Jessie Robertson reviews the ninth episode of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow season 2…
“Oooh, this sounds cute: Howard the Duck!” “No!!!!”
So, the “Legion of Doom” are actually named! and where did Nate come up with this? “Saw it on a Hanna-Barbera cartoon I watched as a kid” So Meta! Congrats! Is it wrong I want to see a show with Merlyn and Dahrk traveling through time, f—ing it up and making quips at each other??? Tonight they get back to Hollywood in the 60’s where we saw a quick glimpse of Captain Hunter, apparently now a film student working on a Rip Hunter movie based off ideas in his head. The Legion, with possession of the amulet, is now looking for the Spear of Destiny, an artifact that pierced Jesus Christ himself and can alter not just time, but reality now. It’s getting a bit bonkers at this point. We see when the ship was going down back last year that Rip was actually in possession of the Spear, so did he alter himself so he wouldn’t remember who he was? Questions for another time….
There’s a weird sub-plot where Mick gets discovered talking to Snart by the Professor and he’s “coerced” we’ll say into helping him diagnose the issue. Stein and Mick have a therapy session and use Gideon’s advanced tech to find a chip was implanted into Mick’s brain way back when he was Chronos. At one point, and I’m not making this up, Sara and Jax walk by the two of them, and see Stein cutting into Mick’s head with a scalpel to which he replies “Brain surgery” WHAAA? Apparently he got the chip out but said it hadn’t been working and Mick seeing Snart was all in his imagination. At first he mentions Snart could have formed with the laser blast that killed him and sent his being into billions of particles out in space to which he is still able to communicate with Mick. Stay with me…but once the chip is removed, he realizes Snart is no more. This was so, so dumb.
With the intro of the Spear of Destiny, as Rip puts it in regards to his script, it was just a MacGuffin. That’s what we have here folks. Season one spent a whole lot of time, the entire season in fact, chasing down Savage and trying every way imaginable to stop him but it was all an exercise of running in place. They needed a new one and getting the Spear (which they have) is it. So, Rip was taken by Thawne, so now he becomes the mission. It’s a cycle that has grown tiresome. Oddly enough, when Palmer and Nate started bantering with straight (wo)man Amaya in the middle, I actually missed the Legends. Their banter is fun; they have good chemistry there is no doubt. But this show always feels like it’s chasing it’s tail.
7/10- Despite Lucas references a plenty, this is a ho-hum episode
Other Notes:
– Oh yeah, George Lucas was in this episode! Haha, a very cool and sentimental note to sci-fi as Ray and Nate both start losing memory of who they are and their knowledge because George Lucas quits film school here after seeing the Legion shooting at him with laser guns(was he actually hit even at one point?) It was a cool nod to the man whose movies are now affiliated with the competition and besides saying the titles of his movies and saying his name in full (“just shut up for a minute, George Lucas”) and veiled references to his movies (the dumpster scene) there’s not a lot they can do directly with Lucas’ franchises. A fun attempt at including him even though his presence made the villains way too soft (they kill a cop with no hesitation but drop the rest of the gang in a dumpster and wait for them to find the Spear???)
– For some reason, I really enjoyed seeing the opening scene of them all in their bed-time wear, rubbing sleepies from their eyes trying to wake up and discuss their latest problem
– “fake gluten allergy” of course Ray has a gluten allergy – this was hilarious
– Yep; they said Time Ghost as if it was a thing.
– Dumbest line of the night: as Rip is taken by the Legion and as we see, about to be tortured, Ray actually tells the group “Rip would want us to relax and enjoy ourselves tonight” as opposed to finding him and saving him from torture???
Jessie Robertson
Originally published January 25, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
