'Legends of Tomorrow' Recap: Captain Cold Loses a Hand and Chronos's Face Revealed
Warning: This recap for the “Left Behind” episode of Legends of Tomorrow contains spoilers.
Rip is always going on about how time travel has consequences, and this week we get a first-hand look at what exactly that means. Not only do we see what being trapped in the past for two years looks like, we also learn what happens when you leave an unrepentant criminal in the hands of the Time Masters.
The Plot
Chronos takes over the ship and sends it careening around the temporal zone while he absconds with the jumpship and Snart. Ray, Kendra, and Sara are trapped in the past for two years by the time Rip regains control of the Waverider. Ray and Kendra have built a life in suburbia, but Sara has disappeared. They track her to Nanda Parbat where she is wholly under the control of Ra’s al Ghul. The team is captured, and Rip offers a trial by combat: Sara versus Kendra. The fight is interrupted by Chronos, who is revealed to be Mick Rory, reprogrammed by the Time Lords to be a bounty hunter. They stop him, resolve to undo the damage the Time Lords did to him, and head for 2147 — the last lead they have on Vandal Savage before he takes over the world.
Two Years Later
Obviously, this isn’t a show about domestic tranquility or the slow pace of life in 1958, but a lot happened in those two years, and it’s a shame we only got to see about four minutes of it. Kendra and Ray were basically a married couple and the eternally optimistic Palmer eventually gave up on being anything really. His future knowledge would likely have torn apart the time stream if he used it. In many respects, Kendra became the barista she always had been, but there must have been deep scars left in Ray’s psyche — especially when Kendra threw those years away like they were nothing.
Speaking of Missing Time…
Heat Wave’s return was inevitable, but the way he came back was completely unexpected. Up until now, Chronos has been a yapping dog — annoying and omnipresent, but never that big of a threat. Now that we know he’s got a vendetta — one that’s festered for some uncountable amount of time in the Vanishing Point — he’s a much scarier dude. Again, hopefully we see what that torture/brainwashing/time mastering was like, but this show has a lot of characters to service.
Related: Read all of our ‘Legends of Tomorrow’ Recaps
What Is It With the Hands?
Why does every fantasy or sci-fi show has a thing about chopping off hands these days. Jaime Lannister on Game of Thrones, Phil Coulson on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Malcolm Merlyn on Arrow. And now Captain Cold freezes his hand off to escape Chronos. Fortunately, they have the technology to regrow it, but still – you’d think everybody on TV wants to be Luke Skywalker these days (Ash from Ash vs Evil Dead gets a pass since he had his hand chopped off in 1987).
Heat Wave and Captain Cold Together Again
You gotta sympathize with Snart: He couldn’t keep Mick on the ship and he couldn’t just kill him. But also, as Old Yeller or Of Mice and Men or pretty much any book written before the ‘60s will tell you, if you don’t put down your rabid dog/accidentally homicidal friend/deliberately homicidal friend, bad things happen. It’s telling that Snart is the only one who gives up on Mick at the end of the episode. Only time will tell if he’s right.
Legendary Thoughts
Line of the Night: “Yeah, we were meant to be tortured and executed in Nanda I Can’t Believe I’m Back Here Parbat.” Hey, why don’t they sic Ra’s al Ghul on Vandal Savage? Oh, right. Because they want a Season 2 for Legends.
How many of you were hoping they would leave Snart’s hand cut off and just graft his Cold Gun onto the stump? Groovy.
Legends of Tomorrow airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. on The CW.
