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S4 E1 The Virgin Gary
S4 E2 Witch Hunt
Are you a fan of fables and fairytales? You'd better be, if you want to watch Legends Season 4. Because - and strap yourself in - it looks like every one of the villains or monsters-of-the-week the Legends will be fighting is some kind of fairy tale character or creature or beast. Yup! Not sure if they got this idea from the popularity of various other fairy tale fantasy shows (like Once Upon A Time) or whether this is influenced by the various comic books that expound on adult versions of fairytales characters (like Fables/Fairest, or almost the entire Zenescope line). But that's what we're in for.
In Episode 1, they fight a unicorn. And I don't think I'm being overly spoilery by telling you that the unicorn is one nasty piece of work. It impales people and eats their hearts, and it spews rainbow dust from its horn that makes people hallucinate. In Episode 2, they fight a fairy godmother and a teenage witch that the godmonther controls. The godmother is depicted not as benevolent but as a vindicative parasite who refuses to let go of her 'host' (aka benefactor). So you can already guess the overarching theme: Fables Gone Bad.
There's not much to the series other than this, at least not yet. You either go along with the goofy, almost Monty Python-esque ride or you don't.
But there are some plusses and minusses I don't mind discussing.
Plus: the Sarah - Ava relationship is back. They do hot things, to the extent that hotness can be shown on the CW. They're in bed in their lingerie, they embrace, they talk euphemistically about sex, and they kiss several times (this is a SHIP video waiting to happen, people! Don't let Axel Braun get to it first!). I hope they stay together for a while, even if Sarah isn't quite ready to move in.
Plus: Constantine is back and pretty much a part of the Legends for the nonce, given that they're dealing with obviously magical foes. The show needs a bit more high-testosterone bad-assedness other than what Rory can occasionally provide, and I think female viewers will enjoy him as well. If he can occasionally participate in some kind of love-triangle tension with the bisexual White Canary, all the better.
Minus: Speaking of which, there's been very little costume action. In fact, Constantine makes it clear that he isn't wearing a costume, and I think the writers are actually looking down on the superhero costume thing. You don't see anyone suiting up except for The Atom and that's because he has to, to get anything done. Everyone else just bounds about in their street clothes or period disguises. Even though White Canary looks amazing in the
episode thumbnail on the website, we certainly haven't seen her in that costume yet.
Just evens: Everyone knows how annoyed I've been with the Zari character - the inability to just call her Isis, the weak half-assed depiction of her aerokinesis powers, the amulet being a ripoff of Raiders, the token references to Muslim practices for pure virtue signalling purposes, and so on.
Well, at last there's some development on her, and it's both good and even more annoying. In a positive sense, Zari is getting more to do, and they are showing her beauty more often (Tala Ashrafi is really quite a stunning Persian woman when the makeup artist does it right). In one scene, she is wearing a shirt that even shows her cleavage. There's even some peril when she is grabbed by the village elders, her amulet gets ripped away from her (I'd hate to have a weakness like that) and almost melts in a witch-burning pyre. And as a result she shows more and more impressive uses of her air powers, finally! The only thing missing is that we need to see her just straight-up flying like a superhero would.
"Witch" brings us to the ill stuff. You see, Zari went back in time and saw her mom playing with her as a young girl. Her mom is naturally wearing
a hijab (even though Zari never shows any predilection for Islamic garb whatsoever) in that scene. Now Zari feels really guilty about not being to save her Mom (because of the time stream problems) and this is being used by the writers to make progressive political statements about the persecution of Muslims in America. It's pretty much just Zari who's saying it, but she talks several times about how people who look different are being persecuted (apparently some kind of Trump-style fascist regime eventually killed her parents). And then they drive the point home by putting the Legends in Salem MA so they can confront intolerant Puritanism in the form of an actual witch hunt led by (natch) the usual old white dudes.
Too bad what passes for Puritanism in the modern world, my Persian friend, is a lot closer to what you experience in your home country (Shiite style)
or in Saudi Arabia (Sunni style). Or maybe in some enclaves of fundamentalist Christianity or Mormonism in the South or in Utah, etc. But to equate modern open American society and the government of the United States to something Puritanical is vastly overstating the case and shows the significant bias from which these shows are always presented. Surely the enforcement of 'pure' thoughts and philosophies on the far left (whatever passes these days for antifa-related Communism..and weren't #MeToo and the Kavanaugh hearing just a little bit of a witch hunt?) is a mite more restrictive than anything at all that Trump or his minions would normally say. Your mileage may differ, of course.
Anyway, other than that, Legends has kept its politics to a minimum, and it's pretty much just a goofy campy romp week after week. So if down for that, you can enjoy them battling fairytales week after week without expecting anything more from the series. At least for now.
Legends of Tomorrow Season Four
Legends splits between humor and serious issues.
Humor -
Nate suggests a place for Rory to rob because it'll have better loot.
Nate trying to pay for dinner with his dad and having an expired credit card and no US currency in his pocket.
Pretty much any scene with Rory in it.
Serious -
Nate trying to mend his relationship with his after that thinks he's a loser.
Constantine trying to prepare to face the demon coming after him.
Trying to make a political statement.
Downside is that they are trimming the team down in order to have more time for certain characters.
Humor -
Nate suggests a place for Rory to rob because it'll have better loot.
Nate trying to pay for dinner with his dad and having an expired credit card and no US currency in his pocket.
Pretty much any scene with Rory in it.
Serious -
Nate trying to mend his relationship with his after that thinks he's a loser.
Constantine trying to prepare to face the demon coming after him.
Trying to make a political statement.
Downside is that they are trimming the team down in order to have more time for certain characters.
Doesn't actually look like they're trimming the team down at all.
EP3 "Dancing Queen" proves that because the whole episode is really just a way to get Maisie Richardson-Sellers back onto the show. Not sure if they had that planned for a long while, or whether fan reaction was negative to having Amaya/Vixen leave..but I'm guessing there's possibly some political correctness involved either way, so as not to appear like they were depriving the show of an actress of color.
Nonetheless, the show could always use more of the gorgeous Maisie, who returns as a shapeshifter named Charlie, who just happens (SPOILERS AHEAD) by the end of the episode to be "stuck" in the form of Amaya, which I'm sure means they'll set up some tension between her and Amaya's former boyfriend Nate (Steel). Maisie identifies as "queer" according to her Wikipedia page, so perhaps this is also an opportunity to increase the LGBT quotient on the show even further, as someone who is a shapeshifter could definitely change into either gender which would allow for hanky-panky with almost anyone (don't tell me that you haven't thought of Mystique doing that! where's the SHIP video?).
The theme of the episode is 1976 punk rock London, where the shapeshifting Charlie character is part of a Sex Pistols-style band called The Smell. (There is a longrunning venue in Los Angeles called The Smell since 1998..https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Smell, I wonder if this is somehow an oblique reference to it?). It seems as if the writers were trying to make a funny version of the Sid and Nancy story. It's entertaining enough though it doesn't delve that much into the punk culture, it's fairly superficial. But that's fine, as that also keeps the political slant mostly out of this episode (many people I know still think that punk is very political - I tend to disagree as it's really a subculture that has long ago fossilized into a very 'conserved' rigid form of expression that follows a ton of its own rules).
The only other threads are Constantine meeting his own Mum and Dad; and Nate trying to adjust to a desk job at the Time Bureau where he becomes "time bro" buddies with Gary. We do learn for the first time, I think (unless I missed it earlier) that Gary is gay - he briefly mentions a dalliance he had with Constantine, giving the lie to the claim in EP1 that Gary is actually a "virgin"? (not sure about this inconsistency).
Nonetheless, this whole mess is really just an excuse to get Maisie back on the cast. So we'll see how that develops in the next few episodes.
