Saturday, September 24, 2016

Summer DVR Dump: DC’s Legends of Tomorrow 1.16: “Legendary”

“Grey you’re not meant to be sitting around answering trivia questions about history. You, me, Firestorm, we’re meant to change history.”
- Jax

Well, I’m still miffed that they killed off the best character on the show. But we still have a mad man to stop. But that’s not going to happen when Rip dumps the gang in Star City 2016, five months after they left. He says he couldn’t put them back right after they left but doesn’t elaborate. Instead, he uses a hologram of himself so he can take off with the Waverider before the team can get back on the ship. But leaving them there doesn’t result in very good outcomes. Sara learns that Laurel is dead and Mick goes back to his criminal ways. Stein is still not overly happy with the fact that they left the mission unfinished (and so is Ray). So independent of each other, the team ends up reassembling at the spot where the Waverider left them and thanks to some tech from Ray and Stein, they get the ship back.

In France in 1944, Kendra is trying to escape Savage and she runs into an Allied soldier. She writes a note and sticks it in his helmet just before Savage finds them and kills the guy. She tries to fight Savage off but he chokes her out and when she wakes up on the ship, he explains that the aliens that the Time Masters were worried about were responsible for giving immortality to Kendra, Carter and Savage. He wants to erase history and start again. So I guess that’s his big plan.

On the Waverider, Sara lashes out at Rip, demanding he take her back so she can save Laurel from Dahrk. Rip knocks her out and when she’s a little calmer, he explains that they can’t go back because it would result in all of their deaths. Luckily, they find the helmet that Kendra left the note in and he convinces Sara to go save their friends. It’s a team effort fighting the Nazis and Savage but it isn’t entirely successful. Kendra gets shot out of the sky and the team has to fall back with only Carter in toe. Despite being confused, Carter explains what he knows about Savage’s plan. And thanks to Jax wanting to try and transmute a vase, Stein realizes how Savage is going to erase history. There were three meteors that hit in 1700 BC and he’s colleting them. With Kendra and Carter’s blood, he will be able to create a temporal paradox which in turn will create a time quake, returning the earth to the first meteor explosion. Well shit!

Even more problematic is that since Savage can travel through time (and is immortal) he can fil his younger selves in on the plan and get them everything they need (including that stint in 1958). He needs to drop one off in 1975 and another in 2021. I don’t know how they are going to manage to stop all three of the explosions. So the team decides to split into teams of two, hoping that given that Savage will be exposed to the same energy that made him immortal, he can actually be killed by people other than Kendra and Carter. So Ray and Mick hit him in 1958 while Firestorm and Sara take him on in 1975 and Rip and the Hawks head to 2021. In an intercut series of fight scenes we see the gang finally succeed in killing Savage. Ray and Firestorm neutralize the meteors in 1958 and 1975 but their efforts to destroy the one in 2021 both fail. Well, the timeline would stay intact but the planet would be pretty screwed. Well you better fix it Rip!

Because it’s Rip, he decides the best course of action is to take the meteor on the Waverider all on his own. He’s going to fly it into the sun and that way everyone and the planet will be safe. The team tries to talk him out of his crazy mission but he won’t be talked down. Even Mick utters that he doesn’t want to lose another friend. That’s kind of a big move for our cold-hearted pyro. But as Rip pilots the ship into the sun, he sees his family and is able to hold them before he gets pulled in by the star’s gravity field. Honestly I thought he was going to get on the jump ship but apparently he has other plans. He and Gideon use some function on the ship to harness the sun’s solar energy to give them one good time jump, returning to 2021 right after he left.

Even though Rip gives the team the option to stay in 2016 and live their lives, most of the team realizes that the mission of policing the timeline is worth pursuing. I say most of the team agrees because the Hawks decide to give up the fight and settle down now that they don’t have Savage chasing after them. It was nice to see Kendra and Ray have a little goodbye. I also enjoyed the scenes where Sara got to say her goodbyes at Laurel’s grave. Mick also gets to visit Snart pre-pilot where he gets kind of emotional and Snart has this look like “what the hell is wrong with you?” But at least he had a scene. I know the writers have said we will still feel his presence on the show in season 2 so I’m curious to see that unfold. And just as the rest of the team is ready to board the Waverider, another version of it crash lands and a guy named Rex Tyler warns them not to get o it or else they’ll die. After all, the team sent him. He’s from the Justice Society of America.

Overall I think the finale tied the season together quite well. It gave us closure on a lot of the storylines (and I must admit I am not going to miss Carter and Kendra) while setting up something new. I think with some tweaks, season 2 can be much stronger. Defending the timeline and all that is a more appealing premise than hunting Savage. I’m sure we’ll get a new bad guy popping up at some point but let’s hope they are more engaging than Savage.

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