Another week, another awesome on Legends of Tomorrow. The recurring theme this season has been all about what it means to be a hero and Outlaw Country continued with that theme. Season 2 has really found its balance with its adventure of the week episodes providing a showcase for our legends to work through their issues while also stringing along the greater mysteries of the season. This week, the team found themselves back in a familiar time period, and saving/helping a familiar face.
As someone who isn't really a big fan of the old west, or Jonah Hex, I was pretty skeptical going into this episode that I wouldn't enjoy it so I couldn't help but start out a bit agitated as the show started in Liberty, Colorado circa 1874. We see an unnamed time pirate who appears to be tracking something, and he is interrupted by a band of outlaws, who don't seem to take kindly to his presence at this abandoned mine. He tells their leader that there is a rare and powerful ore in this mine and they could actually split it. He shows them his fancy tracking device and tries convincing them they could work together and all be rich. Of course, he tries to double cross the outlaws and ends up dead and they end up with his tracking device and knowledge of the ore. (Yeah, this is sure to turn out really great)Meanwhile, the team is grappling with the fact that their rogue time traveler is a speedster and is helping Damien Darhk. Sara notices that the amulet they recovered is similar to the ones the Nazis were after so she assigns Nate to look into it, while Stein and Jaxs will compile information about speedsters. Jax thinks this is the time to tell the team about Barry's warning from the future, but Stein is too distracted by his headaches that he brushes him off while assuring Jax everything is fine. Nate finds that the amulet doesn't exists in any books, but Sara says it has to be referenced somewhere if it's in front of them. Nate complains( a recurring theme with him and a rather annoying one at that) that he's a hero now and that he doesn't need to be in a library and then the time seismograph just happens to go off and alert the team to an aberration in the old west.
Nate is pretty excited about getting out the library and putting on cowboy garb and be a hero, while Ray is all "I've been there, done that" and essentially trying to put Nate in his place by mentioning how well he did in the old west last time they were there. Ray also finds Nate's plans for a superhero suit and then to make himself feel better calls Nate a rookie and tells him that if Nate follows him, he'll show him the way to be a hero in the old west. (#rayistheworst) The team minus Stein (He's got headaches) heads to the ground to find out whats going on in Liberty, Colorado. What they find is Jonah Hex in the midst of being hanged. Nate, the cocky little SOB, decides to rush in and save him. He goes steel and starts reflecting bullets and catching them in his mouth causing a commotion that ends up expediting Jonah's hanging. Sara manages to shoot Jonah free from his noose and instead of saying thank you, he just seems annoyed to see them. On the ship, Hex inquires about Rip and is a bit aghast that Sara is acting Captain because she's a woman. Thankfully, before things get too tense, Nate comes in and lets them know that history has changed. Everything west of the Rocky Mountains is going to become Turnbull Country and that is the aberration they are here to stop. Coincidentally enough, Hex was after a bounty named Turnbull so now they have a common goal. Turnbull has taken over the town and has either driven residents away or has them working in the mines. Turnbull has an office above the saloon that's guarded by a dozen men, so she of course she sends Mick in to rabble rouse and lure him out. Amaya is paired with Mick to keep an eye on things because Mick is still Mick(aka the greatest) while she sends Jax, Nate and Ray on an undercover mission to pose as tax collectors to get a look at what Turnbull is doing in those mines.
