“Legends of Tomorrow” Episode 505: Charlie’s In Charge

Previously on Legends of Tomorrow, Constantine was confronted by Astra’s mother’s ghost, Natalie, who brought Charlie to Constantine because she broke the Loom of Fate, all while Astra sped up Constantine’s cancer so he’s on the brink of death.

We pick up where we left off, with Constantine collapsing on the floor. Gary and Charlie get him to the Waverider to try to fix him up, but the cancer is too far gone so all Gideon can do is sedate him.

Charlie uses the commotion of everyone fussing over John to try to sneak out of the ship again, but when she whisper-asks for the jump ship, she hears whispers back, and they aren’t Gideon. The whispers call her Clotho, and tell her that they see her and she can’t get away. (And I would like the record to state that I totally called she was one of the Fates, I just guessed the wrong one.)

Anyway before Charlie can make it off the ship, she runs into Behrad. She officially “meets” Zari, for the first time in this timeline, and Charlie kind of ogles her.

charlie smiles at zari

“I knew I loved you before I met you. I think I dreamed you into life.”

But Behrad snaps her out of it because it seems he and Charlie had a fling and he is determined to make it weird.

Charlie gets whisked to the team meeting and Ava is happy to see her; besides, they could use the extra hands, with Sara still in Star City and Mick off being heartsick and sulking.

Ava tells the team they’re going to tidy up the timeline and shows them a program her and Gideon made that will help them predict where the Encores will be. She calls it the Prognosticator and she is very proud.

Ava smiles dorkily

Me presenting my recap to Heather when I know I’ve made some very cheesy jokes.

The Prognosticator sends them to 1997 Hong Kong, where it seems like there’s a hiccup in the Triad, and Nate is excited to try his new scooter in Hong Kong traffic.

Ava and Charlie are sitting in a tea shop, waiting for the Encore to make themselves known so they can shoot them up with a sedative and bring them back to the Waverider.

Charlie and Ava, two gays on a date

:nature documentary voice: “And here we have a disaster queer and a power lesbian in the wild.”

Of course, it’s not just any tea shop, but a cover for a drug ring. Up on the Waverider, Zari tells them that the newspaper says Great Britain is about to hand over control of Hong Kong to China, but Ray says it’s not relevant; he’s supportive of her taking her QB (“Queen Bitch,” according to her) job seriously and doing research though.

Gary runs to the bridge to get Ray to help him stop Constantine from leaving, and after a brief stand-off with the stumbling Brit, he decides that since he can’t beat him, he’ll join him.

At the tea shop, Charlie is about ready to give up on this mission when someone in 13th century armor rolls up on a motorbike. He pulls off his helmet and Nate recognizes him as Genghis Khan.

And this is new; previously, their Encores have woken up right where and when they died. How did Genghis Khan end up in 1997? And when did he learn to ride a bike?

Charlie and Ava survey the scene

Bless Caity Lotz for actually putting two women in one frame throughout this episode. It’s rarer than you’d think, even on this show.

Khan marches through the tea shop and into the back room, where he demands to take control of the Triad.

Charlie is ready to make her move but Behrad is being a butt and trying to stop her so he gets himself shot at. Then three women who claim to be cops but maybe are actually Charlie’s Angels show up and join the fight.

three lady cops face off

This almost felt like a DC reference or nod I should have known but all I know is that I love them.

In spite of Behrad’s begging her not to, Charlie runs after Genghis Khan while the shoot-out continues in the main room. Ava has double-guns and it’s all pretty badass and this is where I’d like to remind everyone once again that Caity Lotz directed this episode.

Ava and two guns

Double the pistols, double the fun.

(I don’t know if they’re really pistols, don’t @ me.)

Nate becomes a distraction, and Charlie finds herself in a three-way standoff with Genghis Khan and Behrad.

But then all three of them click their guns to no avail. Khan says they got off easy that time and leaves; Behrad is shook, Charlie is annoyed.

Meanwhile in Northumberland, Constantine is stumbling around his house when he passes out on a summoning circle. He finds himself in purgatory, a clock on his arm ticking down like he’s in that one Olivia Wilde/Justin Timerlake movie, and face to face with a rather smug Astra.

Astra lookin smug

She could turn my gears any time she wanted.

