Legends of Tomorrow season 5, episode 14 review: Star trek into madness

DC’s Legends of Tomorrow season 5 took the show into weirder territory than ever before, but was “The One Where We’re Trapped On TV” worth all the madness?

Television’s most off-the-wall fantasy took another turn this week as DC’s Legends of Tomorrow season 5 presented the Arrowverse‘s most unique show with its strangest offering yet (and if you’ve watched the show, you’ll know that’s really saying something).

The show’s fifth season has seen The CW’s group of outcasts and misfits attempt to track down the Loom of Fate before Charlie’s two sisters – the Fates – could reunify it and control humanity’s very existence. Even though saving the world was motivation enough, the writers expertly upped the ante over the past couple of episodes to give multiple Legends cause for using it for themselves, and that was taken to a whole new level in the previous installment.

With all of the Legends presumably killed in a zombie apocalypse in London, Charlie returned to the Waverider to catch up with her evil sisters, agreeing to help them weave the Loom back together. The hook deliberately played her motivations with an air of mystery, but they were more clear than ever in the ridiculously bonkers “The One Where We’re Trapped On TV”.

Fates aren’t sealed

The purpose of this episode was to simply highlight that the Fate sisters had successfully used the Loom of Fate to rewrite destiny and it wasted little time in doing that. However, it also spent most of the episode doing the same thing (albeit in the unorthodox way we’ve come to expect from Legends of Tomorrow), and still managed to produce very enjoyable results.

With Nate, Behrad and Zari inhabiting the sitcom known as Ultimate Buds, Sara, Ava and Mick transported somewhere in the galaxy for Star Trip and Astra and Constantine ending up in Highcastle Abbey, this one pulled no punches when it came to, well, everything really. It was an ambitious crossover of styles that was even more meta than Legends usually is and yet felt completely in-line with its image.

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We soon learned that Charlie had written them into TV in order to protect them, making a deal with her sisters that allowed her to keep them alive provided they became the involuntary television influencers that the Fates wanted them to be. However, being the outlandish group of outcasts that they are, they bucked the odds and relocated their free will.

Yes it was hard to take much of the plot seriously when you can hear a fake laugh-track playing over part of it and corny OTT dialogue coming out of Sara Lance’s mouth, but that was the whole point of this strange adventure. And because it was so deliciously self-aware, it worked like a dream.

Return of the Legends

The episode was particularly successful in wrapping up a number of the long-running storylines surrounding siblings Zari and Behrad, as the original iteration of the former returned to screens while the latter was resurrected by the Loom itself.

As Nate’s quest to find the original Zari took up much of the season, her return was always inevitable – and the pair’s emotional reunion made for a special moment. What was a little more unexpected was Charlie’s last-minute decision to split the personalities and allow both Zaris to exist at the same time – something that seems almost too good to be true (even for Legends).

Behrad’s comeback also felt like something of a certainty because it was what drove Zari 2.0. to track down the Loom, and now that he’s back, let’s just hope that no last minute changes write him out again – because at this point Shayan Siobhan really should be a series regular.

Legendary Leftovers

• The production values on this episode were insane. It was an ambitious task and everyone involved pulled it off really well.
• Can Sara and Ava be the co-captains of the USS Faterider forever now, please?
• Mick’s villain hair is fabulous!
• The fact that Astra got some closure by reuniting with her mother made all of the madness worthwhile.
• The scene between Constantine and Astra was surprisingly touching and it made this writer feel a little misty-eyed.
• Sitcom Nate landing an audition for the lead role on Arrow is everything.
• With the Legends back out of the TV world, they’ll set their sights on the Loom of Fate as they battle the Fate sisters in the season finale next week.
• Another strong episode that continued the show’s upward trajectory, Legends of Tomorrow has improved a great deal throughout its fifth season – allowing it to recapture some of that former glory.

DC’s Legends of Tomorrow season 5 returns to The CW next Tuesday, June 2, at 9:00 p.m. ET. to air the season finale. What did you think of this week’s penultimate installment? Let us know in the comments below!