Legends of Tomorrow Episodes 2-3 review - Pilot (part 2)/Blood Ties

DC Comics continues their show about time travel and immortal warriors in these two episodes of Legends of Tomorrow

Pilot (Part 2)

There are few heroes that I can breathe a sigh of relief when they die, but Hawkman is one of them.

No seriously, he and Kendra have no chemistry together, none of their romantic scenes and his voice is suffering from a nasty case of the Christian Bale Batman Syndrome. And in this version he’s supposedly human, I’d mind much less if he were actually Thanagarian but oh no no no, we have to keep things realistic, so let them be Egyptian lovers who are reincarnated thanks to a magical dagger.

So, after an episode about the futility of trying to change history, we have one about the dangers of trying to change history. Make up your minds. Anyway, it’s a damn fun episode, I’ll give it that with some nice character interactions. Particularly between Captain Cold and Ray Palmer and with Martin Stein and his younger self. The less I say about Hawkman and Hawkgirl the better.

I do have one other complaint. They’re not used to do fight scene where there are this many players to follow and the end action scene was terrible. I could not see what was going on the camera was so far back and then when they do focus on a character, they switch to another one within a few seconds making it all completely unfathomable. Pick a hero, have them defeat some enemies, maybe someone else comes on screen to help so focus on them or cut to another one.

Also, Ray leaving behind a piece of his tech, let’s not have that be a regular thing.

I suppose the focus of this episode is why Rip Hunter has to be the leader of the team, because without him everything turns to sh*t. This episode didn’t focus strongly on him, it was more about the team finding motivation to trust him again.

Hawkman’s death established new motivation for everyone on the team, bringing them all in line (Cold and Heatwave may still want to rob the timeline blind, but obligation), they all want revenge on Savage for his death. Part of me wants them to focus on how he was resurrected when he was turned to dust, what role Malcolm Merlyn had in that. None of these episodes could really have Savage defeated purely because of the original crossover. We’ll see what comes of this.

I’ll also note it’s a nice touch that Kendra remembered her past fully when Hawkman died. Their lives are filled with tragedy and it provides some interest for character growth there.

Rating 7.5/10

Blood Ties

Well, what do we need after 2 episodes with a subplot about the futility of changing history, well another one of course.

Seriously, this is getting annoying. Please stop it now. Captain Cold tried to change history and failed, moving on.

Rip Hunter and Sara Lance were the major focus of the episode as they try and find subtle ways of bringing down Vandal Savage, ie stealing his fortune, but Sara’s observational skills find out that Savage is far more influential than they realised

I’d like to dedicate this paragraph and the next to say I am still not sold on this version of Vandal Savage. Having money and an army who worships him as a god, I’m all sold but the obsession with the Hawks and his general bloodlust ruin him for me. Vandal Savage is the guy that can use thousands of years of experience to his own advantage, I don’t like how he’s resorting to this obsession and bloodlust

I’m not saying it doesn’t work in context, it works in context but I don’t like the context, the idea of linking him to the Hawks gives him a good reason to appear but no reason whatsoever to… be interesting. Vandal Savage is a villain with brains. He may not be the strongest (although with 4000 years of perfecting his physical attributes he should be able to hold his own) but he’s smart. I love smart villains, they play, they manipulate. they distract and they turn situations to their advantage, but the Vandal Savage displays none of these attributes.

So crises of confidence are the game of the episode, *sigh*, we’re at this point again, hope you can enjoy all the motivational speeches because I am f*cking sick to death of them… Ray and Martin get to hang out and talk science as they save Chay-ara from fragments of the dagger and bla bla bla

Yeah, this is not a favourite episode of mine

Rating 6/10

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Images/clips used in this review are from DC's Legends of Tomorrow and belong to their respective owners. All images/clips in this review are subject to fair use