Best Musical Number!

Man I love that this is still a category. Never stop fighting for this one, comic book shows. I mean… I assume you’re fighting for it. And that’s why they keep happening.

Onwards!

Bronze: Dance Battle, Umbrella Academy, “Meet the Family”

The Umbrella Academy have finally returned to their home time, and found the world unended, but their house now occupied by the unnecessarily hostile Sparrow Academy. Tensions build, the two groups face off… in a dance battle to “Footloose.”

Yes okay the only point of this is to show off that one of the Sparrows spits hallucinogenic venom but come on, this is the sort of weird, random, big swing of a sequence that keeps me coming back to this show.

Silver: “Ever Fallen in Love,” Legends of Tomorrow, “The Ex-Factor”

For reasons I don’t have time to explain, the fate of the human race depends on Zari Tarazi winning a televised singing contest hosted by her ex-boyfriend, DJ S’More Money.

There is a lot happening here. Zari is trying to step back into her 2040s socialite/influencer life and finding it difficult, and her and John Constantine have been having trouble admitting their fling has become something more serious, something S’More Money is eager to mine for drama. Zari has one chance to sing a song that connects with the audience and wins her the contest… so with no backing, she tearfully goes into one of those old punk songs John likes… and of course John shows up to accompany her on guitar and fire up the band, come on, I led you right to it.

Anyway it’s a moving scene of a song I love, and the song choice does kinda foreshadow that maaaaaayyyyyyybe this relationship doesn’t have the happiest ending?

But there was one number even more moving.

Gold: “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” Lucifer, “A Lot Dirtier Than That”

All day, Lucifer has been trying to bond with his future-daughter Rory, mostly by attempting to do classic dad-stuff he missed out on… driving lessons, birthday presents, that sort of thing… and of course none of it works because it only reminds her of every way he wasn’t there when these moments should have happened. Classic Lucifer, the show bible demands he misunderstand advice and life lessons for about 40 minutes per episode. But in the closing minutes, he returns home to find Rory at his piano, playing “Bridge Over Troubled Water” on her guitar. Seeing the invitation, he quietly sits next to her and plays along, before harmonizing on the vocals for the second verse. Their relationship isn’t fixed, there’s miles to go before that can happen, but in this moment, at least they have something. One moment that only the two of them, as they are now, can share. (Look, if Chloe could carry a tune in a bucket she’d have had a solo in the musical episode.)

Oh yeah and all the cop characters grapple with how remorselessly racist the LAPD is, that was the A-plot, that’s what all those other shots are.

Speaking of plots…

Next Page: Story time!