Previously on LEGENDS OF TOMORROW…
For being so early in the show’s sixth season, there was a surprising amount of movement of the story with this episode. It was also one of the crazier episodes, placing the Legends right in the middle of a real-life historical crisis that, if played wrong, could have resulted in a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union back in the 1960s.
It’s a perfect mission for a band of misfits on a timeship, desperately searching for their captain, who is stranded on an alien planet somewhere on the other side of the galaxy.
Surprisingly, Caity Lotz, who plays Captain Sara Lance, didn’t even make an appearance this episode. When we left Sara last episode, she had just met the man who had ordered her kidnapping. So, of course, the very next episode would give us nothing further about what Sara Lance is going through or what her captor’s plans are. Instead, we head to Cuba in 1963.
The Legends are still tracking down clues to try and find a way to rescue Sara and, surprisingly, it’s Mick Rory who gets them there best lead yet, tracking Kayla, the alien who originally kidnapped Sara, back to a compound in Havana. It’s a politically fraught time in the world’s history, as the United States and the Soviet Union are constantly on the brink of mutually assured nuclear destruction, with Cuba under Fidel Castro adding another wrinkle to the fears of the world. As if nuclear war wasn’t fraught enough, the latest episode of Legends of Tomorrow adds futuristic weapons, aliens and just a little bit (a lot) of cannabis into the equation.
Most of the Legends are in Havana (minus Sara and John Constantine, who also did not appear in the episode) trying to steal Kayla away from Castro. Somehow, they end up giving Castro a nuclear bomb, Behrad gets him stoned and just as he was about to call President John F. Kennedy to try and end tensions, Kayla escapes from Ava, and comes upon Castro. That, of course, leads him to launching his newly-acquired nuke right at Washington D.C.
Historian and Kennedy nerd Nate goes to the White House with Zari to try and keep JFK calm while Cuba was working on nuking the American capitol. With the aptly-named General Kilgore pushing for all-out nuclear holocaust, senior staff breaks into a football game in the Oval Office in a scene that I kind of wish had happened on the WEST WING.
Despite not featuring two of my favorite characters in Sara Lance and John Constantine, I think this was maybe the best episode of the sixth season so far, with a lot of very classic Legends goofiness based in modern history. Hopefully, the show has more episodes like this going forward and returns to form.