Violet recaps Part 2 of the Legends of Tomorrow pilot, where the team continues to track down Vandal Savage in 1975! Following the recap, both Josh and Violet share their thoughts about the episode.
Don’t need the Legend’s of Tomorrow episode recap for Pilot, Part 2? Click here to jump directly to Violet’s thoughts on the episode!
To see Josh’s thoughts on this week’s Legend’s of Tomorrow episode, Pilot, Part 2, click here to get directly there!
Episode Recap of Legends of Tomorrow, Season 2 Episode 2: Pilot, Part 2
The team arrives in Norway in 1975. Kendra and Carter want to go back and save their son, but Rip Hunter says they can’t go back and change events in which they participated. Continuing their search for Vandal Savage, according to Gideon, there’s a large meeting of terrorists there looking to buy illegal arms. Rip directs the team to a fabrication room so that they can get dressed in clothing appropriate to the time period.
Captain Cold proclaims that he’s calling the shots, but Rip reminds them that he’s the one in charge. However, they ignore him, and head straight to the meeting.
Captain Cold, Heat Wave, Dr. Stein, and Sara go together to the meeting. Captain Cold swipes some credentials from someone on the way in, and when the bouncer gets suspicious, Dr. Stein talks their way in with threats. Meanwhile, Jax, Hawkgirl, and Hawkman hang back nearby, maintaining radio contact with the others.
In the meeting, it turns out that Vandal Savage is the seller, not a potential buyer. He puts up a nuclear warhead for bidding. The buyers each shoot a gun to signal their bid. Meanwhile, Savage senses Hawkgirl and Hawkman nearby. Stein says they should bid so that they don’t look suspicious. Unfortunately, no one bids after them, and they win. Damien Darhk goes over to meet the team, since he’s never seen them before. Stein tells Savage that before paying, they need to make sure it works, and lets it slip that he’s doubtful that there were enough materials “in this era” for it to be workable. Savage catches the slip, but Stein tries to play it off as a figure of speech. Savage then says he’ll give a 25% discount to the organization that brings him the heads of the buyers.
Just then, Hawkman, Hawkgirl, and Jax come in, and fighting breaks out. It turns out Atom was hiding in tiny form in Stein’s pocket, so he turns back into life size and joins the fight. Hawkman and Hawkgirl confront Savage, but he turns on the timer on the nuclear warhead with 2 minutes to detonation, then gets away as the fighting continues. Ray flies into the warhead in tiny form to try to stop the timer, but this causes the timer to drop down to 30 seconds. Firestorm picks up the warhead and flies to a nearby island. When the timer gets to 0:00, they have 0.06 seconds to absorb the atomic energy, which they do. There’s only a small hole of damage on the island.
When the team returns to the ship, Rip Hunter scolds them. He also tells them that Savage’s men found a part of the Atom suit that fell off. As a result, Savage’s team will use the future tech to their own means, and Rip shows them a forecast image of a destroyed Central City in 2016. Once Savage’s team figures out the future tech, it’ll no longer be a forecast, it’ll be history.
Carter shows Kendra a newspaper article that he found in Boardman’s pocket. It has a picture of a knife, which Kendra recognizes as the knife that Vandal Savage used to kill them in their first life.
Ray says they just need to track the alpha particles to find the missing piece of his suit. However, the only way to do that is to track down 1975 Martin Stein to get a particle tracker. Just then, Kendra and Carter come in with the newspaper article. According to Boardman’s notes, the dagger needs to be wielded with the incantation inscribed on the dagger. However, they don’t know what it says. Captain Cold volunteers to steal the dagger from the Russian who bought it. Heat Wave and Ray go with him. Dr. Stein, Sara, and Jax go to see the younger Stein. Rip warns Stein that interacting with his younger self could have catastrophic effects on the future.
Rip’s ship takes the three to Ivy Town in the U.S. The younger Stein notices them staring at him and comes over to talk. Dr. Stein introduces himself as Elon Musk, and says that Sara and Jax are his lab assistants. The younger Stein goes by “Marty.” They compliment his work, and he invites them to talk about physics with him.
