Showing posts with label Jes Macallan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jes Macallan. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 30, 2021

Legends of Tomorrow: Season 7, Episode 7 - A Woman's Place Is The War Effort!

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


Plot

The Legends' latest time jump takes them to Seattle at the height of WWII. Sara, Ava, Astra, Spooner and Gideon take jobs working alongside other "Rosies" in an airplane factory to get the parts they need to repair the time machine, but Astra rebels against the racism of the era and tries to build a better tomorrow. Meanwhile, Behrad and Zari 2.0 give Nate a crash course in Persian culture and etiquette in anticipation of his moving in with Zari 1.0 and their ancestors, only to have their hospitality abused by Bishop.


Influences

I Love Lucy (Ava's battle with a sped-up conveyer belt pays tribute to an infamous I Love Lucy episode.) and the movie Hidden Figures (theme of Black women working in vital roles without credit.)


Goofs

For all this episode does to combat sexism and racism and point out the role that non-white women played in World War II, it's a little screwed up that the head janitor played by Kimleigh Smith isn't given any name in the script beyond "Female Worker."


Performances

Raffi Barsoumian has another outstanding turn as Bishop, managing to make the hapless wannabe hero surprisingly sympathetic even as he's playing Sheridan Whiteside to the Tarazis' Stanley family.

Jes Macallan proves an able Lucille Ball impersonator. 


Artistry

The episode's use of period music in setting the mood is fantastic.


Trivia Of Tomorrow

The McDougle Jemison factory is named in honor of two Black women who had prominent roles in the the American space program. Sharn Caples McDougle was the first Black woman to serve as a spacesuit technician. Mae Jemison was the first Black woman to travel into space.

Ta'arof (or Taarof) is an ancient Iranian custom which forms the backbone of modern Persian etiquette and hospitality. It is meant to even the playing field in a heavily hieratical culture and dictates the proper way of how to behave as a guest and a host, with hosts offering their guests whatever they want with the expectation that the guest will not be greedy in regards to sharing food or drink. The custom of allowing a social better to enter the room first but making a show of allowing them to pass before you is another part of Ta'arof.


Technobabble/Arcana

Gideon says that the odds of someone being injured by a toilet are 1 in 10,000.

Operation Blind Man's Bluff is a maneuver the Legends have developed to distract people. It consists of playing Marco Polo while running around whoever they are distracting.

Fixing the time machine this time requires rebuilding 18 aeroimpetus stabilizers. They can be assembled using corrugated metal, 2 inch I-beams, copper wire and a standard welding station.

The tradition of ta'arof demands a guest deny a host's offer three times before finally accepting it. It also requires a host to offer something to a guest as a gift if they like it, as when Bishop admires Zari 2.0's "retro" phone.

The factory has an injection molder, which makes custom metal parts, that keeps breaking down. Once fixed, it can be used to make the aeroimpetus stabilizers far faster than Spooner can assemble them.

Spooner accidentally casts a spell which paralyzes Mr. E. Staples in place.

Bishop builds a navigational device for the time machine made out of Zari's phone and a Speak-and-Spell. He calls it a neural communicator and says that, when worn by Gideon, it should help her steer the time machine.


Dialogue Triumphs

Bishop: I'm on your side, I swear. There is a soon-to-be bad Bishop who's actually a replacement robot clone of me, but I'm the good Bishop.
Ava: So which Bishop blew up our Waverider?
Bishop: Well, that was me.
Zari 1.0: And who sent the robots after us?
Bishop: Also me.
Nate: None of this fits the definition of "good."
Bishop: In my defense, I thought you kidnapped me, but then I learned the truth. You're the good guys. Only it was too late. Gideon went rogue.
Gary: Her?
Gideon: Me?
Bishop: (hearing the familiar voice and freezing up) Oh, no.
Astra: She's harmless.
Bishop: Wait, this is astounding. A living, breathing Gideon? A true deus ex machina among us?
(Bishop reaches out to touch Gideon but Astra slaps his hand.)
Astra:
She's neither a god nor machine. She's human. So who the hell are you talking about?
Bishop: I stole a copy of Gideon's OS when I was on your ship, restored her to factory settings, and then built my own Waverider.
Spooner: Oh, no, Evil Virus Gideon.
Gideon: That seems a bit harsh. How about misunderstood Gideon who's just trying to keep the timeline intact?
Behrad: By killing us?
Nate: Evil Gideon it is. 

(Sara sees Bishop at the dining room table.)
Sara:
Why is he down here?
Nate: I'm learning about Persian culture so I can win over cranky uncles.
Behard: Bishop's my teachable moment.
(Sara glares at them for a second but then sighs.)
Sara: You're lucky I love you two.
Nate: Aw, I love you. (hands her a bread basket) Here's some complex carbohydrates.

Bishop: You eat food? How human are you?
Gideon: Biologically, I'm 100% human.
Bishop: Well, so then, how computer are you?
Gideon: Also 100%, which is confusing mathematically, but accurate metaphorically. 

(The head janitor just discovered the paralyzed E. Staples.)
Female Worker:
You ordered the integration?
Astra: I couldn't have them treat us like second-class citizens or worse. I just--I didn't think that all those women would walk out.
Female Worker: I am pushing the same mop you are. Young ones like you think it's all about now. It's not. We are all just branches on a tree. There are some below us, some yet to come. This war gave us a chance to finally wake this country up. But that doesn't happen overnight. Slow and steady progress, that's sustainable progress.
Astra: You don't stick a knife in a man's back nine inches, and then pull it out six inches and call it progress. It's torture.
Female Worker: What good is change if it doesn't last? Without those women, the plane won't get finished, and the DOD will pull our contract.
Astra: So your team can't finish the plane?
Female Worker: I didn't say that. I mean, maybe we can. Maybe if we work around the clock, maybe if someone brought meals, coffee, some cots for breaks.
Astra: Maybe, huh?
Female Worker: Heh. We can do it. But what's it matter? Once top brass finds out, they're going to fire us anyway.
Astra: You take care of the plane, I will make sure you keep your jobs. Deal?
Female Worker: Probably the straight dumbest thing I've ever said yes to. Deal. 

(Bishop is trying to explain his neural interface to Dr. Davies.)
Dr. Gwyn Davies:
You dropped a toilet on my time machine. I don't have to talk to you.
Bishop: Look, you have a problem. Your machine can travel. You just can't tell it where. But with this, Gideon can navigate it. All she has to do is think where she wants to go, and... The device can read all of Gideon's thoughts.
(Bishop places the helmet on Gideon's head and it begins to speak.)
Interface:
That shirt really brings out Gary's eyes. And those pants accentuate his butt.
(Gideon pulls the helmet off hurriedly.)
Gideon: Now I think I understand why humans keep secrets now.
Behrad: That's called shame. And there's no shame in the game. Those pants do accentuate his butt. 
(Gary has been silent this whole time, but smiles a bit at Gideon.)


Continuity

The Legends crash land in a forest and discover Bishop among the wreckage of the time machine.

The Legends distract a group of American military police away from the time machine wreckage using the Blind Man's Bluff maneuver. 

The Legends escape into the mansion dimension using the key in a woman's outhouse.

Bishop explains how he copied Gideon's OS, built his own Waverider, created the Robo-Hoover to maintain the timeline and accidentally created the Evil Gideon that is trying to destroy the Legends.

Bishop is put in John's bedroom in the mansion dimension.

Dr. Gwyn Davies asks who John is, apparently having not been told about Constantine yet.

Ava and Sara discover they are crashed near an airplane manufacturing plant that is in the middle of holding a hiring fair for female workers, since most of the young men who would normally work factory jobs have been recruited as soldiers.

Zari 1.0 returns inside the Totem reality.

Nate says he will move in with her once they get the team back to the present.

Nate tells the rest of the Legends that he and Zari are moving in together.

Nate makes it clear that he is not quitting the team - he will just be commuting from out of the totem every day.

Nate agrees to let Gary have the helmet from his Steel costume, which he almost never wears anymore.

Spooner knows how to weld.

Ava and Sara are recruited for the assembly line. Gideon his hired on as a secretary after saying she can process one million words a minute.

Astra and Spooner are hired on as janitors, as the factory manager refuses to allow non-white women to work on his floor.

The McDougle-Jemison factory produces one bomber every 48 hours.

Astra rankles at being made to clean, but Spooner points out that their position allows them to easily smuggle out what they need because nobody is watching the janitorial staff.

Zari 2.0 returns from the totem dimension with the news that Uncle Amoo Arjomand, who was the totem bearer 400 years earlier, is displeased about the idea of Nate moving in.

Zari 2.0 recovers her phone, which she lost in 704.

Behrad decides to treat Bishop as a "guest" in order to teach Nate about the Persian custom of ta'arof, so that Nate can impress their ancestors with his good manners.

The head janitor informs Spooner and Astra that they created a secret workshop they use to repair the machines that are thrown out and they've become as good as any of the white "Rosies" working the real factory floor. She says they are welcome to use it, provided their other work gets done first.

Zari's towels are 600 GS Egyptian cotton.

Bishop says he prefers a denser towel - at least 800 GSM.

The First Lady, Elanor Roosevelt, is said to have called the factory several times about seeing it in action.

Astra tried to forge a work order to get the aeroimpetus stabilizers made, but is caught by the factory manager, Mr. E. Staples. She accidentally freezes him with a spell as he's in the middle of firing her.

Astra plans to take over doing Mr. E. Staples job, in order to keep the factory on-schedule, so that evil Gideon doesn't detect them doing anything wrong.

Zari plays a game on her phone called Pastry Smash.

Zari is forced to give her phone to Bishop.

