Legends of Tomorrow Season Finale Plot Summary:
Rip (Arthur Darvill) brings the team back to 2016, a few months after they first left. After the many sacrifices they made, he wants them to choose their own destinies. Once returned to their normal lives, the team must decide for themselves what they would continue to sacrifice to save the world.
“I never liked that guy.” Me too, Mick (Dominic Purcell), me too. As much as I wanted to like Rip because of my affinity for Arthur Darvill, Rip sucks so much. He’s a bland protagonist that makes me think, “So what?” at every turn. Between him and Savage (Casper Crump), Legends of Tomorrow stunts itself with a clichéd hero/villain with lazy motivations. Honestly, it makes me kind of sad, because some of the characters on Legends could be really dope to watch. But the dynamic of Rip and Savage on top of the loose laws of time travel make Legends a pretty weak show.
“Legendary,” Legends of Tomorrow’s finale episode, is just riddled with weird time travel non-logic that follows zero rules besides moving the plot forward. I don’t think that words even work well enough to explain how mad the use of time travel as a plot device makes me. For the love of God, time travel is not a cure-all! The more you use it, the less effective it becomes.
I don’t want to keep ranting about my issue with the time travel logic, because then I will be just as annoying as Legends. But my God, the time travel logic is so friggin’ annoying! It makes no sense and basically ruins the show. The whole finale basically consisted of me going, “Come on, [insert name here],” and eye rolling, because whatever happened felt so plot devicey with zero character motivation I almost died.
One of the only good things time travel gives us is the fight scene. I got goosebumps. At first I was like, “This is so dumb,” but I’ll admit that was because I was so bitter about the laziness of the writing. But the fight scenes with Savage broken up between 1958, 1975, and 2021 is some really good TV. I was enthralled, on the edge of my seat. But then it ended and they couldn’t get rid of the third meteor, returning me to my state of “Come on, [insert name here]” and eye rolling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPqsjz-Cg2A
“A Time Master is never late,” and now I have to talk about Caity Lotz. I have ranted about her since she appeared on Arrow. I felt she brought nothing to the table besides weird angst and mouth acting. If you are unsure what mouth acting is, it’s simply pursing your lips as a reaction instead of, you know, reacting. But after a few episodes of Legends of Tomorrow, she became one of my favorite characters. She stopped mouth acting, for one. But more importantly, she became independent from “Laurel Lance’s younger sister” or “Oliver Queen’s cheating buddy.” During Legends, she got her own story and own personhood more than she ever got on Arrow.
Goddamn, a quick word on the friend love between Snart (Wentworth Miller) and Mick, which gives me actual life. I love boy friendships so much and Snart and Mick are so tough and criminal-esque but they have feelings and a moral code. I can’t. I nearly keeled over when Mick said bye to Snart in 2013.
Last complaints and I’ll wrap it up. I guess it’s heroic or whatever that Rip takes the meteor and is going to die with it but he’s also leaving everyone stranded in 2021, which is not that cool. I mean, he lives so it’s moot but still.
“Legendary” is a mediocre finale for a mediocre show. I think that DC has done a really awesome job with its other shows. They have solid plots, three-dimensional characters, believable storylines for their specific worlds. But Legends just doesn’t cut it. I don’t think that time travel really works unless the writers are one hundred percent committed to creating the rules. I wanted to like Legends of Tomorrow. I enjoyed a few episodes. But, overall, Legends was a chore to watch. The finale, “Legendary,” was no different.
Rating: 4 out of 10
