Thursday, February 22, 2018

My Review of Legends Of Tomorrow's 3x11: "Here I Go Again"


Written by Ray Utarnachitt & Morgan Faust
Directed by Ben Bray

Zari (to Gideon): "Who knew you were such an evil genius? And a bit of a perv."

Oh Mamma Mia. A time loop episode was an inevitability for this show and references to a certain Star Trek episode and of course, Groundhog Day to one side, there was a lot of fun and pathos to be had, mainly at the expense of one particular character.

Since her introduction in the third episode this season, Zari has been an interesting addition to the team. She's reckless and impulsive and I'm surprised that it took until this episode for Sara to confront Zari on this but the results of the two of them sparring were interesting as Zari tried to run a simulation on Gideon, only to be caught up in one herself.

Having Zari pitted inside an exploding time loop on the Waverider could've been tedious but this was a premise that the show truly had fun with. For instance, aside from the fact that it gave Zari a lot of insight into Sara's leadership skills, Ray being secretive, Mick's creative writing and Nate and Amaya's relationship, it also led to Zari not so shockingly finding her own place on the team.

I guess it should've been obvious that Gideon was responsible for the whole thing and it certainly was a lot of fun seeing Amy Pemberton pop up on screen for a few minutes as she revealed her "evil genius" to Zari before the latter woke up and gave the rest of her team some sound advice on their various issues.

I've enjoyed Zari a lot as a character this season and this episode made me more than glad that she's going nowhere. I also liked the fun little montage she got to have during her experience along with the reveal that she might get to save her brother after all. Not to mention that the episode again reminded us that she's going to play a vital role in taking down Mallus as well.

As for everything else, I'm really glad that Ray told Sara about Constantine's plan from the previous episode and that Sara herself seemed fine with it. The episode also delved a bit more into Nate and Amaya's own dynamic with their future along with giving the Sara/Ava a bit more to look forward as well. The only other person not to fare well from the episode was Gary who got consigned to the rubbish, via Gideon and her mischievous nature.

- Last scene of the episode saw Rip heading to China to recruit a man bun wearing Wally for the Legends.
- Surely the next bottle episode has to be a version of Mick's future best seller, right? I love that he was writing the thing on a type writer with booby traps too. Zari's impression of the other Legends along with her reaction to Nate/Amaya's sex noises made me howl with laughter.
- Tala Ashe can actually play the violin in real life so it's nice the show found a way of incorporating that into this episode.
- Chronology: 2018 mainly on the ship and during the last scene but we did have the gang save Waterloo and Mick saving Napoleon off screen. Loved most of the gang in their ABBA gear for this one.

Here I Go Again was a riot of an episode. It's blatantly the bottle saver one for the season but those episode do force shows to be a bit more creative and this one certainly had a lot of fun in that. As well as being another brilliant centre piece for Zari, it worked as a character building one for the rest of the team to boot.

Rating: 8 out of 10

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