Marvel's Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 3, Episode 19: Failed Experiments

Thanks to my state's election coverage Tuesday night, I missed about twenty minutes of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. and had to track it down and watch it online. Last week storms knocked it off the air, this week elections. Apparently the universe doesn't want me watching this show.

This week on Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D., Daisy's turn to the Dark Side seems complete, as she attacks her former friends and colleagues, coming very close to killing Mack in the process. We also get a low budget visit from the Kree, May flirts with Hellfire and Hive Ward finally reveals his Master Plan, setting up the season finale.

A few weeks ago in Parting Shot, Mockingbird and Hunter were written out of the show, so they could star in their own series, Marvel's Most Wanted. It seemed like a boneheaded decision to me. Mockingbird and Hunter were two of the best characters on Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D., but oddly enough I don't think they don't seem interesting enough to carry their own series.

Apparently I'm not the only one who feels this way, because according to the interwebs, this week Disney/ABC is reportedly having second thoughts about going through with the Marvel's Most Wanted series. Which means Mockingbird and Hunter were written out for nothing!

Maybe they could pull a George Costanza and just return to the show without any explanation, saying, "Quit? We didn't quit! You thought we were serious?"

SPOILERS!

The Plot:

Thousands of years ago, a tribal hunter is chased and captured by two blue-skinned, alien Kree warriors. They bring him back to their spaceship and begin experimenting on him (as near as I can tell there are no anal probes involved). They inject some of their own blood into him, forcing him to undergo Terragenesis. And that, kids, is how I met your mother, er, I mean how Hive became the First Inhuman.

In the present, we see Hive Ward telling this story to Daisy, and the last three heads of HYDRA. He tells the HYDRA heads he's going to try and recreate the Kree experiment— on them. Gulp!

Back at S.H.I.E.L.D., FitzSimmons work on an antitoxin that will fight off Hive Ward's parasites. Simmons warns that the serum could kill an Inhuman before curing them. Lincoln volunteers to test the antitoxin, but Simmons forbids it. Coulson spots Daisy on a global camera feed (!), coming out of a garage in Wyoming. Mack says the entire town was bought by one of Gideon Malick's shell corporations, and they figure that's where Hive Ward is hiding. Coulson thinks it's a trap, as Daisy is too smart to allow herself to accidentally be caught on a security camera. Mack thinks she did it as a cry for help, and wants to be rescued. Coulson orders a strike on Hive Ward.

Meanwhile in Inhuman Town, Hive Ward has Dr. Radcliffe experiment on the HYDRA heads, by altering their DNA and exposing them to Terrigen all at once. Predictably things don't go well, as the HYDRA subjects' faces all melt off. Yikes!

Lincoln asks Coulson for permission to test the Inhuman antitoxin on himself. Coulson says no, and tells FitzSimmons to come up with another option. Mack gathers four redshirt S.H.I.E.L.D. agents we've never seen before to accompany him on the mission to Inhuman Town. Coulson tells the team they're to kill Hive, but avoid injuring the others if at all possible. Especially his precious Daisy!

Daisy, Hellfire and Alisha hang out in an Inhuman Town bar. James tries to get Daisy to dance with him, but she turns him down. He accuses her of still being in love with Lincoln, and loyal to S.H.I.E.L.D. Hive Ward is angry that the experiment failed. Dr. Radcliffe says he needs DNA from a living Kree host. Hive Ward activates the Kree Orb he got from Hellfire. Hive Ward asks Daisy if she can defeat S.H.I.E.L.D. She looks uneasy and says she's sure she can convince them to transform into Inhumans, which I'm sure they'd all just love. She says if they refuse transformation, she'll rip their hearts out.

To no one's surprise, Lincoln secretly injects himself with the antitoxin. FitzSimmons finds him writhing in pain as electricity shoots from his body and he collapses to the floor. Simmons tries to give him the antidote (there's an antidote to an antitoxin they don't know will work?), but he refuses it, saying he knows it's going to work.

May spots Hellfire in the bar by himself. She poses as a HYDRA security guard (?) and flirts with him until he tells her about Hive Ward's plan to change humans into Inhumans. She knocks him out and returns to Mack's team. They head toward what they think is Hive's location, inside a shed. Inside they find the Kree Orb, humming and glowing with light. Coulson, watching through a video feed, recognizes the writing on the artifact and tells the team to get out of there. They exit shortly before an object from space crashes into the shed, obliterating it.