Back on the ship, Carter tries to spark Kendra’s memory so that she can read the inscription on the dagger. He has her try to remember her first life. She remembers the two of them in bed together. In the present, he tries to kiss her, but she pulls away.
Vandal Savage tells his men that he believes the group at the arms sale is from the future. He gives them 24 hours to reverse engineer the part from Ray’s suit. One man protests, saying that’s not enough time. Savage uses the piece to kill the man, and reiterates his deadline of 24 hours.
Ray, Captain Cold, and Heat Wave try to sneak into the Russian’s house. Ray jumps the gun and disables the security system – or so he thinks. Captain Cold and Heat Wave know that it was a dummy box, and Ray just made a rookie mistake. Security guards soon show up, but Captain Cold and Heat Wave easily knock them out.
Marty smokes a doobie, and tries to pass it around, but Dr. Stein disapproves. Marty tells them about his particle tracker. While Marty goes to get some munchies, Dr. Stein starts looking around for the particle tracker.
Meanwhile, at the Russian’s house, they find the dagger. However, Captain Cold and Heat Wave want to have a look around inside the house to see what else they can steal. Ray disagrees with their doing so, and he and Cold get into a fist fight, which knocks an item off of its pedestal, triggering a cage to drop down, trapping them.
Dr. Stein finds the particle tracker, but just then Marty comes back in, catching him red handed. Marty has gotten suspicious of the three, but Dr. Stein pretends that he’s there to profile him for a prestigious journal, and tries to borrow the particle tracker. However, Marty is still resistant, so Sara hits Marty over the head and knocks him out. Dr. Stein sets an alarm so that Marty will wake up in time to go to the faculty mixer that night, at which he will meet his future wife.
Heat Wave goes to search for a way to trigger a system default to free Ray and Captain Cold. Meanwhile, Cold takes a look at the wiring of security device inside the cage with them. Ray helps him out.
Back on the ship, Kendra apologizes, explaining that the more Carter says they’re destined to be together, the more she wants to prove him wrong. He is understanding, and says he knows she’s worth the wait. Kendra remembers that Carter was the one who gave her the knife, and that the inscription on it was a love poem, promising that they’d be together forever.
Dr. Stein, Jax, and Sara infiltrate Savage’s lab. Sara easily takes out his guys, and takes the missing piece of Ray’s suit.
At the Russian’s mansion, it turns out that the owner is Vandal Savage himself, who has returned home and holds a gun to Heat Wave’s head.
When Dr. Stein, Jax and Sara return to the ship, Dr. Stein notices that his ring is flickering. He realizes that Marty must not have gone to the mixer. Just then, Marty enters the ship and demands to know who they are and where they’re from.
Meanwhile, Vandal Savage has guessed that they’ve come from the future. He knocks Heat Wave out with his gun, and recovers his communication device, which he tosses to Ray and tells him to contact his friends.
On the ship, Marty explains that he has tracked his own tracker, and he and Dr. Stein angrily argue with each other. Jax takes Dr. Stein aside to get him to calm down. Dr. Stein laments the arrogance his younger self shows, which is the same arrogance he displayed at the weapons bazaar. However, Jax reassures him that he’s a good guy. Dr. Stein returns the particle tracker to Marty and tells him to get off the ship. Just then, Rip Hunter enters and sees that they have another visitor, but doesn’t inquire further.
Captain Cold radios in to the ship and reports what’s going on, so the ship travels there. Soon, FIRESTORM flies into the mansion and attacks Savage, hitting him with a nuclear blast. Outside, the team reconvenes, and FIRESTORM reports that Savage is down. Cold hands the dagger to Hawkman and Hawkgirl, who fly inside to finish the job. Meanwhile, friends of Savage show up, so the rest of the team hold them off.
