Welcome back! It’s a post-Crisis on Infinite Earths world now, and that’s big news, because all our shows are living under one Earth now! While we won’t see how The Flash is affected by this until February, we are going to recap all this new Earth lunacy in Supergirl, Black Lightning, and Batwoman. But first, let’s welcome back the Legends of Tomorrow!
“Meet The Legends”
While part of our team was out for Crisis, things changed for all our Legends since their public saving of Earth at HeyWorld. They’ve become celebrities, the Time Bureau has been defunded, and to make ends meet, allow a documentary crew to follow them for a film, which a still rattled Sara returns from Crisis to find on the Waverider. Not that there’s much time to dwell on that film crew or deal with all the loss Sara had to handle, because a timequake sends the Legends going to 1910’s Russia to find a dead Rasputin…not so dead. So it’s up to our crew to put Rasputin back into the grave, but as Constantine learns, this is all done by Astra when she released all those evil souls last season, so putting the mad monk back to eternal rest is easier said than done.
Well, eventually our team gets its stuff together and defeats Rasputin ala a “Avengers: Rear Endgame” (I’ll let you look up what that means, but be assured, the Legends’ version does not involve anuses), and debunks the whole documentary in public to go back to being independent time bumblers again (albeit a little more independently well off thanks to a Faberge egg Mick stole that is worth millions). Meanwhile, Constantine takes a trip back to Hell (thanks to drinking some liquified Rasputin, gross) to confront Astra about her historical evil “encores”, and Nate is plagued by the image of some woman he’s never met before. But she left a message to Nate in the Waverider that she was taken out of the timeline, and she looks like…Zari? Hey wait, didn’t Behrad have a sister named Zari? And wait a minute, who’s this Behrad guy? He hasn’t been part of the Legends, right?
Hoo boy, um, Ray? You got some Rasputin all over you there, buddy.
–In other developments with our heroes, we got Nora touring the world still as a fairy godmother, Gary is working as Constantine’s assistant (thanks to that fairy godmother he has a buddy), Charlie takes off in a time jump ship out of boredom, and Mona is working as Mick’s publishing agent. The last development takes a turn when Mona gets inspired to basically take over Mick’s pen name of Rebecca Silver. Apparently we will see her again.
–Behrad is a massive stoner, and is…somewhat useful when not being mind controlled by Rasputin. But yeah, he does witness himself in a nursery after being born, and shares his stash with the crew.
–We do actually have a serious moment in all this lunacy when Sara admits how much Crisis has plagued her, with Oliver Queen’s death(s) and all the timeline changes. Ray has taken it better, especially meeting Superman (he’s super attractive, by his admission).
–Classic Constantine move: taking a demon possessed kid to a bar to have a few drinks. Then, after learning about Astra, expels said demon, and sends kid home with “a taxi and a lollipop”. Kind of a creepy way to handle exorcised people if you think on it.
–Gideon spends the episode jumbled up word wise by the timequake (and by that hidden message from Zari). “Captain, I have an incoming Bollywood.”
–The phone number for John Constantine’s answering service does have a message if you call it. I will say no more.
–Fun news ticker joke: Ryan Reynolds IS Detective Beebo.
–“Sometimes what happens on this ship would be hard for an audience to follow.” Said after watching Constantine vanish into a blue flame circle into Hell.
–“Of course it’s fake. I mean, how could Rasputin speak English?”
–“‘I’m sorry the vigilante you slept with when he was already dating your sister has died. Some say it’s better to have loved and lost, but I hope you never loved him at all.'” Worst sympathy card EVER, Ava. But then again, this is the person who thinks “time sex tourism” is a possible danger.
–“Shouldn’t have done the crossover.”
–“Size matters!”
“The Bottle Episode”
It would be safe to say Supergirl has gotten the short end of the positive Crisis changes, and it’s hard not to see why: her world has Lex Luthor as a well respected worldwide figure and controlling the DEO! And as we learn, Lex also made his mom reformed and successful too, and wants to help Lena (who he also made sure would remember all the changes that happened with their world) with her big mind control project. And while it seems she waffles between trusting Kara or Lex, she goes with the devil she knows as her brother. Mind you, he admits under influence of a truth seeker he will probably betray her at his earliest convenience and that Lillian is also working with Lex, that’s a problem for another time.