Astra is able to arrange for the time machine to be transported into a disused hangar, where Dr. Davies and Gary can work on repairing it in private.

Gideon does not understand why humans keep secrets from one another.

Astra starts making the factory run more efficiently by installing a complaint box, learning what the workers want fixed and doing it. This includes offering coffee and setting up a radio in the break area.

Astra goes one step further by ordering the workplace to be racially integrated. This causes roughly half of the white workers to quit. 

The head janitor discovers the frozen Mr. E. Staples and Astra explains she was what happened as an opportunity and had been running the factory in his place.

Astra makes a deal to protect the women's jobs if they can get the plane finished in the next day.

Nate and Behrad make lunches for all the workers.

Behrad tells Astra how much he admires her assertiveness, even if it has gotten them into trouble.

Astra says she admires how giving Behrad is, but says he also uses his traditions as a way to avoid conflict. She encourages him to stand up to Bishop.

Staples' fingers begin to move after Astra and Behrad talk.

Behrad confronts Bishop on his rudeness. This leads him to reveal that he'd been working on building a neural interface that will let Gideon steer the time machine.

Behrad agrees to be friends with Bishop.

Mr. E. Staples revives just after the latest bomber has been completed, in anticipation of a visit from Colonel Dawson. He's about to fire all the Black workers when the Colonel arrives, with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who has come to congratulate the workers on the job they've been doing. She's accompanied by a photographer with Time Magazine.

Astra got the idea to invite the First Lady from Behrad, taking is idea that "a good guest can make a good host" to a literal extreme.

The Colonel says the plane looks as fine as any he's ever seen as Mr. Staples insists it can't be any good and Elanor Roosevelt says his integrated factory will be a model for the industry and the the reporter for Time says they'll be sure to be on the cover.

The Time team take a photo of Mr. Staples with his integrated workers in front of the plane.

Dr. Davies allows Bishop to install his neural interface into the time machine.

Zari 2.0 comments on how Dr. Davies looks like John Constantine. Behrad and Nate don't see it, with Nate saying he looks more like Rip Hunter than anyone.

Based on what Astra did with the factory, Elanor Roosevelt pushes Congress to integrate al factories two years before it originally happened in the original timeline.

Evil Gideon corners the Legends inside the factory, but Bishop and Gideon are able to deliver the time machine to them.

Bishop sacrifices himself to distract the gunmen so the Legends can escape in the time machine.

When Gideon asks where to go, everyone says "Home." We do not see where they jump to.

The gunmen are revealed to be a group of robots who resemble Behrad, Spooner, Nate and Sara. It appears that Evil Gideon has made a team of Robot Legends to replace the real Legends. The Zari and Astra robots were killed in the fight.


Location

Seattle, Washington - 1943


The Bottom Line

A little heavy-handed and mixed in its messaging but the comedic moments more than make up for it. January 12th, 2022 can't come fast enough.

Tuesday, November 9, 2021

Legends of Tomorrow: Season 7, Episode 4 - Speakeasy Does It

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



Plot

The Legends arrive in Chicago and come across a speakeasy. Naturally, being the Legends, they accidentally cause the place to get smashed up. This leads Zari to set up a party, with a special performance by the Bullet Blondes, to raise the money to rebuild it. Coincidentally, Astra, Spooner and Gideon also arrive in Chicago, but find themselves tasked with helping a female musician free herself from her mobster boyfriend.


Influences

The musical Chicago and gangster movies in general.


Goofs

The sign on the door of the Chapeaux places the events of this episode as occurring sometime during between the 3rd and the 9th of a month where Monday fell on the 24th. This suggests this episode takes place in early August 1925, which matches the suggestion that the events of 701 took place on July 9th. However, this still wildly conflicts with Gideon's claim that November 7th was two weeks away in 702.


Performances

Caity Lotz is a well known dancer, but Jes Macallan does a fine job keeping up with her in the Bullet Blonde's burlesque number.


Artistry

The musical numbers in this episode are amazing and the editing between Gideon's singing, Sara and Ava's dance and the fight scenes is flawless.


Technobabble/Arcana

Astra magically changes the Masquardies train tickets into first class tickets.


Dialogue Triumphs

Susie: Men don't look out, they look at, if you know what I mean.
Gideon: You're referring to the rampant commodification of females by males that is a societal norm of this decade. 
(There's an awkward silence, but Susie smiles.)
Susie: You talk funny. I like it.

Zari: Aves, we can't keep leaving the timeline worse than we found it. This place is one of the few safe spaces that exist in this entire crummy time period. I'm not gonna be able to sleep knowing we had a hand in destroying it, are you? 

Zari: Gary, I need you to make sure the silks are secure. We can't have it falling down during the big show, yeah? 
Gary: Absolutely, Zari. And can I just say, I think you're doing a fantastic job leading us on this mission. 
Zari: I know. 
(Zari walks off. Nate observes this exchange and walks over to Gary.)
Nate: It's pathological with you, isn't it? 
Gary: What are you talking about? 
Nate: You have a crush on Zari.
Gary: What, no!
Nate: Gary. You know what's happening here. It's not a real crush. Zari's triggering your attraction to powerful people. Think about it, Kayla, Ava, John... 
Gary: Shh! She might hear you. 
Nate: You get off being bossed around, you little sicko. 
Gary: You're just figuring this out now? 
Nate: Gary, don't you want to be with someone who respects you for the alien you are? 
Gary: No, not really. 
Nate: I'm worried about you, Gare. 
Gary: I'm worried about you, too, but I don't go around shaming your pathology, do I? 
Nate: My pathology? What pathology? 
Gary: That you find yourself in these relationships that can't go anywhere. So you don't have to put yourself in the vulnerable position of really giving yourself to another person because you have the excuse of timelines or totems holding you back. 
Nate: What?!

(Sara and Ava end their dance routine by kissing passionately. The crowd is stunned.)
Sara: We're not sisters.
(The crowd suddenly starts cheering and applauding.)


Continuity

Gary's generous tipping winds up nearly bankrupting the Legends, leaving them with $35. By Ava's estimate, that's barely enough for one person to take the train from Chicago to New York City, allowing for meals.

Zari, Ava and Sara go into a ladies' wig shop to find a disguise. The clerk ignores Zari completely.

Ava and Sara retrieve a brunette and redhead wig respectively. However, they're forced to pay triple the wholesale rate when the clerk recognizes them as the Bullet Blondes.

While trying to find a door to use the mansion key, the Legends stumble across a speakeasy called The Sapphire String. It is run by a Black man named Eddie and the password to get in is "password."

Nate notes that most speakeasies were segregated, but the Sapphire String caters to everyone.

Behrad joins the house band in a jam session after being loaned a guitar.

Astra, Spooner and Gideon sneak onto a train heading to Chicago. They are almost kicked off, but they are saved by a woman named Maude Beaumont, who lies and says they are with her band, after name-dropping her boyfriend - a notorious gangster named Ross Bottoni.

The news reports in Chicago confirm that there is a new robot posing as J. Edgar Hoover and he is said to be chasing after Al Capone and the Bullet Blondes.

The news also reports that the Bullet Blondes are sisters and have had bootlegging added to their list of crimes after showing up at a crime scene with whiskey in 702

Sara has the idea to offer the infinite whiskey in the mansion dimension to Eddie in exchange for access to his store room for a night, 20% of the night's take in cash and no questions asked.

Maude's all-woman band is called The Masquardies. They wear fancy masks when they perform.

One of the other women in the Masquardies is named Susie Spencer. Gideo reveals that she marries a man named Colin Baker, retires to Florida and dies peacefully in her sleep.

Astra lies and says that Gideon is a singer known as the Lark of London, Spooner is her voice coach and that she is her manager. This gets Susie and Maude's attention as women don't typically work as managers in the American theater. (They presume this is how things are done in London.)

Astra offers to look at the contract of the Masquardies' manager, who is described as a glorified bodyguard named Donny.

Eddie notices Zari's smart phone when she uses it as a make-up mirror, but thinks it is an exotic compact.

Eddie knows how to say cheers in several languages and makes Zari a soda water with lemon when she says she doesn't drink.

Astra confronts Donny on his contract and how he's getting 60% of what the Maskeradies make and yet he isn't paying for them to get first class train tickets.

Astra claims to have learned how entertainment contracts work from Phil Spector - an infamous music producer who murdered actress Lana Clarkson.

Maude fires Donny.

It is revealed that Ross Bottoni was renting the Sapphire String to Eddie with the understanding that he'd only buy liquor from him. This leads Bottoni and his men to smash up the bar after the Legends leave.

Zari insists they have to help Eddie after they find him beaten half to death and Ava agrees to let her take charge for a few hours.

Zari suggests turning the mansion into a speakeasy for a few hours 

Gary seems to develop a crush on Zari, due to her commanding personality when she's planning a party.

Maude gets a telegram telling her that her boyfriend just got her a new club to play in.

Maude persuades Spooner, Astra and Gideon come and see her perform since their train to New York City won't leave until 8 AM the next day.

Zari hits on the idea of having the Bullet Blondes perform to get people into the one-night-only speakeasy.

The password to get into the speakeasy is Rutabaga.

Ross Bottoni is not pleased when he finds out Donny was fired and tells Maude that he will decide who manages her. He also tells her that a Mr. Williams from RCA will be watching the show that night.

Astra recognizes Ross from her time in Hell. She recalls that his worst fear was being covered with 1000 tiny spiders.

Astra becomes determined to save Maude after Gideon reveals that Maude's body will be found floating in the Chicago River on December 18, 1925.

Nate confronts Gary over his crush on Zari and notes that he seems to get off on being bossed around.

