Legends of Tomorrow Aruba review S2, Ep. 17
Aruba was a bizarre way to wrap Legends’ sophomore season. It had all the makings of a memorable season finale and to an extent, it was truly epic. But the writers’ knack for constantly sidestepping little plot inconveniences and ridiculous logic proved Aruba’s undoing.
The Legends break Rule No. 1 of time travel and return to 1916. Rip implores them not to come in contact with their other selves so of course that happens. It was hard to buy in to Nate’s emotional reaction to seeing Amaya, essentially screwing over the team. He clearly knew the mission’s success would make it so Amaya never died, but he acted like he hadn’t seen her in months instead of hours. This felt like lazy writing and more of an excuse for the sight gag of the two Legends teams interacting.
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Barry has to sit in extended time outs any moment he tampers with time but the Legends trample time and it’s all good. For two seasons everyone talks about the problems of revisiting the past. That what happened on their watch, but in Aruba, those core show guidelines are a lot more flexible and that’s a tremendous cheat.
That made the ‘shock’ of the Legends getting killed by the Legion of Doom completely devoid of suspense. They were just spares anyway, which was never more apparent than Amaya grieving over Nate only to ditch him when Nate II showed up. The Legion was ruthless in this encounter, actually doing what they should have been doing from the start of their alliance. It was almost as silly as Shane McMahon battling AJ Styles to see Jax taking down the League of Assassin-trained Malcolm Merlyn.
This season has long been about making Sara the pivotal character of the show to naturally she had the big moment against Thawne. I get this was her untouchable moment, but Thawne already proved he’d learned his lesson by killing Ray. Now he decides was the appropriate time for an extended villain monologue? And with a legion of Reverse Flashes, why would none of them decide to go after the Legend holding the game-changing Spear of Destiny first?
It was nice to see Katie Cassidy return, but this Laurel/Sara interaction felt like it came out of nowhere. All season, Sara has been proclaimed as this awesomely strong — Season 4 Felicity strong — leader and now they revisit her grieving Laurel? That was random especially since Sara seemed to make peace with Laurel’s death after being chewed out by Stein.
I’ve found it incredibly odd that Sara just straight yanked the captain’s role from Rip and didn’t even make a token gesture of letting him reclaim his old responsibility. Since no one listened to his cautions of screwing around with time, he was redundant and it’s best for him to leave the show. But it was kind of messed up the team took his ship … and potential ‘romance’ with Gideon.
They made a point to restore the previously dead Darhk and Snart with barely a mention of the Justice Society. I’m already missing the Legion, who were easily the best part of this season.
If the Legends can pop back in the time stream and fix these problems, why not restore the JSA? Especially if Amaya was all set to return to 1942? Also, if the Legends had a magical ‘make you forget everything’ Men In Black device, why not fix all of their time goofs like Stein’s conversation that resulted in him having an aberration baby?
The logic in Aruba was baffling. For those willing to go along with it and play along, this was a fun finale, but it featured way too many cheats to buy in. At least their time screw-ups have left some repercussions as the team crashes to a 2017 where dinosaurs are roaming. I can’t wait to see them get Kamandi killed next season.
Rating: 5 out of 10
Photo Credit: The CW