This episode has Brainy being visited by alternate reality doppelgängers of himself (not an uncommon problem as we’ll discuss in the notes below), and one of them warns not to open “the bottle”, lest dire consequences ensue. That “bottle” happens to be an Earth bottled by one of the errant Brainiacs, and our Brainy is able to convince his double to not do that and destroy our Earth. Brainy also learns from another Brainy that Leviathan is still very much kicking on Earth, and because of that, needs to reluctantly partner with Lex to stop it! And the first clue to that comes from a familiar yet maybe not familiar face anymore: an imprisoned Winn Schott!
Oh, this is indeed the darkest universe.
–Brainy loses those inhibitors on his head (which was put on by his dad out of fear he would end up like his overzealous mother), and he turns into the Brainiac 5 of the comics in appearance. Plus he has the info of those two remaining Brainys that didn’t go into that bottled Earth (like the evil Brainy and those Kryptonian witches). But, he’s broken up with Nia (again!) because of this Leviathan hunt needing no distractions, which…man, I feel bad for Nia here. Being broken up with is happening every other episode to her now!
–So we get many doubles of Jesse Rath as Brainy this week, along with a surprise appearance of his sister, Meghan, as the female Brainy who alerts him to Leviathan. And we have other doppelgängers from other gone Earths running around, like Al (or Als in this case), and those Kryptonian witches from season three, albeit less evil but still helpful for that evil Brainy in his attempt to open that bottled Earth.
–Speaking of Leviathan, Andrea gets wooed by the lady in charge of it now to maybe take all this VR stuff to another level, like say a world everyone can stay indefinitely plugged into. I’ve seen that one season of Agents of SHIELD involving a virtual world, and can tell you how evil that is.
–It looks like Kara and company will be having a detente with Lex for now, but let’s be honest: that’s not gonna last long.
–Even William is looking into Lex and finding him not the beacon of peace he makes himself out as. As part of this Crisis change, he’s been investigating LexCorp instead of Leviathan for the murder of his buddy we saw earlier this season.
–Even Kara is disgusted by that infomercial for the DEO where she’s with Lex. Same here.
–N’Sync for the soundtrack of your bar fight is never cool. Accept that.
–“The suave one is right.”
–“No homicides?” “No unnecessary homicides.”
“The Book of Markovia, Chapter One: Blessings and Curses Reborn”
You would think after Crisis that Black Lightning would catch a minute or two of rest at home, but nope, he comes back (as well as Jennifer, who was last stuck in that antimatter limbo) to Freeland to all the problems he left. First, there’s helping Anissa, Henderson, and the Resistance as they recover more of the imprisoned metahumans from ASA custody.While contending with all this multiverse shenanigans and what’s happening now, he learns about Lynn’s addiction to Green Light, and she takes off to make or get another hit of the stuff to continue her research. Then there’s Jennifer, who is convinced that it’s time to kill Agent Odell, and she wants to be the one to do it (and keep in mind, she has no clue what Odell did to Khalil yet…).
Speaking of Odell, he’s getting desperate enough to want to turn Jennifer and the metahumans into mind controlled soldiers (thanks to the Resistance, that plan gets squashed). Jennifer and Brandon (who has an earthquake power fit that is cured by a vial of Lynn’s serum) get captured briefly by Odell’s men, but she uses her powers to help them escape. So we got Odell on the ropes, the Resistance scoring a major win, but a frantic Lynn out in the wind. And then there’s the discovery of who ordered that hit on Gambi last season: Lady Eve? As in “Lady Eve, who got killed in season one, before the hit on Gambi” Lady Eve? Uh oh.
Imagine having to explain you’re part of a superhero club now, AND you didn’t call any of them for help in this whole Freeland mess? Then you might be Black Lightning.
–So in the soundtrack front, we get a quality tune for the big raid on the ASA holding pen/Jennifer and Brandon escape sequence with Fela Kuti’s classic, “Zombie”.
