Legends of Tomorrow: There will be brood

August 30, 2021 6:45 PM - Season 6, Episode 14

Magic mushrooms and bad trips--Legends style.

AV Club review

posted by sardonyx (5 comments total)

First, Astra and Spooner looked fabulous. Great hair and make-up.

I guess Behrad is still visiting his parents.

I know that over the run of the show, the Legends have dealt with time travel and magic and aliens but it really feels like the writers have no idea what to do, so they've stuck all those elements into the pot and thrown the mixture at the wall to see what will stick. Personally, I think it's just too, too much. Not only are the alien mushrooms tied to the magic fountain, but the same alien-magic fountain, which is the same thing responsible for protecting the earth from other aliens (which would have been useful during past cross-overs when aliens attacked), is also responsible for Spooner travelling through time. Nope. That's one or two levels too many.

I still don't like Bishop as a character, and I don't like that he's the one that outsmarted John. Don't get me wrong, I'm okay with John getting beat at his own game. I just don't like that it's Bishop defeating an already compromised John. I think John deserves a better end, actually a more fitting, end than that. Or a least an opponent who saw John as more than the nearest pawn. Okay, maybe that's what John actually deserved, but I'm still not a fan of Bishop. The best villains have something compelling about them, but Bishop is is flat and annoying.

Kayla taking off (after nerve-pinching Mick) and then coming back doesn't make a lot of sense. Okay, maybe she thought she had time before Mick gave birth, but they should have come out and said that. And explained how she thought Mick and the eggs were going to survive what she did to him.

It's fitting, I suppose that Mick faces fire for his kids.
posted by sardonyx at 6:58 PM on August 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

Given that, as a character, John originated in the Swamp Thing comic, I did like the way the mushroomy forest (the Beige? the Greige?) claimed John's body. It felt very much like the Green claiming the Plant Elemental (although with less fire).
posted by sardonyx at 7:20 PM on August 30, 2021

While knowing that death in the DC-CW-verse is often temporary (or temporally shiftable), I think my main feeling at the end of this episode is that Legends hasn't earned the right to kill off a character like John Constantine. Borrow him like fan-fic writers at Yuletide, sure. And maybe if they were still at the top of their game it wouldn't rankle me. But after such a lackluster season, I had a very "how dare you, really" reaction. (Not that I even read much Hellblazer, mostly knew him from the Sandman comics, probably only read one trade paperback and a smattering of Swamp Thing, but 'harumph' I say anyway.)
posted by oh yeah! at 5:50 PM on August 31, 2021 [2 favorites]

I think you got to the essence of the problem, oh yeah! They didn't earn John's death. I think that's a large part of what was bothering me. Yes, Bishop is a big part of the problem but he's just symptomatic of the faults of the entire season. And I also agree that if John survived his own show and guesting on other Arrowverse properties, he should have been allowed to slide of of this alive and kicking (or at least licking his wounds and sulking like the loner he pretends to be). That would have been more appropriate.

The mushrooms were definitely one of the show's better F/X treatments. It's just a shame that they were wasted on this plot.

Yes, having Nate stand side-by-side with Zari 2.0 in that grouping and in that manner and at that point in time certainly teases that a relationship between the two of them might be in the works. And like you, under_petticoat_rule, I'm not in favour of that pairing in the least.
posted by sardonyx at 8:31 PM on August 31, 2021 [1 favorite]

I was actually touched by the whole Spooner plot, that she's from a different time, her mom wasn't abducted, SHE was, etc. And the girl they got to play Young Esparanza was adorable and a dead ringer for her. So kudos for that plot, and Astra's friendship.

The rest of it....uh.....
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:31 PM on September 5, 2021 [2 favorites]