Legends of Tomorrow, “Pilot, Part 2” recap

29 Jan

Welcome back! So in the first half of this first episode, rogue Time Master Rip Hunter recruited a group of heroes and villains (White Canary, Atom, Firestorm, Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Captain Cold, and Heatwave) to join him on a mission to stop super bad guy Vandal Savage before he takes over the world. What he neglects to tell them is that this mission isn’t authorized by his superiors, and they were picked because if they died, they wouldn’t radically affect the timeline. Well, after hearing that, they are determined to use this mission to make themselves…legends! Duh duh de duh!

Buyer’s Market. So, the team is still rolling around 1975, and thanks to the late Dr. Boardman’s notes, Rip is able to figure out a lead on Savage: an illegal arms expo in Norway. Speaking of Boardman, Hawkguy and Hawkgirl ask why can’t they go back in time to save his life, and Rip mentions since they have already interfered in Boardman’s fate, doing so again could be catastrophic if running into themselves. So Sara, Cold, Heatwave, and Stein get to go undercover into the expo, and everyone gets to wait outside as backup. The group inside spots Savage as he is selling something new to the crowd of evil terrorists and dictators: a nuclear bomb. Well, the team “accidentally” purchases it and gets the attention of Savage, and some guy called Damien Darhk who clearly is not the one currently on Arrow, because he’d be way older in the present, right? Well, despite Stein’s good performance as a ultra bad guy, he mentions something about being feared “in this era”, and that sets off Savage’s warning lights.

Its a character actor face-off! Who will survive?

And like that, the cavalry moves in (or in the case of Atom, out of Stein’s pocket) as Savage and the rest of the people inside attack our heroes. Savage decides to cover his escape by turning in the timer for the nuclear warhead, so Jax and Stein form Firestorm and take the bomb into a desolate area, where Firestorm can absorb the blast into himself. Outside of a small crater, Firestorm does just that.

Small Problem With Time. The team reconvenes on the Waverider, where Rip is not happy that they blew a chance to take out Savage. Even worse, Rip has become aware of a massive time displacement thanks to the fight. During the fight with Savage’s men, Ray accidentally lost a piece of his suit tech, which Savage reverse engineers into deadly weapons that lay waste to current era Central City. Um, oops. So now they have to get the technology back before that present becomes a fixed one. The tech can be traced in this era, but there’s only one man who specializes in that tech in 1975: college student Martin Stein!

Norway isn’t going to be happy with that much wilderness behind scorched.

Meanwhile, Carter is looking through Boardman’s effects and Kendra is there, still rattled by the death of her kid from a former life. But Carter finds an interesting thing in the doctor’s effects, like a photo of a familiar dagger. It looks like the one that bonded them and Savage to their immortality. This might be key to killing Savage, and hey, it’s in a private collection not too far from where they have to meet young Stein. So while Jax, Stein, and Sara get to go to college to meet a suave young Stein, Cold, Heatwave, and Ray get to break into a mansion to get the dagger. What could go wrong…BUT EVERYTHING!

And Savage is in a lab, now aware he’s being followed by time travelers, and really wanting that future tech broken down and engineered NOW!

Night On The Town. Convincing young Stein they are professors interested in his technology, the trio there get to talking and in young Stein’s case, get high. While he leaves for some munchies, older Stein looks at the tech he needs to locate Ray’s missing tech. Young Stein returns to find them about to steal it, and even while trying to bluff their way out of this situation, Sara just knocks young Stein out. Before they leave, old Stein sets an alarm for his younger self, since he’s realized in a few hours, he’s supposed to make a fateful encounter at a college party: namely his wife! Oh, and Sara steals young Stein’s weed! Ha!

Sara Lance: hot and able to beat you down while stoned.

At the mansion where the dagger is, Ray thinks he’s the smart guy to lead the break-in, and almost bungles the trio’s mission. They find the dagger, and while they are there, Cold decides to take a few extra expensive trinkets on display. Ray’s not cool with that, and with a brief struggle, sets off an alarm that drops a cage around the two. Good job again, Ray.