He begs for his life, saying he can change Astra’s mother’s fate, but Astra doesn’t know why she should believe him. Everyone he tries to help ends up worse for wear. Before they can talk any further though, Ray has CPR’d him back to life and he has a little more time. And he’s not about to give up.

Back on the Waverider, Behrad is mad that Charlie “got them into” a gunfight, when the truth is if he wasn’t being a big baby, her plan could have worked. She tells him he could have helped with his air totem, but he doesn’t think he can stop bullets with it.

Ava knows they have to do more recon, so she asks Charlie if she’s up for some undercover. Charlie is offended they automatically assume the shapeshifter is down to do undercover, and Zari’s ears perk up…”You’re a what now?”

Charlie’s entire body shifts into Flirt Mode and she tells Zari that she can shift into anyone Zari wants. And Zari is VERY intrigued.

charlie and zari flirt

“This feels…oddly familiar.”

Beebo only knows how far this would have gone if Behrad and his fragile male ego hadn’t intervened. (I would once again like to state for the jury that I was VERY pro-Behrad until he decided to play the role of Nate in this episode and have no qualities of his own besides his obsession with a woman.)

Ava is confused as to why Behrad is being weird with Charlie when they used to be chummy, and Nate says probably they had sex so probably that’s why suddenly Behrad feels entitled to Charlie’s time and attention. Because as I mentioned, this path of logic is very Nate.

Down on the ground, Behrad air totems a henchman and Charlie shapeshifts into him,a nd Behrad is all, “Be careful,” and I want to vomit because I’m pretty sure he wasn’t this protective of his own inexperienced sister so why is he treating this very old, literally magical woman like she’s a fragile thing.

zari looks annoyed

“I could turn into a fire giant and eat you, please stop condescending to me.”

It reminds me of when I was in high school, and one of my best guy friends asked me out. I had already started to struggle with/fight my feelings for girls and I thought it was the perfect solution; he was already my best friend, so all that would change is that we would kiss or whatever and then I could see what all the fuss was about. But then the next day, everything changed. He started trying to carry my books for me, to sit with me at lunch, calling me every day after drama rehearsal. I was like “Hey we had a good thing going why are you suddenly treating me differently and acting like I’m a queen who could get you banished from the kingdom at the drop of a hat?” but it was because he thought that was how boyfriends should act, I guess.

I told him I liked things better before we started dating and he started holding doors open for me like I couldn’t leg press his entire body weight and he didn’t like that very much so we weren’t even friends anymore after that. So the moral of the story is, stop being weird, Behrad!

Anyway, inside Khan’s men have captured the cop from earlier.

Lady cop

WHO IS SHE

Khan threatens her son and I was really hoping we’d get to keep this lady for the final batter lady but spoiler alert we sure do not.

Back at Constantine’s Manor, Nora shows up with a little girl in tow, and apparently she has talked this girl into using one of her wishes to let Nora heal Constantine. She’s a bit of a brat at first, but after Constantine THREATENS TO HAUNT HER the poor traumatized baby makes the wish. But whatever Astra did is too powerful for Nora and she can’t fix it. So she whisks the girl away again and Ray watches her go with sadness in his eyes; it’s never enough time.

Nora looks sadly at Ray

“These hands could hold the world but it’ll never be enough, never be enough.”

Back in Hong Kong, Nate and Behrad are on a stakeout and Behrad admits that he and Charlie did hook up after Heyworld and now he’s feeling butthurt because she left without saying goodbye. The man they have in the backseat pipes up and says, “Maybe it wasn’t about you,” and just like that he’s the smartest man in the car. Nate, hilariously and ironically, tells Behrad to check his ego and just ask Charlie why she left without saying goodbye.

While Nate was giving advice he’s never taken, the man in the backseat snuck out.

Inside, the lady cop is drawing a map and giving Khan information, and Ava and Zari realize that Zari’s information DID end up being pertinent, because now they know the target is Prince Charles.

ava and zari look smart

TWO SMART LADIES BEING SMART SMARTLY WHILST LOOKING RATHER SMART

Now they know that Genghis Khan wants to take over control of Hong Kong, and they also learn that he DID wake up when and where he died, but he was in an impenetrable tomb so it took him 700 years to dig himself out. And honestly he seems extremely calm and rational, considering. His sword is his magical item and he uses his hell weapon to kill the lady cop. RIP, friend. We barely knew ye.

