This Legends of Tomorrow review contains spoilers.

Legends of Tomorrow Season 5 Episode 12

“Freaks and Greeks” is the first episode since Legends of Tomorrow returned from a pandemic-prolonged hiatus where the real world started to creep into my personal enjoyment of the show. 

I don’t think this is a unique problem to me, nor is it something that only happens to Legends of Tomorrow. It’s been two months since I high fived anyone other than my toddler or since I stood within ten feet of another person without getting mad about it. But for the most part, I haven’t been all that freaked out about it happening in my fiction. Until I saw the Legends and an entire campus of college kids drinking out of the same cup. THAT’S HOW YOU GET PREGNANT, GUYS. I mean the ‘rona. That’s how you get the ‘rona. 

The Legends have all of the pieces of the Loom of Fate, but they can’t use it because they don’t have three people with the power of gods. So everyone is blazing through Constantine’s spellbooks, and Nate recognizes The Chug Cup from his days at a rival school to Law & Order SVU’s most prestigious college, Hudson University. Turns out, the Sigma Psi Phi (get it) fraternity is currently in possession of the Cup of Dionysus and Dion, head bro and college lifer, is actually Greek god Dionysus, so the Legends go back to school. 

The point of this season seems to be the transition that everyone is going through, and this episode is a Nate one. He’s back in college trying to hang onto his youth; Mick and Lita are touring the school; Charlie is finally dealing with who she is. Nate here is dealing with growing up. The whole episode, he’s extremely insecure about how much older he’s getting, and it’s hilarious, but it’s also weirdly melancholy. Nate’s been through a ton since joining this show, and this feels a little like him pointedly avoiding dealing with that loss. 

At the same time, it’s still a good episode. Social distancing hangups aside (and holy shit was stuff like 300 people at a frat party drinking from the same beer pong cup sets always gross? It was, and this is a me problem, isn’t it?), this is another one where the various stories are fairly well integrated.

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Nate’s dealing with growing up while Mick and Lita tour the school and Mick gets insecure about how little he’s provided for her, both genetically and financially, and the rest of the team is chasing the cup by creating a sorority to win the Chug Cup. Charlie and Astra take the lead in that story – this is Astra’s first real Legends mission, which means shooting social media videos to promote their sorority and doing her best not to maul anyone who gets in her way.

And it gets through a little bit. Their fake sorority takes over Constantine’s House of Secrets as their sorority house, and they bring in a group of misfit girls (including one who got Instagram famous for “snarting,” sneezing and farting at the same time. The first time I watched, I confused it for barting, where you burp and fart at the same time and sink your own body into a singularity. It’s bad).

Eventually, the gang settles on stripping Dionysus of his followers, which ends with Zatoichi Beer Pong – Sara, still blind, takes down the Greek god of parties and wine in a beer pong game and gets the cup. 

This is a show that does so many little things well. Ava rocks a moose mascot outfit going into the pledge event, and a frat bro mistakes her trying to tap her earpiece to talk to Nate for a high five offer. It’s really fast, but it got a laugh, as did Zari’s crack about Dionysus coming in on a litter – “That’s just like my entrance to the 2044 VMAs.”

Mick and Lita get a really nice moment with each other that feels like it’s starting to pay off that plot, that builds on last week’s hell hound battle on the ship. And Astra gets to do more than just snarl at people. Even though it’s really transparent, Astra becoming a Legend was entertaining to watch. This show has a way of telegraphing its character beats in a way that still ends up satisfying. 

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