Legends of Tomorrow’s latest episode journeyed back to the 1940s to solve the curious caper of a mobster who couldn’t die. Most of it was standard fare for the Legends, but there was one scene I couldn’t get out of my head. Miss her, kiss her, love her, wrong move. You’re dead. That girl is poison…on the eardrums.
“Miss Me, Kiss Me, Love Me” continued the season five saga of the Encores, real-life baddies from the past who’ve been given a second chance to wreak havoc on Earth. Following on Rasputin’s heels is Bugsy Siegel, one of the most infamous gangsters in modern American history. He’s back and he’s not empty-handed: Bugsy’s got a gun. Specifically, a magic hell gun that automatically dissolves its targets (don’t worry, the gun gets turned on him in the end).
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While drumming up a plan to stop the mobster, Sara tasks the others”namely Ava and Mick”with providing reconnaissance and being lookouts. Ava, going through an identity crisis, is having a hard time dealing with the fact that she’s no longer in charge. In a sense, she’s grieving the life that she used to have”something we see echoed in the side plot involving alt-reality Zari and Behrad. In response, Ava does what most Legends would do in the same situation: She gets hammered. When Sara needs them to cause a major distraction that’ll pull Bugsy back to the club, Drunk Ava’s got an idea…
This is when things got weird for a minute”but, like, good Legends of Tomorrow weird. Ava is dressed to the nines and leading the big band in a retro-tastic rendition of Bell Biv DeVoe’s “ripped off Jonathan Coulton’s version of “Baby Got Back” without crediting him.)
As you sit back and enjoy the music, you’re kinda left wondering where those pipes came from, as well as how Ava was able to instantly sober up and teach the band a song from the 1990s. It’s a mystery that’s almost as big as the twists and turns Bugsy’s girlfriend puts Constantine through. That is, until Sara (the world’s most-perfect film noir dame) arrives at the club to find what’s really going on.
Ava, drunk off her arse, has commandeered the microphone and is single-handedly causing a crowd of patrons to flee. In her mind, she’s putting on the world’s best performance. In reality, she’s a mess. But, like, a hot mess.
This latest Legends of Tomorrow was about how people cope when they’ve done everything in their power to make things go well, only to have it just not work out. We learn through Behrad and Nate’s trip home that Zari has taken her fame as the “Dragon Girl” and turned it into a social media empire. She’s vain and self-centered, sure, but she’s also savvy, earning millions of followers and dollars in equal measure. Only she can’t get anyone in her family to care, because she’ll never be Behrad. Then there’s Ava, who was literally created to lead her own empire of time agents…and now she’s stuck as backup. In Mick’s eyes there’s freedom in having no responsibility, but for Ava it’s torture.
It’s a serious subject and one that we can all identify with, and I’m glad that Legends of Tomorrow is taking time to explore the pain of losing something you care about and simply having to move forward as best you can. Especially when it takes the form of Ava getting wasted and ruining a party with her awful karaoke.
As Sara Lance said: “That’s my girl.”