The Legends of Tomorrow crew take a trip to the 1950’s in “Night of the Hawk.” There are tensions and unanswered questions among the team, and that’s before they end up in the sleepy little town of Harmony Falls, which is, as Jax says, just like all the towns where old horror movies start. Everything looks normal until things take a turn for the ugly.
The back half of Gotham’s second season appears to have been titled “Wrath of the Villains,” as opposed to the “Rise of the Villains” that was the first half. Just as Galavan was the big bad throughout the first part, I suspect they are positioning Hugo Strange to be the serious behind the scenes menace this time around. I’m amused that they are so carefully avoiding calling him Dr. Strange, no doubt due to the movie coming out later this year. For the record, Hugo showed up in Detective Comics back in 1940, Dr. Stephen Strange not making the scene until 1963, well over twenty years later, in the appropriately, but coincidentally, titled Strange Tales.
For this week’s episode, “Marooned,” they seem to be patterning themselves off their companion show, Arrow. A good bit of the show is flashback, in this case showing us something of the origins of Captain Rip Hunter. We already know what led to his split with the Time Council, now we get to see the roots of that problem.
There are some familiar faces in new roles, as well as a few surprise reveals along the way in “Solitude,” this week’s episode of Supergirl. After the many problems with last week’s episode, this one is a lot better in my opinion. They are doing a good job of building Supergirl’s mythos up separate from Superman’s, while still including him. That’s a fine line to walk but I think they are doing it well.
At the end of last episode, the Waverider took a nasty hit from the bounty hunter Kronos, sicced on Rip and friends by the Time Master Council. They managed to get away, but the ship was badly damaged, and they went in for a crash. The trick with a ship that moves in space and time is, when crashing, you don’t know where, or when, you’re going to land.
Ravi, Liv, and Major are in the morgue as this week’s show opens. A lot of the tainted Utopium they recovered is useless, but Ravi managed to salvage enough for a test dose. A somewhat disappointed Major watches as Ravi injects one of the rats. That’s probably safer than using Major for a test subject, however much Major might prefer it the other way.
“King Shark” picks up moments after “Escape from Earth 2″ ends. Caitlin, mute, in shock, stares at the Speed Cannon where Zoom just grabbed (and probably killed) Jay as the others stand around, horrified. Barry wants to go back and help, but Wells says they can’t. All the Breaches have been closed, so there’s no way back. Mind you, Wells tends to be the pessimist of the group, but, for the moment, he’s apparently right.
If you’re going to do an action piece about a kidnapping, what else would you call it these days but “Taken”? We saw William, Oliver’s son, had been kidnapped by Damian Darhk, last episode. Well, nothing good is going to come of that, and a lot bad happens this episode. As I’ve said before, while Arrow has its faults, it is not afraid to change up the status quo.
The writers on Supergirl continue their tradition of borrowing phrases from Superman’s long history. “Truth, Justice and the American Way” was another part of his famous tv introduction back in the black and white era. The “American Way” now is possibly a bit more ominous phrase in some lights, as they demonstrate this week.
Last week, the “Legends” crew ended up in Cold War Russia. Things did not go well, and the team was divided both physically and by some of Rip’s decisions. This week, the Russian adventure concludes with a few surprises and twists along the way in “Fail-Safe.”
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