Tuesday, May 5, 2020

Legends of Tomorrow: Season 5, Episode 9 - Zari, Not Zari

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.



Plot

Sara, Constantine and Charlie wind up in British Columbia as they track the next piece of the Loom of Fate. Meanwhile, Zari heads into to a meditative retreat to deal with the odd feelings that she isn't quite herself that have persisted since she came aboard the Waverider, as Ava and Mick go on a trip through time to try and improve Mick's relationship with his daughter and reinsert Mick into the most important moments of her life.


Influences

Supernatural, Greek Mythology (legend of the Fates and their loom), Back To The Future Part 2 (Behrad's explaining the two Zaris with a blackboard of the timeline) and Doctor Who (the scenes of the two Zaris talking are reminiscent of the various versions of The Doctor teaming up.)


Goofs

It's highly unlikely, even for the sake of appearances, that a bag full of real weapons would be left on the set of Supernatural.


Performances

Tala Ashe sparkles as the two Zaris and her final scene with John shows the fire of the first version of the character in the second. Until that point, however, it's almost impossible to believe that both characters are played by the same actress.


Artistry

The fight in which Sara and Atropos duel with John Constantine scrambling around on the forest floor between them looking for spell components is a laugh riot and well blocked.

The scene in which Zari learns Behrad is dead and everyone fades around her, leaving her alone with him, is artfully shot and a beautiful symbolic representation of depression in the face of a loved one's passing.


Trivia Of Tomorrow

This was the first episode to feature a modified version of the original theme teaser. This one lacks Ray Palmer and Nora Darkh (since they left the show in the last episode) but does include Gideon in both her normal "head" mode and her alternate human self from the Sirens of Space-Time reality.

The mask of Tatsu Yamashiro (aka Katana) is in the study on the Waverider.


Technobabble/Arcana

Seeing the true divine form of a god will kill a mortal under normal circumstances, causing them to burn from the inside out.

John works a scrying spell that allows him to track the next Loom piece to Vancouver, using the first Loom piece, a pendant and a globe.

The Coin Maker is revealed to be Lachesis, the Fate responsible for measuring out the length of a person's life.

Lachesis can track John Constantine anywhere in time and space through his soul coin.

Charlie confirms that thanks to John's spell, she is now wholly mortal, despite having regained her shape-shifting powers.

The Fates are able to psychically sense one another's physical presence and can communicate telepathically. This allows Charlie to tell that Atropos is nearby. This sense does not allow for pinpoint precision, however, as Atropos demands to know where Charlie is, indicating she is having to track her through the woods using mundane means.

Behrad theorizes that the future was changed by building Heyworld, which caused a bifurcation of the timeline at that point. In short, there was a historical traffic accident, and the current Zari is the dent in the otherwise functional car.

What Zari describes as a haunting is more properly called a temporal echo. The version of Zari who existed before the Heyworld incident still exists on some level inside the current Zari. 

John casts a spell that requires hemlock, a toadstool and the blood of Atropos. This spell is later revealed to be some kind of ward which protects John from the effects of being stabbed by two god-weapons.

The power of the Loom piece Charlie hid in Vancouver corrupts the land around it. This results in blighted land, people having the life sucked from them and then rising from the dead as zombies. 

Atropos has the power to tell if people are related or connected in some way by looking at them.


Dialogue Triumphs

Charlie: It doesn't have to be a Walk of Shame if you enjoyed it. But if you are walking at all, you didn't enjoy it enough.

Zari: Behrad, I don't know how to play video games! But it's like I'm being haunted by someone who does. Someone who dresses like a teenage boy and makes me do awful things like eat donuts and (shudders) cuddle with Nate!

Ali: (just before Ava takes her and Mick's picture with baby Lita) Wait a minute! Did you break into my house?!

(After Lita rejects Mick's picture album and him once again.)
Ava: I think it's time that you go back in there and do what we should have done from the beginning.
Mick: Go back and kick myself in the-?
Ava: No! (softer) No. Just go tell her you're sorry. 

