SPOILER WARNING: This article contains major spoilers for “Freakshow,” the latest episode of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow.
On DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, Vixen is beginning to lose control of her powers. In “Freakshow,” the latest episode, she was forced to use her abilities when Nate “Citizen Steel” Heywood was in trouble, which resulted in her turning on her teammates. When the Legends asked why that had happened, she revealed that she was slowly losing control.
“It started a month ago. Whenever I would tap into my powers, I could feel myself losing control, as if the animal was in charge, not me,” she explained to the team. “One day, Belgian soldiers came to my village. I told them that Zambesi was under my protection, and — when they attacked — I killed them all.”
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Here, Vixen is referring to the stinger from episode 1, where she attacked the soldiers who came for her village in 1942. However, she continued the story in “Freakshow,” revealing that it had a much bloodier ending than she had anticipated. “No, you don’t understand. These soldiers were just boys. When they tried to run, I hunted them down one by one by one and I ripped them to shreds,” she said.
“This totem is my birthright and my sacred duty. Something’s terribly wrong. What if I lose control around my village?” she concluded. “I wanted to tell you — to tell all of you — but I was too ashamed… I can’t go home. Not yet. But I’m not sure that I can stay here either. You saw me earlier. You could all be in danger.”
Of course, the Legends accepted her back into the group — and just in time at that, since Amaya’s villainous granddaughter Kuasa has returned.
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The episode was peppered with hints of Amaya’s struggle. When Sara picked her up from 1942, a child from her village brought one of the soldier’s helmets to her. The sight of the helmet, which had vicious claw marks, seemed to disturb her and she quickly put it away. Then, when she approached the sabretooth tiger, she refused to use her powers to lure it in and keep it calm. When she and Nate were stuck in P.T. Barnum’s cage, she told him, “Believe me, you do not want me using the totem right now” when he asked her to break them out. She did eventually assume the spirit of a bear to save Nate, but this led her to attack Firestorm and the others until Nate was able to talk her down.
She also revealed that she returned to 1942 so that Mari McCabe, her granddaughter, would not disappear; that is to say, if she never returned to her proper time period, Mari would never have been born. While in 2017, she caught a glimpse of Mari at work and dropped everything to go to Detroit. There, she watched Mari save five people, though Mari was unaware of her presence. She returned to 1942 immediately thereafter, even though it broke her heart to leave Nate.
Airing Tuesdays at 9 pm EST/PT on The CW, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow stars Victor Garber as Martin Stein, Arthur Darvill as Rip Hunter, Dominic Purcell as Mick Rory/Heat Wave, Caity Lotz as Sara Lance/White Canary, Franz Drameh as Jefferson “Jax” Jackson/Firestorm, Brandon Routh as Ray Palmer/Atom, Maisie Richardson-Sellers as Amaya Jiwe/Vixen, and Nick Zano as Nate Heywood/Steel.