I have only one weird time quirk to point out: Charlie holds a UK newspaper with a photo of the Legends from last year's Episode 11 "Here I Go Again" where they are dressed in those tight 1970s Abba-styled disco outfits (which looked very good on Caity Lotz, as I recall). My question is: if the Legends-as-Abba are part of the current timeline's actual history, doesn't that possibly affect history itself and cause time blurps?
EP3 "Dancing Queen" proves that because the whole episode is really just a way to get Maisie Richardson-Sellers back onto the show. Not sure if they had that planned for a long while, or whether fan reaction was negative to having Amaya/Vixen leave..but I'm guessing there's possibly some political correctness involved either way, so as not to appear like they were depriving the show of an actress of color.
Nonetheless, the show could always use more of the gorgeous Maisie, who returns as a shapeshifter named Charlie, who just happens (SPOILERS AHEAD) by the end of the episode to be "stuck" in the form of Amaya, which I'm sure means they'll set up some tension between her and Amaya's former boyfriend Nate (Steel). Maisie identifies as "queer" according to her Wikipedia page, so perhaps this is also an opportunity to increase the LGBT quotient on the show even further, as someone who is a shapeshifter could definitely change into either gender which would allow for hanky-panky with almost anyone (don't tell me that you haven't thought of Mystique doing that! where's the SHIP video?).
The theme of the episode is 1976 punk rock London, where the shapeshifting Charlie character is part of a Sex Pistols-style band called The Smell. (There is a longrunning venue in Los Angeles called The Smell since 1998..https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Smell, I wonder if this is somehow an oblique reference to it?). It seems as if the writers were trying to make a funny version of the Sid and Nancy story. It's entertaining enough though it doesn't delve that much into the punk culture, it's fairly superficial. But that's fine, as that also keeps the political slant mostly out of this episode (many people I know still think that punk is very political - I tend to disagree as it's really a subculture that has long ago fossilized into a very 'conserved' rigid form of expression that follows a ton of its own rules).
The only other threads are Constantine meeting his own Mum and Dad; and Nate trying to adjust to a desk job at the Time Bureau where he becomes "time bro" buddies with Gary. We do learn for the first time, I think (unless I missed it earlier) that Gary is gay - he briefly mentions a dalliance he had with Constantine, giving the lie to the claim in EP1 that Gary is actually a "virgin"? (not sure about this inconsistency).
Nonetheless, this whole mess is really just an excuse to get Maisie back on the cast. So we'll see how that develops in the next few episodes.
I have only one weird time quirk to point out: Charlie holds a UK newspaper with a photo of the Legends from last year's Episode 11 "Here I Go Again" where they are dressed in those tight 1970s Abba-styled disco outfits (which looked very good on Caity Lotz, as I recall). My question is: if the Legends-as-Abba are part of the current timeline's actual history, doesn't that possibly affect history itself and cause time blurps?
Last edited by shevek 5 years ago, edited 1 time in total.
S4 EP 4 "Hot Wet American Bummer"
Don't watch this one.
Unless it's to hear Ava tell Sara, "I'm glad I came."
Don't watch this one.
Unless it's to hear Ava tell Sara, "I'm glad I came."
Last edited by shevek 5 years ago, edited 1 time in total.
S4 EP5 "Tagumo Attacks"
After last week's total time, it's nice to have an episode that returns to Legends' blend of action and sexy campiness in a major way.
Nora Darhk returns, and does a solid for the team by bringing Constantine back from the brink of death without giving in to her dark nature.
Not only that, she has a romantic moment with Ray and then turns herself in to the Time Bureau to face punishment.
Plus, Courtney Ford is beautiful and we get to see down her shirt for a cleavage shot *on purpose*. Good times.
But the big news is that the "monster of the week" theme of the episode is about the origin of Japanese Godzilla 'kaiju' monster movies.
The black-and-white Japanese effect of filming from the floor to make everything look gigantic is used to great effect, and they spent
a lot of time building a 'miniature city' type set (and a miniature airplane) which gets destroyed very nicely in the context of the Kaiji Big Battel
against the octopus monster Tagumo. So if you're a Godzilla / Rodan etc fan you'll love these references as well as the depiction of one of the
main creators of the Japanese monster genre, Ishiro Honda.
And yes, I said octopus (it's actually Rory who gives Honda the idea to change it to a lizard). Which means only one thing: TENTACLES! And peril.
Obviously this isn't a porn anime so we're not talking penetration like that Amy Fantasy She-Ra episode...but we do get heroines wrapped and squeezed tightly in octopus tentacles, which I bet is not something you thought you'd ever see on the CW. Approximately at 26:00 (or thereabouts) Sara Lance gets caught in Tagumo's slimies. And then the heroine Garima (who is magically created from Rory's vivid writer imagination) is briefly ensnared in them as well at 33:30, before finally defeating the monster. Get your screengrabs and post them here, folks!
And speaking of Garima (which is a Hindu name, guess they're not worried about cultural appropriation)...you may address this ephemeral magical being by her full name: Garima, Queen of Thanzanon. With her pink skin and barbarian appearance, she's kind of cross between, let's say, Gamora, Red Sonja, and the Zamarons of Star Sapphire/Green Lantern fame. She carries a cheesy plastic sword that some prop intern probably bought from Party City, which is hilarious. And she has three breasts! (Rory actually wanted to give her four but Ishiro assures him three is enough). After defeating the monster, she removes her headgear and tosses her hair around sexily, then starts making out with Rory and they have noisy clangorous sex in a corner of Ishiro's film set. The actress' name is Vesna Rukavina Ennis (no relation to Garth) and it looks like this is her first real role. Big props to her star turn in the climactic scene.
The downside is that we have a goofy addition to the cast, food delivery girl Mona who might become a romantic interest for Gary, She is an annoying nerd, somewhat similar to Nora from Flash but without superpowers. I have a hunch that because she has made inroads into employment at the Time Bureau and relates so well to "wrangling" the magical creatures (they're called "fugitives") that she might be some sort of spy or a magical creature herself, but we'll see. It will also be interesting to see exactly what Nate's dad does in future episodes regarding the activation of what he calls "Project Hades" (which is probably capturing the Fugitives for the government to exploit their powers...so the Legends version of Project Cadmus).
Definitely take a look at this one, and find the tentacle peril shots.
Vesna Ennis who plays Garima.
After last week's total time, it's nice to have an episode that returns to Legends' blend of action and sexy campiness in a major way.
Nora Darhk returns, and does a solid for the team by bringing Constantine back from the brink of death without giving in to her dark nature.
Not only that, she has a romantic moment with Ray and then turns herself in to the Time Bureau to face punishment.
Plus, Courtney Ford is beautiful and we get to see down her shirt for a cleavage shot *on purpose*. Good times.
But the big news is that the "monster of the week" theme of the episode is about the origin of Japanese Godzilla 'kaiju' monster movies.
The black-and-white Japanese effect of filming from the floor to make everything look gigantic is used to great effect, and they spent
a lot of time building a 'miniature city' type set (and a miniature airplane) which gets destroyed very nicely in the context of the Kaiji Big Battel
against the octopus monster Tagumo. So if you're a Godzilla / Rodan etc fan you'll love these references as well as the depiction of one of the
main creators of the Japanese monster genre, Ishiro Honda.
And yes, I said octopus (it's actually Rory who gives Honda the idea to change it to a lizard). Which means only one thing: TENTACLES! And peril.
Obviously this isn't a porn anime so we're not talking penetration like that Amy Fantasy She-Ra episode...but we do get heroines wrapped and squeezed tightly in octopus tentacles, which I bet is not something you thought you'd ever see on the CW. Approximately at 26:00 (or thereabouts) Sara Lance gets caught in Tagumo's slimies. And then the heroine Garima (who is magically created from Rory's vivid writer imagination) is briefly ensnared in them as well at 33:30, before finally defeating the monster. Get your screengrabs and post them here, folks!
