Legends of Tomorrow – what they fuck are you doing?
1. Let’s get real
Like Michelle Pfeiffer at the beginning of the “Gangsta’s Paradise” video, I’m asking some serious questions, and I want some answers.
What the actual fuck is this show?
I mean, there were moments in this episode where I laughed out loud, where I felt pain for the characters onscreen, and where I wanted the heroes to pull through. But this show continues to set up rules and then break them, almost instantly. Seemingly twice a week someone flip flops on the whole “you shouldn’t know about your future” rule, and the parameters for what ‘changing history’ looks like is a moving target at best.
I know that this show, perhaps more than anything since Raiders of the Lost Ark, is trying really hard to be swashbuckling and fun, but throwing out the rules of the universe doesn’t actually make it so. All that does is make everyone confused and, instead of enjoying the show, trying to do the math in our heads to how this is working.
2. Apollo 13
I’m fascinated by the true story of Apollo 13, one of the greatest triumphs for science in modern history. Part of the mystique behind the mission is that, despite malfunction, illness, and (relatively) primitive computers, all three astronauts returned home safely. That is not the case with what we saw here, where Thawne, posing as Jack Swigert was mysteriously gone from the ship when Hayes and Lovell awoke, long with the LEM. I know this would still be an inspiring story, but sort of the whole point of why the story remains so important is the triumph, and that just isn’t here anymore.
Sure, the show moved that drama to the Waverider (more on that in a bit), but when the show repeatedly tells us that even small changes to the world can have dire consequences, the change in the Apollo 13 mission seems like it would cause massive change. You know all those nuts who don’t believe in the moon landing? You’re making a million more of them by having a member of the crew and half the spaceship disappear in space. You know the directorial career of Ron Howard? Well, it may never reach its full blockbuster potential now.
What have you done, you monsters?!?!
3. The Beetlejuice Moment
Multiversity publisher Matthew Meylikhov watches this show a few days late, and I usually get a text from him when he does expressing befuddlement at one or another part of the show. Well, I warned him today: this episode has one of the weirdest scenes in TV history.
Which one? Oh, just the one where Stein needs to distract people, and so he starts singing a Harry Belafonte song featured in Beetlejuice!
This man has more degrees than most households, and the only distraction he can think of is to jam out to a calypso song? The fact that he wasn’t thrown out of Mission Control is insane, especially as he’s given a “ya better not fuck up” speech earlier in the episode.
4. The worst fight scene in TV history?
The Ray/Thawne fight in the lunar module was absolutely terrible for a few reasons: first of all, it was the most staged looking fight since Bela Lugosi and that octopus in Bride of the Monster. The fact that they tried to film it through the window of the ship, clearly while telling the actors “pretend you’re in zero gravity!” made it look even cheesier.
But even from a storytelling perspective, this was a dumb fight. Thawne is de-powered (for reasons never really explained), and Ray is wearing an Iron Man suit. Why did it take until the suit was already damaged for Ray to blast him?
Thawne’s character is by far the most interesting of the Legion baddies this season, but this type of an episode would’ve gone a long way two months ago; now it just feels like a third act trying to feel more impactful.
5. The Heywoods
The one piece of this episode that really worked was the relationship of the Heywoods. Henry really looked the NASA part and, unlike the other JSAers, really seemed a product of his time. Sure, Amaya claims to be old fashioned, but her hair is stylized like Beyonce and she’s down to fuck on a first date. She’s 2017 and proud of it; Henry really is old fashioned.
Henry’s sacrifice was a moment for the show to give Nate something to do other than be handsome, and they more or less nailed it here. That was a truly sad scene, even if the subsequent one at NASA was impossibly dumb (how did they get in Mission Control if their buddy who worked there just had his head popped like a balloon by the vacuum of space, and why would a little boy listen to a grown ass man tell him about his son, who would be at least 10-15 years away at this point?).
I want to like Legends, I really do – but the show needs to really reinvent itself for its third season, lest it become an un-self-aware Batman ’66.
