DC’s Legends of Tomorrow Review: Egg MacGuffin (Season 4 Episode 13)
On Legends of Tomorrow Season 4 Episode 13, “Egg MacGuffin,” the legends go on a 1930’s adventure for a magical egg.
One of the things that this show has always been able to do so well is its ability to make fun of a particular subgenre while also celebrating it. One of the biggest examples of this is Legends of Tomorrow Season 4 Episode 5, “Tagumo Attacks!!!,” which served as a send-up of the Godzilla films but was never anything less than a love letter.
Similarly, “Egg MacGuffin” takes a whack at Indiana Jones and other adventure properties of its ilk, and, speaking as someone that loves Raiders of the Lost Ark fully, this is basically catnip. The thing that makes this episode rise above the level of parody is that, again, Legends of Tomorrow has that adoration for the source material.
It’s fun and goofy which fits in so well with the serialized adventure stories that it’s playing with. A lot of what really makes it work is centering this around Nate’s point-of-view as basically a nerd for this sort of thing. You get to bask wonderfully in the excited energy that he’s delivering throughout the episode.
This is juxtaposed like whiplash with Ray realizing he has been possessed by Neron, and on other shows, this may not have worked as well. Legends of Tomorrow is so good at threading that line of their tone. It always feels consistent and in-step with whatever else the show might be doing.
A lot of that has to do with the overall energy that the show is giving off in all of its disparate plotlines. Whether that’s a possession story, a book club, or Mick revealing his writer identity, it all blends well together and feels of a similar piece, even when what it’s doing in any given episode is markedly different from one scene to the next.
Legends of Tomorrow has so brilliantly keyed into what its specific voice is that can slide between these, on paper, wildly different scenes and not feel jarring.
That possession plot, in particular, is rather splendid as it allows Brandon Routh to stretch a bit, which the show’s been rather good about doing this season.
So often Ray gets stuck so firmly in the resident boy scout role, something Routh can do with ease, but seeing the combination here of that chipperness mixed with a kind of horror at his situation is wonderfully entertaining.
To add onto that, you also have Gary, a character that is rightly labeled as the doormat of the series. He’s existed in that space essentially since he was introduced on the show, but to see Legends of Tomorrow finally reckon with that is really interesting.
Like Ray, Gary rarely gets to do anything other than that one role he serves on the cast. He’s the one that a unicorn can bite his nipple off, the one that you can easily have be the butt of every joke, and that works.
Here, however, Legends of Tomorrow is forced to reconcile with that impulse, and overall it’s rather effective.
“Egg MacGuffin” is the episode that will serve as the big pivoting point as Ray is basically setup as the Big Bad for the rest of the season. It’ll be fun to see what Legends of Tomorrow can do with that going forward.
What did you think of this episode of Legends of Tomorrow? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Legends of Tomorrow airs Mondays at 8/7c on The CW.
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Drew Koenig
Drew has an ongoing, borderline unhealthy obsession with pop culture, but with television in particular. When he's not aggressively trying to get out of a perpetual state of catching up, he can be found passionately defending the ending of Lost. More of his online work can be found at The Lost Cause and he also co-hosts The Lost Cause Pod.