And speaking of Garima (which is a Hindu name, guess they're not worried about cultural appropriation)...you may address this ephemeral magical being by her full name: Garima, Queen of Thanzanon. With her pink skin and barbarian appearance, she's kind of cross between, let's say, Gamora, Red Sonja, and the Zamarons of Star Sapphire/Green Lantern fame. She carries a cheesy plastic sword that some prop intern probably bought from Party City, which is hilarious. And she has three breasts! (Rory actually wanted to give her four but Ishiro assures him three is enough). After defeating the monster, she removes her headgear and tosses her hair around sexily, then starts making out with Rory and they have noisy clangorous sex in a corner of Ishiro's film set. The actress' name is Vesna Rukavina Ennis (no relation to Garth) and it looks like this is her first real role. Big props to her star turn in the climactic scene.
The downside is that we have a goofy addition to the cast, food delivery girl Mona who might become a romantic interest for Gary, She is an annoying nerd, somewhat similar to Nora from Flash but without superpowers. I have a hunch that because she has made inroads into employment at the Time Bureau and relates so well to "wrangling" the magical creatures (they're called "fugitives") that she might be some sort of spy or a magical creature herself, but we'll see. It will also be interesting to see exactly what Nate's dad does in future episodes regarding the activation of what he calls "Project Hades" (which is probably capturing the Fugitives for the government to exploit their powers...so the Legends version of Project Cadmus).
Definitely take a look at this one, and find the tentacle peril shots.
Vesna Ennis who plays Garima.
- vesna.jpg (79.46 KiB) Viewed 4643 times
Last edited by shevek 5 years ago, edited 1 time in total.
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SexualSocialist
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I loved Episode 6. and I'm loving this season. they know not to take each other seriously.
This is why I stuck with Legends over the other Arrowverse shows. The fact they are in on the joke of what could easily seem ridiculous makes it so much more fun.SexualSocialist wrote: ↑5 years agoI loved Episode 6. and I'm loving this season. they know not to take each other seriously.
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SexualSocialist
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When my friend started watching. she didn't start with Season one but three and asked
"So, it's just a bunch of Bisexuals in space?"
me: They're not all Bi, just Sarah. Rory isn't.
Friend: IDK, he was real close to that cold guy
me: They were really close.
Friend: Nate and Ray.
me: Nate is banging Anya.
Friend: Yeah, He could be lowkey doing Ray too. they're a little too close to be just "bros"
I was shook lol
"So, it's just a bunch of Bisexuals in space?"
me: They're not all Bi, just Sarah. Rory isn't.
Friend: IDK, he was real close to that cold guy
me: They were really close.
Friend: Nate and Ray.
me: Nate is banging Anya.
Friend: Yeah, He could be lowkey doing Ray too. they're a little too close to be just "bros"
I was shook lol
Your friend needs to go back to Season 1 where Snart, Rory, and Lance are in a bar and all checking out the same woman. Their bonding over shared interests in booze and women.
Season 3 brought in the gay Snart who was getting married to The Ray.
Legends is still the best for humor even for characters like Rory that might have much to do in an episode. They manage to do it without breaking character,
Season 3 brought in the gay Snart who was getting married to The Ray.
Legends is still the best for humor even for characters like Rory that might have much to do in an episode. They manage to do it without breaking character,
If you want to do full-on gay, then watch the cartoon of The Ray on CW Seed where they fight Nazis on their alternate world Earth-X where the Axis
won World War II. https://www.cwseed.com/shows/freedom-fighters-the-ray/
Not that there's anything wrong with that Especially since you'll also get a beautiful (as hot as one could expect in Current Year) version of Phantom Lady. The guest appearance of Vixen looks great, too. And the battles are excellently violent. It does get very social-justicey at times, however.
But Visitor is right, there's a lot of funny bromance in Legends, too. And the booze aspect of the bromance also extends to the women, for example
Sarah and Charlie polishing off entire bottles of bourbon.
I liked Episode 6 a lot, I just found some of the other fairytale premises a bit ridiculous. But when they move away from standard Western fairytale fare it gets more interesting. I do like the fact that they went very deep in a global culture sense to find various monsters and supernatural creatures around the world. Tapping into mythology for inspiration is exactly the kind of thing I would do!
won World War II. https://www.cwseed.com/shows/freedom-fighters-the-ray/
Not that there's anything wrong with that
Especially since you'll also get a beautiful (as hot as one could expect in Current Year) version of Phantom Lady. The guest appearance of Vixen looks great, too. And the battles are excellently violent. It does get very social-justicey at times, however.But Visitor is right, there's a lot of funny bromance in Legends, too. And the booze aspect of the bromance also extends to the women, for example
Sarah and Charlie polishing off entire bottles of bourbon.
I liked Episode 6 a lot, I just found some of the other fairytale premises a bit ridiculous. But when they move away from standard Western fairytale fare it gets more interesting. I do like the fact that they went very deep in a global culture sense to find various monsters and supernatural creatures around the world. Tapping into mythology for inspiration is exactly the kind of thing I would do!
Last edited by shevek 5 years ago, edited 1 time in total.
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SexualSocialist
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Oh, I have the ray DVD. And yeah I told her to watch Season one.
S4 EP6 Tender is the Nate
They take her shoelaces for the same reason they take everyone's shoelaces in jail, it's no big surprise. I didn't get biggest laugh out of that one.
But nonetheless, although I was skeptical at the beginning of this season that Legends' over-the-top "monster of the week" approach to the Monster of the Week trope was going to weary on me, there are some episodes which really use it to great effect. This is *kind of* one of them, as the Minotaur was a great monster to have on board. It was a stroke of some writers' room genius to place the Minotaur in the Paris catacombs, and then to place the episode in the Jazz Age of 1927 so that they could have actors playing Salvador Dali, Ernest Hemingway, and F Scott and Zelda Fitzergerald. It''s not clear, but it's possible that the inclusion of the guitar-led band (and the guitar later played by Hank) might be an allusion to Django Reinhardt and the "Hot Club" gypsy-jazz sound, but that's not for sure. What is for sure is a bit of anachronism (other than the James Taylor song, of course) in the title of the episode: Fitzgerald's "Tender is the Night" classic American novel did not come out until 1934.
It's also clear, with the establishment of the containment facility funded by the approval of Hank, that the CW showrunners have a big prison fetish. Every show has a prison system that a lot of the offenders (whether they are metas or fugitives or aliens or whoever) wind up locked in, and every show also likes to occasionally send one of its main characters to prison as well. This seems odd given that you'd think the progressive writers would be against the brutality of the prison system (if only for the usual intersectionalist reasons) and more for rehab and restitution etc, but they definitely flog confinement to death. So to speak.
Humor continues to be silly, which by now is completely the show's most obvious trademark. And nobody is immune. Everything from the smashed birthday cake, to Sarah's comical avoidance of Hank in Ava's office, to Rory's goofy puns on the words "lute" and "lyre", to Hank's bluster about "locking eyes with the beast" is all over the top, and it' s not going to stop any time soon.
Characters do get underused, though. Zari has done almost nothing this season, and Rory does very little in this episode as well. In contrast, a character that just jumped on board a couple episodes ago - Mona the creature caretaker - gets tons of screen time to the point that we even find out what kind of desserts her mom makes (Mona is Cantonese, confirmed, with the mention of congee. Plus they put in a subtle dig at Asian overachievement - e.g. Mona could get into Yale whenever she wants - in order to not seem racist about things like that). That's a little weird, since Mona isn't a Legend.
But I can't think of a better use for a character (at least in terms of what we're looking for on this forum) than Caity Lotz's amazing lingerie reveal at 3:24 (which lasts for only a few seconds, so get that screen grab). You just know she realized it was gratuitous submission to the male gaze, but went with it anyway in the spirit of good fun (and anyway, in the feminist scheme of things, she makes up for it by standing up to Hank and taking the fight to the Minotaur and Fitzgerald). When I said this show was both sexy and campy, I meant it. It's not at Electra Woman & Dyna Girl level, of course, but all it would take are a few well-designed spandex costumes, and......
