“Legends of Tomorrow” Episode 704 Recap: Gals and Pals

What ho! Welcome to this recap of Legends of Tomorrow season 7, episode 7, “Speakeasy Does It” aka one of the best episodes of the show ever which is a really high bar but I loved it so much?????

We open once again in the 20s, where we’ve been for a few episodes, which has actually been kind of nice. The Bullet Blondes Gang ditches Hoover’s car and get ready to hop on a train. Their plan is to buy three tickets and have the rest hide out in the mansion key, until they realize Gary’s misunderstanding of human money and inflation means that he over tipped the last waitress they had by so much they only have enough money for one person to travel.

Ava scowls at Gary

“I *will* make this a No Boys Allowed team if you keep this up, Gary!”

And in the meantime, they have to find a way to hide the city’s most wanted blondes. Zari spots a wig store and knows it’s her time to shine, so she drags her captains in and tries to find them a suitable disguise. She tries to ask the store owner for help, but he fully ignores her. Zari is a little confused until Sara tries to talk to him and he answers the straight-passing white lady readily and it’s clear what’s happening here. (Spoiler alert: it’s racism.)

Zari, Ava and Sara look in disbelief at the racist cashier

I’m sure Caity Lotz would want us to love him anyway. “Your CW wigs are trash anyway, sir.”

The man moves to fulfil Sara’s request and Ava and Sara apologize to Zari and promise to hurry up. They take two not-blonde wigs but since the fuzz caught sight of Hoover’s car, they have to pay the rest of their easy-earned money to sneak out the back door of the shop.

Zari is furious and declares how much she hates the 20s and how only Nate, their token straight white man, actually fits in here. And this is one thing that I’ve always appreciated about this show; I remember back in the first season, when Stein was delighted by the 50s, calling it idyllic, Jax and Sara had to point out that he only feels that way because he’s a straight white man. While of course they water down the truth of the kind of racism and sexism this particular group might have been met with for this romp of a show, they never deny its existence or shy away from putting words to it.

Zari is furious

Ava and Sara could be doing more to proactively protect their team from situations like this but I guess there’s a lot going on.

Luckily for the Legends, however, the alley they emptied into happens to be the entrance to a speakeasy, and Zari managed to say the password in her fury…because the password is password.

The first thing the historian in the group notices is that the Speakeasy is inclusive, a rare thing to see in the 20s in mob-run Chicago. It seems, at least for the moment, they’ve found a safe haven.

Slightly less lucky are Spooner, Astra, and Gideon, who are sneaking around on a train they don’t have a ticket for.

Spooner tries to map out a plan and Astra teases her for sounding like Ava, which is cute on at least three levels. The tickettaker comes and they make a break for it, and try to play it off when they’re caught, but ultimately need to be saved by a woman named Maude, who lies and says they’re part of her band with the energy of a drunk stranger in the bathroom telling you not to call your ex like she’s known you for years.

Maude smiles at the gals

“Did we just become best friends?”

Back in the Speakeasy, Ava is stressed because the Bullet Blondes are all over the papes. They’re being called robbers, bootleggers…and worst of all, sisters!

Ava and Sara exchange looks

Tell me you have queer people in your writers’ room without telling me you have queer people in your writers’ room.

But that gives Sara an idea. They need more money to get to New York, the world already thinks they’re criminals…and they happen to have an endless supply of whiskey at their disposal. So she works out a deal with the owner, Eddie, and sells him some booze, offering him a sizable cut in exchange for use of their storage closet and a lack of questions.

What the Bullet Blondes don’t know is that they’re running out of time; Robot Hoover is hot on their heels.

Meanwhile, The Spatula Squad thanks Maude for her quick thinking and for using her boyfriend’s name and her manager’s scary appearance to their advantage. Maude says it’s no problem. After all, “gals help gals and make new pals.”

Spooner, Gideon, and Astra smile at Maude

“That’s not quite what gal pals mean where we come from but also, yes.”

Her friend Suzie chimes in, adding that men won’t look out for you like women will. When Suzie says her full name to her new friends, Gideon uses her big computer brain and starts rattling off facts about her life, and Spooner has to ask her to play the quiet game.

Astra lies to Maude and says Gideon is the Lark of London and Spooner is her vocal coach, Esperanza. And Astra? She’s their manager. Maude is taken aback by this, a woman manager, and complains that their current manager isn’t very good at his job. Astra asks to see the contract, ready to return a favor for their new gal pals.

Seeing how predictably absurd the contract is, Astra gives the manager a piece of her mind. He’s racist and sexist too, but Astra doesn’t flinch, and tells Maude that her contract is long since expired if she wants out. So Maude takes her advice and fires her, and as a reward, Astra magics some first class tickets for the masquerading mavens.

Astra smiles wickedly, holding first class tickets splayed out like a winning poker hand

I’m glad Astra is a Legend now but I also do love when her Queen of Hell momentarily shines through.

At the Speakeasy, Zari and Eddie are bonding over their safe haven, and how happy her brother seems on stage. (I don’t know how Ava is letting Zari just use her phone as a mirror all willy nilly but it was cute that Eddie thought it was just a fancy compact.)

Zari sits at the bar looking quite lovely

Sorry not sorry for how many gratuitous photos of Zari are in this recap, I just love Tala Ashe, okay?!

He tells her to live in the moment, and feel the here and now, and they have a sweet little bond. Sara interrupts, looking for Ava, wanting to show off all their new money, and since she’s back in the mansion, Sara leads the rest of the team into the “storage closet” for the night.

