‘Legends of Tomorrow’ 5×05 review: “Mortal Khanbat”

Legends of Tomorrow’s latest episode “Mortal Khanbat” shows us that it’s much better to confront your fate head on instead of running away from it.

Let’s talk about it.

ALWAYS RUNNING

Well it is, unless you are a fate, as Charlie revealed to the team at the end of “Mortal Khanbat”. This ‘Loom of Fate” story-line is not to most out of left field story-line I’ve seen Legends of Tomorrow do. Truthfully, not even close.

Now I’m not sure which revelation was the most unbelievable one of the entire of episode:

Charlie is a fate, who destroyed the Loom of Fate hundreds of years. Charlie’s reasoning for doing so is that humanity should be able to decide their own fates. That’s all well and good, except now, thanks to Crisis, the other sisters are hot on Charlie’s trail. And if there is universal truth about cranky old ladies, it’s that they will not stop till they get what they want.
Behrad and Charlie went to “Smash City” (as Nate so elegantly put it), and it caused tension between them for most of the episode. Wasn’t a big fan of this subplot, as it felt completely out of nowhere. I’m not saying I’m against the pairing but I’d have liked to have seen them together more before they suddenly had a connection.
Scooters are not cool. Sorry Nate and Genghis Khan. They just aren’t.

So now the Legends not only have to contend with the encore of the week, but a couple of old Fates out to make Charlie pay for what they did. It’s kind of appropriate that Legends of Tomorrow will get to answer that old familiar question: How do you fight fate? My best guess: a bit of wackiness, a bit of silliness and a whole lot of family and heart.

DEAL OR NO DEAL

As for the other plot line of the episode, it deals with another man trying to outrun his fate: John Constantine.

When we last left Johnny, he was fighting for his life, after Astra had his life token changed to die immediately. Well it ends up being almost immediately, as the lung cancer that John has goes from just beginning to a stage 4 critical.

I think what connects me to the story is that everything John does in “Mortal Khanbat” is what we would basically do too if we were dying.

Bargain. John tries at first to unsuccessfully convince Astra to change her mind. Astra flat out refuses this request.
Lash out at loved ones. At moments like these, we like to think that we would be dignified and loving to the people who care about us. Truthfully though, there would be moments that we’d get angry. Get angry at the people who care about us, like John does with Ray and Gary. Even though it hurt to see John do this, I understood it. I also was glad that Gary and Ray understood it as well, why John was angry at them. He was angry at what his fate was leading to.
Resignation. John realizes what he did after talking with his walking staff (magic, everybody), and goes to apologize to Gary and Ray. After that, they all sit around drinking wine while telling stories. We all fear that darkness coming like John does, but it is a little bit easier to face it when you aren’t alone.
Acceptance…….Okay this one not so much.

John sees his time run out, so he makes one last desperate attempt to save his life. And the only choice he has is to try again with Astra. After singing a song that he learned from her mom, John is able to convince Astra that he can save her mom and her. Astra turns back John’s token, and John has a second chance at life. But only if…he can save Astra’s mother.

But hey, on the plus side….John’s okay!!

I’m very glad that this will connect with Charlie’s story, as it looks like John will try to find the parts of the Loom of Fate that remain to change Astra and her mom’s fate. But having something like the Loom is something that could tempt each Legend.

“Mortal Khanbat” does leave us with another question about fate: Can you change it?

LEGENDARY THOUGHTS

The Encore of the Week, and who the episode was named after was Genghis Khan. The big plan was for Khan to take over 1997 Hong Kong’s Triad gangs to rule the world. Not the strongest villain of the season, but the action scenes were pretty darn fun.
A very excellent directorial debut for Caity Lotz. She seems to have a knack for shooting hair-raising action scenes like the shootout between Ava and Genghis Khan’s men.
Ray wants to marry Nora!! Awwwwww.
I enjoyed seeing Ava as the Captain these couple of episodes.
We got to see Marie Antoinette again! I wouldn’t mind it if Marie got a cameo each episode for the rest of the season.
I saw some of the old sparks that Nate and Zari had for one another peeking out during a couple scenes.
Sara returns at the end of the episode!! However, she gives no explanation of where she’s been these last couple of episodes. What is going on there?