(Sara looks at one of the dead, desiccated bodies near where the Loom piece was hidden. They are wearing a Supernatural Crew jacket.)
Sara: Oh, it's the crew!
(Sara seems unusually upset about this, for someone who is not used to dealing with dead bodies.)
Sara:
Wait, if they're dead, who is shooting Season 15?

Original Zari: Wow. New me came out shockingly self-absorbed.

New Zari: Hey, do carbs count if you eat them in a totem?
Original Zari: No.
(New Zari grabs one of the donuts on the table and daintily bites into it.)

(New Zari asks why the Original Zari doesn't consider her a disappointment.)
New Zari: I mean, you were a superhero who wielded a totem and saved the world. Twice. I'm just a failed Cat-Chat celebrity.
Original Zari: My family's alive. And you... you actually seem like a lot of fun. I'm good with that. 

(Zari demands that John help her save her brother.)
John: We're being hunted by a pair of bloody gods. This situation just got a hell of a lot more dicey.
Zari:
I can held dicey! 
(Zari steels herself and fits John with a stare. You can hear the steel in her voice and for one of the few times in his life, John Constantine actually looks afraid as she speaks.)
Zari: I can handle whatever it takes to save my brother. And until you bring him back, I am with you every minute of every damn day. 
(John just nods weakly, not saying a word, stunned silent for once.)


Continuity

The episode opens shortly after the events of 403 and we see Charlie's old bandmates from The Smell.

The Smell have a song called "Assassination Nation."

All of The Smell, and their audience at Covent Garden, were killed by a knife wielding goddess whose true form caused one mortal's head to catch on fire. This is later revealed to be Atropos, the third of the three Fates, and the one responsible for ending lives.

Nate has a plush Beebo and Heyworld posters and banners in his bedroom, along with Scoots McGoots from 506.

Zari reportedly sleepwalked into Nate's bedroom at 2:30 AM. 

When Gideon tried to intervene, Zari hacked her while sleep-walking and somehow added in a Snooze Button function, that left Gidoen inactive for several hours.

Nate's sheets are 200 thread count cotton. Zari has the ability to tell this just by looking at them.

Mick leaves the ship through a Time Corridor to go visit his daughter, taking a teddy bear with him.

Gideon informs Charlie that the timeline was changed so that her old bandmates in The Smell died violently. 

Charlie figures out her sister was responsible based on the details of how The Smell died. 

John takes the jump-ship to go to Vancouver on his own.

Atropos meets with The Coin Maker in Hell, who addresses her as "Sis."

Atropos addresses The Coin Maker as Lachesis in response. Lachesis was the third Fate of Greek mythology.

Sara and Charlie use the Time Corridor to follow John to Vancouver.

Mick returns with the head ripped off the teddy bear he had earlier. This prompts Ava to go help him with his issues.

Ava suggests they can have Mick show up at key points in Lita's life to improve her memories of him. 

Mick spent the first 10 years of Lita's life in prison. Ava agrees to pose as his parole officer to sell the idea he's getting time-off to see his daughter.

The show Supernatural exists in the Arrowverse and Sara is a fan of it.

Sara has permission from Ava to cheat on her with the actor who plays Dean Winchester, if it ever comes up. (i.e. "a hall pass.")

Charlie was not allowed to drink on the job when she was a Fate.

Zari hallucinates a cat on the Waverider, which resembles the cat Pre-Crisis Zari was turned into in 408.

Zari attended the 2044 Grammy's and got excited about the hologram of Tupac Shakur that performed.

Zari retains her old self's talent for playing video games, beating Behrad on the first try at Mortal Kombat.

Zari is somehow able to activate the Air Totem without touching it.

Atropos blows up the Jump Ship. This also takes out the Waverider Coms, leaving Sara unable to call Ava for backup.

