The crew of the Waverider handles multiple tones and weird pairings of storylines and characters better than lots of other shows, but this episode is one the team has been working up to all season, and some of the earned moments don’t land as they should. Spoilers follow for Legends of Tomorrow Season 7, Episode 11, “Rage Against the Machines.”
“Rage Against the Machines”
With some help from an unexpected person, the Legends break a fixed point, creating an aberration that will attract the Evil Waverider. The Legends are soon shocked at who has been hunting them and Sara (CaityLotz) tries to negotiate which doesn’t go as planned. Seemingly out of options, Gwyn (Matt Ryan) rises to the occasion by using his military experience and hatches a stealth plan. Meanwhile, Gary (Adam Tsekhman) helps Astra (Olivia Swann) realize what she is side lining Gideon (Amy Pemberton) from the mission.
Remember all those fun characters we met in the previous episode, “The Fixed Point?” They’re dead. They’re all dead. This week is the Legends’ showdown with, well, the Legends. The other Legends, the robot ones.
This is one of the sillier episodes in a while. The Legends are trying to get their ship back even as they face off against their evil robot selves. There’s all kinds of hijinks, like Sara punching Evil Robot Nate, which breaks his jaw and gives him an Arnold Schwarzenneger accent, or when Behrad has to pretend to be Evil Robot Behrad and call his sister a toolbag. The team tries to disrupt time by giving the 1914-era townspeople access to virtual reality and showing them the unspeakable horror of the Billy Bass toy.
This is the last hurrah for these evil robot characters, so the actors really ham it up, making for a fun watch throughout. It makes the more serious moments, like the part where Evil Robot Sara stabs Eobard Thawne in the gut or when Gary confronts Astra about her overprotecting Gideon feel a little out of place. That’s even moreso the case with this being the episode where the Legends finally get the Waverider back after 10 episodes of running around trying to find a way back home instead of getting stuck in time (again).
Legends does silly better than any of the other shows in the Arrowverse, but even this feels like a push for the team. It’s enjoyable and weird–just not weird in the way I’d generally want to see.
