written by Kate Danvers
Bishop’s plan makes no goddamn sense.
SPOILER WARNINGS ARE IN EFFECT
Hey folks, before we get into it, I’d like to apologize for the delay in reviews toward the end of this season. In addition to personal life stuff that I won’t get into, I’ve just been feeling a bit of burnout for the past several months. I no longer have the passion I once had in writing these reviews. I still love the shows, but the reviewing part has become like a chore, or worse, a job. *screams of terror*
I’m going to try experimenting with my format a little to make the reviews easier to write, starting with this one. Less of a full recap with commentary and more of a brief synopsis of events expanding on parts I want to discuss and more emphasis on wordy, long-form analysis of plot beats and character motivations. Also, sadly, unless I come up with a joke I really like, I won’t be forcing myself to try to come up with a stinger image each time. Let’s face it, half of them were shit anyway. [EDITOR’S NOTE: They were not.]
We’ll see how the new format works, but there’s also the possibility that writing two reviews a week (Batwoman and Legends) has just burned me out and I need to drop both shows. I still have some time to consider all of that.
Anyway, Bishop’s plan is stupid and dumb.
And don’t think you’re getting off the hook either.
Zari and the Legends confront Constantine, who’s gone full bad guy at this point. I really like the visual shorthand they’re using by having a cigarette tucked behind his ear. The show has gone out of its way to downplay Constantine’s chainsmoking, even making a running gag out of interrupting him in some way every time he tries to light one. Originally it was done because nobody wants to show people smoking on TV since, as harmful and addictive as it is, it’s not a “cool” character trait.
We also see Constantine doing his best to sabotage the things that got him to give up smoking and a lot of his other bad habits: his friends in the Legends and his relationship with Zari. He’s in full bastard mode. Credit where it’s due, Zari isn’t taking his shit. She even tries to slap him, but he’s an astral projection. The real Constantine hijacks the Waverider with Bishop, not knowing that Spooner and Astra are on board listening to their evil plans.
Their search for the fountain takes them to Texas in 1925, and here’s where things get weird. Spooner sees her mom, and over the course of learning about the fountain and Spooner’s own history, the secret of her abduction is revealed. She wasn’t abducted by aliens in the early 2000s – she lived in 1925 with her mother until Texas oil men killed her mother. The Fountain of Imperium sent Spooner to the future to keep her safe and gave her powers. No implants or alien DNA; Spooner was just touched by the Fountain’s magic.
Though why it thought she’d be safer growing up in modern-day Texas is anyone’s guess.
Also the Fountain of Imperium is mushrooms. Wow, revealing plot points without elaborating on the context first makes these reviews a lot sillier, huh?
So…the Fountain is really an alien magic gifted to Earth in the distant past to protect the planet against alien invasion and there are far too many crossovers and episodes of Supergirl for me to sarcastically refer to, so you know the bit. Mushrooms are also an alien organism that coexist with the Fountain, and finding them means Bishop and Constantine finding the Fountain.
Spooner wants to save her mom and her younger self, but that would screw up the timeline. She actually does save her mother from the oil men, and Astra escorts a younger Spooner to the Fountain of Imperium to make sure her abduction happens. Constantine and Bishop are also there. Bishop tricks Constantine into drinking a potion to fool the Fountain into thinking he’s sweet, innocent, younger Spooner so the Fountain’s magic will deem him “worthy.” Unfortunately, repowering Constantine wasn’t part of Bishop’s plan, but killing the Fountain was. Once Constantine connects with the Fountain, the deadly poison that Bishop spiked the potion with starts to kill both him and the Fountain.
The other Legends eventually make it to 1925 with the Kayla’s help. Everyone but Nate and Zari goes to check on the eggs, but they’re rigged with a bomb that starts counting down as soon as they enter the room. They get the eggs out in time, but Mick goes back to get the last one just as the bomb goes off.
A dying Constantine apologizes to Astra for everything and calls her his greatest failure and his greatest accomplishment. He laments that he’s killed the fountain, then as Zari and Nate arrive on the scene, he’s enveloped and consumed by the mushrooms.
Shame, really. John was such a fun guy.
How the fuck was any of this supposed to work, Bishop? As Constantine is dying, Bishop reveals how the Fountain protects the planet from invasion (very poorly as I pointed out), so his grand scheme was to connect Constantine with the Fountain and kill both at once so he could call down an alien invasion. Bishop wants to destroy humanity and start over from scratch because we’re just too much trouble to save.
…okay, he’s got a point on the last part.
In order for all of that to work, he had to know Constantine was powerless, know that he was corrupted by blood magic, know about Spooner, know about Spooner’s connection to the Fountain, know Mick was pregnant, use the pregnancy to get to Mick’s communicator, call Constantine at just the right time to get him on his side, get Spooner’s blood, create the serum to make someone “worthy,” and trick Constantine into taking it.
There is no way he could have known any of that prior to boarding the Waverider, and even then, the entire plan hinges on the Legends not doing the smart thing and killing him the moment he came onboard. This is the kind of 4-D chess bullshit that belongs in Season Four of The Flash.
Constantine’s death was done really well. I think it was fitting that his last words were to Astra because a lot of his regrets are tied to her. His relationship with her mom, his failure to save Astra from being dragged to Hell, how she grew up in Hell and turned evil, how he failed her when she needed him during her rehabilitation, and the way he sees himself in her. The “greatest accomplishment” part might be twofold for him. Yes, he did play a huge part in saving her from Hell eventually, but now Astra has an opportunity to better herself by not repeating Constantine’s mistakes. He takes a sense of pride in knowing that for all of his fuckups, the girl he tried to save won’t turn out like he did.
The revelations about Spooner might have had more impact if we’d had any kind of hint about her true origin. I think the ball was dropped back in “Bad Blood” when she met Fernando and they were dealing with the Fountain. They could have dropped some kind of hint that Spooner had a connection to the Fountain then, or that she sensed something familiar in Fernando since they were both empowered by the Fountain. Regardless, seeing her with her mom in this episode made little Spooner’s abduction all the more heartbreaking.
Next time: Aliens! Shrooms! Alien shrooms! And a wedding.
Legends of Tomorrow airs Sundays on the CW at 8 ET/7 CT. In lieu of another joke, Kate would like to sincerely thank those of you still reading these reviews for your support and for your patience. She can be found on Twitter @WearyKatie.