written by Kate Danvers
SPOILER WARNINGS ARE IN EFFECT
Time to enjoy an hour of ZariCat knocking things off of tables with the wind totem.
Usually to get into the mood to write these things, I listen to a song. Sometimes it’s a song from the era in which the episode takes place or, failing that, the Chamber Brothers’ “Time Has Come Today,” which was heard in the Season Two finale. Other times I pick a song that’s just thematically appropriate or something that gets me in the frame of mind.
I just wanted you all to know what I’m listening to as I type this intro.
Zari is a cat, Charlie has her powers back, and time might be broken again. Charlie doesn’t care; she’s going to go somewhere fun and then set the autopilot on the jump ship to take Zari back to the Waverider. You’ve gotta be kitten me right meow. She’s just going to abandon her…well, I was going to say “friend”. Frenemy? Roommate? Eh, something. Zari does get pettings out of the deal though.
ZARI: [meows]
Hahaha, oh witty and sarcastic Z. Even as a cat you have some of the best lines.
In 1962 Las Vegas, Charlie walks into a casino as Marilyn Monroe and runs into a leprechaun friend from the time prison. She warns him about using his magic publicly as it might attract the Legends. Right on cue, Nate, Mick, and Ray storm in and Ray shoots the leprechaun in the chest with a laser rifle, killing him instantly. Ray is excited to see “Marilyn” because he’s killing it at Historical Figure Bingo. All right, who on the writing staff is reading my recaps? Speak up.
These aren’t the Legends, they’re the Custodians of the Chronology! Then we get a little opening theme sequence in the same vein as Airwolf. Charlie sneaks aboard the Waverider as they celebrate their victory with their other teammate Garima.
GIDEON: “You missed calls from Barry Allen, Oliver Queen, and Kara Zor-El.”
RAY: “Sounds like the annual crossover.”
NATE: “Yeah, that’s gonna be a hard pass. Did I tell you Oliver owes me money?”
RAY: “I bet this year they’ll swap costumes.”
I didn’t make any of that up.
We also see various trophies around the parlor like the now-stuffed minotaur. Charlie finds Zari, who’s still a kitty and still upset with her for her apawling disregard for hiss-tory. Of course she’s still mad, Charlie! She’s furrious!
…No, I will not stop doing that.
Gideon appears in a hologram form that just looks like a hologram form of her actress, who Charlie describes as “smoking”. Gideon returns the compliment to “Amaya’s” new look and accent. Also, it seems Zari was turned into a cat in the new timeline by the Furry Godmother. The Custodians of the Chronology have adopted a “shoot to kill” policy ever since a disastrous encounter at Woodstock. Charlie shifts into Sara and tries to talk sense into the boys, but they see through it immediately because Sara is dead in this timeline. Charlie is stabbed by Garima, but apparently she possesses healing powers on top of shapeshifting because she gets up and runs off. She grabs Zari from the library and puts her in an adorable backpack cat carrier.
Zari suggests finding Constantine to help…and yeah, Charlie speaks cat, I guess? Or maybe the universal translator thing they have works for animals too? Nate was able to understand Ray when he was a pig, after all. Or maybe “because it’s silly” is the answer I’m looking for.
Constantine is at the Time Bureau, where Charlie and Z find two plaques: one a memorial to Sara, who was killed by a unicorn; and one declaring Agent Gary the Runner-Up Employee of the Month. Darkest timeline. Charlie disguises herself as Gary and Hank points her to the confinement cells, where a babbling Constantine suffers from memory flashes due to the altered timeline.
Constantine plucks some fur from Zari and changes Grumpy Cat to Grumpy Human. Charlie and Constantine see the easy fix – go back to Woodstock and save Sara. Zari wants them to undo what Constantine did in the first place but unfurtunately, they both veto that and change her back into a cat.
ZARI: [hisses and yowls]
Wow, I didn’t know you could say that on television these days. I guess if they’re getting away with “dick” they can get away with that. But jeez, Zari…potty mouth. Still have to admire her attitude in the face of a warlock of Constantine’s power. That kind of magic would be enough to give most people paws, but Zari goes right on insulting him. John Constantine, you have failed this kitty!
Mona catches them, but she actually helps them escape to Ava’s office when the Custodians arrive. Ava is in her office, having slipped into a depressive “dye my hair black and listen to sad music” state over Sara’s death. They convince her to help and she engages the Custodians and the Time Bureau in a massive shootout while the others escape.
Charlie and Constantine blow up the unicorn with the jump ship. Zari is still a kitty, though. After a quick trip back to the Time Bureau, Charlie sees memorials for Mick, Nate, and Ray. “In memory of our beloved time brothers”…lolwut? Also Sara, Ava, and an android(?) Gideon are now the “Sirens of Space-Time”. Cue the Charlie’s Angels-esque opening theme!
Do we have to fix this? I mean…this isn’t so bad, right? Nate, Mick, and Ray are cool and all and I would miss them, but this looks good too.
After reporting to Hank, the Sirens go to the armory to load up for their next mission. Sara grabs Mick’s flamethrower, Ava has Leonard’s cold gun, and Gideon…
Oh gods…I’m going to go get some tea.
Meow back to the show. Charlie (posing as Amaya) joins the Sirens to find out what happened to the boys. Seems they were killed by the Fairy Godmother. She relays that back to Constantine, who is being comforted by Best Kitty Zari. Purrhaps he’s starting to see that he made a mistake. Cats are good for helping you sort out your felines.
ZARI: [meows]
Oof, that line hit me right in the feels.
