Legends of Tomorrow (2016) s07e02 – The Need for Speed

This episode is really Season Premiere, Part Two, with the season villain getting a reveal in the cliffhanger. They tease the reveal earlier, with Tala Ashe spending her time in the episode getting stoned, mooning over departed Matt Ryan, and trying to figure out what friend, foe, or category of either is the big bad this season. It’s a little forced and a waste of time for Ashe, but it references “Rip Hunter” for the first time in ages, so it’s occasionally engaging.

Plus, Ashe gets the punchline at the reveal later on, and it works out.

The main plot is Nick Zano pretending to be J. Edgar Hoover (Giacomo Baessato), so no one finds out Baessato’s dead. The show breaks its back complimenting the historical Hoover while “acknowledging” the problems, ending with Zano getting a pass for all the racism he easily commits while in the part. It’s messed up. For a while, they seem like they’re going to try with the Zano “when you look into the abyss” stuff, but then they rush the conclusion, and so it was all just pointlessly gross.

Jes Macallan and Caity Lotz spend the episode honeymooning and occasionally checking in with Ashe to move the C-plot along. Macallan’s got some funny scenes. It’s probably the least forced thing in the episode.

The B-plot is Olivia Swann and Lisseth Chavez discovering a human version of the ship’s computer, played again by Amy Louise Pemberton. Pemberton’s had physical appearances in the part on the show before, and they worked? I think they worked. Like the show never really leveraged it but could have.

Anyway. Swann resurrected and incorporated A.I. Pemberton instead of rebuilding the actual spaceship. Only Pemberton can’t talk, so it pisses Swann off. I’m not sure if it’s the script or the direction, but something’s not connecting with Swann’s performance here. Maybe because it’s shoving the character development back a few steps so there can be another life lesson from Alexandra Castillo. And Castillo’s life lessons are good and all, but it’s redundant. And derails Swann’s performance.

But it seems like it’s resolved by the finish, and we can get on with the actual show now.

What’s funny is “Legends” always sets up the next season in the finale but didn’t last season, and now they’ve spent two episodes getting it done instead of two to four minutes.

The episode’s fine. It’s just a low fine.

Legends of Tomorrow (2016) s07e01 – The Bullet Blondes

So this season of “Legends” is kind of the Back to the Future III season? I mean, they’re not stuck in the Old West, but they’re stuck in the 1920s, and they’re becoming bank robbers, so the action set pieces are all somewhat familiar—not sure if targeting “Legends of Tomorrow” fans who also love Thieves Like Us is a broad enough demographic, but it works for me. And there’s also room for some excellent character development.

Plus, the two cliffhangers are absolutely fantastic and promise at least one spectacular timey-wimey knot to untangle. While the other one has all sorts of character potential. It’s a very good season setup from a somewhat low-key, artificially subdued beginning. The team is still in Texas, having shed both Matt Ryan and Dominic Purcell from the cast, and find themselves time travelers without a time machine. Worse, the locals noticed their giant battle against the space aliens and are asking questions.

Luckily, Jes Macallan comes up with a solution for the latter, but it only works as long as someone on the team doesn’t screw it up. So, of course, someone screws it up, putting Lisseth Chavez’s mom in danger. The mom, played by Alexandra Castillo, isn’t in the episode to start (they sent her away somewhere undefined so she’d miss the alien battle). When she gets back, she becomes den mother to Olivia Swann, who’s feeling lacking as the team’s magician. So Swann’s trying to impress, and it’s not a good idea to mess with magic.

Most of the character work is for Swann and Chavez, who aren’t the best actors on the show, but their friendship is the most genuine. Because everyone on “Legends” is now basically paired off—Macallan and Caity Lotz are now married and stranded in time, no honeymoon in sight; Shayan Sobhian is trying to be a good brother to Tala Ashe as she works through her breakup with Ryan. Then Nick Zano and Adam Tsekhman become the utility men, filling in whenever a scene needs a third. Zano’s got quite a bit to do—and gets one of the two big cliffhangers—but he doesn’t have any subplots brewing, just A-plot stuff.

Ditto Tsekhman, who mostly just punctuates punchlines.

Good direction from Kevin Mock and a decent script (James Eagan and Ray Utarnachitt get the credit).

The episode drags a little in the first fifteen minutes, but it sets up the season well. Plus, Castillo’s really good when doing the den mother stuff, and she elevates her costars, making the extraordinary reasonable.

