In Season 1 Episode 10 of Legends of Tomorrow, titled Progeny, the Legends travel to the year 2147 in an effort to stop Vandal Savage’s rise to power. Violet recaps this episode of Legends of Tomorrow and we both provide a review of our thoughts!
- Violet’s review and thoughts on Legends of Tomorrow episode, Progeny
- Josh’s review and thoughts on Legends of Tomorrow episode, Progeny
Legends of Tomorrow, Season 1 Episode 10 – Progeny Recap
Rip Hunter visits Rory at his cell to ask him for his help. Rip also apologizes to him, telling Rory that his quarrel should be with him, not with Snart.
The ship arrives in the Kasnia Conglomerate in the year 2147. Their goal is to figure out how Vandal Savage’s actions lead to his rise to power.
The Legends go for a stroll in the city. Rip explains that in 5 years a deadly virus will be unleashed. They witness a thief steal a purse, immediately followed by autonomous ATOM suits apprehending the criminal with laser fire.
Rip, Sara, and Snart head to the Kasnian Corporate Headquarters to attend a board of directors meeting. Rip is able to insert a contact lens to pass as a shareholder, but the bodyguard won’t let Sara and Snart through with him. At the meeting, Vandal Savage expresses the opinion that “the herd must be thinned” in response to the world’s population becoming unsustainable. However, their leader, Tor Degaton, does not agree.
After the meeting adjourns, Rip follows Savage and eavesdrops on a conversation that he has with Tor Degaton’s son, Per Degaton.
Rip reports back to the others that Vandal Savage is Per Degaton’s tutor, and tells them that Per Degaton is the one who unleashes the Armageddon virus after his father’s death in 5 years. This primes the world for dictatorship, and Savage eventually kills Per Degaton and takes his power. Rip’s solution: kill Per Degaton.
Other than Rip and Snart, the team is against killing this innocent child. Rip’s alternate solution is “removing him from the timeline.” They come up with a plan to kidnap Per Degaton. While Rip, Sara, and Snart kidnap Per Degaton, Ray, Stein, and Jax will sabotage the ATOM robot army.
Before they head out, Ray notices that something is bothering Kendra, but she tells him not to worry about her. Kendra’s memories of a past life in 1920 return to her. Carter comes home, and Kendra expresses concern about Savage finding them. Just then, their son wakes up, and they comfort him.
Sara gets into position with a sniper rifle, while Snart is the eyes on the ground. Sara shoots one of Per Degaton’s bodyguards, while Rip seamlessly falls in line as the guard’s replacement. Then when the group approaches Snart, he shoots them with his cold gun, and Rip is able to take Per Degaton.
Dr. Bryce shows Ray, Stein, and Jax around at the place where the ATOM suits are made. They soon see a statue of Ray’s head and find out that Dr. Bryce’s great great great great grandfather, Dr. Palmer, founded the company.
The three return to the ship, and Ray doesn’t understand how he’s someone’s great great great great grandfather. However, Ray recalls that he had been sleeping with someone who hadn’t returned his texts for awhile. Jax thinks it might have been because she was pregnant. Ray laments the fact that he was someone’s father and didn’t know it. Ray runs into Kendra, and she can tell that’s something wrong, but he pretends like there isn’t.
Kendra remembers more from her 1920 life, and she and Carter discuss how to explain to their son, Aldus (the same son we met as a grown up earlier in the season), why they keep moving. Kendra is still worried about Savage finding them. Kendra and Carter share a passionate kiss.
Gideon analyzes the timeline, and reports that kidnapping Per Degaton didn’t change anything. Gideon further reports that no matter where they put Per Degaton in the timeline, Savage will still rise to power. So they’re back to Plan A: killing Per Degaton. Jax suggests talking to Per Degaton, and Sara also agrees that it’s not too late for him to change.
Sara goes down to talk to Rory, and mentions that no one thinks he can change. Sara also tells Rory about the things Snart told her about him when they were about to die. She emphasizes that Snart is his loyal friend. Rory expresses the opinion that killing a kid is not very hero-like.
Savage volunteers to get Per Degaton back from his kidnappers, as he knows who took him.
Rip takes Per Degaton with him in the jump ship, and turns off the transponder, so that the team won’t know where he went.
Kendra remembers more from her 1920 life. She and Carter tell Aldus the story about how they met in their first life.
Ray finds Kendra, who confesses that she’s been having not only memories, but also feelings about Carter, and that she feels like she’s cheating on Carter with Ray. Ray confesses about the child he didn’t know about. They consider what this means for them.
Sara has a chat with Snart and encourages him to talk to Rory.
Rip brings Per Degaton to a neutral site outside of Kasnia, next to a lake. Rip tells Per Degaton about his son Jonas, and Per Degaton figures out that Rip brought him there to kill him. Rip confirms that he’s taking Per Degaton’s life in exchange for his son’s, and points his gun at him. However, Per Degaton calls his bluff, as he can see it in Rip’s eyes that he’s not going to do it. Per Degaton is right, and Rip can’t bring himself to go through with it. Rip tries to warn Per Degaton about Vandal Savage using and betraying him, but Per Degaton doesn’t believe him. Rip thinks that there is goodness inside of Per Degaton and tells him to be the man his father wants him to be, not the man Savage wants him to be.
