Legends of Tomorrow, Season 3, Episode 1: Aruba-con
I'm bizarrely surprised that Legends of Tomorrow lasted this long, actually. It's easily the funnest of the four CW show out there where it has just a cast of really fun actors and a plotline about time travel that it doesn't take super-seriously most of the time... but I dunno. This season premiere, like the Flash's which I reviewed yesterday, felt more underwhelming than not.
Like the Flash, the huge cliffhanger was resolved almost immediately, although in Legends of Tomorrow's case after a brief showcase of the CGI T-rex, Rip Hunter shows up from the future, having set up a new version of the time masters called... the Time Bureau. Which just... okay? So if Rip sets up the Time Bureau in 2017, why didn't he try to prevent any of the crisis in the first two seasons? And why are they based in like downtown Random Americatown instead of the cool End-Time out-of-time eldritch location that the Time Masters are based out of in season one?
And, well, the idea of the Legends of Tomorrow as this cool bad-boys devil-may-care dudes that overestimate their abilities and are far too reckless having to face off against the prim-and-proper Time Bureau, who has training and resources and professionalism, and are knocking our heroes away... it's not a bad plot hook. It's just one that's in my opinion not done very well at all. How we have like three or four scenes of random Bureau people making fun of the Legends going "haw-haw, incompetent twats" just felt particularly silly. Also, having Sara, Nate and Ray just act like a bunch of frat kids also doesn't seem to be particularly well-done for them either.
Add that to the silly-for-a-while-then-absolutely-stupid-when-you-think-about-it montage of what the Legends are doing in their free time after being disbanded and it's... honestly pretty dumb. Like, Heatwave partying in a beach in Aruba, the Firestorm halves settling down and Commander Steel going around whacking dudes and getting one-upped by Kid Flash? (If Wally can't get to be a badass in his home show, he'll have to be badass here) Those are fine. But Amaya randomly returning to the past after spending so much of the last season going through character development to choose love over destiny? It feels abrupt and jarring, even if admittedly what Amaya is doing in the past -- using knowledge from the future to change the past and save lives, even though it's arguably wrong -- is interesting.
But does it really make sense for Sara and Ray to work in retail and in a random hipster dating app site, respectively? Other than giving those two a chance to be comedic (which, let's be fair, they were pretty funny) those two feels like an overlong gag. Especially when Ray's vertical-Tinder app keeps getting referenced over and over and over again when it's not even funny. I dunno. I guess the episode tilts way too much in the comedic gag side of the spectrum without maintaining a balance with the sci-fi superhero epic that it had in the first two seasons? There are a fair bit of logic holes without even going to the time travel stuff (why even use the Waverider for a training console when it's a literal time ship?), most of which just seem to be done in service of a gag or two.
Rip apparently may have engineered the whole thing just to test out the Legends and see if they're up to fighting Mallus or someone? I dunno.
There's a subplot about Julius Caesar running around, but even then it doesn't really feel particularly fun, just an excuse to be comedic and to show up the Time Bureau just because the Legends team has powers. We do get a brief excuse of an episode plot development with Jax and Martin's conversation, about Jax wanting to do more with life while Martin wanting to settle down. We also get a bit of Sara basically being influenced by Julius Caesar to take charge, but I don't feel like it's really enough. The Jax/Martin stuff is easily the strongest part of the episode, which honestly doesn't mean a whole ton.
Overall, it's actually a bit more than a bit disappointing. The actors are at least giving great performances despite the rather bland plotline that we're getting, and we do get hints at the seasonal plot... but on the other hand, the episode's tone is a bit all over the place, and honestly? Considering just how many times the Legends fucked up in this episode and how relatively uncooperative they are with the Time Bureau (again, only Martin and Jax really make good arguments) just for the sake of a glorified dick contest... and, yeah, not a particularly satisfying season opening. Still fun, though.
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