Legends of Tomorrow - Raiders of the Lost Art - Review

The Legends are back and on a new night! They'll also be back for season 3! This week as the Legends travel to Hollywood to find the Spear of Destiny and stop an aberration a lot comes to light. Rip is finally back, except he's not really Rip, he's Phil. The Legion of Doom moniker is totally catching on! George Lucas was almost an insurance salesman and Amaya and Ray are making nightly visits to bone-city while Mick and Stein try and figure out why Mick is seeing visions of Snart. Raiders of the Lost Art was another excellent outing for the much improved season 2 of Legends that even took a moment to take a swipe at itself and make a mockery of season 1's portrayal of Vandal Savage.

“Saw it on a Hanna-Barbera cartoon I watched as a kid”
We find out that after the ship was hit in New York in the fateful Nazi Battle, that Rip used the ship's time drive to zap himself away in time after he powered the ship and took stick that he had hidden beneath the floor with him( Spear of Destiny! And now it's starts making sense why Rip believes that he is Phil) We find out that Ray and Amaya are totes sleeping together when they come in on Nate in the study racking his brain over what the two amulets are for. Amaya figures out the two amulets are actually meant to act as one, while meanwhile Stein comes in on Mick talking to himself and he reveals that he's seeing the ghost of Snart. The Legends end up traveling to 1967 Los Angeles because there is a minor aberration that Sara initially doesn't want to be bothered with until Gideon informs them of an League of Assassin related connection with these murders. Damian Darhk and Malcolm Merlyn have killed two bikers in an move to get rides to track down where the spear is. (Which they know is here because of the compass amulets) Nate tells the team about the Spear of Destiny aka the Holy Lance and how it's way more powerful than anything they could ever know. yes, the legends change time, but that causes time quakes and aberrations, the spear literally rewrites reality. (I love that Ray is the one really using the whole Legion moniker that Nate gave Reverse Flash, Malcolm and Damian, those two are such nerd-bros)

In 1967, the team hunts down Rip, but they arrive just after Malcolm and Damian do. Rip Phil and his Prop-Master, a young George Lucas, are scared for their awfully wigged lives andRip Phil has no idea who the hell these people want. Phil just wants George's advice on what to do about the actor he hired to play Vandal in his screenplay legends because he's giving him nothing and isn't quite menacing enough. (Meta Moment!)The Legends try to intervene and a fight breaks out, but the police arrive on the scene and Rip Phil ends up arrested. (After he beats Jax with his script because he has no idea who any of them are) On the ship, the team is trying to figure out why Rip has no idea who they are, and why the legion is here and after him. They figure it must be because the spear is here with Rip, so they have to get him out a jail. Sara stumbles in on Stein playing shrink to Mick and they feed her some BS about a migraine, before Sara tells him they need him to go undercover as a shrink to get Rip out of Jail. Stein, Sara and Mick go in and pretend to work at a mental institution that Rip Phil escaped from and that they are there to take him back. It's convincing enough that the officer gets them in the room alone with Rip Phil. Sara tries to convince him of his real identity, but he doesn't buy it so they have to knock him out to get him out of the station. The Legends weren't the only ones with the idea to bust Rip out, as Darhk and Malcolm arrive at the station in attempt to to capture him. Thankfully, the two are stalled out by a slow elevator (that scene with them waiting was perfection) and despite and almost escape they manage to get Rip back onto the ship.

Gideon gives Rip a good look over to try and figure out why he is so sure that he is Phil. Turns out that Rip ended up with some temporal reprogramming after he electrocuted himself trying to escape. Mick, seeing Rio being scanned by Gideon wonders if they can use the same machine to figure out what's wrong with him. This lead to an incredibly funny scene where Stein is found later by Jax and Sara performing brain surgery on Mick in an attempt to remove the chip that was placed there by the time masters last season that Mick thinks could be the problem. Of course, things only get more complicated, Ray and Nate are in the study and start to lose their memories and are acting weird. The see a name G. Lucas aka George Lucas, but while it's familiar, it doesn't ring any bells. Amaya has Gideon pull up info on Lucas and it turns out that instead of making Star Wars or Raiders of the Lost Ark, films that were instrumental setting these two on the course to become heroes, he's now a three-minute insurance salesman. ( This whole episode gets really ridiculous, so it's best if you just shut off you mind and go with it) Ray actually becomes a heart surgeon and Nate becomes a yoga instructor...

