This week on Legends of Tomorrow, Astra was having difficulty adapting to her new, normal life on Earth, so she accepted Aleister Crowley (Matt Lucas)’s help to learn magic, something that backfired when the old crone’s soul took control of Constantine’s body and turned the House of Mystery into an animated musical. Plus, we circled back to Sara and Bishop.
1. Duchess Astra
Her mum may be from Northumberland, but between her American accent and her racist encounter with neighbor Robert (Russell Roberts), Astra’s struggle to adapt to her new life in Britain felt like a take off of the abuse and suspicion Meghan Markle has received from members from the Royal Family (and certain bootlickers in the gutter press). I mean, who are the closest people to royalty in America, aside from the first families? A-list actors! And in this episode, Astra realizes it’s better to be respected and have friends than to be a powerful queen or a helpless princess. I wonder if these similarities were at the forefront of Olivia Swann’s mind while filming this episode at all.
2. Disney Parody Time
The show’s parodied Disney movies before, but this took it to the next level, with everything turning fully animated after Crowley transformed Astra into a “helpless” princess. This episode was clearly shot at the same time as “Bay of Squids,” so it was a smart way to involve most of the cast despite not being physically present, on top of being a simply colorful delight.
Seeing the Legends transformed into objects ala Beauty and the Beast in the live-action parts was a hoot too (especially the irony of Spooner being a fork), and to cap it all off we had Crowley-in-Constantine’s body doing his best impression of Chernabog in Fantasia (which this episode also derives its name from) — Crowley was alive when the earliest Disney films came out, so yeah, it makes perfect sense!
Astra naturally resembled Tiana in The Princess and the Frog, which is appropriate since the segment proves Disney have missed a beat not doing more 2D animated films since. I love that the spell she used to defeat Crowley was a lullaby composed by her mother as well — it was only natural it was a song, since this was a Disney parody, but also because it reflected how gentle most Disney princesses are: that’s not a knock against Mulan or Raya, but a reminder that there is strength in femininity too.
3. Matt Lucas?!
Matt Lucas is an icon to those of us who grew watching Little Britain, and I never expected to see him on a CW superhero show, or play Aleister Crowley (though granted, he does look like him as an older man). Since it was only a voiceover, maybe he wouldn’t have had time to do the show if it required him to be on set: a funny side effect of that is Crowley must be the only historical figure who resembles his real world counterpart on the show. On that note, the talking portrait of Crowley’s trapped soul resembles a lot of magic props I used to see as a kid, but I could not stop thinking about the pirate from the opening of SpongeBob.
4. Constantine’s Sacrifice
Constantine’s a pretty lousy guardian for Astra, leaving her with all the difficulties of maintaining the House of Mystery while he goes away gallivanting with the Legends. He does realize that, and using the spell that depowers him to banish Crowley may have been an attempt to show he genuinely wanted to make amends, as it’ll require him to spend time with her to relearn his magic powers. Crowley talked a fair bit about the Fountain of Imperium, a powerful alien source of magic, and this’ll presumably be what they use to get themselves into fighting shape, despite Constantine’s reservations over Crowley’s obsession.
5. Sara and the Eco-Bioterrorist
Back to the planet the delirious Sara is on: Bishop turns out to be the creator of the AVA line, and a campy cross between a tech bro and Thanos trying to prevent us from going extinct after climate change. His solution to rejuvenating our species is to crossbreed us with alien genetics (so basically the High Evolutionary – Marvel) — “Amelia Earhart” was one of those attempts to create humans who could survive on this harsh new world.
Continued belowThat’s not all though: he has one of his AVAs pretend to be swayed to Sara’s side, so she reveals the location of the spaceship containing all the specimens he wanted for his lab. He reveals the ship extracted the DNA from everyone they kidnapped (“data redundancy,” he says), so Sara flushing all the aliens into space was of no consequence to him. Sara attacks and kills him, but is taken out by a tranquilizer dart. She then wakes up in his office, and a still living Bishop informs her they are now “inseparable.”
Bishop presumably has the power to transfer his consciousness into cloned bodies, but that line made me wonder: was his DNA injected into Sara? Is he piloting her body? That’s what you get for being overly zealous and breaking his neck I guess, but still: yikes. We’ll find out what happened for sure next week.
Bonus Thoughts:
– Jes Macallan must have had so much fun as the goofier “AV” Ava this time round.
– The ’80s style aerobics cold open for Astra was a fun way to illustrate her being a girl removed from her native time.
– So about that gag about Wynonna Earp running for 15 seasons: Sara saying they found their footing during season two was a pretty sly in-joke about her own show.
– You have to love Christopher Columbus’s soul token being next to Ed Gein’s.
– It was awesome how “Hellblazer” artwork was used during the animated sequence — who said this show has nothing to do with DC Comics anymore?
This was well worth the extra week’s wait — see you all next time for “Bishop’s Gambit.”
