Legends Of Tomorrow Season 1, Episode 14: River Of Time

This week's Legends Of Tomorrow sets up the season finale, but unfortunately does so by turning all the various Legends into drooling idiots. 

I get that it's necessary for certain things to happen in order to further the plot. That's just how writing works. But getting from Point A to Point B needs to flow naturally. If your characters have to act like simpering morons and make ridiculously stupid decisions just to move the plot along, it means you're a lazy writer. Possibly a terrible one.

The script didn't do Rip Hunter any favors either. The revelation that he'd sell out his team members to save his family didn't exactly help his likability factor. He even all but kills Jackson by exposing him to fatal levels of radiation!

Looks like the series blew its budget with last week's epic kaiju battle, resulting in this cheap and claustrophobic "bottle episode."

I'm still hoping they'll finally kill off Savage at the end of the season, and get a new big bad next year. If Savage is going to be the main antagonist for the entire run of the series, it's going to get boring very, very quickly.

SPOILERS!

The Plot:
We flash back to Ancient Egypt in 1700 BC, where Vandal Savage is holding Rip Hunter prisoner. He tells Hunter he plans to let him rot in his cell until the comets strike, so I guess this is before he got his immortality? The whole scene is confusing, pointless and serves no purpose.

In the "present," the Legends are still debating what to do with Savage. Captain Cold and Heat Wave vote to kill him before he kills everyone else, which seems like the wisest course of action to me. Professor Stein is against killing Savage, which has been the whole point of the mission from day one. Hawkgirl's only concerned with getting Savage to restore Future Hawkman's memory, because she's an idiot.

Hunter discovers Savage used technology from the future to build the giant Leviathan robot we saw last week. Because of this, Hunter believes the Time Masters will want to punish Savage for... unauthorized use of futuristic robot parts or something, and will execute him for them. To that end, he flies the damaged Waverider at Warp 100 or whatever to get to the Vanishing Point as quickly as possible.

Meanwhile Future Hawkman is being held prisoner in the cargo hold. Because she's an idiot, Hawkgirl tries to jog his memory. Does she not understand that this is not HER Hawkman? This version is from a hundred years in the future. Even if she restores his memory, they can't be together— they're from different eras, and aren't a "matched set." She gets too close and Future Hawkman tries to kill her. I know how you feel, pal.

White Canary fears Hunter is pushing the ship too hard. He says he knows the Waverider's limits, and they'll be fine. Right on cue, the sparks start flying as the ship sputters and slows to a stop. Gideon says the time drive has broken down. Hunter sends Jackson in to fix it, because what auto mechanic doesn't know how to fix a futuristic time machine? He manages to fix it, but gets a healthy dose of temporal radiation in the process. Too bad he didn't think to merge with Professor Stein and form Firestorm, who's immune to radiation.

Canary checks on Savage, who does his best Loki/Hannibal Lector impression and very transparently tries to get in her head, telling her that Hunter cares more about the mission than the team, and will be the death of them all (once again, I can't argue with that). Canary confronts Hunter, who says why yes, he would sell out the team to save his family, thanks. Um... isn't he supposed to be one of the good guys?

In the medbay, Gideon says Jackson is showing symptoms of temporal radiation poisoning, causing him to rapidly age (!). Despite the fact that she 3D printed a new hand for Cold a few weeks ago, there's nothing she can do in this instance.

Atom sees the situation with Future Hawkman is making Hawkgirl sad. He then visits Savage, and demands to know how to restore Future Hawkman's mind. Savage says the moment he restores Hawkman, Atom will lose Hawkgirl forever. Savage also says that he had a thing for Hawkgirl, but when she chose Hawkman over him, it set the whole "centuries of being an immortal tyrant" thing in motion. He tells Atom that Hawkman is their mutual enemy. 

By the way, every time someone visits Savage, they flash back to some significant event just before they joined the mission. The flashbacks are all pointless, insipid and don't tell us anything we didn't already know about the characters, and frankly they're not worth the energy it would take to type them out.

