New season, new threats, new team member. Same old Legends. Picking up right where we left off the Legends realize aliens being dunked in the timeline means it’s their mess to clean up. Ava sees an opportunity to find Sara if they can just find an alien and interrogate it. Gideon is already on the case, locating an anomaly in 1955 San Bernardino, California. Starting at the local diner, Big Bang Burger, the entire town was killed in a night.
Spooner isn’t on board with looking for aliens when she’s spent most of her life hiding from them but Ava won’t take her home until they have a lead on Sara. For that, they need Spooner’s ability to speak with aliens.
The Legends head to Big Bang Burger, in their best 1950’s suburban garb, looking for the alien. While they’re scoping out the place, Zari talks to Behrad about sharing the totem. Behrad is reluctant to give it up. Ava and Constantine, meanwhile talk to some cops (treating us to John’s attempt at an American accent again) but they’re interrupted when the cops get a report over the radio.
Spooner has been sensing something around the burger joint. She pulls the glasses off a waitress, thinking they’re a disguise like Gary’s. Rory pulls up in a cop car, which he stole, because of course he did. He learnt the cops have been responding to disturbances at the deli, grocery, and butchers.
Thinking it’s the alien hungry for meat, Ava takes Spooner, John, and Rory to investigate leaving Zari, Behrad, and Nate to keep an eye on Big Bang Burger. The trio do that by applying to the help wanted ad.
At the deli, Spooner senses the alien again. They find an ‘alien’ eating the meat but their alien is just the Big Bang Burger mascot. Spooner’s convinced he’s an alien in disguise. The others, no so much, but they’re perturbed enough by his craving for meat to take him back to the Waverider.
Nate and Behrad have gotten into their diner jobs wholeheartedly. For Behrad it reminds him of his job as a fry cook and the first time he found a place where he wasn’t just Dragon girl’s brother. Zari thinks it’s his excuse to keep the totem from her.
On the Waverider, Gideon confirms their alien is just a guy in an alien suit, not the other way around. Constantine uses a spell to divine an alien presence that makes the guy puke up a lot of the Big Bang Burger special sauce. Spooner realizes the sauce is the alien which is why she was sensing it in normal humans. Ava asks Spooner to talk with it, getting frustrated when she doesn’t. Mick’s pessimism isn’t helping either. When the Big Bang crew learns the alien is in the sauce they realize to their horror just how many burgers they’ve sold.
They try to take the sauce, but the owner, Burt, stops them, thinking they want to steal the secret recipe. But when the other waitress attacks them after eating raw meat they convince the owner to tell them where he got the sauce. He admits his wife makes it.
Meanwhile, somewhere else in the universe, Sara and Gary have crash-landed on an alien planet. Gary’s nervous about where they could be. He wants to stay on the ship and send a distress signal for the Legends. Sara, never one for sitting around, decides to take action. When they see a dog outside the ship, she elects to follow it. It leads them to a hut where they meet Amelia Earhart, who invites them inside for a meal. She doesn’t remember how she got there, the last thing she remembers is soaring over the pacific. Sara wants Amelia to look at their ship, hoping she can help fix it. Amelia insists they have their meal first.
Back in 1955, Ava’s group arrives at the owner’s home. Spooner’s getting a strong sense from the house, getting Ava excited. Spooner doubles down that she can’t talk to aliens like Ava wants. When she says Sara is already dead, Ava’s temper flares. She goes in alone, leaving Constantine with Spooner.
Ava introduces herself to Burt’s wife, Ronda, saying she’s with the police. Ronda assumes this means she’s married to one of the officers, which Ava plays along with. She tries buttering her up with flattery but doesn’t get the truth about the sauce. But as she’s leaving some of the sauce falls from a vent.
Outside the house, Spooner and Constantine notice something in the garage. It’s the pod the alien crashed in. Spooner’s surprised when she realizes she can read the writing. She’s not sure what it means but their alien isn’t sauce. They try to relay the message to Ava but interrupts to focus on her own search. She finds a giant cocoon, oozing the secret sauce that has the town hooked. Before she can do anything, Ronda knocks her out.
When she comes to, Ronda has her tied up. She explains how Big Bang Burger was failing and straining her marriage with Burt. But when Burt accidentally ate some of the alien slime and loved it, she played it off as her recipe, later finding the alien cocoon in the attic. She thinks it was sent there to save her marriage and the business. Ava tries to reason with her but when that doesn’t work Spooner sneaks up and knocks her out.