Hawkman and Hawkgirl confront Savage. Hawkman throws himself at Savage and stabs him with the dagger. However, Savage does not die, and instead takes the dagger and stabs Hawkman. Savage explains that this was his lover’s blade, so it must be her that wields it. Hawkgirl flies at Savage in rage, but he easily swats her aside. Kendra goes to Carter’s side and holds him as he dies. When Carter dies, Savage absorbs the energy from his death.
Kendra again tries to go after Savage, but he easily holds her off, then stabs her. Just before he is about to deliver a fatal stab, Atom blasts him off of her. The team quickly returns to the ship with Kendra, and puts her in the medical lab for Gideon to heal her. Just before Kendra passes out from sedation, she expresses regret that she didn’t get to tell Carter that she felt the same way. Gideon is able to stabilize her.
Rip Hunter brings Dr. Stein to the university, and tells Dr. Stein to look at his hand — his ring has returned. Rip explains that he contacted Marty and told him to go to the faculty mixer. They watch as Marty and his future wife kiss. Dr. Stein thanks him for risking the timeline for him.
Back at the ship, Rip asks the team if they want to stay, or go back to 2016. They all agree to stay and pursue Savage to get vengeance for Carter.
Violet’s Thoughts on Season 1 Episode 2 of Legends of Tomorrow: Pilot, Part 2
Well, that was a shock. I definitely didn’t see it coming that the show would kill off one of the main characters this early in the season, and in what still technically the pilot, no less! But I guess of all the characters to kill off, Hawkman has had the least screen time on Arrow and The Flash, so he’s probably the character that the audience cares about the least. But even though this version of Hawkman is dead, that doesn’t mean that we won’t see him again. After all, this is a time travel show, so it’s possible that the team could encounter Hawkman in any of his numerous other lifetimes. It sure seems like it was an effective way to unite the team in a common goal of vengeance for their fallen team member.
Despite there being so many constant characters, I feel like the show has been handling the balance well, considering that thus far it appears that everyone’s screen time has been divided more or less evenly. I was initially a little skeptical about how such a large cast would be handled, but they’re doing a good job so far. Each team member has also been allowed to have their personality that we are familiar with show through, so that’s a good thing that they’re staying true to that, for the most part. Even though Captain Cold and Heat Wave are now on the “good guys” team, they still stick to their roots, trying to see what they can steal.
One thing I didn’t buy was Kendra’s abrupt change in attitude toward Carter. From what we had seen so far, she hadn’t seemed to display any romantic feelings toward him, and had been resisting her destiny, since she still can’t remember much from their past lives. I didn’t feel like they’d grown much closer even after this episode, when Kendra remembered them being in love in their first lives. I felt like Carter hasn’t been doing much in the way of wooing her in this life, and is instead depending on her remembering their past lives and taking it for granted that that’ll be enough. But from Kendra’s point of view, all she can really remember is the last twenty-something years, of this lifetime only. At the end of the episode did she remember everything? If not, then from what we’ve seen, I don’t feel like that was enough to change her mind that completely about Carter. I was kind of hoping that with Carter gone, she would be able to explore other options, since to me it didn’t seem like she had fallen in love with him yet in this lifetime. For example, Cisco and Kendra seemed to have a great relationship. But I guess they had to throw in that sudden realization from her at the end so that she would be devoted only to Carter.
Overall though, I really enjoyed this episode. When put together with Pilot, Part 1, it’s a great pilot as a whole. Even when the episode ends, you don’t know where they’re going next, but you definitely want to find out, and join them for the ride. I, for one, am excited to keep watching!
Josh’s Thoughts: Legends of Tomorrow, Season 1 Episode 2: Pilot, Part 2
COMING SOON
Scenes from Legends of Tomorrow, Season 1 Episode 3: Blood Ties
Here are scenes from the next Legends of Tomorrow episode, titled Blood Ties:
I was surprised they killed off Carter so early. But, there are a lot of characters to keep up with in an hour long show.
You know, I thought there was no where for this show to go but up, I was wrong, I don’t foresee a season 2 for this show.