Legends of Tomorrow (2016) s07e03 – wvrdr_error_100 oest-of-th3-gs.gid30n not found

It’s the one-hundredth episode spectacular, which makes sense given the litany of guest stars, but it’s also the episode where Amy Louise Pemberton becomes a proper Legend. Since the pilot, she’s been on the show, but just her voice; she’s the AI running the time-traveling spaceship. She’s appeared a few times over the years in physical form, and this episode handles transforming her from a “voice credit” to a regular one.

The episode starts with Pemberton, Olivia Swann, and Lisseth Chavez traveling 1925 Texas trying to get to New York before the rest of the team to save them. It’s unclear what will happen when they get there, but it’d be nice if they got a move on. Even though the season’s only three episodes in, they spent the end of last season in 1920s Texas, so it feels like forever. Luckily the reunion spectacular is a worthwhile stopover.

Pemberton—who might be human but still has a supercomputer’s brain and all her memories of the timeline—has a mental crash, and Swann and Chavez need to magic themselves into her brain to figure out what’s wrong. When they get there, they find themselves back on the spaceship, only it’s Pemberton’s subconscious and Franz Drameh’s running it. Drameh left in season three, so it’s been a while. He’s probably the most welcome return because he gets the most to do.

There’s also Victor Garber, Wentworth Miller, Brandon Routh, Courtney Ford, and then Arthur Darvill. Darvill, of course, was the original “lead” and hasn’t been back for years; they hinted at him last episode, but I wasn’t counting episodes, so I didn’t think they’d bring him back the very next one.

Pemberton’s journey to human-hood involves a bunch of memories of the show at various points in its run. Oh, wait, they also bring back Hawkman Falk Hentschel, who hasn’t been back since the first season and hasn’t been mentioned since because they were probably going to use Hawkman in a movie and were scared to confuse viewers back then with multiple versions of the same characters. But he’s back for a funny enough cameo.

It’s a good trip down memory lane; a clip show, but obviously better because the scenes are geared towards being memorable without having to do any work. Dominic Purcell is conspicuously absent, of course, and the eventual drama is… well, it’s not a rip-off of “WandaVision,” but they’ve definitely seen “WandaVision.”

We also get some more information on the season’s big bad—the last episode revealed they’d be robots; in this episode, we get hints at who might be building them.

Caity Lotz directs and does a fine job. She leans into the fun and silly.

It’s far from the best “Legends”—it’s like a very soft sci-fi take from hard sci-fi aficionados–but it’s a bunch of fun. Though most of the charm is going to require having seen the last seventy hours of the show.

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) s06e15 – The Fungus Amongus

“Legends” ends this season with a cast change-up—ten main characters were too many, so they’re reducing to eight. One of the goodbyes is more surprising than the other, though only one of them gets anywhere near the attention it deserves. The other receives a rush job. Can’t really get into details without spoiling. There’s also a little bit of next season set-up, but barely any. Certainly not like coming back to find you broke time or unleashed demons or aliens. It’s a mellow finish, which is appropriate because it’s a rollercoaster.

Last episode ended on three big cliffhangers. One of them turns out to be fine immediately. The other two get wrapped together in the solution, which has the team trying to save Earth from invading aliens by going into the future to find a not-yet-evil version of Raffi Barsoumian to help them. Meanwhile, they’re also trying to figure out how to help ailing Lisseth Chavez and recovering from Matt Ryan betraying the team to get his magic back.

So the episode’s got to find time to resolve evil Barsoumian turning off Earth’s “keep the aliens away” defense system, Chavez’s relationship with her newly rediscovered and alive in 1920s Texas mom Alexandra Castillo, Dominic Purcell’s relationship with babies mama Aliyah O’Brien, Ryan and Tala Ashe’s relationship, and Caity Lotz and Ava Sharpe’s nuptials.

Starting with Shayan Sobhian’s return to a broken time and spaceship, it’s pretty clear Ashe and Ryan aren’t going to get the emphasis. Ryan’s arc is in its epilogue stages, but for all the hard stuff for Ashe, the show just puts her in her room and closes the door. Even after she gets some attention, it’s so slight and so pointless a scene… they could’ve just left it out. It’s just too much going on at once, and I’m all of a sudden worried it means Ashe might be one of the next cast members to go.

Lotz and Macallan have some nice scenes together, with Adam Tsekhman and Nick Zano stepping up to help out with pre-wedding jitters. Since neither of them have arcs to resolve, they’re just support, and it’s an uncompleted nice. The way the plot shakes out, Sobhian goes from doing a bunch at the beginning of the episode to very little by the end. No arc for him either.

