“You want us to break into the Pentagon? Sounds awesome.” – Heatwave
This week on DC Legends of Tomorrow we see the team jump forward to 1986 right smack in the middle of the Cold War. Not only that, but the information on Vandal Savage –who they had already killed and could have captured last episode– is inside the Pentagon. So our team of heroes and villains are suiting up to play 80s spy’s and break into the most secure facility in the world. That does indeed sound pretty awesome!
The plan actually goes according to plan for quite some time, but as this is television that can only mean that the shit is about to hit the fan in the most glorious way. And boy, does it ever! Still, it shows that the team is getting better at working together, as in prior episodes they wouldn’t even be undertaking the same mission. But if things are going to go south, they might as well go really south! Hawkgirl pretty much goes full feral demi god at the Pentagon, no doubt getting caught on camera –they had camera systems in the 80s, right?– while Firestorm explodes out of the building like a bat out of hell after not understanding how positive and negative charges work. The kid is a mechanic, so I’d assume he’d have some basic idea, especially if he was able to work out the jump ship from last week.
The team finds out that Savage is in the Soviet Union, and after a little arguing with each other plot a course. But they aren’t alone as bargain bin Boba Fett (Cronus?) is hot on their tail. We see some MiG-21’s enter the fray as well getting a lovely Top Gun reference from The Atom that is made all the more humorous as Captain Cold calls him out on it. After a bit of Top Gun style action in the air, the team manages to lose Cronus and the MiGs, but the ship crash lands deep in Soviet territory. From here the team head out to find savage with the help of some magic pills that let anyone speak and understand any language, because someone in the writers room was watching a little too much Doctor Who one day.
The show once again splits off into several teams (sub-plots) with Palmer and Cold looking for a scientist being funded by Savage, Hunter and Heatwave looking for the downed Cronus, Canary training with Hawkgirl to control her power. Everything seems to work out for the best –for once– but in searching for Cronus we learn that another Time Master was sent to find Hunter and his team. An ultimatum is given, with hunter returning home to face judgement and the team heading back to 2016, but as one would expect it’s nothing more than a ruse to lure Hunter, and his team, to their deaths. Heatwave and Firestrom help Hunter with this Time Master and his crony Cronus (nailed it!), but Jefferson and Stein are split in the process, with Jefferson suffering severe injuries.
Once he is stable in the med-bay the team make their way to the lab that that Palmer and Cold located with Dr. Stein taking the lead with recon, being as he is a scientist and all. We quickly find out that the damage the team had cause in the 70s is far greater than anything they could have expected. It seems that Savage and his team of scientists have been spending the time between the teams jump to create a Soviet Firestorm. Stein not only finds documents of such work, but of dozens of bodies of test subjects, as well as one special, sealed off container containing a theramacore. This would mean that it would only be a matter of time before Savage has his own Soviet Firestorm. Palmer and Cold join in to help shut down the core so Stein can safely get rid of the therma-thing, but things, as they do, go bad.
The scientist lady they tracked is, of course a total badguy, and Cold gets captured because Palmer is too much of a boy scout. Stein still manages to adsorb the core, but is captured anyways. You could see this all from a mile away, but the scene did serve to develop the Stein half of the Firestorm character, as well as to show that Cold does indeed have a heart. In fact, he is the only one from the team that was sent in to make it out with the core in hand. Heatwave buys him time to escape, but you can tell that Cold really didn’t want to leave the team behind. The team , or what’s left of it, must now mount a rescue mission into an “impenetrable” Gulag. Oh, joy!
Final Thoughts:
- I enjoyed the Firestorm focus and the development of Captain Cold
- The Cronus and Time Master subplot gets washed far too easily.
- Other than the opening, the girls are pretty much ignored.
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