This week on Legends of Tomorrow, the Legends find themselves hunting Vandal Savage behind the Iron Curtain as nuclear scientists are going missing.
SPOILERS AHEAD
We open as the Waverider finishes the jump to Washington D.C., 1986 as they plan on stealing a redacted file from the Pentagon in order to find Savage in this time. They go about breaking into the government building which is going off without a hitch before Firestorm accidentally triggers the alarm. As everyone beats their retreat, Sarah and Kendra get cornered and Kendra loses it and goes on a rampage. Everyone is pretty ready to hand out the blame for what went wrong but Gideon manages to deduce that Savage is hiding out in the Soviet Union and the mission is set.
But things can’t just go a little bit wrong. Kronos has followed the Waverider to 1986 and is hot on their tails. Rip makes some maneuvers, gets the Soviet air force to attack and they shoot Kronos out of the sky. The Waverider had to cut their engines in order to shake their pursuers and the team readies for a crash landing. Despite the crash landing, the ship is still operational and they ready to hunt down Savage. He seems to be designing a new weapon with the help of the Soviets top minds. Snart and Palmer get translators in order to help them get in contact with a Russian scientist, going undercover to the ballet to get her attention.
Sarah approaches Rip about Kendra who can’t seem to stay in control. Rip volunteers Sarah to train Kendra and help her get the warrior within under control. Ray works his charms on Valentina Vostok, the beautiful Russian scientist they’re trying to make contact with. Unfortunately for Ray, she’s not the least bit interested in his charms. Sarah goes to train with Kendra who launches into a completely unsolicited rundown of how she has arrived to be on the Waverider. Luckily, Sarah is an expert at controlling her demons and the two of them begin to train. It also turns out weapons from 1986 didn’t fully destroy Kronos’ ship from the future, so Rip takes Rory to go deal with the temporal bounty hunter.
Ray continues to put his foot in his mouth with Valentina, so Snart decides to step in and she seems smitten with the villain at first glance for some inexplicable reason. Rory and Rip come across not Kronos, but another Time Master who is an old friend of Rips. Time Master Druce has been sent back to get rid of the evidence of Kronos’ time ship as he was killed in the crash and he tries to convince Rip to come back to the fold with the offer of returning to his time without facing charges. Rory lets Rip know that Druce plans on killing him and the entire team which Rip refuses to believe to be true.
Sarah continues to hand Kendra down a beating as the priestess is terribly under trained. Sarah pushes her and is then surprised for some reason when the Hawk takes over and lashes out at her to which then Sarah’s bloodlust is unleashed. So, basically the worst exercise in control that’s ever happened. Snart continues to woo Valentina and manages to snake her keycard for work which she kept somewhere he could pickpocket on her dress without pockets. Stein and Jax talk to Rip about the Time Masters offer which sounds terribly unappealing to them. It seems Rip blames himself for Carter’s death and that seems to be outweighing the lives of his wife and son in the future. Rip goes to meet Druce who, to no one’s surprise, has Kronos waiting in the wings to kill Rip. Luckily, Rip came with Rory and Firestorm in reserve and they do battle with Kronos. A bomb that Kronos throws cause Firestorm to separate and while Kronos beats a hasty retreat, the team needs to get Jax back to the ship as some shrapnel has found its way into his torso.
Jax and Stein relationship has begun to fray as the two of them have begun to butt heads. Stein confides in Ray that he has to push Jax away in order to get through to him as Stein blames himself for the death of Ronnie, his first half of Firestorm. Kendra and Sarah bond as Kendra draws on her reincarnations to get through to Sarah, while Sarah draws on her bloodlust to help Kendra get a hold of the Hawk. So, now they have arrived at the secret lab where they believe Savage’s new weapon to be and Stein goes in undercover to do a little reconnaissance. Stein infiltrates the facility and finds what they’ve been working on which isn’t exactly what they thought. Turns out Valentina has been working on developing her own Firestorm matrix.
Stein finds the core that is crucial to the creation of Firestorm and Palmer and Snart show up to take it offline so Stein can get rid of the core. While Palmer deactivates the device, Snart goes to save Valentina at Ray’s behest. Turns out Valentina isn’t being used by Savage but is his partner and she holds Snart hostage while she gets Palmer to turn the reactor back on. Palmer folds under the pressure and Stein is forced to try to move the core while absorbing the excess power himself. Jax swaps roles and tries to talk Stein out of it, but the scientist continues anyway and is able to remove the core. But the weakened Stein is taken into custody, joining Ray and Snart in the Soviets control.
Luckily, Rory shows up to bail Snart out before taking a bullet and Captain Cold must prevent anyone from taking the core. Snart is forced to leave Stein, Rory and Ray behind and escape with the core. Back on the ship, the rest of the team plot the way they’re going to break their captured comrades out of enemy hands while also stopping the creation of a Soviet Firestorm.
I can safely say that I actually really dig the way they’ve structured the season. Instead of telling the story as a TV season, they’ve created mini-arcs within the overarching story, like a comic book. It’s a very effective way to tell a story about a group of time travelers that doesn’t result in you spending a fortune on a different time period every episode.
In saying that, my interest in the show is beginning to wane. No one really gets a lot of screen time and thus none of the characters are really standing out. Instead, the show is just a series of short scenes that they cram as much information into as humanly possible, giving the characters nothing else to really do. As I said in the previous Legends of Tomorrow post, there’s no real feel for the stakes, no real drama because you aren’t allowed to feel tension at all. It’s just go, go, go until the credits roll and then you wonder why you’re feeling unfulfilled.
I suppose that this episode had a little more depth than the first arc had, so there’s definite hope that the writers are slowly putting together what the show needs and it can turn into a very strong weekly indulgence. Though, as it stands, that still seems like quite a ways away.
Doug Mercer reviews Legends of Tomorrow each week – so stay tuned here for more episodes. Also, check out his recent review of The Flash!