Nate is again displeased that he's relegated to doing the less exciting tasks. Ray manages to find a ledger while they are digging through the office, but they are interrupted by some of Turnbull's goons. Guns come out when Jax mentions Turnbull wanting to run his own country but they manage to knock the goons out and escape. Instead of going back to the ship though, Nate wants to cowboy up and go undercover and head into the mines. (Did anyone else catch those passive aggressive taps Ray and Nate gave each other? Too Funny) Somehow, these clean shaven 'criminals' manage to convince Turnbull's men they also work for Turnbull by simply having bandannas over their faces. Meanwhile, Mick is doing a fine job of causing a commotion and he catches Turnbull's eye. Yet, instead of luring him out as planned, Mick and Turnbull end up bonding over Turnbull wanting to keep the wild west, wild. Back on the ship, Stein(Who I completely forgot about) is having Gideon run tests to figure out what is wrong. Turns out, his symptoms have to be mental because Gideon finds nothing physically wrong with him. He just wants Gideon to run the tests again to be sure. Back in the mine, the dude trio discover that the ore in the mine is actually Dwarf Star and there's a lot of it. Conveniently, Dwarf Star is the same thing that gave Ray's ATOM suit it's power. They also find the time pirate's tracing device just laying around as well answering their question about how Turnbull even knows about Dwarf Star. (OK, C'mon. Someone as power hungry as Turnbull would just leave this device so it could fall in the hands of anyone who may also want to rise to power? I can't accept that)
While Mick and Turnbull chat it up, Jonah is outside, refusing to follow Sara's orders because she's a lady. So he rushes in the saloon, guns blazing ready to take Turnbull in, but jokes on him as he ends up with several guns turned on him. Turnbull is pretty excited at the opportunity to test out his new weapon on Jonah. Just as he fires, in comes Sara literally cracking the whip and throwing off Turnbull's aim so his Dwarf Star energy bullet misses and tears a whole in the wall of the saloon. They manage to cause a commotion and escape outside to rendezvous with the dude trio while taking cover from Turnbull's powerful bullets. Mick, being Mick, decides to go at Turnbull shotguns blazing but it turns out the guns are empty. A disappointed Turnbull takes aim at Mick, but Nate goes steel and intercepts the bullet. He obviously thought he could just reflect it like the bullets earlier but instead he ends up wounded as the bullet pierces his steel and settles between his inner organs. They get Nate back in the ship and Gideon calculates he has a 51% chance of survival. Knowing Nate will be okay, Sara goes to lay into Jonah as to how he compromised the mission. Jonah tells her about his past with Turnbull that has given him this vendetta. Jonah tells Sara about the whole Calvert thing that was alluded to last season with Rip. Jonah was hired to protect the town from Turnbull, which caused other towns to stand up as well. To send a message, Turnbull then had the citizens of Calvert rounded up in a church which was subsequently set on fire. Jonah just barely manged to escape but not before he got his scar. He doesn't think Sara could possibly understand that, but she assures him she does because she has her own vendetta she wants to settle but is powerless to do so. Since she can't settle her own, she'll gladly help him settle his though. While those two bond over their ability to get lost in the idea of revenge, Jax confronts Stein on his headaches. Stein says he thinks he's just seeing visions as a side effect of so much time travel but Jax quickly dismisses that logic as Stein succumbs to another one right in front of him. Stein tells Jax that the visions have all been of some woman, who is a complete stranger to him, except that she's also not.
I will say, I really enjoy the dynamic between Mick and Amaya. Vixen's edition has really given the team, and more importantly Mick, a good straight man to play off of. Amaya is trying to break through to Mick after the failed mission that he caused by chumming it up and Mick flat out tells her that the animal she saw in that bar is who he really is. She tries to tell him that she knows he's more, especially from what Sara told her about him, but he shuts that down and basically says that everyone just lets the other think that Mick is really apart of the team when he's not. (Poor Mick) While those two fail to bond, Nate and Ray actually end up succeeding at doing so. Nate is being hard on himself after waking up saying maybe he should just stay in the library. He tells Ray about how he stood up to a bully as a kid, got his ass beat and then spent the rest of his life afraid until he got his powers and that changed...until now. Ray then chooses this time to not only throw in a nice little dig about how Nate destroyed his suit, but offer up some wisdom about how he felt when that happened. Ray tells Nate that facing Shogun without his suit he was afraid but in that moment he realized that weakness is what makes him a hero and that there is no bravery without fear. Nate ends up comforted by that, after Ray apologizes for getting lost in his own train of thought. The word train, ends up sparking Ray to figuring out what Turnbull's plan is. He tells Sara and Jonah that Turnbull plans to place the Dwarf Star on a train traveling the Summit Pass and blow it up, effectively destroying the only way the East could get to the West and stop him from taking over.
Sara sends Nate, Jax and Ray to stop the train, while her and the others will head to the mine and take down Turnbull. At the mine, she sends Mick and Amaya off to plant the dynamite, while she puts Jonah in cuffs and disguises herself as a bounty hunter(with just a bandanna) in order to get Turnbull to let his guard down. Her plan works and he's so elated to finally have Jonah, he even volunteers to tell them his plan before he kills him. Amaya and Mick light the dynamite but run into some trouble with some of Turnbull's goons. Mick ends up losing himself to his rage and Amaya has to tell him to put the animal away so they can escape before the mine explodes. Outside, Turnbull is just about to tell them his master plan when the mine explodes. Sara reveals she's really a lady and Jonah breaks free from his cuffs and takes down Turnbull. (That was pretty anti-climatic if you ask me) Back at the train, Nate's brilliant idea to stop it from reaching its destination by getting n front of it, going steel and literally stopping it. It sounds crazy but in the end actually ends up working and the crisis is adverted.