Khan pivots to Charlie, who still looks like one of his henchmen, and asks about his fleet, and she stutters an excuse and leaves, though Khan looks a bit suspicious.

Outside, Charlie hears the whispers again.

Charlie looks shooketh

:Jennifer Love Hewitt voice: WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR

Her form shifts a little but she fights to stay looking like her regular self. Distracted, she almost gets hit by a truck, but Behrad pushes her out of the way at the last minute. He is very dramatic about it but I’m pretty sure we’ve learned that she can flatten like a cartoon character and be fine. Charlie shoves him off her and storms off.

Charlie marches all the way back to the Waverider, where she runs into Marie Antoinette on her quest for a time courier. She’s kind of a hilarious color commentator and I kind of hope we get to keep Marie for a little while.

Marie antoinette in the brig

Just eatin’ a sandwich and serving some snark. In her ballgown. Casual.

Behrad confronts Charlie about her trying to ghost again and he admits to her that he was hurt when she left last time. Charlie snaps at him and says he’s way too attached to her after having mediocre sex, but despite his bruised pride, he asks her to not leave before the battle against Genghis Khan, and hands her the time courier.

Behrad goes back to the team and Ava sends him down to the ground with Nate while her and Zari QB from the ship.

Back in England, Constantine is running out of healing options and is quite cranky about it. He fights with Gary, he yells to the arch-angel Gabriel, he fights with the dog head on the end of his cane. He’s just a mess. But then he has a change of heart and realizes that he should be nicer to his friends who were just trying to help him, so he goes and has a last supper wtih Ray and Gary.

In Hong Kong, Nate finds Khan’s shipment but it’s mostly empty; he finds one box still full though and realizes what Khan was talking about when he said he was building a fleet: scooters.

Khan and his army zip through Hong Kong traffic on scooters, heading right for Prince Charles’s motorcade. Behrad clotheslines a guy and steals his scooter, all while Ava and Zari watch from the Waverider, stressed.

Ava and Zari look horrified

See also: me when I open Facebook.

Behrad sees the Prince being taken and tries to save him but ends up with a gun to the head. He apologizes to the Prince but Charles says, “My friends call me Charlie.”

And I won’t lie, for one dumb second I thought he meant Charlie as in ‘s Angels and the three lady cops were going to somehow appear again, but then I realized that I’m a fool and what he meant was he’s actually Charlie.

charlie looks smug now

“Surprise, bitch. I bet you thought you’d seen the last of me.”

(The real Prince Charles is on the Waverider with Mick.)

Khan looks Charlie up and down, impressed with the shapeshifting, and declares that she’ll be his thirteenth wife. She tells him that’ll be a hard pass from her.

Charlie says no thanks

“That’s cute and all but I kind of have this thing for this guy’s sister, so…maybe in the next lifetime.”

Insulted, Khan has his men point their guns at Charlie, but Behrad air totems the bullets away. Charlie stabs Khan with his own sword, steals his toothpick, and threatens the other men until they run away.

chalrie has a sword

Charlie + Swords = OTP

(PS. My friend Nic made me a gif of this moment, if that’s something you’re interested in.)

Charlie and Behrad laugh, nearly dying together cutting the tension a bit.

Up in the Waverider, Charlie gathers the team and tells them she has something to tell them but she’s having a hard time finding the words. She comes out to them as Clotho, the Spinner. Zari, still pretty new to all this, is like…wait, what?

Zari is intrigued by charlie

All versions of Zari have a crush on Charlie pass it on.

Charlie explains that she used to spin people’s futures on the Loom of Fate until she destroyed it because she believed people should be able to choose their own destiny. She’s never told anyone before, and would reveal her original form to everyone to prove it, but then their eyes and ears would explode.

Charlie explains that she had scattered the pieces of the Loom across the multiverse, but the CRISIS plopped them all on the same Earth, making her sisters stronger and making running from them harder. Charlie left because she was afraid they would kill her friends if they were around when her sisters found her. BECAUSE SHE LOVES THEM. They say they have her back, but that’s what she’s afraid of. She knows they’d fight for her, but she doesn’t want to them to die for her.

