Look as stern as you want, Sara, no one’s taking you seriously in that…

The Legends do a sot of dual homage to both 70’s supergroup Abba and the movie Groundhog Day in “Here I Go Again.” They manage to veer back and forth between some serious drama and some really entertaining silliness that they’re so good at on this show. It focuses mostly on Zari, and does a good job of changing her relationship with the team in a believable way.

The episode opens with Zari arguing with Gideon over a new program she’s come up with: a special simulator to find “loopholes” in history, like Zari used to give Helen of Troy a better fate. The team comes back from their mission, with Mick dressed as Napoleon and the others like Abba. Reading between the lines, Napoleon somehow got a copy of Abba’s hit “Waterloo” and that created another anachronism. Sara and Zari end up arguing about Zari messing with Gideon’s programming, which degenerates into a more general fight about Zari not really being part of the team. Providing more comic relief, Ray trips due to his unaccustomed footwear. Sara sends her to fix the damage her simulation seems to have caused Gideon. Zari sulkily does so, gets doused with some glowing goo from the engines, and then is stunned when everything glows and the ship blows up.

A very confused Zari suddenly finds herself back in the midst of that argument with Sara we just saw. Weirdly, she chooses to go to Mick for advice, who doesn’t know what deja vu is, hates the French, and says he’s busy. If I had a complex problem to deal with, Mick is NOT the first person I’d go to on that ship. Probably not in the top five, really. Zari then finds Nate and Amaya arguing about their attraction to each other, and manages to find out neither Nate nor Ray has noticed anything odd. Zari goes back to trying to fix the ship, only to live through the explosion again.

Once again, back to the argument with Sara. Zari tries to explain what’s going on, no one believes her, and she’s taken to sick bay. Ray sedates her and this time, after the reset, she sounds even crazier than before and Mick bodily carries her down to medical. After a lot more resets, Zari manages to resist the sedative, and finds Nate a short stagger away. She manages to convince him what’s going on, and he tells her about Groundhog Day, which becomes a shorthand for her to convince him after a comic misunderstanding through many more resets.

Zari gets several surprises through the episode about how she’s perceived and thought of by her fellow Legends, starting with Nate. Zari sees a few odd things, like Mick doing laundry, a creative use for the memory device from the Time Bureau, Ray being terrified of angering Sara, and Nate and Amaya trying to decide what to do about their attraction to each other endangering the team. Among more resets, she and Nate spy on Mick and learn a few surprising things about both Mick and his room.

With detective work and a lot of trips through the time loop, Zari clears Mick and Amaya of being any part of what causes the explosion. They go to Ray next, and learn what’s weighing on him. Ray is convinced they need to investigate, puts on his ATOM suit, and he and Zari go spy on Sara. She does have a secret or two, but nothing that would lead to the destruction of the Waverider. This attempt doesn’t go well for them, either, and it’s back to the argument.

Zari is utterly exhausted by living through all this over and over, and Nate suggests she take some time to have some fun, since it won’t matter once the reset kicks in. There’s a montage of Zari clowning around, like Bill Murray did in Groundhog Day. We do learn that some past Legends left some things on the ship, and that Zari shouldn’t go anywhere near Mick’s weapons. She also picks up a new hobby and has made up cue cards for two off the crew arguing, which was one of the funniest scenes of the show.

A desperate, defeated, and depressed Zari has a breakdown in the midst of another iteration of her argument with Sara. Zari does something shocking that gets everyone’s attention, and Sara surprises Zara by believing her. After searching the ship, they get a comedic clue about where to look next, and discover a sort of accidental stowaway. They finally find the bomb, and, with no time left, Zari takes drastic action to try and save the others, giving some heartfelt thanks and advice before what she believes will be her final, not repeating, death. What happens instead is she gets a big surprise about what’s actually been going on. She also gets told what she needs to do in order to accomplish some of her own goals.

Zari wakes up again, this time in medbay, and she babbles her way through an explanation of what she’s been through to a disbelieving Sara and Ray. Zari proves that there’s at least some truth to her claims by revealing a few secrets that really needed to get shared, and giving some advice to her teammates based on what she learned in her extended deja vu. There’s a brief montage of the crew acting on what she told them with some special music playing over it. The episode ends with a renegade Time Master recruiting a familiar face to help fight the demon Mallus.

What I liked: There was a lot of great humor in this one. I love what they did with a lot of the characters, and the Abba costumes added just the right touch of absurdity. Mick’s hidden interest was a big reveal, even if they sort of worked a stereotype into it and I don’t know what he’s going to do with it in the end. Nate just believing her from the phrase “Groundhog Day” made a lot of sense for him. I had thought Zari wasn’t meshing with the team well for a while now, and this was an unexpected way of addressing it. Gideon got some great lines in and was shown to be a really devious planner. I’m excited about the new recruit.

What I didn’t: The reveal of what was up with the bomb seemed a bit weird to me. The character they blame for it and the method used just felt a bit off to me.

This was a lot of fun. I’ll actually go a high 4 out of 5 for this silly outing with a few moments of seriousness.