Meanwhile, Savage brings forces to attack the Waverider. The team goes outside and fights back with full force. Ray tries to fend off the ATOM robots, but they’re too strong, so he and Kendra go to the command center to disable the robot army, while FIRESTORM tries to hold them off in the meantime. Dr. Bryce catches Ray and Kendra in the command center, and demands to know where he got his suit, while pointing a gun at him. When Ray tries to explain that the world will be destroyed if they don’t disable the robot army, that he’s the one who designed the suit, and that he’s her 4x great granddaughter, he finds out that he’s actually not — it’s his brother, Sidney. They ask for her help to disable to robots, but she is skeptical.
Back at the Waverider, the robots drop to the ground. Savage takes Sara hostage, and says he wants to exchange her for Rip. But Rip walks up pointing a gun at Per Degaton’s head, and says he’ll exchange Per Degaton for Sara. Per Degaton tells his father not let them go, saying that they’ll come back for them in the future anyway. Tor Degaton agrees that he’ll let them leave in peace if they let his son go. Rip releases Per Degaton and Savage releases Sara. Snart warns Per Degaton to get a new mentor.
Snart goes to talk to Rory and makes a proposal to let their fists do the talking in a fight to the death. Rory agrees.
Kendra goes to Ray and asks him not to give up on them. She tells an insecure Ray that Carter is her past, while he is her future. They share a kiss.
Per Degaton tells Savage that he would like to continue his studies. Savage tells him the Greek Mythology story of Oedipus Rex, and implies to Per Degaton to kill his father, even giving him a knife. That night, Per Degaton sneaks into his father’s bedroom and stabs him with the knife, killing him.
Gideon reports that their actions merely cemented Per Degaton’s rise to power, and that the virus that wasn’t supposed to be unleashed for another 5 years will now be released within days.
We see that Savage takes over for Tor Degaton as Per Degaton’s proxy, since he is not yet of age.
Rip asks Gideon if he did the right thing. Gideon replies that not committing murder is generally considered the right thing. But Rip isn’t so sure.
Rory and Snart fight in Rory’s cell, but Rory holds back once he gets the upper hand. Snart is frustrated, saying they had a deal, that if he kills him, he walks. However, Rory says it doesn’t matter whether he stays or leaves, they’re all dead.
Rory explains to everyone that since he failed to bring them in, the Time Masters want to bring him in, and this time, they won’t take any chances. They’re sending out Hunters, which are mercenaries with no human part left in them. The Hunters do one thing: kill, and will track down the Legends and will not stop until all of them is erased from the face of history. Rory’s only suggestion: run.
Violet’s Review and Thoughts of Legends of Tomorrow, Season 1 Episode 10 – Progeny
I really wanted to like this episode. I love futuristic stuff. Then when the Armageddon virus was mentioned, I got a little more excited, because a population-killing virus is also a favorite subgenre of mine. Of course, it wasn’t set to happen for another 5 years, so it’s not like we were going to get to see it, this episode at least.
The episode soon turned into a moral dilemma: should they kill this innocent child in order to stop Vandal Savage from decimating the world? Rip didn’t like the idea, though was willing, if it meant saving lives (particularly his own son’s), while Snart was all for it (still being the “villain” of the group), and the remainder of the team was decidedly against it. Snart has been kind of inconsistent in his opinions. Sometimes he seems like he has good in him, while other times he seems like he’s trying to hold onto his “badness.” Wentworth Miller still does his over-the-top acting, which still annoys me. I was hoping he’d tone it down by now. It seemed like he did briefly, but it’s back now.
Anyway, so Rip’s alternate solution, rather than kill Per Degaton, is to “remove him from the timeline” by kidnapping him. For some reason, kidnapping him doesn’t stop Vandal Savage’s rise to power, and Gideon says that it doesn’t matter where Per Degaton is placed in the timeline, Savage will still rise to power. So Rip’s conclusion is that they have to go back to killing him. Which I don’t understand. Killing Per Degaton seems like just another way to “remove him from the timeline” — which Gideon has already said will not work. I don’t know how Per Degaton being dead is any more effective than them bringing him to any other point in time — like the Stone Age, as Snart suggested. They never even asked Gideon how the timeline would be affected if they killed Per Degaton. Maybe it wouldn’t even matter if they killed him. Basically, the team arrived too late in Per Degaton’s life, since he had already become too trusting of Savage. Perhaps if they had gone back to when Per Degaton was younger, he could have been more easily influenced to be good. That’s the thing about this show, that there’s always these little things that you questions, things that the show doesn’t quite make clear. I try to overlook them, but they just keep coming up.
Then there’s this whole dilemma Ray has about him being a father. When was he even seeing anyone? He and Felicity had just barely broken up when he was presumed dead in the Palmer Tech explosion, and taken captive by Damien Darhk for months. Then he was recruited to join the Legends pretty soon after that. So he had enough time to be sleeping with someone, her to figure out that she might be pregnant, and ghost him? I do not buy this timeline, pardon the pun. It was all for this weak twist that the statue that looked exactly like Ray turns out not to be him at all, but some brother, who also happens to be tech-savvy, that we didn’t know about. Are we actually going to meet this brother on Arrow, since he supposedly will go to work for Felicity at Palmer Tech? Also, this was to add to awkwardness between Ray and Kendra. While it is interesting that we are getting to see some of her backstory, and with a younger version of a character we have already met, I’m a little surprised that her love for Carter hasn’t come up before, considering that she had already declared her love for him in the episode that he died. I’m still waiting on the episode where we run across Carter in another timeline.
But as if Vandal Savage wasn’t enough to worry about, now there’s these “Hunters” that the Time Masters have sent after the Legends — to kill them. I suppose not every episode can be about finding and stopping Vandal Savage.
Josh’s Review and Thoughts: Legends of Tomorrow, Season 1 Episode 10 – Progeny
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