'Legends of Tomorrow' S3E17 Recap: "Guest Starring John Noble"
By Khalil Johnson4/03/2018View Comments
Last week on Legends of Tomorrow, there were some surprising revelations as well as an unfortunate loss. Time Bureau agent Ava Sharpe found out that she's a clone from 2213, and it looks like Rip Hunter knew that all along. That would surely cause some friction between the two of them for the foreseeable future. Also, Amaya's relative Kuasa was killed by Nora/Mallus as she betrayed the demon trapped in time to try and save her family (more on that theme later). With the loss of Kuasa, Amaya realized that she would have to break the rules of time, and travel to 1992 and save her village from a massacre, which would have devastating results.
This week, while building on the overall season-wide arc of the Legends against the imprisoned demon Mallus, this was also one of the campiest, cheesiest, most interestingly fun episodes of the season. From the beginning of the episode, we knew we were in for a fun rude. While Amaya was on her mission to save her family throughout history, the Legends had to save a very famous first black president of the united states from being murdered by a telepathic metahuman gorilla. Yes, that's right, Gorilla Grodd went back in time to Occidental College to try and murder Barak Obama. Just typing that remarks on how crazy this show is. While the young actor didn't look anything like a young Barry, he did capture the mannerisms quite well. The trailer made it seem like the whole episode was going to focus on saving young Barak, it gets resolved rather quickly. There is a running theme of explaining time travel and ancient demons to Obama and then erasing his memory. You can tell the writers are fans of Barak as he even uses some of his "Obama logic" to counsel Sarah when she has a dilemma.
While saving Barak from an angry gorilla was fun, the main part of the story centered on Mallus and how to stop him. Amaya wanted to save her village from a massacre by marauders, as it was supposed to happen in history. If that even changed from history, it would create a time aberration that would free Mallus from his prison, and unleashing chaos on the world. At the same time, the Legends want to support their teammate. At first, Zarii tries to think of any time loophole that would allow history to be changed without creating additional problems. Nate and Wally meet up with Amaya to try and talk her out, and end up helping her. There Nate meets an older Amaya who doesn't recognize him, nor does she remember any of her adventures with the Legends. This means that one day, she will stop her adventures with the Legends, and will willingly have her memory erased so that she's not suffering from any heartbreak of leaving her newfound family.
A surprising addition to the Legends in this episode is none other than Damien Dahrk. As he sees what is happening to his daughter, the ice cold bad guy doesn't want the demon to take over his daughter and opts to help the Legends stop Mallus. For Sarah, this is a hard pill to swallow. Remember, he killed her sister Laurel Lance on Arrow way back when and Sarah has had to deal with that pain for quite some time. She's had many opportunities to try and kill him, and now would have to end up working with him. After receiving some counseling from Barak Obama, she decides to work with her enemy but promises him that she's going to kill him eventually, something that Damien knows is fair at this point.
And this is where Legends of Tomorrow once again gets weird!
Norah is under the control of Mallus and Damien knows that neither he nor the Legends can reach her as she can only hear Mallus in her head. That's when they notice Rory has been watching Lord of the Rings on the television most of the episode. They all realize that Mallus' voice is eerily similar to actor John Noble's voice as he played Lord Denethor in the Oscar-winning film. Now with actor John Noble providing his vocal talents for the voice of Mallus, this allowed the show to go full-on camp and have him guest star as himself, hence the title of the episode. Ray goes to New Zealand while Lord of the Rings is being filmed and catches up with John Noble and tells him that there are a few script re-writes needed and records Noble following a script that he created, specific to Norah. Then, working with Damien Dahrk, they kidnap Norah, put her in one of Constantine's "magic prisons" and have Ray use his atom suit to travel into her ear she hears Noble's new lines, trapping her.
The Legends then decide that they are going to help Amaya save her village. Even though it would destroy the time prison Mallus is stuck into, they could all use the totems to defeat him once and for all. With Damien Dahrk using the death totem, they all would have a chance to stop the monster once and for all. They head to 1992 Zambesi to help Amaya and her daughter to stop the slaughter of her village and prepare to face off against Mallus. Ava leaves as she finally confronts Rip Hunter and finds out that she's the 12th Ava clone that he has used making her feel worthless. While Sara does reveal her love for her, she still departs. As Amaya's daughter wields the totem and faces off against the marauders, Mallus still hasn't been released. Them Damien reveals that he betrayed the team, freeing Grodd, who then starts attacking the Zambesi people. While Amaya's daughter fights off against Grodd, he is telepathic and is able to use his mind powers to telepathically stop her from fighting him. Nate uses the Earth totem to stop and defeat Grodd. And with that, the village is saved. Now, this is a major change in the Arrowverse as this changes all of the history for the Vixen character. This might have "Flashpoint" like effects on the timeline. With the timeline changed, Mallus is able to be freed from his prison, and now the Legends will have to face him head-on.
Next week is the season finale for Legends of Tomorrow and the Legends will face off against their enemy!