About 90% of \u201cThe Satanist\u2019s Apprentice\u201d is an all-time classic episode of\u00a0Legends of Tomorrow<\/em><\/strong>. But what\u2019s keeping it from getting there, for me, is that other 10%. Half of that 10% is pretty annoying, but not a deal breaker. But the other half of it is probably the first time that the show has truly violated the spirit of one of the comics characters that it\u2019s based on, and that\u2019s very frustrating in an otherwise awesome hour of television.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The episode starts with Astra getting more and more angry about John Constantine leaving her to her own devices, to figure out how to feed herself and connect with the outside world that she\u2019s never been a part of (since she grew up as a queen of Hell). <\/p>\n\n\n\n We get a montage of the frustrating mundanity of her life, running out of clothes (because the House of Mystery doesn\u2019t have a washing machine \u2013 John just enchanted all of his clothes to never stay dirty), running out of money because she can\u2019t get a job, running into bigots in the neighborhood. And John keeps flitting in and out of the house, heading out on missions with the team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So Astra decides that, to get money, she\u2019ll just pawn off all of the antiques in the house, since John won\u2019t help her. That\u2019s where she finds Aleister Crowley trapped in a talking painting in the attic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Crowley teaches her magic \u2013 enough for Astra, in a fit of pique, to switch him into John\u2019s body later on, and then just enough to enchant an amulet that he inevitably uses to betray her. And in a burst of magic, he turns everyone animated, and the third quarter of the episode is just one long Disney movie joke.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is predictably terrific. Astra eventually uses a song spell from her mother\u2019s diary to force Crowley back into the picture and turn off all the magic in their immediate vicinity, but before that, the whole episode is full of little notes and references that this show doesn\u2019t normally do. That seems to indicate some geeking out by the team making it. Here\u2019s a brief and certainly inexhaustive list:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The annoying part of the episode was the introduction of this season\u2019s villain, Bishop. The top knotted gentleman from the end of the last episode, who Sara discovered when she chased an Ava into another ship, turns out to be the geneticist who created\u00a0all\u00a0<\/em>Avas, and he is the one with the master plan that launched this season of stories. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He designed Avas to be his work force so he, the last living human in a world where mankind had wiped itself out at some point in the future, could make better humans and repopulate the species with stronger, faster, more adaptable creatures that were still baseline human.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So good news for Gary! He\u2019s a person still. Bad news for Sara, though: Bishop has been eyeing her the whole time to train his new species, and teach them resiliency. And he programmed all Avas to have an affinity for her. That is a really troubling development for Sara and Ava\u2019s relationship that would be much more of a big deal if I weren\u2019t so annoyed by Bishop being not influenced by Oscar Isaac in\u00a0Ex Machina<\/em><\/strong>, but something closer to a straight ripoff or artlessly executed parody of Isaac\u2019s character.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bishop just bops his way around the set, turning disco balls on and off for no discernible reason, casually dehumanizing the women who work for him. Honestly, this show usually does pastiche much better than this, and it\u2019s a little bit frustrating that this is what we\u2019re looking at for at least an extended period of this season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The last 5% was infuriating. Matt Ryan\u2019s John Constantine has never been precisely faithful to the comics version, but it\u2019s usually been pretty good. He\u2019s a human disaster zone, a self destructive, greedy asshole with the tiniest thread of nobility in him that lets him usually end up in the right spot, even if he didn\u2019t mean to land there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But he\u2019s also of a particular time, and has a particular political point of view, and if comics John Constantine heard television John Constantine telling someone, without a trace of sarcasm in his voice, to work hard and pull herself up by her bootstraps, comics Constantine would go back in time and prevent his own creation to stop it from ever happening again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was probably a mistake of phrasing in an attempt to set up their parallel track at the end of the episode \u2013 Astra\u2019s spell turning off all the magic also works on John, so they\u2019re going to have to work together at obtaining magical power going forward. But it was still so jarring and infuriating that it took me out of what was otherwise a fantastic episode.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\nWho is Bishop?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
The Constantine Problem<\/h4>\n\n\n\n