Legends Of Tomorrow Recap And Review – S01E01 – “Pilot: Part 1”

The CW’s DC’s Legends of Tomorrow premiered tonight.  How was it?  In short, it was fast-paced, exciting, and has lots of potential.  With some great action scenes and even better character dynamics, Legends of Tomorrow is another winning series from the masterminds behind Arrow and The Flash.  This was the fastest 45 minutes I have ever experienced.

Legendary Recap: We open in London, 2166, during a brutal battle known as The Second Blitz.  Vandal Savage has conquered the entire planet and leads an army of foot soldiers laying carnage everywhere.  A mother is executed right in front of her son.  Vandal approaches the boy and asks him his name.  The boy tells him its Jonas and then spits in Vandal’s face.  Vandal quickly executes the child for insulting him.

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Rip Hunter pleads to the Council of Time Masters to stop Vandal Savage.  The Time Masters tell him that their job is to protect the timeline, not humanity.  Rip pleads to their humanity and only asks for their permission, not an army, to change time due to Vandal’s brutality.  The Council, unmoved by Rip’s words, denies him that request.  Rip exits the Council and consults his ship’s AI, Gideon (The Flash Easter egg).  He will go against the Council and go back to the past to recruit the team he needs in order to stop Vandal.

Going to 2016, Rip “recruits”, or moreso kidnaps, each member of his team using a futuristic stun weapon while they’re in action:

• The Atom (Ray Palmer), shrunk down in size, flies through the Hive’s computer while talking to the Green Arrow.  As Hive soldiers approach his location, The Atom enlarges back to his normal size and takes each one out.
• Sara Lance is in Tibet where she’s fights men who try to assault a female.
• Firestorm (Martin Stein and Jefferson “Jax” Jackson) chases a terrorist at a chemical plant.  Jefferson “Jax” Jackson and Professor Stein argue about the use of Firestorm’s powers near such combustible chemicals.
• Hawkman (Carter Hall) and Hawkgirl (Kendra Saunders) have just saved a woman, but Hawkman criticizes and angers Hawkgirl about her flight skills.
• Captain Cold (Leonard Snart) and Heatwave (Mick Rory) have pulled off a successful robbery and are now in pursuit by the police.

They all wake up on the rooftop, confused and not knowing where they are.  Rip introduces himself and gives them a pep talk.  He tells them that Vandal Savage lives due to a single cell surviving after the events of the Arrow / The Flash crossover where they’ve seemingly defeated him.  He cannot be killed unless the death blow is delivered by either Carter or Kendra.  Everyone is still unconvinced, so Rip tells them that they will one day become legends and shows them what will happen 150 years from now if they don’t join him.  He lets them mull it over for 24 hours.

The Atom consults Green Arrow on what he should do.  The Atom wants his life to have meaning and wants to take this chance.

Carter and Kendra argue about going with Rip.  Kendra wants to run because Vandal has already killed them for centuries.  Carter suggests having a friendly duel where the winner will get to choose what the next step will be.

Sara and Laurel spar and train.  Laurel thinks that Sara should go on Rip’s mission.  Sara is being offered the chance at finally becoming a hero.  Laurel tells her to become the White Canary.  Before Sara leaves, Laurel presents to Sara a new Canary suit that Cisco made.

Mick is against joining Rip, but Leonard sees a silver lining — they will be traveling to the past where DNA analysis and fingerprinting don’t exist or are still in their infancy.  This would make their crime spree that much easier.  Convinced, Mick agrees to go.

Stein is excited to join Rip, but Jax has no desire to go.  Stein then muses on how he might be able to convince Rip to allow him to go without the benefits of being Firestorm.  Deciding to go solo, Stein proposes a toast to celebrate this new adventure.  Unknown to Jax, the drink was laced with a sedative which knocks him out.

As they arrive at an empty field, Rip greets them.  Rip finally reveals the ship, named the Waverider, which has been cloaked using futuristic technology.  Boarding the Waverider, Rip tells them that their first mission is to go to 1975 to consult with a professor named Aldus Boardman who has found a way to track Vandal.  Rip initiates his ship, and Jax finally wakes up, albeit furious at what Stein did.

Back at the field, two people observe the Waverider take off.  At the same time, a soldier arrives and concludes that the two are not integral to the timeline.  He quickly executes the two by disintegrating them.

The Waverider arrives at its destination and the occupants feel the results of time travel: Mick vomits; Ray falls to the ground from vertigo; and Stein is temporarily blind.  Rip leaves Jax, Leonard, and Mick behind while the rest of them look for Boardman.  Rip has arrived just 24 hours before Boardman is to die as this will lessen the impact on the timeline.

