Mr. Parker’s Cul-De-Sac is an exemplar of “Legends of Tomorrow.” Writers Keto Shimizu and James Eagan provide a great script—just the right amount of subplots, just the right pace—and the cast is outstanding.
The episode opens on a red herring to get things moving. In the Wild West, Adam Tsekhman is cleaning up after a Legends outing from two seasons ago and is attacked by an unknown figure. In the present, Caity Lotz and Jes Macallan get the alert and go to save him, which gets them out of the way so the episode can get moving on the main plot, which involves Brandon Routh planning a date night to propose to girlfriend Courtney Ford. On their way to the Wild West, Lotz assigns Tala Ashe the job of helping Dominic Purcell get over someone trolling his romance novels online. That subplot, which only lasts half the episode, is phenomenal. Ashe is spectacular this season and this episode’s no exception. Plus it lets Purcell play straight humor, which is great too.
Routh’s date night goes wrong because it turns out Tsekhman ran into a resurrected Neal McDonough, whose attack has present day consequences for Tsekhman, who’s helping Routh with the date night. Phasing in and out of reality consequences. But then McDonough shows up at the date night because he’s looking for daughter Ford, who’s become a hero this season and last, only McDonough thinks she’s a demoness or something. So she’s got to pretend she’s bad and has enslaved the Legends (well, Loitz and Macallan) so he doesn’t realize she’s gone good.
So the episode then turns into this hilarious riff on Midsummer Night’s Dream, with Matt Ryan having to pretend to be Ford’s boyfriend (she’s hiding good guy Routh from McDonough). Only Routh is babysitting Ford’s charge, Madeline Hirvonen (Ford’s a fairy godmother), and thanks to him making her watch Mr. Rogers knock-off “Mr. Parker’s Cul-De-Sac” and Hirvonen latches onto the “Love is Love” message and gets Routh ginned up to declare his love for Ford in front of McDonough.
It’s really funny, really well-acted, really well-written. And then the last act has about five metric tons of heart in it, right after a warlock battle.
Like I said, it’s an exemplar of the series. Great guest spot from McDonough, but also a fantastic showcase for Ford. So good.
And somehow I forgot about Ryan’s whole “going to Antarctica” subplot, which is hilarious. No one can pack forty-three minutes like “Legends.”
And there are puppets. How did I forget the puppets.
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