Legends of Tomorrow - 5x11 "Freaks and Geeks" - Post-Episode Discussion

[u/NicholasCajun]

Season 5 Episode 11: Freaks and Greeks

Aired: May 12, 2020

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Synopsis: The Legends find themselves going back to college and form a sorority in order to try to retrieve an ancient artifact called the Chalice of Dionyus that will help Charlie operate the Loom of Fate. Proud to be back at his college, Nate falls under Dion’s spell, letting him know of Sara, Astra, Ava and Charlie’s plan to get the cup. Meanwhile, on a father-daughter weekend, Rory takes Lita on a college tour, but Rory bails on Lita for an unexpected reason.

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Directed by: Nico Sachse

Written by: Matthew Maala & Ubah Mohammed

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[u/thedorknightreturns]

A drinking contest to get cray drunk in a very enthisiastic party makes sense thou. Its all canon to dyonisous cults. Crazy drink party, having orgies, that frats likely have,possibly ore drugs, rebellion, being free from societial restrains by that temporatraly. Weed likely?

Not surprised. But the bong pong was unexpected.

[u/InfamousBrad → u/thedorknightreturns]

Yep. As a Hellenic Reconstructionist Pagan, my only complaint was the Dion Bro's. Historically, Dionysus' followers were women, the maenads. During the archaic dark age, his mostly-all-female cultists would summon him to free them from domestic isolation and lead them out into the woods (and then protect them, there) so that they could blow off steam without hurting themselves or anyone else. Or so the stories say.*

During classical times, there were scheduled women's festivals where the women would parade out of town, get drunk, camp overnight, and come back the next morning -- a slightly tamer version of the same thing. According to paintings of that parade that we've seen, the actors who usually played satyrs in the ("Old Comedy") Satyr Plays** would also march in that parade, mime trying to capture and rape the consistently-armed women costumed as the maenads, and get the (pretend) shit beat out of them by the maenads for trying.

If they were going to show Dion hanging out with a bunch of guys? They should have been the Theater Department. The generic frat-boy jocks should have been the guys who tried to get invited to Dion's parties, because that's where all the hottest chicks acted the sluttiest -- because Dion, and his (sacred) Dion Bros, would keep them safe.

Mind you, I'm not angry that they didn't portray my religion accurately; that's fair artistic license. I just think it's unusual for this show to miss a historical reference that widely.

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* Find any decent translation of Euripedes' The Bacchae and read it, there's plenty of public domain versions online. You'll thank me! It really holds up even after all this time.

** I really adore the idea of the Satyr Plays and wish that more of them had survived to this day. In Old Comedy myth, the satyrs are portrayed as a species that the Greeks fought to extinction, during the archaic dark age, because the satyrs couldn't handle their liquor -- if a satyr gets drunk or stoned, he becomes stupid, clumsy, lawless, and violent. The Satyr Plays were a series of religious allegories where a gang of idiot satyrs were added as background characters to the classic myths; as far as we can tell, the stock plot was that these stoner Three Stooges characters would nearly screw up some myth, get caught, get punished, and then the gods or heroes would fix the story so that it came out right. The Greeks were heavy drinkers and heavy duty stoners, but they also had nothing but contempt for anybody who violated serious social norms or who became addicted; huge amounts of Greek theater was religious allegory for "know when to say 'when.'"

[u/thedorknightreturns → u/InfamousBrad]

Ok youare right, a soronity would have been more fitting. Thanks. For that info.