As soon as the Legends go into the mansion, Maude’s boyfriend Battoni shows up, and roughs him up for going against their agreement and buying liquor from someone else. When Zari comes out to get something from the bar and sees Eddie all bloodied up, she calls for her team and when Sara and Ava emerge, pre-bed and, thus, post-wig, he realizes he’s been unwittingly harboring the Bullet Blondes.

Sara and Ava look down at Eddie

“The reports of our crimes have been greatly exaggerated.”

When the Legends ask who did this to him, Eddie looks up at Sara and says, “You did.”

Eddie blames the Legends for losing his bar, and getting him even more tangled in the mob mess than he already was. Zari is especially furious; this was the first place she felt safe outside Gloria’s farmhouse since they got to the 1920s. And she wants to fix it. She asks her captains to give her 24 hours of being in charge to fix it; she says they can’t keep leaving the timeline worse than they found it.

Zari looks frustrated

I agree with Zari; closing down a safe haven for people of color and queer people is a surefire way to alter history for the worse.

And specifically, they can’t leave this city’s outcasts without their one safe space. Sara agrees quickly, and Ava is more cautious but also knows Zari is right. So Zari convinces Eddie to come with her, and uses the storage room in the back of the wig shop to show Eddie the magic mansion. She says she wants to hold a fundraiser so Eddie can open up a new bar of his own, and he’s confused but she’s insistent.

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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.

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11 Comments

  1. Oh! This show, this show, this show. Light in the dark is completely right. I’m so grateful for the writers of both LoT and Batwoman for the stories they tell and the way they tell them. The arrowverse would have been a much more inclusive and enjoyable place had they been involved in other shows, not mentioning any names. *cough* supergirl *cough*
    Obvs I want the legends all together again, but I love the spatula squad! They have such great chemistry, and are, for me, the most enjoyable parts of every ep.
    And, never apologise for lots of tala ashe pics. The rule is: there are never enough pics of tala ashe.

  2. – If and when we are ever allowed to have in-person cons again, I hope you all bring a spatula for Olivia Swann to sign.

    – Sisters? Sisters!? Someone fire that reporter. They are obviously roommates! (/sarcasm)

    – Here it is your fanfic premise of the week – Gary Green finds himself in National City in the mid 2010s and runs into … pick you poison. Cat Grant? Lena Luthor? Lillian Luthor? Alex Danvers? The possiblities are endless! The writers have gifted us the most cracked of crack ships by raising Gary’s kink out of the subtext. Gary Green is all the man we need!

    …too much? Well at least it got you to stop stressing about SuperCorp for a few seconds.

  3. I totally agree–it really was one of the best LOT episodes to date!! I loved it with every fiber of my queer, Some-Like-It-Hot-obsessed being. Analog Gideon and Spatula are delightful as always, Fancy Zari is figuring herself out in her own right, and the Bullet Blondes continue to be some of my favorite ever (time and) space wives. I even enjoyed Gary being like “yeah, I know what I like, don’t kink-shame me” to Nate.

  4. God this was one of my favorite episodes in a long long time. What a delight from start to finish!!

    I actually loved the Nate and Gary conversations, it was a highlight for me. Gary has always had a crush on anyone in charge of him regardless of gender and I love that the show recognizes this and he has a friend to tease him about it–that’s a rare conversation to see two men have on screen, especially when one of them is bisexual. I just love how Legends does queerness and friendship.

    Also the Astra smile that you screengrabbed made me yell at my screen “we don’t smile at our friends like that, Astra!”

    Amy Louise Pemberton’s physical acting is so great too–I loved when Spooner was getting her premonition vibes and the camera cut to Astra looking at her concernedly and Gideon cluelessly polishing off a snack.

    And the song! The line about “being forced to hide away our hearts” and “now we are breaking down the door” felt like both a nod to the current plot and also resonated a bit with coming out.

    What a perfect episode.

  5. I am loving the trapped in one timeline plot and how they are getting into some new shenanigans, it was a great choice by the writers.

  6. This was also one of my favorite episodes ever! And the silk-action sequence was one of the best moments of the entire series for me. Love the Bullet Blondes, love Zari, love Spatula Squad. Human Gideon was such a gift. And I always laugh at Astra’s perfect facial expressions, like when she calls Spooner “Captain Sharpe” and Gideon responds with “That’s Spooner Cruz”.

    I’m also excited to see Flannel Zari again as a character apart from Nate (though it always bums me out when the Legends barely react to her appearances).

    When the episode was over, I just felt really thankful for this show, happy that I get to enjoy it like this for so long. And it keeps getting better and better! Thanks for the recaps, by the way, it’s always fun to relive the episodes. And I laughed so hard at the “Kid couldn’t even keep track of his own nipple”. So true!!

  7. Love everything about this show, and this episode!! (“We’re not sisters”, and “hesitate a little/oh——hesitate a lot…” are competing for favorite Legends’ delivery so far this season!)

    I was wondering- are the Hoover-bots related to the scientist (blanking on his name) who stole Gideon and rebooted her? I assumed (but maybe incorrectly?) at the end of the last ep when the rebooted Gideon said something about helping fix timeline anachronisms and the scientist saying he had just the place/people to start with that it was implied he’s the reason the Waverider was blown up.

  8. I don’t have official confirmation, but according to Genius lyrics, Amy Pemberton is credited with writing Future Favorite!!

  9. I loved Astra and Spooner sharing a look during that “gals being pals” scene.

    And oh my cod your screencap of Ava and Sara dancing up a storm was sheer perfection.

    And “We’re not sisters” and… and…

    (but I still think Nate is being let off too easily)

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