Legends of Tomorrow (Season 3) (1 Viewer)

[Matt Hough]

Well, we knew the demon within was going to resurface, so this wasn't a big surprise. The formula of the episode got kind of tedious after awhile: demon appears before a Legend instilling guilt or regret while he gets close enough to pounce and beat the crap out of each one.

The most exciting positive: the return of John Constantine and the announcement today that if the show is renewed for another season, Matt Ryan will become a series regular on the show.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Well, we knew the demon within was going to resurface, so this wasn't a big surprise. The formula of the episode got kind of tedious after awhile: demon appears before a Legend instilling guilt or regret while he gets close enough to pounce and beat the crap out of each one.

Yeah, it was one of the weaker hours this season -- but that says more about the generally high level this season has sustained, and less about any deficiencies in this particular outing.

Mallus-Sara was a genuinely intimidating threat, mixing psychological warfare with brutally efficient assaults. I enjoyed the callbacks to this (and other) shows: Wally's ex-girlfriend Jesse Quick who dumped him to take up the mantle as Earth-2's preeminent speedster, Nate's grandfather who had to abandon his family to aid the Legends, Zari's brother who was executed in an A.R.G.U.S. raid, and Sara's time with the League of Assassins.

The most exciting positive: the return of John Constantine and the announcement today that if the show is renewed for another season, Matt Ryan will become a series regular on the show.

I have mixed feelings on this. On one hand, I'm thrilled to get more of Matt Ryan playing John Constantine, because it's one of those rare perfect matches, like Christopher Reeve and Superman. On the other hand, this is an ensemble show and John Constantine is a leading man character. My fear is that he'll suck too much of the oxygen out of the room, and unbalance the team dynamic that's working so well.

But given how good the show has been lately, I'm inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.

I love that after a season of everybody shitting on poor Gary, John Constantine -- arguably one of the just plain coolest dudes in the Arrowverse -- totally gets him, even if he can't exactly remember his name.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I could take or leave the main plot with Ava being a mass-produced genetically-optimized clone from 2231, but I really enjoyed the rest of the episode.

It looks like my theory that Nate is the grandfather of Mari and Kuasa was wrong. Presumably, Kuasa would have known if that were the case. Loved Damien being set to torture Nate, only for Nate to win him over.

Mick repeatedly failing to understand the concept of halal never got old. It was a nice bonding subplot between Mick and Zari, in which Mick fails to learn anything.

The final scene seemed to set the stage nicely for the major events of the last two episodes.

The preview for next week's episode raised interesting questions about the timeline:

Spoiler

The Legends must stop Grodd from killing Barack Obama in his early twenties. But we know from the Dominators crossover that some white guy was president in November 2016. So was Obama a one-termer on Earth-1, or what?

 

[Matt Hough]

Yes, I didn't much care about the Ava plot either.

Mick's doings are always entertaining to me. And I LOVED seeing Damien being won over and playing along with the torture. My favorite parts of the episode.

 

[Garysb]

It looks like my theory that Nate is the grandfather of Mari and Kuasa was wrong. Presumably, Kuasa would have known if that were the case. Loved Damien being set to torture Nate, only for Nate to win him over.

It may still turn out to be true. Nate may impregnant her. She may decide to go back to 1942 without Nate and find out she is pregnant after she gets there. Nate could go back with her and get killed shortly there after and then she finds she is pregnant. The granddaughters never knew the man they called grandpa was not their biological grandfather.

I am not sure the reason she is going back to 1992. Is she trying to prevent her village from being destroyed and herself from being killed? Will she meet her elderly self?
The trailer for next week shows Nate does meet the elder Amaya, so could be Amaya's last episode and bring some closure to Nick .

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Renewed for Season 4

ETA: Thoughts about tonight's episode:

The subplot with Grodd and a college-age Barack Obama was fun -- and Lovell Adams-Gray was by far the best presidential impersonator the show's had so far -- but it highlighted the tensions inherent in doing a time travel show on an Earth that isn't our Earth. Earth-1 has metahumans and magic and entire city-states that don't exist in the real world. Given that, it would seem like broad swaths of history would be different than our real history. And the closer you get to September 2012, when Oliver Queen was reunited with his mother and sister in the pilot of "Arrow", the more carefully you have to tread.

We know that Obama was a two-term president on the "Black Lightning" Earth. But Obama being a two-term president on Earth-1 bumps up against the "Invasion!" crossover event, in which an old white man codenamed "Traveler" is president in 2016 before the Dominators assassinate him (with Susan Brayden, his vice president succeeding him to the office). I suppose "Traveler" could have defeated Obama in the 2012 election on Earth-1, but that would make Obama's place in history different.

I can almost set my nerd-brain nitpicks aside for all of the great Barry Allen/Barry Obama puns, though.

The Legends realizing Mallus sounds just like John Noble (who has in fact been the voice of Mallus all season) and then visiting him on the set of the Lord of the Rings movies in 1999 to get him to read scripted Mallus dialog in a bid to trick Nora just tickled me.

Also great to see Erica Tazel turn up on a show. Given all of the talk about Amaya, and all of the talk about Amaya's granddaughters, it always seemed strange to me that we never heard anything about Amaya's children. It was nice to plug that hole, even though it was further confirmation that Nate is not her father (at least in the timeline as it stood).

This season's Damien Darhk is the most interesting that the character has ever been, because they've given him real human motivations.

 

[Matt Hough]

I didn't get a chance to see this last night. My cable company had a service interruption for over an hour, and the DVR caught only the first eight minutes of the show. I'll have to watch it On Demand this afternoon. I would have watched it over-the-air last night if I had realized in time that it wasn't recording. I didn't notice the service interruption until 23 minutes past the hour. Argh!

