Let me get it out of the way so it doesn’t come bubbling up later.
After some previous hints, it turns out alien abduction survivor and gun nut Lisseth Chavez is actually “Legends”’s outreach to the right leaning audiences. She loves guns—she and Tala Ashe have a painful “2nd vs. 1st amendment” banter—she hates Commies (the episode takes place during the Cuban Missile Crisis), and after talking shit about Dominic Purcell for an entire episode (last one, I think) behind his back to Jes Macallan, she’s now talking shit about Macallan behind her back to Purcell.
The season’s making a mess of Purcell, who’s out of sorts because Caity Lotz is kidnapped (so kidnapped she doesn’t appear this episode, which successfully splits up the cast so there can be three distinct arcs not requiring crossover for a while), and Macallan, who’s now captaining the team. They resolve it by the end of the episode here but through shenanigans not character development. It’s also troubling because Purcell, off camera, is upset with the handling of his character and leaving or not or yes.
But the episode would still have some major hurdles.
While the team is ostensibly in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis to find a rogue alien, they’re really there so Shayan Sobhian can get Fidel Castro (Tim Perez) really stoned on gummis and play him Peace Train, which is simultaneously politically and historically cringe and adorable because Sobhian’s charming. Then there’s also the JFK side of things, where Nick Zano—turns out all Zano needs for a story arc is for Matt Ryan not to appear; they even get the same sidekick in Tala Ashe–gets to bro out with Jack (Aaron Craven) and Bobby (Preston Vanderslice) while general Nic Bishop does a low rent riff on a Dr. Strangelove general. Craven and Vanderslice are doing broad impersonations, which is fine, but the Bishop part is a real part and he doesn’t have it. Especially since Zano, even running a subplot, is fairly passive. His character development arc this episode is crushing on Ashe, whose alternate universe version is his lady love, but now he’s crushing on her dimensional clone. Even though she’s with Ryan. Hopefully it’s better than a love triangle.
It’s an entirely amusing outing for “Legends,” but ends up just being a slightly worrisome (as opposed to troublesome or problematic) bridging episode. What’s next should be great, we promise….
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