Gary says that he's well aware of that and confronts Nate on his tendency to get into relationships that can't go anywhere so he doesn't have to truly become vulnerable with another person.

Astra encourages Maude to run off where Ross can't find her.

Gideon takes Maude's place on stage.

The Hoover robot infiltrates the speakeasy, but Sara and Ava are able to tie him up while making it part of their dance act.

Astra and Spooner are able to pacify Ross Bottoni by playing on his fear.

Astra, Spooner and Gideon hear about the Bullet Blonde's show at the Chapeaux and rush to catch the rest of the Legends.

Nate admits he does need to talk to Zari 1.0 about their relationship. Gary says he'll be there if Nate needs to talk after.

Astra, Spooner and Gideon miss the Legends, but find Zari's cel phone.

The Legends make the train to New York City, with Gary guarding the key as the rest of the Legends hide in the mansion dimension.

Zari 2.0 switches places with Zari 1.0.


Location

Chicago - 1925


The Bottom Line

A funny, jazzy episode that could be a contender for one of the 10 best Legends adventures ever.


Monday, October 18, 2021

Legends of Tomorrow: Season 7, Episode 1 - The Bullet Blondes

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



Plot

Stranded in Odessa, Texas in 1925 following the destruction of the Waverider, the Legends turn to Astra's magic for a solution. When this creates unwanted attention and brings the full wrath of J. Edgar Hoover and his Bureau of Investigation down on their heads, Sara and Ava create a distraction by going on a crime spree to lead Hoover away from the rest of the team.


Influences

Gangster movies (particularly Bonnie and Clyde)


Performances

Jess Macallan steals the episode, playing an increasingly manic Ava Sharpe trying not to lose it... until she finally does lose it.


Artistry

The costumes for this episode are great examples of period dressing.


Trivia Of Tomorrow

This episode was the first to feature a new title card, without the intensive opening credits teaser of seasons 5 and 6.

Sara claims to be part of the Guggenheim Circus. This is a nod to longtime Arrowverse producer Marc Guggenheim.


Technobabble/Arcana

Time Bureau policy is that all time ships must have a Fail-Safe installed - a black box full of emergency supplies, like back up time couriers and mind flashers. Ava had one installed on the Waverider when it was impounded.

Astra remembers John Constantine's tracking spell and uses it to find the Fail-Safe... in the Sheriff's office.

Rule 44 of the Time Bureau code dictates that should a Time Agent become lost in time and in danger of breaking the timeline, they should pretend to be a circus performer, on the grounds that any weird things caused by time travel can be explained away as being part of a circus, no matter where in time you are.

Gary can cast John Constantine's fire-hands spell, but he can't hold it for very long.

Rule 23 of the Time Bureau code says that stranded Time Agents should stay in one location to limit the potential harm to the timeline.

John Constantine's resurrection ritual is specifically keyed to work on people, not objects.

The key John Constantine gave Zari can be used in any lock to create a portal into a replica of John's mansion. The replica is located in Hell, as Nate discovered when he tried exiting through the front door.


Dialogue Triumphs

Nate: My name's John Edgar Hoover. I'm the newly appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation in Washington, D.C. (nodding to Ava) This is my trusted secretary, Ms. Gandy.
Sheriff: You seem different in real life.
Nate: You probably saw an old photo. I've been cocktailing my hair products. But that's neither here or there. 

(Ava is flipping through the Time Bureau Manual.)
Ava: There's an answer in here somewhere.
Sara: It's just a book of rules, babe.
Ava: Rules we should be following, okay? We almost ruined Gloria's life, and we almost interacted with Hoover, which means we almost changed history.
Sara: Yeah, but we didn't, huh? Just... Babe. Hey, will you look at me? I know it feels like the walls are closing in, but we will figure this out.
Ava: You keep saying that. Okay, Sara? But we're getting sloppy. And without memory flashers or time couriers or Gideon to guide us, we are lost, okay?
Sara: And you really think that manual will help?
Ava: Probably not, but I just... I need to. Okay?
Sara: Okay. You keep reading.

(Nate has tried pacifying a woman by telling her they're with the Midland Gang. As she sees Sara and Ava inside robbing the bank...)
Woman:
Two women? There's no women in the Midland Gang. You can steal money from a bank, fine. But you don't steal somebody's gang name!
Nate: All right, lady, look, we don't have a gang name. Okay?
Woman: Well, gotta have a gang name. It's patriotic! 

Ava: (losing it) The timeline? The timeline is ruined. History is ruined, and we don't even have Gideon here to tell us how badly we've ruined it. That's it. I want to die. (Ava lies down in the middle of the road.) Goodbye. I give up. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. Goodbye! 

(Ava makes orders Gary to eat J. Edgar Hoover's corpse.)
Gary: I swear I take no pleasure in this. Beyond just the taste of human meat, which as you know, I find... quite delicious. 

Astra: So you're just gonna bury the pieces of the Waverider?
Spooner: Well, it ain't gonna bury itself.
Astra: I'm gonna miss the old girl.
Spooner: Really? Astra Logue getting sentimental.
Astra: Look, I'm sorry I brought the cops to your mom's place. I don't blame you for being pissed about it.
Spooner: No, I get it. You were trying to help.
Astra: I wasn't just trying to help you, though. I was trying to prove myself to replace John. I just wanted to show everyone that I was worthy, which I guess I'm not.
Spooner: John? We don't need another John. We need you. Astra, I wasn't mad about the cops. I wasn't happy about them, but I was upset that you almost died. I like having you around. You're like my best friend.
Astra: No one's ever said that to me. But you're mine too.
Spooner: Good. And if anything goes wrong, we'll handle it. I got your back. 


Continuity

The episode picks up immediately where 615 ended, with the sheriff of Odessa handling reports of weird dinosaur creatures roaming the outskirts, metal balls falling from the sky and glowing lights in the sky.

The Legends plan to use a Time Courier to teleport onto the rogue Waverider and attack whoever blew up their ship. Unfortunately, the Time Courier Nate was carrying runs out of power.

Pastor Hanson, a local preacher, stops by Spooner's mother's house to ask if she'd seen anything strange.

The team is unable to use the mind flasher to erase Pastor Hanson's memory because it too is out of power.

Reference is made to 605 and Astra turning the other Legends into household objects.

The team split up to search for the Fail-Safe from the Waverider.

Behrad offers to talk to Zari about what happened with John, noting he has a lot of experience with being dumped.

Zari denies being dumped and says she and John mutually agreed to end their relationship.

Zari tells Behrad about the key John gave her.

Zari decides she needs to reinvent herself to get over John.

Spooner is trained in tracking people and animals through the woods.

Gary and Ava hit upon disguising the Legends as circus performers.

Spooner and Ava refuse to take part in that aspect of the plan, and Spooner puts Ava to work on magically fixing her mom's house.

Gary dresses as a magician, Sara poses as a ring master and Behrad and Zari dress as clowns.

Nate and Ava go to the Sheriff to retrieve the Fail-Safe.

Nate poses as J. Edgar Hoover, who had just become director of the Bureau of Investigation in 1925.

Sara, Gary, Behrad and Zari are able to pacify the people of Odessa by saying the dinosaur aliens were a Komodo dragon and the lights and explosions were new display tricks.

Ava mistakenly says the President is Warren G. Harding when it was Calvin Coolidge at that point in time.

Gary panics when asked when the circus will be opening and says that night.

Sheriff Wood figures out that Nate wasn't the real J. Edgar Hoover after seeing a newspaper article with a photo of J. Edgar Hoover on the front page, which says he's in Texas hunting a notorious gang of bank robbers.

The Fail Safe turns out to be empty, except for a copy of the Time Bureau Manual, an IOU note from Mick Rory saying he was taking the Courier for a beer run and a pack of Behrad's marijuana gummies.

Gloria returns, having heard in town that people were expecting a circus to be set up on her land that night.

Spooner's father was named Celso.

The Legends are fully ready to try and throw together a circus, but Spooner tells them they can't risk endangering her mother.

Astra tries to work John Constantine's resurrection spell on the Waverider wreckage, even though it was designed to work on people, not objects.

J. Edgar Hoover travels to Odessa, after the sheriff calls his office in Washington DC to report someone impersonating him.

Hoover is convinced that the imposter Hoover is part of the Midland Robbery Gang.

Astra passes out trying to cast the spell. The failure of the spell causes an explosion, which gets the attention of J. Edgar Hoover and the sheriff.

Zari uses the key John gave her in the closet door in Gloria's bedroom, when the Legends are forced to hide and J. Edgar Hoover begins searching Gloria's house. This leads them into a replica of John's mansion located in Hell.

Behrad speculates John gave Zari the pocket dimension house because he thought she might need a place to be alone and think.

Zari decides to stay in the house for a while.

While going through the Time Bureau Manual, Ava discovers a section on an obscure scientist who laid the foundation for all of time travel, named Dr. Gwynn Davies, who lived in New York City in 1925.

Ava, Sara, Gary, Nate and Behard steal J. Edgar Hoover's car after tying up Spooner and Gloria, leading J. Edgar Hoover to believe they were unwilling hostages and that the Midland Robbery Gang just escaped.

Ava plans out a bank robbery that will take $93.65, which she determined is the exact amount they need to travel to New York City from Odessa, Texas.

Ava and Sara rob the bank, while Behrad and Nate work crowd control and Gary drives the getaway car.

A sign in the bank gives the date as Thursday the 9th. This corresponds with the calendar of both April and July 1925.

Behrad names their gang the Bullet Blondes after Sara and Ava.

J. Edgar Hoover sets up a barricade, which Nate drives through.

J. Edgar Hoover jumps onto their car and is thrown off. He appears to be dead, but when the Legends crowd around him he draws a gun and tries to shoot Nate, who turns to steel, causing the shot to ricochet and kill Hoover.