Barsoumian’s fantastic as the not-yet-evil version of himself (he’s just a really fun egomaniac to have around).

David Geddes’s direction is more middling than not, and when he does find some good insight into a scene, he’s got to rush through it. Just because it’s a time travel show doesn’t mean there’s not a set runtime. The episode could’ve used another ten minutes.

Some charming work from Olivia Swann for her making friends arc, though they hopefully give her better-looking magic powers by next season.

There’s also a really big, really sappy moment, and it works because it’s “Legends” and “Legends” always manages to find sincerity in its absurd, silly, epic contrivances. It’s a perfectly solid season finale. Outside Geddes’s direction, all my gripes are because the show just doesn’t have time and space to fully utilize its cast. There are worse problems to have.

And it’s the first time in ages we’re going into a new season with no idea what to expect. Maybe first time ever?

Legends of Tomorrow (2016) s06e12 – Bored on Board Onboard

The episode finishes with four actual cliffhangers—two characters are unconscious, one has a secret revealed, and Caity Lotz has walked in on something shocking not involving any of the other three. The implication is even the return of the season big bad–“Legends” only has three episodes left this season, and so this episode’s definitely sending them into the end game.

But the thing I’m now most curious about is who’s going to show up at Lotz and Jes Macallan’s wedding. I’m not sure they’re going to have time to do it this season, what with Covid during filming (even though the Arrowverse doesn’t seem to have had a pandemic, lucky them), but at the beginning of the episode, Lotz and Macallan are wedding planning and banter relates to possible guest stars. Grant Gustin and Candice Patton are seemingly out (the “Flash” stars always lead to a supervillain appearance), but Katie Cassidy (or one of her surviving incarnations from the later seasons of “Arrow”) is in. It’d be nice if the Arrowverse A-listers showed for the wedding; while the “Legends” always seems available to the other shows, it’s been a while since other shows have come around.

Well, minus David Ramsey, but he was directing.

However, wedding planning is not the point of the episode. Most of the team is trapped in a magical mystery mansion, leaving Adam Tsekhman and Dominic Purcell in charge of the ship. After last episode’s interstellar mission, the Legends are stuck in space, and it’s going to take them three weeks to get home. They try to amuse themselves while conserving energy but can’t, so they decide to go pen and paper (not really) with a board game.

Hence the very amusing title, Bored on Board Onboard. They’re bored on a board game onboard a ship. It’s cute. Almost as cute as the subtle Clue references later on, including Olivia Swann and Lisseth Chavez getting annoyed with the shortcuts across the board not necessarily being helpful. When the game starts, they’re playing it on a game board, but Matt Ryan (who’s high on his evil magic juice) wants to show off to Tala Ashe—and piss off her brother, Shayan Sobhian because the evil magic juice is turning Ryan into a dick. So he casts a spell, and they’re in the board game, slowly becoming their appropriately assigned characters, trying to find the murder amongst them.

The episode’s best when they’re still doing the murder mystery game before it turns into a bickering triangle between Sobhian, Ryan, and Ashe. The character stuff isn’t bad, but it’s also not particularly good. It reduces Ashe (back to her glamour girl variation from the flannel one) to prop up Sobhian while only giving Sobhian protective brother stuff. Meanwhile, Ryan’s got an addiction arc brewing; he’s better at that aspect of it than the dickish stuff because the dickish stuff isn’t fun; it’s dramatic fodder. Ryan’s so much better when he’s fun on “Legends.”

There are some decent surprises and solid performances. It’s a good episode—nice direction from Harry Jierjian—but by the end, it’s clearly just… well, moving the pieces around the board to prepare for the season’s final arc.

Legends of Tomorrow (2016) s06e11 – The Final Frame

It’s a team-building episode with some big-scale wackiness—big scale—and a little romance thrown in. Plus, Jes Macallan (who also directed) and Adam Tsekhman trying on wedding dresses. The episode doesn’t spend much time on any one set of characters—they’re either paired off or grouped together—and while it’d be nicer to have more time with, say, Tala Ashe and Nick Zano, it works. Especially since the main action revolves around a round of bowling.

Caity Lotz, Dominic Purcell, Olivia Swann, and Lisseth Chavez end up in an intergalactic bowling alley where they have to play the league champions (and possible New Gods) for the fate of the human race. Except everyone in the place appears human because alien bowling alley owner Alvin Sanders, who’s supposed to be adorable and is enough, just loves the bowling alleys of Earth and the aesthetic.