----------------
OH MY GOD. I just thought of a great idea for a Legends episode. The concept that follows is pure fan-fiction, but:
What if a fugitive shows up on the set of a sexy/campy 60s or 70s TV show, and the Legends have to go back in time to capture it? This is a DC universe, so there shouldn't be a problem showing the characters from the Batman '66 show. What if Yvonne Craig and Eartha Kitt have mysteriously disappeared from the set of Batman (maybe due to an attack by the fugitive?) and Sarah and Charlie have to stand in for as actors playing Batgirl and Catwoman? And as a result, Caity Lotz and Maisie Richardson-Sellers get to wear the most amazingly tight 1960s-style spandex costumes (the tightest since their 1970s Abba ripoff garb). Of course, guest actors would have to come in and play Adam West and Burt Ward, but that shouldn't be too difficult to cast.
What if they are in the midst of portraying one of those episode-ending cliffhanger scenes where Batman, Robin and Batgirl are tied up on tables, and circular saw blades are about to cut them in half, and then they suddenly discover that the blades are real and they are really tied down? And then (just to subvert the damsel in distress trope - because you can't have that on a progressive-written show in Current Year anyway) Ava comes busting through the time portal to save her girlfriend and the dudes? Then Yvonne and Eartha are found tied up in a storage room, they are released, and Charlie says something like, "I'm glad I don't have to wear this rubbish anymore", while zipping it halfway down the middle to begin taking it off, so we can get a last glimpse.
Or even better, what if the plot was about an ElectraWoman and Dyna Girl *type* 1970s show in which the lead actresses were captured by a fugitive, and Caity and Maisie had to play the characters?
Seriously, I think a plot like that might be what it takes to see an actual Constantine-disapproved tight costume anywhere on a CW show these days :
They take her shoelaces for the same reason they take everyone's shoelaces in jail, it's no big surprise. I didn't get biggest laugh out of that one.
But nonetheless, although I was skeptical at the beginning of this season that Legends' over-the-top "monster of the week" approach to the Monster of the Week trope was going to weary on me, there are some episodes which really use it to great effect. This is *kind of* one of them, as the Minotaur was a great monster to have on board. It was a stroke of some writers' room genius to place the Minotaur in the Paris catacombs, and then to place the episode in the Jazz Age of 1927 so that they could have actors playing Salvador Dali, Ernest Hemingway, and F Scott and Zelda Fitzergerald. It''s not clear, but it's possible that the inclusion of the guitar-led band (and the guitar later played by Hank) might be an allusion to Django Reinhardt and the "Hot Club" gypsy-jazz sound, but that's not for sure. What is for sure is a bit of anachronism (other than the James Taylor song, of course) in the title of the episode: Fitzgerald's "Tender is the Night" classic American novel did not come out until 1934.
It's also clear, with the establishment of the containment facility funded by the approval of Hank, that the CW showrunners have a big prison fetish. Every show has a prison system that a lot of the offenders (whether they are metas or fugitives or aliens or whoever) wind up locked in, and every show also likes to occasionally send one of its main characters to prison as well. This seems odd given that you'd think the progressive writers would be against the brutality of the prison system (if only for the usual intersectionalist reasons) and more for rehab and restitution etc, but they definitely flog confinement to death. So to speak.
Humor continues to be silly, which by now is completely the show's most obvious trademark. And nobody is immune. Everything from the smashed birthday cake, to Sarah's comical avoidance of Hank in Ava's office, to Rory's goofy puns on the words "lute" and "lyre", to Hank's bluster about "locking eyes with the beast" is all over the top, and it' s not going to stop any time soon.
Characters do get underused, though. Zari has done almost nothing this season, and Rory does very little in this episode as well. In contrast, a character that just jumped on board a couple episodes ago - Mona the creature caretaker - gets tons of screen time to the point that we even find out what kind of desserts her mom makes (Mona is Cantonese, confirmed, with the mention of congee. Plus they put in a subtle dig at Asian overachievement - e.g. Mona could get into Yale whenever she wants - in order to not seem racist about things like that). That's a little weird, since Mona isn't a Legend.
But I can't think of a better use for a character (at least in terms of what we're looking for on this forum) than Caity Lotz's amazing lingerie reveal at 3:24 (which lasts for only a few seconds, so get that screen grab). You just know she realized it was gratuitous submission to the male gaze, but went with it anyway in the spirit of good fun (and anyway, in the feminist scheme of things, she makes up for it by standing up to Hank and taking the fight to the Minotaur and Fitzgerald). When I said this show was both sexy and campy, I meant it. It's not at Electra Woman & Dyna Girl level, of course, but all it would take are a few well-designed spandex costumes, and......
----------------
OH MY GOD. I just thought of a great idea for a Legends episode. The concept that follows is pure fan-fiction, but:
What if a fugitive shows up on the set of a sexy/campy 60s or 70s TV show, and the Legends have to go back in time to capture it? This is a DC universe, so there shouldn't be a problem showing the characters from the Batman '66 show. What if Yvonne Craig and Eartha Kitt have mysteriously disappeared from the set of Batman (maybe due to an attack by the fugitive?) and Sarah and Charlie have to stand in for as actors playing Batgirl and Catwoman? And as a result, Caity Lotz and Maisie Richardson-Sellers get to wear the most amazingly tight 1960s-style spandex costumes (the tightest since their 1970s Abba ripoff garb). Of course, guest actors would have to come in and play Adam West and Burt Ward, but that shouldn't be too difficult to cast.
What if they are in the midst of portraying one of those episode-ending cliffhanger scenes where Batman, Robin and Batgirl are tied up on tables, and circular saw blades are about to cut them in half, and then they suddenly discover that the blades are real and they are really tied down? And then (just to subvert the damsel in distress trope - because you can't have that on a progressive-written show in Current Year anyway) Ava comes busting through the time portal to save her girlfriend and the dudes? Then Yvonne and Eartha are found tied up in a storage room, they are released, and Charlie says something like, "I'm glad I don't have to wear this rubbish anymore", while zipping it halfway down the middle to begin taking it off, so we can get a last glimpse.
Or even better, what if the plot was about an ElectraWoman and Dyna Girl *type* 1970s show in which the lead actresses were captured by a fugitive, and Caity and Maisie had to play the characters?
Seriously, I think a plot like that might be what it takes to see an actual Constantine-disapproved tight costume anywhere on a CW show these days :
Hey folks, I renumbered the episodes correctly , sorry about that (but I guess nobody noticed).
EP7 Hell No, Dolly!
OK, this episode is fail, in so many ways. One reason is because we fail to care about so much of it. Are you really that invested in the insipid character Mona's crush on the Kaupe monster (whose Hawaiian name is Konane..but he doesn't even look Hawaiian..cultural appropriative casting fail, progressive writing team!)? Does anyone really care about Constantine's relationship with Dez? It just seems forced, to give him something to care about when he breaks the timeline. There's not enough development of the Dez character to make the viewer care.
Another reason is the monster of the week: the Dybbuk, a Jewish possessing spirit that always has a purpose and leaves its host body when its task is done. I grew up with these Yiddish tales, so I know. Like a Woody Allen movie or something, this could have been properly done in a Jewish historical context with plenty of humor, maybe at the height of Ashkenazic culture in Poland or Russia, or during some pogroms to give it drama and tension. Instead, the dybbuk was an American serial killer, randomly inserted into murderous Chuckie-esque dolls and puppets. That might be how a random demon works, especially a Catholic-style demon hurtin' for an exorcism, but that's not how a dybbuk works. A dybbuk isn't a killer, and also doesn't possess inanimate objects. If you check the Wikipedia page on Dybbuk, you'll find that to be the case. Total writer fail, and we're talking about the same Jewish producer Marc Guggenheim who stole the ancient Hebrew inscription from Raiders of the Lost Ark. The cultural ignorance of Hollywood's liberal Jews regarding their own rich historical background astounds me sometimes.
