*Spoiler warning for Legends of Tomorrow, season 4, episode 9.
Well it’s been quite a long wait for Legends of Tomorrow to return since its midseason finale in December, but it is finally back, and with a bang. This episode, the Legends travel to Mexico City 1961, and enter the world of lucha libre wrestling. If that’s not the perfect setting for a Legends of Tomorrow episode, I don’t know what is.
Ok, so there’s a lot going on with this episode, so I’ll start with some backstory. The midseason finale ended with some government goons, sent by Nate’s dad Hank, trying to kidnap the kaupe – on of the monsters the Legends captured – from the Time Bureau so that they could do experiments on him. Mona, the magical creature caretaker from the first half of the season, stopped them from taking the kaupe, being that she’s in love with him (I know, very The Shape of Water), but got herself hurt in the process.
This episode picks up with Mona being framed for letting the kaupe out, and the Legends having to track the kaupe down. While tracking him, they encounter Mona, who avoided Gary wiping her memory, escaped from the hospital, and sent the kaupe back in time to hide him from, as she calls them, “the men in black.” The Legends take custody of Mona and set out to track the kaupe through time. While Sara sends Zari to do some digging around the Bureau – see if Mona’s conspiracy theory has some truth to it – Mona and the team go to Mexico City 1961 to get the kaupe.
El Lobo in the wrestling ring on Legends of Tomorrow. Photo courtesy of the CW, screenshot by Linda Maleh.
What they find when they get there is that the kaupe has worked his way to the top of the lucha libre wrestling hierarchy, winning every match, and going by the name El Lobo. The Legends manage to capture him, but after Sara hears from Zari about what she’s uncovered at the Bureau, they’re not so eager to hand him over.
Zari, while snooping around the Bureau, discovers that the real security footage has been stolen, and replaced with footage of Mona freeing the kaupe. Her only clue to who stole the footage is a phone number, and luckily for her, Nate recognizes it immediately as his dad’s. They decide to go to a benefit that night that Hank will be attending so that they can steal his phone and see the real footage. Sara decides to join so that she can explain to Ava in person what’s going on.
Nate and Zari manage to steal Hank’s phone, and the footage confirms Mona’s theory, but when Sara explains the situation to Ava, she is unmoved. She doesn’t care that the creatures under her care are being abused, or that Mona was framed. All she wants is to get the kaupe back into custody so that her job will be safe. When Sara refuses to hand the kaupe over, it puts their relationship on the rocks.
Caity Lotz as Sara at a benefit on Legends of Tomorrow. Photo courtesy of the CW, screenshot by Linda Maleh.
Back in Mexico City, Ray comes up with a plan to put history back on track. Since they took the kaupe, riots have erupted over his disappearance. Constantine realizes that they need one last match between the kaupe and another wrestler – El Cura, who’s supposed to be big in wrestling history. The idea is that El Cura will make his comeback, and El Lobo will lose for the first time, allowing him to exit the luchadore scene gracefully.
The fight is going well, until Ava orders her agents to disrupt the fight and capture the kaupe. Sara, in response, orders the Legends to fight and stop the agents. The Legends, of course, take care of the agents easily, and El Cura gets to make a big show out of taking down one of the agents in the ring, earning him the respect of the crowd.
Now that they’ve got the agents off their backs, Mona can carry out her plan for the kaupe unimpeded. She wants to send him back to his kingdom in ancient Hawaii, and go with him. The funny part is that she’s basing this off of one of Rory’s books that he had published, where two of the characters – Buck and Garima – from different worlds run off so they can be together. Rory tells her though, without revealing that he’s the author (he published the books under the pen-name Jessica Silver), that Buck and Garima don’t end up together since they’re from different worlds. This makes Mona realize that she needs to let the kaupe go on without her. However, right before she’s able to send him off, an agent comes along and shoots the kaupe. In her rage, Mona turns into a female kaupe, and rips the agent apart.
It’s unclear how Mona transformed into a kaupe, but maybe it’s the scratch that the kaupe gave her in the season finale. Nonetheless, this is an interesting twist. Meanwhile, back at the Time Bureau, Sara tries to fix things with Ava, but Ava is so angry about Sara choosing Mona and the kaupe over her, that she breaks up with Sara. Nate confronts his dad about stealing the footage, and then pretends that he’s okay with it and asks Hank to bring him in on these things in the future. After Hank leaves, he tells Zari to keep digging, so he’s clearly going to be a double agent, which is a lot of fun.
This episode was an absolute rollercoaster, and it was the perfect way for the show to come back. The Legends are rogues again, and I think that is a necessary dynamic for the show. They’ve been the good employees of the Time Bureau for the whole first half of the season, and honestly, that just doesn’t suit the nature of the show. The Legends are best when they are breaking all the rules, and doing things their own messed up way. It’s good to see them back at it.
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