Back on the ship, Hex tells Sara he's going to do the right thing and turn Turnbull in and even commends her turn as captain despite being a lady before heading back out to collect his bounty. Amaya tries to get through to Mick by speaking in metaphors about fire, but he sees right through it. She ends up telling him that he was right, and that he is that animal who wants to watch the world burn but that's not all he is. She tells him that she doesn't want to deny the animal inside of him, but that she also doesn't want it to control him and she wants to show him how. While those find some common ground, Jax and Stein realize the visions that he's experiencing are because he caused a temporal dissonance by meeting his younger self and changing the past. The only problem is, the girl that he's seeing in these visions he's pretty sure he's in love with, which really doesn't bode well for his life with his beloved Clarissa. Finally, Nate and Ray bro it out as Ray reveals to Nate that while he;s working on making himself a new ATOM suit, he tool the time to make Nate the suit he wanted so much. Before they can finish geeking out on it though Sara comes in and tells them that they are needed by their friend in 2016. Thus leading us into the 4 part DCTV crossover that will conclude with the next Legends episode.
This was an okay episode. My major old west bias aside, I really enjoyed the dynamics that got explored in this episode. I'm really looking forward to seeing the partnership between Amaya and Mick develop and how exactly she helps him tame the animal inside of him. While I still think Nate and Ray are essentially the same person, I did find their bonding nice. While, I'm glad it looks like Ray is getting his suit back, I am kind of bummed it happened so quickly and easily. I just felt that really had the chance to provide some depth to Ray by really exploring who he is outside of the suit and so far all we've really seen is that he's an insecure mess without it. I hate that Stein was so isolated from the group this week, but I hope his realization at the end gives him some juicy plot going forward and I'm pretty excited about that. I hate when someone of Victor Garber's caliber is underutilized. It was nice to see Jonah Hex again and get some backstory on him via his vendetta against Turnbull. One thing that I didn't like about Hex is how he didn't feel Sara was fit to be leader because she's a woman. This is a plot we also dealt with in the JSA episode and it just feels really redundant that the only real challenge they can find for Sara to deal with externally as leader is people thinking she can't because she's a woman. Yes, I know both of those times it was men from the past making those accusations, but once was enough, twice is just annoying. I think Sara is really coming into her own as Captain and I just hate when the show has her leadership questioned just because she's a woman. I can't wait to see how she reacts when Stein and Jax finally tell her about Barry's message and how they kept it from her. She is the Captain, they should trust her enough to tell her something that major. All in all, I enjoyed this trip about as much as the last time, it was solid for character, convenient for plot, but not doing much to move forward the main story line.
C-
Character(s) of the Week: Mick and Amaya. From their initial interaction in the JSA hideout, to when she tried to kill him because she thought he was Rex's killer, these two have had an interesting dynamic. I really enjoyed seeing her breakthrough Mick's walls even just a bit and acknowledging who he really is, and also telling him that's not all he is. He made seem like he doesn't care, but I think being around all this do-gooders and feeling like an outsider gets to him, so him actually listening to Amaya and being accepted by her is a big deal and that's why they are my characters of the week.
The next episode of Legends of Tomorrow, 'Invasion!' is part of the epic DCTV 4 show CW crossover event. This will be the conclusion of the event and it will air 12/1/16 at 7pm CST on the CW.
What did you think about Outlaw Country? Are you excited about the Crossover? What are your thoughts on the crossover so far? Sound off Below!
About the Author - Winston Mize
I always have the most trouble coming up with a blurb to describe me. Which is really weird for someone who wants to make a career out of writing. If you think I'm awkward online, it's just because you haven't met me in person. I'd like to think I have other interests outside of TV, and maybe I do, but TV is the one that gets me most excited. I live a pretty boring life so TV's the way I get my fix, and I'd love to chat about it with you. I'm also always looking to guest or start my own podcast, so if you've got the opportunity, I'm in there like swimwear. You can check me out with different previews of various shows or read my reviews of iZombie, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and Legends Of Tomorrow here on the site. If you're a fan on One Tree Hill you can check out my podcast about as well by checking out our twitter page @OnlyOthPod.
