Legendary – With the Time Masters gone, Vandal Savage makes a new plan to erase time and restart it with himself as the Godlike figure, all with the help of the 3 Nth metal meteorites from his Egyptian creation. To stop him, the team will need to defeat and kill him simultaneously in 3 time periods with the fate of all history hanging in the balance.
Now there’s no denying that this master plan of Vandal Savage gets a bit too timey whimey in its execution and more importantly sees the show completely abandoning the idea of stopping him in 2166, which is meant to be the point of the entire season. It’s got more holes in it than a Prom date that asked her redneck father for a spare condom but it is nonetheless a big fun action spectacle. Once all the explaining and plot maneuvering is done with and the fists start flying, the episode is insanely enjoyable as it delivers some of the best action all season long. The triple fight setup is wonderful contrast of locations and opponents that really pull together events of past episodes well. The ferocious blow-for-blow camera cutting from fight to fight is utterly enthralling with each of Savage’s opponents within the team giving us different to enjoy. While the choreography of Sara’s staff-twirling is great, it’s difficult not to love Mick’s good old-fashioned thug like fist pummelling. Not to mention so many things to enjoy from the effects based sequences: Firestorm finally using his comic transmutation powers, Rip’s Wave-Riding entrance and to top it all, we finally get some good old Indiana Jones-worthy Nazi face-punching in for good measure.
The episode hits a lot of good dramatic notes too. Following the death of Laurel Lance a few weeks back on Arrow, those involved revealed that Sara would be learning the news before the end of season on Legends, which we see her as she cleverly turns up amidst the events of this week’s Arrow episode. Her reaction feels incredibly on-point in keeping with her character as the knowledge reduces her to a primal level of rage be it blood lust, assassins training or good old-fashioned women scorned fury driven, especially concerning Sara’s remarks on the subject of Rip’s family. He had Sara risking everything to save his wife and child in full knowledge that Sara’s sister would die without her. However, these scenes do get firmly eclipsed by Rip himself in the final act, when some thrilling heroics are required. Everything about this sequence just works: the blinding lights across the ship’s bridge, the uplifting music, the hallucinated reunion that doesn’t take things no far. Not to mention a scene-stealing moment from the Gideon AI nonetheless, “May I share something with you?..... I’m not ready to die”. This unexpected source of faear elevates everything to the next level to the extent that it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference whether you believe Rip will be checking out or not because it’s such an emotional ride.
An honorable mention must also go to Mick dealing with last week’s shock sacrifice by Snart. It’s easy to appreciate emotional scenes from open and expressive characters but when you can get the message across from a closed and guarded character like Mick, that is a whole other kind of special. His 2013 late goodbye with Snart is a wonderful scene as Dominic Purcell gives us a Mick Rory struggling to process these feelings and say the goodbye be wanted to. Although Wentworth Miller/Snart fans should not despair as much as expected, the actor has signed a new contract to appear on the Arrow-verse shows in a regular capacity so somehow we will be seeing him again.
Now despite being a spoiler minefield, things must be said about the ending and its tease for next season, not just on Legends but all of the CWs 4 (now Supergirl has flown in) DC properties. It’s been known and widely reported for a couple months that in the final episode, we would see a new unknown character played by none other than Suits’ Patrick J Adams, who would serve as a link to the next Legends season. After making one hell of an entrance, he drops arguably the biggest bombshell since the Arrow-verse began. Something that many people wanted since the Universe started expanding but was deemed unlikely due to the film/TV red tape issues and even supposedly a name that could never be used. Of course, it’s still unclear where it will all be heading. Whether it will become the main focus of Legends season 2, expand to an entity encompassing all 4 shows or just feature in a single episode before disappearing, but that name has been dropped and dropped with clear feelings of significance. It even throws in some new questions and possibilities for next week’s Flash and Arrow finales (Legends finishing a week early is a deliberate act of scheduling). The hour appears to be now...... will justice finally prevail?
So as a season, Legends of Tomorrow has struggled to live up to its premise as the season progressed but has given an incredible bunch of characters that are capable of making just about anything work and a lot of great entertainment. Whatever tomorrow brings, these people were legends today.