This review contains spoilers.
3.18 The Good, The Bad & The Cuddly
For all my complaints, for all its problems this season and this episode, the story of Legends Of Tomorrow season 3 has to begin and end with the fact that they paid it all off with Voltron Beebo.
I spent all this time worrying about Amaya’s story being terminally boring, and whether or not it was dragging the entire show down, and it did slow some episodes, but at the same time, the second 30-foot tall Beebo popped onto the screen, a giant mecha stuffed animal dripping with action movie tropes, I still emailed my boss “unbelieveable” and got back “this show is amazing” in not more than 45 seconds.
I think the greatest testament to this show’s ongoing success is the fact that despite the proliferation of a billion ways to watch TV, I’m still sitting on my couch emailing people about how great it is as it’s happening. It’s appointment television, and it would be whether I was writing these reviews or not. There is nothing on TV that is as ridiculous as Legends Of Tomorrow, and not only does the show’s crew know that, they LOVE it.
Which is a damn good thing, because the second you start analysing the season finale is the second it starts falling apart. The episode starts with Rip sacrificing himself to buy the Legends time to hide by blowing the time drive as Mallus attacks him, which is played up as this grand, epic sacrifice, disregarding the fact that Rip’s been absent or a douche for almost all of this season. The emotional beat kind of worked for me because I’m so deep into the show, but for a drop-in viewer, it probably felt super cheap. The totems change hands off camera a couple of times – somehow Wally ends up with the water totem when Ray started the episode with it. Nora and Ray get lost in the last big fight. Also there was everything relating to Zambesi and Amaya, covered in excruciating detail.
On the other hand, some stuff really worked. The show somehow redeemed Damien Darhk, first making him not a shithead in season 2, then making him fun, then making him compelling, and finally making him into a hero who sacrificed himself to save his daughter Nora this week. And Zari is magical – Jonah Hex has been in a handful of not-great episodes of Legends, but the second he shared the screen with Tala Ashe there was legitimate chemistry. And, of course, there was our one true saviour Beebo.
One gets the sense that, for all its problems this season, everyone involved had an absolute blast making it. I periodically get flashes when I write about comics, when I describe something particularly ridiculous or especially comic book-y, of how great it is that I get to talk about this stuff. When Sara, trying to inspire the Legends ahead of their fight with Mallus’s army, said to the team “We’re facing an army of Romans, vikings and pirates” with that smile on her face, I knew that the team making the show feels the same way. They should.
Legends of Tomorrow is a riot.
Read Jim’s review of the previous episode, Guest Starring John Noble, here.