Is Legends of Tomorrow Setting Up a Gideon vs. Gideon Battle?

This Legends of Tomorrow review contains spoilers

Legends of Tomorrow Season 7 Episode 6

I’ll admit a part of me is a little surprised at how much was explained this week. We’re very close to the midseason break for Legends of Tomorrow, but I half expected the revelations to dribble out over the course of this episode and the next. But that’s not what happened at all: we got a TON of resolution tonight, with answers to the biggest plot mystery and the biggest character one: what’s the story with the other Waverider, and who is Dr. Gwyn Davies’ “special person” from his conversation with Sara last week. 

It was a bit of a pleasant surprise to see Davies get so much development this episode. Matt Ryan is a terrific actor who’s getting a chance to go in a drastically different direction than with his last role, and so far he’s nailing it. 

You’ll recall that last week, Legends of Tomorrow seemed to be deliberately obscuring Davies’ reason for inventing time travel, and we wasted no time in finding out why: he’s a queer World War I veteran whose partner was killed on the battlefield in front of him, and his death led to the eradication of their unit. This also explains why a seemingly religious guy in 1925 was so cool with two women being married, so in retrospect the hints were there from the start. 

Davies gets the most development, but Nate gets some time to shine too, as the show prepares to (maybe?) send him off into the totem with OG Zari. Nate catches Ava and Sara bickering after landing in this random forest following their escape from 1925 last week, and decides to take control of the situation, splitting everyone into different pairings and getting to work on setting up a campsite. He assumes they’re in prehistoric times, and does a wonderfully competent job of stepping in for the leaders, pairing people off with exactly who they need to talk to; and then walking through his feelings to come to his decision to join Zari in the totem. 

Now that Astra isn’t constantly negging Gideon, she’s one of the routine highest points of the show. The way the show keeps emphasizing how her time as the big boss of Hell gave her all these skills that are actually super useful outside of the pit of eternal damnation is a delight – two weeks ago it was her contract law background, this week it was her therapeutic use of her skill at interpreting screams. Olivia Swann is really nailing this arc.

But the biggest surprise of the week was our big bad. It turns out it’s not really Bishop who’s behind all the explosions and robot historical figures. It’s actually an evil Gideon, programmed by Bishop and wiped of all social context, who’s pushing Bishop into attacking the Legends because they keep disrupting the time stream. And that’s where this episode gets really interesting. “Deus Ex Latrina” is where the season-long arc crystallizes, and it’s not about getting the team back to a familiar time period. It’s all about Gideon.

The show’s 100th episode was a deep character dive on the Gideon we’ve all known and come to love over the life of the show, a way to center an unsung support character who, until very recently, existed as a voice-over for a disembodied, transparent head. They defined our Gideon by her experiences and memories, literally walking us through her computer brain to see how she went from a program on the Waverider to a valued, independent member of the team. 

At the same time, Bishop was stripping all that out of a copy of Gideon he had. This week showed us the very dire consequences: she turns SUPER evil. The post-factory reset Gideon is a sociopath dedicated to protecting the timeline at all costs, and she pays several: she airlocks an Ava to keep Bishop on task, and then drugs his gross ass smoothie to make sure he stays pointed at destroying the Legends even after he sees why they manipulated him last season (and maybe makes a face turn because of it). 

Gideon with the Legends and their chaos and disorganization and joy and love and friendship becomes an amazing person. Someone who’ll bang Gary and it won’t even be for pity! It’ll just be because the gooseberries are really good. This happens this week, btw. It’s weird.

Gideon without the Legends is a monster, someone so evil she turns other bad guys good. And it looks like the two of them are going to have to face off before this season is done and dusted. I’m very here for it.