At Big Bang Burger the ravenous masses are back in full force and they’re all hungry for meat. Zari has the idea to use her calming herbal mix, Dragon Ash, on the burgers to knock everyone out. Zari offers to help, much to Behrad’s surprise. In turn, he gives her the totem.
Back at the house Ava, Spoon and Constantine deduce that the sauce made everyone eat uncontrollably to fatten them up for when the alien does break out of its cocoon. Ronda wakes up, but as she’s giving her evil speech, a moth-like alien bursts from the cocoon and eats her whole. The Legends can only watch as it crashes through the roof and takes to the air.
At Big Bang Burger, working together Zari, Behrad and Nate get everyone fed and the Dragon Ash does knock them out. But just as they’re getting the horde under control, they get the message from the others about the alien coming their way.
After the alien eats the owner of Big Bang Burger, Ava concedes they’re not talking with it and lets Spooner kill it. With the mission wrapped up, the Legends return to the Waverider. Ava’s having a post-mission drink, pouring one for Sara out of habit. When Spooner joins her, she offers the glass to her. Spooner apologises that she couldn’t help find Sara, but Ava isn’t giving up just yet.
Ava apologises for how she treated Spooner, not thinking about how she’d feel. She confides in Spooner, letting her know that her past encounters with aliens haven’t made her crazy, they made her vigilant. In turn, Spooner reveals her mom was taken by the aliens too but she was gone after Spooner woke up. She’d spent all this time hoping that killing an alien would give her the solace she’s been looking for, but it didn’t.
Ava invites her to join the Legends, offering to help her learn about whatever connection she has with aliens. Spooner finds a new conviction. There are more aliens out there, that could lead them to Sara and that she can kill. Ava’s not entirely enthused that’s the takeaway Spooner landed at, but she’s not going to argue right then.
The Tarazi siblings are detoxing from the mission together while watching a news report on what happened to Big Bang Burger after the owners were killed. Turns out the waitress took over and rebranded into a familiar greasy fast food place (one hint, the Bang was replaced with Belly).
Behrad offers to share the totem with Zari from now on, but Zari thinks she can be useful to the team without it. They argue until Zari 1.0 inside the totem can’t listen to them anymore and magically splits in two so they both have it.
Back with Sara and Gary, Amelia’s serving them coffee. Sara asks a question about how she managed by herself but Amelia starts repeating the story of how she disappeared verbatim from before. Realizing something is wrong, Sara and Gary try to leave. Amelia’s face contorts and her tongue, a blue, serpent-like tongue, strikes Sara. Gary knocks her out, helping Sara get out. The strike seems to have poisoned Sara, leaving her weak and struggling to walk. Gary tries to distract Sara, or maybe himself, from the gravity of the situation by talking about hers and Ava’s wedding. In the distance they see lights approaching them.
Review
Legends of Tomorrow has always worked best when it leaned into its quirkiness and doing the things only it could do. They have a ship that goes anywhere and anywhen? Give them historical figures misplaced through time. There’s a warlock on the team now? Make mythical creatures and demons the weekly menace. There was the question of how Legends would set itself apart from its arrowverse sister, Supergirl, with aliens as the newest seasonal conflict variant. Legends of Tomorrow’s answer to that is leaning into a monster flick style with the aliens. At least that’s the premise for ‘Meat: The Legends.’
It works perfectly with Legends established style, down to the B-movie quality effects on the monster. There’s a cheesiness to the monster’s look that feels intentional, as though they’re poking fun at themselves. It will be interesting if this carries through the season or was a stylistic choice for the episode, a way of leaning into the 1950’s aesthetic.
The character dynamics taking shape, new and old, are interesting to see unfold. Last week I talked about Nate stepping up to support Ava and there are some shades of Zari doing the same. Spooner’s the newest rebel child on the ship, sure to butt against more heads going forward. Behrad, Zari, and Nate continue to be a comedic trio (Charlie knew what she was doing, putting the three of them together in the sitcom). Zari’s unenthused energy plays well off of Behrad’s and Nate’s usually 110% gung-ho vigour, but she doesn’t let herself get left behind. Also, in their trio, she’s also usually the one holding the brain cells.
Only Legends Could
- “I would have gone with suburban slaughter,” a Stabcast ref. What’s it going to take to make this a real thing?
- Of course, Gary has a deck of cards themed after ‘strong American women.’ RBG is the ace of spades.
- Constantine saying ‘gruesome eviscerations’ in that accent was a highlight.
- Between giant Beebos and universes getting kickstarted, Amelia Earhart being on an alien planet could have been well within the realm of possibility.
- Big Belly Burger was started by a black woman.
- Zari 1.0 appearance!
Images courtesy of the CW
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