Mick is waiting for Ali when she comes home from the hospital with Lita in 2004, having just assembled a crib for her. The crib came from Victoria England.

Mick reads Lita one of his Rebecca Silver books in 2007.

In 2009, Lita loses her first tooth. This leads Mick to tell her about the Tooth Fairy and him leaving a wad of $100 bills under her pillow.

In 2011, Mick teaches Lita how to play soccer and takes a picture of her with her first trophy.

In 2012, Mick takes Lita out trick-or-treating. He wears his original Heatwave costume. She dresses as Captain Cold.

In 2013, Mick helps Lita with her science project. Suffice it to say her volcano produces an impressive flame that sets off the smoke alarm.

In 2018, Mick was there when Lita went to her first Homecoming dance... holding Lita's date at heat-gun point.

Charlie defends her destroying the loom, saying humanity has done good things with free will, like give women the right to vote and punk rock.

Atropos points out humanity also created nuclear weapons, systematic incarceration, mass genocide and pollution with the same free will.

John holds Atropos at bay while Sara and Charlie escape.

Atropos, disguised as John, joins Sara and Charlie, leaving John for dead, bleeding on the forest floor.

Behrad suggests that Zari can get her head together by taking a "Totem Quest"  and using Lyoga root to journey inside the Air Totem and speak with their ancestors. This was first done in 303.

Mick gives Lita a photo album of all the pictures Ava had been taking. She gives it back to him, pointing out that he's been out of prison since 2015 and there was nothing stopping him from being a more active part of her life during that time.

Lita never actually went to her first Homecoming, having gone inside to get her purse after taking the picture with Mick and her date and finding he had already left.

Mick decides to apologize to Lita and quit trying to find a short cut to make things right.

The area around the second Loom piece is blighted and the Supernatural crew members around it dead.

Zari meets her past self in the Air Totem ancestral realm instead of her ancestors.

Pre-Crisis Zari confirms that she has been in the Totem realm ever since the Heywood incident. She's also unaware of what has been going on in the new timeline.

Post-Crisis Zari tells Pre-Crisis Zari that Behrad became a Legend instead of her and that their parents are alive in the new timeline.

There are no video games in the Totem realm, but Zari does get all the donuts she wants and the carbs don't count.

Sara stares down Atropos as she reveals her divine form. She is somehow able to survive this.

Post-Crisis Zari tells Pre-Crisis Zari that she and Nate aren't together and it would be weird since he's Behrad's best friend in the new timeline.

Atropos goes onto the Waverider after Ava and Nate leave to find the rest of the team.

Atropos kills Behrad, cutting the thread of his lifeline, saying he is not supposed to exist, as he protects Zari.

John is revealed to have worked a spell that kept him from dying after Atropos stabbed him and replaced him.

Everyone returns to the ship just in time to see Behrad die.

Sara goes after Atropos with Genghis Khan's sword and fights her in the Waverider loading bay.

Charlie ultimately recovers the two Loom pieces by cutting off the hand Atropos is wearing the golden rings on, as what is left of Atropos is swept into the Temporal Zone.

New Zari promises to being Behrad into the totem to meet the original Zari at some point in the future.

Zari bullies John into agreeing to help her use the Loom of Fate to save her brother's life.


Location

London, England - 1977 - Three days after Charlie joined The Legends.
Hell 
The woods outside Vancouver, British Columbia - 2020
Central City - 2004
Central City - 2007
Central City - 2009
Central City - 2011
Central City - 2012
Central City - 2013
Central City - 2018
Central City - 2020


The Bottom Line

A solid episode, though the Supernatural jokes don't quite land as hard as they should and there seems little point to using the set. Doubtlessly those clamoring for a Constatnine/Winchester Brothers team-up will be disappointed and we should have at least gotten Castiel to show up long enough to say "Nice coat." to John before John told him to piss off or some such. Still, even by-the-numbers Legends is enjoyable and the scenes with the two Zaris are magic and more than make up for everything else being merely okay.

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