Gideon has sensors to detect shapeshifters, so the Sirens are onto Charlie and she narrowly escapes. They go back to Salem, where Charlie shapeshifts into the Fairy Godmother to fool Prudence into severing their bond. She tells Prudence that she has to start going to church every morning, doing chores, and eating broccoli. Prudence relinquishes the bond immediately. Wow, they are wrapping up the problems of these past episodes embarrassingly quickly.
Things should be on track now. Zari is able to talk, so she’s not a cat! …She is a puppet, though. What. I guess she felt a little off…
…sorry, I don’t have many puppet puns. Constantine returns to the Waverider where he encounters the singing puppet trio of Sara, Ray, and Nate – THE PUPPETS OF TOMORROW! Cue the…adorable children’s show intro music? O.o
CONSTANTINE: “What the Fraggle Rock is going on here?”
Dude, keep up. I’ve been trying to figure that out for twenty-five minutes.
This time around, the Fairy Godmother bonded with Mick, who called the Legends “the Time Bureau’s puppets” and then took off with his new partner in crime. Okay, seeing the Fairy Godmother dressed up like Captain Cold might be funnier than the puppets.
We get a quick montage of the next several attempts to rewrite history and their results through oddly specific memorial plaques at the Time Bureau. The first attempt to fix history leaves Ava dead. Then Henry and Nate are killed in battle with a garden gnome. Then Gary dies tragically in a time courier accident at Mount Vesuvius. Finally no plaques remain and Charlie declares victory, but Constantine is bleeding from his nose and collapses. Him being at the epicenter of the paradox is causing brain damage.
Constantine doesn’t care. In his mind, he’s set things right for Desmond and he’s willing to be collateral damage. Zari begs him to not just give up but to keep fighting for the people that still need John Constantine, and to find a way to help Desmond. Constantine finally comes around, but Charlie still wants her powers back, so Zari is forced to subdue her with the wind totem.
While Constantine and Zari go to New Orleans to fix things, Charlie disguises herself as Ava to trick the Legends into dealing with a magical presence in New Orleans. This backfires for her, as the Legends are still murderous toward magical creatures. Mick and Ray see three different Constantines and reckon that two are shapeshifters.
Constantine intercepts Desmond when he storms out after Past!Constantine’s first attempt at altering history. He tells Desmond that what they had was real and he’s sorry Desmond ever had the misfortune of meeting him. Desmond isn’t sorry; he knew the risks. However, the words weren’t for Desmond, because after telling him he isn’t going to give up on him, Constantine wipes his memory with one of the Time Bureau’s memory flashers.
Charlie reveals herself to Sara, but that just gets her a broken neck and a gunshot wound. She heals from those and realizes the missing ingredient in all of the timelines where the Legends murder magical creatures is her. Sara doesn’t buy any of this and tells Mick and Ray to fire. Just as they do, the real original timeline Constantine returns from the store and kisses Desmond, setting time back on track.
Charlie apologizes to Zari for the two of them getting off on the wrong foot. Even when she had her powers back, she kept going back to her Amaya form and asks Zari if she knows why. Zari asks if it’s because Amaya is very hot. Nope, it’s because it was the form Charlie was in when she joined the Legends, and she’s grown to like the Legends. Zari says destroying history is like a rite of passage for the Legends…which is the closest she gets to hugging Charlie and becoming BFFs. Charlie teases Zari for thinking she’s hot.
NO. I am not getting my hopes up for this. Nope. Not happening. Not doing it.
…the names Zari and Charlie do sound cute together, though.
Mick and Ava kind of make peace with a mutual respect for each other. Constantine goes to Sara and confesses what he did and then gives her a warning about Neron.
Elsewhere, Hank gets a call while he’s golfing about Konane escaping. Hopefully that means Mona was found and isn’t just bleeding out in the parking garage, because that cliffhanger doesn’t get resolved. Hank’s golf partner turns out to be Desmond, who shifts into a demonic form when Hank’s back is turned.
For the love of Beebo and all things that are cute and cuddly, that was a fun episode. I’ve complained in the past about how they’ve played it safe with alternate timelines like Doomworld, but this time they just dropped acid, wrote the craziest thing they could imagine, then did more acid. Puppets, ZariCat, three ridiculous opening themes, the costumes, the insane gun battle in the Time Bureau, the Fairy Godmother as Captain Cold, the alternate scenes from past episodes, the humor put into the memorial plaques – this episode was relentless.
And then in true Legends fashion, they hit me with a gut punch to bring it all home. The story of Desmond and Constantine is so tragic, and Constantine talking to Dez before flashing his memory just twisted the knife in the wound. I really hope their story has a happy ending.
Also, like I guessed in the last episode, it seems our Big Bad has been revealed. Hank tells “Desmond” there’s been a setback, but they’re going to make things right. If that’s really Neron in Desmond’s body, then Hank and his “Project Hades” might all be part of Neron’s scheme. We’ll have to wait and see, and unfortunately, we’re going to be waiting for a while.
Legends is going on an extended mid-season hiatus, so while the other shows will return in January, I’m on vacation until April. I know, it’s ridiculous. Especially because…well, I think Legends of Tomorrow is the strongest of the CW’s superhero shows at the moment. But, alas, someone decided we really needed reboots of early 2000s shows.
All of you have a happy Beebo Day, a wonderful New Year, and I will see you in April.
Legends Of Tomorrow airs Mondays on the CW at 9 ET/8 CT. Kate can be reached on Twitter @WearyKatie.