Destiny and Coincidence. During all of this, on the Waverider, Carter is trying to help Kendra access her past lives through some meditation, but is still giving off his creepy “we’re destined for each other” vibe, which isn’t helping. But later on, they both realize and graciously accept they have a long way to go before that ever happens. Kendra tries that meditation again and she remembers the origin of the dagger. He gave it to her, with a poem inscribed on it, about…yeah, no matter what, we will be together forever. Using the dagger and that poem bonded them, so doing that might kill Savage, maybe?

After stealing young Stein’s tech, they find the laboratory Savage is using (conveniently close by, wouldn’t you say?), and the still high Sara manages to fight her way through and steal back Ray’s tech like its no thing. Too bad they didn’t count on young Stein coming to, making a device to track his own stolen one, and finding them as they are entering their cloaked futuristic time ship! Oh, and Stein’s wedding band is flickering in and out of existence, so we got trouble there!

“Don’t mess with me. I’ve broken out of several prisons!”

Back at the mansion, Ray and Cold hash out things and realize they have a lot in common, being technical wizards and all. I guess grudging appreciation will have to do for now. Oh by the way, Heatwave was looking for a way to open the cage, and guess what he found? The owner of the mansion and its goodies…Vandal Savage! Well, no need to look for him now!

Lawn Party. So Savage asks Ray and Cold to call the rest of their buddies (specifically the two Hawkpeople he’s bonded to) over to his place. Well, Rip and old Stein manage to convince young Stein to leave this amazing discovery and head back to college, somehow, just as Savage’s invite comes in. Well, they all arrive and start fighting with Savage’s guys. The Hawk duo run into Savage, and manage to knock him off guard. There, Hawkman rams the dagger he just got from Cold into Savage’s chest, recites the poem, and…nothing. Turns out Savage knows something they don’t, and that this whole ceremony must be done by the actual owner of the dagger, Kendra. And then Savage turns the blade onto Carter, rams it into his chest, and kills him! WHOA!!!

Carter’s able to tell her not to worry, because they’ll be together again, before his soul gets sucked in by Savage. He stabs her in the side, and is about to kill her, when Firestorm blasts him into the next town. Rip confirms Carter’s dead, but they need to get Kendra stabilized since she’s the only one who can kill Savage. They get her back into the Waverider, start surgery on her, and she passes out, horrified she didn’t tell Carter how only just a while ago, she could see a future with him. RIP Hawkguy.

“A dagger for me? That’s sweet. Hopefully it won’t come to bond us and the man who kills us in centuries of reincarnation and death!”

Hawk Down. As everyone rests up after a rough day, Rip offers to show Stein something. They both go back to the college, and there’s young Stein, meeting his future wife. Rip managed to convince Stein’s younger self to go to the party, and this, that relationship is spared being destroyed by all this time travel. Slick move, Rip.

Back at the Waverider, it seems Kendra will survive her injury, and the team is asked by Rip if they really want to go on. Everyone, even Cold and Heatwave, want to take Savage down for Carter’s memory, so…where to next?

–Comic book connections: The whole backstory of Hawkman and Hawkwoman, in their various forms over the decades, is next level convoluted and contradictory if you even know it. Suffice to say, both have met with rough ends, together or with each other.

–Um, Disco Inferno came out in 1976, not 1975. Don’t ask how I know that.

–Okay, the Damien Darhk cameo was a surprise, but that does bring up some big questions going back into Arrow. How does Darhk stay the same looking, despite no Lazarus pit?

–Rip brings Ray his suit in that final fight, shrunken into the size of a figurine. Cute.

–“I’m Arab, on my mother’s side.” You know, we haven’t met Cold’s mom, have we?

–“Awww, you think I’m sex–” “Do not finish that sentence.”

–“You have a room that makes clothing?” “Doesn’t everyone?”

–“You’re a special kind of crazy.”

–“You just knocked me out!”

–“You need to calm down and stop yelling at yourself!”

–“You’re welcome, Norway.”

That’s it for now, but what did you think? Enjoying this series so far? Comment below and come back next week for the recap of the next episode, “Blood Ties”…