Legends of Tomorrow Review: A Woman’s Place is in the War Effort!
Legends of Tomorrow Season 7 Episode 7, “A Woman’s Place is in the War Effort!” takes a peek into an odd moment of American history that delves into the social issues of the time.
It’s not often that the series capitalizes on the opportunity that a time period provides to ruminate on the larger political aspects that might plague the time they’re in. That’s not to say it never does, but Legends of Tomorrow typically is more interested in the ways that could make an episode a farce.
Sometimes that means dwelling on big, important themes and other times it can be found with vikings and Beebo. These things are tools at its disposal and the show is expeditious at utilizing them. The fact is that sometimes the series can get away with not putting a spotlight on the more problematic aspects of the era they find themselves in.
This is one of the items that Legends of Tomorrow obviously felt that it couldn’t get away without touching on the inherent racism of the 1940s and the way that played into the behind of scenes of WWII. That’s a good impulse to follow and is the kind of thing that this series is rather adept at doing.
It can take something silly and make it poignant — or vice-versa — and not have either of those feel like they’re cheapening the other. It is, in general, a show that is able to vacillate between those two modes really well and make it seamless.
Making Astra be the focal point of that racial tension makes a good deal of sense. She’s a character that we’ve warmed up to over the last couple of seasons but the problem is that her interiority hasn’t always been very well defined on the show, at least in regards to her racial struggles.
It’s not unbelievable that she’s had difficulty in this area but the roadblock occurs when you think of the amount of time she spent in hell versus how long she’s been topside and with the Legends. It’s certainly believable that she’s been forced to endure a slew of microaggressions in that time but that hasn’t always been in the text.
It isn’t a bad plotline overall but it doesn’t really slap the way the episode really needs it to. It’s passable but it doesn’t feel in any way inspired like a lot of other episodes of Legends of Tomorrow have.
However, when you think back to the second season episode, “Abominations,” which was set during the Civil War and attempted very similar things to this, you can really see the difference and the improvement on a care level. That other episode felt completely unequipped for that kind of plot whereas this one feels much more up to the task.
The other big part of this episode that we can’t go on without addressing is the introduction of the Evil Legends sent by Evil Gideon, something that is really putting the subtext into text that the OG Legends are in certain ways this season the villains of their own arc.
They are the kinds of people that they would go out to stop from creating anachronisms and now they are the ones doing that damage. It only makes sense that someone would rise up from nowhere to stop them.
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 Wednesdays 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.