Legends of Tomorrow Review: Zari, Not Zari (Season 5 Episode 9)
Legends of Tomorrow confronts past selves and gods on Season 5 Episode 9, “Zari, Not Zari.”
One of the most fun things that Legends of Tomorrow has at its disposal, as a spinoff in the Arrowverse, is its ability to have a specific kind of history and legacy that it is able to draw from. For characters such as Sara or Mick, it can draw upon the journey that we’ve gone on with these characters on this show as well as the others.
For other characters, we still have the idea of growth and self-discovery so firmly lodged in our minds. One of its core tenets is this notion that where you’ve been is equally important to where you are now or where you might be going in the future. That’s a big part of what “Zari, Not Zari” is trying to tackle almost across the board, in one respect or another.
Whether it is Zari connecting with the original version of herself via the totem, Charlie having to be bluntly reminded of her past as a Fate, or Mick attempting to reconcile with his daughter after years of neglect, this is an episode that is holding a mirror up to its characters and forcing them to have a long, hard look at themselves.
Sometimes what you see in a situation like that is pretty, and sometimes it isn’t. There’s a lot of very smart reflections on this throughout the episode, but the most heartfelt and meaningful one can be found when Zari interacts with her original self trapped in the totem, and the kind of inadequacy she feels now.
This goes back to the episode being a clever entendre for the kind of struggle that Zari feels after seeing glimpses of her old life. She’s a fiercely unapologetic person and not without her own deeply ingrained sense of confidence, but once met with this arguably cooler version of herself, she feels woefully inadequate.
That’s a really interesting layer to this incarnation of Zari, who has so often been in the public eye and needed to have this protective layer of arrogance to her. She’s awesome and amazing because any other option would be unacceptable.
At the end, there’s now the matter of original Zari being okay with everything because it means that her family is now alive because of it. The guilt that new Zari would feel now that Behrad is gone will have to be immense for her, and it’ll be fascinating to see where the show goes with that in the season’s final episodes.
What’s fairly notable about this episode is that it is, on the face of it, one of its less silly episodes, even while being backdropped on the set of Supernatural for seemingly no other reason than that they can. It’s actually a rather serious and dread-filled episode where multiple characters come close to or actually do die.
It really ups the stakes for the rest of the season for the Fates as the Big Bads and how seriously we should be taking that. There’s often a measure of goofiness to the villains on Legends of Tomorrow, but the Fates have actual menace to them. They feel like they could legitimately kill beloved characters and that is no small thing.
Overall, “Zari, Not Zari,” is a rather heartfelt examination of its characters that feels like it has considerable weight to it.
What did you think of this episode of Legends of Tomorrow? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Legends of Tomorrow airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on The CW.
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Drew Koenig
Drew has an ongoing, borderline unhealthy obsession with pop culture, but with television in particular. When he's not aggressively trying to get out of a perpetual state of catching up, he can be found passionately defending the ending of Lost. More of his online work can be found at The Lost Cause and he also co-hosts The Lost Cause Pod.