Jessie Robertson reviews the seventh episode of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow season 3…
In my opinion, any episode with Grodd in it is a win and a good episode – and make no mistake, this episode was ambitious as hell and I have to sort of applaud just on the sheer audacity of all the issues it tries to tackle here, but I’m not convinced (even in my tired as hell state) that it all worked.
Grodd as an allegory for the perils of war? Nate “Going All Dr. Phil on your Ass” with Rory? Martin convening his own council this week, ala The Flash? Yep, all this and more. So, Grodd was the anachronism this week and he’s in Vietnam. But, instead of just being a Predator-like monster (and yes, Nate did give Rory the alias “Schwarzenegger”) he does what Grodd does: he establishes a group of followers. They all may not have been willing, but most of them came around to his thinking of making this peace in the middle of this war.
With Sara out of commission, Amaya, Zari and Ray pose as photographers in the War and are immediately led to Grodd’s camp. Amaya, multiple times, tries to communicate with Grodd, and as much as I would have loved to see Gorilla Warfare, Grodd came to the conclusion it would be much more fruitful for him to just take the Legends’ time-machine. There are always lofty ideas with Grodd’s episodes, this one included, but they always seem to break down to him being that beast instead of the intellectual he is most of the time.
Meanwhile, Nate and Rory are soldiers investigating the last site of the attacks and when Rory is extra moody, he explains his father was in Vietnam. Just as Nate is pointing out the odds of them actually running into him, the show wastes no time in allowing us to realize that’s exactly what will happen and does. Rory’s dad is just like you would imagine – gruff, super male ego and veering towards the edge of tipping over. Oh, and seems to have a penchant for fire. Like father, like son. There’s a lot of male posturing between them and some of it is entertaining, and if you stop and think about it, considering Rory, in the future, murders this man for his abuse, which is alluded to but not spoken of. It’s pretty dark and murky ground, considering Rory and the viewer can see this war is what has perhaps pushed that man to the monster he later becomes. Rory does not make any major revelations about any of this but does realize it was therapeutic for it to happen. But, for as much as the group talks about not changing the future, when they constantly run into (and interact with ) themselves or their friends/family nearly every week, how does that not affect things?
This episode tries to tackle so much and it’s almost guaranteed it’s not all going to work, especially in an episode where President Johnson, Isaac Newton and Madame Curie make cameos, Sara gets mind controlled by Grodd, and Damien Dahrk recruits possibly his greatest ally. It’s stuffed like a 20 lb. Thanksgiving Turkey but as Legends continues growing and finding its identity, hardly any of this feels ham-fisted and that would not have been the case in season 1 (or likely 2).
Rating: 8.5/10
Jessie Robertson
