Spoilers DC's Legends of Tomorrow - Season 2

[LJones41]

I appreciate his view that tv viewing should not require homework to understand. My brother and his son do not think they have been that successful at that though. They were huge fans of The Flash in season 1. During Christmas I was curious if they still watch. He said they fell behind sometime in season 2 and stopped watching. Largely because of references to the other shows they didn't not watch so didn't understand.

"The Flash" was the only show I had watched from the beginning. I didn't start on "The Arrow" until last fall. The same happened for "Legends of Tomorrow". And so far, I don't watch "Supergirl". But I managed to keep up with what was going on and went with the flow.

 

[Phoenix219]

Why is it so difficult for people to understand that it is fundamentally impossible for time to be broken on Legends and simultaneously unbroken on The Flash and Arrow?

Time isn't linear. As long as each "aberration" is solved before it "sets" it will never affect the other shows. As long as the status quo is mostly restored by the end of the Legends arc, it should have no bearing on the other shows.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Removing star wars from history should have blown up the wave Rider, as half it's software vanished.

 

[Phoenix219]

I was bothered by the fact that nothing was done to save, fix or restore the JSA.

I wonder how Reverse Flash is going to come back from this.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

With apologies to Kirk55555.

Kudos to @kirk55555 for not taking that badly.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Kudos to @kirk55555 for not taking that badly.

Absolutely. I actually really like K5×5, but he does open himself up to occasional teasing.

 

[Snaploud]

I wonder how Reverse Flash is going to come back from this.

I still think Barry is destined to face another time remnant Reverse Flash. It will just be a younger version of the Reverse Flash facing Barry sometime between 2020 and 2024.

 

[Christopher]

I was bothered by the fact that nothing was done to save, fix or restore the JSA.

Well, history says they vanished in the '50s. Change that and you change everything since. It's the same reason Sara didn't bring Laurel back and Amaya didn't save Zambesi.

 

[dahj]

The imported characters from Arrow and The Flash were in the show because they already worked well enough that we wanted to see more of them. But instead of focusing on those proven characters, LoT gambled on creating other, new characters to be the focus, and the gamble didn't pay off that time.

It's kinda funny from a creative standpoint how the show was originally conceived to be entirely about the Hawks, and they would have used flashbacks to their previous lives as a narrative thing, the Legends didn't even enter into it at first. But then they figured that would be too similar to Arrow, and they also wanted to use the characters (and actors) that lost their place within the narratives of Flash and Arrow, and then the flashbacks idea became time travel and that's how Legends came about only to completely ditch the initial instigators of the idea by the end of the first season.
The show truly became someone else... something else

 

[FPAlpha]

And it's the most fun show of the Arrowverse.. yes it is full of camp, at times bad (but still hilarious) one liners and convoluted storylines (as it happens whenever time travel is involved) but the show embraces it and makes it its core and this is why besides Flash it became my favorite DC TV show.

Flash is good for drama and character relationships but it's losing some of the fun alongside with Barry constantly under stress and anxiety due to the villain of the season and it's good to have a counterbalance with Legends which is the opposite.

Arrow i have given up a few episodes ago.. the new team just doesn't work for me (most of them uninteresting/just plain bad actors), the storyline sucks and i have come to despise the flashbacks which have become a crutch and entirely nonsensical at this point.

Supergirl is a very lightweight show most of the time and is only saved by Melissa Benoist's Supergirl, that was perfect casting but the rest is as bland as they come, especially the storylines which have usually so many loophooles and logical mistakes that you could drive a truck through it. Usually i ignore this but witzh Supergirl it is taxing my patience.

So back to Legends.. only gotten to watch the season finale now and i by the end of it i actually cheered because it was so awesomely funny and campy.. Heroes be Heroes, Villains be.. well.. Villains and i even liked the last scene with Mick and Snart (a character i hated due to his speech pattern) that was a nice and touching sendoff. I am really looking forward to season 3 and hope it's as fun and dumb and camp and all around awesome as season 2.