After fumbling around Sanders as a wise character for a while, he eventually gives Lotz a pep-talk, and it captures bowling well. The episode’s about minor problems with major consequences. Purcell’s mad at Chavez because she likes bowling and he doesn’t, while Swann’s a pissy tween (I really hope it’s intentional on her part because she’s great doing it) who’s never been bowling before. Lotz is a great bowler and isn’t sweating it.

On its own, it’s okay but not really enough. But with Ashe and Zano feeling the real-world repercussions of the game while on a romantic camping trip gone wrong, it gets there. Ditto Macallan and Teskhman’s dress subplot. The only lacking story is Matt Ryan and Shayan Sobhian; it’s all about Ryan doing evil magic drugs and lying to Sobhian, who’s happy to hang out with his sister’s boyfriend. If they’re played it straight, the awkward hangout, it’d have been fine. But Ryan on the evil magic juice—and only thinking of hiding it in his flask in the last fifteen minutes—it’s not great. Ryan’s not doing the bad thing well. Hopefully, he improves since it’s the only rising drama for the rest of the season; Lotz and crew were tracking down the last rogue alien, which is probably resolved thanks to the bowling thing too.

Zano and Ashe’s arc involves them trying to reconnect after their time apart—this version of Ashe, who gets the phenomenal nickname “Flannel Zari,” usually lives in a, well, kind of a genie bottle situation. It’s all going well until the next campsite over is glamping Chad and Becky (Gavin Langelo and Jenna Romanin, respectively), who provide comic relief and dramatic impetus. There’s some excellent acting from Ashe and better Zano than we’ve had all season. Though… as always, am I the only one who remembers Zano grew up immunocompromised? Did it get ret-conned away at some point, and I missed it?

Anyway. Good episode. Hopefully, the Ryan stuff works out, and Macallan’s directing debut is fine work.

Also great “Star Trek” joke.

Legends of Tomorrow (2016) s06e10 – Bad Blood

There’s got to be a name for this episode’s narrative device; splitting the cast, so half are offscreen dealing with one plotline, leaving the rest of the cast to deal with their own. Then next episode, you get the other half of the story. Or, I’m somewhat confident has been the case with “Legends” before, you don’t. So next episode will not be Tala Ashe, Olivia Swann, Shayan Sobhian, Nick Zano, and Adam Tsekhman trying to contain a rapidly growing alien creature, which happens offscreen or down the hall or in the other room throughout this episode. It’s a bold move since it’s the first time this version of Ashe (the original character she played on the show) has interacted with long-lost brother Sobhian; we don’t get to see it.

Instead, it’s a pregnancy crisis for Dominic Purcell and daughter Mina Sundwall, with the action plot going to Matt Ryan and Lisseth Chavez. They are trying to get Ryan’s magic back in thirties Spain during the Civil War. It’s always Ryan’s episode—he’s plotting at the beginning with the portrait of Aleister Crowley (voiced by Matt Lucas)—and he gets some good scenes with Chavez trying to locate his moral compass, but the Sundwall and Purcell stuff is good too. Both are pregnant, something Purcell’s not too happy about, and Sundwall’s worried about him. For timey wimey reasons. Sundwall’s always been a welcome guest star—she gives Purcell shit with impunity, and it adds something to the character; he’s better with her around, like the character moments they’re able to get. Purcell’s got like four things he does really well on “Legends,” but with Sundwall, they sort of triple.

So good enough plot for Ryan, with some twists and turns and a good monologue for both he and Chavez. She maybe doesn’t hold her pistol seriously enough but is working out to be a fine addition (something they even comment on at the beginning of the episode). There’s also solid acting from Spanish Republican fighter Leo Rano, who’s got the key to the magic fountain Ryan’s looking for. Grainne Godfree gets the script credit; the script does a great job with that plot thread, which sort of drags Ryan along while Chavez runs to keep pace and make sure he doesn’t crash into anything. They’re a good team-up.

Caity Lotz and Jes Macallan aren’t on the episode much either; offscreen looking at wedding venues. Will next episode be their misadventures and then half the cast fighting a giant alien? I think the former’s more likely but also, maybe not. “Legends” is very assured in its narrative choices, and this many episodes in, I default to trusting their judgment. Plus, the cliffhanger with Ryan is going to be a bitch to wait through an episode on.

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.

Legends of Tomorrow (2016) s06e08 – Stressed Western

So it doesn’t look like Fist City, the Old West town where the Legends end up this episode, was a real place. Director and star cameo David Ramsey (from “Arrow”) does play a real guy, however; first Black deputy U.S. marshal Bass Reeves. The real guy’s mustache looks better than Ramsey’s fake one. But only barely.

