DC’s Legends Of Tomorrow has a cosplay caper on a train

DC’s Legends Of Tomorrow Photo: The CW

Getting trapped in time ought to be a cinch for the Legends, but in “The Need For Speed” it’s not so much how they’ve been stranded that’s the problem—though, that is also absolutely a problem—it’s when.

The year: 1925. And for the entirety of last week and a good chunk of this week the primary location of the Legends’ predicament has taken place in Odessa, Texas, a time and place where most of the cast on DC’s Legends Of Tomorrow can’t operate openly without all the worst kinds of attention getting thrown their way. That means the possibility for incalculable danger, not just for the crew of The Waverider, but to the timeline. Remember: they have no time courier, no Gideon (at least, not one that can help them right now), no ship, and thus no stable means of getting themselves closer to a solution without giving the entire game away. If Sara’s making-it-up-as-she-goes-along plan to get her crew to New York City so the Legends might have a chance to not only escape 1925 but also set their anachronistic gaffes straight, most of her crew needs to be benched.

As luck (or possibly fate) would have it, that’s not necessarily a problem right now. Zari’s nursing a broken heart, so popping weed gummies and guzzling whip cream in John Constantine’s hellborne manor is what she’s gonna be up to if anybody needs her. Sara and Ava, the masterminds behind the increasingly notorious Bullet Blondes gang, decide they need to, er, “let off some steam” and “bunk up” in the same stately interdimensional haven to “knock some boots.” (Sex, they run off to have some sex.) Spooner and her mother Gloria host Astra on the Cruz ranch outside Odessa while everyone attempts to communicate with the new sentient brunette that was once The Waverider’s central A.I., Gideon. So at least six of the Legends have things to do that don’t involve institutional racism and social bigotry, thank you very much.

That leaves Nate, Gary, and Behrad out in the open, train-bound towards what they hope is a solution to their troubles while also evading all the prying eyes who have taken notice that J. Edgar Hoover of the Federal Bureau Of Investigation is riding the rails with them. Their interstate ruse: make like they’ve apprehended the Bullet Blondes (though that part is technically true), stash them onboard the train, and hope nobody gets wise for the duration of the trip. It works and it doesn’t. (Gary’s specially-made fizzy elixir is responsible for Nate’s transformation into the famed G-man—just add soda pop. Oh, and hair from the corpse of J. Edgar Hoover, currently digesting in the tummy of Gary Green, nebbish Time Bureau operative and also an actual alien being.)

Nate spending time in the skin of Hoover has to be rough on the historian who was inadvertently responsible for the FBI director’s untimely (and unchronicled) demise last week. “I murdered a man, Sara,” he tells his captain, those nigh-perfect jawbones clenching in anguish. “And for the first time in our lives we have to accept that that could be permanent.” Later, Nate breaks down Hoover’s legacy for his team just to articulate the historical impact that would be made if he did, in fact, die in Odessa in 1925. There’s a lot of bad in Nate’s history lesson of Hoover (think a less sciency Beakman’s World with far superior hair) but there’s a faint note of respect in there, too. (Nate really gets into his subterfuge a bit later: “We’re looking for anyone who has a reason to hurt HOOVER!”) Whether it’s the heavy burden for having caused Hoover’s death or Nate’s respect for history that’s responsible for this reverence, the episode later seemingly nips it in the bud with an enhanced interrogation sequence that involves a Russian suspect who once had the misfortune of crossing Hoover’s path. (Nick Zano is spectacular in this sequence, by the way; his delivery hits confident vocal highs and drops to anxious whispers by the second, he’s great.)

“The Need For Speed” doesn’t directly wrap up Nate’s murder-guilt arc, however (perhaps it’s a seasonal arc?), opting instead to have him engage in an impromptu, vaguely thematic, and ultimately fruitless therapy session with members of the Chicago mob who’ve been sent by Al Capone himself to kidnap J. Edgar. “You can’t outrun a lie forever,” Nate tells a gunsel. “Eventually, you just end up hurting the people you care about.” (You’re talking to bloodthirsty gangsters, Nate. Legends!)

Early in its seventh season, DC’s Legends Of Tomorrow finds the crew of The Waverider at once distraught over their temporal quagmire and pretty damn chill about it. Towards the end of this week’s brouhaha Sara Lance puts the kibosh on the episode’s big plot twist—a version of J. Edgar Hoover that pops in out of nowhere and turns out to be a Terminator kinda robot, which indicates to the Legends that mysterious parties may have some stakes in their latest time-jaunt—but that’s long after she’s spent the majority of the episode laying around in that awesome black robe of hers. (The property of a former Constantine flame?) It’s long been established that these sort of scrapes are old-hat for the Legends, but it sure would feel more exciting if, just for a change of pace, someone took this kind of stuff kinda seriously. (Not earnestly, like The Flash, or severely, like Arrow, but, y’know. Make it feel like what’s happening might actually wreck things for real. Consequences!)

Luckily Astra and Spooner are more assertive this go-around, even in their B-plot (Olivia Swann and Lisseth Chavez work very well together, by the way): Astra comes to grips with giving life to Gideon (a development that will likely get more air next week) and Spooner remembers that—hey!—she has telepathy, which triggers Gideon’s ability to speak. That’s pretty darn handy, because as it turns out Ol’ Hard Drive has dire tidings for the Legends should they fail to correct the timeline. What happens once our merry band reunites in New York, I can scarcely guess, but here’s hoping Gideon ends up charting a course more thrilling than Odessa.

Stray Observations

• So I guess all of Odessa did forget that the circus was in town and performing at the Cruz property. Legends!
• I genuinely wish that Gary’s J. Edgar Hoover indigestion had remained a visual joke; it would have made him horking up a Hoover Hairball later on a hell of a lot funnier.
• Sara, to Nate: “It could have happened to any man of steel.” Between this and the Lex Luthor Post-It this week, Legends is downright spoiling us DC die-hards with the references.
• Aw, Gideon, that’s not what apples are for.
• Ava, to Nate: “My safe word is core competency.” And she meant it!
• Among the potential suspects in Zari’s wine bottle-suspects list: “Lex Luthor”, “Rasputin”, “Kuasa”, “David Bowie”, “Damien Darhk”, and “Robot”. Who knew “Robot” would take the prize?
• Just an aside, wouldn’t Ava have an opinion on Zari’s mistrust of automatons?
• “I mean, what even is a paragon?” Uh, Zari? *adjusts glasses* Sara was a paragon in the Crisis. She was the paragon of Destiny. (Don’t these people talk to each other in-between episodes?) Although, the concept of a paragon in Crisis On Infinite Earths can be kinda nebulous, both on the screen and on the comics page, so Zari’s not all the way off-base.
• What do you reckon everyone’s oscillating period accents come from? Edward G. Robinson? Foghorn Leghorn?
• What say you, group? Is Legends on the right… track this season? (Jokes!) Am I the only one who’d prefer to ride out oblivion in Constantine’s whisky-laden pleasure mansion? What do you think Gideon was trying to say with her artisanal apple sauce demonstration? Let’s talk in the comments below.