 

[Christopher]

It's kinda funny from a creative standpoint how the show was originally conceived to be entirely about the Hawks, and they would have used flashbacks to their previous lives as a narrative thing, the Legends didn't even enter into it at first. But then they figured that would be too similar to Arrow, and they also wanted to use the characters (and actors) that lost their place within the narratives of Flash and Arrow, and then the flashbacks idea became time travel and that's how Legends came about only to completely ditch the initial instigators of the idea by the end of the first season.

Where did you hear that it was originally meant to be just the Hawks? I always figured the creative process behind LoT was "Okay, we and the audience love Caity Lotz, Brandon Routh, Victor Garber, and the two guys from Prison Break, but we ran out of stuff for them to do on the other shows, so let's make up some excuse to put them all on a team."

 

[Phoenix219]

I do remember hearing about a Hawkgirl show in development way before they started setting up LoT.... perhaps around the time the Hourman show was still a possibility. I think we were still speculating on that during Arrow Season Two, because of the miracuru and the thought it could become the one hour miracle serum. There was (at least fan talk) of Atom or Firestorm solo shows as well, when Firestorm was still Ronnie.

I believe the Hawk stuff was confirmed by Kreisberg on a Kevin Smith podcast.

 

[kirk55555]

Caught up by watching the last two episodes. Well, it seems like the CW shows have an unbroken track record of making terrible stories about alternate timelines/universe. Flashpoint sucked, the future Star City from LoT season 1 was terrible, and "Doomworld" was ever worse. It also ended with basically everything being reversed, so outside of Thrawne being "dead" and Los Angeles having dinosaurs, the last two episodes were a poorly written waste of time.

Honestly, overall this season was so much weaker then Season 1. They wrote the JSA in such a way that they must honestly either have never read a JSA comic, ever, or actively hate the JSA. The villains, while better just because they've been mostly entertaining villains in the other shows and all having decent actors, had a plan less interesting and somehow generally written worse then Savage's. The individual stories mostly sucked (George Lucas and Tolkien's stories were more cringe worthy then the "Hey look, nerds will love this" thing they were obviously going for).

We also had Rip Hunter, who should be in charge, absent for most of the season and then playing second fiddle to the non-DC character created by the Arrow writers (who obviously got the spotlight because, as a completely original character, the writers want her to be the most "awesome" character). I like Sara, but she's no Rip, and I was never convinced she was a better Captain. They wrote her as "better", but it was never convincing. We also don't lose fake Vixen because, again, as a completely original character (stealing an actual DC heroes gimmick), the writers like her, even if she has all the personality of a block of wood. Hawgirl was a pretty good character in Season 1, I wish she was still there instead of "Vixen".

There was some good stuff this season, too. Mick had a lot o good scenes, I liked Stein's subplot of him accidentally changing time and getting a daughter, and the Legends were good in the Invasion crossover. I also really enjoyed it when they killed off the "JSA" members. Its the only time I enjoyed anything related to the fake JSA that LoT used. Maybe "Stargirl" and "Obsidian" can come back for death scenes in Season 3. Overall, this was a watchable show in Season 2, but inferior in almost every way to Season 1 (which is not a good thing, because Season 1 wasn't anything great, just stupid fun).

 

[sojourner]

I love reading your reviews. They make me laugh.

 

[dahj]

Where did you hear that it was originally meant to be just the Hawks?

In the podcast that Phoenix219 mentioned.
It was initially just Hawkgirl, then Hawks, and then a team up.

 

[Phoenix219]

When the show first started, I was convinced that the line up was supposed to be different from the outset - If they had gone ahead with Blue Beetle and his tech suit instead of the Atom, would they have gone with Booster Gold instead of Rip? With a hot guy and a cold guy, I couldn't help but think of Fire and Ice. I was convinced that the original plan was for JL Detroit or Task Force... lol.