Atom goes back to the holding area and sees Hawkgirl caressing Future Hawkman's face. Atom storms off like a high schooler. Hawkgirl follows and tries to explain. Atom says Savage is right— loving her is a curse. He tells her it's over between them. Thanks Christ! I can't imagine any way these how these two simpering clods and their relationship could be more dull and uninteresting.

In the medbay, Jackson is now the equivalent of a sixty three year old man. Cold and Heat Wave both say this is the last straw, and confront Hunter. They tell him to forget taking Savage to the Vanishing Point, and to let them kill him now. Hunter says that's not going to happen, and they're welcome to use the Jump Ship to get back to Central City in 2016.

Meanwhile, Professor Stein makes the ludicrously intuitive leap that sending Jackson back to 2016 will somehow reverse his rapid aging. Sure, why not? Amazingly he roofies poor Jackson AGAIN (if you'll recall, he did this in the pilot, to bring Jackson on the mission against his will) and stuffs him in the Jump Ship. Jackson doesn't want to go, as for some reason he believes being separated will kill Stein. The Professor launches the ship, and Jackson is gone. 

Just then Cold and Heat Wave enter, eager to use the Jump Ship to get back home. Needless to say they're pissed when they find it's gone.

Atom goes to see Savage again (maybe Hunter might want to think about locking the entrance to the brig area!). Because Atom is apparently a drooling idiot, he opens the cell door and wants to fight Savage man to immortal tyrant, er, I mean man. Sigh... Atom manages to give Savage a, er savage beatdown. But then Savage rallies and knocks Atom unconscious. He then casually strolls out of the cell. He releases Future Hawkman, and shuts down power to the ship. 

Hunter sends Cold and Heat Wave after Savage. Hunter, Stein and Canary stay on the bridge and attempt to manually pilot the Waverider through the time stream to the Vanishing Point.

Cold and Heat Wave battle Savage and Future Hawkman. Just then Future Hawkman's memories suddenly return, and he turns on Savage. After a brief struggle, Savage stabs Hawkman AGAIN. Hawkgirl attacks and knocks out Savage. They take Future Hawkman to the medbay, where Gideon stabilizes him. 

Eventually they manage to make it to the Vanishing Point. Hunter calls an emergency meeting of the Time Masters. He brings in Savage, showing them proof that he illegally manipulated time for his own purposes. The Time Masters ignore the evidence and drop all charges against Savage, releasing him back to 2166. Time Master Druce then orders the arrest of Hunter. Apparently he's been working with Savage all along. Gasp!

On the Waverider, Cold senses something's not right, and tells Canary they need to find a place to hide. The Time Master soldiers enter the Waverider and capture Heat Wave, Stein, Atom and Hawkgirl. Savage now visits Hunter in his cell. He says he can't wait to get back to 2166 and kill Hunter's wife and child.

Thoughts:
• That Vandal Savage is one smart cookie. After seeing Hunter in 1700 BC and then in 1975 AD, he makes the incredibly intuitive leap that he's a time traveller. So Savage then figured out how to make his own TARDIS or something (with 1975 technology?), and started moving back and forth through time. This is why Gideon could never accurately track him.

This would be like be like someone from 1776 seeing a photo of the Space Shuttle and cobbling one together in their barn. As I said, one smart cookie!

• Hunter's plan isn't thought out very well. He discovers that Savage illegally used time travel, so he decides to take him to the Time Masters for prosecution and execution. But Hunter's been doing the exact same thing. He stole the Waverider and has been illegally using it throughout the whole season. He's just as guilty as Savage. It seems like the best he could hope for is to see Savage executed minutes before he is as well.

• Once again Stein objects to killing Savage. Um... does he not understand why they're all there? The entire point of the mission is to kill him, and has been from day one. Why is he just now acting like this is the first time he's heard of this.? It's possible he's had a change of heart, but if so it wasn't made clear.