Also, I'm getting pretty tired about how various characters insult each other by calling other "dick". It's so grade school. Can't the writer think up more sophisticated insults?
So what was good about this episode? Not much:
1) The dybbuk / Chuckie doll / Professor Stein puppet is voiced by Paul Reubens (Pee-Wee Herman). At least they made sure to hire a Jewish actor. I guess he finds works now and has been rehabbed in the public eye from his earlier creepiness.
2) A great romantic kiss between Ava and Sarah at 33:37.
3) Vesna Ennis is back as the three-breasted pink Amazon, Garima! She has a bigger role in EP8 as well, even though she doesn't get to say anything. Perhaps I am her number one fan? Who knows. It doesn't look like she has a Twitter account unfortunately, and she isn't even mentioned as "recurring" on the Legends wikipedia even though she's been in three episodes. Maybe nobody actually cares except me - ah well.
EP8 Legends of To-Meow-Meow
This episode is annoying because for much of it, Zari becomes a cute kitty cat. That's actually an improvement, given how bland and annoying her character always is (and how she rarely uses her powers at all, and only at a very weak level). But still, the whole cat thing is pretty lame given the Internet's obsession with cats, etc., it's a humour device that some have titled "lol so random".
Another very blatant thing about the episode is how they've foregrounded the LG(BT) elements. The most prominent relationships in this episode are lesbian (Sara + Ava) and gay (John + Dez). Not that there's anything wrong with that, it just seems a bit heavy-handed when they're also trying to inject continuous parodic humor at the same time (see the next paragraph)..it's like - "Look, here's all of these elaborate sight gags, and look, everybody's gay, too! Girls kissing girls, boys kissing boys!" I'm sure the Twittersphere will love it, though (unless some hard-left types think the show still isn't gay enough, like they were going after Ruby Rose for a w hile?). I wonder if the show over time has captured some of the same audience the "L-Word" and "Queer as Folk" (set in Pittsburgh, btw!) shows used to have...
However, if there's some level of PC beyond that, it lies in the constant message that the 'magical creatures', who are the main baddies and foes in the show, are just minorities who are misunderstood, and they shouldn't be killed (just interred in cells, I guess!). This is driven home by the three parodies (Elseworlds, really!) that the show launches into:
1) Custodians of Chronology. It's Ray, Nate and Rory as "bad guys" killing magical creatures, and they look like they're modeled after a combination of The A-Team and AirWolf, with the distinctive 80s logo placed on the "space grid background" and the pulsating John Carpenter-style synth theme that keeps recurring. It's funny.
2) Sirens of Spacetime. It's Sara, Ava and Gideon (Amy Louise Pemberton is hot!) as "bad girls" killing magical creatures, a la Charlie's Angels (with Hank briefly playing the role of Charlie as he briefs them on an upcoming mission, but in person and not through the usual "speaker system"). They are all in extremely tight black outfits with knee-high boots and cleavage-busting bustiers, etc. That action starts at 18:20 (including Ava & Sara making out in a 70s convertible) and continues for a while, it's pretty awesome, and I was sad to see their alternate timeline go. See the photos below.
3) Puppets of Tomorrow. It's some of the cast reincarnated as Muppets or the cast of Sesame Street. Kind of forgettable but I love the way the female puppets have those huge lips like Janice from the Electric Mayhem band.
So that's about it. If you don't watch this episode, you don't miss much of the plot because everything gets set back to normal anyway, and the settings for the past two episodes (New Orleans and Las Vegas) aren't that interesting. I think they are building up to the demon Neron being
maybe the main big bad for the remainder of the season, like Mallus was in the previous one.
But check out the Sirens of Spacetime sequence if you have the time.
Garima with Rory!
The hot Sirens of Space-Time! Obviously they were thinking Charlie's Angels but the spandexy outfits look more like a 90s update a la Cleopatra 2525.
EP7 Hell No, Dolly!
OK, this episode is fail, in so many ways. One reason is because we fail to care about so much of it. Are you really that invested in the insipid character Mona's crush on the Kaupe monster (whose Hawaiian name is Konane..but he doesn't even look Hawaiian..cultural appropriative casting fail, progressive writing team!)? Does anyone really care about Constantine's relationship with Dez? It just seems forced, to give him something to care about when he breaks the timeline. There's not enough development of the Dez character to make the viewer care.
Another reason is the monster of the week: the Dybbuk, a Jewish possessing spirit that always has a purpose and leaves its host body when its task is done. I grew up with these Yiddish tales, so I know. Like a Woody Allen movie or something, this could have been properly done in a Jewish historical context with plenty of humor, maybe at the height of Ashkenazic culture in Poland or Russia, or during some pogroms to give it drama and tension. Instead, the dybbuk was an American serial killer, randomly inserted into murderous Chuckie-esque dolls and puppets. That might be how a random demon works, especially a Catholic-style demon hurtin' for an exorcism, but that's not how a dybbuk works. A dybbuk isn't a killer, and also doesn't possess inanimate objects. If you check the Wikipedia page on Dybbuk, you'll find that to be the case. Total writer fail, and we're talking about the same Jewish producer Marc Guggenheim who stole the ancient Hebrew inscription from Raiders of the Lost Ark. The cultural ignorance of Hollywood's liberal Jews regarding their own rich historical background astounds me sometimes.
Also, I'm getting pretty tired about how various characters insult each other by calling other "dick". It's so grade school. Can't the writer think up more sophisticated insults?
So what was good about this episode? Not much:
1) The dybbuk / Chuckie doll / Professor Stein puppet is voiced by Paul Reubens (Pee-Wee Herman). At least they made sure to hire a Jewish actor.
I guess he finds works now and has been rehabbed in the public eye from his earlier creepiness.2) A great romantic kiss between Ava and Sarah at 33:37.
3) Vesna Ennis is back as the three-breasted pink Amazon, Garima! She has a bigger role in EP8 as well, even though she doesn't get to say anything. Perhaps I am her number one fan? Who knows. It doesn't look like she has a Twitter account unfortunately, and she isn't even mentioned as "recurring" on the Legends wikipedia even though she's been in three episodes. Maybe nobody actually cares except me - ah well.
EP8 Legends of To-Meow-Meow
This episode is annoying because for much of it, Zari becomes a cute kitty cat. That's actually an improvement, given how bland and annoying her character always is (and how she rarely uses her powers at all, and only at a very weak level). But still, the whole cat thing is pretty lame given the Internet's obsession with cats, etc., it's a humour device that some have titled "lol so random".
Another very blatant thing about the episode is how they've foregrounded the LG(BT) elements. The most prominent relationships in this episode are lesbian (Sara + Ava) and gay (John + Dez). Not that there's anything wrong with that, it just seems a bit heavy-handed when they're also trying to inject continuous parodic humor at the same time (see the next paragraph)..it's like - "Look, here's all of these elaborate sight gags, and look, everybody's gay, too! Girls kissing girls, boys kissing boys!" I'm sure the Twittersphere will love it, though (unless some hard-left types think the show still isn't gay enough, like they were going after Ruby Rose for a w hile?). I wonder if the show over time has captured some of the same audience the "L-Word" and "Queer as Folk" (set in Pittsburgh, btw!) shows used to have...
However, if there's some level of PC beyond that, it lies in the constant message that the 'magical creatures', who are the main baddies and foes in the show, are just minorities who are misunderstood, and they shouldn't be killed (just interred in cells, I guess!). This is driven home by the three parodies (Elseworlds, really!) that the show launches into:
1) Custodians of Chronology. It's Ray, Nate and Rory as "bad guys" killing magical creatures, and they look like they're modeled after a combination of The A-Team and AirWolf, with the distinctive 80s logo placed on the "space grid background" and the pulsating John Carpenter-style synth theme that keeps recurring. It's funny.
