Jessie Robertson reviews the third episode of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow season two, ‘Shogun’…
Yes, Master Yoda was a great and wise master….
I can’t believe this but I’m starting to like this show and I didn’t think that was possible Week 1. This felt like a jolt of lightning transported me back to the 80s for an hour; a classic fish out of water tale and while our leading man, Dr. Nate Heywood (is he actually a doctor?) has quickly supplanted the cast as its focused character, and he has a irascible charm that is a bit magnetic (huh, magnetic, he’s now made of metal). Still not exactly sure how his powers work (the super-Nazi serum of Palmer’s modification changed Heywood into becoming a man of metal skin), nor is he, and that was kind of the idea here; Heywood was at a loss of how to activate his metal coating and Palmer lost his ATOM suit to a local Japanese warlord in the Shogun era. So trying to discover that inner strength and how to use it was the episode’s theme and it was a darn good one. I get the sense this is a common theme with Palmer on this show and this dude gets kidnapped a lot. He doesn’t fit as well here as he did in Arrow which kind of surprises me.
The look of this episode was absolutely gorgeous from the landscapes to the open fields and lit forests – what a great set to show off and a great time period to land in. I also liked how there’s a lot of little pieces going on with the Legends, like Amaya sticking behind to whack Mick for killing Rex (remember his last words were “time traveler”), Rip being missing, etc. but the episode sort of focuses on the plight at hand, which is rescuing Ray and Nate from this Japanese shogun who has stolen Ray’s armor and is set to marry a young lady in a poor village, whom she thinks this man is a monster. Nate gets sweet on her during the episode and she gives him the courage to fight for what’s right (go back to last week when it’s made clear he’s not a soldier and his hemophilia) despite not being able to control his powers.
Sara continues to be the highlight of the show; she’s always in complete control, she’s a major badass (or ninja, as she put it) and she’s the right person for the leadership role; she seems so confident and unclouded, way different than a lot of her time on Arrow. Here, she gets to have fun, wear great outfits and generally be a strong woman leading. Case in point, as soon as she speaks with Amaya about Rex’s death, she clears it up that they’ve also been looking for someone messing up the time stream, where she quickly took action and tried to make sense of what was happening. They tried to give Mick a moment or two but him cooing over ninjas and pouting like a 2nd grader about whether he’ll never find out if they’re real (really, after all he’s seen and done, he gets mopey about ninjas?), but it just doesn’t play well to me. And then there’s Compartment 36- a secret compartment on the Waverider Rip kept secret; Jackson and Martin find a message from an older Barry Allen there (which we don’t hear) and it gives us one more little thread to tug as the season moves forward
Rating: 9/10- Who doesn’t love a samurai tale and this is an innocent fun one that felt ripped from a Disney live action 90’s movie in the best way possible.
SEE ALSO: Trailer and promo for DC’s Legends of Tomorrow Season 2 Episode 4 – ‘Abominations’
Jessie Robertson
Originally published October 28, 2016. Updated November 14, 2019.