• Vandal Savage spends the entire episode trying to get under the skin of the various Legends, like a poor man's Hannibal Lector. Amazingly it works, as he manages to manipulate Atom into stupidly freeing him. The problem is, Savage's manipulation was so obvious and heavy handed that it became laughable. It almost makes me wonder if Savage wasn't really trying to escape, and was just messing with them to kill time, and was surprised when it actually worked.

It might also have helped if the entire cast didn't keep visiting Savage in the brig, which of course gave him the chance to manipulate them. Maybe next time there's a dangerous psychotic on board, stay away from him?

• As I mentioned earlier, it appears the producers blew the budget on last week's show, or maybe they're trying to save it for the big season finale, because everything about this episode screams "cheap." Most of the action takes place inside the already existing sets of the Waverider. There are a couple of flashbacks, but it appears they borrow old Arrow and The Flash sets.

These budget constraints also result in Atom and Firestorm apparently forgetting they have superpowers that could have easily saved the day. 

The worst budget casualty was poor Jefferson, who was transformed into a sixty three year old man through the magic of 1960s Star Trek old age makeup. Seriously, it looked dreadful, especially in 1080p high definition. Almost like stage makeup.

• So Jackson is exposed to "temporal radiation (shades of Star Trek: Voyager's endless and excrutiating technobabble)," and starts aging rapidly. A few things here:

First of all, actor Franz Drameh does a passable job as Jackson, but his attempt at depicting a senior citizen was hilariously awful. We're talking Tim Conway levels of acting here.

Secondly, Stein believes sending Jackson back to 2016 in the jump ship will cure him, because of science. Ignoring the fact that that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, did it ever occur to either of them to merge into Firestorm? We've seen several times during the series that Firestorm is immune to radiation, and can safely absorb large amounts of it. 

Even better, why didn't they merge into Firestorm first and let him fix the time drive? Stein did offer a weak excuse a few episodes back that forming Firestorm inside the Waverider would damage it, but they ended up doing it anyway and nothing bad seemed to happen, so...

I'm assuming the Firestorm option wasn't brought up was once again due to the specter of the blown budget. Those CGI flames ain't cheap! Damn you, The CW bean counters!

Lastly, Stein roofies Jackson AGAIN so he can stuff him into the jump ship against his will and send him off. Jesus Christ, Martin! A hero doesn't casually drug his partners against his will. Doing it once was pretty damned creepy, but a second time is completely unacceptable. 

If Jackson survives this ordeal, he needs to file a restraining order against Stein. Are we sure the Professor has never been on To Catch A Predator?

• Once Stein gets Jackson in the Jump Ship, he prepares to send it back to 2016. Jackson howls, "You can't do this! If we're separated, you'll die!"

Um... when did that become a thing? The two of them have been separated before, and never suffered any ill effects. Does Jackson mean being separated in time— with one in 2016 and the other in... whatever year they're in— will kill Stein? And why will only Stein be affected? We definitely need some clearly defined rules as to how Firestorm actually works.

• I wonder if an actor on a series can ever refuse to do a scene because it makes their character look like an idiot? Apparently not, or Brandon Routh would have never have agreed to film the scene in which he tried to fight Savage and let him escape.

Surely the writers could have come up with a better way for Savage to get loose than by turning Atom into a complete and utter moron, irreparably damaging his character in the process?

• The "Villain Gets Captured On Purpose As Part Of A Master Plan" trope needs to be retired from sci-fi and comic book movies and TV shows for at least ten years. It's become way overused at this point.

• If nothing else, the Legends are fast learners. As I mentioned before, Jackson is an auto mechanic, but in this episode he apparently understands 2166 technology well enough to repair the time drive. Canary was trained as an assassin in a remote monastery, but here she pilots a futuristic spaceship like a pro.

• Once again the episode's MVPs are Captain Cold and Heat Wave, who vote to kill Savage while they have the chance, end the mission and save the Earth. You know, when the villains are the smartest and most rational people on your show, maybe it's time to rethink your characters.

