Legends of Tomorrow S02E15 Review: Second Breakfast

Legends of Tomorrow, Season 2, Episode 15: Fellowship of the Spear

Something that doesn't really come up that often in this blog since the main genres I review are superhero TV shows and manga is that, well, I'm a huge, huge fantasy geek. Warcraft III and Legend of Zelda are the first that introduced me to the fantasy genre as a kid, but since then I've branched out and really geeked out over so many other fantasy worlds. And all of them owe to the writings of one J.R.R. Tolkien, otherwise known as 'that dude who wrote Lord of the Rings'. I've watched all the movies, and then again in extended edition, and I've read at least one-and-a-half of his books. They be really long books written in archaic English, okay?

But still, there's a bit of hilarity that shortly after inspiring Star Wars and Camelot, the Legends of Tomorrow seem to have inspired the Lord of the Rings as well. The Tolkien bit was fun stuff, even if Tolkien himself didn't feel that much different from all the other historical figures we've met before. The references to stuff that Tolkien found fascinating -- having to bring a sacred, indestructible plot device to a certain location; script that is revealed when the plot device is exposed to fire... but while there are a lot more for Tolkien fans to geek out, the plot of this episode isn't centered around Tolkien but rather on the titular Spear of Destiny. Hell, Tolkien himself didn't even appear until nearly the halfway mark of the episode. 

The first half was a very, very awesome raid on the Vanishing Point by the Legends, who quickly make use of their own fragments to steal the ones that the Legion of Doom has -- with Atom using his shrinking abilities to keep Eobard in sight, and Firestorm transforming the indestructible obelisk into a mountain of jelly beans. We haven't seen a lot of Firestorm's transmutation powers since... Invasion, I think? But it's great to see it in work. 

With the Legends on the advantage for once, and Reverse-Flash cursing at the sky after being waylaid by our heroes, they put the pieces of the Spear of Destiny together, upon which it reassembles itself with magic. Rip Hunter tells us that the spear will tempt anyone and everyone to use it, so their only option is to destroy it. Mick's light it on fire response doesn't destroy a mystical holy artifact, but it does reveal a message that it can only be undone with the blood of Jesus. Thankfully we sidestep the whole trickiness of adapting religious characters into a time-travel story by Rip Hunter putting his foot down that no, there are some points in history that you literally cannot enter.

So somehow Nate figures out this whole plan of getting the blood of Jesus from the Golden Chalice obtained by Sir Gawain, and the only person to know where it is would be J.R.R. Tolkien who once wrote a paper about it. It's... convoluted, and I truly ask the Legends why the fuck didn't they go ask Tolkien when the poor man isn't in the middle of a fucking World War, or why they see the need to retrieve the blood during said war. I guess they're just in a hurry? It's a weak logical plot hole in this otherwise enjoyable episode. 

Two of our heroes in particular get tempted by the reality-altering powers of the spear. The first is Amaya, who, after her discovering the future of her village last episode, very much wants to use the spear to rewrite destiny and history and change that very fact. Going back to WWI and seeing the horrors of war did nothing against Amaya's personal struggles. She doesn't fall for the temptations, though she did propose the team to use the powers of the Spear of Destiny to rewrite history to write the Legion of Doom out of existence... she did concede the point to the majority vote, and doesn't go with the Legion of Doom in the climax.

Mick, on the other hand? We've seen Snart come back as a hallucination in a previous episode, and for Mick to think that it's just his mind playing tricks on him again -- especially after his brief return to the Vanishing Point -- makes it a lot more believable for Mick to think that his mind is playing more tricks on him. But the truth is that Reverse-Flash plucked Captain Cold out of the timeline before he had a chance to rejoin the Legends (thereby making him kind of 'safe' in this out-of-time context the way Darhk is), and he's fully evil and disappointed in Mick. He keeps telling Mick that his new allies doesn't see him any more than a thug and an attack dog on a leash, and the revelation that Leonard Snart is actually real and not a figment of his fragmented psyche rocks his world.

The thing is, Mick joining the Legends team and gradually finding a niche in the team of heroes is something that he did mostly to humour his friend Leonard Snart, and later to honour his friend's sacrifice. But Snart telling the Legends that it was Mick who told him all about their plans, as well as Mick's closeness to Snart, causes the other Legends to openly ask Mick about his loyalties. It is a little silly that one of his friends would use the specific word 'thug' like three scenes after Snart notes that Mick's little more than a thug, but the words and sentiments echoed by the Legends clearly hurt the pyromaniac more than the others meant to. He clearly was on the good guys' side right before that moment, but a combination of his friends doing exactly the same thing that Snart told him they would do, and turning back on him, questioning his loyalties?

Well, two things trying to tempt and corrupt Mick ends up breaking the poor man, and he ends up walking towards Damien Darhk and Captain Cold at the climax, choosing his side. It's a betrayal that's felt as deeply as any earlier Snart/Mick moments in this series, and the two of them have consistently been the twisted, thuggish heart of the series from the get-go. The Legends undoubtedly lose this fight. They lose Mick, they lose the Spear, the blood they fought to get is destroyed in the firefight, and turns out that the Legion can activate the powers of the Spear.

The final scene, with the Legends (well, mostly Ray) noting that they could've treated Mick better is sobering, because, shit, everything here was all the Legends' fault. Merlyn's apparently off on his own adventure to get the magic spell to activate the Spear of Destiny, and at the end of the episode, the five-man-strong Legion of Doom put their hands around the Spear (very, very surprised Eobard didn't decide to betray them there, but I guess he's grown fond of the others) and began changing destiny.

Two episodes left, which I guess will be all climactic showdowns between the Legends and the Legion in whatever twisted world the Legion has created. 

DC Tolkien Easter Eggs Corner:

• Not much in lieu of DC comics Easter Eggs in this episode, but a lot of references to the Tolkien stuff.
• Fellowship of the Spear is an obvious nod to the first part of the Lord of the Rings series, the Fellowship of the Ring. Nate even intentionally uses the term Fellowship in front of Tolkien himself to hammer the point home.
• The writing on the Spear is only revealed when Mick unleashes a tongue of flame upon it, similar to the One Ring revealing elvish words when thrown into flame.
• Just like the One Ring, the Spear of Destiny grants immense power to those who wield it, yet it also whispers temptations to corrupt even pure-hearted individuals who would otherwise use the ring for something good.
• The power the created the Spear and the Ring are respectively the only ones that can destroy it, and the Legends had to bring the Spear into a war-ridden land to get to the place where they can get to the blood that can destroy the Spear, similar to how the Fellowship traveled to Mordor to destroy the ring.
• The Spear glows when in close contact to the blood, similar to how the Ring's influence gets stronger the closer they are to Mordor, as well as the orc-detecting glowing sword wielded by Frodo, Sting.
• Likewise, the Fellowship is betrayed by one of its own, Mick, which in the novels would be Boromir. Mick's story here also borrows parallels from Gollum, where he's ostracized and treated as a barely-tolerated outsider, leading to his eventual treachery.
• Tolkien's commanding officer calls him "fool of a Tolkien", which is similar to how Gandalf likes to call Pippin "fool of a Took".
• Martin Stein does a variation of the memetic line from the movies' version of Boromir: "one does not simply walk into Mordor", swapping out Mordor for the war zone.
• Rip's speech borrows a fair bit of lines from Aragorn's speech ("but today is not that day!") to the assembled army at the climax of the Return of the King.
• Tolkien's "I enjoy long stories" line is an obvious reference to the length of his novels (which are absolutely long) as well as the movies that they are adapted into.