Jessie Robertson reviews the fifteenth episode of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow…
So, Mick’s supposed to be Boromir?
There seemed to be a lot to unpack as we head toward the end of this season’s finale; in the large scope, the Legends retrieved the rest of the Spear of Destiny from Thawne right off the top and it was so easy in fact, you wonder why they have struggled so much with dealing with them for 14 episodes. Legends struggled with that problem last season. Now, that they had it, they needed to destroy it. So they go to Nate, their historian who reads the inscription “Born of Blood, Undone by Blood”. Nate also tells of a theory that Sir Gawain (you know, the fictional knight who took off the Green Knight’s head?) was buried with the knowledge of where to find Christ’s blood, which would undo the spear.
The author of that unpublished tale is none other than “Hobbit-boy” (as Mick referred to him) J.R.R. Tolkien himself (I could find no proof of said published paper in my studies). After all that exposition, as far-fetched as it sounds, the show was set up as an adventure and I was halfway excited about the prospects. But, in the end, this episode ended up being more importantly a deep delve into the psyche of one Mick Rory, Heat-Wave, and he did a damn fine job of portraying it.
When Thawne loses the spear while….surfing the web?, Dahrk is ready to enact his own backup plan. And Dahrk doesn’t play nice; he likes to attack from the mind. He went back in time and retrieved an alive Leonard Snart to take to 1916 France where the Legends are to mess with Mick. It played off really nicely as Mick had been seeing Snart, a leftover from his combined guilt at Snart sacrificing himself for him and mind probes by the Time Masters. But, Mick doesn’t know that. Snart, the ultimate manipulator, gets deep in Mick’s head and by the end of the episode, convinces him the Legends aren’t his family, or friends, they’re just using him as the muscle when they need him. Of course, the idiots play right into this by basically telling Mick they don’t really trust him. I thought this all played out really well for a character that sometimes feels like dead weight. But, they go out of their way to give Mick proper credence and wrestle with his own internal thoughts and dare I say, feelings? His long lonely stare at Snart’s death place with just a hint of a tear in his eye was a very good shot early on tonight. While his flame gun feels useless in this battle through time, his brute force and madman tendencies seem more the asset.
Amaya also struggles with the Legends use of the Spear as now that she’s been clued into her family lineage, how can she want to do anything but fix it? And the Spear can do that for her. But, where she steers back true, and Mick doesn’t, is she’s been on a team that has your back before (the JSA) and just as she wavers, she makes the choice to not give into her personal wants and stays with what’s best for humanity and time, and on a smaller scale, as Sara tells her, from Laurel’s accounts, her grand-daughter does in fact come out of everything a stronger woman and someone to be proud of, as she followed in Amaya’s footsteps and became a true hero. After her and Nate’s budding romance seems to be on hold, they needed something to give to Amaya to keep her relevant in these last few episodes so here we are. After visiting WWII, and now being in the midst of this battle, it truly shakes her, and Sara’s surprise is something most viewers may question after all that they’ve seen: I’m recalling back to her and Jax being in those slave quarters early in the season.
Wentworth Miller is always welcome on our screen and it was the version I think I still like best: cold hearted Leonard Snart before he cozied up to the Legends. Now with the Spear made whole, the Legion of Doom uses it. Does this reset the whole universe like Flashpoint? My guess is not, as they may switch it back before episode’s end next week or this show just isn’t The Flash so it won’t take everywhere. We’ll have to see.
8.5/10- A more serious Legends as we head towards the finale with very good plotlines for Mick
Other Notes:
– we do actually get to see quite a bit of Mr. Tolkien himself here and there are LOTR/Hobbit allusions everywhere you look from Mick revealing the secret message on the Spear with fire, to them referencing a “fellowship”, to Tolkien’s engraving of Gawain’s shield looking like a map of Middle Earth to the Spear seemingly talking to members of the team , trying to bend them to it’s will.
– Sara may not have had a better off hand insult to Nate & Ray this season when she called them “the Backstreet Boys” and the shot of them reacting was priceless
– Tolkien “I enjoy long stories” Nate “Yeah, you do.”
Jessie Robertson
Originally published March 22, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
