[Editor’s note: This review may contain spoilers.]
Director: Mairzee Almas
Writers: James Eagan & Ray Utarnachitt
Stars: Victor Garber, Brandon Routh & Caity Lotz
Summary
The Legends try to rescue a hacker in 2042 from a time traveling assassin while Vixen goes on a vision quest.
Positives
The hacker, Zari, is a nice addition to the cast. Tala Ashe is charismatic in her performance and the character has some fun moments. Her backstory is interesting and timely. I appreciate that the writers brought a Muslim character into the show.
Sara wants to help Zari simply because Zari is in trouble. There’s no personal motivation; she isn’t trying to impress Rip or prove how much cooler she is than Ava. She knows she can help, so she does, even when Zari screws them over. I appreciate that since the characters tend to be selfish on this show.
Negatives
Tonally, this episode is all over the place. Part of the episode is focused on Zari and her situation. She’s living in a police state in which religion and meta-humans are banned. Her family has been hunted due to being Muslim in an allegory to Trump’s Muslim ban. That’s heavy material that does work. But it’s combined with Nate getting high off his ass and stumbling around the ship. Way too much of the episode is focused on this and completely ruins the mood and the tone the episode establishes with Zari’s story. It’s a consistent problem with the show but this episode is an extreme example.
Verdict
This episode is okay. It is the best episode of the season so far and one of the better episodes of the show. Zari is a potentially cool character and her introduction is an interesting story. The characters are acting more like superheroes and aren’t as incompetent as usual. But the episode feels the need to ruin all that goodwill with goofy comedy that doesn’t play at all and conflicts with the serious themes the episode has.