2) Sirens of Spacetime. It's Sara, Ava and Gideon (Amy Louise Pemberton is hot!) as "bad girls" killing magical creatures, a la Charlie's Angels (with Hank briefly playing the role of Charlie as he briefs them on an upcoming mission, but in person and not through the usual "speaker system"). They are all in extremely tight black outfits with knee-high boots and cleavage-busting bustiers, etc. That action starts at 18:20 (including Ava & Sara making out in a 70s convertible) and continues for a while, it's pretty awesome, and I was sad to see their alternate timeline go. See the photos below.
3) Puppets of Tomorrow. It's some of the cast reincarnated as Muppets or the cast of Sesame Street. Kind of forgettable but I love the way the female puppets have those huge lips like Janice from the Electric Mayhem band.
So that's about it. If you don't watch this episode, you don't miss much of the plot because everything gets set back to normal anyway, and the settings for the past two episodes (New Orleans and Las Vegas) aren't that interesting. I think they are building up to the demon Neron being
maybe the main big bad for the remainder of the season, like Mallus was in the previous one.
But check out the Sirens of Spacetime sequence if you have the time.
Garima with Rory!
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- Sirens_of_Space-Time1.png (895.88 KiB) Viewed 4119 times
- Sirens_of_Space-Time3.jpg (7.79 KiB) Viewed 4119 times
- Sirens_of_Space-Time4.jpg (248.88 KiB) Viewed 4119 times
Maybe I'm in the minority, but this is my favorite Arrowverse show at the moment.
Also looking forward to seeing Sarah in an SG costume.
Also looking forward to seeing Sarah in an SG costume.
Caity Lotz looks amazing! We can only hope that she was wearing one of the actual Melissa Benoist backup outfits.
The wrestling take looks interesting..wonder if they'll be making any references to G.L.O.W.?
Also looking forward to seeing the otherwise eminently boring Tala Ashrafi in what looks like a genie or peri type costume, where at least she gets to make a little fun of herself and her Isis analogue character.
Interesting that three months ago I made the comment about the lol-so-random-style insertion of cats and other cute fluffies into modern superhero content, and shortly after that, we were visited by a superhero movie where a cat wound up upstaging the human actors. It's a thing, folks.
The wrestling take looks interesting..wonder if they'll be making any references to G.L.O.W.?
Also looking forward to seeing the otherwise eminently boring Tala Ashrafi in what looks like a genie or peri type costume, where at least she gets to make a little fun of herself and her Isis analogue character.
Interesting that three months ago I made the comment about the lol-so-random-style insertion of cats and other cute fluffies into modern superhero content, and shortly after that, we were visited by a superhero movie where a cat wound up upstaging the human actors. It's a thing, folks.
Two terrible episodes of Legends you can skip:
"Lucha De Apuestas". It's about luchadors. There are no female wrestlers and nothing about GLOW. And it's about the annoying Mona (even more annoying than Nora from The Flash or Tilly from The Orville, if you can believe it, because she's just a lol-so-random character inserted for diversity points, not from the comic books) and her magical creature crush, the Hawaiian wolfman Kaupe. It's a waste of screen time. Even when Mona briefly becomes a lycanthrope herself, it's not interesting. The only cool thing in the episode is Caity and Tala looking gorgeous in fancy party dresses (for a Muslim character, Zari is certainly showing off her beauty). That's it. Not enough to make it watchable, so just skip it.
"The Getaway". Much of the episode is about the Legends team going on the run from Hank in a RV with President Nixon in the back. That's right. It's like a 1970s road movie, with elements taken from National Lampoon's Family Vacation, Convoy, Dukes of Hazzard, and Smokey & the Bandit, etc. 10-4, good buddy. Mona becomes a wolf-woman again. And there's a magical cockroach which keeps flying into people's mouths and making them tell the truth. What's too bad is that the roach is supposed to represent the power of Maat, the Egyptian goddess of truth (according to Constantine's explanation), they have a character (Zari) who is supposed to represent the power of the goddess Isis, and yet the two elements aren't connected.
In fact, Zari hasn't even used her amulet's powers at all for quite a while.
There's also a worthwhile subplot where Gary and Nora Dahrk discover that Hank is using the time bureau to acquire objects from history for personal gain, and Nora once again mistakenly becomes a villainess because of it, framed for killing Hank. So that end part was worth it, but until then, most of this episode was just too goofy to sit through.
So Hank is dead, is all you really need to know. Catching up on more Legends this week.
"Lucha De Apuestas". It's about luchadors. There are no female wrestlers and nothing about GLOW. And it's about the annoying Mona (even more annoying than Nora from The Flash or Tilly from The Orville, if you can believe it, because she's just a lol-so-random character inserted for diversity points, not from the comic books) and her magical creature crush, the Hawaiian wolfman Kaupe. It's a waste of screen time. Even when Mona briefly becomes a lycanthrope herself, it's not interesting. The only cool thing in the episode is Caity and Tala looking gorgeous in fancy party dresses (for a Muslim character, Zari is certainly showing off her beauty). That's it. Not enough to make it watchable, so just skip it.
"The Getaway". Much of the episode is about the Legends team going on the run from Hank in a RV with President Nixon in the back. That's right. It's like a 1970s road movie, with elements taken from National Lampoon's Family Vacation, Convoy, Dukes of Hazzard, and Smokey & the Bandit, etc. 10-4, good buddy. Mona becomes a wolf-woman again. And there's a magical cockroach which keeps flying into people's mouths and making them tell the truth. What's too bad is that the roach is supposed to represent the power of Maat, the Egyptian goddess of truth (according to Constantine's explanation), they have a character (Zari) who is supposed to represent the power of the goddess Isis, and yet the two elements aren't connected.
In fact, Zari hasn't even used her amulet's powers at all for quite a while.
There's also a worthwhile subplot where Gary and Nora Dahrk discover that Hank is using the time bureau to acquire objects from history for personal gain, and Nora once again mistakenly becomes a villainess because of it, framed for killing Hank. So that end part was worth it, but until then, most of this episode was just too goofy to sit through.
So Hank is dead, is all you really need to know. Catching up on more Legends this week.
"Seance and Sensibility"
This episode begins with two interesting factors which I don't know if the showrunners fully considered.
1) Zari is Islam Gone Wild.
For two seasons, we've known only a bit about Zari's background and almost nothing about her emotional state. Suddenly it all comes flooding out in this episode. There's kissing, sexual arousal, making out, a menage-a-trois dream, and a marriage proposal to a Hindu (Sanjay, aka the successor of the god of love, Kamadeva), and Tala Ashrafi looks gorgeous throughout (unlike in other episodes where her beauty is played down to look more rugged or nerdy).
I'm glad that they can depict a Persian Muslim woman as being fairly freewheeling (certainly there are plenty in Los Angeles, for example) but I wonder if this level of profligacy isn't sitting very well with certain conservative-minded religious types ("where I'm from, love is a liability" is even a subtle stab at that culture). The "Love is Love" utopianism of the writers paints a big target on their backs when Sanjay's concern about "a Christian minister, marrying a Muslim woman and a Hindu man?" is simply waved off by Zari as "follow what's in your heart".
2) Nate might be a bit immature for his age.
Nate's room has a whole stack of vinyl records on his bookshelf (the ghost of Hank even tries to spin a James Taylor LP on Nate's turntable, which is a callback to when Hank sings "Sweet Baby James" in the Minotaur episode) as well as a computer monitor and keyboard that looks like it's from the late 80s or early 90s. If so, and Nate was a teenager (let's say 16) within that time period, doesn't that mean that Nate is now somewhere between 40 and 50 years old in the series? And we're supposed to believe that a middle-aged superhero guy is still trying to fumble his way unsuccessfully through relationships, and reconcile his troubled past with his dad (who would be 65-75)? The Nate character acts like he's at least ten years younger than that, if not more. At least in my perception. What do you think?