The Legends definitely need to mutiny, dump Hunter out of the airlock and make Captain Cold the, er, captain.

• As usual, Cold gets the best line of the night:
Savage: “Who are you to stand against me? Vandal Savage, destroyer of Empires!” 
Cold: “Leonard Snart, robber of ATMs!”

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!"

Legends Of Tomorrow Season 1, Episode 8: Night Of The Hawk

This week's Legends Of Tomorrow plays out less like a superhero show and more like a horror film, or an episode of The X-Files. 

At the end of the previous episode, it appeared that Captain Cold killed his partner Heat Wave in, er, cold blood, to end his threat to the team. Cold's teammates cast lots of accusatory glances toward him in this episode, but there's no mention as to whether he actually killed Heat Wave or not. Which pf course means he didn't. 

It was fun seeing the cast decked out in 1950's period clothing, instead of their usual duds. 

This episode gave us an interesting look at the 1950s, a period that's generally considered idyllic, but in reality had a dark undercurrent of racism, gender bias and homophobia. Unfortunately Night Of The Hawk brings up many questions on these topics, but doesn't bother itself with answering them. It would have been better if this episode had been a two parter (actually, given the cliffhanger ending, maybe it is).

Now that I think about it, just about every episode this season would have benefited from being spread over two parts. Each week the show tries to give every member of the large cast something to do, but all that does is result in rushed and unresoved subplots and storylines.

According the the credits, this episode was directed by Joe Dante! He directed the Gremlins films as well as Innerspace.

SPOILERS!

The Plot:
We open in the small town of Harmony Falls, Oregon, in 1958. Two local teens, Tommy Fuller and Betty Seaver, are out on a date. Tommy's challenged to a drag race by a couple of other teens, and accepts. As the cars race down a deserted road, Tommy's car blows a tire, and he and Betty run off the road and crash, right next to a glowing blue meteor. 

A shaken Tommy gets out of the car, and he and the other two teens stare at the space rock, wondering what it is and where it came from. Suddenly Vandal Savage appears, saying he was drawn to it, and the teens' presence is destiny. He stops just short of tilting his head back and laughing maniacally.

Meanwhile the Waverider lands in Harmony Falls and begins the search for Savage. According to Gideon, there've been several local disappearances and murders the past few months, and Rip Hunter suspects Savage is behind them. He splits up the team to investigate.

Atom and Hawkgirl pose as a married couple interested in buying the home of one of the victims. As an interracial couple in the 1950s, they face prejudice from the uptight real estate agent. 

Professor Stein somehow gets a job as a doctor at the local mental hospital, filling the vacancy of another victim. White Canary poses as his nurse. She meets Nurse Carlisle, and immediately senses she's secretly a lesbian, another no-no in the 1950s

Jackson hangs out with the local teens, hoping to find clues as to their disappearance, which seems like a bad idea, as he's apparently the only black person in town.

Hunter and Captain Cold pose as FBI agents and visit the local sheriff, asking to see his files on the murders.

Later on Stein, Canary and Jackson meet up at the local diner. Stein waxes nostalgic about the idyllic 1950s setting. The other two point out that it's fine as long as you're white, male and straight. Otherwise you're in for a rough time in the socially backward period. Jackson recognizes Betty from the newspaper article, and befriends her, hoping for information. After deflecting some unwanted attention from some local racist jocks, he asks Betty out on a date. Amazingly, despite the fact that she just lost her boyfriend, she accepts.

At the hospital, Canary befriends Nurse Carlisle and tells her she knows her big secret, and it's OK. Carlisle tells her about "Dr. Knox's" secret Hall H, a restricted ward filled with dangerous patients. Knox of course is really Vandal Savage, since apparently anyone can walk into this hospital and become a doctor.

That night a man is changing his tire, when he's killed by flying werehawks. Yep, that's what I said.

