Legends of Tomorrow, Season 2, Episode 6: Outlaw Country
I've gone on record on saying that the Jonah Hex episode in Legends of Tomorrow's first season might be my favourite time-travel locale ever, and that's from someone who doesn't even like cowboys. I was excited when I saw the title of this episode... but well, it ended up being somewhat disappointing. It's not that it's a bad episode -- Jonah Hex is still as fun as ever, but it really felt filler-y. All the character strokes felt like things we've seen before, and overall it just felt like more filler-y than everything else we've seen before.
In a sense we did get to explore Jonah Hex's lore a little bit more, peering back into his rivalry with Quentin Turnbull, and the origin of Hex's trademark disfigurement. It's a bit of a shame that other than some 'don't let revenge consume you' speech from Sara, and some 'but you're a girl captain!' lines, Jonah Hex didn't get to do much beyond that. I felt that he had some more substance in the season one episode, and here it just feels like a glorified cameo, something like Obsidian from last episode, and that's a bit worrying for future guest stars if this is going to be the fate. There just weren't... that much story being told beyond catching Turnbul and stopping him from using the white matter to make his own country, and, well, I dunno. I just felt like this is a bit underwhelming.
There's a couple of interesting character team-ups, but honestly it's nothing we've not seen before. Mick finally is allowed to embrace his inner animal and unleash fiery rage, but the pair-up scenes with Amaya talking about controlling the beast within all kind of felt flat. Nate and Ray have a repeat of their discussion in 'Shogun', albeit this time Nate's the one feeling unsure about himself after the bulletproof man gets hit by a white star bullet. Again, none of these are bad, but they're things we've seen before and added to the fact that the Jonah Hex setting didn't exactly bring anything new to the table, a lot of this suffers from sequelitis.
Ray does get to make a fancy new suit for Nate at the end of the episode, and it's gearing towards him finally making a new suit for himself, so after a brief stint playing just Ray Palmer and going on a journey of self-discovery, he can probably put on the Atom suit again and be a superhero.
Oh, and very interesting in this episode was the very minor Stein/Jax subplot. Stein sits out a good chunk of the episode while Jax just hangs out with Ray and Nate, because apparently Stein's past is rewriting itself. Interesting that Gideon's not detecting any changes, but Stein and Jax theorize that it's because of their interaction last episode with Young Stein... or is it Flashpoint? Whatever it is, it apparently involves a girl that Stein doesn't recognize... but knows he loves.
Overall, though, a bit of an unimpressive effort. It's not bad, but it really had so much potential to be good and it just kind of... is there. With this, the Legends of Tomorrow portion is over for the pre-Invasion crossover, which Sara mentions with the 2016 call, so let's get caught up with Arrow.
DC Easter Eggs Corner:
- Jonah Hex first appeared in the Legends of Tomorrow episode The Magnificent Eight. Quentin Turnbull was briefly mentioned in that episode, as is his role in destroying the town of Calvert, but this is his first speaking appearance. In the comics, Turnbull is Jonah Hex's primary arch-nemesis.
- Nate makes references to Superman, both with his 'man of steel' comment and, y'know, stopping a locomotive.
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