Two blue skinned Kree exit from the debris. Hive Ward tells Daisy that he sent a signal to the Kree in order to get a sample of their blood for his experiment. He says these Kree are deadly Reapers, who live only to hunt. Hive Ward says they're his greatest fear, but with Daisy's help he believes he can defeat them, and collect their blood for the experiment.

One of the Reapers encounters Alisha and kills her (for good?). Mack and May follow it at a respectable distance, thinking it might do their work for them and kill Hive. It enters the garage lab and confronts Dr. Radcliffe. Daisy kills the Reaper with her powers and tells Radcliffe to drain its blood. Just then Mack enters and tells Daisy he's there to save her. She say she doesn't need saving, thanks, and says she's going to save humanity by turning everyone into Inhumans. Mack drops his gun and says he knows there's a part of her that wants to come back. When she says he's wrong, he destroys the Reaper and its blood. Enraged, Daisy attacks Mack.

The other Reaper tracks Hive Ward to a church. Hive battles the Reaper, while Daisy pummels the defenseless Mack. After a good five minute battle, Hive Ward stops fighting and absorbs the Reaper. So why didn't he do that in the first place? One of the S.H.I.E.L.D. redshirts fires a rocket at Hive Ward, which severely injures him, but he heals in seconds. May calls for a retreat. They find Daisy about to kill Mack, and May shoots her. They drag Mack into a waiting Wonkavator and fly off. Hive Ward finds the injured Daisy and cradles her (but sadly doesn't shake his fist at the heavens and shout, "WHY?").

Simmons tells Lincoln the mission to rescue Daisy failed, and that the antitoxin didn't work. Double bummer.

Hive Ward tells Daisy he's disappointed in her, and criticizes her for not collecting the Kree blood. She tells him she's finished with S.H.I.E.L.D. once and for all, and says he has all the Kree blood he needs, thanks to the transfusion Coulson gave her back in Season 1.

Thoughts:

• Hive Ward finally reveals his master plan this week, and it's a doozy. According to him, as long as there's violence, there can never be peace on Earth (I certainly can't argue with him there!). To eliminate said violence, he plans to turn everyone on Earth into an Inhuman. He believes that if everyone has superpowers they'll all be equal and there'll be no more violence. Several things here:

Hive Ward needs Kree blood to turn humans into Inhumans. Where the hell's he going to get enough blood to mutate seven billion people? Does he plan on wiping out most of the human population before he gets started?

Secondly, once everyone becomes Inhuman, will he infect them all with his spores and control them? Is that even possible? Let's hope so, because all Inhumans are not created equal. Daisy and Lincoln both possess very formidable powers. Other Inhumans much less so. Like Raina, for instance. Her power was clairvoyance, which is a very passive ability. There are probably some with even weaker powers, like the ability to smell like grilled cheese sandwiches.

How long would it be before the powerful Inhumans started pushing the weaker ones around? Once the weak ones were gone, the remaining strong ones would no doubt start battling one another for superiority. 

As I said, Hive Ward would probably infect all the Inhumans and control their minds. But Daisy's possessed, and she still shows quite a bit of autonomy, even refusing to kill Fitz when she had the chance last week. I don't think even Hive could stop violence from returning.

• Hive Ward has a second plan that's even more nonsensical. He needs Kree blood for his Inhuman experiment to work. To get it, he signals two Kree Reapers and lures them to Earth. Note that the Reapers are the most brutal hunters in the galaxy, and the one thing in the universe that Hive fears. What a great idea! That's like finding out you need bullets, so you dis a couple of gang members and dare them to shoot at you.

• Daisy asks Hive Ward why he was banished to Maveth. He says, "People saw the connection I had with other Inhumans, and that made them afraid. That fear bred paranoia, which lead to civil war. I see what you did there, Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. writers.

Hive Ward then discusses his Inhuman philosophy, saying, "Only billionaires can build iron suits. Only the military can make super soldiers, which can only lead to a war of its own." Okay, okay, we get it guys! Captain America: Civil War opens this week!

• Hive Ward meets with the last three faithful heads of HYDRA, who might as well be wearing red shirts. He tells them he's going to reward them for their faith. Hilariously, they actually look like they're honored by this, until he tells them they'll be the first to be mutated into Inhumans. Then they're all, "Um... mutated into what now?"

• Predictably, the Human To Inhuman experiment goes terribly wrong, as the heads of HYDRA all have their faces melted off, ala Raiders Of The Lost Ark.

Jesus Christ, this scene was absolutely horrifying! That's got to be one of the most gory and shocking things I've ever seen on network TV. I'm gonna be haunted for days by this scene!