Ramsey’s just around for the episode, literally in the background most of the time; his lawman has become an outlaw and the town’s now run by outlaw turned lawman Nic Bishop. And Fist City has become the nicest, politest town in the West. Could the pleasantness have anything to do with the time traveling alien the Legends are hunting, especially since Nick Zano—who actually gets not just his share of the episode, but to address having not gotten his share of episodes all season—says the town should be the roughest, most dangerous town in the West?

There’s a really good reveal on the niceness thing, which leads to the cast having to be nice to one another as well, even as resentments grow. Jes Macallan isn’t totally cool with Caity Lotz coming back from space as seemingly immortal alien hybrid clone, Olivia Swann finds Lisseth Chavez annoying and doesn’t appreciate being paired with her for bonding purposes, Matt Ryan’s mad at Adam Tsekhman for not telling him more details about a magic energy-giving waterfall, and Shayan Sobhian really doesn’t want sister Tala Ashe bugging him about his sex life. Or telling him about hers.

Dominic Purcell is in the episode less than Ramsey’s cameo. Otherwise the entire cast is very, very busy.

While last episode felt like a season finale—so much so my good lady wife was surprised we had another “Legends” so quick—this one feels like a season premiere. Ish. There’s a lot of resolution and another character heading off on their own quest, so there’s setup too. Lotz and Macallan are able to find the—no pun—humanity in their newly complicated relationship (did they always call each other “babe” three times a sentence, I feel like I’d remember it) and it ends up being a rather affecting arc.

Plus the Zano stuff. He gets to loudly monologue for a few minutes and it seems like he’s got some plot developments coming. Though it also seemed like they were divvying out plot lines to maximize cast screen time before and then they just rushed to getting Lotz, Tsekham, and Purcell home as soon as possible.

Swann and Chavez’s reluctant bonding storyline also goes really well. And Ashe and Sobhian are great bickering at one another.

“Legends” seems somewhat shaky because there’s no obvious overarching narrative but it’s also incredibly solid on the acting, directing (Ramsey does a fine job), and writing fronts. The episode’s exceedingly well-plotted and very successful; it even sets goals for itself and then achieves them.

Legends of Tomorrow (2016) s06e07 – Back to the Finale: Part II

This episode packs in a lot. The action beats are numerous, suspenseful, and intense. The difference between the second two adjectives being “suspenseful” means the plot is engaging while intense means the scenes in the plot are engaging. It’s also maybe got Caity Lotz’s best acting in the series to date. She’s very much the lead of the show in her story arc, which isn’t the norm, but then she’s also like a major guest star in the other story arc.

In the present, big bad Raffi Barsoumian has just dropped a major reveal on Lotz; her reaction to it, which was last episode’s cliffhanger, kicks off Lotz’s strong performance this episode. She does it just right (all of Lotz’s strong scenes this episode involve her opposite someone not in the regular cast or at least not regular with Lotz; she and Lisseth Chavez are going to have Chavez’s best scene in the series so far this episode too). She’s still trying to escape Barsoumian’s planet, which is going to involve Dominic Purcell, Adam Tsekhman, Jes Macallan (not as her regular character but one of Barsoumian’s clones), and a little of Aliyah O'Brien. In addition to Barsoumian, of course, who’s a very fun big bad and really manages to be dangerous while silly and absurd. Because he’s just a future tech bro.

Back on Earth, the team has finally had it with the waiting and Shayan Sobhian gets super-stoned and decides he’s going to travel back in time Back to the Future: Part II style to save Lotz from the aliens. Except the rest of the team gets the idea and goes back to stop him, which leads to it sort of being Nick Zano’s plot line (he’s the most experienced team member so he’s in charge; sort of). They can’t really do too much with the season finale from last season because they don’t have Maisie Richardson-Seller guest starring so they can’t run into her. So there aren’t a lot of hijinks; there are some and they’re good, but mostly it’s the team sitting around being sad and thinking about life while being time traveling superheroes.

There’s good stuff for all the cast, though the least for Tsekhman (because there’s just so much going on) and Macallan (at least as far as her regular character goes). But Matt Ryan and Tala Ashe have good stuff, Olivia Swann gets some good stuff with Sobhian (I had to tell myself not to ship because I can’t handle the disappointment), Purcell, then Chavez too. Lots of nice juxtaposing in the script (credit to Morgan Faust and Mark Bruner); some of it gets highlighted, some of it is just echoes.

The episode’s got a surprisingly relaxed finish, especially since it’s seemingly ending the first act of the season story. But it’s also a very good relaxed finish.