Welcome to the Legion!

Legends-Vanishing-Point

As we reach “Destiny”, the penultimate episode of the Season One, I think it’s safe to say that Legends of Tomorrow has been a pretty uneven ride. Fortunately as the series progressed it seems to have found its footing and the overall quality of the show has continued to climb as we reach next week’s finale. I think a lot of this has to do with a sense of purpose that was lacking early on. While there are still some nagging plot holes that will drive some a bit batty, the changes overall have been for the better.

**SPOILERS BELOW**

When we left the Legends last week, things were looking pretty awful. Jax was sent back to 2016 to save his life, which had the unfortunate side effect of Professor Stein slowly dying via nuclear meltdown. Mick was about to have his mind reformatted so he could take up the mantle of Chronos again while the rest of the team faced executions. To make matters worse Rip finds out that his quest to save his family and kill Savage was nothing more than the Time Masters manipulating events so they could control the future.

To say that this may be the darkest chapter in the Legend’s colorful history may be an understatement but as they say it’s always darkest before the dawn, right? And if this is the darkest moment in their lives, then it gives our heroes a chance to shine all the brighter. Fortunately for us, that’s exactly what happened: a brilliant series of character driven moments that helped the Legends make their last stand against the Time Masters.

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With that in mind though, this week was really about Mick and Leonard’s relationship and how much they’ve changed over the course of the season. When they joined the team, they were criminals who had recently stepped into the metahuman ring. Armed with insanely powerful weapons the duo wanted to mix up their normal escapades of looting and mayhem. They wanted adventure and the biggest score of a lifetime. Aboard the Waverider they found adventure but lost their bond of brotherhood as Leonard embraced the idea of being a hero and Mick wanted to live in a criminal paradise. This fracture led to Mick becoming the Time Masters’ greatest bounty hunter Chronos. Driven by hatred on both sides, the duo put aside their selfish natures as they realized that they care about one another and their rag tag band of misfit heroes.

When you consider the roller coaster ride of Mick’s journey with the Legends, it was pretty awesome to see that he was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to save his “friends”. Of course, Leonard couldn’t have that and, in a twist, knocked Mick unconscious in order to take his place as the sacrifice needed to stop the Time Masters. It was a wonderful echo back to Leonard’s betrayal earlier in the season, but this time for all the right reasons. Of all the cast, Captain Cold was clearly the fan favorite, which meant his death would carry the most weight. Even so, I hated to see him go. Fortunately it seems like that’s not the end of Leonard Snart as it was revealed that Wentworth Miller has been signed to appear in every DC show on the CW for next year. It’s actually a bit daunting when you think about it. Captain Cold is so popular that he’s been renewed for another season as a stand alone character. Not with any ties to a singular show, but to four (don’t forget Supergirl) ongoing series. That’s pretty impressive.

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Another casualty of Snart’s death is the potential Captain Canary relationship (don’t look at me like that, you know that’s what you called them). There’s been a subtle romantic tension between Leonard and Sara since the series began and it’s pretty telling that their romantic subplot has carried far more weight than the season long slog Ray/Kendra/Carter love triangle. Of course the natural chemistry of Miller and Lotz is a big factor in this but it’s also due to the fact that romantic subplots only work when they grow organically over time. When you force the issue, it never feels as satisfying and it’s a lesson the producers have seen occur three times now: Oliver/Felicity, Barry/Patty and now Leonard/Sara.

Another huge subplot that’s continued to grow organically all season as been the Jax/Stein relationship. After a pretty rough road the two have come out the other side, true equals in the Firestorm bond and it shows. When the matured Jax meets a pre-Legends Professor stein, it allows us to see just how far these two have come. In a fun twist, it also rewrites a pretty weird moment from the pilot. When Stein drugged Jax and brought him on board the Waverider, it felt really out of place, but now we know it was simply Stein following Jax’s suggestion.

Another big reveal this week is the Time Masters motivations for aiding Vandal Savage and his conquest of the world. By using a device known as the Oculus, the Time Masters have been able to see “the real” future versus computed probabilities. With this powerful device in hand, they have manipulated events to their best possible outcome, including Rip Hunter’s rebellion. This has all been in order to help Savage consolidate power and unite the world in time to battle a Thanagarian Invasion Force. Seen as the lesser of two evils, Savage’s conquest of the world ensures humanities survival. The alternative is a future where humanity is destroyed, which would erase the Time Masters from existence. It’s clear that this is a setup for Season Two and already feels ripe with potential, but first we need to wrap up one last point: Vandal Savage

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Savage was given very little screen time this week as he moved through time in order to kill off Rip’s family and the episode was all the better for it. Instead of trying to be more evil than evil, Savage slowly moved in the background, all the while events of the world are exploding around him. With Rip otherwise preoccupied with trying to stop the Time Masters from manipulating all of space-time, Savage was able to make good on his threat of butchering Hunter’s family. It was a pretty awesome moment as Arthur Darvill delivered a fantastic performance of a man who realized he was giving up his own happiness to stop the fatalistic pre-determination of mankind.

With the Oculus destroyed, it’s unclear if these murders are now locked in time or if there’s a chance to undo them. Regardless, what is clear is that without the Oculus the Time Masters are left adrift, flying blind through the time stream, unable to manipulate it for their own purposes. It also means that Gideon is no longer able to predict the future, so the chance of screwing up the time line is far more dangerous than before. Honestly, I love this. It gave us a retconn for all the weird time travel loopholes of the season and makes affecting the timeline a far more dangerous proposition from this point forward. While it can’t undo some wonky decisions like the Legends “past selves” hiding out in a corner of time, it can certainly make the writers keep their stories far more linear.

With Savage on the loose with a Time Machine of his own and the impending Thanagarian threat, the season finale has some serious issues to tie up, but for the first time since the show began, I think we can get a satisfying conclusion to this freshmen show.

PS: Even money that Kendra, Carter and Savage all die next week but we’ll get replacements in the Thangarian Shayera and Kartor Hol.

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Shaun Rosado

Shaun Rosado is creator and host of a weekly geek podcast called "Shauncastic!," where he and a rotating cast discuss everything geeky, nerdy and pop culture-y as well as the creator of "Meet At The Tavern," a blog dedicated to RPGs. He is also a frequent Twittering fool (@Pneumaz). He is married, has a dog, is a massive fan of The Flash and owns a spaceship. One of these is not true.