Legends of Tomorrow: Fail-Safe
February 19, 2016 5:27 PM - Season 1, Episode 5 - Subscribe

Snart leads a rescue mission to free Mick, Ray, & Martin from the Soviet gulag before Vandal Savage can use them to create Russian Firestorm.
posted by oh yeah! (9 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
Hey, did anyone catch the Prison Break reference?
It was really subtle.

Aside from the absolute stupidity of the characters - again they leave Savage alive, despite them having him dead to rights and having the one person who can kill him, you know, she was a barista until just a few weeks ago? - I continue to stick with the show because of the characters and because it is a limited run (also: Joe Dante is coming up, and Rachel Talalay).

I liked the fact that Ray kept taking a beating, and that Mick seems to be growing as a person.

And that Evil Russian Scientist looked a bit like Firehawk, and could up being Negative Woman (although how she almost worked out how to create a Firestorm by seeing photos of one I have no idea).

Things I thought were annoying:
Jax's accent. For some reason it just hit me that he doesn't annunciate well this episode.
Rip's popped collar and habit of keeping his hands in his pockets (and providing Savage with all the information he needs to kill his family, and the reason to do so).
The Faux TARDIS.
The plan. You need someone to run $distance, and you get the guy who can't run because he's buggered his knee and - shocking! - his knee blows out.
There's gunfire, and a rescue attempt, and suddenly everyone's standing around like there is no gunfight just outside the lab.
The need to constantly remind everyone that this is an Arrow/Flash spin off.
Ollie doesn't have his "proper" beard next week.

It's not a terrible show by any means, but it really does feel like it was cobbled together too quickly.
posted by Mezentian at 6:39 PM on February 19, 2016 [4 favorites]


Most of my problems with this show are gradually centering in around Rip. For someone who's been a Time Cop for however long, he really seems and feels more like he's just some rando who hotwired a time machine. He's a consistently terrible leader (if he wants to actually succeed, ever, he should just hand over leadership to Snart ASAP) and for someone who's supposed to be a practiced, deft hand at manipulating time, he's so far demonstrated all the finesse at time manipulation of a sledgehammer. He doesn't really even demonstrate much depth or breadth of knowledge of different times - he seems to rely on Gideon for basically all of his information. Which a smarter show could maybe make a commentary about the inevitable evolution of people relying on computers and smartphones for everything, but this does not seem to be that, it just seems that Rip fell into the trap of being Generically Handsome but Boring-Ass Protagonist.
posted by mstokes650 at 7:13 PM on February 19, 2016 [1 favorite]


The Legends' path of destruction continues...
At present they've lost a member and only succeeded in fixing the worst of their mistakes.
Now they're.. trapped in the future. (Did they actually say they're trapped?)

Hey, did anyone catch the Prison Break reference?
I did :). And it's not his first time in this universe either, he broke out the metahumans.
posted by FallowKing at 8:50 PM on February 19, 2016


It's too bad that Rip & his ship are central to the series premise, he's so badly written, I don't know what they could do to make him more interesting to watch.

Fun episode though, aside from everyone being as dumb as a box of hammers as per usual. (Like, why didn't Sara just shoot the guards around Stein while they were still in the courtyard? Why don't they take Vandal's body and keep him unconscious until Kendra can kill him properly?)
posted by oh yeah! at 9:08 PM on February 19, 2016


I second the motion to put Snart in charge before Rip gets everyone killed. All in favor say aye!

Thank you for putting Len in a furry hat and putting Ray and Mick through sexy shirtless torture, CW. I am here for all of the costuming fanservice in the Flarrowverse.

I don't care about plot and I have a huge soft spot for found-family teams, so this episode made me happy: the bonds between Len and Mick, Len and Sara, Ray and Mick, Ray and HUMANITY, Jax and Stein. Also thank you Russian Firestorm lady for finally getting the sexual innuendo of Firestorm merging out into the open! "Have you ever merged with a woman?"

We need a "Kendra bonds with the Rogues" episode and then Mick and Len will have officially adopted everybody. Except for Rip, because Len is going to kick him out an airlock for terrible leadership judgement. Are we 100% certain that Rip isn't a secret Vandal Savage plant intent on killing off Team Legend for whatever reason?
posted by nicebookrack at 12:35 AM on February 20, 2016


Thank you for putting Len in a furry hat and putting Ray and Mick through sexy shirtless torture, CW. I am here for all of the costuming fanservice in the Flarrowverse.

The sexy shirtless torture was my highlight as well. I felt a little sorry for Darville having his shirtless scene in the same episode - he looked like pre-serum Steve Rogers in comparison.
posted by oh yeah! at 6:17 AM on February 20, 2016 [2 favorites]


This episode was better, but that's from a very low bar. I was really about to take this show off my DVR if the rescue attempt was idiotic, but the character development saved the episode. And now next week I just wanna know what's up with future star city.
posted by numaner at 9:41 AM on February 21, 2016


Rip's popped collar and habit of keeping his hands in his pockets (and providing Savage with all the information he needs to kill his family, and the reason to do so).
I've had a fair amount of "stop telling people your secrets!" that actually dates back to the Flash episode when we get a drive-by from Eobard-from-the-future-but-also-kind-of-from-the past and everyone kept telling him what was going to happen, and who was important. Now we have Cold, who's usually one of the sharper pencils in the cup, telling Evil Russian Scientist who Dr. Stein was. Thanks for telling the bad guys who to kidnap and interrogate, Lenny! (Yes, Vandal would likely have pieced it together eventually, but there's no need to lay it out gift-wrapped.)

Clearly up to that point they only knew Stein as J. Random Oldguy. Similarly Vandal must only know Palmer as J. Random Physicist, or he should had someone shaking Palmer down for his miniaturization technology while Evil Russian Scientist was working on Stein. We're just lucky nobody started talking about Palmer's Atom suit in front of key villains.

I'll give Stein half a pass for spilling about the economic collapse of the Soviet Union, because he didn't have much else to stall with.
posted by Karmakaze at 11:34 AM on February 22, 2016


Oh, Ray, comparing the Soviet prison to Scout camp and smiling. Oy vey, dude.

I somehow found it very hard to believe that Sara might actually kill Professor Stein. Can't imagine why.

Still not all into this show, but I do look forward to uh, New Green Arrow. Is that Diggle's second kid doing the job or something?
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:11 PM on February 28, 2016


« Older Elementary: A Study in Charlot...   |  The Sandbaggers: First Princip... Newer »

You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments

poster