----
Anyway.. back to the episode at large...with the Hindu god of love's ashes on the loose causing amorous intentions throughout the ship, it's pretty much a Hollywood millennial progressive writer's version of what a 'chick flick' / Jane Austen novel film adaptation would be in Current Year, right down to the anachronistic public lesbianism in the middle of an 1802 wedding ceremony and a Disney-meets-Bollywood musical dance number. (In the progressive-but-still-conventionally-hot realm of Legends, lesbians are always beautiful and female-presenting..never butch or androgynous. I can see a handful of annoyed Twitter checkmarks flying off the handle about lack of representation. Let them whine.) The sexy dream vignettes that the female Legends undergo could be re-adapted into a porn with only a few extra shots.
If that's your bag - and I was basically OK with the premise of a handsome Indian lothario driving women wild, because why not - then dig in.
In the end, the only thing that really stops Zari and the women from falling for Kamadeva's marital plans is that he says he already has a "thousand wives" and wants to make Zari his 1001th - a not-so-subtle reference to Arabian Nights. Glad you had enough pride and self-esteem there to not become part of a harem, Scheherezade, even though I don't think Hindus practice polygamy (a quick fact check says in India, polygamy was only present in the ruling elites) and this was therefore an Orientalist conflation of two different cultures. Also, this was awkward, in a politically correct sense, when the commercials are constantly running ads for the live-action Aladdin. Wonder if there's something in the zeitgeist lately about the best way to properly break lots of Asian actors onto both the big and small screens.
In the end, we see another puzzle piece of the actual Big Bad of the episode coming together, as the demon Neron reveals himself to have been Constantine's lover Desmond. So even though there are some definitely cringey moments in this episode about how the showrunners fall all over themselves trying to properly adapt 'brown culture' in a superhero adventure (and winding up a lot more colonialist than they probably intended) this is probably worth taking a look at, if only for some much needed levity after the extreme gravitas of watching Endgame.
P.S. I know it's technically Emily Bronte, not Austen, but I would have loved to have seen Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights" used in this episode. Ah well.
This episode begins with two interesting factors which I don't know if the showrunners fully considered.
1) Zari is Islam Gone Wild.
For two seasons, we've known only a bit about Zari's background and almost nothing about her emotional state. Suddenly it all comes flooding out in this episode. There's kissing, sexual arousal, making out, a menage-a-trois dream, and a marriage proposal to a Hindu (Sanjay, aka the successor of the god of love, Kamadeva), and Tala Ashrafi looks gorgeous throughout (unlike in other episodes where her beauty is played down to look more rugged or nerdy).
I'm glad that they can depict a Persian Muslim woman as being fairly freewheeling (certainly there are plenty in Los Angeles, for example) but I wonder if this level of profligacy isn't sitting very well with certain conservative-minded religious types ("where I'm from, love is a liability" is even a subtle stab at that culture). The "Love is Love" utopianism of the writers paints a big target on their backs when Sanjay's concern about "a Christian minister, marrying a Muslim woman and a Hindu man?" is simply waved off by Zari as "follow what's in your heart".
2) Nate might be a bit immature for his age.
Nate's room has a whole stack of vinyl records on his bookshelf (the ghost of Hank even tries to spin a James Taylor LP on Nate's turntable, which is a callback to when Hank sings "Sweet Baby James" in the Minotaur episode) as well as a computer monitor and keyboard that looks like it's from the late 80s or early 90s. If so, and Nate was a teenager (let's say 16) within that time period, doesn't that mean that Nate is now somewhere between 40 and 50 years old in the series? And we're supposed to believe that a middle-aged superhero guy is still trying to fumble his way unsuccessfully through relationships, and reconcile his troubled past with his dad (who would be 65-75)? The Nate character acts like he's at least ten years younger than that, if not more. At least in my perception. What do you think?
----
Anyway.. back to the episode at large...with the Hindu god of love's ashes on the loose causing amorous intentions throughout the ship, it's pretty much a Hollywood millennial progressive writer's version of what a 'chick flick' / Jane Austen novel film adaptation would be in Current Year, right down to the anachronistic public lesbianism in the middle of an 1802 wedding ceremony and a Disney-meets-Bollywood musical dance number. (In the progressive-but-still-conventionally-hot realm of Legends, lesbians are always beautiful and female-presenting..never butch or androgynous. I can see a handful of annoyed Twitter checkmarks flying off the handle about lack of representation. Let them whine.) The sexy dream vignettes that the female Legends undergo could be re-adapted into a porn with only a few extra shots.
If that's your bag - and I was basically OK with the premise of a handsome Indian lothario driving women wild, because why not - then dig in.
In the end, the only thing that really stops Zari and the women from falling for Kamadeva's marital plans is that he says he already has a "thousand wives" and wants to make Zari his 1001th - a not-so-subtle reference to Arabian Nights. Glad you had enough pride and self-esteem there to not become part of a harem, Scheherezade, even though I don't think Hindus practice polygamy (a quick fact check says in India, polygamy was only present in the ruling elites) and this was therefore an Orientalist conflation of two different cultures. Also, this was awkward, in a politically correct sense, when the commercials are constantly running ads for the live-action Aladdin. Wonder if there's something in the zeitgeist lately about the best way to properly break lots of Asian actors onto both the big and small screens.
In the end, we see another puzzle piece of the actual Big Bad of the episode coming together, as the demon Neron reveals himself to have been Constantine's lover Desmond. So even though there are some definitely cringey moments in this episode about how the showrunners fall all over themselves trying to properly adapt 'brown culture' in a superhero adventure (and winding up a lot more colonialist than they probably intended) this is probably worth taking a look at, if only for some much needed levity after the extreme gravitas of watching Endgame.
P.S. I know it's technically Emily Bronte, not Austen, but I would have loved to have seen Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights" used in this episode. Ah well.
The Eggplant, The Witch & The Wardrobe - S4 E12
Courtney Ford (who plays Nora) saves this episode with her dark demeanor and confidence as she teams up with Constantine and takes the battle
to Neron. You'll enjoy those scenes. Everything else is not that interesting.
There are small bits of peril, as Ava is kidnapped and held by Neron. A short glimpse of Neron choking her neck with his hands,
and then shots of Ava fairly out of it in a magickal trance in a hotel room covered with mystical glyphs. That's all you're getting, though.
The stories about Hank's theme park for magical creatures, and Sarah's trip to Purgatory (basically a big-box store that looks like Ikea) to save Ava
are both pretty ridiculous.
Meanwhile, Zari, the annoying Mona, and Mick do next to nothing in this episode. Mick as a character at this point is what an internet edgelord might call "cucked". He's lost almost of all of his brash, swashbuckling criminal mojo and is reduced to sitting around drinking beer, writing fantasy books about an imaginary female warrior he's in love with, and pronouncing PC platitudes like "Love is Love" (I called it!).
Some little quirky quotes that show where the writers' heads are at:
- Sarah tells Zari to "woman" the ship.
- Gary has a dream where he is driving Ava to "shul" (confirming that Gary is indeed Jewish, a la the actor Alan Tsekhman).
- the "Love is Love" line from Mick.
- twice in the episode someone (Sarah and Zari) says the line "[something something] superheroes" to remind the viewer that it's a superhero show although nobody is ever wearing any costumes.
That's about it. Watch the scenes with Nora Dahrk if you're going to watch this episode at all - she's the heroine they need.
Courtney Ford (who plays Nora) saves this episode with her dark demeanor and confidence as she teams up with Constantine and takes the battle
to Neron. You'll enjoy those scenes. Everything else is not that interesting.
There are small bits of peril, as Ava is kidnapped and held by Neron. A short glimpse of Neron choking her neck with his hands,
and then shots of Ava fairly out of it in a magickal trance in a hotel room covered with mystical glyphs. That's all you're getting, though.
