‘Legends of Tomorrow’ Stars on Nora Darhk’s Journey in “Tagumo Attacks!!!”

Over the years, Legends of Tomorrow has become a show about outcasts getting second chances, and this week’s episode put that on display for one particular character.

Spoilers for tonight’s episode of Legends of Tomorrow, “Tagumo Attacks!!!”, below!

The episode saw Ray Palmer (Brandon Routh) recruiting Nora Darhk (Courtney Ford) in helping John Constantine (Matt Ryan), whose magic powers had been damaged after saving a child in the previous episode. Nora eventually agreed to help give John what she described as “a magic transfusion”, even though she was conflicted about tapping into her powers once again.

While John and Nora have only crossed paths occasionally before – namely when Nora was a child in the episode “Daddy Darhkest” – this latest interaction saw both characters at some interesting crossroads.

“What’s great about the relationship with Nora, is she was a kid when John tried to help her, and he slightly abandoned her, and now she’s a grown woman, so that dynamic is really interesting.” Ryan told reporters during a visit to the show’s set. “That plays into the whole child aspect that John feels guilty about, with Astra and other children, which is a running theme. And a demon has been part of her, as a demon has with John as well.”

“But John’s a master of the occult as well.” Ryan continued. “You’ve got someone on this side, who is a witch and has magic and then someone who knows everything about it. It’s proven to be a really, really cool dynamic. She would have been great on the original show as well, because the relationship he had with Zed [in NBC’s Constantine] was he like a mentor figure to her. That’s like that here, but she’s a lot more experienced than Zed was. So, they are a lot more on an even keel, which is a good kind of dynamic to play.”

At the end of the episode, Ray then gave the Time Stone to Nora once again — only for her to use it for a surprising purpose. She sent her and Ray to the Time Bureau’s offices, where she turned herself in, agreeing to take penance for her previous actions.

“I think it’s really frightening for her, and it is something that she struggles with, because her magic is tied to her father.” Ford told reporters during a recent visit to the show’s set. “And even though she had such incredible love for her father, that relationship was also dysfunctional and she received a lot of pain from it as well, and the world received a lot of pain from Damien Darhk. So right now Nora’s trying to figure out who she is, without her father’s influence and without Mallus’ influence.”

“I mean it’s absolutely frightening.” Ford continued. “So she feels like, ‘Okay, well I want to see how I can be in the world, going straight so to speak. Not using magic at all. Trying to be a regular person.’ It’s frightening and it’s confusingm and she doesn’t know who she is. I think maybe all of us have felt that way at some point in our lives. What defines you, who are you? When you don’t have something that is grounding you… It can feel very unsettling to not know your place in the world.”

And of course, agreeing to give herself up to the Time Bureau adds a whole other layer to Nora’s arc, something that, now that Ford is a series regular on Legends, fans can probably expect to see in future episodes.

“She finally does decide to use her magic, but in her mind she doesn’t know ‘If I give myself over, am I gone now?’” Ford explained. “‘If I use any magic at all, is it just what Constantine warns her about? Is it just “vroom” down that road? Or can you still be good? Can you still kind of be a complicated ally and use some magic? How much is okay?’ How much can she tolerate? It’s also kind of addictive, that kind of power that she had.”

“She wants to pay.” Ford added. “She wants people to know that she paid her penance and worked to be a better person. She knows that people don’t trust her and knows why they wouldn’t trust her and accepts that and really has committed herself to doing the work to show people that she’s different. She has to prove it to herself too.”

Legends of Tomorrow airs Mondays at 9/8c on The CW.