Legends of Tomorrow - 'Leviathan'

19. I will not have a daughter. She would be as beautiful as she was evil, but
one look at the hero's rugged countenance and she'd betray her own father.

It's go time, as the Legends take on Vandal Savage at the height of his power.

Evading triple-A from Savage's troops, the Waverider puts down outside Vancouver London where the crew come into contact with refugees from the city's destruction. Some suggest that Rip could go in and get his family out, but this is apparently one of the things that time is set upon, and each time he has tried this they have been killed before reaching the Waverrider. I suspect Time Master fuckwittage myself, since I'm more or less convinced at this stage that they are the real villains.

Rip takes the more violent half of the team - as Roary puts it, the killer, the klepto and the pyro - to infiltrate the Star City Stepney Rally*, where we learn that Savage has adopted the US Marine Corps' 'hoo-rah' as their version of 'zieg heil' and has a sexy blonde lieutenant who makes Snart despite their cunning plan of standing in the front row of the parade and whispering while Savage talks, but doesn't say anything. Roary and Snart trip Hunter to create a distraction while they snatch Savage, but more guards appear and they are forced to retreat.

Bling!

Snart and Roary go into the citadel to steal a bracelet from the blonde, and I just have to say that in terms of dialogue, they're killing it this episode, from Snart assuring Sara that he won't tell her the plan is to go in and steal the bracelet off he wrist, to Roary assuring Cassandra Savage - for lo, to the Devil a daughter** - that they risked their lives for it because it really works with his outfit. They nick the bracelet and the daughter, to Rip's predictable weary despair as yet another mission ends up with someone kidnapped to the Waverrider. Meanwhile, Kendra figures that she can use the bracelet by melting it down to coat Carter's mace.

Martin and Jax don't get to Firestorm up this week. Instead, they focus on offering humanitarian aid to the refugees, including sheltering them in the Waverrider when Savage sends his superweapon Leviathan, a giant fucking robot, to recover his daughter. The robot shrugs off Waverrider's weapons and throws the ship to ground, taking Martin out of the action and leaving them with half an hour before they get stepped on.

See androids fighting...

Kendra joins team hit things to take out Savage, aided by Cassandra, who has been convinced by Snart that her father really is evil and released the virus which killed her mother. They take on Savage and his guards and she dings up the immortal one but good. Back at the ship, Jax runs jumper cables into the Atom suit and Ray reverses the polarity (seriously) to take on Leviathan.

Kendra gets Savage on the ropes, but he is rescued by a masked guard whose helmet falls off at the critical moment to reveal... Carter! Savage explains that he has 'locked' Carter's mind so that he can never become Hawkman, and only he can unlock it, winning him a space in the brig and a fine opportunity to Hannibal lecture the crew.

Ray does a little better, and with moral support from Jax punches Leviathan's head clean off. Unfortunately his triumph is capped by effectively being dumped for someone Kendra doesn't know and who doesn't know him and dear lord do I want to see Kendra being something other than a weapon in a love triangle. She really ought to be a primary agent in this series, but she only joined the crew following Carter, 90% of her decisions have been related to Carter and/or Ray, and most of her actions in the show have involved her failing to do the one thing she was recruited to do***.

As the crew flits off to I don't know when to do I don't know what with Carter 2166 and Vandal Savage, Kendra remains one of the few really weak links in a series beginning to find its gear. Coming in towards the end of the series, the ability to actually do something about Savage makes the conflict more meaningful and removes the sense of futility which hamstrung earlier Legends vs Savage episodes. While Firestorm got backseated, everyone else got to do stuff and the dynamics are slotting into place. I still think that most of the stories desperately wanted to be two-parters, but such if life, and hopefully these last few episodes will carry on what we've seen here.

* Once more Vancouver, and the same set of steps where Thea Queen and John Diggle killed a League plaguebearer.
** But not either of his comic canon daughters, possibly for rights reasons, or because they wanted her to flirt with Snart instead of Sara.
*** The show is actually giving me Danger 5 flashbacks. "Make out with a nurse, prevent an outbreak of hawk-monsters, and for God's sake, kill Vandal Savage."