Spoilers DC's Legends of Tomorrow Season 5

I noticed there was no thread for the new season, so I thought I'd go ahead and start one.

Episode 5x01 "Meet the Legends"

I thought this was a great setup for the new season. The idea of "encores" sounds fun, though I hope they don't go too far with them - I don't really want to see them tackle Hitler, for example.

Mona's leaving - can't say I'm sorry to see her go. The Waverider was getting pretty crowded last season, and now that they aren't dealing with magical creatures, there doesn't really seem to be a need for Mona anymore.

I tried reading the crawl during the news footage at the beginning, but all I caught was "Ryan Reynolds to star in "Detective Beebo" live-action film" (which I would totally watch). Anybody catch anything else?

 

I love this show so much.

They've completely abandoned any and all remnant fucks. They have absolutely none left to give. Constantine drinking a Rasputin marmalade? Amazing.

 

Cute, but implausible. It can't be that easy to convince the public they're frauds.

Speaking of frauds, the famous story about the "unkillable" Rasputin was just propaganda invented by his enemies so that their assassination of him would seem like an epic defeat of a formidable demonic force instead of just "Hey, we shot a frail older guy in the head." But then, I guess DC-Universe Rasputin could've been more genuinely formidable -- although in that case, I wish they hadn't treated him as so much of a joke. Sure, Legends has embraced comedy, but even in comedy-adventure, it's important for the villains to have a genuine sense of menace. Rasputin was our introduction to the idea of great historical villains being restored to life, and if that's supposed to be a major threat to drive the whole season, then it should feel like a big deal.

It doesn't help to have his big plan be "I'm going to assassinate the Czar who's going to be forced to abdicate 3 months from now and executed in a year and a half anyway." Okay, I guess the idea was that he'd become the Czar himself and thus the Bolsheviks wouldn't be able to take power from him, and presumably a Russia ruled by an immortal Rasputin would be worse than a USSR ruled by Stalin, but that's kind of a big ask. They didn't really sell the threat.

Also, how is it that Nate doesn't know what Zari looks like? If Behrad's been a Legend for the past 2 years, how is it he never showed his teammates a photo of his sister, or they never met socially? Well, maybe that'll be explained.

Anyway, I'm surprised the story was post-Crisis. I'd gathered that they shot much of the season before Crisis was filmed and that the plots would be pre-Crisis, but I guess they had enough advance knowledge of the story that they could incorporate it. I'm relieved, because I thought it would be a while before we saw any consequences to the Legends.

 

So is Ava officially a Legend now?
This was a lot of fun, I'm glad they're continuing just be goofy and crazy.
The encores seem like they should a interesting threat for the season. The stuff with Rasputin was pretty fun.
I liked Mona last season, but there are enough other great characters on the show I'm not to sad to see her go.
All of the stuff with Legends being celebrities and the whole documentary style of the episode were a lot of fun.
I wonder if we'll actually see Nate and Ray use their powers more this season? For a while it seemed like they had forgotten they even had them.
The set up for Nate looking for Zari was nice, it will be interesting to see what happens when they run into this timeline's version of her now that he knows about their relationship.
I liked Behrad, so I hope he gets to stick around for a while.

 

Yeah, they're the "Break the 4th wall" of the Arrowverse with all the "Oliver's dead?...Yeah well he shouldn't have done the Crossover..." and other bits that yeah, I chuckled at.

 

The io9 review calls her an "interim member," but I don't know if they have a source for that.

The idea of the government discontinuing the Time Bureau is weird, but then, the idea that the TB answers to the US government has been weird for a while. It was initially set up by Rip Hunter, presumably in the future, and it just had a sort of branch office in 2010s Star City. Yet somehow the show just dumped that idea and started pretending it was a strictly present-day US government operation.

 

This was an ok episode. It would have been 100 times better without the documentary gimmick, but it still ended up being ok. I'm glad Mona is gone, she's like Gary but even more useless and the show doesn't need one Gary, let alone two. I thought that the actor playing Rasputin...wasn't great. I wish he'd been more scary then goofy, and the writing didn't help.

But the idea of "encores" is interesting, I'm really interested in what is going to happen with Zari, and the scene of Ray stopping Rasputin and Constantine drinking the Rasputin juice to go to hell were all great. Overall this was a flawed episode, but with some good stuff.

 

With the current plots this season with the TB and DEO and the way Crisis ended, I think they're setting up for them to establish some unified Superhero organization next season, with each show getting its own "branch" and Thea and Felicity (And possibly Cisco depending on what Carlos decides to do.) running it all off-screen.

 

A time traveler makes money by stealing rare shit from the past, or investing in worthless companies that will later be valuable, or compounding interest with banks.

Rip wanted all that money now, so that he could grow it into a useful sum over the next 500 years.

 

I think the "unified superhero organization" was established at the end of Crisis, though at this point it's more a "for crossover-scale emergencies only" sort of thing. But yeah, I like the idea of Overwatch setting up shop in the STAR Labs Hall of Justice and coordinating all the various local hero teams.

 

I just remembered one other thing I liked, Gary as Constantine's apprentice/assistant. Gary has been a favorite since he was introduced, and this was a great use of him.

 

If you haven’t done so, call the phone number in the episode for a laugh.

 

They killed a time demon with a giant Beebo. Plausible left the building a long, long time ago.

 

Implausibility about human behavior is harder to accept in a story than implausibility about paranormal phenomena. And even fantasy should not be used as a crutch for giving characters an easy way out of their problems. I just think it's too artificially easy a way to wipe away the consequences of their fame.

 

I might have to give that a try, where in the episode is the number?

 

It's on the John Constantine business card that Gary gives to someone on the street.

 

I have to agree with the recap on io9 that Constantine always seems like he’s on a different show to everyone else.

 

I must have missed a few episodes last season as I had no idea who that Indian guy is. I also don’t even remember who the villain was. I remember them building a theme park.
I wish their show was a tad more serious like season 2. It’s getting too silly now.

 

In a universe where people run around in spandex pajamas with sticks and bows and arrows and shooting fire from their eyes?

It's all too silly.

 

I kinda feel he should. After all, he's a Vertigo character in a DC world. And his own show was a lot darker and creepier than Legends, though it was network-tame compared to the comics. I wouldn't want the show to lighten him up too much.