The stories about Hank's theme park for magical creatures, and Sarah's trip to Purgatory (basically a big-box store that looks like Ikea) to save Ava
are both pretty ridiculous.
Meanwhile, Zari, the annoying Mona, and Mick do next to nothing in this episode. Mick as a character at this point is what an internet edgelord might call "cucked". He's lost almost of all of his brash, swashbuckling criminal mojo and is reduced to sitting around drinking beer, writing fantasy books about an imaginary female warrior he's in love with, and pronouncing PC platitudes like "Love is Love" (I called it!).
Some little quirky quotes that show where the writers' heads are at:
- Sarah tells Zari to "woman" the ship.
- Gary has a dream where he is driving Ava to "shul" (confirming that Gary is indeed Jewish, a la the actor Alan Tsekhman).
- the "Love is Love" line from Mick.
- twice in the episode someone (Sarah and Zari) says the line "[something something] superheroes" to remind the viewer that it's a superhero show although nobody is ever wearing any costumes.
That's about it. Watch the scenes with Nora Dahrk if you're going to watch this episode at all - she's the heroine they need.
Nora is a good addition to the team. I wish they get rid of Mona though. She takes too much screen time and away from the more interesting members of the team.
We finally get to see in the season finale the Supergirl, Green Arrow, and Flash promo. They should have been in the crossover.
For a superhero show this probably had the least action using their powers and pretty much was based on Peter Pan. When they highlights are the foreshadowing for next season's crossover it pretty much says the writers have given up and are looking to do their best work next season. Nora got one of the biggest roles and actions this episode which shows how much trouble the writers have with the regular characters.
Maybe it was a sign a few episode ago when Sara talks to Rory about being the last of the original Legends of Tomorrow that the show is heading in a different direction.
For a superhero show this probably had the least action using their powers and pretty much was based on Peter Pan. When they highlights are the foreshadowing for next season's crossover it pretty much says the writers have given up and are looking to do their best work next season. Nora got one of the biggest roles and actions this episode which shows how much trouble the writers have with the regular characters.
Maybe it was a sign a few episode ago when Sara talks to Rory about being the last of the original Legends of Tomorrow that the show is heading in a different direction.
Cast got too bloated this season. I hope they focus more on the core team next year. Mona and Gary need to go or at least be relegated to supporting characters.
Mona and Gary are a burden on the plots and cast. The stories got way too convoluted until the end
At least we got to see Caity Lotz finally back in that White Canary costume Which was good, considering that the time she spent in the Supergirl outfit was way too short.
Yes I agree that Nora (an original TV character- she was never in the comics) is an asset to the team. I'd rather see her stay, and Constantine go at this point (John's a loner anyway), and it'd also be great if Nora wore some kind of appropriate sorceress costume in the future - would love to see her in cape and boots and various accoutrements.
Overall, not the best conclusion to Season Four that one could hope for - ah well.
Spoiler
when there were too many threads to tie up and ultimately they had to use a really cheesy Deus Ex Machina / Kum-ba-ya moment to do it. (The same kind of DXM moment was present in the Supergirl finale but at least it was a bit more dramatic).
The show continues to be inconsistent in the portrayal of Zari - she's Muslim, but she does not wear hijab like her mother does; she has unmarried sex with a non-believer (Nate); and she wears tight dresses and low-cut cleavage-showing blouses. If the point of the character was to show that a Muslim can be modern and sexy, they achieved it, but I'm not sure they meant to do that on purpose. Perhaps she won't be on the show next season anyway?
Also the symbolism of the monsters as an oppressed class which if the populace just got to know and understand, they would love, is a bit off. Sure, the monsters are freed (much like the aliens in Supergirl) but ultimately they are made into trained monkeys in an amusement part freak show. Again, I'm not sure if the writers intended to paint themselves into a corner like that, or maybe they thought they were doing their message a favor.
Another thing I disliked was how tame Hell actually was, being depicted as simply "the seedy part of town." The stripper club, The Pit, was especially pathetic, with the strippers wearing halter tops and swimsuits! Really? I realize that it's a PG-13 show at best, but there are plenty of ways to imply nudity with strategic camera angles that would make the place look a lot more like a den of debauchery (like the strip club scene from the TV show Powers). It was a cop out.
The show continues to be inconsistent in the portrayal of Zari - she's Muslim, but she does not wear hijab like her mother does; she has unmarried sex with a non-believer (Nate); and she wears tight dresses and low-cut cleavage-showing blouses. If the point of the character was to show that a Muslim can be modern and sexy, they achieved it, but I'm not sure they meant to do that on purpose. Perhaps she won't be on the show next season anyway?
Also the symbolism of the monsters as an oppressed class which if the populace just got to know and understand, they would love, is a bit off. Sure, the monsters are freed (much like the aliens in Supergirl) but ultimately they are made into trained monkeys in an amusement part freak show. Again, I'm not sure if the writers intended to paint themselves into a corner like that, or maybe they thought they were doing their message a favor.
Another thing I disliked was how tame Hell actually was, being depicted as simply "the seedy part of town." The stripper club, The Pit, was especially pathetic, with the strippers wearing halter tops and swimsuits! Really? I realize that it's a PG-13 show at best, but there are plenty of ways to imply nudity with strategic camera angles that would make the place look a lot more like a den of debauchery (like the strip club scene from the TV show Powers). It was a cop out.
Which was good, considering that the time she spent in the Supergirl outfit was way too short.Yes I agree that Nora (an original TV character- she was never in the comics) is an asset to the team. I'd rather see her stay, and Constantine go at this point (John's a loner anyway), and it'd also be great if Nora wore some kind of appropriate sorceress costume in the future - would love to see her in cape and boots and various accoutrements.
Overall, not the best conclusion to Season Four that one could hope for - ah well.
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Maskripper
- Millenium Member
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I'm a little behind on LoT, just watched episode 11. Oh man....
I'm a guy who is entertained rather easily, I'm not very critical and watch all the shows from the Arrowverse.
But LoT makes it tough for me in some episodes. I mean yeah, there are good episodes, with interesting settings, action and comedy parts.
But this last episode was one of the worst. A snoozefest at first and then it gets even worse....Jane Austen setting....then Bollywood dancing and singing?????? That's far worse than boring.
Only in the last seconds of the episode some kind os suspense showed up. I hope that was the worst one... Will watch the other 5 episodes to finish off season 4, can only get better. (liked the episode with Nixon before that one :-) )
I'm a guy who is entertained rather easily, I'm not very critical and watch all the shows from the Arrowverse.
But LoT makes it tough for me in some episodes. I mean yeah, there are good episodes, with interesting settings, action and comedy parts.
But this last episode was one of the worst. A snoozefest at first and then it gets even worse....Jane Austen setting....then Bollywood dancing and singing?????? That's far worse than boring.
Only in the last seconds of the episode some kind os suspense showed up. I hope that was the worst one... Will watch the other 5 episodes to finish off season 4, can only get better. (liked the episode with Nixon before that one :-) )
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Seems to me like they're cutting back on the effects budget. I wish they'd get rid of Gary and Mona instead. :(
https://comicbook.com/2019/08/23/legend ... on-5-exit/
https://comicbook.com/2019/08/23/legend ... on-5-exit/
Gary is in the show when the writers have material that they can't use for anybody else. If you ever watched Get Smart, Gary is the Larabee, who got lines the writers wanted to use but couldn't give to Maxwell Smart.
Mona is someone they could cut because the monster story line is done.
Mona is someone they could cut because the monster story line is done.
Those two take too much screen time. For a show struggling with its budget, they do have a bloated cast.
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bushwackerbob
- Legendary Member
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That is too bad about Brandon Routh and Courtney Ford. I thought that Routh's Ray Palmer was very funny, and that sense of humor will be missed. Ford's Nora grated on me at first but she kind of grew on me. Fun fact that I was not aware of: Routh and Ford are husband and wife.
Mona must have been added for the sake of diversity. Too bad she's such an annoying character.