• To get the alien blood he needs for his Inhuman experiment, Hive Ward activates the Orb, which signals two Kree Reapers. They arrive on Earth literally minutes later.

So were the Kree Reapers stationed above Earth for decades or even centuries, just waiting for the moment they'd be needed? Did they just happen to be passing through our neck of the galaxy? They'd pretty much have to be, as there's no way in hell the signal could have reached them in another solar system and they could have got here in less than an hour. Heck, even with warp drive, it still takes the Enterprise a while to get from one system to another.

• When Hellfire flirts with May, he tells her he's thirty three. Really? He looks like he's in his forties to me. Actor Axle Whitehead, who plays Hellfire, is currently thirty five. Must be that intense Australian sun prematurely aging him.

• Apparently the show blew its makeup budget for the season. Those Kree Reapers were less than impressive, looking like they stepped off the set of the latest Siffy Channel movie.

Seriously, I've seen better looking cosplayer makeup and costumes at comic conventions.

• Two Alishas attack one of the Reapers, and he easily kills them both. So... is that the end of her? Or is there still an Alisha Prime hiding out somewhere who can make more copies of herself? It's never made clear in the episode.

• So who are these four nameless S.H.I.E.L.D. grunts who suddenly pop up this week? Are they potential replacements for Mockingbird and Hunter? Whoever they were, I was amazed that they all survived the episode. I was sure they were introduced as redshirts just so the show could kill someone besides the main cast.

For quite a while now the series has been coy about just how many S.H.I.E.L.D. agents there really are. There's the core cast, of course, but there's always a bunch of people milling around in the background of their headquarters. Are they agents as well? Technicians? Security? Who knows?

• I guess the S.H.I.E.L.D. base got better after Daisy virtually destroyed it a couple weeks ago. This week everyone's gearing up for the assault on Inhuman town, and the base looks perfectly intact.

• Mack continues his tradition of getting knocked on his ass again this week. At least this time it was somewhat plausible, as Daisy used her quake powers on the hulking agent.

• Hive Ward faces his deadliest fear and battles the other Kree Reaper in the church. He even gets his ass handed to him a couple of times before he rallies. He finally ends the fight by simply using his spores to dissolve the Reaper. So... why didn't he just do that in the first place? Does he have a flair for theatrics?

It reminded me of every episode of Power Rangers. A monster would attack, so the Rangers would battle it to a standstill. Then it would grow to giant size, so they'd summon the Magazord and fight it to a standstill again. Then they'd materialize their Power Sword, which would finally kill the monster. They could have saved a lot of time and effort if they'd have used the Power Sword in the first place.

• Best line of the episode:
Simmons, talking about Hive Ward: “I had to shoot him three times just to shut him up.”

The Flash Season 2, Episode 20: Rupture

Thanks to my state's election coverage Tuesday night, I missed at least fifteen minutes of The Flash and had to track it down and watch it online. Last week storms knocked it off the air, this week elections. Apparently the universe doesn't want me watching this show.

This week's The Flash was a surprisingly lackluster outing, especially considering there are only two more episodes left in the season. One would think that at this point the storyline would be barreling along at breakneck speed (heh), instead of slowly meandering and stopping to smell the flowers along the way. 

I'm not quite sure what the problem was here. We've got a powerless superhero desperate to get his speed back, a deadly supervillain with an amazingly evil-looking costume, a fine supporting cast, a wonderfully comic-booky sense of fun and even doppelgangers of the characters living on a parallel Earth. So why was this episode so dull?

Maybe the fact that it was directed by someone named Armen V. Kevorkian had something to do with the downbeat mood.

It was good to see Henry Allen back after his abrupt, puzzling and nonsensical departure at the beginning of the season. Unfortunately he turned out to be a giant wet blanket this week, as he spent the entire episode nagging Barry, telling him not to endanger his life out of a sense of duty to Central City and its residents. Jesus, who is he, Martha Kent? 

Henry seemed... off somehow in this episode as well. I don't know if it was an issue with actor John Wesley Shipp's performance, or the corny dialogue he was forced to say, but he seemed stiff and uneasy all through the episode. In fact for a few seconds I thought he was going to reveal he was somehow secretly Zoom or some other villain!

I could also have done without watching an entire episode of Barry agonizing over whether to go through with the experiment or not. C'mon, the show's called The Flash, not Barry Allen. We all know damned good and well he's going to get his powers back before the season finale. Get it over with already, and stop wasting the audiences' time.

SPOILERS!

