For the Legends, things have to go wrong before they can start going right. When last we left our heroes, they watched as the Waverider was destroyed by… another Waverider. Stuck in 1925, the crew has to figure out what comes next. Spoilers follow for Legends of Tomorrow Season 7, Episode 1, “The Bullet Blondes.”
“The Bullet Blondes”
COMFORT ZONE — After defeating the aliens and saving Earth, the Legends find themselves stranded in 1925 Odessa, Texas with a destroyed Waverider. Wanting to help fix things, Astra (Olivia Swann) tries using her powers, which creates unwanted attention from the town and that of the new Director of the Bureau of Investigation, J. Edgar Hoover, and a surprise no one expected. Realizing they need to escape, Sara (Caity Lotz) and Ava (Jes Macallan) create a distraction by going on a crime spree with Hoover hot on their tails. Meanwhile, Zari (Tala Ashe) is finding it hard to get over Constantine, so Behrad (Shayan Sobhian) suggests the only thing he knows that can help.
The core appeal of Legends is the group dynamic created by the ensemble cast. With a group of equals to play with, instead of one lead character and their backup crew, it leads to better interpersonal dynamics. When the crew is stranded in 1925, it hardly matters because they’re all there together.
The group’s fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants mentality shines in this premiere. They know they’re screwed, and vacillate between super teamwork mode and spiraling about their situation.
Ensemble Cast
The episode manages to give every character a moment to shine before splitting them up. Astra and Spooner have become two of my favorite characters to watch interact. Both characters expect to go it alone, which helps their growing friendship really resonate. Sara’s improvisational nature and Ava’s need for planning play off each other especially well in this episode in particular, leading to equal parts wacky success and trouble.
While they start together, though, the team ends up separated. After Astra tries to use her magic to reassemble the Waverider, she ends up bedridden. Can TV shows with magic figure out a way to show that magic is really hard other than nosebleeds? Anyway, Spooner wants to stay with her mother for a while. Meanwhile, Ava, Sara, Behrad, Nate, and Gary end up robbing a bank as they road trip from Texas to New York in hopes of both finding a way home and end up accidentally killing J. Edgar Hoover in a classic Legends moment.
Place Setting
There’s not much forward momentum here, but that’s sometimes the case with season premieres–Legends is doing place-setting right now. There’s this big question of who was piloting that other Waverider, of course, but then the end of the episode brings a huge twist. As Spooner and Astra sit among the wreckage of the Waverider, Astra’s magic brings Gideon to life in the flesh. We’ve seen Gideon’s actress before, of course; it’s been in dream sequences or other non-physical interactions, though, like when she and Rip Hunter kissed in Legends of Tomorrow Season 2.
The other crew, on top of their timeline-altering interaction with the FBI’s most famous director, heads to New York to find someone named Gwyn Davies. If you’ve been paying attention to casting news, you’ll know that’s Matt Ryan’s new, non-Constantine character.
So while nothing much happens, we get all this time to watch the crew interact. On the road we have mostly veteran Legends, with Behrad as the youngest, experience-wise. In Texas, it’s Spooner, Astra, and Gideon–all relatively new to the crew. Zari, meanwhile, is mourning her loss in a pocket dimension that looks like John’s mansion.
With Gideon joining the crew, it makes sense to sideline someone for a while, and the story has provided a good reason to let Zari sit out. I am surprised, though, that no one in the crew thought to do the Back to the Future Part II ending where a man delivers an 80-year-old letter to Marty in the middle of nowhere, sent by Doc Brown from the old West. But then, that’d be too easy, I suppose.
I’m admittedly super intrigued by the mystery at hand with the Waverider, and looking forward to seeing what happens.
