The Legends are stuck together. After Constantine (Matt Ryan) conjured a magical shortcut to the cosmic bowling alley in “The Final Frame,” it left the Waverider floating in space with a damaged jump-drive, needing to fly back to Earth the “old fashioned way.” So, the Legends have to wait around for about 3 weeks. A major appeal of Legends of Tomorrow is the ensemble cast’s chemistry, who work and bicker together better than most superhero teams (a minor highlight was them waiting for the bathroom together).
Therefore, an episode of them just hanging out could be highly entertaining. However, “Bored on Board Onboard” twists into something more sinister than the bottle episode set-up. It shows the paranoia and bitterness of being stuck inside (something all too familiar thanks to COVID), including having to face yourself.
At first, the Legends try to kill the time without any death-defying missions to distract them. Ava (Jes Macallan) and Sara (Caity Lotz) plan their wedding, with Ava predictably making efficient binders for who should get invites; Barry Allen, sadly, doesn’t make the cut give the high chance he’ll bring supervillains to the ceremony. Zari 1.0 (Tala Ashe) switches back to “Fancy Z” to spend some quality private time with Constantine. And Nate (Nick Zano) and Behrad (Shayan Sobhian) relax with some Mortal Kombat.
However, Sara unplugs the game once realizing extra technology is a drain on their ship’s battery. Without such electronic distractions, tensions rise on the Waverider, which isn’t helped by Constantine’s blood-potion fuelled arrogance which includes hijacking and trying to strip naked during Behrad’s yoga session. Behrad already noted Constantine’s erratic behavior last episode, which is now combined with brotherly jealousy of Zari running to Constantine before embracing him. In any case, Sara recognizes they need a group activity to pass the time and bring them together, like a mission without stakes, or a board game.
Gary (Adam Tsekhman) invites the Legends to play the role-playing game “Beast/Slayers,” a murder mystery social deduction game ala Mafia or Werewolves Within, where the group has to discover which of them is “The Beast” before they are all devoured. Unsatisfied with something so pedestrian, though, Constantine magically enhances the board game to transport them “inside” of it and become their assigned characters. But like Jumanji, the Legends wind up not playing the game, so much as it starts playing them.
“Bored on Board Onboard” initially seems like a fun Legends romp, as the crew embraces the Gothic setting and their archetypal roles. Sara especially vamps it up as the sultry French “Black Widow.” But once the group accuses Nate of being the Beast – following Ava undramatically being labeled as “deceased” – he winds up graphically stabbed in the back. Constantine’s spell has made the game too “realistic,” and he is unable to break it, leaving the Legends trapped inside as they are stalked and picked off.
Certain elements of “Bored on Board Onboard” feel a little lacking, with the unclear rules of Beast/Slayer having it lose the tension of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. The Legends do not trust each other, despite it being obvious this has escalated beyond a normal board game, leading to some unmotivated actions, like Spooner (Lisseth Chavez) and Astra (Olivia Swann) suddenly trusting one another. Nor does the episode play with the tropes of board games like Legends of Tomorrow normally does, mostly using it as an excuse to dress them up in murder mystery outfits without much outside interference.
But “Bored on Board Onboard” does manage to focus upon core relationships, like that between Behrad and Zari. They clash over their family roles and conflicting desires, with Behrad annoyed that Zari is trusting Constantine “over” him. But this turns into a nice quiet moment alone, where Zari confesses to Behrad that she loves Constantine. Meanwhile, Matt Ryan fantastically balances the juiced-up swagger of Constantine, with his increasingly sickly demeanor once they get trapped inside (away from his potions).
Constantine’s assigned character is a “Consumptive Doctor,” leaving him with an increasingly nasty cough that only masks his damaging addiction to dark magic. Unsurprisingly, The Beast is revealed to be Constantine’s shadow-self, a manifestation of his psyche which sabotages Constantine’s relationships and revels in his growing power. Zari manages to stab The Beast in the back – meaning she does not see its face – but Constantine keeps quiet about his involvement after the game is beaten and the Legends are freed. Even when Constantine tries to pour his blood-potion down the drain, he cannot quite bring himself to get rid of such powerful impulses. Alone, Constantine had to face himself in the mirror, and instead of confronting it he blinked.
While the Legends were trapped inside Beast/Slayer, Mick (Dominic Purcell) stayed inside his room as his hair rapidly grew due to the alien pregnancy. So only Gary and him were active when another spaceship lands aboard the Waverider. Inside is Kayla, who survived the swarm in “Back to the Finale: Part II” and is angry at Mick for abandoning her. Mick is apologetic, but Gary is annoyed and snappy with Kayla in ways he normally isn’t, given he is also her ex-partner. Gary is right to be suspicious, since after fixing one of Kayla’s tentacles, it detaches itself to attack an isolated Gary while Kayla subdues Mick.
So, the Legends are freed from the board game finding the Waverider back on Earth, but depowered, with Mick knocked unconscious and Gary without his human-disguise glasses. The last thing Gary saw was the tentacle starting the ship’s fabricator deconstructing some human feet. Kayla cryptically told Mick that she didn’t attack them purely out of revenge, but since “he got me out. I owe him.” And as Sara walks around the Waverider – another location sabotaged from the inside – she hears singing in the distance. It appears that Bishop has returned.
Legends of Tomorrow airs on Sundays on the CW.