The Plot:
Now that Barry's powerless, Cisco whips up a holographic Flash to help fight crime. Somehow this idea works, as a car full of crooks mistakes the hologram for the real thing, and surrender to the police. Harry tells Cisco and Barry that it's only a matter of time before Central City's criminal population figures out the hologram isn't real. He urges Barry to let him recreate the particle accelerator explosion to give him back his powers.

Barry drives to the cabin from Evil Dead to visit his father Henry. Barry fills him in, telling him he stupidly gave up his powers to Zoom to honor a promise. Henry thinks it's too dangerous for Barry to try and recharge his powers.

Meanwhile, Wally visits Joe at the police department. Zoom appears with Caitlin in tow, and says he now owns Central City, and will kill anyone who disobeys him. Captain Singh evacuates the building, and tells the police to regroup at Jitters coffee shop, of all places. Zoom handcuffs Caitlin to a desk. She tries to talk him into going easy on the city. He tells her he knows she has a dark side, and all she has to do is unlock it. Uh-oh.

Cisco "vibes" on his asshole of a brother, Dante. He drops everything and goes to meet him at a bar. Predictably, they get into an argument. Cisco sees a news report about Zoom and leaves. Dante follows him out of the bar, and the two are attacked by a metahuman named Rupture (ouch). He removes his mask and reveals he's the Earth-2 version of Dante. He wants revenge on Cisco for killing Reverb (the Earth-2 version of Cisco) a few months back. Rupture attacks Cisco's van, but he and Dante manage to get away.

Back at STAR Labs, Joe stashes Wally and Harry's daughter Jesse inside the Time Vault to keep them safe from Zoom. The two immediately start trying to break out. Joe, Henry and Harry argue about whether Barry should try and regain his powers. Harry's all for it, Henry is dead-set against it, and Joe is on the fence. Barry enters and sees his three father figures discussing him and what he should do. He tells them it's ultimately his decision to make. So make it already, and quit stalling until the end of the episode!

At STAR Labs, Dante finds a note Cisco left for his family, in case he was ever killed. Dante questions Cisco, who admits he has superpowers.

At the police department, Caitlin overhears Zoom telling Rupture to kill all the police at Jitters. She manages to open a drawer and finds a cell phone inside. She texts Zoom's plan to STAR Labs. Cisco, Barry and Joe get the text and go to Jitters to warn the police. They set up the holographic Flash again, to hopefully fool Rupture. He enters Jitters and finds it seemingly empty. The "Flash" appears, and Rupture tries blasting him with his energy scythe, destroying the place in the process. While he's distracted, he's zapped with tasers by the police.

Zoom then appears, furious that the police have disobeyed him and defeated Rupture. He kills every cop in Jitters except for Joe and Singh (lucky he spared the two policemen we know by name, eh?). He then kills Rupture as well, and uses a TV camera to announce to Central City that the Flash no longer exists, and there's no one to stop him. He warns Barry that this is the last time he'll spare him or his friends.

Everyone returns to STAR Labs. Cisco, who just saw the Earth-2 version of his brother die, embraces Dante and says he wants things to change between them. Barry FINALLY decides to get his powers back. Harry puts Barry into a technobabble chamber and injects him with the same chemicals he was exposed to during the explosion. He sends Cisco to the roof with the Weather Wizard's wand, to recreate the bolt of lightning from the accident. He fires up the particle accelerator (which has worked more after it exploded than it did before) and channels all the dark matter energy into the chamber.

Just then, Wally and Jesse successfully break out of the Time Vault. Harry signals Cisco, who uses the wand to conjure up lightning and channel it into the chamber. The lightning combines with the dark matter energy, but instead of charging Barry with the Speed Force, it disintegrates him! The chamber explodes, bathing Wally and Jesse with energy as they enter the room. They both fall to the ground unconscious.

Harry, Joe, Iris, Cisco and Henry all look aghast at the now empty technobabble chamber. Zoom appears, picks up a piece of Barry's charred Flash costume, chuckles to himself and zips away.

Thoughts:
• Well, now we know why Henry Allen was in such a hurry to get away from Barry and everyone as quickly as possible back in The Man Who Saved Central City. He had important log-chopping to do at his remote cabin in the woods!

• Barry tells Henry that Zoom is Jay Garrick (well, sort of). Henry says that Garrick was his mom's maiden name. How the hell does Barry not know that? Don't most people know their grandma's maiden name?

Even worse, he doesn't react in the slightest to this bit of news. He just goes droning on about his lack of powers. Um... isn't Barry supposed to be a hotshot CSI? Shouldn't he say something like, "Wait a minute— I'm descended from Garrick stock? This has to mean something!" 

