Legends of To-Meow-Meow

"Listen, destroying history for personal gain, it's happened to almost everyone here. Rite of passage."

—Zari Tomaz to Charlie

"Legends of To-Meow-Meow"
Information
Season 4 » Episode 8
Episode number	59 of 110
Original airdate	December 10, 2018
Written by	James Eagan Ray Utarnachitt
Directed by	Ben Bray
Chronology
Preceded by	"Hell No, Dolly!"
Followed by	"Lucha De Apuestas"

"Legends of To-Meow-Meow" is the eighth and midseason finale episode of the fourth season of DC's Legends of Tomorrow, and the fifty-ninth episode overall. It aired on December 10, 2018.

Synopsis

After Constantine breaks the cardinal Legend rule ("you can't change the past"), he, along with Charlie and Zari try to deal with the ramifications without telling the rest of the Legends. Even though Zari encourages them to just fix the problem, Constantine and Charlie are determined to find another way, but only continue to make things worse.[src]

Cast

Starring

• Brandon Routh as Dr. Ray Palmer/The Atom
• Caity Lotz as Charlie and Captain Sara Lance/White Canary
• Maisie Richardson-Sellers as Charlie
• Tala Ashe as Zari Tomaz
• Jes Macallan as Director Ava Sharpe/Roundhouse and Charlie
• Amy Louise Pemberton as Gideon/Hard Drive
• Ramona Young as Mona Wu
• Nick Zano as Dr. Nate Heywood/Steel
• Dominic Purcell as Mick Rory/Heat Wave

Special appearance by

• Matt Ryan as John Constantine

Guest starring

• Adam Tsekhman as Charlie and Agent Gary Green
• Tom Wilson as Hank Heywood
• Christian Keyes as Desmond and Neron
• Jane Carr as Tabitha/Fairy Godmother and Charlie
• Jordyn Ashley Olson as Prudence Hawthorne

Special appearance by

• Paul Reubens as Mike the Spike

Co-starring

• Jocelyn Panton as Marilyn Monroe
• Wesley MacInnes as Red
• Vesna Ennis as Garima
• Aaron Joseph as Drunk Man
• Jeny Cassady as Puppeteer #1
• Jamie Swettenham as Puppeteer #2
• Glenn Williams as Puppeteer #3

Plot

Following Zari's transformation into a cat, Charlie travels to 1962 Las Vegas and sets the jump ship on autopilot to carry Zari back to the Waverider afterwards. Realizing she can shapeshift again, Charlie poses as Marilyn Monroe, seeks out Red, a leprechaun compatriot from her days in prison, and warns him to stop openly using his magic lest he be targeted by abberation hunters like the Legends. However, Ray, Mick, and Nate stroll in and execute the leprechaun without hesitation.

Back on the Waverider, Nate asks Gideon for any messages. The AI reveals they have missed calls from Barry Allen, Oliver Queen, and Kara Zor-El, and Ray quips it must be the annual crossover. Nate decides to sit out the event as the other men laugh, and one of them bets the other heroes will be swapping costumes. Sneaking back into the ship, Charlie runs into Zari in the library and asks for her help, although she still has no idea why she's a cat. A hologram of Gideon appears and explains to "Amaya Jiwe" what happened to the team, unaware that "Amaya" is actually Charlie.

Zari was transformed by the Fairy Godmother during the team's last encounter with her, and the Legends are now Custodians of the Chronology following a disastrous encounter at Woodstock. Shapeshifting into Sara, Charlie attempts to change the Custodians' shoot-to-kill policy on magical creatures, only to be stabbed by Garima in the back as Sara was actually dead. Charlie recovers and escapes the Waverider with Zari in tow.

Aboard the jump ship, Charlie and Zari figure out Constantine's responsible for the broken timeline. Zari paws the destination coordinates for the Time Bureau headquarters in 2018, where Charlie transforms into Gary to blend in. She discovers that in this timeline, Sara was killed by the unicorn they sent back to Hell through a memorial photo in the headquarters.

Following directions from Hank Heywood, Charlie confronts Constantine inside the headquarters, where he has been confined for months for "becoming dangerously unstable after suspected time crimes". He transforms Zari back into a human, who's more than incensed at her time being a cat. Zari then explains to the magician that he broke time back in New Orleans: because he never damned Desmond to Hell, Constantine never joined the Legends, and thus Sara died without his help at Woodstock, turning the team into killers of magical beings.

Charlie and Constantine both think they can still fix things and keep the beneficial changes by saving Sara. Zari, however, urges Constantine to undo saving Desmond to set history back on track. Unwilling to damn his lover, Constantine transforms Zari back into a cat to keep her from interfering. Outside Constantine's cell Mona overheard most of the conversation inside and agrees to help the group.