Reaching Boardman’s office, they find him asleep.  When he wakes up, he instantly recognizes Carter and Kendra.

On the Waverider, a bored Sara suggest that they hit a local bar.  Leonard and Mick quickly agree, but they all leave Jax behind.

Boardman tells the story of how Vandal Savage was in love with Chay-Ara, but she loved Khufu instead.  Vandal then killed Chay-Ara and Khufu out of jealousy.  Because Vandal, Chay-Ara, and Khufu are linked by the radioactive properties of the meteorite, every time Vandal kills the two of them, he gains their powers which helps him maintain his immortality.  Boardman then reveals that Kendra and Carter, in a previous life, were his parents.  The two were murdered by Vandal right in front of him.

Rip asks Boardman for the location of Vandal.  Boardman tells the team that Vandal hides in the shadows and has been the cause of various great wars, all to lessen attention to himself.

At the bar, Sara gets the unwanted attention of a male patron.  He gets a bit too aggressive which causes Sara to quickly retaliate.  When she’s finally outnumbered, Leonard and Mick join in on the fight.

On the Waverider, Jax tries to get Gideon to take him back to 2016.  However, she only takes commands from Rip.  Suddenly the ship is rocked by an attack.  Gideon identifies the attacker at Chronos — a temporal bounty hunter.

Boardman gives Rip a notebook that contains his life’s research into Vandal.  Stein is suddenly overwhelmed by the feeling that Jax is in trouble.  As the team starts to leave, Carter and Kendra refuse to go without Boardman.

The team returns to the ship to find it under attack by Chronos.  Hawkgirl ambushes Chronos and is later assisted by Hawkman.  Under cover fire from Rip, Ray and Stein run back to the ship to transform into The Atom and Firestorm, respectively.  In the battle, Boardman is critically injured.

Boarding the Waverider, Rip has Gideon take them to the temporal zone to hide.  After having both Kendra and Sara punch him, Rip admits that he’s acting alone and that Chronos was sent by the Council of Time Masters to stop him.  He chose the eight of them because, contrary to what he originally told them, they do not matter to the timeline.  If they were to die, there would be minimal to no impact to the timeline.

What Rip didn’t lie about was Vandal’s brutality.  The Time Masters discouraged their council members from marriage and procreation, but Rip fell in love and later fathered a child.  Vandal later killed his family — the mother and son seen during the prologue.  Rip promises that once the Waverider is up and running, he would return the eight of them back to the present.

Kendra visits Boardman in the infirmary where Boardman gives her a necklace that was given to him by Kendra in her previous life as his mother.  Kendra and Carter mend their differences.

At another part of the ship, Stein apologizes to Jax for drugging him and forcing him to go.  Stein wanted to have a few last adventures and didn’t think of how Jax would feel.  Jax, impressed by what Stein did during Chronos’s attack, states that he still sees many adventures left in Stein.  Jax has a change of heart and doesn’t want to go home anymore.  He admits to feeling a rush seeing all of them operate as a team, and relates it back to his glory days playing football.

A depressed Ray laments to Sara, Leonard, and Mick about how they don’t matter and that they might as well just be dead.  He’s frustrated that his destiny has already been written for him.  Sara tells Ray that Rip only stated that in his future, all of them were nobody.  She thinks that if they have the power to change the world, then they would have the power to change their own fate.

Kendra and Carter exit the infirmary and tell Rip that Boardman has died.  Kendra blames herself, but Rip tells her that time is sometimes immutable — time will make things happen.  They will face many enemies, and one of these will be time itself.  The rest of the team then join them with a renewed sense of purpose.  United, Rip has Gideon plot a course to find Vandal.

In Norway, Vandal stands among dead soldiers.  Him and his men have stolen a nuclear warhead and plan to use it.

Next: DC's Legends of Tomorrow: Their Time is Now Recap

Legendary Moment(s): Hands down, the battle scene between the team and Chronos.  A great unification of powers and abilities.  I also have to throw this in there: it may not be “legendary”, but it was humorous as all hell — Mick getting Vandal’s name wrong and calling him “Randall.”

Thoughts for Tomorrow: We had some really cool Easter eggs tonight.  The biggest one is Gideon.  Now my DC universe juices are flowing.  How is Gideon related to Eobard Thawne, who was the big-bad in The Flash Season 1?  Is Eobard also a Time Master?  He did travel through time.

Legends of Tomorrow is also rewriting the importance of some of these characters.  We all know that in the comics, The Atom and Firestorm are immensely important.  It’s interesting that in this series, Rip notes them to be of minimal impact to the timeline.  And let’s also not forget that Captain Cold and Heatwave are switching sides to become good guys now.  Hey, if the writing works, go with it.