Review- Legends of Tomorrow Episode 7: “Marooned”

Check out Our Review [WITH SPOILERS] of Legends of Tomorrow Episode 7: “Marooned”

This week’s episode of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow features a nice little aside that allows fans to take a break from the hunt for Vandal Savage in order to get to know Rip Hunter a bit better. There are tons of little tributes and winks to Star Wars, Doctor Who, and Star Trek all over this episode as the series continues to deliver the action while never indulging in heavy handed moroseness.

The episode centers on Hunter and his crew answering a distress call from another Time Master. Hunter hopes that he can sync the Waverider’s computers with the stranded Time Master’s ship in order to locate Vandal Savage once again. Of course, things go pear-shaped as the Time Master’s ship was taken over by Time Pirates. While the episode doesn’t quite explain what the Pirate’s really want, it does allow for the cast and crew to namedrop some classic DC space characters of old like Kanjar Ro and Space Ranger. It also allows for a fun as heck space rescue.

The two main events of the episode feature a flashback to Rip Hunter’s past and a seeming conclusion to the Heat Wave and Captain Cold drama. This week, we learn that Hunter’s wife left the Time Masters in order to be with Rip. You see, love is forbidden between the Jedi err, I mean Time Lords, err, I mean Time Masters, so Hunter’s loyal future-wife leaves the order so Hunter can rise. This sacrifice makes her death at the hands of Vandal Savage even more tragic as we now understand the reasons behind the almost Ahab-like obsession that Hunter has with finding and killing the man that killed his noble wife.

Like they do every week, our Legends separate with Cold staying on the Waverider (where he gets trapped and almost freezeed to death with Sara Lance) and Heat Wave goes to the other Time Maser’s vessel. Still bitter about Cold conking him on the head last week, Heat Wave betrays the crew to the pirates. This leads to some truly powerful moments as Cold must decide between his friend Heat Wave – who we discover saved his life when the two were in juvenile lock up together – and his new crew. Cold chooses the Legends and in a heartbreaking moment pulled from “Of Mice and Men,” Cold seemingly kills Heat Wave. Whether the arsonist is truly dead is left ambiguous, but the sheer pain in Len Snart’s eyes might have been the most potent moment the show has featured since Legends began.

There is also some really fun Atom space action and some really joyful Martin Stein playing Han Solo bits that were a blast. Inexplicably though, Jax and Stein are together a good majority of the episode and under siege by the Time Pirates,ut they don’t form Firestorm once! Can someone explain that to me?

Other than that, another fun little space adventure that owed as much to classic TV sci-fi as it did to classic DC Comics with the Cold and Heat Wave rift making a good episode great.