Ava has Gary eat J. Edgar Hoover's body.

Astra recovers enough to help Gloria pick vegetables from her garden.

Gloria advises Astra that not every magician does magic in the same way, so she doesn't need to feel shame she can't work a spell just like John Constantine.

Spooner starts burying all the Waverider wreckage.

Spooner and Astra agree that they are one another's best friend.

Astra says the last word of the resurrection spell. This leads to a naked woman suddenly appearing in the field. Spooner and Astra somehow guess this is Gideon, in a human body, before she speaks.


Location

Odessa, Texas - 1925
A pocket dimension in Hell resembling John Constantine's mansion.


The Bottom Line

A heck of a start for the new season.

Friday, August 27, 2021

Legends of Tomorrow: Season 6, Episode 13 - Silence of the Sonograms

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


Plot

Tensions are heightened on the Waverider, with the Legends on high alert and Bishop's latest clone in their custody. As Ava begins interrogating the super-genius and Gary tries to help Mick through his pregnancy pains, Zari recruits Spooner and Astra to help her figure out what Constantine is trying to hide from her and the team.


Influences

The Silence of the Lambs (title, scenes of Ava trying to get into Bishop's head only to have him get into her mind), the Critical Mass story arc of Hellblazer (demon Constantine) and every sci-fi comedy based around a man being pregnant. (Red Dwarf and Junior come to mind.) 


Performances

Jess Macallan nails the moment in which Ava's mask breaks once Bishop finally gets to her.

Raffi Barsoumian is amazing as Bishop, turning the smarmy hipster scientist into a credible threat, even as we're left wondering how sincere he might be about wanting to join the Legends and find redemption.

In the moment when Zari 2.0 confronts John over his drug use, we see the same steel at the heart of Zari 1.0 and Tala Ashe, who has done such a good job making both versions of the Legend into likeable and distinct yet similar characters is amazing.

Artistry

The sequence of Bishop and Ava dancing to "Perfect Day" is well shot and the music perfect.

The effects work for Mick's pregnancy is top-notch.


Trivia Of Tomorrow

This episode was originally planned to be the season finale. 

This is the first episode not to feature Behrad since he joined the team in Season 5.


Technobabble/Arcana

Bishop claims that he lowered the oxytocin levels in all the Ava clone to inhibit their capacity to feel love and process emotions. Ava thinks maybe this is why she is having a hard time planning the wedding.

Bishop suggests a formula made of mushroom and ginger to ease Mick's birthing pains, which is poured into his ear. According to Sara it doesn't taste half-bad to her alien tastebuds. In actuality, the formula is meant to induce labor, which Gary reveals at the end of the episode.

Astra knows a spell that can restore lost memories.

The potion John has been using to increase his magical power is known as a Scarlet Lady in Hell.

Bishop determines that Mick's children are breach babies, which means they have to come out the nose rather than the ear.

Spooner has a custom gun that can shoot through the metal doors of the Waverider.


Dialogue Triumphs

Sara: What are you doing here? How are you even alive? 
Bishop: What a fantastically boring question.

Zari: John's lying to me, again.
Astra: Huh, glad he's feeling like his old self. 

(Ava and Sara are administering Bishop's formula to Mick.)
Ava: I made Bishop think that I needed something from him, and he proved himself to be trustworthy, for now. But believe me, this is just the opening move of our little chess match.
Mick: What does that make me? The pawn?

(The Beast appears before John, wearing his familiar coat and tie.)
Constantine: Oh nice. You're wearing my clothes now, are ya?
The Beast: Well, someone's gotta pick up the mantle and you're in no shape for it, but you don't have to suffer, Johnny.
(A woman's voice echoes around them, whispering "Suffer, Johnny...")
Constantine: (laughs) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Another snort of the Scarlet Lady and I'll be right as rain. Is that it? You know, it's not the first time I've gotten clean.
The Beast: And why haven't you dumped it? You'll never be clean, Johnny.
Constantine: (laughing with a more manic edge) You know, you're not even real. You're just a figment in my imagination, some damn junkie hallucination!
The Beast: And without magic, you're just a pathetic ex-smoker in a trench coat who lies to the people he loves.

The Beast: Can you see John? You'll never be rid of me. I am you. 

Ava: Admit it. I'm weird! Why the hell did you have to make me so weird?
Bishop: Look, first off, I didn't make you. Yes, I designed you, but everything you've done in your life, that's your accomplishment, not mine. And you not knowing whether you want a vegan cake or not doesn't matter. (pauses) I'm gonna take that back... vegan cakes are disgusting.

(Astra and Zari have just confirmed John blanked Spooner's memory.)
Astra:
Where the hell are you going?
Zari: Oh, I'm just going to break up with my lying dumpster fire of a boyfriend. 

Bishop: Sara, you've got this all wrong. I don't wanna hurt him. I wanna help him.
Sara: And why would I trust you?
Bishop: Because I am you.
Sara: You wish.

Bishop: You know what they say when you fight yourself? You're destined to lose.
Sara: Destiny's so last season.

Constantine: Look, you deserve someone who is bloody fantastic, all right, not some pathetic has-been, honestly.
Zari: I have spent my whole life trying to be somebody for everyone else. When I'm with you, I can just be myself. That is the greatest gift. I love you. Not your magic. You.
(John leans in but Zari gives him a firm look.)
Zari: Hey, I'm not an idiot. You have told me so many lies. I need the truth. The truth.
Constantine: The truth is... I don't know. I don't know who I am without magic... I don't know how the hell I'm gonna get through this. I mean, I want to... but if you still love me after everything that I've put you through then... I wanna do it with you. 


Continuity

The unseen figure from the end of 612 is confirmed to be Bishop.

Bishop says that his current incarnation is the last since his data was corrupted when his lab was blown up and before his upload was complete. 

Bishop tries to talk Sara into letting him join the Legends. She locks him up and gives Spooner orders to shoot him if he does anything to escape.

Bishop notes Ava's engagement ring and that Mick is still alive, noting that Kayla had strong thoughts about him ceasing to exist.

Gideon determines that the new Bishop clone is missing 6% of his original DNA structure.

Ava, devout serial killer podcaster that she is, asks for a chance to profile Bishop. Sara reluctantly agrees but says she and Nate will be listening in to the interview.

Constantine wakes up to find Zari waiting for him. She asks why he has a scar when she stabbed The Beast and demands the truth. John says he thought it was all part of the game. Zari is skeptical but agrees to let him sequester himself until he gets his new powers under control.

Astra agrees to help Zari figure out what John is hiding, but says they should talk to Spooner about the Fountain of Imperium.

Nate and Sara play chess as Ava interviews Bishop.

Ava's particular model of Ava Clone was dubbed Bossy Ava, but Bishop says he wanted to call her Boss Ava.

Bishop claims that he's realized he made a mistake and that he sees Sara and Ava as the closest thing he has to family.

Bishop offers to help Ava plan her wedding.

Bishop also claims that he can help Rory, having recognized the symptoms of a human mating with a Necrian.

Bishop claims to have spent eons trying to meld humans and aliens but never thought of "the old fashioned way."

Spooner has no memory of her time with John and the Fountain of Imperium after the fascists coming into the cave. This leads her to conclude John cast a spell on her.

Astra suggests Spooner let her work a spell to restore her memory before they confront Constantine. Spooner refuses to abandon her guard duty until Ava takes over.

Bishop claims to be a medical doctor and offers to look at Constantine, having overheard something is wrong with him.

The Beast has taken on John's form and is taunting him, claiming to have always been a part of him even before his addiction to the blood potion.

Ava has never been to a wedding before and was known as the party pooper of the Time Bureau.

Ava's favorite flower is a cactus.

Ava's favorite color is gray.

Ava does not like appetizers and doesn't understand why people need to eat before eating a full meal.

Bishop has been reborn over 200 times. That was, at least, where he stopped counting.

The planet where Bishop met Sara is identified as Pliny X19.

Bishop claims to have changed because Sara taught him humility. 

Astra restores Spooner's memories of 610 and how John drank some kind of potion after being found unworthy of the Fountain of Imperium.

Astra tells Zari they shouldn't confront him until they figure out what the potion he's taking is.

Sara has a good vinyl music collection.

Bishop suggests "Perfect Day" from Lou Reed's album Transformer as the perfect song for them to dance to at their wedding. He winds up dancing with her with it and suggests they could have a father-daughter dance at the wedding.

Ava has a breakdown after Bishop talks about wishing the could be part of the wedding and leaves her gun behind in his cell.

Gideon confirms that Bishop is 100% human but has yet to identify the other 6% of his new genetic code.

Ava says she believes Bishop is sincere about seeing them as family.

John tells Zari that he loves her as she comes to check on him.

John denies having anything to say when Zari asks him if anything is wrong.

Mick begins to experience contractions every six seconds as he goes into labor - a sensation which feels like eating a handful of hot peppers and then passing large pointy rocks through the head hole, according to Gary's father. In Mick's case, however, the babies will have to come out through his ears.

Delivering Necrian babies can take up to two weeks, according to Gary.

Mick agrees to make Gary the godfather of his 48 children, to his delight.

Zari confronts John regarding the blood potion and forces him to choose between her and it. He chooses her.

After John says he is going to lock himself in his manor until the withdrawal symptoms are over, Zari says she is going to stay with him.

Ava says that she never had a real family and isn't really sure that she knows how to love someone properly, especially after what Bishop told her about trying to breed the ability to love out of the Ava Clones.

Sara assures Ava that she love her.