The Custodians arrive at the headquarters looking for Charlie. Following an energetic shootout involving the Custodians, Time Bureau agents, Charlie's group, and a black-haired Ava Sharpe still mourning Sara's loss (but convinced that Sara can be saved), Charlie, Zari, and Constantine successfully escape the Custodians and jump back to Woodstock 1969.

Using the jump ship's weapons, Constantine and Charlie blast the unicorn into rainbow-colored gibs before it becomes a threat, causing the Legends team on the ground to wonder who's on the ship. Things are still wrong as Zari's still a cat. Jumping back to the Time Bureau headquarters in 2018, Charlie discovers that Ray, Mick, and Nate are now dead, and the remaining members Sara, Ava, and Gideon (who has gained a physical form) have reformed into the Sirens of Space-Time, who still waste any magical creature that crosses them.

Charlie infiltrates the Sirens as Amaya while Constantine continues to experience headaches associated with two conflicting timelines' worth of memories in his head. Charlie learns that this time around, Fairy Godmother killed the male Legends, causing the Sirens to adopt the same policy as the Custodians. The other Sirens figure out "Amaya" is a shapeshifter, and Charlie escapes back to the jump ship to save the boys in Salem 1692.

This time, Charlie poses as Fairy Godmother to trick Prudence Hawthorne into releasing her, thereby nullifying her magic and preventing her from strangling the male Legends. Back on the jump ship, Constantine and Charlie are surprised Zari can talk again, but they discover she has been transformed into a puppet instead. Checking with the crew aboard the Waverider, Constantine sees the Puppets of Tomorrow on the bridge instead of their human selves.

Sara tells Constantine she, Ray, Nate (and Zari) were turned into puppets when Fairy Godmother latched onto Mick after being released from Prudence. Mick promptly left the group to wreak havoc with his new partner in crime: Fairy Godmother with Leonard Snart's jacket, goggles, and Cold gun. Exasperated, Charlie and Constantine resolve to keep trying until they get their desired win.

All their efforts result in failure as in each resulting timeline someone dies: Ava, Hank and Nate, and even Gary. Eventually Charlie manages to reach a timeline where nobody dies, but Constantine's condition still deteriorates. Zari, now fully human, convinces Constantine the only way to truly set things right is to go back to New Orleans and let history happen, so he joins the Legends. Charlie is unwilling to lose her shapeshifting powers again and attempts to stop Zari, but is neutralized with a blast from the Air Totem. Undeterred, Charlie transforms into Ava and alerts the Legends to a magical presence in New Orleans 2018 as a pretext to stop Zari and Constantine.

Constantine hatches a plan where he convinces Desmond to stay with him even with his earlier time-traveler self calling it quits to the relationship just moments before. He succeeds, although he still uses a memory flasher on Desmond to be sure. The Legends ready their weapons to kill, alarming Charlie in Ava's form, and assume Constantine is the magical presence given there's currently three of him in multiple places. Charlie reverts to her Amaya form and prevents Sara from ordering Constantine's termination, but gets her neck snapped and then shot in return.

Charlie once more recovers from her injuries and insists on asking why the Legends are hell-bent on killing magical creatures. Sara doesn't recall meeting Charlie in London since it never happened. Charlie then realizes that because Constantine never joined the Legends, the Legends never met Charlie, and consequently they deem all magical creatures as threats that need to be taken out. Charlie is the missing ingredient in all the botched timelines, and Sara gives the order to Mick and Ray to shoot at the two Constantines in their sights.

The present version of Constantine watches behind a dumpster as the earliest version of him returns from the market and finds Desmond in the street, unaware of how he got there. As the past has been fixed by the mending of Constantine and Desmond's relationship, Mick and Ray's weapons don't reach their targets while aboard the Waverider Sara and Charlie's showdown is similarly aborted. Instead of delivering a flying kick to Charlie, Sara resumes her previous action of delivering a flying kick to Mike the Spike in Professor Stein's puppet. Constantine also regains Desmond's medallion, and silently apologizes for damning Desmond again.

When Zari, Charlie, and Constantine return to the Waverider they initially dread the timeline's still broken when they see the talking Professor Stein puppet in straps. Fortunately the rest of the team arrive looking fully human and dispel their worries. Sara notices the trio are being weird, and Constantine promises to tell the tale over drinks.

Meanwhile, Charlie apologizes to Zari for her actions. She reveals she kept coming back to Amaya's form because it's what she took when she joined the Legends, a group that she's started to like. Zari tells her destroying history for personal gain is sort of an initiation into the Legends, and accepts her offer of friendship. Mick and Ava swap hobbies, find each other's works tolerable, and bond over it. In Washington D.C. 2018, Hank receives news of the kaupe's escape and orders its retrieval, then converses with his golfing buddy: Neron, in Desmond's body.

Production

Preparation ran from September 17 until September 25, 2018. Shooting began on September 26 and ran until October 9, 2018, with a break on October 8 for Canadian Thanksgiving.

