As this week’s Legends of Tomorrow shows, living on Earth isn’t so easy. Astra (Olivia Swann) grew up in Hell, but while that cut-throat dimension had no rules, it seems the mortal coil has too many. Without the Waverider’s fabricator, it turns out food costs money, and it’s hard to get a job when Astra’s only work experience is aiding the triumvirate of Hell. While John Constantine (Matt Ryan) leaps between hijinks of previous Legends of Tomorrow episodes, Astra is on the sidelines waiting for him to install an internet router. So “The Satanist’s Apprentice” is a mixture of Dr. Faustus and Beauty and the Beast, with Astra’s wishes to be back in control leading to a fantastic Legends of Tomorrow installment.
Astra’s dismay with Constantine’s creaky old manor – including unpaid bills and broken plumbing – is answered by the attic, finding Aleister Crowley (who Constantine mentioned back in “Ground Control to Sara Lance”) trapped inside a painting. Crowley listens to Astra’s frustrations and offers to teach her magic to fix her problems, reasoning Constantine constantly does this anyway, with him even remarking earlier he has no washing machine since his coat automatically cleans itself. During a particular fit of frustration, Astra even swaps Constantine’s body with Crowley’s and places John in the portrait.
Matt Lucas deliciously hams it up as the voice of the camp dandy Crowley, a far cry from the dirty, punk-rock Liverpudlian. Meanwhile, Matt Ryan matches this buttery voice by matching his gleeful body expressions, their collaboration makes “The Satanist’s Apprentice” a constant treat. Olivia Swann sells Astra’s isolation and anger, going from somebody lording above all in her realm to one disrespected by and impotent against the “real world.” She moves between making empty threats on a phone call to sighing “I miss my blood pool.” Even if Crowley’s sinister intentions are fairly obvious, it makes sense why Astra would take the opportunity, and how she’d think she can control him too.
Proceedings escalate, however, when Crowley says Astra’s magical abilities will be amplified by a “live human soul.” He reasons her stuffy neighbor, who said Astra wasn’t the sort of person who lived in their community (i.e., non-white), would likely go to Hell anyway. So why not use him for her advantage? It’s at this halfway point the Legends barge in from “Bay of Squids”, complicating Astra’s set-up so that she turns them into household objects. You read that right; Ava (Jes Macallan) becomes a ring binder, Behrad (Shayan Sobhian) a candle, Zari (Tala Ashe) a flip-phone, Nate (Nick Zano) a wheel of cheese and Spooner (Lisseth Chavez), ironically, a fork.
This is the outlandish, anything-goes storytelling that Legends of Tomorrow revels in. “The Satanist’s Apprentice” does not linger on the Legends transformation, with them mostly popping up around Astra to sway her conscience against her old ways of thinking. Mostly they serve as a precursor to more outright Beauty and the Beast comparisons, as when Astra does refuse to steal the neighbor’s soul, Crowley takes the power himself and turns Astra – and the rest of the episode - into a singing, 2D animated Disney Princess.
The pivot into 2D animation is a wonderful format shake-up that is executed well in its own right. The animation has an impressive softness and fluidity and allows impressive visuals as reality warps around our protagonists which are unrestricted by live-action. Even the voice performances become slightly heightened to match the episode’s new style. The animation also adds to the axes of Astra’s journey, infantilizing her as a “helpless” Disney Princess who is apparently “weak” compared to her reign as Queen of Hell.
Crowley’s curse backfires on him, though, since Disney Princess’ come with their own form of empowerment. Earlier Astra had found a notebook from her mother but was unable to read the music in it. Now, the painting of Constantine tells her the song inside is spell that expunges all magic in the area, and since she’s a Disney Princess, she is able to sing it. So, Astra defeats Crowley and restores everything to the way it was, even if that includes Constantine’s own magic going away. But at least he and Astra can start at “rock bottom” together this time.
Meanwhile, Legends of Tomorrow catches up with Sara Lance (Caity Lotz – who also directed this episode) after meeting with the Season’s main villain Bishop (Raffi Barsoumian). The oddly-chill antagonist explains he’s the creator of the AVA Clones and wants to “save humanity” through forcing the evolution with Alien-DNA. Bishops is played like a hipster tech-bro, being supposedly inviting to Sara as he sways around the room and sings to himself. But it’s clear his goals for humanity belie a narcissism, especially since he sees the AVA Clones as his own creation with no free will.
Sometimes it feels each story could have been split into individual episodes to be fully fleshed out, but the combination allows for some interesting fusion. Sara’s story parallels Astra, in that both have women “helped” to achieve their full potential by men, only to leave them controlled and restrained. Sara is attended to be a “Nurse Ava” clone, who contrasts Sara’s fully independent fiancé by her unquestioning obedience towards Bishop and “acceptance” of her own disposability. The interaction also results in a quick discussion of the CW’s Wynonna Earp, which Sara says really found itself in its second season (a meta-textual wink to Legends of Tomorrow itself).
Sara’s belief in independence apparently gets through to her bedside companion, who helps her escape back to the spaceship. As with Crowley, the diluted episode time makes it pretty clear this is a betrayal, as Sara has only lead Bishop back to the ship with data samples of various aliens. Sara does manage to snap his neck, but she is only brought back to his lair, where Bishop appears again. Like the frequently-resurrected Sara, Bishop does not so easily killable.
“The Satanist’s Apprentice” advances the main plot but mostly allows a character-focused episode on Astra. It showcases the struggles of tackling everyday responsibilities, especially when left on your own. Compared to the Legends’ chaotic, rule-breaking time-travellers, starting from scratch can be tough. And Astra points out that for a black woman like herself, disadvantages at the bottom are heavier than most. The plot-beats of “The Satanist’s Apprentice” in themselves are perhaps predictable - we can foresee Crowley’s betrayal and Astra’s redemption. Yet they still land, and the accompanying ambitious flourishes of the episode make “The Satanist’s Apprentice” a highpoint of an already solid season.
Legends of Tomorrow airs on Sundays on the CW.