
Legends of Tomorrow Review: Fail-Safe (Season 1 Episode 5)
The bad writing is at it again on this week’s episode of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow. From simple plot points — like Martin Stein’s inability to recognize Vandal Savage (the man they’ve been pursuing for five episodes across time and space) — to wishy washy characters — like Leonard Snart, who talks about leaving no one behind one second and then wants to leave Ray Palmer behind the next second — “Fail-Safe” fails to deliver.
The out-of-character writing extends beyond Snart. Ray Palmer, for example, is not a stupid man. He may be mostly book smart, as mentioned in last week’s review, but he’s not completely stupid when he’s got his head in a position to breathe air that’s fresher than molecules of oxygen stuck inside the spine of a book.
That means he’s definitely not stupid enough to antagonize an entire group of prisoners in a Russian gulag. He’s especially not stupid enough to enter a prison and say hello to every single prisoner he passes like a five-year-old being introduced to old, fussy relatives. Legends of Tomorrow writers, what was that?
Moving on to Jefferson Jackson: DC’s entire audience here know that Jax is useless. The team of Legends know it. The writers know it. The ants coming in after hours to collect the writers’ crumbs of food from their Coffee Bean breakfasts know it.
However, instead of cutting their losses on an actor with terrible line delivery and a useless character, they decide to create a situation in which he will need to sprint like the football player he used to be, thereby conveying his usefulness to the team, the audience, and the writers themselves. Oh, and the ants.
Seriously?
Why couldn’t Kendra simply drop Jax off at the circuit breaker?
There is no answer to that question, other than: To use Jefferson Jackson as a character.
Let’s talk about Vandal Savage for a moment. Other than the writers’ cringe-worthy, cliche choice of enemy, why is it that Vandal Savage is alive? Why hasn’t Rip Hunter gone back in time on his Waverider and killed Vandal Savage when he was a day old? Will the writers explain this? Will they explain why the team is hanging around in the 1970’s and 1980’s instead of circa the day of Vandal Savage’s birth?
Finally, we get to Kronos- the useless man (is he a man? A robot? An android? A really tall leprechaun?) who’s been chasing Rip Hunter and his Waverider from the beginning. Logically speaking, wouldn’t someone have to be really good at what they do to get Kronos’s job? So how is it that he’s so godawful at his job? He has to catch one Waverider, not seventeen! What’s taking him so long? Is it possible that he’s simply a plot device that gets the team from one place to another? Hmmmm.
What did you think of this episode of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow? Chime in below!
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DC’s Legends of Tomorrow airs Thursdays at 8/7c on The CW.