Meanwhile, Atom and Hawkgirl are pretending to move into their new home by unpacking boxes of... something. They meet their next door neighbors, who turn out to be Savage and his "wife" Gail. Savage immediately recognizes Hawkgirl, but she pretends not to know who he is. He doesn't suspect Atom, since Savage hasn't met him yet in 1958 (confusing!). Savage, aka Knox, invites them to a dinner party at his home.

Atom and Hawkgirl attend the dinner party, while Stein and Canary search the hospital for clues. Canary and Nurse Carlisle grow closer, as an alarm goes off in Hall H. Back at the party, Savage is flirting with Hawkgirl, while Atom searches the house. He finds a room protected by a locked and reinforced door. 

The hospital calls Savage, and he immediately excuses himself and rushes to his ward. He finds one of his werehawks, one of whom is Tommy Fuller, have killed an orderly. Savage scolds them.

Atom uses his suit to shrink and enter Savage's locked room. Inside he finds the magic McGuffin dagger, the only object that can kill Savage. He steals the dagger, shrinks and barely escapes the room before Savage enters. At the hospital, Nurse Carlisle kisses Canary, which confuses her, causing her to leave.

Jackson goes on his date with Betty, Suddenly they're confronted by the racist jocks from the diner. Jackson manages to fight them off, but just then the werehawks swoop out of the sky and fly off with the jock. Betty recognizes one of the werehawks as Tommy, and he slashes her neck before Jackson is able to drive away. Jackson is then pulled over by the local sheriff, who knocks him out, leaving Betty battered and bleeding in the car.

Hunter and Cold find the car, but no sign of Jackson. They take Betty back to the Waverider so Gideon can treat her injuries. Betty comes to long enough to tell them her boyfriend is now a werehawk. Hunter deduces that Savage found another Nth metal meteor, similar to the one that gave him and the Hawks their powers. He tells Stein to start working on a way to reverse the werehawk transformations, while the rest of the team works on a plan to kill Savage with the McGuffin dagger (yawn, this again?).

Jackson wakes up strapped to a table in Hall H. Savage, who doesn't recognize him yet (because time travel), injects him with the meteor juice and transforms him into a werehawk. Hawkgirl arrives and attacks Savage with the dagger. He's able to get the upper hand and holds the dagger to her neck. He unleashes his werehawks, including Jackson, into the hospital. 

Stein and Cold arrive at the hospital and are confronted by Hawk-Jackson. Cold has a chance to kill Jackson, but doesn't, instead subduing him by freezing an overhead pipe, which collapses and knocks him out. Canary saves Nurse Carlisle from a werehawk. Atom burst into Savage's lab and sees him threatening Hawkgirl. He blasts Savage out the window (of course).

Stein and Cold take Jackson back to the Waverider. Stein injects his gene therapy treatment (that he whipped up in about ten minutes) into Jackson, and amazingly it works, transforming him back to normal. He then uses the therapy on the other werehawks. Canary visits Nurse Carlisle and apologizes for freaking out, and wishes her luck in her newly awakened life. Jackson says goodbye to Betty, gives her a new car (?) and tells her and Tommy to get out of Harmony Falls.

Back on the Waverider, Chronos appears out of nowhere and enters the ship. Hunter orders Gideon to take off. Atom, Hawkgirl and Canary are walking back to the ship and see it take off without them, stranding them in 1958.

Thoughts: 
• At the beginning of the episode, the teens drag race while Rock Around The Clock on their car radio. My Anachronism Sense started tingling, so I checked to see when the song was released, and found it came out in 1954. It might have been a little dated by 1958, but it was entirely possible kids would still be listening to it.

• After the Waverider arrives in 1958, the Legends all suffer various vision problems. Hunter says, "Yes, as I mentioned before, the effect of time travel on the human body increases with the length of each jaunt." 

What the hell does that mean? Does he mean a time jump of fifty years will affect a person more than one of five? Or is he saying the effects of time travel are cumulative, and the more jumps they make, the more their bodies will be affected?

Either way, why doesn't the rest of the team seem more worried about this?