Ava shows Sara what she had planned for the wedding so far. She selected a lemon buttercream cake topped with maraschino cherries and a tapas bar for the appetizers. Sara says these are just what she wanted, but goes pale when Ava says Bishop did most of the picking.

Gideon determines that the 6% of Bishop's DNA that wasn't his belongs to Sara Lance.

The Bishop clone also had knowledge of Sara's passwords and escapes from his cell using the System Override phrase - Spaniel, Broad Tricycle.

The Bishop clone also has all of Sara's fighting knowledge and is able to knock her out.

Bishop delivers all of Mick's babies, who are healthy, as best as Gary can determine.

Bishop voluntarily surrenders himself to be locked in the brig again, saying he wants a chance to earn the team's trust. Sara is still skeptical.

John affirms that he wants to get clean and Zari says she wants to be with him but he is not out of the woods yet after all the lying he did.

Bishop tries to contact Constantine through the coms, having stolen Rory's implanted communicator while delivering his babies. John removes his own communicator to cut off the signal.

The Beast throws John around and seems to take over his body, calling Bishop and asking what he wants as he starts smoking a cigarette.

The Bottom Line

A solid, yet oddly balanced episode, with equal parts weird science and Gothic horror.

Sunday, June 13, 2021

Legends of Tomorrow: Season 6, Episode 5 - The Satanist's Apprentice

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

Plot

Living life as an adult mortal is more difficult than Astra Logue anticipated and John Constantine is of little help in getting her acclimated to life on Earth. A new friend promises to help her but Astra's taking the easy way out could have dire consequences for the team. Meanwhile, Sara confronts the man responsible for her abduction and tries to find allies among her fellow captives.


Influences

Thor: Ragnarok (Bishop's general attitude mimics the Grandmaster, his presentation to Sara parodies the introduction to Sakaar), Disney animated movies, particularly Fantasia (The Sorcerer's Apprentice sequence and Crowley's entrance in the animated sequence resembles Chernabog from the Night on Bald Mountain scene) and Beauty and the Beast (people being turned into inanimate objects by a curse, one of them being a candlestick), the Harry Potter films (talking paintings, spells based in Latin, the learning magic sequences mimic the classroom scenes) and The Picture of Dorian Grey (base concept of an evil magic painting hidden in an attic.)  Bishop seems to be a parody of Elon Musk and other celebrity entrepreneurs, only his obsession is with genetics rather than space travel.


Performances

Matt Ryan has a fun turn playing Aleister Crowley in Constantine's body.

Jes Maccallan also plays against type as the submissive Nurse Ava.

Artistry

The animated sequence is fantastic and perfectly mimics the style of 1990's hand-drawn Disney animation.

Caity Lotz once again proves herself to be as gifted a director as she is a performer.


Trivia Of Tomorrow

Caity Lotz, who plays Sara Lance, directed this episode.

This is the first episode to not feature the character of Mick Rory in any capacity.

While being forcibly restrained in Bishop's medical bay, Sara is encouraged to binge all 15 seasons of the show Wynonna Earp. This was apparently a payback for that show making mention of Sara Lance in an episode that aired in August 2020. Sadly, in our reality, Wynonna Earp only ran for five seasons and came to an end in 2021.

Aleister Crowley mentions a magical artifact located in outer space, called the Fountain of Imperium.  The Imperium were an alien species in the Justice League animated series, who were responsible for destroying all of the Green Martian race, save for J'onn J'onzz. Unlike many things from the DCAU, the Imperium were never introduced into the comics, presumably because they were inspired by the White Martian race that already existed in the comics.


Technobabble/Arcana

John knows a purging spell, but it requires him to prepare his stomach first. He does this with an unspecified potion.

Hell apparently has Wi-Fi which is run through a service called Demon Data. Unfortunately for Astra, it does not work outside of Hell.

John knows a spell, which is in Japanese, which helps to find lost objects. He uses this to find his emergency back-up cigarettes. 

The Amelia Earhart creature that poisoned Sara in 602 is identified as a Zaguron.

Transformation is the cornerstone of the dark arts, according to Aleister Crowley.

Permuto is a spell that changes one thing to another or exchanges one thing for another. Astra uses it to change a feather into a fountain pen.When used to exchange things, Permuto is permanent unless reversed with the same spell. Astra uses the spell in this way to trap John Constantine in a painting and Aleister Crowley's soul in John's body.

Crowley teaches Astra two spells that require chants in Ancient Egyptian. One changes a pile of garbage into a pile of money and riches. The other changes the appearance of whatever clothes a person is wearing into however they wish to appear. These spells are temporary glamours, however, and the gold eventually changes back into garbage.

Crowley mentions a magical artifact, out in space, called the Fountain of Imperium, and says with Astra helping him he shall finally find it. The Fountain is apparently an unlimited source of magical power, unexplored and untapped.

The ingredients in John's magical lab include ferret liver extract and gangrene oil. 

Crowley instructs Astra on how to create a magic amulet that can amplify the powers of its wearer. However, to sustain its power, it must first absorb a live human soul from a still-living body.

Natalie Logue created a cleansing spell, in the form of a song, which can drain the magical powers and knowledge of a magician. While this does not eliminate their knowledge or inherent talent, it does rob them of whatever storehouse of continual spells they had memorized. John Constantine describes it as an enema for magic.

The capsules Bishop uses to place his captives in suspended animation also extract their DNA.


Dialogue Triumphs

(Astra enters the mansion, having just had a bad morning. John is in the inner foyer, mixing up a potion.)
Astra:
Oh, there you are. I have got a list of things I need you to fix, starting with punishing your racist neighbor.
John: You'll have to be more specific, love, and I'm on the clock.

(Astra is on the phone, yelling at a power company employee.)
Astra: (into phone) 
You try getting a job when your last employers were the Triumvirate of Hell! Just give me my power back, or I will have your blood drained to fill my swimming pool!
(Astra hangs up the phone, throws herself on the couch in frustration and sighs.)
Astra: (quietly)
I miss my blood pool

Bishop: How's our patient this morning, Nurse Ava?
Sara: Pissed off and calculating the different ways she can kill you.
Nurse Ava: Back to her old self. 

(Astra is plotting to tap her racist neighbor's soul to power her amulet.)
Behrad: Think about what you're doing, Astra. That guy is a human being!
Astra: He is a jerk. His soul is gonna end up in Hell anyway.
Behrad: I'm not worried about his soul. I'm worried about yours.

Princess Astra: (singing) Why, oh, why must I be forced to sing?

Princess Astra: (singing) Your very harsh words They hold no sway Sure, you can run But you won't get away!
Crowley: (laughing) And are you going to stop me all by yourself?
(Princess Astra looks thoughtful and waves her hand, magically unlocking a cabinet. The Legends hop out, ready to fight, albeit as animate objects.)
Princess Astra:  (singing)  Annoying Legends I tried to hide. So glad they're here. And they'll fight by my side! 

Spooner: Why was I a fork?


Continuity

Astra goes shopping for food in the village near John Consantine's house, but forgets you need money to get things on Earth. This leaves her only able to buy a single loaf of bread and leaves her walking home when she can't afford to pay for a cab.

One of John's neighbors is an older white man named Robert Truss. He owns a small dog, collects Bethany lamps and is incredibly racist, assuming that Astra is either a saleswoman or a housekeeper because there is no way she could possibly be living in a neighborhood this nice.

Astra confronts John about his house's spotty Wi-Fi as he is returning from the events of 602, with Zari anxious to get out of her meat-scented worker's uniform.

John does not own a washing machine, having enchanted his clothes to clean themselves whenever they feel like it.

Astra is a US Citizen, which makes it hard for her to find work in Northumberland, despite her mother being a local.

Astra is also legally only 15 years old, with relatively few years having passed since she was sent to Hell on Earth compared to how she aged.

During the events of 603, the sink in the house's kitchen broke and John (en route to Astra's final performance on Da Throne) still has not fixed any of the issues with the Wi-Fi or helping Astra provide for herself. After he leaves, the power is shut off.

Astra once owned a swimming pool full of blood while in Hell.

While going through the attic looking for things she can pawn, Astra finds sterling silver cutlery, European enamelware, 100 year old designer luggage and a Bethany lamp. She also finds her mother's diary, which has a song transcribed in it.

Astra never learned how to read music.

Aleister Crowley, whom John mentioned trapping on Earth in 601, is revealed to be in a painting in John's attic.

Crowley has heard of Astra, describing her as the woman who clawed her way to the tops of Tartarus.

Astra claims there are no real rules in Hell.

Crowley offers to teach Astra some simple spells that could make both their lives easier.

The man who abducted Sara, who first appeared at the end of 603, identifies himself as Bishop. He gives Sara an antidote for the venom she was injected with and introduces himself as the man who is going to save all of humanity.

Sara is treated by an Ava clone who is identified as a Nurse and wears a classic white nurse's uniform.

Bishop is revealed to be the head of the AVA Corporation, which started selling clones of Ava Sharpe in the year 2213 in 316. He is described as a pioneer in bio-engineering and the designer/creator of the AVA Clone. He had the idea that the problem with humans destroying the Earth was not the finite resources of Earth; it was that people were inherently flawed.

Bishop's plan is to genetically engineer an upgraded version of humanity with a body that can withstand the harsh conditions of the destroyed Earth and a spirit to adaptive and thrive under any circumstance. This has led him to start kidnapping some of the greatest people from Earth's past and various aliens to start splicing their DNA together in a bid to create the perfect organism.

Bishop didn't kidnap Sara to get her DNA; he abducted her to get her to train his perfect species to be warriors and survivors.

Bishop claims that the Ava Sara fell in love with, whom he calls "Bossy Ava," was one of his greatest accomplishment and that all AVAs have affinities and weaknesses programmed into their DNA.