Legends of Tomorrow (2016) s06e13 – Silence of the Sonograms

I wish Matt Ryan weren’t so good as a softie. He’s almost against type these days as John Constantine, this suffering devoted boyfriend who tries not to gaslight or yell when disagreeing with girlfriend Tala Ashe. The dialogue on their romantic problems—she finds out he’s been lying to her again, hiding his addiction to evil magic juice—is a little trite because it’s a superhero show, and they’re magic people. Still, Ashe and Ryan are so good when they’re sincere. Their chemistry is vibrant. Apparently, so vibrant Ashe got a haircut between last episode’s cliffhanger and this episode’s resolution.

But she sticks it out. Though every time she leaves Ryan alone, it plays wrong, like she’s setting him up for something, but she’s not. The episode will get by on the actors more than the script—credited to Phil Klemmer and Morgan Faust–so it’s not just bad for Ashe.

Jes Macallan gets the other main plot—it’s kind of two B plots and a C plot coming together; the pacing’s excellent, the drama’s just a little too simple. But Macallan’s got the other big plot where she’s interrogating recently cloned season bad guy, Raffi Barsoumian. Barsoumian’s future scientist created Macallan’s clone line, so she’s got a lot of baggage, which comes through in the interrogation; she’s ostensibly running the show, but he might have an edge of manipulating her. It’s good acting from Macallan and Barsoumian without being particularly good writing for either of them. The entire episode is setting up the season finale arc, so it’s kind of like chess pieces being arranged. Or dominos. I’m only thinking chess pieces because Nick Zano and Caity Lotz play chess while doing exposition dumps.

There’s some fun stuff with Dominic Purcell being pregnant—for a while before it gets very dramatic; otherwise, it’s a heavy episode. Adam Tsekhman’s got a few scenes, and they’re funny, but he’s barely around because otherwise, he’d foil the Barsoumian arc early. Ashe enlists Olivia Swann and Lisseth Chavez for help with Ryan, and it’s a fun but too short team-up.

The episode’s trying to keep the costs down on a bridging episode by focusing on character development to get things set for the sci-fi superhero action, but… the script’s just not really there. Enough. The idea’s there, the actors are there, the dialogue isn’t. Nico Sachse’s direction helps.

But good acting without much fodder from Macallan, Ashe, Barsoumian, and Ryan. Half of Ryan. If Ryan were better at his green kryptonite evil version, who knows. Otherwise, maybe one more C plot, and it’d have probably been fine. It’s still okay. It’s just actors deserve better writing on a character development episode.

Legends of Tomorrow (2016) s06e09 – This Is Gus

It’s such a good episode. And not just because of the last five minutes, which are fantastic and remind how the magic “Legends” really started when Tala Ashe arrived. She’s spectacular.

And it’s not just because there’s an adorable alien who looks like the goofy Gremlin in Mogwai form (there’s a little Gremlins montage in the music). Or because there’s a fantastic plot arc for Mick (Dominic Purcell) and his daughter, Mina Sundwall, which is hilarious, heartwarming, and not anywhere near done. Or because Shayan Sobhian gets a showcase where he’s going through Back to the Future changes but, like, George McFly-style, not Marty. Or even when he gets to talk about the representational importance of Muslim potheads in popular culture.

It does all of those things and gives Olivia Swann a whole subplot with Sobhian and gives Lisseth Chavez a Han Solo blaster.

But the string through all of them is a sincerity to character. An ambition for character. “Legends” taking a leap—it just goes there with the representation subplot (then makes it a big part of the main plot as Sobhian changes due to changes in his favorite sitcom)—isn’t really a surprise. The show likes its big, earnest character swings, which it almost always achieves thanks to the actors and writers, but this episode hits a home run then does two victory laps in a matter of minutes.

It’s outstanding.

The best acting from the episode, no contest, is Ashe, but it doesn’t really count because she doesn’t get great material until the epilogue. Sobhian’s really good in the A-plot. It’s either him or Purcell, though Purcell also doesn’t have as much to do (and he’s got Sundwall and Jes Macallan doing a bunch of heavy lifting on the B plot). Nick Zano has a bunch of material—with the promise of taking a much more prominent role in the rest of the season thanks to twists and turns—and he’s real good. Swann’s got some terrific scenes. Plus, a bitching golf cart on a studio backlot chase scene. Not sure whose idea it was to have that chase scene, but director Eric Dean Seaton does an excellent job with it.

Tyron B. Carter gets the script credit. Lots of good scenes. The stuff with the baby alien on a sitcom is all good, all funny; it just doesn’t compare to the character development running under it.

The episode ends with two big surprises; one of the surprises is well-forecasted, so it can be an in-joke between the viewer and one of the characters, but the other one is a definite surprise and promises more than they’ll ever be able to deliver.

I was confused when they wrapped up the big bad so early in the season, but the second-half setup is awesome at this point.