Trivia

• This is the highest rated episode of Season 4 with a rating of 8.8 on IMDb.
• The episode's title is a direct play on the series' name and the fact that Zari is stuck in the form of a house-cat.
• This episode marks Amy Louise Pemberton's third physical appearance as Gideon in human form. She had previously appeared in "Land of the Lost" and "Here I Go Again" as a neural projection in a virtual hallucination, along with being featured on a photograph in "Aruba-Con".
  • In one timeline, she is shown as a fully-human holographic projection, and in another she is shown as an active member of the "Sirens of Space-Time" along with Sara and Ava; considering her code name of 'Hard Drive', the simplest explanation is that this version of Gideon is essentially the ship's android avatar, much like Rommie in Gene Roddenbery's Andromeda.
• This episode marks the first time the Legends are called "Legends of Tomorrow" on-screen.
  • Martin Stein previously called them this in the opening monologue of "Out of Time"​.
• Thanks to the "Puppets of Tomorrow" timeline, this episode also marks the first appearance of the White Canary suit since "Beebo the God of War"​ and the first appearance of the Steel suit since "Here I Go Again"​.
• In one of the timelines, Ray Palmer, Nate Heywood, Mick Rory, and Garima are a group called "Custodians of the Chronology", which may be a parody of the film Guardians of the Galaxy
  • Garima's role as a feared swordswoman and the only female founding member resembles that of Guardians member Gamora. The two also have similar names.
  • The Custodians' title card sequence is a parody of the title card sequence of the 1984-1987 series Airwolf.
• In another timeline, Sara Lance, Ava Sharpe and Gideon form a group called "Sirens of Space-Time", which is a parody of the Charlie's Angels franchise.
  • Hank says "Good morning Sirens" to which they reply "Good morning Hank". This sounds exactly like "Good morning Angels" and "Good morning Charlie" from Charlie's Angels.
  • The pose struck by the Sirens of Space-Time is highly influenced by the logo of Charlie's Angels.
• When Gideon tells the Custodians that they missed a message from Barry Allen, Oliver Queen and Kara Zor-El, Ray says "Sounds like the annual crossover". This is a reference to the fact that the Elseworlds​ crossover event aired the same week as the episode did, being broadcast back-to-back with "Elseworlds, Part 2"​.
  • Nate responds with "That's gonna be a hard pass", referring to the fact that although the last two Arrowverse crossovers included the Legends, they aren't a part of this one.
  • They also jokingly said "I bet this year they'll swap costumes", referring to the life-switch that happened to Barry and Oliver during the Elseworlds crossover, which made them wear each other's superhero suits.
• Both the Custodians and the Sirens referred to the Shape-shifters as their "white whales", referencing the Moby Dick franchise and its characters.
• When Ava is reading Mick's novel in the med bay, it's title is shown to be "Heatwaves", which is a reference to his alter-ego.
• When Charlie and Constantine are trying to explain the alternate timeline to a morose Ava, she replies, "I don't have time for this timey-wimey crap". This likely refers to the Tenth Doctor of the BBC series Doctor Who, who often refers to time as "a big ball of wibbly wobbly, timey wimey stuff".
• All the weapons the Sirens took while getting ready for a mission have been used by a current or former member of the Legends' team. Sara took Mick's Heat gun, Ava got Leonard Snart's Cold gun and Gideon took Rip Hunter's pistol.
  • The blasters used by Ray Palmer and Nate Heywood resemble the police-killers used by Barry, Ralph, and the criminals in the {{S|F} episode {{Ep|LGoldfaced}, though this is likely just coincidental.
    • The main differences between the two blasters are that the police-killers have a "stun" setting, shoot red or blue beams instead of green, and dissolve or immobilize the target instead of punching through it.
  • This marks the first appearance of the Cold Gun since "Zari" and the first appearance of Rip's gun since "Fellowship of the Spear".
• Upon seeing the Puppets of Tomorrow, Constantine asks, "What the Fraggle Rock is going on here?" referring to the 1983 TV series of the same name.
  • Ironically, Snart and Ava are Sara's longest love interests on the show.

Goofs

• Zari doesn't act like a goofy kids' show character like the rest of the Puppets of Tomorrow when she turns into a puppet.
  • This could be explained due to her current anomalous status being caught in the time paradox rendering her slightly immune to the spell.
• Why preventing Desmond from being sent to hell causes the initial change is never addressed. Constantine still would have been spooked by Neron into joining the Legends for his own safety.
• Constantine says that by banishing Neron to hell, he also unintentionally sent Desmond to hell due to the latter bonding his soul to the demon in exchange for Neron sparing John. However, as seen later on after Neron bonded with Ray Palmer, Neron using Desmond as a vessel should've also sent Desmond to hell. This means Desmond would've been in hell already, regardless of John's effort to banish Neron.