Friday, October 20, 2017

Legends of Tomorrow 3x02 Recap: "Freakshow" (Circus Fun!) [Contributor: Marilyn]


"Freakshow"
Original Airdate: October 17, 2017

This episode begins six months ago, showing Amaya and Nate enmeshed in domestic bliss. She’s trying to fix Nate a birthday treat — chocolate-covered donuts — and he’s charmed that she’s making them from scratch and not buying them. While he’s out to the store to purchase said donuts, she sees a news report about Vixen in Detroit and she knows that’s her granddaughter. When Nate returns, she’s gone. No note... nothing. That’s pretty harsh. And on his birthday, no less!

Fast forward to the present day, and Nate is angsting over memories of Amaya while Ray explains how they can now find anachronisms on their own. Plus, he made a shrink ray to shrink anachronisms that are too large (or dangerous) for their brig. The shrink ray wears off after 24 hours or they can use the device to make them bigger. The team looks at all the anachronisms they have to fix and... it’s a lot. Stein gets in a great crack about how he hates the Titanic and the jerk who built her, reminding me that one of the things I love most about this show is how self-aware it is.

The team ends up taking the Waverider to 1870 to visit PT Barnum’s circus where there’s an anachronism... they just need to find it. Enter Barnum (played by Billy Zane! The Titanic references don’t stop!) talking up an amazing creature he has: it’s a sabre-toothed tiger! Ray is going to use his shrink ray on it but he sneezes (because of course he’s allergic to cats) and enlarges it instead. How are they going to find and subdue this thing long enough to shrink it and return it to its own time now? Sara has an idea. She goes back to the 1940s to talk to Amaya. She proposes one more mission, for old time’s sake.

Amaya is reluctant to return to the Waverider but Sara pleads with her — she’s the best one to help them handle this situation. Amaya asks if Nate knows she’d be back. Sara lies and says yes and that he’s thrilled. Predictably when Amaya shows up on the Waverider, Nate is shook. And rather bitter. The rest of the team is happy to see her, however, and they make plans for solving their tiger problem.

Nate’s at the local bar, meanwhile, getting drunk... 1870s style! Jax tries to give him advice on talking to Amaya but he doesn’t want to do that. The boys are playing with Ray’s dating app and Nate gets into a bar brawl, and uses his power. Barnum is impressed and wants to bring him into his show. Meanwhile, Amaya is tracking the tiger with Sara. They find it and — working together — the girls are able to shrink the tiger. But now the guys are in trouble when Ray and Jax are abducted into the circus.

Nate wakes up to find Sara and the team gathered around him. He’s in the hanger, hungover, and barely remembers the night before. Where are Jax and Ray? Barnum has them locked in a cage and they try to explain to him that they don't have powers like Nate's. Barnum doesn’t buy it. The team comes to the circus looking for them and discovers that Ray and Jax will be headlining a freakshow as conjoined twins.

Mick tries to feed the shrunken tiger and accidentally lets it out its cage. Sara finds someone watching them at the circus and it ends up being Gary, who works as an agent for Rip’s Time Bureau and was sent to spy on them. Amaya and Nate find Ray and Jax but Nate can’t change into steel because he’s dehydrated. Barnum finds them and now he has two more for his freakshow. While they’re locked up together, Nate and Amaya finally have a chance to talk. She tells Nate what happened. She went to see Mari in Detroit, saw her save people. Rip told her that she needed to go back to 1942 or else Mari would eventually disappear. Amaya admits she needed Nate to hate her so she could leave him behind. She needed to protect her granddaughter and him.

While Sara holds a gun on him, Gary contacts the Time Bureau and tells them that the Legends have things under control and he’s the one who messed stuff up. Sara and Stein have to leave the ship to get the rest of the team, but Agent Sharp enters the Waverider through a portal (guess Gary’s message wasn’t so believable after all), so Sara sends Stein and Mick and intercepts Agent Sharp who wants to arrest her and the team. Sara refuses to be taken in and battles the Agent.

Mick and Stein arrive at the circus, where Mick reveals he’s afraid of the clowns. Ray and Jax are introduced by Barnum first and Stein realizes he needs a distraction so he can get to Jax and merge with him. Barnum is getting desperate since the crowd doesn’t love his conjoined twins so he chooses to motivate Nate by threatening to shoot him or Amaya to make him turn to steel.

Sharp and Sara end up being fairly evenly matched and get exhausted while fighting so they stop to have a drink of water. While they’re doing that, the tiger walks in but then enlarges to normal size and Sharp runs away from it, causing it to chase her. Sara saves her from the tiger. With that taken care of, it’s now up to the team to fix the anachronism. Nate turns to steel to save himself from the bullets and when he begs Barnum to stop, Amaya uses her powers to break out of the cage and stop Barnum and his goons herself. Stein dresses up as a clown to try to get to Jax. It works and they merge to make Firestorm, thrilling the crowd. But Amaya is on a rampage now, unable to control her animal totems. After knocking out Barnum, she fights Firestorm, and Nate has to plead with her to fight her power. He reminds her of who she is and asks her to come back to him. She does but is wracked with guilt. Barnum is just thrilled, since he had a great show after all.

The Legends take off with the re-shrunk tiger to bring him back to his own time. The anachronism is solved and Sharp isn’t pleased that they got out of being in trouble with the Time Bureau. Sara wants to know what Sharp knows... what is coming? What does Rip want to use the Legends to face? Amaya admits to the team that she’s losing control when she taps into her powers. She tells them about killing the soldiers back in Zambezi. She’s afraid of herself and she needs to find out what’s going wrong with her powers. Sara tells her that she’s one of them, she belongs there on the Waverider. Then, she tells the team that Rip is hiding something from them, except she doesn’t know exactly what it is. The Legends find that hilarious and they’re not scared at all.

But maybe they should be. We see a hooded figure, a follower of Mollus, approach a pond and recite an incantation. A figure rises from the water... They need the woman for something. It’s all very ominous.

All in all, I think this was a very fun episode of Legends of Tomorrow. They’re pretty much all fun these days. The humor is refreshing and light and the action is engaging. Plus, the plotlines are interesting. There’s more than enough to keep my attention, week after week, and I’m always happy to watch more of my favorite time traveling team. Yes, they mess up quite often but that’s part of the fun, right? The chemistry between the characters continue to be aces and this week; I especially enjoyed getting to see Nate be drunk and sloppy. More of that in the future, please! Anyhow, if you haven’t given Legends a shot yet, you should. There’s nothing but fun over here!

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