This week on Legends of Tomorrow, Sara discovered Neron had kidnapped Ava and was planning to use her as a vessel for his partner Tabitha. While Constantine, Nora, and Charlie teamed up to vanquish the demon once and for all, Sara ventured into Purgatory to retrieve her girlfriend’s soul. Oh, and the rest of the gang prodded Zari into asking out Nate via text.
1. Everybody Trusts Ray
You can tell Ray really is a nice guy by how he quickly explains Nora isn’t responsible for Hank’s murder, and everyone just casually accepts that’s why he’s brought her onto the Waverider. Even Nate doesn’t put up a huge fuss when Ray tells him the truth that a demon murdered his father: it just leads to the kicker of a realization, “My dad made a deal with a demon to open a theme park.” As goofy as he is, Ray is the only one everyone trusts to have his head on straight.
2. Sure Your Name isn’t Greek?
Ray and Nate visit HeyWorld under construction, and Nate asks the site manager Mr. T (no really) if he’s heard of Neron, to which he responds he hasn’t, and asks if that’s a Greek name. (Ray replies it’s Demonic, no, Danish.) It’s a funny moment made all the more interesting by how Neron’s very presence seems to sow discord, particularly the random outbreaks of violence around him during his return to the hotel room he sequestered Ava in, which makes you wonder: with all the mythological references this season, why they did they not make Eris, the Greek goddess of Discord, the overarching villain? She did play a pretty big role in Brian Azzarello’s “Wonder Woman” run. In any case, it’s pretty fun how Neron can cause chaos and destruction without lifting a finger.
3. Legends of the Feels
Legends of Tomorrow is a comedy, but comedies are not inherently frivolous. Yes, it is rather funny Ava’s purgatory is an IKEA store (something actually aided by the dissonance of the ominious score), but I genuinely started to feel emotionally tense about whether they’d both make it out as they stumbled around with things like putting together furniture (like the titular wardrobe), choosing mattresses, or doing dishes. I’ll admit the metaphor of pulling her back from the brink via mundane, married life activities is a little on-the-nose, but it was rendered rather sweet thanks to Caity Lotz and Jes Macallan’s chemistry.
Neron’s presence led to another really touching moment when Ray has to restrain Nate from attacking the demon, causing him to punch his brother-in-arms instead. I really wanted to reach into my screen and console those two immediately, they’re just so sweet together that I really felt how upset they were.
4. Short Straw Deck
Most weeks, it’s one cast member who draws the short straw: this week, it was almost the whole crew, who clearly felt it was best to let Constantine and Nora handle this supernatural stuff and instead bugged Zari into sending Nate a romantic text. Well, depends on what you consider romantic: I’m guessing Zari would most certainly have not have picked the titular eggplant emoji. The whole subplot was filler, but it was fun, especially the sight of Mick going into professional writer mode (with his glasses and typewriter) to draft her a corny text. It just goes to show how fun these characters all are even when they’re not really doing anything.
I will add though that it’s really irresponsible to leave Gary alone with Sara and Ava’s unconscious bodies in the Waverider‘s science lab. I know Gary’s not that creepy but come on.
5. DARK RAY
RAY DARHK?
RAYGE?
I don’t know, anyway, remember how I said everyone trusts Ray? Well, Nora and Constantine manage to pull one over on Neron, fooling him into leaving Dez’s body for Nora’s, only for them to double tag and make his cloudy spirit disperse. (Yay Dez! He’s grumpy now but he’ll get over it.) Unfortunately Ray enters the room, mucking up the exorcism a little and causing Nora to be injured into unconsciousness. After he leaves her to recover at the Time Bureau, we see him unsettle a dog, and then start whistling Neron’s favorite tune “Pop Goes the Weasel.” Oh boy… as they say, beware the nice ones.
Continued belowBonus thoughts:
– Ray calling out Constantine’s drinking and smoking as a coping mechanism was pretty jawdropping.
– Are Charlie’s morphing skills fixed? They seemed ok when she tricked Neron.
– Take your pick for this week’s best minor moment: Nate mimicking his dad, Mick taking Zari’s leftovers, or Ray having unicorn flashbacks.
See you next week for “Egg MacGuffin” (yeah, I have no idea what to expect either).