Barry's ignorance aside, I'm sure this bit of info is going to significant, especially since Henry showed up out of the blue this week. I'm wondering if this is a clue that Henry's the true identity of Iron Mask, and is somehow the real Earth-2 Jay Garrick— in a way I haven't quite figured out yet.

UPDATE: I thought about this some more, and have come to the conclusion that Barry's ignorance isn't completely out of the question. I know my grandma's maiden name because I grew up around her. Barry apparently didn't have that advantage, because he's never mentions any grandparents. In fact it appears he doesn't have any family members, other than his father Henry. And even then, Henry was in prison for decades, so there was probably little time to discuss genealogy with him. So I've changed my mind and am willing to cut Barry some slack here.

This still doesn't explain why he has absolutely zero reaction to this information.

• Way back at the beginning of the season, Zoom was sending Earth-2 metahumans through the breaches to Earth-1 to cause trouble in his name. During the mid-season finale, Team Flash whipped up a technobabble device to permanently close all the breaches and prevent Zoom and his minions from visiting Earth-1.

Now in this episode, Zoom sends Rupture, an Earth-2 supervillain, to Earth-1 to cause trouble. So I guess all that worrying and hand-wringing over closing the breaches was for nothing, because Zoom can apparently enter Earth-1 anytime he likes— whether there's a breach or not.

• Wally visits Joe and says after the Flash saved his life, he feels like he's destined for more than engineering. Joe says, "I'm sure there's something out there that will satisfy your need for speed and helping people." I see what you did again there, The Flash writers.

• The villain of the week is Rupture, who's the brother of Reverb, who was the Earth-2 version of Cisco. Once again, you need a program to follow who's who and which Earth they're from on this show.

Not a fan of the name "Rupture." It conjures up unpleasant memories of the old "Turn your head and cough" school physicals.

Rupture is actually from the comics. He first appeared in Justice League #233 in 1984. There he was actually a foe of the superhero Vibe! In the comic Rupture is really Armando Ramon, brother to Cisco and Dante.

• Apparently there was no Fringe TV series over on Earth-2. 

• Last week I pointed out that the after the particle accelerator exploded the first time, Barry was in a coma for nine months before waking up with super speed. I said I hoped the writers didn't forget about that, and would address the matter somehow this week.

Welp… they didn't! They didn't even mention it as a possibility (unless I missed something during the interminable election coverage that kept pre-empting the episode). I suppose we could be generous here and say that since Barry's gone through this once before, his body's adapted to the stresses of the process and he won't fall into a coma this time, or something like that. I suppose we could say that… but I don't see why we should. They could have eliminated this continuity error with one small line of dialogue.

• The sequence with Barry climbing into an apparatus and being struck by lightning to get his powers back is very similar to the storyline in the Flashpoint comic. In that miniseries the Flash travels to another Earth (I think) where he loses his powers. The Batman of that world straps him into an electric chair (!) and shocks him to jump start his powers. Yikes!

• Why does Barry need to wear his Flash suit during the attempt to restore his speed? I guess he's got a flair for theatrics.

• Cisco stands on the roof of STAR Labs so he can use the Weather Wizard's wand to generate the lightning for Barry's experiment. A couple things here.

Of course when Cisco uses the wand to conjure lightning, he shouts, "Expecto Patronum!"

Secondly, Cisco invented and owns a goddamned wand that can control the weather. Are you freakin' kidding me? Why the hell is he farting around in STAR Labs every week? With that kind of power at his fingertips he could be a hundred times richer than Bill Gates! Too bad this never occurs to him.

• In the middle of the experiment, Barry begins screaming in pain. Henry says, "He's going hydrostatic!" I had no idea what that meant, so I had to look it up. Hydrostatic means "the pressure exerted by a fluid at equilibrium at a given point within the fluid, due to the force of gravity."

Henry was a doctor before he was incarcerated, but he must not have been a very good one, because I have absolutely no idea what any of that means or how it applies to Barry.

• Naturally the attempt to restore Barry's power goes horribly wrong, and the lightning, dark matter energy and Speed Force all combine to rip apart his very molecules and disintegrate him. He explodes in a burst of lightning.

I'm betting this is an homage to 1985's Crisis On Infinite Earths. In that comic miniseries, the Flash runs so fast he begins going back in time. He goes all the way back to the day he received his powers, and in a bit of circular time travel logic, literally becomes the lighting bolt that struck him and gave him superspeed.

