Episode 6: Mr. Parker’s Cul-de-Sac

9

March 14, 2020 by Meghan J

(aired 3-10)

Guys, it looks like we might get a LEGENDS WEDDING! John’s brush with death last week inspired Ray to carpe some diem, and now he’s preparing to PROPOSE to Nora. He’s invited her to John’s house (which I guess has become a Legends shore leave crash pad now that its ghost has been exorcised?), where he’s cooking a fancy dinner, sneaking the ring in the dessert mousse.

Speaking of John, he arrives back on the Wave Rider with a MISSION. Turns out this Loom of Fate is MacGuffin-TASTIC. John reveals that it can change anyone’s past/current situation without messing up the timeline. Convenient. (Although I guess it makes sense for this inexorable item belonging to some of the most ancient, powerful beings in Greek mythology to be super OP.)

But Charlie is adamant that it’s too good to be true and is as dangerous as it is miraculous.

A time-anomaly in the 1874 Dakota territory interrupts their discussion. They head there, thinking it’s the new resurrected baddie.

Aaaaand it is, all right. It’s ol’ Daddy Darhkest himself.

The best way to sum this up? Damien Darhk’s deaths are confusing. Yes, deaths, plural. His first death closed out Season 4 of Arrow, in 2016, after Oliver stopped his attack on Star City. Then, after Nora and Mallus resurrected him, he traveled through time some more, tormented the Legends some more, hunted some Totems, yada yada, until he finally took Nora’s place as the host of Mallus just as Mallus was taking on his true form. He appeared to crumble to dust as Mallus emerged. That was in 1992 Zambesi.

But this episode establishes that he didn’t actually fully die until Mallus died, which oh-so-memorably was thanks to the fatal clobber-cuddle of one Giant Warrior Beebo, in an 1874 Old West field. So we flash back to the Season 3 finale after everyone has left the scene—except Gary. Gary is still there, picking blue fluff up off the ground, because of course he is. Poor Gary. He spots the re-resurrected Damien approaching him a tick too late.

Next we see poor, poor Gary, he’s tied to a train track in 1874. Sara (she’s back!) and Ava, in cowgirl garb, arrive just in time to save him. Season 3 Gary tells them Damien swiped his time-courier.

After that, a lot happens very fast. Damien time-couriers to John’s house in 2020, where Nora answers the door. She’s truly happy to see him—she didn’t even get to say goodbye to him, after all—but still immediately reasons out how he got here.

DAMIEN: “All I know is I’m up here right now as part of some soul-harvesting pyramid scheme. Honestly, I can’t keep up with these millennials and all their new-fangled world domination plans!”
It may be kind of annoying how they keep bringing him back, but at least he’s still hilarious!

 

Nora leaves him in the foyer and warns Ray, telling him to take Pippa, the girl that Nora is currently Fairy Godmothering. Nora pretends it’s for their safety, but it quickly becomes apparent that she actually doesn’t want her dad—who’s peppering her with questions about the life of dark magic she’s been leading since he last saw her—to know that she’s a glorified magical nanny dating a buttoned-up literal and figurative Boy Scout.

So Ray basically is on babysitting duty. He brings Pippa onto the Wave Rider and puts on a VHS of his favorite TV show from when he was a kid. Bet you can guess what it is.

PSYCH!

 

So, in a genuine chuckle-inducing surprise, “Mr. Parker’s Cul-de-Sac” is not just the altered version starring the Legends that we saw in the episode trailer; it’s the name of the actual show in this universe! (Guess they couldn’t actually use the Mister Rogers name cause of copyright??) Aaaaand that’s why it’s not “Mr. Palmer”!

Nora knows that if Sara finds out Damien is back, she’ll kill him dead. And, since Charlie stole Genghis Khan’s Hell-sword, she has the means to. And Nora would rather that not happen.

But of course, Sara already knows Damien is back, thanks to the Gary rescue. Deciding not to involve the boys—“you know how sentimental they can get!”—Sara and Ava bring the sword to John’s house (where Gideon has tracked Damien), fully planning to kill him. But as they’re approaching the house, they and Nora make eye contact. Nora distracts her dad with some spellbooks and begs the pair to let her try this her way instead.

She says she knows a potion that can permanently remove magical powers. She wants to make Pops dinner—she’s already got all the food Ray prepped—and slip him the potion with dessert. That way, he’ll be free of dark magic—a normal, powerless dad. Sara begrudgingly says she’ll give Nora one night.

While the potion is in the works, John comes home and Damien sees him. These two powerful warlocks have never met, but oh, they’ve heard of each other. As a matter of fact, John’s first legit Arrowverse show appearance was on the Damien Darhk season of Arrow; he even advised Oliver and friends to “leave town” during Damien’s reign of terror. A brief but fun and banter-filled magical skirmish occurs between them before Nora stops it.

DAMIEN: “This vagrant’s trespassing!”  JOHN: “This is my house!”  NORA: “Technically…it is his house.”

 

Aaaaand then Nora convinces Damien that she lives here with John, John plays along, and Damien is thrilled that she’s shacked up with one of the most feared names in Hell. They all sit down for dinner.

And that’s when I predicted that John was accidentally gonna end up taking the potion instead. Spoiler alert: that’s not what happens. Yes, the potion is in the dessert mousse, but so is THE RING. Ray forgot all about it when he was rushed out with Pippa.

(How this all is going to lead to Ray replacing Mr. Rogers Parker, I don’t know, but right now I’m loving it.)

Before Damien can take a spoonful, Ava spits out the ring. Damien assumes that it was, indeed, supposed to be for Nora—from John. But Nora finally decides it’s time to stop lying and tells her dad the truth about what she does, and who she loves.

