and the Beast himself. Constantine retaliates by punching the Beast’s mask off and revealing…Constantine. Well, it’s his dark side/self-destructive habits/etc. brought to life by the magic and given a playground by the board game spell.
Aha! So consumption was just a red herring!
Constantine attacks his double and the fight alerts Zari and Behrad. When they enter, the Beast’s back is to them so they can’t see who it is. Zari stabs the Beast and ends the game. Constantine shrugs off the inconsistency in the rules about how the Beast wasn’t any of them, and the Legends look outside to see they’re back on Earth! Also the tentacle is slithering around the ship alone.
I guess the real impostor was AMONG US the whole time! You get it? Because Among Us is like Werewolf and Mafia and I’ve been saying “sus” which is a thing people who play the game say…? Just laugh at the damn joke before Fortnite steals it.
Spooner catches the tentacle, Behrad leaves on a trip to his century to visit his parents, and Constantine heads back to his house. There, he tries to pour out the potion but can’t bring himself to do it. Zari brings him tea later while he’s sleeping on the couch and she notices a wound on his back, right where she stabbed the Beast in the game.
On the ship, the Legends find Mick unconscious and rush to his aid, but Sara is drawn to the library by someone playing “Space Girl.” She opens the door and is shocked by what she sees…but we won’t find out what it is until next episode, I guess.
It’s Bishop, though.
I hate saying this, because this was a good episode and a fun episode, but I think the premise was kind of wasted. We’ve seen other episodes make better use of the Legends being in scenarios where they have to act out roles, and the whole murder mystery just wasn’t there. They could have run their own version of the Clue film and really had fun with it. We did have some cute moments early on of the Legends trying to play their characters, but I would have liked more of that.
It did move the Constantine storyline forward, which I guess was ultimately the aim of the episode. The past couple of episodes he’s been using magic for a lot of unnecessary things and walking around like he’s high as fuck. It’s natural that someone noticed, and I like that it was Behrad, but he dropped his suspicions a little too early because we had to have the bit about Zari confessing her love for Constantine.
It’s cool that Behrad is supportive of his sister and encouraging of a relationship that makes her happy, but not thirty seconds earlier he was certain that Constantine was in some kind of trouble. I get it, it’s the CW, we have to reference a romance subplot every five minutes or the shippers get hangry, but that’s like Season One levels of ignoring obvious danger to set up the final conflicts of the season.
Next time: OF COURSE IT’S FUCKING BISHOP, WHO DID YOU THINK IT WAS??
Legends of Tomorrow airs Sundays on the CW at 8 ET/7 CT. Kate will tell you that a vent report bluff is risky in early game but can be pulled off by feigning uncertainty. The real strategy is the crowd kill followed by panicked disbelief because it sets everyone against each other. She lost all of her friends playing that game. Please be her friend on Twitter @WearyKatie.