*Spoiler warning for Legends of Tomorrow season 4, episode 3.
Sara dressed in punk garb on Legends of Tomorrow. Photo courtesy of the CW, screenshot by Linda Maleh
This episode, the Legends go back to the punk rock movement in London to figure what made the Queen go punk and tank the British monarchy. To do it, they need to get in good with a band called “The Smell”, to figure out what magic they’re hiding. When the mission goes sideways due to Mick and Constantine’s in-fighting, it winds up being clean-cut Ray who goes undercover with the band. It’s obvious just from one glance at Ray, that he’s no punk, so the band tests him by making him do things like steal one of the Queen’s corgis, and get a tattoo.While Ray knows that he’s supposed to be stopping them, he can’t help but bond with his new band mates, and start to really like them – trust Ray to see the good in everyone.
Most of the time Ray can be a pretty annoying character; he can be overly dorky, unrealistically nice, and unbearably perky. However, this episode we got to see the same goodness inside him that made him let Nora Darhk go last season, and that’s interesting. When the team tries to send the leader of the band to hell, who, it turns out, is actually a shapeshifter who is planning on masquerading as the Queen to take down the British monarchy, he stops them. He knows that this creature, even though magical, is not a bad person. Since they can’t let her go, and they decide not to send her to hell, Constantine removes her ability to shapeshift, and they imprison her on the ship. The awkward part? She’s stuck as Amaya. Right before Constantine freezes her shapeshifting abilities, she transforms into Amaya to get them not to send her to hell. So now a person who looks like Amaya, but isn’t, is trapped on the ship. It’s unclear if she’ll be in future episodes.
While the Legends are off in punk-rock England, Nate starts his new job at the Time Bureau, which he quickly learns is a boring desk job, and misses the field. When Gary spots a magical blip in the Pleistocene Era, instead of writing a report so some field agents could go deal with it, Nate convinces Gary that they should go deal with it themselves. They accidentally bring back a killer plant, which turned out to be the magical blip, and they have to work to smash it now that it’s loose in Time Bureau headquarters – the Little Shop of Horrors, except the plant has legs. When Sara comes to update him at the end of the episode, he admits that he doesn’t want to be on the ship anymore because he misses Amaya, so Sara decides not to tell him about the Amaya-look-alike situation.
Parts of this episode worked – namely the Nate part – while others felt like they were trying too hard – a Constantine sub-plot involving his dead mother and the punk-rock England part, though Ray’s arc almost made up for it – but one thing’s for certain, the team needs some new members. With Nate being the latest to leave the group, if not the show, the team is smaller than ever, and could use some new members to spice it up. Characters that were in last season that aren’t in this one are Jax, Martin Stein, Amaya, Wally, and Rip Hunter. It’s time for some new blood. Additionally, for the first time since its inception, the team is devoid of people of color. Those group dynamics are what make the show fun, so I hope they add some new characters soon.
