DC's Legends of Tomorrow, Season 4, Episode 5: Tagumo Attacks!!!
We're back with semi-regular reviews of superhero shows, and here I am, playing catch-up! I'm not quite sure how regularly I'll be able to keep up, although I guess it's just as well that the winter break is coming. (I also have to figure out how to set up Netflix on my new laptop to watch Daredevil).
And it's always great to start off with an episode of DC's Legends of Tomorrow, for the simple fact that it's such an easy 45 minutes to sit through. It's just an utterly fun romp with minimal tension, and it's just... it's just fun to watch, y'know? Other shows require significantly more attention paid or are heavy with subplots and drama, and while those shows are great for that, sometimes you just kind of just want to sit back, relax and just watch some time-travelling hijinks.
"Tagumo Attacks", just like the previous horror-themed episode, isn't a particularly spectacular episode. In particular, I really do feel that it tries to do way too much, overstuffing some four different subplots into a single episode. And I get it, the CGI model for monster-of-the-week Tagumo isn't going to be cheap, but still, this episode jumps all over the place that I do feel that it ends up biting off a bit more than it should.
The main time-travel supernatural plot involves our heroes going to 1951 Tokyo, to find out that Japanese movie-maker Ishiro Honda (the director of the first Godzilla movie, as briefly alluded in his final scene) has caused the creation of the gigantic land-octopus kaiju called Tagumo when he came into contact with a tome of the Irish goddess Brigid, a book that makes whatever a creative mind thinks of real. And... and it's interesting, I suppose, to have our heroes fight a gigantic octopus monster, but at the same time I really do feel like they didn't do enough with it. We get a haunting speech from Ishiro Honda about giving a form to the horror and despair he felt after Hiroshima (reportedly the same sort of horror that inspired Godzilla's conception), but ultimately we really don't get much more beyond that.
It's Mick that ends up saving the day with a pretty obvious follow-up to the fact that he apparently writes sci-fi novels on a typewriter, and it turns a one-off joke from an earlier season into a fun little plot point where he has to deal with his embarrassment, and ends up writing the story of Garima, the three-boobed purple-skinned elf warrior that will kill Tagumo. And bang the brains out of Mick. It's... it's a simple storyline, but one that I think plays to the character's history well, giving the criminally under-utilized Dominic Purcell something to act around beyond general simmering anger.The Charlie storyline, I'm afraid, is still not done well. Richardson-Sellers is a fantastic actress, but I still feel like Charlie feels really shoehorned into the story, and beyond a very blatant "you don't pay attention to the rights of the magical creatures!" speech (something that honestly feels silly considering that every demon they've faced this season has been hostile with the exception of Charlie herself) and conflict against Sara -- both of which get resolved without any real impetus when they team up against the octopus.
It's still enjoyable, because it's still a romp to 50's Japan where an octopus monster, film-making sets, a fun usage of Atom's shrinking tech and Mick's fanfic triple-boobed elf are involved, but it seems so... paper-thin, I guess.
And now let's tackle the three sub-plots that goes on! Four, if you consider Gary to be a separate sub-plot and not tied to the Nate/Ava one. Let's start with perhaps one of the more serious ones, which is the Nora/Ray/Constantine storyline. After Constantine wounds himself at the end of the previous episode, Ray goes around hunting for Nora, and after a wacky scene at a renaissance fair where Ray rips a phone in half (!!!), we get an, again, pretty brief scene between Nora and Ray talking about using magic for good and the like. Nora ends up helping Constantine do the life-energy infusion, Constantine turns out to be dying anyway (presumably from cancer, if it's inspired by the comics), and Nora ends up surrendering to the Time Bureau to 'face' her redemption and freedom. It's a simple, well-executed storyline with all three actors involved portraying their roles well, but it's also very bland, like it's the first draft and the bare bones of this subplot.
Meanwhile, Nate and Ava go off to deal with the Heywood's embarrassing family dinner in a subplot that ran for way longer than it should (and it already isn't the subplot that takes up the most time). Thank god it ties into the Gary one. There is some attempt at making Ava feel like a real human girl (tm) again because she never really experienced Thanksgiving, but that goes nowhere. Instead, Nate has to run to the Time Bureau to help Gary deal with a crisis.
Ava and Hank Heywood eventually catch up with Nate, Gary and Mona, and find out that they've dealt with the magical beasts. Nate and Hank bond over hating their obnoxious family and having to be called away for crises, Ava and Hank bond over military budgets, Gary and Mona just bond, and then we get the huge revelation that apparently Hank Heywood is still pretty damn sketchy, and is on the phone with some mysterious dude, noting about how the magical creatures can be controlled and that "Project Hades" is a-go.
That last bit, at least, is an interesting way to go with this season's big bad. I've always felt like last season's Mallus was pretty dang disappointing. Having a main villain that's perhaps a lot closer to home, has a personal relationship with one of our heroes, a fresh face to the CW universe, and someone with a different goal than generic destruction of the world is definitely fairly interesting.
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