REVIEW: Legends of Tomorrow, S4E16 – Hey, World!

Legends of Tomorrow opened up the gates of Hell, literally, in “Hello, World!” With Charlie (Maisie Richardson-Sellers) in their custody, Neron (Brandon Routh) and Tabitha commence their plan to not only criminalize magical creatures but also welcome back the souls of the Damned to life on Earth. In order to stop the Apocalypse, Nate (Nick Zano) had to call on the powers of song and his dad’s weird idea for a theme park that no one admits is basically just a circus.

Charlie was a big damn hero this week.

One thing Legends of Tomorrow managed to do throughout the incredibly busy episode was pull plot points from every imaginable corner in order to tie things together. For example, Zari’s (Tala Ashe) accidentally forgotten dragon played a climactic role in the Heyworld theme park going wrong – but it also brought back her long forgotten desire to save her family. Without her brother’s death, her family remained intact but she also never received the totem which sent her to the Waverider in the first place. Which was all well and good so long as she stayed within the time ship’s bubble, but “Hey, World!” wasn’t about to let that happen.

Meanwhile, Constantine (Matt Ryan) and Nora (Courtney Ford) worked from inside Hell to free Ray with the help of a reluctant Astra, who refused to forgive John but was perhaps willing to strike a deal to get rid of Neron. Unfortunately, that still left them with Ray’s soul in the form of a coin until Neron could be removed from his body. The only options left to the team were to either sacrifice Nate, since Ray specifically gave up his soul on the condition that Nate would be safe, or to establish Heyworld and trick the country into seeing it by dressing up as the DCTV Trinity. Seeing Sara (Caity Lotz), Nate and Gary dressed up as Supergirl, Arrow and The Flash respectively was perhaps the highlight of the episode, but even Charlie’s best efforts to rally the magical creatures into showing off their talents couldn’t get audiences to accept them.

Nate’s ships constantly doomed by the timeline.

Especially not when Zari’s dragon, who had previously been torn from her younger self’s loving arms by Neron’s cronies, was unleashed and began attacking the Legends of Tomorrow in full view of everyone. Thankfully young Zari was right there to try the age-old power of love trick on him. It worked, but that still left the question of what to do with Neron, who was already opening a portal to Hell. Which is when “Hey, World!” got really weird. First, Constantine tricked the demon into killing Nate (with the man’s consent, no worries!) which freed up Ray’s body for his own use. But the team could obviously not abide a dead friend, not after working so hard not to lose anyone else. So Zari made a mad dash out of the Waverider and onto the stage in order to sing him back to life.

Yes, it was very reminiscent of The Magicians finale this season, except in “Hey, World!” music had the power to recharge a magic staff and bring Nate right back to life. Unfortunately that meant Zari had stepped outside the time bubble and thus got swapped out with her brother, who did not appreciate how tight Nate was holding him. And if that weren’t problematic enough, Astra went ahead and cashed in a bunch of soul coins in order to send some pretty dangerous beings back to Earth. And while the Legends of Tomorrow are dealing with those next season, let’s not forget that the Monitor was lurking in the audience at Heyworld too, probably sizing up how useful this group of heroes will be in the war to come.

“Hey, World!” felt like more of a midseason finale, which is strange given that their next season will open with Crisis on Infinite Earths, but at least the episode didn’t miss out on any of the show’s signature charm. And as for answers, we’ll have them when Legends of Tomorrow returns to the CW in 2020.