Legends of Tomorrow, “Pilot, Part 1” recap

23 Jan

So, welcome to the recap of the first episode of Legends of Tomorrow! What do you need to know? Um, well if you’ve been watching Arrow and The Flash regularly, chances are you noticed this season the attention on several characters not necessarily part of the core groups of both shows. Really, I could explain it all, but we still got a lot of story here to cover, so let’s jump into it, okay?

To Save The Future. We get a brief glimpse of London, circa 2166, laid to waste. Our big baddie, Vandal Savage, is wandering around with a lot of heavily armed shock troopers and comes upon a mother and son. He shoots the mother, and after seeing her son follows in her mother’s brave footsteps, shoots him. Then we cut to a Rip Hunter, discussing how to fight Savage with a group called the Time Council. The Council doesn’t want to mess with time, fearing a bigger calamity will occur if they interfere, but Hunter is insistent that all he needs is a team to stop him. We cut to later, where Hunter seems to be on a large spaceship, talking to a ship bound AI, Gideon (like Gideon from the Flash?), saying he has approval for his mission, and now he needs to find a team. First stop: the past OR as we call it: now!

“I’M…COMING…OUT!”

Recruitment Drive. Hunter’s enlistment plan: catch his candidates (Sara Lance, the Canary; Ray Palmer, the Atom; Carter and Kendra, Hawkman and Hawkgirl; Dr. Stein and Jax, the two halves of Firestorm; and villains Captain Cold and Heatwave), knock them out, and talk to them together on a rooftop. Not the first plan I would have had, but okay. There he lays out who he is: Rip Hunter, a Time Master who is charged with protecting all of time in the future. Then there’s why he brought them here: to recruit them to stop Vandal Savage before he takes over future Earth.

Hey, um, quick question Hawkguy has to ask: didn’t we vaporize him in that insane Flash/Arrow crossover from a month or two ago? Good question, and Hunter’s answer is he can regenerate himself even from a single particle. Well, okay, but why them to fight Savage, everyone asks? Because Hunter lets them know they are legendary in their time, and together they can defeat Savage. He’s nice enough to give them 36 hours to decide to join this mission, and a place to meet if they do. Do they, you ask? Are bears still crapping in the woods?

Settling Affairs. So here’s how those 36 hours are spent: Ray consults with the Green Arrow, Sara talks to big sister Laurel (who offers up a new white leather catsuit for her little sis), Hawkman and Hawkgirl settle their arguments on whether to go or not (they got history with Savage, after all) over a fight, Cold and Heatwave think this may be a great opportunity to steal valuables across time, and while Stein wants to go, Jax doesn’t. So, Stein drugs him and takes him to the meeting place against his will. Jeez, not cool, doc. Rip is waiting at an open field, and all our potential team members are there too. And how will they get to go through time? On a cloaked futuristic time ship, that’s how!

Hunter introduces the ship as the Waverider, introduces Gideon, and lays out what we know about Savage. He’s always been around in key chaotic moments in human history, but getting a bead on him has been a problem. But there is one lead: a doctor named Boardman who is the only known expert on Savage, who died in 1975 of unknown circumstances. So they are going back a day before his death to find out all he knows. Once they get a seat to sit in, time to warm up the flux capacitor and go back in time! And Jax wakes up just in time to realize he’s strapped into a chair on a time ship, so fun time explaining things to him!

Plus in our present, some heavily armored masked guy arrives, calling himself Chronos, and letting “command” know he missed Hunter. And he vaporizes two losers who see him, so he’s not good news.

“Gideon, cue up my Huey Lewis and the News playlist.”

1975. The ship arrives in 1975, and immediately Hunter picks Ray, Dr. Stein and the bickering Hawkcouple to join him in talking to the professor, while grounding the others because they aren’t needed for this job yet. After that group leaves the ship, Sara’s all, “who wants to go and get a few drinks outside the ship?” And Cold and Heatwave join her, but Jax stays behind because: 1) he just wants to go home, and 2) he wasn’t invited for drinks. Ouch. Meanwhile, Hunter’s team go to the university where professor Boardman is and when they get there, he seems to recognize our Hawkcouple almost immediately. He almost seemed like he was expecting them, because he was.

