Legends of Tomorrow, Season 2, Episode 14: Moonshot
So we go after the last piece of the Spear of Destiny, and the Legends of Tomorrow find themselves in the Apollo 13 mission this time around. There are some dramatic moments in this episode, mostly regarding Nate and Amaya, and some hilarious moments with Ray, Stein and Mick...
Of course, seeing the space stuff is amazing. Ray jumping around in the moon in his Atom suit is absolutely amazing, and him kind of bonding with Eobard over their shared scientist careers is a bit of an unexpected nice moment... but of course, in order to get Reverse-Flash and Atom to team up, the show makes the rather strange logical leap that Reverse-Flash can't use his speed in space. Okay? I get that he won't be able to run in space, but that doesn't preclude him using like super-speed vibration insta-kill hand, or use the superspeed's faster reaction time during his squabble with Ray. Also, Eobard is established to have previously been able to match Oliver in hand-to-hand combat, so, uh... yeah. Couldn't Ray have shot Eobard full of nanites like what he did during Eobard's first defeat? I honestly thought he was just faking it partly to hide from Black Flash and would leave Ray on the moon, but nope. The conversation about how Ray used the white dwarf star to power a superhero suit instead of give free unlimited energy to the world is absolutely on point, though.
Also another problem is that... Apollo 13 didn't have problems returning. Like, what? How is that not going to fuck up the timeline? I get saving one or two people from the villains is an emotionally-driven thing that's going to have minimal impact on the timeline, and things like Camelot are far enough in the past to matter, but come on. Also, no one notes anything wrong about the mission landing with an astronaut missing? Seriously? Legends have been generally not the forefront in super-realistic sci-fi, but they generally tie up enough loose ends to pass off as one, and the sheer amount of plot holes in this episode is just irritating.
Martin and Mick singing in the NASA control room is absolutely golden.
The short moments of Rip trying to fit in as captain but gets quickly overshadowed by Sara without even getting a word out is actually well done. And Henry's innocent line to Rip about how the team's grown so much better since he last saw them is a gutpunch to Rip, for sure. It's a nice little character commentary about Rip as he asks the same question I do: with Sara as the boss of the Legends, what's the point of bringing Rip in? Well, as Sara notes, he's a misfit and therefore, he fits in as part of the Legends. I'm sure Rip will find something to do in the meantime, though yes, as either a fighter or a part of the crew he does leave something to be desired.
The JSA member to join is the last one to be thrown into time, Henry "Commander Steel" Heywood, Nate's grandfather. And Nate blames Henry's death/disappearance partly to why his father was such a dick to him, and Henry himself isn't very happy with Rip for depriving of being a part of his family. The point's pretty effective considering how highly Nate has been shown to care about how history is preserved, and him chancing the destruction of the timeline by not just changing his childhood (and thereby changing who he is) but also fuck up the Legends' formation at the beginning of season two.
Henry doesn't know this and he's just happily going on with Nate's comment that he could be returned to his family on the same day that he left... but then he's told, by Nate's girlfriend Amaya no less, that his death (or at least his lack thereof in Nate's father's childhood) is an important piece in history, and Henry's way too responsible as an old soldier to jeopardize literally everything. And, well, this probably causes him to be willing and the first to step into the suicide mission that requires someone depressurize the cargo bay -- i.e. open the cargo bay doors and get sucked out into space and die. It's a bit of a stupid design philosophy to have the manual controls for the cargo bay be on the side of the airlock that gets you sucked out into the vacuum, though regardless of logic Henry's death was still pretty cool, and he definitely left more of an impression than, well, literally all the other JSA members bar Amaya. Which really speaks to the poor handling of Stargirl, Obsidian, Doctor Mid-Nite and Hourman. Which makes me sad. Anyway!
Oh, and for extra drama, Henry chooses to do a heroic sacrifice just as young Hank (Nate's father) shows up at the NASA facility because Henry really wanted to see his (then slightly more grown-up) son one last time. He didn't get that meeting, and Nate had to sub in.
All this causes the previously unshakeable Nate to understandably be shaken, and he lashes out at Amaya... who, by the way, is easily the only one I can buy to actually ask him to not fuck up the timeline -- everyone else is either too irresponsible or have given in to do so or try to do so. Rip tried to save his family, Sara tried to kill Darhk, Stein still has his aberration-daughter running around, Mick's a dick and Jax is too passive. And, well, Nate spills out to Amaya in anger to 'look up what happens to your village and children and see if you'll choose history.' Amaya is all 'yeah, I'm not going to look it up' later when everyone's calmer, but of course she looks it up.
Now challenged with the same situation that she challenged Nate with, will she change history herself to protect her family and village? Or will she allow it to run its course, knowingly going back to the 50's, have a baby with the knowledge that she'll be slain only to bring forth the modern-day Vixen? Very interesting questions, and the ever-rotating cast of Legends of Tomorrow can easily see her go either way.
Ultimately despite all the strong moments, I still feel that the episode's a bit too awkwardly paced and too predictable to really be super-appealing, though definitely still a solid entry of Legends of Tomorrow. And hey, Stein randomly singing very loudly, Mick's flabbergasted face before he joins in with a 'I can't believe I'm doing this' expression? That's easily still the highlight of the episode.
No comments:
Post a Comment