Sara can't be left without her historian and her inventor, so she task them with getting to George and convincing him not to give up making films. The effort almost gets ruined when Ray and Nate kind of overdo it, but Amaya steps in and gets him back in line. Meanwhile one the ship, Jax and Sara discover the link between Rip Phil's script and his repressed memories about the team and how it's about them and how it relates to the search for the Spear or the MacGuffin as Phil calls it. Phil reveals that he did use that piece of wood as a prop on set, but he doesn't handle the props, that would be propmaster Lucas. (Conveniently) Guess who was one step ahead of Sara and Jax? Malcolm and Damian. They arrive and get a hold of Amaya's amulet rendering them all basically powerless. George tells them that he threw all of the props out, which leads Malcolm and Damian to taking them to the dump, dropping them inside a compactor and having the walls come in on them as inspiration to start digging faster for the piece of the spear. (Oh....I see what you did there Legends team) They manage to ease the collapsing of the walls and George finds the stick, Malcolm and Damian are about to shot one of them as a way to really speed things up, but the Waverider swoops and shoots them off, sparing those in the dumpster. Then the most WTF moment happens. Ray, Amaya and Nate pretty much yell at George Lucas and force him to say and believe he will be a filmmaker so they can get their abilities back while Jax and Sara distract Malcolm and Damian. This actually works and the trio join the fray, with Amaya getting back her amulet and then tossing Malcolm (I laughed so hard watching him scream through the air) like it was nothing. Meanwhile, on the ship Rip Phil is trying to figure what is happening all around him. It seems he wants to help, so Phil with the bad hair asks Gideon what would Rip do in this situation.

The Reverse Flash shows up and turns the fray into the Legions favor and things are at a bit of a standstill. That's when Phil with the bad hair comes out and pretends to be Rip again and makes a grand statement before pointing his gun at the Legion. The gun ends up not firing and the stunt goes south fast. The legends retreat for the ship, but in the midst of the fray, Reverse Flash ends up kidnapping Phil with the bad hair, giving them the upper hand again. We see later on the despite his insistence that he doesn't remember being Rip, the Legion doesn't believe him and Malcolm and Damian plan on torturing him for locations of the rest of the pieces of the spear. On the ship, Sara can;t see this as win. They may have gotten the spear, but her job as captain is to make sure that everyone makes it back safe and as long as the legion has Rip Phil with the bad hair, then she has failed. Jax happens to be the voice of reason here telling Sara that he knows how determined she can be and he knows that she will get Rip back. It's not a promise, it's a prophecy. Stein and Mick also talk and Stein reveals the the chip in his head wasn't even working, and that Snart appearing to him and questioning his loyalty in his head, is his won doubt manifesting itself. Also, the nerd bros and Amaya decide to watch a George Lucas film, but can't decide on which to watch first. They feel a bit guilty about having fun while Rip is still out there, but Gideon assures them that Rip would want them to have fun, something I highly doubt give his current predicament.

This episode was fun, much like most of season 2 has been. There were of course a lot of moments that were nonsensical that really had me questioning whose decision it was to do certain things, but nonetheless it still was an entertaining episode. This was a fantastic blend of the two components of this show at this point; wacky time travel adventures and the serialized Legion of Doom arc. There were lots of visual and dialogue references and of course some hilarious meat moments that really were great. There were even some nice character moments that were achieved out of all of this, so even my least favorite story with Mick had a purpose. I can't wait to see what happens next, because the show has done a great job of delivering twists and obstacles each week like Phil with the bad hair being kidnapped. B

What did you think of the episode? Are you liking the new Rip? Did you scream WTF at the whole George Lucas bit in the dumpster? Sound Off Below!

The next episode of Legends of Tomorrow, The Legion of Doom, airs 01/31/17 on The CW following The Flash.

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 on podcasts and become a podcasting sensation, 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.

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