You see, the doctor knew them in a past life as a couple by the last name of…Boardman. In case you haven’t figured it out, the professor is the son of the Hawkcouple from a previous life! He was a child when his parents were killed by Savage, and he dedicated his life to finding a way to defeat the immortal psychopath. He has a book of information that could help trace Savage, but Kendra is really insistent on taking Boardman with them, maybe sparing him from his fate. And also, Stein feels Jackson is in trouble! Why exactly?

A Drink Over History. Before we get to Jax, how does that trip to grab a few beers go? Well, Sara and our bad boys end up in a bar brawl is what! Back on the Waverider, Jax is trying to reason with Gideon to get him back to his time, but is interrupted by someone shooting at the ship. It’s that Chronos guy firing at the Waverider!

Hunter’s team arrives before our beer party does, and both find themselves trying to fend off Chronos. In the ensuing escape, Boardman is gravely injured as the Waverider takes off back into the time stream. Maybe the question is, why is Chronos after them, anyway?

“Don’t worry, guys, I’ve fought big dudes while I wear skintight leather suits before.”

Time To Talk. Hunter orders the ship to wait in the time stream while he starts repairing it, and then everyone starts losing their crap over who Chronos is and why he’s shown up. Chronos was looking for Hunter, but why? Well, turns out Hunter’s little mission isn’t sanctioned by the Time Council at all, and he went rogue. Oh and that stuff about them being legends in the future? Total lie, because he picked a team of people whose deaths would not deeply affect history to help him.

His reason for all the deception? He had a family against the wishes of the Council, and that family was the mother and son killed by Savage in that future London opening. He offers to take them home if they want after he fixes the ship, but they want to think on what to do next.

Rewriting Fate. Kendra is there as Boardman dies, and Carter consoles her, feeling the loss of someone close to them they never knew. Stein and Jax find they both do want to stay, being Firestorm bros and all. The others aren’t sure what to do, until Sara says just because they aren’t great in Hunter’s future, doesn’t mean they can’t create their own future with this mission. With the whole group on board, Hunter says he has a clue from Boardman’s notes that they can follow.

Cut back to Norway in ’75, as Savage and his men have knocked off a military transport. He looks to see the cargo he has claimed: a nuclear bomb! What does this mean? Come back for part two!

This is like a hyperviolent version of Woody Allen’s Zelig, minus the fact this show is not made by someone who married their adopted daughter.

–Comic book connections: Where to begin? Um, the Waverider is likely connected to the hero Waverider, a time traveler introduced in the early 90’s. Rip Hunter was a time traveler in the DCU as well, but not necessarily British.

–So we got an Ollie and Laurel cameo, which okay, but no Barry Allen? Well, can’t blow all your cameo appearances at once, I guess.

–Arthur Darvill as a more gruffer Doctor Who? Well, playing companion Rory on that show certainly prepped him for saying all kinds of temporal gobbledygook.

–So wait, how did Hunter move all those people from all those places to one rooftop?

–Oh, it seems the Hawkcouple are the only ones who can truly kill Vandal Savage permanently, so duh-doy.

–Ah, dollar beers. The 70’s had its moments.

–“Hey, Haircut! Deafness wasn’t one of the side effects!”

–“And what does this Randall guy have to do with us?”

–“Well he’s from the 31st century, so it was hard to Google him.”

–“I think we’re being punked. Kids still say ‘punked’, right?”

–“I didn’t ‘roofie’ him.” “I’m not judging.”

–“I do not need another roofie!”

–“Why is this channel only showing reruns?”

–“Want to listen to some Captain and Tennile? My mom listened to them. A LOT.”

So, what did you think about the premiere? Looking forward to the rest of the season? Comment below and come back next week (give or take, since its going to be spotty getting these recaps out regularly for a few weeks) for the second half of the premiere…