Sara is set up in a hospital bed and is made to binge-watch all 15 seasons of Wynonna Earp. 

Nurse Ava says Season 2 is her favorite. She is also a Wayhaught shipper.

Astra switches John and Crowley's souls, letting Crowley walk free in John's body for 12 hours to  continue teaching her, as John becomes trapped in a painting.

Astra learns a few basic spells and masters them immediately, but is informed that as a novice magician the only spells she will be able to master at first will produce temporary effects, like glamoring garbage to look like money.

Sara tries to get Nurse Ava to help her find a powers source for her ship to escape.

Nurse Ava says it isn't in her DNA to disobey Bishop. Sara pleads with her to believe she's a real human being with her own soul that is hers.

The Legends arrive at John's house. It took them a while to find it, as nobody knew the actual address of John's house.

Astra transforms the Legends into various inanimate objects. These include a binder (Ava), a candlestick (Behrad) a cheese wheel (Nate) a filp-phone (Zari) and a fork (Spooner).

Astra still possesses several soul coins from her time in Hell. These include the souls of Christopher Columbus and serial killer Ed Gein.

Astra invites Robert Truss to her home under the guise of selling him the Bethany lamp she found in the attic, intending to steal his soul to power her amulet.  The Legends try to talk her out of this, eventually succeeding. 

Nurse Ava returns to Sara and claims her words about being an individual stirred something and she wants to help her escape. She gives Sara what she claims is a fuel cell.

Crowley double-crosses Astra, taking Robert Truss's soul and her amulet for himself. The new amulet protects him from her Permuto spell and enables him to transform her into a traditional Disney princess, who can 't stop singing about her problems.

Astra and the Legends try to fight Crowley but he banishes Astra to the attic and plans to use their souls to increase his own power.

Astra looks at her mother's journal and realizes the song she wrote is a spell that drains the power from magicians. She is now able to read it because all fairy tale princesses are able to sing and read music.

Spooner knows how to pick locks.

Astra is able to remove Crowley's power with her mother's song and restores everything to normal, with everyone restored to their human bodies and Crowley once again trapped in the painting. Also, everything stops being animated. She also restores Robert Truss' soul and kicks him out of her house.

Astra's spell also removes most of John's magical power, meaning he can no longer just magic his way out of everything. He offers to teach Astra the basics as he's going to need to start from the bottom and build himself back up again.

Crowley once again speaks of the Fountain of Imperium and tells John it could restore his power. John ignores him, but does look pensive when Astra speaks to him of being her study buddy and relearning the basics of magic with her.

Nurse Ava reveals that she wasn't really betraying Bishop and the "fuel cell" is actually a fancy nightlight. Bishop had Nurse Ava "help" Sara escape so he could find where his ship and the rest of the cargo went.

In addition to the "live samples" on the ship, the ship also contains DNA samples from all of Bishop's captives, extracted through the capsules that kept them in suspended animation.

Bishop has some ability - either genetic alteration or advanced science - which saves him after his neck is snapped, as the episode ends with Sara waking up in his quarters after having been tranquilized after she killed him.


Location

Northumberland County, UK - 2021
An Unknown Planet - Time Unknown


The Bottom Line

Immediately a top-ten contender for the series' best shows, thanks to some imaginative sequences, callbacks to earlier in the season, several members of the ensemble getting to play dual roles against type and some solid direction all around. Also, ye gods, the animated sequence!  Can't wait for the promised Beebo Christmas Special in the same style.

Sunday, February 16, 2020

Legends of Tomorrow: Season 5, Episode 3 - Miss Me, Kiss Me, Love Me

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




Plot

With Astra firmly committed to releasing Encores upon the Earth, Constantine starts seeking an alternative means of fighting the undead. As he, Sara, Ray, Ava and Mick travel to the Golden Age of Hollywood to deal with the return of infamous gangster Benjmain "Bugsy" Siegel, Nate travels with Behrad for a visit home to his parents... and his annoying older sister, Zari.


Influences

Film Noir gangster movies, with a specific shout-out to Chinatown and the music of Bell Bev Devoe


Goofs

If mortal souls in the service of demons are capable of turning anyone they kill or corrupt into a new recruit for their demonic master, why aren't more demons sending armies of serial killers back to Earth? (It isn't a widely known fact or most demons would rather horde the souls they have than risk losing them.)

Mickey Cohen is depicted as a rival of Bugsy Siegel. In the real world, Mickey Cohen was one of Siegel's subordinates and had worked with him on establishing the Flamingo Hotel. (It could be they were rivals in Earth-Prime. There's also a theory that Cohen might have undertaken the hit on behalf of the other mafia families due to Bugsy's skimming off of the properties meant to be managed to the benefit of them all.)

Ava apparently lost her apartment in Washington DC and all her belongings are now in a single duffel-bag. Given how controlling Ava was, it's a little hard to believe she wasn't similarly meticulous regsarding her finances and didn't have money put aside for emergencies and is now, in her words, a vagrant, who has to live on the Waverider.

It's a minor point but where was the real Moore of "Webb & Moore" while all this was going on?


Performances

Tala Ashe slays as the new Zari. She's not a completely different person, showing plenty of the steel and intelligence we associate with the character, but she's different enough in her seemingly vapid persona to her followers and her general demeanor for it to be startling. The low-cut top and mini-skirt she seems to favor would have been all but impossible to imagine on the more Tomboyish Zari from pre-Crisis.

It must be said that Caity Lotz plays the femme fatale quite well and she'd do quite well in an actual Film Noir thriller.

The VIP performance of the episode has to go to Jess Macallan, who gets a chance to show off her singing skills and steals the scene with her dream sequence and the comedic aftermath. Yet she also gets some great pathos conveying Ava's clear discomfort with the loss of control she's feeling as a member of the Legends in the wake of losing her job with the Time Bureau.


Artistry

The sequence in which Ava sings a torch-song version of "Poison" is a perfect blending of light, blocking, setting and costume. You almost forget how impossible it is for a 1940's band and back-up singers to know the song up until the gag

The costuming overall is quite good.


Trivia Of Tomorrow

This was the first episode to feature a new animated title-card sequence showing the core members of the Legends

This also marked the first episode where a new font was used for the credits.

The title of the episode is based on a lyric from the song "Poison" by Bell Bev Devoe, which Ava sings in the episode.

The detective office which Sara, Ray and John investigate belongs to Webb & Moore.  The name Webb could be a nod to actor Jack Webb, who made a career of playing detectives and lawmen in Los Angeles, most famously as Sgt. Joe Friday on Dragnet.  The name Moore could be a nod to John Constantine creator Alan Moore.

Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel was one of the gangsters who founded Murder Inc. and held considerable influence in the Jewish Mafia, the National Crime Syndicate and the Ameican Mafia. One of the most famous of the so-called celebrity mobsters, he's been depicted in a number of popular films and television series; most famously in the 1991 film Bugsy, where he was played by Warren Beatty.

Though most of the media portrayals of Bugsy Siegel focus upon his time as a crime-boss, most of his criminal career was spent working as a hitman or hired muscle for other bosses. Known for being handsome and charismatic, he worked as a bootlegger in New York during the Prohibition era. When alcohol was legal in the USA once again, he headed west and began running his own rackets in Hollywood while taking a hand in establishing Las Vegas.

The character of Jeanie Hill seems to be partly based on Virginia Hill; a female gangster and one-time girlfriend of Bugsy Siegel, who never went by the name Jeanie in our world. Once described by Time Magazine as the "queen of the gangster molls," Virginia Hill was an equally legendary figure in the history of the American Mafia, having been romantically connected to many men in the Chicago Mob, for whom she also acted as a courier and a spy.

Virginia Hill eventually settled on Charles Fischetti, a cousin and bodyguard of Al Capone, but was dispatched to New York where she became involved with Joe Adonis in order to spy on the Luciano family. It was here that she met Bugsy Siegel, with the two openly becoming a couple after they both wound up in Hollywood years later.

In our world, Bugsy Siegel was killed on June 20, 1947, at the Beverly Hills home of Virginia Hill. It is believed that Hill was warned about the hit, as she took a sudden trip to Paris four days before Siegel's death.

In the Arrowverse, things play out differently, with Hill being present for Bugsy's murder and it apparently taking place somewhere besides her house, as she makes reference to Bugsy coming by her place later being perfectly fine.

The Arrowverse version of Bugsy Siegel secured his place in Hollywood using blackmail material, often entrapping his victims, make and female, using Jeanie Hill as a honey pot. While there is no record of Siegel operating in this capacity with Virginia Hill, it can't be completely discounted given their pasts, as Siegel did depend heavily on extorting various movie studio bosses and would not have been above using his moll to arrange for incriminating photos to be taken.

One notable difference between Jeanie Hill and Virginia Hill is that Jeanie Hill makes reference to being from Shaker Heights, Ohio and heading to Hollywood with dreams of becoming a mvoie star. Virginia Hill was from Lipscomb, Alabama and played at being a Southern Belle from an old money family when seducing her marks in Chicago and New York before she made her way west.

Virginia Hill also did not die because of  a car bomb in California in 1947. In 1950, she married Austrian professional skier Hans Hauser and spent the rest of her life after 1954 in Europe in order to avoid charges of tax evasion in the United States. She died of an apparent drug overdose in 1966, but some believe she was murdered and it was made to look like an accident for fear of what she knew.

As Sara is trying to lure Bugsy Siegel out to where she and Ray can subdue him, she and Bugsy are attacked by men Bugsy says work for Mickey Cohen; boss of the Cohen crime family and a major player in the Italian American mafia through the 1960s. Curiously, Cohen had worked under Siegel during most of the 1940s and one Mafia legend says he attempted to kill the men he believed were responsible for killing Siegel before being scared off by the arrival of police. It is believed he was honestly avenging Siegel's murder rather than trying to cover the tracks of the hit himself.