• Extreme Nitpicking Alert! When the Waverider lands in Harmony Falls, Gideon provides Hunter with various info on the town, including what appears to be CCTV footage of Main Street, as well as images of newspapers headlines.

How the hell is Gideon doing this? If they were in 2016 it would be no problem, as she could simply tap into our various information grids. But there were no CCTV cameras watching the streets in 1958, and no internet to scan for front page news. Newspapers of that era were likely stored on microfiche, which isn't connected to any sort of network. So how's Gideon remotely getting all this info?

See, I told you it was extreme nitpicking!

• Hunter has the various Legends split into teams to gather intel on Savage. For some reason Hunter has Atom and Hawkgirl pose as a married couple. An interracial married couple, in 1958. Naturally their "marriage" raises quite a few eyebrows, and draws unwanted attention to them.

Wouldn't it have made way more sense to pair Canary with Atom? Of course if they did that, then the writers couldn't have brought up the whole racism angle, Atom and Hawkgirl's romance couldn't have progressed, and Canary wouldn't have hooked up with Nurse Carlisle. 

• As Atom and Hawkgirl unpack in their new home, Vandal Savage and his wife Gail knock on the door and welcome them to the neighborhood. This entire sequence raises several tons of questions, none of which are ever answered.

First off, just what are Atom and Hawkgirl unpacking? Did Gideon replicate dozens of moving boxes full of clothing, lamps and dishes for the couple to unpack?

Did Atom and Hawkgirl know their new home was right across the street from Savage's? If not, then what an astronomical coincidence it was that they just happened to move in next to the immortal psychopath they're trying to find.

Savage, posing as Dr. Curtis Knox, has a wife named Gail. A wife? Jesus, just how long has Savage been in Harmony Falls? Given that he says he was drawn to the meteor at the beginning of the episode, I got the impression he's only been there a few weeks. That seems like an awfully short time for him to meet, woo and marry Gail.

Does Savage have some sort of hypnosis powers? Maybe Gail was a single woman and he hypnotized her into believing they'd been married for years?

Savage gives Atom and Hawkgirl a tuna casserole as a housewarming gift. Later we see Atom hungrily chowing down on the casserole. Is that a good idea? What if Savage poisoned it?

• Savage uses the alias Curtis Knox in this episode. If that name sounds familiar, it's because there was a Curtis Knox a few years ago on Smallville. Dean Cain was all set to play Vandal Savage on the show, but at the last minute DC Comics, for reasons unknown, asked the writers to change his name. They chose Curtis Knox.

• Do Savage's hair and beard look extra, extra black in this episode? Seriously, his hair approaches Billy Mays levels of utter blackness. Apparently he's a big fan of Just For Men.

• Apparently it was much easier for a doctor to get a job in a hospital back in 1958. 

Savage arrives in Harmony Falls and within what appears to be a couple of weeks at the most, becomes a doctor at the local mental hospital, in charge of his own restricted ward full of problem patients.

Then Stein joins the hospital staff after what appears to be a sixty second interview.

• Hunter and Cold dress up as Men In Black, I mean FBI agents to visit the local sheriff. 

Arthur Darvill (aka Rip Hunter) shows off his best American accent in the scene. In fact it took me a minute to realize he wasn't speaking in his usual Time Lord, er, British, accent.

When the two enter the sheriff's office, he's trying to tune his TV, which is playing The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms. The film came out in 1953, so it's entirely possible he could be watching it.

• Speaking of accents, Casper Crump, aka Vandal Savage, attempts an American accent in this episode as well, with cringe-worthy results. His accent is all over the place— when he remembers to use it, that is. At times he sounds like he's attempting a Southern accent (in Oregon), and other times it's completely unidentifiable. Then he seems to forget about it all together, going back to his usual Egyptian (or whatever it's supposed to be) mode of speaking.

• Hunter sends Jackson to gather info from the local high school students. I get that he was the only team member young enough for this mission, but due to his race he doesn't exactly blend in.