 

[Matt Hough]

I watched the season's penultimate episode On Demand yesterday afternoon. I just KNEW Dahrk would change his mind to try to save his daughter even though it was obvious he was being manipulated by the demon. The John Noble stuff was priceless and had me laughing.

 

[David Weicker]

Words can not even describe how awesome the finale of Legends Of Tomorrow was

 

[Matt Hough]

Silly but quite fun finale.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Words can not even describe how awesome the finale of Legends Of Tomorrow was

Agreed!

Every season finale for this show has been better than the last. The first season finale was rather weak and nonsensical, the second season finale was stronger and marginally more sensical, and this finally was great, and the logic more or less held together. They erased the entire "Vixen" series from existence, but oh well...

The six totems combining to form not Captain Planet but a giant furry Beebo was just incredible. Everything about that final battle delighted me.

And it was nice to see all of the people they brought back, especially Jax. One of the interesting things about the Waverider is that it's almost like Neverland; you go on all of these wonderful adventures, but your life is more or less paused. Once Jax left the ship, he started living and maturing again. I really like that former Legends still pop up now and again after they leave the ship, assuming that they didn't die.

Speaking of deaths: Rip Hunter actually got a pretty heroic one. His place on the Waverider has been filled by Sara, and his place in the Time Bureau has been filled by Ava. So rather than having him hang around like a vestigial limb, it was the right choice to have him go out saving the day. I especially liked his explanation why: he wanted to go be with his wife and son again. It's nice that the show didn't forget the central loss that started them all on this adventure.

The one downside for this finale was Amaya leaving the Waverider, because I love Maisie Richardson-Sellars in this role, I love her and Nate together, and I love her platonic friendship with Mick. Fortunately, Entertainment Weekly is reporting that she will be back as a series regular again next year. My guess is that when she rejoins the ship, a few years will have gone by for Amaya, serving as the steadfast guardian of her village.

In addition to John Constantine joining the show full-time next season as Matt Ryan becomes a series regular, they've also promoted Jes Macallan to series regular. Hopefully Ava stays leading the Time Bureau, though; she's too much of a straight arrow to be a Legend.

 

[Garysb]

Agreed!

The one downside for this finale was Amaya leaving the Waverider, because I love Maisie Richardson-Sellars in this role, I love her and Nate together, and I love her platonic friendship with Mick. Fortunately, Entertainment Weekly is reporting that she will be back as a series regular again next year. My guess is that when she rejoins the ship, a few years will have gone by for Amaya, serving as the steadfast guardian of her village.

One of the youtube reviewers mentioned that at a convention recently where Maisie Richardson-Sellars and Caity Lotz appeared that Caity said something like asking Maise if she wanted to say anything about the new character she will be playing next season. Maisie replied I don't think I am supposed to say anything. Something for someone to ask at Comic Con in July.

See the 11:05 mark on this video:

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

One of the youtube reviewers mentioned that at a convention recently where Maisie Richardson-Sellars and Caity Lotz appeared that Caity said something like asking Maise if she wanted to say anything about the new character she will be playing next season. Maisie replied I don't think I am supposed to say anything. Something for someone to ask at Comic Con in July.

Very interesting. Wonder if she'll be playing a descendant of Amaya's from the future.

 

[Matt Hough]

I have had such a good time with the show since I rejoined it at midseason that I have added it again to my DVR Series Record list for next season. And I'll look forward to watching the early episodes from this season once Netflix gets it in their rotation.

 

[Garysb]

I enjoyed the finale but they but nothing bad happened when they changed the past or when Ray and Damien Darhk went back to somewhere they previously had been. There were no time storms. This is counter to what we were told about Flashpoint and last season on Legends when they went back a second time to WWI. The only one that seemed to morn Rip Hunter was the AI.

 

[NeilO]

I enjoyed the finale but they but nothing bad happened when they changed the past or when Ray and Damien Darhk went back to somewhere they previously had been. There were no time storms. This is counter to what we were told about Flashpoint and last season on Legends when they went back a second time to WWI. The only one that seemed to morn Rip Hunter was the AI.

It could be that what we saw at the end with Constantine was the result of Ray and Damien's trip and not the original trip.

I really was expecting some kind of Voltron thing, but we got Beebo, which went along with the title of the episode and hearkened back to that episode. Really loved the reaction of the viking character to Beebo's appearance.

 

[Joel Fontenot]

That battle between Beebo and Mallus... Malice... Mollusk...whatever, was utterly ridiculous.

And absolutely terrific.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I enjoyed the finale but they but nothing bad happened when they changed the past or when Ray and Damien Darhk went back to somewhere they previously had been. There were no time storms. This is counter to what we were told about Flashpoint and last season on Legends when they went back a second time to WWI.

They "broke" time when they went back to World War I in the second season finale. The events of this season only served to shred it further. Mallus was only able to escape because the time stream was in tatters. So I think the old repurcussions didn't necessarily apply, because the damage was so far past it.

The other big difference is that the do-over during World War I completely rewrote history after that point, while Ray's do-over simply substituted Damien for Nora as the demon's vessel.

 

[ponset]

Well done season 3 finale. BEEBO RULES!
Nice seeing all the call backs from this season. Helen of Troy was trained well by the Amazons.
Jonah Hex seemed a bit off, being a sheriff and flirting with Zari. A far departure from his comic book roots.
Although Hex was married at one time to Mei Ling.

 

[Garysb]

Here is a fun post Dr. Who pre Legends video of Arthur Darvill.