Legends of Tomorrow Slay Anything Television 

Five Thoughts on Legends of Tomorrow‘s “Slay Anything”

By | February 12th, 2020
Posted in Television | % Comments

It was a nostalgic and bloody affair on this week’s Legends of Tomorrow, when the Waverider gang opted to stop a serial killer at his high school reunion by preventing him from being humiliated at his prom in 1989. While Nora played Fairy Godmother to the lonely young Freddy Meyers (yes, how droll), Zari continued getting to grips with Behrad’s secret, and Constantine found Charlie squatting in his old home.

1. ’80s vs. ’00s

When I saw the high school reunion that the revived Freddy “attends” was in 2004, I got excited as I thought “finally, the decade I grew up in gets to be skewered.” Thing is, despite the emo music and studded belts being ripe for the picking, I don’t think anyone’s ready yet to look back on the era the neo-liberal dream came crashing down, so back to the ’80s it was. Look, I love ’80s pop and ’80s-inspired pop as much as anyone, but we’re entering the 40th anniversary of this decade, so I’ve been living through nostalgia for this decade for almost 20 years now. I suppose the writers stuck to what they know, and I did love the ironic and then sincere use of Belinda Carlisle here. (I suppose it’s a sly commentary on the slasher movie remake boom in the 2000s as well.)

2. OMG They Killed Mick

Don’t worry, he gets better after the Legends change history. It’s a fun macabre idea, having more non-historical villains whose pasts can be changed allowing more episodes with higher stakes, although characters coming back to life repeatedly can (no pun intended) kill them as well. Anyway, by complete coincidence it turns out this is Mick’s high school, and he runs into an old flame named Allie whom he ditched in 1989, and after she also winds up briefly dead, Mick decides to make up for lost time. I gotta admit, as happy as I am for Mick, he’s hooking up with a woman who’s 16 years younger than in his own era: he’s gonna what, sleep with her, hop back on the Waverider, and then call her almost two decades later in her own timeline? Or does Mick suddenly have new memories of this relationship in-between all his time as a Rogue and a Legend? (Oh no, I’ve gone cross-eyed.)

3. The Friday the 13th Twist

After the whole episode suggests Freddy went insane because of an incident reminiscent of the one in Carrie, there’s a major twist borrowed from the original 1980 Friday the 13th: the masked killer turns out to be his mentally unstable mother. Like Mrs. Voorhees in that film, Mama Meyers’s murderous ire is the result of her being angry at the way the world treats her son – Freddy took the fall for her crimes, and she died of a heart attack during his execution in 2004, hence the confusion over who Astra revived. As she’s foiled before her massacre truly ratchets up in 1989, she’s sent off to receive mental healthcare. As strange as this sounds, it gave me food for thought for how a woman like her received the treatment she needs because of the gendered assumptions around hysteria, whereas her son might’ve been sentenced to death because men are presumed to always be rational, and therefore can’t be mentally ill as well.

I’m also glad they pulled out this twist because Nora stopping Freddy from becoming a killer by encouraging him to unleash his inner dancer was a pretty weak comedic moment, and that’s not even when you compare it to the other barmy resolutions we’ve had. (At least it acknowledges hip hop existed in the ’80s, unlike Ready Player One et al.)

4. Still Our Best Girl

Zari’s confined to the Waverider for her own good, but thanks to the side-effects of the Waverider‘s temporal nature, she’s able to remember her original timeline counterpart’s hacking skills and bypass her way off the ship. It’s a nice reminder that deep down she’s still our capable Air Totem bearer, but her not checking what year the ship is in is a reminder she’s not as smart and a lot more vulnerable now. Despite that, her inherent heroism comes through when Meyers attacks – earning her a nasty slash on her arm – proving she’s still worthy and strong without her original weapon. All in all this arc is doing a nice job of showing social media influencers aren’t worthless, they’re just using a bad economy as people have always done: hopefully when the season is over we’ll see her earn her way back to share that totem with her brother.

Continued below

5. Charlie is Bi/Pan

Constantine returns to the home he shared with the Newcastle Crew (which is a nice callback) to enter a portal that’ll allow him to speak to Astra’s mother. While there, he discovers Charlie had been posing as him, and had invited a man and a woman over for sex – maybe I missed it, but I hadn’t realized she was into men and women, or that her shapeshifting skills technically made her non-binary. I must say, well done Legends for having four queer leads (and Gary, I think) – now let’s get John and Des back together!

Bonus thoughts:

– Yes, there was a lot more blood than usual in this episode!

– It took me too long to get Zari namedropped Blue Ivy Carter: I love these reminders she and Behrad are from the future.

– Ava has a podcast? Since when?

– Nate cites Last Crusade and Ghostbusters II as examples of great movies from 1989, but not Batman for obvious reasons. (Because Batman exists on this Earth, not because it’s overrated.)

– I hope horse girls aren’t angry at Nora’s comments about ponies.

– Line of the night:

“Babe it’s finally happening!”
“We’re final girls!”

Or:

Mick telling Allie that’s his gun in his pocket.

See you all next week, when we head to “A Head of Her Time” in Revolutionary France. And because some of you will want to exorcise this ear worm, enjoy this song on loop in the meantime:


//TAGS | Legends of Tomorrow

Christopher Chiu-Tabet

Chris is the news manager of Multiversity Comics. A writer from London on the autistic spectrum, he enjoys tweeting and blogging on Medium about his favourite films, TV shows, books, music, and games, plus history and religion. He is Lebanese/Chinese, although he can't speak Cantonese or Arabic.

EMAIL | ARTICLES



  • -->