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Arrowverse: ‘Legends Of Tomorrow’ Recap — Now Battling Racism & Homophobia

By Dustin Murrell
Published on: 00:44 PST, Mar 11, 2016

When the heroes had the unexpected pleasure of battling deep-space time pirates on last week’s episode of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, the battle ended with the team losing Heat Wave, who was no longer on board with the team’s time-traveling mission to save the world. This week, the team has a different sort of unexpected enemy: outdated stereotypes. And they end up losing The Atom, Hawkgirl, and the White Canary.

As they track Vandal Savage down in a Pleasantville-esque town circa 1958, they are forced to deal with antiquated, prejudiced attitudes towards race, gender, and sexuality. Oh, and Savage is using a meteor to morph people into flying monsters.

Throughout the rest of Episode 8 of Legends of Tomorrow (“Night of the Hawk”), Ray and Kendra get to act like a married couple after their first kiss, Snart and Rip go undercover as agents of the FBI, Sara falls for a fellow nurse while working with Dr. Stein, and Jax breaks racial barriers by flirting with a cheerleader.

Ray and Kendra play (interracial) house

Rip decides that the team should go back to 1958, where the only people on the team that Savage would recognize are Kendra and Hunter himself. Trying to convince Savage (now going by the name Dr. Curtis Knox, a Smallvillle reference) that Kendra is yet unaware of her powers, she and Ray pose as a newly-married couple who just moved to town.

The writers remind the viewers several times that interracial couples were rare (read “not fully accepted in society”) in 1958. Savage figures out that Kendra knows about being Hawkgirl, and he escapes before Rip and the Legends can kill him. Kendra and Ray’s relationship grows as they learn to trust each other in this episode.

Jax flirts with a (white) cheerleader

The show opens with some teenagers drag-racing, crashing one of the cars, and happening upon Vandal Savage and a glowing meteor. We eventually learn that Savage uses the meteor to turn some of his patients at the local insane asylum into bird-like creatures with large talons, sharp teeth, and a craving for human flesh. Jax meets the girlfriend of one of the drag racers who has gone missing, and the fact that he’s black doesn’t sit well with many people in the small Oregon town.

Jax is captured by the local authorities (who happen to be working with Savage) and is temporarily turned into one of the bird monsters. The team eventually finds a cure, the flying creatures become human again, and the local girl gets her high school sweetheart back.

Sara kisses a (girl) nurse

While trying to discover how a string of local murders is tied to Savage, Dr. Stein poses as a doctor and lands a job for him and his “nurse” (Sara) at the asylum. While there, Sara meets a pretty blonde nurse who can’t come out of the closet due to societal pressures. The two of them share one awkward kiss, followed by a much more romantic one later in the show.

Sara Lance of "DC's Legends of Tomorrow"
Sara Lance hasn’t had to deal with “feelings” since the Lazarus Pit, but a nurse from the 1950s is having an unexpected impact [Image via CW]

When Dr. Stein begins to reminisce about the “good ole days,” the rest of the team has to remind him that life is much easier in the ’50s for a straight, white male than it was for anyone who happened to be a woman, homosexual, or racial minority.

Next week

In the final minutes of this week’s episode, Chronos reappears and manages to board the Waverider before Ray, Kendra, and Sara return. Rip and the rest of the Legends are forced to leave them in Harmony Falls in 1958 without any explanation as they try to deal with Chronos. But just how long will they be stuck in 1958?

Where to Watch

The CW airs DC’s Legends of Tomorrow on Thursday evenings at 8/7c. Replays of the most recent episode of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow can be streamed on-demand at the CW’s website beginning Friday. Current episodes of Legends of Tomorrow (including “Night of the Hawk”) can also be streamed with a Hulu Plus subscription the day after it airs on the CW.

[Image via DC’s Legends of Tomorrow on The CW]

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