Now, I know Ray is pretty morally opposite from Damien, but Ray also was the one who came up with the idea to save Nora from Mallus. So I don’t see how Damien could not like him.

But before we can figure out how Damien feels about Ray, his uneaten chocolate mousse starts bubbling and he realizes Nora was plotting against him. So, yeah, Damien was indeed tamping down the evil for the beginning of this episode (aside from his endangerment of Gary)—but now, he goes full Darhk.

Nora insists that the potion was her idea, but Damien is having none of it. He accuses the other Legends of “brainwashing” his daughter against him. He magically freezes everyone, even disarming Sara when she charges at him with the Hell-sword. So things are looking grim.

“I am so going to enjoy obliterating all of you!”

 

Luckily, there’s still a little group on the Wave Rider. Behrad, Nate, and Charlie are watching Mr. Parker with Pippa. They hear their friends’ distress call and get ready to go, and Pippa wishes to join them. Sure enough, they’re all whisked to John’s, and Behrad realizes that Pippa can just wish them to safety. So she wishes that they were all out of this scary situation and instead on her new favorite show, Mr. Parker.

So the actual TV show bit is very brief and pretty weird (but definitely doesn’t quite join the ranks of some of Legends’ weirdest bits). Ava and Sara are puppets. Gary is a talking toy train. Damien and Nora have no powers and are able to talk out their issues. Nora chastises her dad for making her feel like she had to hide the things in her life that made her so happy, and he apologizes and tells her he’s proud of her and happy she’s happy. It seems to be resolved a little too easily. (They don’t even address the she-was-gonna-de-power-him-with a-potion thing!)

But anyway, Pippa, who’s been watching it all on the TV in John’s house, decides that she’s spent enough time with these lunatics and wants to go back to her own family. So she releases her Fairy Godmother and they’re all returned to John’s.

Luckily, the resolutions that were reached on the show stick. Damien gives Ray his blessing and says the way Nora’s turned her life around has inspired Damien to keep walking the straight and narrow. Nora tells Ray she knows about the ring and says yes to his proposal, and they decide to get married right there in John’s house.

(Just gotta wonder…does Ray have no family????? We met his mom in the 1980s and know that he has a brother! Shouldn’t they be invited to his wedding?)

Sara, who held herself remarkably well during the ceremony, catches Damien before he leaves and asks whether he’s really giving up evildoing. And then Damien reveals the truth. He says he truly does want to—but knows that Astra won’t stand for him living a life that doesn’t involve murdering and torturing people. She’ll rescind his resurrection and submit him to torment back in Hell. He asks Sara not to burden Nora with that info, and leaves.

When Damien thinks no one can see him, but Sara’s still within viewing range, Damien suddenly pulls out the Hell-sword and stabs himself with it, going out on his own terms. Dark ending there, Legends! (Or, rather, a dark Darhk ending. Eh?)

THOUGHTS: 

This episode was very much not what I expected. I figured that Mister Rogers (or Mr. Parker or whatever) was going to get messed up and the Legends were going to have to go back in time, swooping in to save it and ending up creating a wacky version starring themselves in the process. But instead, it was an almost-entirely-present-day-set, madcap Legends-ified family drama! I know I wasn’t thrilled about Damien coming back, but his return actually led to some fun shenanigans. I actually really liked most of it, and it landed a lot better than the sitcom-y present-day Time Bureau stories of last season. I liked how it was kind of one thing after the other—John comes home! The ring is in the dessert! Damien knows about the potion!—piling on the situational comedy (mixed with the life-or-death stakes of supervillainy!) without being overwhelming.

As for the actual bit on the titular TV show, that was probably my least favorite part. It’s not even so much that I didn’t like it; I’m just not really sure why it needed to be there. But yeah, definite thumbs-up for the episode overall. Only thing is, by the end I was ready for the team to be out on adventures again. It’s already about halfway through the season, after all, and I feel like this Loom of Fate mission hasn’t even really kicked off.

SPEAKING OF FAMILY DRAMA:

Despite only giving it a little screen time, this episode also dropped a MAJOR bomb about Mick. Like, REAL major.

So, the good news? Ali’s back! The less-good news? So is the Rebecca Silver plot thread. Mick is furious upon discovering that he has a troll who’s trashing his books online. Zari, no stranger to being trolled, decides to guide him through. Eventually, Zari’s able to track this person’s location because she’s still got latent hacking skills (!), and a teenage girl comes to the door…followed by…

Yes, so not only is this girl, Lita, 2020 Ali’s daughter, she’s ALSO MICK’S DAUGHTER from their one-night stand at the 2004 reunion. MICK RORY. HAS. A. CHILD. Ali never told him because by the time she found out she was pregnant, Mick was in prison (2004 Mick). And then, as Heat Wave, he kept breaking out of and going back to prison throughout the 2000s. Ali thought her daughter was better off without him.

(For the record, it’s not just a weird coincidence that Mick’s troll was his daughter; Lita knew Mick was her father. When it also became public that Mick was Rebecca Silver, Lita started taking out her rage at him on his books, trying to get his attention.)

Mick takes all this in and then PANICS and zaps both his daughter and baby mama with a memory flasher as Zari watches in horror. And that is where we leave THAT storyline.

NEXT WEEK: “Romeo v Juliet: Dawn of Justness”

THEY  DID  THAT 

Seems like this is going to be a Shakespeare-themed episode, which I am 1000% in favor of. Also…it’s Ray and Nora’s last episode…! (Which presumably means they’ll have to get rid of Marie Antoinette too?!)

*watches trailer*

Yup, super Shakespearean! And hey, Mona’s back!