Spoilers ahead for Legends of Tomorrow**'s Season 4 midseason premiere, **called "Lucha De Apuestas."
Legends of Tomorrow finally returned to the small screen for its first new episode since the midseason finale back in early December. While the other three Arrow-verse shows returned to the airwaves months ago, Legends waited on the backburner, and the bonkers adventures of the Waverider crew remained off-screen. Now, Legends is back, and the spring premiere delivered some twists that made the situation with the big threat of Hank Heywood all the more complicated.
Let's start with a refresher on what happened four months ago in the midseason finale. That episode ended with the reveal that Hank is working with Neron, the demon that has taken over the body of Constantine's former lover, Desmond. Hank was hard at work on something called "Project Hades" at the Time Bureau, and it involved doing sinister things to the magical creatures contained there.
The sinister things likely would have continued without many complications if not for the interference of Mona, who bonded with the magical creature named Konane, a Kaupe. When Men in Black took Konane from his cell at the Time Bureau, Mona went after them to try and stop them. Konane attacked and killed the two men, and he accidentally slashed Mona in the abdomen in the process.
The spring premiere revealed that Mona definitely didn't hold the slashing against him, and she understood that it had been an accident. In fact, she went to great lengths to try and protect Konane from being recovered by the Time Bureau, especially after she learned that somebody at the Bureau had doctored footage to make it look like she had sprung Konane from his cell.
Fortunately, the Legends caught up with Mona and Konane before the Time Bureau could, and the team split up to get to the bottom of the situation. Sara didn't really believe Mona's claim that the footage had been doctored, wanting to give Ava the benefit of the doubt. Still, after learning that somebody with Hank's phone had indeed messed with the video, Zari teamed up with Nate to get their hands on his device.
Nate and Zari attended a benefit in Hank's honor, taking advantage of his distraction to lift his phone, although not before Hank's mom mortified Zari by commenting on her "child-bearing hips." Mrs. Heywood wants grandkids!
Zari and Nate did manage to get their hands on the phone, and they saw that the footage showed two of Hank's Men in Black dragging Konane away, and Mona then going after him. They learned that Hank is seemingly the human big bad of the season, but it's not all black and white for the Legends this season. The midseason finale complicated things on several fronts: Ava, Mona, and the Project Hades.
Ava Sharpe
Until she learned that the footage of Mona freeing Konane had indeed been doctored, Sara was convinced that there was no way Mona could have been framed at the Time Bureau because Ava would have known about it, and Ava never would have signed off on it.
Well, Sara was both right and wrong. Ava apparently did not know that Mona was innocent and that the footage had been doctored to hide that two Men in Black were dragging Konane away to be experimented on, so Sara was on the money on that front. Where Sara was less correct was her belief that Ava wouldn't be on board with experimentation on magical creatures under the Time Bureau's purview.
Ava has always been about doing her job, and she reiterated to Sara in the spring premiere that her job was to preserve history, not protect magical creatures. Sara was shocked to hear Ava talk about the importance of doing whatever necessary to save human lives, even if it meant magical creatures being experimented on against their will.
Ava raised the point that the Legends were sending magical creatures to Hell not so long ago, and so Sara's protest on moral grounds was a bit rich, but... still. Viewers saw that Konane wasn't a vicious creature like the unicorn was, and he had even fallen in love with Mona. Alas, it was not a love meant to last. More on that later.
Sara tried to convince Ava that she would be there for her in the future, but Ava couldn't see herself giving any more than she already did, and she broke up with Sara. So, now we have an Ava who has no allegiance to the Waverider crew and a devotion to meeting the bottom line and pleasing Hank to keep the Time Bureau funding going.
If Ava continues to focus on the big picture of saving humans, she could prove to be a valuable ally to Hank, even if their values don't necessarily align. Would Ava be on board with Project Hades, if she knew all the details? I doubt it. Following the rules doesn't mean following a demon. Still, she may not be any help to the Legends for a while, at least. Hey, at least they still have Nate at the Time Bureau!
Mona
Poor Mona has always tried to do the right thing, but rarely has doing the right thing really worked out for her. While she did fall in love, it was a relationship doomed to fail. She's a normal human woman, he was a magical Kaupe who couldn't exactly blend into the crowd on Earth... still, everything went heartbreakingly wrong for Mona in the spring premiere.
She sent Konane on what was supposed to be a one-way trip to Mexico in the 60s, intending to hide him from the Time Bureau. She wound up following him there (and then) with the Legends, and it became clear that her priority was protecting Konane, and she even put serious thought into sending him back to where he came from and joining him there.
Against all odds, it was Mick Rory who gave her the rude awakening she needed, after learning that Mona is a fan of the Uncaged Desire book series that he secretly writes under the pen name "Rebecca Silver," because Legends of Tomorrow is the most fun and ridiculous show ever. He told her that even though two people can truly and deeply love each other, sometimes they just come from different worlds and aren't meant to be.
Deciding that sending Konane back to his world and going back to her own was what was best, Mona gave Konane a big kiss... but the romantic moment was ruined when Konane was shot through the back by a Man in Black who showed up out of nowhere. Konane dropped out of Mona's arms, dead. Devastated, she shrieked that he murdered Konane... and then proved that being slashed by Konane resulted in more than just a brief hospital stay.
Mona began to change into a Kaupe herself in a transformation that looked for all the world like a werewolf transformation. She grew claws and terrifying teeth and all the works, killing the Man in Black. By the time Mick turned up, however, Mona was herself again, and she tearfully told him that he was right about no such thing as happily-ever-afters.
What does this mean? Well, Mona has the means and motive to go after agents of the Time Bureau, if she so chooses. She already proved that she's willing to kill if she feels it's necessary, and she truly loved Konane. Could she embark on a mission for revenge?
Even if not, Mona poses a threat. If she has the same abilities as a Kaupe that Konane did and if she gained her transformation powers after being slashed, she runs the risk of hurting or perhaps even turning others. Konane spent his life with those claws of his, and even he accidentally harmed Mona.
Doesn't it stand to reason that Mona, unused to having claws, could do the same? And could she turn somebody else into a Kaupe? Could Mona of all people be part of the big threat now?
Project Hades
In a somewhat surprising twist, Nate didn't try to conceal that he knows his dad is up to something after he learned the truth. When Hank walked into Nate's office to brag about the benefit, Nate killed the mood by saying that he knows about the footage, not beating around the bush at all. Hank didn't bother trying to deny it, but he did tell Nate that "there's a purpose" to what happened in the footage, and that Nate has to trust him.
Nate said that he does trust Hank, but Hank needs to bring him in on these sorts of developments. Hank said that it would happen "in due time," then left to take a call. Now, no need to worry that this out-of-character behavior from Nate means he's becoming a bad guy. After his father left, Zari walked into focus, and Nate asked her to confirm that she cloned all the info from Hank's cell.
All signs point toward Nate playing the double agent, trying to get the inside info from his dad and feed it to the Legends. While it's not out of the realm of possibility that Nate could fool his father, I have my doubts that Neron could be quite so easily fooled.
Nate may not be facing off against magical creatures in different timelines every week like the folks still on the Waverider, and he doesn't have new claws like Mona, but he could be in the most danger of all as he tries to immerse himself in Project Hades. That said, he will be back on the Waverider and wearing the suit of a very different Arrow-verse hero, as seen in the wild trailer for the second half of Season 4!
Only time will tell. New episodes of Legends of Tomorrow air Mondays in the former time slot occupied by Arrow: 8 p.m. ET on The CW. When Arrow returns later this month with its Birds of Prey-esque episode, it will be in the 9 p.m. ET time slot on Mondays.