Clayton Chitty, who plays Officer Sullivan in this episode, previously played Vigilante on Arrow.

Ray attempts to search Bugsy on his way out of the LAPD precinct office, citing the authority of Police Chief Wiggum. This is a nod to the bumbling police chief from The Simpsons.


Technobabble/Arcana

By the laws of Hell, any human killed or corrupted by a damned soul released upon Earth goes to the demon that owns the chit of the damned soul.

John has a magic spell that allows him to track Encores by detecting magical energy and infernal residue.

Ignis Inerni is the Latin term for hellfire.

John can identify the victim of a hellfire attack by tasting their ashes.

Hellfire cannot be generated by mortal mages - only by an infernal being or an object made by demons.

Bugsy Siegel is revealed to have a pistol infused with hellfire. Siegel also seems to have some degree of telepathic control over the bullets the gun fires, as he is able to wound four gangsters with a single shot as the bullet weaves around to strike them all. The body of a mortal struck by the hellfire bullets disintegrates into a pile of ash and their soul is sent to Hell. A damned soul or demon struck by a hellfire bullet is permanently killed.

As powerful as the hellfire gun is, it does require compatible ammunition from Hell to work. This becomes a factor later when John storms Astra's club later with a limited number of shots.

According to John, only a weapon born of Hell can eliminate the Encores.


Dialogue Triumphs

(John appears in the circle of ash on the Waverider, seemingly only moments after he disappeared. Ava and Sara are still there. John coughs as the two women crowd him.)
Sara: John!
Ava: What happened down there?
(Gasping for breath, John straightens up and steels himself. He then pushes his way between Sara and Ava.)
John: I need a drink.
(As John says the words, Sara mouths them as well and shrugs triumphantly at Ava as if to say, "See? I told you I knew how this would go.")

(Sara. Ray and John go chasing after the female silhouette they saw in the hallway. They find a woman holding a pistol.)
Jeanie Hill: Don't come any closer!
Sara: All right, easy. You can put the gun down. We're here to help.
Jeanie Hill: Where's Webb?!
Ray: Uh, we are the "and Moore" of Webb & Moore. We work with Moore. (correcting himself) Webb.
Jeanie Hill: (looking at John) You must be Moore.
John: (speaking in an American accent) Suuure, that's me. Johnny Moore. Sara is my secretary.
(John points to Sara, who briefly makes a face suggesting there will be hell to pay for this later.)
John: (looking to Ray) And this fella here-
Jeanie Hill: Has got a cop face.
Ray: (not realizing that's an insult) Oh, thank you! (chuckles) Sergeant Palmer at your service. (winks) I'm undercover.
Jeanie Hill: Tell Webb to call me when he's back.
(She turns around as it to leave but stops when John starts speaking.)
John: He's, uh, on holiday vacation, which leaves me handling your case, Miss...?
Jeanie Hill: Hill, Jeanie Hill. I hired your partner to protect me from my boyfriend.
Ray: Oh, well, you're in good hands, ma'am.
Jeanie Hill: Oh, give me a break, Johnny Law! Half the PD is in Bugsy's pocket!
Sara: (recognizing the name) Bugsy as in...
Jeanie Hill: Benjamin Siegel. Doesn't like it when you call him Bugsy. But here's the kicker, He died last week.
John:And now he's back from the dead.
Jeanie Hill: And he's more dangerous than ever.

(Bugsy Siegel approaches Sara after she goes walking past his table.)
Bugsy: I couldn't help but notice you, and I gotta tell you, I like the way you walk.
Sara: I learned to do it all by myself, Mr. Siegel.
Bugsy: Oh, please, Benjamin.
Sara: Hmm, Sara Lance, at your service.
Bugsy: Lance, huh?
Sara: What's the matter, you don't like it?
Bugsy: Well, I don't know yet, just trying it on for size. You know, even if it fits, I'm a little curious about the price tag.
Sara: Well, if you have to ask, it's probably too expensive.
 Bugsy: (chuckles) I take what I want.
Sara: Does that make you a thief, Mr. Siegel?
Bugsy: I am a lot of things, Ms. Lance. And I am especially a thief.
Sara: Well, then let's stop all the tiddlywinks and get straight to the big reveal, shall we? Now, I'm a reporter for a new gossip rag, and I've got some dirt on half the city councilmen and the new archbishop. It's in my car. What do you say we go out back and you can take a peek what's in my trunk?
 Bugsy: I say, you keep talking like that, I just might follow you anywhere.

(Ava sighs as she gets off the comms with Sara, having been told to sit tight and watch the bar.)
Mick: What?
Ava: Hmm? (laughs) You wouldn't understand.
Mick: That you were the boss of a massive government organization, and now you do diddly-squat?
Ava: Wow, take it back, Rory. You just summed up my life perfectly.
(Ava looks depressed at this realization and downs her drink in one shot.)
Ava: (to the bartender)
Can I get a double?

(John is sitting in the office of Moore & Webb. Jeanie Hill comes inside. John smiles as he puts on his American accent, clearly relishing playing a private eye, trenchcoat and all.)
John: So you got my message.
Jeanie Hill: Look, if this is about the money your friend gave me, I already spent it.
John: I knew you were on the grift from the moment I laid eyes on ya.
Jeanie Hill: And I never once fell for that Yankee accent of yours.
John: (laughs and goes back to his normal voice)  Well, all right then. Well, now that we've dropped the charades, tell me, what is your angle?
Jeanie Hill: I wanna take Bugsy down. Free this town from his sway. The only way to do that is to destroy his blackmail stash. Webb said he'd found it, but I'm guessing Bugsy killed him for snooping too close.
John: Well, that's bad news for Webb and good news for me, because I know where the stash is.
Jeanie Hill: (smiles wide and steps in closer to John) Well, aren't I the luckiest girl in the world. What do you want in exchange?
John: (inhales deeply) I want Bugsy's gun.
Jeanie Hill: You lookin' to ice Bugsy?
John: No, that bloke's not worth it. I'm aiming at the person who brought him back.
Jeanie Hill:  Then we have a deal. You get your guy, I get my freedom.
John: Now, how exactly are you planning on stealing Bugsy's prized weapon, eh?
Jeanie Hill: When we kiss I'll press my hand against his chest.
(She steps closer and runs her hand along John's chest.)
Jeanie Hill: And then I'll run my hand all the way down his body, and then I'll grab it like this.
(John grunts as Jeanie grabs something that is definitely not a gun. She presses her lips to his and he grabs the back of her head as he spins her around. They sink to the floor as jazz music swells as we hear the sound of furniture crashing.)

(Bugsy Siegel comes into the Blue Iguana to see a drunken Ava singing.)
Bugsy: What is all this? You bring me all the way down here just so I can watch some no-name dame humiliate herself on stage?
Sara: First of all, she is not a no-name. That is my girlfriend. And second, she is not humiliating herself.
Mick: (deadpan) Yes she is.

(Nate is in a sitting room by himself. He is looking at a framed copy of Mini Traders Magazine. The cover story is ZARI TARAZI IS DRAGON GIRL!" and shows a picture of a young Zari taming the dragon at Heyworld. Zari walks in.)
Zari: So embarrassing.
Nate: Dragon girl. Is this when you became famous?
Zari: Yep, first agent when I was 11. He was a real piece of work. Eventually, I took control of everything.
Nate: Can I ask you something?
Zari: Hmm?
Nate: When you first saw me, did you feel like we met before?
Zari: Maybe. I meet a lot of fans.
Nate: No, I mean, we met in another life.
Zari: Oh. Yeah, I totally got that vibe.
(Zari rushes to Nate and kneels on the couch opposite him.) 
Nate: Oh, so it's not all in my head! I feel like I've been living out this Taylor Swift song, but it feels crazy good.
(Zari takes Nate's hand) 
Zari: We're definitely connected somehow, but something feels off. I think the you I remember wasn't a professor.
(Nate hesitates, clearly not wanting to blow his friend's cover.)
Zari: (rolling her eyes) Come on, I know Behrad's been lying to my parents about business school for years. I only wanna make sure that he's been taking really good care of our family's totem. Which he has been, right?
(Nate mutters something indistinct as Zari leans in close. Naturally, it is at this moment that Behard walks in.)
Behard: Yo, dude, we're cutting the cake, and they're asking for the special guest.
Zari: Come on. Chill, B, your friend and I were just talking.
Behard: (guiding Nate out of the room) Sure you were. Let's go.

(Jeanie is holding John at gunpoint, stopping him from burning Bugsy's blackmail stash.)
John: You told me you wanted to destroy that stash so that you and everyone else in the town could be free.
Jeanie Hill: Yeah, but I figured why destroy it when I could just use it for myself? I'm sick and tired of people taking advantage of me. With this briefcase, I'll finally have some real power around here.
John: Look, I understand your anger, but as soon as you touch Bugsy's dirt then you'll have a target on your back just like him. But if you leave now, you can start over, have a new life. Look, you don't have to do this, Jeannie. Just walk away.
Jeanie Hill: Walk away? Do you really expect me to give up this power after being so powerless my whole life?
(John looks at her. He knows what it is to be powerless and he can't say that she's wrong. Though it's clear he's also thinking about another powerless woman lashing out now that she has real power that he was trying to stop for his own selfish reasons.)
John: You know what? You're right. (picks up the briefcase and hands it to her.) Who am I to tell you what to do anyway?
Jeanie Hill:  See? It's working already.

