Everybody’s craving something in Legends of Tomorrow’s second Season 6 episode, “Meat: The Legends.” Be it Ava (Jes Macallan) wishing to be reunited with alien-abducted Sara (Caity Lotz) (and vice-versa), Spooner (Lisseth Chavez) demanding the alien-antenna be removed from her head (even if Gideon couldn’t find anything), Zari (Tala Ashe) asking to start “sharing” the Air Totem with her brother Behrad (Shayan Sobhian), or the townspeople’s insatiable hunger for meat at 1955’s Big Bang Burger.
“Meat: The Legends” follows in the footsteps of fast-food themed TV episodes like Teen Titan’s “Employee of the Month,” Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s “Doublemeat Palace” or Torchwood’s “Meat,” wherein mysterious meat causes a crisis, serving up a fun if somewhat predictable addition.
After “Ground Control to Sara Lance” had the Waverider’s kidnapped Captain release aliens into the timestream, Ava is determined to track them down, both as part of the Legends’ usual clean-up duties, but with Spooner interrogating the aliens to find Sara’s whereabouts. Gideon tells them of a historical anomaly in 1955 San Bernardino – birthplace of McDonald's, and the year it was “franchised” and hit big, for anyone who remembers Michael Keaton in The Founder (2016) – where Big Bang Banger is blowing up with dishes “out of this world” before becoming a massacre site.
As usual, Legends of Tomorrow travels to this era and evoke its style of ‘50s Americana, from the Legends’ period-appropriate outfits, ‘50s rockabilly soundtrack, and the cheesy, brightly-lit B-movies like The Blob (1958) – although Behrad references The Stuff (1985) as a more direct comparison.
The Legends split into groups to sniff out the obvious alien influence, with Nate (Nick Zano), Zari and Behrad going undercover in customer service for Big Bang Burger. While Nate eagerly roller-skates around in short-shorts, Zari and Behrad bristle against each other. Behrad reminisces about his summer job flipping-burgers as something independent from his famous “Dragon Girl” Influencer sister, with the Air Totem extending to this “speciality” he doesn’t want to relinquish to Zari.
Although such sibling rivalry is, on paper, a natural progression of the Tazari’s arcs, it does feel underbaked by “Meat: The Legends,” which wears the respective motivations too openly. Plus, such issues become easily resolved by convenient teamwork and Zari 1.0 (apparently still trapped and aware inside the Totem) magically conjuring a second Totem for Zari 2.0 to wear.
More satiating is the story between Ava and Spooner, who is irate at the Legends for falsely promising to help fix her detection of alien presences and being roped into one of their missions, pessimistically telling Ava to “give up” on getting Sara back. After her clunky introduction, Spooner functions well in “Meat: The Legends,” being a relatively grounded ‘straight-woman’ to the Legends’ more relaxed demeanor, reacting to their “dark” jokes – like debating whether to dub the incident as “The Massacre on Main Street” or “Suburban Slaughter” – and peppy, can-do attitude.
Spooner is much more trigger-happy than the experienced time-travelers, nearly shooting Big Bang’s alien-themed mascot due to her haywire head-signals. When they take the meat-hungry mascot aboard the Waverider, Constantine (Matt Ryan) uses a spell to extract “unwanted influences,” making him projectile vomit out Big Bang’s “special sauce” which is at the root of the ravenous cravings.
Ava discovers Big Bang’s suburban housewife Rhonda (Kirsten Robek) has been scraping off orange slime from an alien cocoon to boost her husband’s failing burger business. Despite Rhonda’s manic, quasi-maternal protection of the cocoon, representing the ever-hungry expansion of the “American Dream,” the cocoon bursts and the emerging monstrous butterfly-alien swiftly swallows her up.
Back at Big Bang Burger, the fast-food trio have been sedating the zombie-like ravenous horde by quickly serving them tainted burgers, Overcooked style. The plotlines converge as the alien descends upon the burger joint. “Meat: The Legends” shows how people must temper their appetites – be it for alien meat or American businesses – lest it consume them, and Ava also recognizes her need to find Sara cannot come from this particular alien, and allows Spooner to destroy it.
Meanwhile, Sara and Gary (Adam Tsekhman) are roaming around the pink-tinted planet they crash-landed upon at the end of “Ground Control to Sara Lance,” with Sara still annoyed at Gary for secretly being an alien and kidnapping her. After spotting a seemingly normal dog (which Sara finds stranger than the three-mooned alien planet), they’re led to a cabin containing Amelia Earhart, who claims she awoke there after disappearing above the Pacific Ocean in 1937. Amelia insists Sara and Gary stay for stew (a bad sign in “Meat: The Legends”) and grows sharp teeth and a forked tongue after they try to leave, ending the episode with Sara poisoned and blacking out as strange lights appear in the surrounding trees.
In many ways, “Meat: The Legends” is a classic Legends of Tomorrow episode, using an outside influence (an alien pod) to travel to, and riff upon, a recognizable historical moment (1950s fast-food culture). The episodes plays off the premise reliably well, although “Meat: The Legends” lacks the same level of humor or originality as its better episodes, including last week’s. Legends of Tomorrow has even done a “zombie” episode (twice!) before, and is still struggling how to incorporate all of its larger cast, with Mick Rory (Dominic Purcell) disappearing halfway through the episode.
Still, even if “Meat: The Legends” lacks a “special ingredient,” the Legends of Tomorrow recipe has been honed enough that it remains a solid enough episode, continuing the emotional intrigue for Season 6. Spooner especially has fit in nicely, ending the episode resolved to help Ava in her search for Sara, and to keep killing aliens until she feels some closure for her past (Ava and the show are aware this isn’t a healthy option). “Meat: The Legends” may not be the most fulfilling dish the show has ever served, but it goes down easily and (unlike some fast-food) you know exactly what you’re getting.
Legends of Tomorrow airs on Sundays on the CW.