DC’s Legends of Tomorrow Review: The Getaway (Season 4 Episode 10)
The Legends are fugitives themselves as they track down a truth-causing bug on Legends of Tomorrow Season 4 Episode 10, “The Getaway.”
While “The Getaway” may be lacking in the type of insanity that we, as of late, so often associate Legends of Tomorrow with, it does have the one thing that has so often come hand-in-hand with that.
This is a show that can have things like Beebo or possessed dolls, but in almost the same breath it can have a real emotional resonance that flows throughout its episodes.
A great example of this from earlier this season is Legends of Tomorrow Season 4 Episode 2, “Witch Hunt,” an episode that is able to have something conceivably silly like a fairy godmother during the Salem Witch Trials and still this emotional undercurrent relating it to modern times. It’s never ridiculous simply for the sake, but more in the paths it is able to take its characters that are authentic and consistent to them.
With “The Getaway,” this has a roach that is the equivalent of a truth serum — which operates as little more than a plot device. It’s fairly tame in comparison to some of the more outlandish plots, but the emotional throughlines, above all else, are what’s most important here.
The episode strips the series down to its barest components, taking the Waverider out of the equation for the majority of the episode and replacing it with a cramped RV, and essentially sees what would happen if these misfits had to be honest. Is it as inspired as some of its other entries? No, but darn it all if it’s not supremely enjoyable.
The catharsis of the episode encapsulates fairly nicely what works here, but also what doesn’t. True, the emotion is what often works for Legends of Tomorrow, but it almost has too much, mostly by narrative necessity.
Whereas a normal episode would have the one big character that tries to hit, every running subplot tries to have that, as well.
It’s not enough to have Sara confront her split with Ava, Mona grapple with the death of Konane, or Nate come to terms with his relationship with his father, it has to have all of these at once. That’s all well and fine, but it’s a bit much within one episode given how smart the series usually is with that type of thing.
On top of that, the conclusion is a bit lackluster and pat with Hank finally getting on the Legends’ side. It’s a narrative contrivance that you just have to be willing to look past in this case, but that switch is not as earned as the writers would like us to think it is.
Granted, the series couldn’t sit with this plotline of the Legends being fugitives on the run from the Time Bureau for very long and needed to move past this and this is as good of a way to do it as any. The only problem is that it comes off feeling rather underwhelming by the end of it.
Despite all of that, however, what “The Getaway” is really good at is getting us inside the headspace of Sara, a character so often has to be the proverbial rock of the cast. What she’s going through is always a bit more subtle than some of the characters and here a lot of her inner workings are allowed to come through beautifully.
All told, this one of the more decent episodes of Legends of Tomorrow, which isn’t a knock against the series in any way. This show’s mediocre still far exceeds what would pass for good on other shows.
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.