'Legends of Tomorrow' Recap: Make Way for… Legend Babies?
Warning: This recap for the “Last Refuge” episode of L Legends of Tomorrow contains spoilers.
The Legends take down another foe — one who does what they couldn’t: Going back in time to kill their younger selves. This necessitates the team meeting their younger selves (some in adorable infant form). But now they find themselves at the mercy of an even more implacable foe: Time itself.
Related: Catch Up on ‘Legends of Tomorrow’ With Our Recaps
The Plot
Mick Rory is grabbed from the night he burned down his parents house just before The Pilgrim kills him. They repeat this for Young Sara, but The Pilgrim reaches Ray before they can and bruises start appearing on Present Ray as she beats Young Ray. They rescue him but, because they can no longer see where she is in the timestream, they are forced to kidnap their infant selves to prevent their deaths. She, in turn, kidnaps the team’s loved ones and demands a trade. Rip counters by offering Young Rip who is hidden even from the Time Masters. At the hand-off, all the Legends attack simultaneously. While she’s occupied with them, Young Rip stabs her, allowing the others to finish her off. But removing their younger selves from the timestream is beginning to erase their existences, so they must travel to 2166 and face Vandal Savage at the height of his powers.
Legends of Cuteness
Yes, infant Snart is adorable and yes, Young Sara’s bangs are amazing/awful, but the real star here is Mick Rory in his early teens. Played by Mitchell Kummen, his wide eyes combine with a surly attitude in a strange and compelling way. On the cusp of trauma becoming hardness and violence, Li'l Mick is still vulnerable, but already shows the signs of the criminal he will become. His conversations with the older Mick are a kind of fun therapy as the man recognizes that he had a choice back then and he chose to punish himself. Time travel won’t allow him to change his past, but it seems likely that Big Mick may be able to find forgiveness for himself in the present, which is precisely what the character needs to make sense of why he’s still on the ship, a villain thrown in with heroes.
More Closure
Jax is able to speak to his father in another scene that might bring tears to your eyes — depending on your relationship to your father and/or the Harry Chapin song “Cat’s in the Cradle.” Like Mick, he tries to change the future and prevent his father from dying weeks after his birth — and, like Mick, that seems doomed to failure. But the effort he makes and the time he gets to spend with a man he never knew is enough. Is that what this show is about? Is the whole point of Legends that you can reconcile with — but you can’t change — the past?
The Pilgrim
For the second episode in a row, we’re introduced to a capital ‘U’ Unbeatable enemy — which they then dispatch in one quick action sequence. The tension has loosened now that Chronos is no longer on their trail and that’s a shame. Between the bounty hunter and Savage, it always seemed like they were between a rock and a hard place. The Pilgrim would have been a great replacement, but she’s a person-shaped pile of dust now and the ticking clock of kill Savage before you disappear from the timestream isn’t nearly as interesting as a badass with a gun.
Legendary Thoughts
* Did anyone else see Young Rip (nee Michael) stabbing The Pilgrim twice in the stomach with a dagger? Flashes of the Red Wedding from Game of Thrones there.
* Line of the Night: “You’re a naughty one.” “That’s right.” That poor woman has to put up with a knife-wielding maniac and a pyro? Mary Xavier (Celia Imrie) isn’t just Mother of the Year, she’s Mother of All the Years.
* For reals though: One of the most fun — and least filmable — stories from the X-Men comics is X-Babies, where the team are turned into cute younger versions of themselves. The season finale will be a crushing disappointment if they don’t form Legend Babies to take out Vandal Savage once and for all.
Legends of Tomorrow airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. on The CW.