It appears something similar happens here. Barry merges with the Speed Force, I guess, turns into lightning and washes over Wally and Jesse, no doubt turning them into speedsters like him.

• Annnnnd just like that, Kid Flash and Jesse Quick are born. Apparently the writers didn't feel like giving them individual origins, so they decided to combine them. Efficient!

So do we need two more speedsters on this show? STAR Labs is gonna be crowded next season!

Good News And Bad News

Huzzah! After a crushing defeat in my home state of Indiana on Tuesday night, simpering ninny, Zodiac Killer and lizard alien Raphael Edward Cruz, better known as Ted, dropped out of the presidential race. Thank the Maker! Our country definitely dodged a bullet there.

Unfortunately that leaves human Jack-O-Lantern Donald Drumph as the uncontested and presumptive Republican nominee. This truly is the Darkest Timeline.

My feelings about Cruz dropping out and Drumph winning the nomination are perfectly summed up by this gif.

Rarely have I seen such an oily, off-putting homonculus as Ted Cruz. I can't quite put my finger on it, but there's something about him that makes him completely unappealing in every measurable sense. 

Everything he does is awkward and uncoordinated. He even looks uncomfortable when he's simply standing still. It's like he grew up in a closet and has never been around other humans before. Or like an alien who donned a human skin suit for the first time.

And it's not just me. This is how his own wife kisses him! Look at the poor woman. She can barely suppress her shuddering revulsion as she pulls away in horror from him as he tries to insert his ovipositor down her throat.

Anyway, so much for Ted Cruz. Before I go, I'd like to leave you with this image from his concession speech, in which he punches and elbows his wife in the face not once, not twice, but three times! Good riddance, Ted!

Legends Of Tomorrow Season 1, Episode 13: Leviathan

This week on Legends Of Tomorrow, we finally get some forward momentum in the Savage storyline. For weeks now the Legends have been spinning their wheels whenever they confront Savage. They can't end his reign too soon or the series will be over, so nothing they do can ever have any consequence. Now that the end of the season is looming, at long last they can make some progress. Such is the nature of serialized storytelling, I suppose.

Any flaws in this week's script were more than made up for by the batsh*t insane scene in which (SPOILERS!) Legends Of Tomorrow beats Captain America: Civil War to the punch by having Atom grow instead of shrink and fight a giant, five hundred foot tall robot! 

Rip Hunter's admission that he tried using time travel to save his wife and child dozens of times, only to see them die over and over, finally gives some tangible insight as to why he's so driven, and is betting everything on this impossible mission. Kudos to actor Arthur Darvill for totally selling Hunter's pain in this scene.

Unfortunately the episode was marred somewhat by Hawkgirl. This week she makes the stupidest and most bone-headed decision humanly possible, causing much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments throughout fandom. 

This episode could have easily served as the season finale. It was big, epic and even had a reasonable facsimile of a cliffhanger, as the Legends finally captured Savage and threw him into Plexiglass prison. I can't wait to see what happens in the real finale!

SPOILERS!

The Plot:
The Legends arrive in London in 2166, the year Savage completely takes over the world. Due to the events of last week, the team is running out of time, and has to destroy Savage before they're erased from the timeline.

Rip Hunter, White Canary, Captain Cold and Heat Wave disguise themselves as soldiers and infiltrate one of Savage's speeches. During the speech, Savage is flanked by a helmeted guard and a mysterious young female lieutenant. Cold notices the woman staring at them, and says they've been made.

Savage heads back to his quarters, surrounded by a dozens of guards. Cold and Heat Wave begin blasting away at Savage, while Canary fights the Lieutenant. Back on the Waverider, Hawkgirl is somehow monitoring the fight, and notices the bracelet she owned in her first life on the arm of the Lieutenant. She radios Canary and tells her to grab it. Unfortunately Savage's reinforcements arrive, and the Legends are forced to run away.

Back on the Waverider, Hawkgirl explains that she was wearing the bracelet back in Ancient Egypt the night she received her powers, and she can use it to kill Savage. Canary asks how the hell you can kill someone with a bracelet, which is a good question. Hunter tells Cold and Heat Wave to steal the bracelet, while he meets with the Resistance force.

Hunter, Atom, Professor Stein and Jackson visit the Resistance camp and meet with the Leader. She says they're the last refugees from London, as Savage used some sort of mysterious superweapon to completely destroy all the other camps.

Hawkgirl has a flashback to her previous life in 1941, when Hawkman gave her his mace as an anniversary gift. Romantic! She then realizes how she can use the bracelet to kill Savage.

