DC’s Legends of Tomorrow – Dancing Queen

By: Maggie Stankiewicz

It’s London 1977 and the Queen has lost her mind. Reveling in the anarchy of London’s Punk Underground, the Queen’s new groove sends ripples through the Legends’ timeline. Nate (Nick Zano), still in desk-job mode, partners with Ava (Jes Macallan) to fill Sara (Caity Lotz) in on their next mission: God save the Queen. Nate informs the Captain that he’s sitting this one out and they take to the Waverider for a trip to the not-so-distant past. Ray (Brandon Routh) has provisioned a sleek new bracelet to hold Zari’s (Tala Ashe) totem while Constantine (Matt Ryan) and Mick (Dominic Purcell) butt heads over who has more testosterone. A very myth-sterious punk band called The Smell appeared alongside the Queen’s mental breakdown, making them the number one magical suspect. Sara decides it the team’s mission to infiltrate the band – everyone except for the rule-abiding Ray.

They arrive at the club where The Smell is performing. Anarchy ensues. Constantine and Mick continue their bickering, which quickly evolves into an all-out brawl. The club erupts into a fist fight and The Smell flee from the incoming police. They end of jumping into the Legends’ getaway van, driven by none other than Ray Palmer. Her drives them to safety, ever the unlikely punk. Things didn’t go according to Sara’s plan, but they seldom do. Ray will need to assimilate to get the job done. Constantine tells Ray a trick for catching a Leprechaun, whom he thinks is in the band. Ray takes the suggestion on board while the rest of the gang mock the absurdity of it all. John storms out to enjoys the London scene, leaving the rest to deal with the issue at hand.

Ray befriends the band’s leader, a cool chick named Charlie (Anjili Mohindra). He introduces himself as Rayge, a clean-cut man with a wicked rage problem. He appeals to them with a bundle of lies, discussing disdain for disco and all things status quo. While introductions are being made, Ray tries to expose the suspected Leprechaun. His attempt fails as there are no Irish creatures in the band after all. So, the magic is hiding elsewhere. By the next morning, Ray has established himself as The Smell’s newest roadie and they enlist him to steal the Queen’s beloved Corgi. Thankfully, Ray is not alone in his mission – he has Sara and Mick in his ear and close by. Ray distracts the Queen’s royal dog walker while Sara incapacitates the guards, leaving the dogs ripe for the picking. Ray scoops up a pup and brings it back to his new friends.

Back at the Time Bureau, Nate struggles with the monotony of a desk job. Gary (Adam Tsekhman) assures Nate that it’s not all paperwork, and vows to introduce Nate to the new rebellion. The first stop is Taco Monday, which is completely different from Taco Tuesday. Obviously. Gary enjoys a little flirting with the cute food delivery girl, then it’s onto the next thing. They notice a blip on the anachronism meter. Nate convinces Gary to go out on an unapproved mission to tie up the loose end and off they go. They are suited up, this time in literal suits, to discuss Amaya’s dumping of Nate…until a Saber-toothed tiger appears in front of them. They open up a portal back to the Time Bureau before the prehistoric creature can grab them. Mission…kind of accomplished?

The Smell decide to honor Rayge’s successful dog theft by giving him a tattoo. He hesitates for a moment, but caves. Ray’s always wanted to be a rebel. As he gets his new ink, Charlie spills the details on their plans to start a movement. She reveals herself to be this week’s myth-tery by telling him that it will require just a little magic. The exchange reminds Ray of why he’s there – not to be a punk, but to snuff out the magical blip. Conflict begins to brew within him but he leaves to meet up with Mick to discuss the mission anyway. Mick begins to suspect that Ray is losing his sense of the mission. Nevertheless, Ray returns to The Smell – who just so happened to have found a token from Ray’s time traveling fun: his stint in a disco group. They bind him up and question the truth of his background.