 

[dahj]

I found S2 to be an improvement on S1, they really took inventory of what worked and what didn't work in Season 1 and played up to their strengths.

They replaced an underwhelming villain with some of the most popular villains from other shows.

The overarching plot was also done much better, S1 suffered from having a goal that was exactly the same every episode(and on top of that was already achieved in the Flash/Arrow crossover prior to the show). "We will finally defeat Vandal Savage now... oh he ran away again" got old real fast.

Compare that to this season, when they had to at first figure out who the villains even are, then what their plot is, then had to gather the bits of the spear, and then destroy it, so it was never the same thing. Multiple villains also helped, and their interactions were as fun as the heroes ones.

The shift of focus also worked for the better. While S1 was mostly about the ongoing plot, S2 shifted focus to the almost standalone romp of the week and the ongoing stuff was secondary.

The time travel aspects was also reduced to basically just getting from place to place (or time to time) which is good because all the writers apparently failed even the remedial course in temporal mechanics at Starfleet Academy, so doing stories about Time Masters where some consistency on how this is supposed to work is expected was never a good idea.

The show also really embraced the idea that these people are screwups first, heroes second, and consequently is taking itself less seriously. The character interactions are fun, the situations they get in are ludicrous, and the show will certainly never win any "good writing" awards, but I found it enjoyable and entertaining every week, so I'm definitely looking forward to Season 3.

Oh, and if someone told me prior to the premiere that Mick Rory would have the most development on this show and would become one of my favourite characters I would probably have looked at them funny...

 

[Christopher]

They replaced an underwhelming villain with some of the most popular villains from other shows.

But now that they've used up just about all the top villains, that leaves me wondering what they'll do for villainy next season. Of course, it looks like it'll be mainly about the Legends cleaning up the messes they created through their own actions (the time storm), but there still need to be bad guys. Maybe a villain created by their actions, or a sympathetic-extremist type of villain who sees the Legends as a threat to history that must be eliminated by any means. Although that wouldn't be as fun as the Legion of Doom.

 

[Tallguy]

I'm in the minority that liked season 1 better than season 2. (But I liked season 2.)

I never hated the Vandal Savage story or the Hawks anywhere like what the interwebs seems to. There were some standout moments in season 2 that were crowning moments of win. 1776 managed to do the Revolutionary War AND Die Hard in the same episode. But I hated the Camelot episode, I hated the Apollo 13 episode. I never really warmed to Amaya or Heywood. (But I have finally learned their names.) And the JSA was terrible. THE JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA IN WORLD WAR II WAS TERRIBLE. That's never a good sign.

It was great to see Thawne be the Big Bad, but they never figured out how to balance Thawne, Merlin, and Darhk. Merlin seemed to always get the short end of that deal.

Season 2 seemed to be less character based and more situation based to me. (Which is funny because I always hear the opposite.) In season 1 Rip had stakes. (I never felt that the Hawks did. Weird.) The Time Masters were a more than formidable enemy. Details like the safe house for the past selves were a really cool touch. I liked Kendra and Ray getting stuck in the 50's. Mick and Leonard was the highpoint of the show. (Mick was the highpoint this year too.)

The stories had more room to breathe last year.

All that said, this is still my favorite DC show. (All three of the Arrow shows seem to be taking a step down this year to varying degrees. Supergirl is kind of its own thing.)

Jax and Stein didn't seem well used this year (as Firestorm or as partners.) And there wasn't enough Ray. They looked like they were going to do something cool when he lost his suit. Then they gave it back.

On the up side, Mick was still terrific. And Sara was amazing this year.

 

[Marc]

It was great to see Thawne be the Big Bad, but they never figured out how to balance Thawne, Merlin, and Darhk. Merlin seemed to always get the short end of that deal.

Merlyn had no powers and probably wasn't seen by the Darkh and Thawne as a possible threat so I think he was always destined (no pun intended) to get the short straw.