Episode title: Legendary
Written by: Greg Berlanti (developed by), Greg Berlanti, Phil Klemmer, Marc Guggenheim, Chris Fedak (written by)
Director: Dermott Downs
Starring: Victor Garber, Brandon Routh, Arthur Darrell, Caity Lotz, Franz Drameh, Ciara Renée, Amy Pemberton, Dominic Purcell, Wentworth Miller, Matt Nable, Falk Henschel, Casper Crump, Paul Blackthorne, Patrick J. Adams
Network: CW
Duration: 42 minutes
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The team manages to track down Savage again, in an action packed episode.
Legendary as the final episode this series rookie season, highlights the shortcomings of the show, that is the writing, which has been mostly disappointing for what seemed like an idea that held a lot of promise for a genre series. It has a lot of great moments in a story with a lot of time travel trickery, that still fell short of greatness, but was pretty good when compared to the rest of the season. The sheer volume of those moments it contained almost swayed me into giving it high grades for the efforts it made to be entertaining, but in the end, it was based on a story that seemed too contrived and relied too heavily on coincidence. The episode fell short of giving fans something that might make looking forward to next season seem worthwhile.
(*warning – possible spoilers follow*)
The episode avoided most of the pitfalls that made the earlier episodes so lacking in arousing any sense of excitement or even interest on my part, and got down to some good old comic book style adventure, it moves along with the momentum of a juggernaut, i think, in hopes of nobody noticing its similarity to eating a small piece of candy which is sweet enough when you eat it, but ultimately fails to satisfy. It features a story with Savage up to a new plan involving the meteors that played such an important role in the season, which are now revealed to have been sent by the Thanagarians, and Savage has devised a way to use them to erase everything that has gone before.
Legendary begins with Hunter tricking the team into leaving the ship by way of a hologram of himself. He has decided to throw in the towel, and admit defeat, returning everyone to 2016, following their failure to achieve the goal of hunting down and getting rid of the evil immortal. Savage escaped in the last episode, taking Kendra, and Carter, as hostages with him, and Hunter and the team don’t have a clue where, or when, he might be.
This surprising development depicts each of the team members responding differently to the situation. Stein is shown playing trivial pursuit with his wife apparently satisfied to return his former quiet domestic lifestyle, while Rory is back to his old larcenous pursuits. Sara seeks out team Arrow, but finds her father instead, who gives her the bad news concerning the death of her sister Laurel. Palmer, not ready to give up so easily, covertly replaces Rory’s driver during a heist, and attempts to convince him to partner up with him going forward.
Its Stein’s wife that intervenes in her husbands planned retirement from being half of a superhero, by contacting Jax, and together they convince him the job they left unfinished still needs to be done. Palmer’s offer to team up with Rory going forward is just plain unlikely, but this odd couple team-up seems to be the plan of the series writers going forward into next season. Sara has a different motive for wanting to return to the Waverider, she wants to go back in time, and save the life of her sister
The sum result of all this is the team reunites where Hunter dropped them off all looking to get the band back together again, Stein and Palmer have actually created devices they hope might bring Hunter back, and as they mull over what to do next. Hunter, in the Waverider, returns. As soon as Sara is back on board the timeship she threatens Hunter with physical violence if he doesn’t take her back so she can save her sister from being killed. Hunter gives reasons why this is not possible, but Sara is beside herself with grief and irrational, so Hunter knocks her out so she can cool down.
The scene suddenly shifts to France in 1944, where Kendra has somehow escaped and is running through a field. She encounters a soldier, and recognizing his helmet as a part of Hunter’s collection aboard his time ship, quickly asks the soldier for paper and a pencil so she can write a note which she hides in his helmet. Just as she finishes, Savage shows up, kills the soldier, and takes her captive again.
This story, like so many time travel plots of this sort, seems contrived and depends on coincidence a great deal. Meanwhile, back on the Waverider, the helmet is suddenly stumbled over by Jax, which of course, results in the note from Kendra being discovered by Hunter and the team (surprise!). So they now have a clue that just might lead them to their quarry and a chance to rescue their friend. They leap at the chance and go off to France in WWII.
The team arrives as Savage is about to hijack one of the meteors from a nazi convoy that it is transporting to a new location, and the team attacks with plans to prevent this from happening. Like every other fight scene in this series so far, this one seems less satisfying than fight scenes we have seen in other shows, this show uses the trick of lots of edited shots, a few seconds long each, to make up for actually going through the trouble of creating a well choreographed flight scene.
Another reason the team attacks is as a distraction to find Kendra, and Carter, so they can release them. They almost succeed, but as the two attempt their escape Kendra is shot and recaptured as the pair fly away. Back on the timeship, this version of Carter seems to have recovered his memories of his past lives, and offers up what little information he can as to Savage’s plans, and based on this, Stein figures out what Savage has planned.
At this point the show descends into being a clip episode using shots from past episodes, as the team travels into past events from earlier in the season to intervene in Savage’s plan to revisit the past in order to recruit his former self as part of his scheme. The team’s efforts to intervene in this are successful as they defeat the immortal in each situation, including one in which Rory beats the snot out of the evil caveman in a brutal round of fisticuffs, and then sets him on fire. Rory remains my favorite character in the show, and has the best lines of dialogue.
This all culminates in a roof top battle back in 2016 in which the team of Hunter, Carter and Kendra defeat Savage and she plunges the special, magic knife into his chest. As an added measure Hunter throws him into an electric transformer just to make sure he’s dead. Yes the team has finally killed the evil immortal, and this time, Savage is truly dead, but there is still a meteor, that is set explode, they have to deal with. Hunter leaps into action, and flies away with the meteor. He travels the entire 93 million miles, in a matter of moments, and ejects it into the sun.
The episode wraps up with Rory visiting a bar where he meets Snart. He tries, in an awkward macho manner, to express his feelings for his now dead friend who sacrificed himself in the previous episode. This scene was well done and even touching. I am wondering though, how was it possible for him to do this, and not possible for Sara to go back and save her sister? Time travel, it seems is fickle in what is possible and what is not.
Kendra and Carter decide to go off on their own, and do. After this, as the team is about to get back on the Waverider, another timeship arrives and nearly crash lands on the team where they stand. The pilot emerges and announces they cannot re-enter the ship or they will die. He identifies himself as Rex Tyler (Patrick J. Adams) and a member of the Justice Society, who most fans will recognize as the super team from the future where he is known as Hourman. He tells the team it was them that sent him to this point in time to prevent their deaths.
And on this note the episode ends, with a tease for next season as a parting shot to convince fans that tuning in next season will be worth their while. I am still not convinced that it is, but what can I say? its likely I will check it out anyway despite finding season 1 such a big disappointment.
*UPDATE*
A new extended trailer teases a four-way-four-night crossover for the show’s second season with the CW’s other DC series, Arrow, The Flash, and Supergirl, at her new home on the network. You can see the extended trailer below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLHj1-gE488
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkE8oqWaXE0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNOhXgLq9Mw