–Jefferson and Jennifer really only discuss this Crisis related stuff with Gambi, as everyone else in their orbit has no clue what’s happened at all. They stay quiet about it, besides maybe now isn’t the best time to discuss the multiverse, anyway.
–That techno metahuman T.C. finds Gambi and gets some surrogate parenting from our favorite uncle. He also finds out about Lady Eve being connected to the hit on Gambi, so he’s being helpful, if a bit closed off from social contact.
–The ASA has not quite solved stabilizing the pod kids in the absence of Lynn, but her assistant might be almost there. I’m sure her being desperate for a Green Light hit is going to bring her into the ASA’s radar sooner rather than later.
–So we had some random dissension in the ASA ranks, especially when the one guard transporting Jennifer and Brandon learns his buddy has one of those control chips in him. I can’t help but think this could be an issue down the road for Odell.
–Of course Odell isn’t dumb enough to show up to meet Jennifer, but have a hologram instead. Frankly I’m amazed that SUV is still driveable after Jennifer lit it up like that.
–“If I catch you grinning before you solve our stabilization problem, you’ll wish you didn’t have teeth.”
“How Queer Everything Is Today!”
After Kate’s little break saving the multiverse, she’s back to dealing with things in Gotham, and last we left them, they weren’t so good. Her stepmom was killed by Alice, and that murder was framed onto Jacob, and the whole Kane family has been a mess since. Jacob is in prison, Mary is busy building a defense to help her dad while not dealing with her issues, Alice is literally pouring tea over Catherine’s grave, and Kate is fighting crime as she deals with gossip about her love life. Add to that, a hacker is causing all sorts of drama in Gotham, and Kate learns it’s a high school girl, who is using her computer skills to lash out at her being cruelly outed as gay to her parents.
Alice wants the high school hacker, Parker, to out Kate as Batwoman, because she still hasn’t figured out murdering their stepmom hasn’t really made Kate want to join her, but only made Kate want to take her down. After a tense confrontation involving a bomb at a school dance, Kate manages to capture Alice, and reveals she’s gay on her own terms (thanks for the help, Kara Danvers!). While Parker is given some community service for her crimes (like endangering a subway car full of people), it seems things are relatively back to normal, until who walks into Kate’s office, but…Beth? And isn’t crazy and isn’t Alice? Oh, those Crisis after effects!
It’s not the worst thing Kate has to deal with right now, but…it’s getting up there quickly.
–Now, we know Mouse isn’t this Beth we see at episode’s end at all, as Kate makes sure of that. Of course, he’s still out there and Alice is still in Crows custody, so we still have him to worry about.
–So, during the Crisis break, it seems Sophie has broken up with her husband indefinitely. Maybe not permanently, but this does open up a few things for the current runner of The Crows right now.
–It’s actually a sly trick on the show’s part that Mary thinks she sees Alice/Beth at that campus earlier, and the first assumption is maybe she’s just seeing things. Of course, the catch is she probably did see Beth, just not the Beth we have known since the series began.
–We spent a bit of time with Mary and that doctor she tried to recruit as an expert witness in Jacob’s defense. I’m a little suspicious as to why (as also because a noted character actor is in the brief role), but maybe that’s just me.
–Jacob’s time in prison general population is going okay, considering the possible amount of people there who might want him dead. Maybe next time will give him more danger behind bars.
–Luke isn’t jealous of Kate’s big mission to save the multiverse at all. She should mention he did show up, open shirted and all, with an old and deranged Bruce Wayne. Actually, don’t bring up the latter part.
–“You ever feel like you’re hiding from the world?” “I’m literally standing in a shadow.”
–“Catherine is dead, the sunny part is implied!”
–“Not. Happening.”
NEXT TIME: Legends of Tomorrow is taking a week break for the big Arrow finale, but meanwhile, Kara contends with an unfamiliar Winn Schott on Supergirl, the Pierce family finds themselves being hunted by Odell on Black Lightning, and Kate has to deal with doppleganger Beth plus imprisoned Alice’s machinations on Batwoman!
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