Cold and Heat Wave sneak into Savage's headquarters and kidnap the Lieutenant. They bring her back to the Waverider and throw her in the brig. To no one's surprise, she turns out to be Savage's daughter Cassandra.

The Legends then debate what to do with her. Heat Wave wants to cut off Cassandra's fingers & send them to Savage until he comes for her, but Hunter wisely nixes that idea. Canary says Cassandra could be a valuable source of intel (Ha! Holy Greek Mythology, Batman!), and Cold volunteers to get her to talk.

Cold visits Cassandra in the brig, and the two chat about their respective childhoods and horrible fathers. Cassandra's convinced her father is a hero, and can save the world from Per Degaton's Armageddon Virus. 

Heat Wave melts Hawkgirl's gold bracelet, and she uses it to coat her mace. Apparently Heat Wave read ahead in the script, and asks Hawkgirl if she's sure she can really kill Savage. She says yes. He tells her she'd better be, or she'll end up as dead as Hawkman.

Atom examines satellite photos of the destroyed refugee camps, and notices what appear to be enormous footprints in the ground. He realizes Savage's superweapon is a giant robot (!). Just then they hear ominous footsteps, as a conveniently placed bottle of booze in Hunter's office does its best Jurassic Park impression and starts vibrating. The Leviathan is coming for them!

Stein evacuates the Rebel camp and herds the refugees into the Waverider (much to Hunter's chagrin). Hunter tells Gideon to take off, and they see the gigantic Leviathan looming in front of them. It grabs the Waverider and throws it, sending it crashing to the ground.

Stein is injured in the crash (meaning Firestorm will be sitting out this episode again). Cold releases Cassandra from the brig, and shows her footage proving that Savage released the Armageddon Virus, not Per Degaton. She says she doesn't believe him, but her face says otherwise. Well, that was easy!

Atom reverses the polarity of his suit, which causes him to grow to gigantic size. He sees the Leviathan approaching and runs toward it. Atom and the Leviathan then engage in an old school kaiju battle.

Savage watches the battle in his headquarters. He's surprised when Cassandra suddenly returns. He's happy to see her, until he notices her bracelet is missing. Cassandra accuses Savage of releasing the Armageddon Virus that killed her mother. Savage doesn't deny it. Hunter, Canary, Cold and Heat Wave then appear and Savage calls his guards. 

While the Legends deal with the guards, Hawkgirl swoops in and wallops Savage with her gold-coated mace. Each blow she lands causes mystic energy to explode from him, which I have to admit was pretty satisfying to watch. Just as she's about to deliver the killing blow, a guard appears. She hits him with the mace, knocking his helmet off. She sees it's the 2166 version of Hawkman.

Meanwhile the Leviathan knocks out Atom. As he's lying unconscious on a football field-sized patch of ground, Jackson gives him a patented The CW pep talk, and he comes to. He rallies and knocks the Leviathan's head off.

Hawkgirl gapes in astonishment at Hawkman, who doesn't seem to recognize her. Savage says he's mind controlling Hawkman, and is the only one who can restore his memory. Hunter pleads with Hawkgirl to end the nightmare and kill Savage while they have him on the ropes, but because of Hawkman, she can't. And of course because there are still three more episodes left in the season. A disgusted Hunter knocks out Savage.

Hunter takes Savage and Hawkman back to the Waverider. Cold takes Cassandra to the Rebel camp, where she offers to help the Resistance.

Hunter talks with Savage, who's now locked up in the brig. He says he'll figure out a way to save both his family and Hawkman. Savage chuckles and says, "Time will tell..."

Thoughts:
• The Legends land in 2166, a few days before Savage is scheduled to kill Hunter's wife and child. Atom asks Hunter why he doesn't just go and grab his family now and bring them onboard the ship, before Savage can get to them. Good question!

Hunter explains that he's already tried that, dozens and dozens of times, and in every instance his family was somehow killed anyway, because "Time Wants To Happen." He says their deaths are inevitable and he can't change that, not even with a time machine.

Hmm. So why does Hunter think he can kill Savage then? If "Time Wants To Happen," won't it always prevent Savage from dying, just as it always makes sure Hunter's family dies?

If so, that would tend to render the entire premise of this series moot!

This revelation explains why Hunter has always been reluctant to travel to this time period. It's not just because it's when Savage was at the height of his strength and power, but because it's the place where Hunter's had to watch his family die, over and over again. 

One last thing about this scene— if Hunter kept coming back to this moment over and over, shouldn't there be dozens of versions of him running around 2166 London right now?

