‘Legends of Tomorrow’: The 7 Best Gideon Moments

Legends of Tomorrow has a solid lineup of heroes, but it’s not just those on board the Waverider that save the day. Sometimes, it’s the Waverider itself — or, rather, its AI Gideon — that comes through to not just save the timeline but the very heroes themselves.

While most episodes Gideon is heard offering options, checking the historical reference, and generally just making sure the Legends manage to get from one point in time to the next, as we’ve seen more in the most recent episodes of The CW‘s DC Comics-inspired superhero series, Gideon has really had opportunity to shine. She’s both saved Zari (Tala Ashe) when she got sprayed with time fluid last week as well as saved all of the Legends when their trip to pirate times went a bit awry in the most recent episode.

Of course, Gideon has always been awesome. How awesome? We’ve collected seven of the AI’s best moments from Legends of Tomorrow proving that she’s a hero in her own right.

Voicemail

While we’ve always known that, as an AI, Gideon can do almost anything when it comes to operating the Waverider, tonight’s episode of Legends of Tomorrow revealed that she’s not just tech savvy when it comes to the time ship, but she’s tech savvy when it comes to cell phones too. While Sara (Caity Lotz) is out on a date with Ava (Jes Macallan), the team decides to head off to 1717 in search of the missing Earth Totem. They neglect to notify Sara of this, so Gideon does what any good AI would do: she calls Sara and leaves her a voicemail notifying her of what shenanigans the team is up to in her absence. Now we have to wonder if Gideon’s on Facebook or Instagram too.

Time Loop

In “Here I Go Again”, Zari appeared to be trapped in some sort of temporal loop, forced to relive the destruction of the Waverider and the deaths of all on board until she could somehow figure out how to stop it. It turns out that Zari was never in a time loop at all. Instead, the time loop was something Gideon constructed for Zari. It turns out that when Zari tried to fix the ship and got sprayed in the face with a glowing sludge, the sludge was very dangerous and left Zari unconscious. Gideon created the time loop in her head to help her build better relationships on the team.

Gideon’s Got Jokes

The time loop that saved Zari and kept her on the Legends team wasn’t the only great moment from the AI in “Here I Go Again”. Not only did we get to see Gideon in her physical body (played by Amy Pemberton, who also voices Gideon) but we also got a taste of Gideon’s sense of humor. Over the course of the episode, Gideon made a number of jokes within the faux time loop, including a particularly funny “4:20” joke. That’s right, the AI made a marijuana joke, but that wasn’t the only standout from the episode. Gideon also put Time Bureau agent Gary in the Waverider’s trash compactor during the faux time loop, a move she later told Zari she simply thought was just funny.

No Smoking

When John Constantine (Matt Ryan) came on board the Waverider in this season’s midseason premiere, in addition to trying to help young Nora Dahrk escape Mallus’ possession of her, all he really wanted was to have a smoke. Over the course of the episode we see Constantine try to light up to no avail. It’s only at the end of the episode that we finally see him get to enjoy his cigarette. But if you think Gideon’s got jokes, she’s also a master of being a killjoy too. As Constantine lights up on the Waverider, Gideon dryly reminds him that the Waverider is a no-smoking ship.

In the flesh

While we saw Gideon inhabit a physical body this season in “Here I Go Again”, it was the first appearance of the physical Gideon that counts as one of the AI’s best moments. In the show’s second season, Rip Hunter (Arthur Darvill) had his mind altered by the Legion of Doom, and after the team brought their former leader back to the Waverider, Gideon suggested going into Rip’s mind to save him. While in Rip’s mind, Sara and Jax (Franz Drameh) encounter the physical manifestation of Gideon who, in turn helps Jax find the real Rip inside his mind. It was a complicated episode, but Gideon’s appearance helped it make sense and it was amazing to finally have a real face for the wise AI.

The Kiss

Of course, having a face for Gideon wasn’t the best part of her first physical manifestation. Once the team finds Rip, Gideon helps him remember who he really is and defeat the Legion of Doom’s brainwashing. Once Rip remembers himself, he has to leave the prison of his mind to come back, but before he does, he and Gideon kiss. Later, in the physical world and back to himself, Rip apologizes to Gideon for the chaos he caused, to which Gideon noted that she not only remembered the kiss, but that she had enjoyed it.

She Will Turn Off Your Life Support

While most of Gideon’s best moments are her being funny or heroic, there are moments on Legends of Tomorrow where she’s downright savage. In the second season’s eleventh episode, “Turncoat”, the Legends are trying to track down another piece of the Spear of Destiny and are a little bit impatient with how long Gideon is taking to process things. When Sara remarks that the team’s supercomputer isn’t so super, Gideon doesn’t take kindly to that. She offers to speed up the process of finding the Spear by shutting off the ship’s life support systems to reroute power. Sara thinks Gideon is just being sassy, but the AI makes it very clear that she’s not, telling Sara “I’m not joking.” Moral? Don’t make your AI mad. She will cut you… off from your oxygen supply.

Legends of Tomorrow airs Mondays at 8/7c on The CW.