(John looks at the burning car, knowing there is no way Jeanie Hill survived. Ray walks up.)
Ray: They killed her!
John: Forget it, Ray. It's Burbank.

(Sara and Mick have Bugsy in the Waverider brig. John and Ray enter. John is livid. )
John: I should blast you straight to oblivion, you damn bastard. You made Jeanie's life miserable and now she's dead because of you.
Bugsy Siegel: (smirks) I may have corrupted a wannabe starlet. But you? You created a real monster. Astra Logue.
(There's a long moment as John regards Bugsy. He then grins wickedly as he pulls a bottle from his pocket and begins forming a circle on the floor.)
John: You know what? It's funny that you mention her. I was just about to go and see her.
Sara: John, if you're about to do what I think you're gonna do, then you'd better be sure.
(John nods as he steps into the circle. He looks to Mick, who is still holding Bugsy.) 
John: Hand him over, big man.
Mick: (pushes Bugsy into the circle) Go on.
John: Yeah, that's it, big boy. See, you're my ticket to Hell.
(John pistol-whips Bugsy across the forehead with the hellfire pistol. It draws blood. John sticks his fingers in the wound and applies it in two vertical marks under his eyes before sucking his fingers clean and taking a deep breath. Ray looks disgusted.)
John: (chanting) Flesh become my flesh, soul become my soul. Hades, firstborn of Cronus and Rhea, I call upon you. (John looks up to Mick)  Light her up, big man.
(Mick, for once looking disturbed, pulls out his heat gun and ignites the circle. The flames immediately go  blue as John and Bugsy disappear.)

(John enters into Astra club, hellfire gun drawn, pushing the bound Bugsy before him.)
Astra: You just can't stay away, can you?
Bugsy Seigel: Careful, he's still got one bullet left.
Astra: Oh, I appreciate your concern, Benjamin, but I'm not worried about him. We're old friends, aren't we, Johnny? So why don't you tell me what you came all the way down here for?
John: I came all the way down here to tell you....
(John holds the gun on Astra and looks at her.  He lowers the gun.)
John: That I'm not giving up on you. And even if it takes me till the end of my days, I promise you that I will find a way.
Astra: Another meaningless promise made by the great John Constantine. You've gone soft.
(Astra laughs wickedly and Bugsy joins in. John smiles sheepishly for a moment before his bastard grin emerges.)
John: Not that soft. This one's for Jeannie!
(John draws the gun and fires it directly into Siegel's heart. He has just enough time to look stunned before screaming and disappating into a cloud of green fiery smoke. Astra honestly looks surprised.)
John: I'll be seeing you around, love.
(John throws the gun to the ground and walks out.)

Ray: Hey, whatever really happened back there with Astra, I'm sure it wasn't easy.
John: What are you talking about, big man?
Ray Just so you know, if I had taken care of Nora back when we all thought she was evil, we wouldn't be happy and together right now.
John: Oh, I had the chance to pull the trigger, to end all this. (sighs) But I couldn't do it.
(Ray just nods and smiles widely.)
John: What's all your grinning about?
Ray: Just happy there's still good guys out there. Even if one of them is a master of the dark arts.
John: You know, you're wrong about me, Ray. But I will save Astra, and you should know it's just as much for me as it is for her, all right?


Continuity

Astra refuses to bring her souls back to Hell when John asks her to do so nicely. She says the only way she'll ever stop is if John kills her, but points out that's pointless as she'll just wind up in Hell again.

Astra has taken control of Masher and is punishing him for squealing on her to John Constantine.

Nate is now seeing flashes of Zari when he looks at Behrad.

Ray suggests that Astra could be redeemed but John says that her lust for power has overtaken whatever humanity she had left.

With no better plan for containing the Encores, Sara says they'll keep them on the ship until they can figure out a way to send them to Hell permanently or stop Astra from sending them back to Earth.

Behrad asks for shore leave to visit his father on his birthday. Nate agrees to come along and pretend to be one of his business school professors.

Gideon detects a time quake in Los Angeles in 1947 just as Nate and Behrad are leaving.

Sara, John and Ray head into LA to investigate the disturbance. Ava and Mick QB from the ship.

According to Mick, QB means stay on the ship and do nothing.

Behrad and his parents speak Farsi.

In the new timeline, Zari is a social media influencer who became world famous after the incident where she tamed the dragon at Heyworld in 2019. She built that fame into a social media empire

Zari has an entourage that includes one media person and two people to help her with hair and make-ip touch-ups.

Zari has 51 million followers on-line.

Nate recognizes Zari as the woman from the video in 502. She has no idea who he is, however, and he thinks he's a creep based on how he stares at her.

Nate tells Behrad about the video he found in Gideon's memory. Behrad is skeptical, however.

John tracks the Encore to a detective agency belonging to one Webb and Moore. He goes on to impersonate Moore, using the name Johnny Moore, after finding a pile of ashes on the floor he figures was Webb.

John finds a matchbook for the Blue Iguana club on Moore's desk. It has a sequence of numbers written in it, along with the word Elysium.

John is capable of faking a reasonable American accent.

Ray impersonates a plainclothes police detective, saying he is Sgt. Palmer.

Sara, to her annoyance, has to play the role of John's secretary.

Webb was hired by Jeanie Hill to act as a bodyguard and protect her from her boyfriend, Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel. "Johnny Moore" agrees to take over the job.

Apparently, Bugsy Siegel died a week earlier but came back from the dead. This sets the episode sometime in late June in 1947.

Bugsy Siegel just took over a club called the Blue Iguana on Sunset Boulevard. John finds a matchbox for the Blue Iguana on Webb's desk in his office.

Ray gives Jeanie the money to get out of town. John thinks she's playing him for a sap and is proven right when he finds Jeanie on Bugsy's arm later, though she justifies this saying that she wasn't able to get out of the city since Bugsy has eyes everywhere.

Ava and Mick go into the Blue Iguana undercover as customers, separately Sara and John.

Ray continues to pose as a policeman, but this time in a standard uniform, outside the Blue Iguana.

Jeanie Hill claims she wants to get all the blackmail photos she posed for before she gets out of town to save her reputation and ruin Bugsy.

Sara tries to seduce Bugsy, playing at being a gossip reporter who can help him with getting information on blackmail targets.

Bugsy kills four of Mickey Cohen's men who were sent after him.

Ray arrests Bugsy almost immediately, but a different group of cops take over the scene immediately.

Zari manages a multi-platform, multimillion dollar brand and is about to put out a line of dressy sneakers.

It is immediately clear that Zari and Behard do not get along. Behard sees Zari as annoying in flaunting her success. Zari is jealous of the attention Behard gets as the baby of the family and how her parents don't seem to care about her accomplishments compared to his going to college.

Behard's parents want him to settle down with a nice Persian girl and worry about him being too enveloped in his studies.

Behard's parents have a painting of the Zambesi Air Totem in its original form as a necklace.

Behard's parents think the Air Totem was stolen, being completely ignorant of Behrad taking it to become a superhero in the new reality.

Ray determines that Bugsy really does have the LAPD in his pocket, with the cops bringing him a gourmet lobster dinner and wine and questioning him about the shooting in a nice office rather than the cell block.

Ray befriends a seemingly honest cop named Sullivan.

John contacts Jeanie Hill and convinces her to help him steal Bugsy's gun. The two wind up having sex in the Webb & Moore office.

Ava has turned in the keys to her apartment in Washington DC and sold most of her belongings. Everything she owns now is in a single duffel bag.

Ava is able to clear out the Blue Iguana with her drunken singing.

Zari knows that Behard has been lying about going to business school and suspected that he took the Air Totem.

Based on the information in the matchbook, John determines that Webb hid the blackmail information he stole from Bugsy Seigel in a graveyard. Due to his spending a lot of time in graveyards, he knows that Elysium is a common name for graveyards (after the Elysium Fields of Greek Myth) and from there it was a simple guess to figure out the numbers referred to a grave marker.

Webb hid the blackmail information in a graveyard in Burbank.

Jeanie double-crosses John and plans to run off with the blackmail material. She does, however, keep her word and gives him Busgy's gun, telling him there are five bullets left in it.

Officer Sullivan turns out to be crooked and turns on Ray, after he refuses to go along with the plan he and some other mobbed-up cops have to kill Jeanie Hill and destroy the blackmail material with a car bomb. They also plan to frame Ray for the killing.

Jeanie Hill dies when the car explodes.

John takes Bugsy back to Hell and destroys his soul with the hellfire gun in front of Astra. He then leaves the gun in Hell, telling her that he is not giving up and will find a way to save her.

John lies and tells Sara he lost the gun after being overpowered by Astra's minions.

John later confesses the truth after Ray calls him on it and admits he couldn't kill Astra. He does, however, deny that he's the good man Ray thinks he is and says he's just as concerned with easing his conscience as he is saving Astra's soul.

Mick recorded Ava's singing. Sara bribes him to lose the recording.

Zari recognizes Nate as the superhero in the star-spangled outfit at Heyworld when she was a girl and tamed the dragon. She also recognizes Behrad from a video of the incident.

The episode ends with Behrad sending Zari through a time portal into the Waverider to stop her from telling their parents about what he's been up to (even though she's not sure what he's up to.) and Zari having a breakdown on the deck of the Waverider.


Location

Hell
Los Angeles - 1947
Washington D.C. - 2044.
Burbank - 1947


The Bottom Line

An instant classic, there's not a redundant storyluie or subplot for the first time in a goodly while. Putting John Constantine in the role of a private eye is a brilliant idea, as John was one of the first detective heroes in the now overdone urban fantasy genre and the production team perfectly captured the feeling of 1940s Los Angeles and the film Noir genre.