• Captain Cold must have multiple settings on his freeze gun. A few weeks ago in Left Behind, he froze his own hand completely solid and shattered it to escape Chronos' handcuffs. In this episode we clearly see his gun simply blast Savage's men backwards without shattering them.

• Stein insists on saving the refugees from the camp, and brings as many as he can onto the Waverider. Wow! Saving innocents on a DC Universe show! Imagine that! Good thing this episode isn't set in Zack Snyder's DC Murderverse, or Cold and Heatwave would have mowed down all those refugees with smiles on their faces.

• It's amazing that when Hawkgirl's relatively small gold bracelet was melted down, it was somehow able to coat the entire head of her mace. 

• Cassandra's change of heart seemed awfully rushed. She's been loyal to her father her whole life, but all it takes to get her to switch sides is a few minutes of therapy with Cold, and seeing a five second video clip.

It would have been better if she'd been introduced earlier in the season, and the show checked in on her from time to time to show us she was gradually beginning to have doubts about her father.

• Speaking of that clip— as in all TV shows and movies, the alleged "security video" of Savage saying the human race needs a good culling looked suspiciously like the same footage the audience saw in Progeny. Funny how that works, eh?

• Vandal Savage actually has a few kids in the comics, though none are named Cassandra. Believe it or not, his most famous child is Scandal Savage (seriously!), who was part of a group called the Secret Six.

• Missed Firefly opportunity: When Savage discovers Cassandra has switched sides, he should have hissed, "Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!"

• Atom alters his suit in order to battle the Leviathan. He says "siphoning power from the auxiliary time drive should provide enough power to reverse the polarity of the dwarf star matrix." 

Was that a Doctor Who reference? The Third Doctor was known for the technobabble catchphrase, "Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow (which oddly enough, he only said twice onscreen!)."

• I can't say enough good things about the awesome battle between Atom and the Leviathan. I love that DC's TV shows have embraced their comic book roots, and aren't afraid to just go totally nuts, giving us telepathic apes, talking shark men and giant glowing five hundred foot tall robots. It's literally like watching a Silver Age comic book come to life. If only DC's movies were this much fun.

I don't know how Legends Of Tomorrow's effects team pulls off these near-movie quality effects week after week, but I hope they keep up the good work!

• I read a few DC message boards (I know, I know— that way lies madness) and apparently some fans wondered why they didn't just film the battle with Brandon Routh and a guy in a robot suit. Um... maybe because the Leviathan's body was transparent, and the glowing parts were like its skeleton? I don't think you could build a suit like that!

Some also complained that Giant Atom's face looked fake and "cartoony," without an detail or definition. Jesus, have these people ever watched the show before? That's how Ray Palmer's face ALWAYS looks under the Atom suit's visor! The visor seems to be tinted and lit from above, and it has some sort of weird magnifying effect on his face that always makes it murky looking. Giant Atom's face was completely normal!

• One last thing about the Leviathan— obviously it was modeled after the futuristic Atom robots we saw in Progeny. But I thought its head looked very similar to that of the robotic version of Brainiac from the comics.

• The most frustrating part of the episode (for me, at least) was when Hawkgirl has Savage on the ropes, but can't bring herself to deliver the killing blow because of Hawkman. Jesus Christ, I was screaming at the TV during that scene. I've never wanted to kill a character on a TV show more than I did her in that moment. Where's Zack Snyder's neck-snapping Hopeman when you need him?

I get that the writers' job is to generate drama and conflict for the characters, but they shouldn't do so by making the audience loathe them.

To make matters worse, this isn't even her version of Hawkman! It's one from a hundred and fifty years in the future! So what if this particular Hawkman doesn't get his memory back? She can't stay with this version anyway, since he's probably already got his own futuristic Hawkgirl back home. Plus is this one life worth more than the lives of Hunter's family, and the millions that Savage will no doubt kill in the future if he's allowed to live?

• Since Hawkgirl's too big of an idiot to kill Savage once and for all, Hunter knocks him out and throws him into the brig on the Waverider. We then get another example of the "Villain In The Plexiglass Cell" trope that's become all the rage in recent comic book and scifi movies (including The Avengers, Thor: The Dark World and Star Trek Into Lameness). Legends Of Tomorrow does it practically on a weekly basis!

• Lines Of The Week:

Hunter: "In order to capture him, I'll require the services of..."
Cold: "Killer, klepto and pyro!"

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Cassandra: "You'd risk dying for a bauble?"
Heat Wave: "It works with my outfit!"