Legends of Tomorrow Legion of Doom Television 

Five Thoughts on Legends of Tomorrow‘s “Legion of Doom”

By | February 1st, 2017
Posted in Television | 6 Comments

This episode was all about the Legion of Doom, and that was made clear from the opening voice over done by Damien Darhk. While it was a nice break from the grin-off between Ray and Nate that the show has become, it also showed just how little the show has cared/focused on the villains so far this season.

1. No scenery is safe!

I’ll give the show some credit here: they are not afraid to have their villains go big and go broad. The three actors, whether in scenes by themselves or as a trio, are mugging it as much as humanly possible at all times. They sure get the idea of villainy, and ramp it up to 11.

And, honestly? I’m totally fine with that. This show knows what it is, and it is as close to Batman ’66 as any superhero show on TV is willing to get. The Legion of Doom are just missing brightly colored costumes and an extra pun or two a week, and they’re Egghead and King Tut.

Focusing on them this week makes the season’s plot make a little more sense, as it gives a little indication as to just what they’ve been doing this whole time aside from just trying to be a thorn in the side of characters they (aside from Sara) have no real history with.

2. Thawne’s secret

OK, so I have a confession to make. There was a shot in this episode that I didn’t get the best look at as I was, to borrow a phrase from George Bluth, having a love affair with an ice cream sandwich as I was watching. I meant to rewind it later, but then I deleted it from the DVR, and LAY OFF ME, OK? But, if I recall, from behind my vanilla gaze, I believe they showed Matt Letscher and not Tom Cavanaugh being killed by Eddie Thawne offing himself in The Flash‘s season one finale. Now, I know why this makes this a little easier for fans that didn’t watch that season, but really – who is watching Legends that don’t watch The Flash? Arthur Darvill’s mom?

So, that either means that the show consciously decided that was a better move, Tom Cavanaugh was getting his teeth cleaned that day, and couldn’t make it over to set, they lost the negatives of that season, so they couldn’t use the old footage, or due to Flashpoint, Thawne was never Wells, which we know isn’t the case because of a conversation that happened literally minutes before this episode on The Flash.

Anyway, the idea of Thawne outrunning the Black Flash as his reasoning for wanting the Spear of Destiny is an interesting idea, even if I find the whole concept of re-writing reality instead of time a really lazy storytelling device.

3. Lily, the anomaly

I am glad that Legends doesn’t try too hard to rehabilitate Mick – he’s still a dickhead, even if he is a ‘hero’ now. And he should stay that way, even if it meant telling Lily that she’s nothing more than an accident of time travel.

[Side note: which would be better to find out – that you were conceived because your parents are bad at birth control, or you were conceived due to time travel shenanigans? One means that your parents are irresponsible and not very smart, and one means that your dad is a genius who wishes he was a better man. I would take the latter, but it still has to be weird]

Lily is in a similar spot to where Wally West’s powers are on their respective shows. At this point, the show has invested a lot in them, but it would probably be easier/beneficial to both the shows and their fictional residents to undo them. At this point, I still say it is a 50/50 proposition that Lily survives the season.

4. Black Flash, trapped by a door

The idea of trapping the Black Flash in a vault is a very comic book-y idea, and therefore I was more or less okay with it last night. But then, I started thinking about it – if it is Barry’s future self (which I think we all think), then can’t it just vibrate, as speedsters are wont to do, through the door? It seems to have cognitive abilities, and it clearly knows how to use its powers (as it can, you know, travel through time really fast), so why does it simply choose not to? I know the LoD says “that’ll hold him for awhile,” so they aren’t exactly banking on this as a long term solution, but c’mon dudes.

Continued below

5. Rip Wilkes Boothe

I know I’m a little down on the Legion of Doom this week, but the ending makes up for it all. Using Rip as a time traveling assassin to send the world into chaos is amazing. Also, I bet Darvill is quite happy he can drop his forced American accent finally. I hope the rest of the season is just Rip killing amazing people and then the Legends having to undo it.

More than that, I want to LoD to start targeting folks who really don’t affect governments and wars and all that, and just start being dicks and removing good shit from the world. Like, they off Les Paul, so the electric guitar is never invented, or kill the dude who first made guacamole, or the NASA scientist who gave us velcro. Because, I don’t know about you guys, but without rock and roll, guac, and velcro, my life is way worse.

So, who do you want to see Rip off? Do you think Lily will make it? Did you get a better look at Thawne’s death scene? Let me know in the comments.


//TAGS | Legends of Tomorrow

Brian Salvatore

Brian Salvatore is an editor, podcaster, reviewer, writer at large, and general task master at Multiversity. When not writing, he can be found playing music, hanging out with his kids, or playing music with his kids. He also has a dog named Lola, a rowboat, and once met Jimmy Carter. Feel free to email him about good beer, the New York Mets, or the best way to make Chicken Parmagiana (add a thin slice of prosciutto under the cheese).

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