On Legends Of Tomorrow, everyone faces their issues head-on while 48 babies are born through a nose

Who saw that opening reveal coming? Kayla’s mysterious ally, who was downloading their brain from the cloud and cloning themselves with Gideon’s meat printer was actually… Bishop?! Okay, it was obviously Bishop, there was never any chance that it would be someone else, but I did like the immediate cut from “yeah, it’s obviously Bishop” to Sara tossing him right into the Waverider’s eminently escapable containment circle (I’m old enough to remember when this ship had an actual cell with a door and everything). Also, it’s always nice to hear “Space Girl” again, but we’ll talk about that down in the Stray Observations.

Bishop claims he has arrived on the Waverider in hopes of joining the team and going on “zany” adventures with the Legends, which nobody even remotely believes for one second, and Ava jumps at the chance to try and confront a bad guy in a proper battle of wits (the episode title is play on “Silence Of The Lambs,” which isn’t really a direct reference point here, but “woman has conversation with bad guy who is locked up” is the basic trope they’re playing with). I love the running commentary and chess metaphor that Sara and Nate dip into while Ava is casually interrogating Bishop, with the two of them bonding over being clones and not the stress of planning a wedding, but it all gets too real for Ava when Bishop repeatedly pokes at the fact that both of them don’t have any sort of family to speak of.

Ava should be too smart to fall for that, but credit to writers Phil Klemmer and Morgan Faust for ignoring the impulses of the Arrowverse and actually having two characters talk to each other about their feelings rather than bottling them up (a very welcome, if soapy, theme in this episode). Bishop is needling the Legends, trying to find one with a weak point he can exploit, but Ava’s a dead-end. Her and Sara are too strong together, which Bishop would know if he had watched, oh, any other episode of Legends Of Tomorrow. He has more irons in the fire, though, which brings us to the other two storylines running through “Silence Of The Sonograms”: Zari knows something is up with John after the events of last week’s wacky board game adventure, and (thanks to some dark goop that Bishop prescribed that induced labor) Mick is about to give birth to the alien babies in his head.

Let’s talk about that one first, because it’s more fun: The way the show has maintained a straight-face about everything with Mick’s pregnancy has been very entertaining, especially given the shrugging acceptance that everyone has about it. Mick names Gary as the godfather of his 48 children, which Gary is overjoyed about, naturally, and before long Mick has ooze coming out of his ears and his luscious hair is falling out in clumps. (R.I.P. Rory’s hair.)

Bishop escapes from the containment circle—What?! No!—and briefly runs into Sara, who has since realized that he rebuilt his body using six percent of her DNA (meaning he now… knows all of Gideon’s secret code words and all of Sara’s fighting moves, the two things contained in six percent of DNA). He beats Sara, but rather than taking control of the ship or running away, he just runs off to help Mick deliver his many babies. Hmm….

The birth sequence is one of those bonkers-ass moments that Legends is so good at, like the “Thong Song” fight scene or the Cronenberg monster, and I was legitimately shocked by how good the very, very gross effects were. Nate doesn’t get to use his superpower too often anymore, but it’s worth it to see Mick’s big head swell up and deform as he sneezes out dozens of newborn aliens. I would’ve liked to see the episode spend some time naming each baby like the greyhound puppies on The Simpsons, but Bishop’s gotta mess everything up by insisting that there be plot in this TV show. It turns out he induced Mick’s labor just so he could have an excuse to get into his ear and pull out the little communicator thing that all of the Legends have, which is very convoluted, but Bishop is nothing if not a showman.

With all of the Legends successfully ignoring Bishop’s bullshit, he secretly takes the communicator and peacefully goes back to his circle so he can use it to reach out to John Constantine, who is back at his mansion (literally) wrestling with his personal demons. He’s still seeing an evil version of himself who says all sorts of mean stuff, but the Bad John has now developed some Tyler Durden powers and can physically beat Regular John’s butt. It’s a pretty direct metaphor for addiction, but that’s the kind of heavy-handedness that superhero stories are good at, so I don’t mind letting it slide. Anyway, using some magic, Astra and Zari are able to help Spooner recover the memory of John using the dark blood magic for the first time, and after swiping John’s blood flask and realizing what he’s been doing, the trio stage a bit of an intervention for him that… actually goes pretty well.

Again: Zari and John have a conversation about what he’s been doing, she explains how and why it hurts her, and he promises to do better. That’s good! That’s what people should do! Remember when Oliver on Arrow agreed not to tell Felicity that he had a son, just for the sake of putting off the inevitable drama? That was bad! Don’t do that! Legends did already do an episode this season where everyone confronts their issues, so it has a little less potency, but it’s still healthy for everybody to get their shit out in the open from time to time.

As for this Zari/Constantine stuff, I have to say that I liked Zari 1.0 more than Zari 2.0, if only because the “Hedgehog Day” episode was a masterpiece, but Tala Ashe does such a good job in these emotional scenes with Constantine that I think I finally see what this version of the character is bringing to the show that the other version couldn’t. She’s emotionally honest in a way that the other Zari never really was, possibly because that Zari lived through a fascist nightmare where her family was murdered in prison, but still. Tala Ashe rules.

Unfortunately, we still have Bishop to deal with, and as soon as Zari leaves to get John some tea, our favorite Hellblazer gets a call from Bishop with a promise to get his power back. John ends up giving in and takes one more swig from the blood flask, leading to a nice cut where the beaten and bloodied Regular John is replaced with the trenchcoat-wearing Bad John. It took the whole episode, but Bishop found a Legend whose ear he could (almost literally) worm his way into. Oh well, at least we’ve got 48 new Legends on the ship!

Stray Observations

• Hello! I’m Sam Barsanti, temporarily filling in for Allison Shoemaker (your usual captain will be back next week). You can read more of my Legends Of Tomorrow thoughts here and here.
• Gideon is powerless to ignore Bishop’s commands, since he knows Sara secret codes, but at least she feels bad about it. A nice touch.
• No Behrad this episode, huh? He missed the birth of the babies!
• Ava’s complete inability to make wedding decisions was a lot of fun. Her favorite flower is a cactus and her favorite color is gray.
• Bishop recommends playing Lou Reed’s Transformer for Sara. It’s a little “punky” for her, but as she notes, they did get engaged at a punk show.
• Alright, baby names: Mick Jr., Kayla Jr., Rip, whatever Hawkman’s name was, whatever Hawkgirl’s name was, Martin, Leonard, Haircut, Amaya, Mona, Oliver, Barry, Kara, Mick Jr. II, uhh… how many is that?
• Don’t forget to check out the Legends Of Tomorrow Mixtape, available now on Spotify and other places that have music. “Space Girl” is good, but don’t sleep on Tom Wilson’s lullaby song. Truly beautiful.
• I won’t step on Allison’s toes by copying her usual closing observations, but I will say that there was a good meta moment (“Destiny’s so last season.”) and while it has absolutely nothing to do with this episode, my favorite Crazy Ex-Girlfriend song is “I Go To The Zoo.”