After an odd little break, Legends of Tomorrow again returned with a very odd little episode called “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.” I call it odd because it had an odd storyline, an odd side story, an odd villain (or two) and of course, the VERY odd musical number that has been teased since before the season began. Let’s get to this “oddity”, shall we? Get it? Cause “oddity” is on the poster…nevermind…
So, the main crux of this episode is that of Astra. Who has been trying to get used to life without demon magic, money, help and so on. On one hand, this storyline is intriguing for the simple reason that Astra wouldn’t know how to live her life magic-free because the last time she was de-powered was when she was a child pre-underworld. So her struggling to find her way was unique to the other Legends. But…
They REALLY milked in the tropes. From the “no good very bad day” to the racist neighbor (remember, they are in the 60s in this episode), to one thing leading to another in terms of bad decision making, and so on. I will give points for the use of Alistair Crowley who was a REAL man in our world and was known as the “Wickedest Man In The World” in fact. Props to Matt Ryan for delivering two very different kinds of English accents. The man is a genius actor.
Anyway, the other real problem here was that you could tell where it was going to go. Astra was clearly on a power-trip and felt she could handle Crowley, she was wrong, got betrayed…and then turned into a cartoon. A Disney cartoon…full of singing…ok…
Look, I’m not saying the singing was bad, but they did ham it up a lot including Astra going from “Queen of the Underworld” in personality to “whatever am I to do, John?” It was…a bit much. Even John broke the 4th wall and talked about how absurd this was because ‘every Disney princess knows how to sing”.
That being said, the ending with the cleansing spell getting rid of John’s magic opens up not only a new struggle, but potentially a new danger via this well of “alien magic”.
Speaking of aliens, we FINALLY got to see what was going on with Sara and…it was underwhelming. Bishop was not exactly presented in a “I’m a boss” kind of way like previous villains. He was more of a child than anything, and not the fun evil kind like Klarion The Witch Boy (who would fit PERFECTLY in this show, just saying). He was just…there. And then “Nurse Ava” was odd and Sara trying to “save her” had another predictable ending and it all led to a “cliffhanger” that honestly didn’t make much sense.
In the end, “The Satanists Apprentice” did a lot of odd moves in what was very much a filler episode. It looks to be more story-intensive next week but we’ll see.
Todd Black
Todd Black is reader of comics, a watch of TV (a LOT of TV), and a writer of many different mediums. He's written teleplays, fan-fictions, and currently writes a comic book called Guardians (guardians-comic.com). He dreams of working at Nintendo, writing a SHAZAM! TV series, and working on Guardians for a very long time!
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