Across town, Zari tracks John down. She finds him drinking a beer and chatting up a pretty bartender. In typical Zari fashion, she pokes fun of his brooding loner shtick, but it falls flat when he tells her that the bartender is his mother. Zari’s tone changes as she sits beside John as he watches his father and mother flirt with one another. Constantine tells Zari he plans on stop his own conception by kicking his father’s junk into oblivion. However, because of the gold ol’ time paradox, he fails and then gets his butt kicked by his father. Zari leaves with him and tries to sympathize with John’s plight – but you can’t relate to a man who deems himself unrelatable. Feeling just a bit too vulnerable, John leaves Zari.

The Smell have found Ray out for the boy scout he is. Each member, sans Charlie, ream him for the lies, and for being what they consider to be…lame. When they get too brutal with him, Charlie speaks up. Charlie lectures her crew on the insignificance of the past – all that matters is who they are, and who they want to be now. And it’s true. Especially to Ray. A hero, a failed CEO, a Legend, and now…a punk in his own right. The Smell goes their separate ways to ruminate, and Ray joins Charlie for a little one-on-one. Ray is able to talk about how he misses Nate and Amaya, and Charlie discusses her status as a criminal, a fugitive, an outcast. Charlie tells Ray about her incarceration, how she was locked up for being different – for being…magic. In a demonstration of her powers, Charlie turns herself into the Queen, into Declan. Ray is of course receptive – he’s lost sight of what he was sent there to do.

Ray is struggling with his duty to send Charlie to hell. He reports back to Sara via their com-tech and tries to convince the Legends to let Charlie go free. Mick cuts off the coms for a meeting on the Waverider. Sara believes in Ray, but the others are convinced that he’s in too deep. They de-plane the ship and make their way over to save Ray. Ray senses their distrust as they approach The Smell’s base. Ray tells Charlie about his duty and then shows her his Atom suit. Charlie, frightened and desperate, renders Ray unconscious and takes on his likeness before jumping into the Atom suit. When Sara and Mick make their way inside The Smell’s lair, they’re not ready to be attacked by “Ray.” When Sara and Mick go silent, John and Zari make their way inside as well. They too are greeted by a particularly angry “Ray.” Only then does the real Ray wake up. He runs out to the scene of the fight and jumps in front of Charlie. He commands the Atom suit to disassemble and Charlie returns to her preferred form.

Zari calls upon her powers to push Charlie against the wall while John opens up the portal to hell. Ray isn’t ready to give up on Charlie. Charlie takes advantage of the situation by morphing into each of the Legends, calling them monsters…and she’s right. Zari releases her hold on Charlie, who has shapeshifted into the form of Amaya (Maisie Richardson-Sellers). John, not one to be denied, removes the shifter’s ability to transform. Charlie is now stuck with Amaya’s face. Back in 2018, Gary collected a little plant for Nate after their first mission as “Time Bros.” He puts the plant on Nate’s desk to commemorate the moment – but something isn’t quite right about it. The plant is moving. Not only is it moving, but it’s magical and it’s hungry. The plant soon liberates itself from the terracotta pot it was housed in and runs through the Time Bureau.

The year 2018 is chock-full of strange things. Charlie, now wearing Amaya’s face, is imprisoned on the Waverider. Ray is still riding on his wave of rebellion and finds the courage to tell the rest of the Legends about his act of defiance when he freed Nora. Sara is too pre-occupied by The Charlie/Amaya debacle to discipline him properly. The prehistoric hungry plant has finally been cropped out of the timeline and Sara needs to make a choice. She returns to the Time Bureau to talk to Nate about the situation, but he tells her that he took the desk job for Ava and for himself – to escape the memory of Amaya. His confession makes Sara’s mind up for her. She can’t tell Nate about their new prisoner so she says that she thinks he should stay in the Bureau. She sends him off to clean up the rest of the mess – and then grabs Ava’s hand for some R&R.

Zari circles back to John. He tries to shut her down before he starts feeling vulnerable again so she hands him a picture she took of hims and his mother at the bar. If they’re going to be living together – they all need to get used to giving and getting from one another. The same goes for Mick, Ray and Charlie. They’re stuck together for the unforeseeable future and past.