Sure enough, he's soon threatened by a couple of white, racist jocks. He tells one of them, "Why don't you do yourself a favor Biff, and keep walking?" That was obviously a Back To The Future reference.

• Betty doesn't seem very broken up by the loss of her boyfriend. Jackson flirts with her for literally thirty seconds and she practically throws herself on him, even going so far as to ask him out on a date!

• Canary gets to know Nurse Carlisle, who says she's never left Harmony Falls. Canary says, "That's your first mistake. This town sucks." Carlisle seems to understand what that means.

At first I thought, "Wait a minute, people didn't say 'sucks' back in the 1950s." But when I looked it up, I found that the term's been around a lot longer than that.

Most people think "sucks" is a recent term that's connected to oral sex. It's actually much older and more innocent. You can find instances of it all the way back to 1913, when children's books would use the phrase "sucks to you!" as an insult.

No one's quite sure where it came from, but some believe it's a variation of "Go suck an egg!" And that's one to grow on!

• I didn't really understand Savage's master plan here. He finds a meteor that's similar to the one that made him immortal and gave the Hawks their powers. So he starts injecting meteor juice into random townspeople, I guess just to see what happens. Then when they become werehawks, he decides to build an army of them and use 'em to take over the world?

• Professor Stein and Jefferson normally share a psychic link with one another. Once Jackson disappears, the others ask Stein if he can sense where he is. Of course he can't, because the psychic link always fails when it's convenient to the plot.

• Apparently animating CGI wings on the backs of all the werehawks was expensive, so there are a couple of scenes in which the monsters are inexplicably wingless.

• After the plot is resolved, Canary says goodbye to Nurse Carlisle, who says, "I get it. I should have known better than to fall for a ninja." Did people in the 1950s know about ninjas? I don't remember them becoming a thing in popular culture until sometime in the 1970s.

• Jackson shows up at Betty's house to say goodbye. He tells her he feels bad for trashing her dad's car, and bought her a new one that he souped up himself. A few things here.

First of all, calling the car "trashed" is a bit of an exaggeration. From what I could see it suffered a torn convertible top, and a smashed window. Hardly reasons to total the entire car.

Secondly, how did Jackson buy Betty a new car? We know Gideon can manufacture period-specific clothing— can she do the same with money as well? 

Lastly, how's Betty going to explain this to her folks? "Honest, Daddy! A mysterious black boy appeared and gave me a new car!"

• For a while now, there's been something about Jackson and his relationship with Professor Stein that seemed very familiar to me. This week I finally figured it out— Jackson and Stein are Troy and Pierce from Community!

Think about it— on Community, Troy Barnes was a talented high school football player who had his pick of colleges. He blew out his knee doing a keg stand during his graduation party, ending his chance for a college scholarship. He went to community college, where he became friends with a middle aged student named Pierce Hawthorne. He even lived in Pierce's house for a time.

Jefferson Jackson was a talented high school football player who had his pick of colleges. He injured his knee during the Central City particle accelerator explosion, ending his chance for a college scholarship. He was approached by STAR Labs and merged with a middle aged Professor named Martin Stein. When the two touch, they combine and form the superhero Firestorm.

• Sigh, Chronos shows up yet again to force another last minute time jump. Is he ever going to get a line? Or do anything other than show up and start shooting? At this point he's nothing more than a living scene transisiton.

• When Chronos attacks the ship, Jefferson wisely suggests he and Stein form Firestorm. Stein replies with a lame excuse that merging would set the ship on fire or something. I have a feeling the real reason they didn't merge was becasue this week's effects budget was used up on adding wings to the various werehawks.

• There's apparently a HUGE time jump at the end of the episode.

When Jackson is talking to Betty, everything is green and there are leaves on the trees.

Then as Atom, Hawkgirl and Canary are trudging back to the Waverider, they're bundled up in coats and there's snow on the ground (!).

Either several months passed between these two scenes, or the Waverider is parked on top of Mount Hood (elevation 11,000 feet)!