Ava says that they’re the Legends. They can handle it.

Ava reassures Charlie

“We’ve got you.”

And Charlie, who felt like an outcast for so long, who was literally a prisoner on this ship for a while, who fought to be accepted but also fought against being embraced…Charlie realizes that these people really are her friends — her family — and actually she doesn’t want to fight it at all.

Charlie beams at her fam

“Love you, awesome nerds.”

Just then, Sara comes back, tripping over the scooters in the hallway and yelling about them being a menace, which is exactly what I hear everyone in California call the Bird Scooters.

She finds her team looking all serious and she asks them what she missed, all beaming and happy to see them, but they all start talking at once and she realizes she didn’t just miss a casual game night.

Sara looks overwhelmed

I feel like Sara might want to take a peep at these recaps…

Down in Northumberland, Constantine has Ray read his will, and Gary is devastated to learn he’s being left the manor. Constantine, in an act of penance, asks Ray what’s on his bucket list, and Ray admits that proposing to Nora is pretty high on it, but his last few engagements…didn’t really work out. Constantine toasts his friends then admits he drank poison because if he’s going to die, it’s going to be on his own terms.

He’s sucked down to Purgatory again, his time clock ticking down dangerously close to zero, and finds Astra waiting for him.

Astra smiles at John

The Twitter trolls never told me that this would be waiting for me if I listened to them. Now I’ll HAPPILY go to hell.

He tells her he used the same poison Natalie used on herself, and starts singing a song about the Scarborough Fair. Astra remembers her mother singing that, and in a moment of humanity she longs for her mother. She asks if Constantine can really bring her back, and when he says he can, she turns the gears of his soul coin back and gives him more time.

She tells him that if he doesn’t bring her mother back soon, she’ll just turn down his clock again, and sends him back up to Ray and Gary, who are delighted to see their old friend with pep in his step again. He storms off with the boys in tow saying he intends to keep his promise to Astra, and he plans on using a certain Loom to do so.

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Valerie Anne

Just a TV-loving, Twitter-addicted nerd who loves reading, watching, and writing about stories. One part Kara Danvers, two parts Waverly Earp, a dash of Cosima and an extra helping of my own brand of weirdo.

Valerie has written 608 articles for us.

6 Comments

  1. – Zari and Ava fell in friendship…HARD.
    – Do Charlie and Behrad have a history? (Apparently yes)
    – That was a Zarlie moment.
    – Charlie is Clotho.
    – I feel that the British handover is actually VERY relevant.
    – Valerie, the three women seem more like the Heroic Trio to me.
    – I like that the Legends seem good at talking things out.
    – Are we going to see what Charlie actually looks like?
    – I was hoping that Prince Charles would be with Marie Antoinette.
    – Can they use his sword to kill other Encores?
    – Another John/Gary kiss.
    Can we just take a moment and talk about Ava and Zari’s friendship? While I ship them a little as a romantic couple, I REALLY ship them as friends, and I want to see them do more friend stuff together. Let’s have Zari listening to Stabcast and shoring Ava up. Let’s have Ava including Zari in the mission and praising her abilities. I want to see them do each other’s hair and nails.

    • YES I agree about Zari and Ava’s friendship! They’re both used to running their own organizations (Time Bureau/Dragoness Empire) and are now trying to find their way in the world. As a result, they don’t underestimate each other. So yes to them like, going out for drinks and talking about how cute Sarah and Charlie are, or time traveling to shop, or saving the world (again) as a duo.

      • I am so down for that!
        Plus it shows two women of power can be friends and don’t have to be enemies.

  2. Wait, you can have two characters talk to each other about a problem and resolve it mostly like grown ups? Or does that only work for Legends?

    ——–

    “Tidy up the timeline” sounds like if Marie Kondo got a hold of the Tardis.

    ——–

    So if Charlie is a Fate, that means all of Greek mythology is fair game. Will there be a fowl seduction attempt this season?

    ——–

    The promo for next week suggests that Damien Darhk is the next Encore. Ray wants to propose to Nora and we all know how much of a boy scout Ray is so of course he’ll want her father’s blessing. This is going to be hilarious.

    Also, puppets.

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