Legends of Tomorrow Season 2 Episode 1 review - Out of Time

Legends of Tomorrow is back!

Season 1 was a mixed bag in my opinion; it was more fun than its sister series(es) but leaned on the same element of stupid both of the other shows were suffering from. Cap that off with a villain who wasn’t compelling and the season fell short of my expectations. Having said that, it was good enough to be put on a trial run for the second season.

I’ll be definitely reviewing this up until the mid-season break (including the 4-part crossover coming) Should it excel, I’ll continue it for the rest of the series. If it doesn’t, I’ll see what I can do with Riverdale instead.

So, with that all out of the way, let’s take a look at season 2’s premiere, Out of Time

Out of Time

Wow… This is pretty much everything I like and dislike about Legends of Tomorrow wrapped up into a single episode.

OK, Free of the Hawks and just about everything to do with Vandal Savage, there clearly is more to like here and we get the fun adventure that I always like to see when I watch Legends of Tomorrow. The character arcs make sense, even if the actions for those arcs to be set in motion often do not and they’re enjoyable to watch with none of them getting irritating.

At its heart, the premise for the episode is fairly basic. An atomic bomb goes off in 1942, 3 years before the invention of the Atomic Bomb. Damian Dahrk has partnered up with a mysterious partner (later revealed to be Eobard Thawne, part of the supposed Legion of Doom this season is building according to the Wiki) to help the Nazi’s kidnap Einstein to develop it 3 years early. So the Legends have to stop them.

My first issue is the framing device used for this story. We’re introduced to historical detective Nate Haywood in the present day with Oliver Queen, they discover the time ship in the ocean, having taken the atomic blast. Mick Rory is found, alive, inside the ship, in stasis and it’s through him we here the events that took place. 

The problem is, many of the events described Mick Rory had no part in. This would’ve been fine if there was some narration over these scenes but no, we just keep cutting back to them to remind us that ‘yes. This is from their perspective’

And then we have the choice of villains. Damian Dahrk and Eobard Thawne. We know the fates of both of them. Damian Dahrk finds some magical totem and gets killed by the Green Arrow. Eobard Thawne will eventually get stranded after killing Barry’s mother, become Harrison Wells, create the Flash and die because his ancestor killed himself and he only exists at all because of plot related bullsh*t or possibly Flashpoint. That means there was no tension to Sara’s arc of wanting to kill Dahrk. We know from the offset, she’s not going to.

And then we have our usual doses of idiocy like the Legends having no qualms about using modern tech in whatever era they choose (also does Sara just give off rays to make everyone sexually attracted to her… I swear to god), deciding the best way to protect Einstein from the kidnappers was to kidnap him themselves. Einstein behaving in the most stereotypical way possible (particularly in the opening scene with him) and Rip deciding that the best way to protect his team is to scatter them across time and space with no hope of returning home. You know, sending them back to the present would only be slightly more stupid scientifically and way less stupid in every other way possible. Oh and Rip Hunter's fakeout disappearance, not buying it. 

But JSA next week, should be fun, fun is what this show is best at.

Rating 7/10 

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