The big premiere
“Sometimes what happens on this ship would be hard for an audience to follow.”
Resident clone Ava Sharpe says this after exorcist and chaotic bisexual John Constantine chugs Rasputin remains in juice form to send himself back to hell. I don’t understand what’s hard to follow here.
The key to enjoying Legends of Tomorrow is accepting that nothing will ever make sense. The forgotten stepchild of the CW Arrowverse truly found its footing when it threw caution to the wind and embraced how buckwild a show about time traveling B-superheroes can be. This season 5 premiere was no different.
Episode 1 finds the Legends post-crisis on infinite earths, the biggest crossover yet that ended in restarting the universe, merging parallel earths, and the death of Oliver Queen. Captain Sara Lance returns from the journey with Ray and Mick, but she was the only one of the team to see the events firsthand. She’s also quietly grieving over the loss of her oldest friend. The rest of the team awaits the unpleasant surprise awaiting their return: Ava has allowed a film crew to document the Legends in hopes to restore their image. This means that, you guessed it, we get an Office-style mockumentary episode, embracing the shows absurdity and humor.
The time anomaly of the week that the team has to fix is none other than an immortal Gregori Rasputin who keeps coming back to life. Nate, Mona, and Ava all have polarizing ideas of how to fix this. For my own sanity in recapping this many events of this show, I will just tell you that it ends with the Legends doing what the MCU was afraid to do: A shrinkified Ray is thrown into Rasputin’s mouth and then expands to his full size, killing him instantly in a beautiful gory burst.
Meanwhile, Constantine takes his apprentice Gary (long live Constangreen) on a call for a possessed boy. Ol’ Johnny of course knows the demon possessing the child and takes him out for a pint before continuing with the exorcism. The demon informs John that Astra, the girl he failed to save who is now grown up in hell, has gone ahead with her plan to unleash famous souls from hell onto earth. Rasputin was her doing. See? He drank that Rasputin juice for a reason!
Sara shares an uncommonly touching moment with John, telling him to take care as he makes another wreckless decision of sending himself to hell (again!) Oliver’s loss is clearly taking a toll on her. At first, Ava isn’t sure how to be there for her girlfriend during her grief. The couple finally have a heart-to-heart mid-fight scene which ends in Sara swooping Ava down for a kiss. Bless this gay show.
Other mentionable changes are happening here in the long-run. We get the first taste of Behrad, Zari’s brother who’s now in her spot. Nate is slowly remembering Zari so we’re bound to see more of that. Mona also decides to leave the waverider when Mick passes on the Rebecca Silver moniker for her to continue writing his popular romance novels. Charlie goes rogue and takes off on a time pod to get away from it all. The heavy rotation of the waverider crew is in full swing.
Quite a lot going on for the series premiere of a show, but that is expected with the Legends. I wouldn’t want this wild show any other way.
