Let’s be real for a moment. The fun thing about time-travel is, of course is the ability to go anywhere in time. Julius Caesar? No problem! Meet Abe Lincoln? Cool Beans! The 2004 Oscars? Okay, weird choice, but why not? Those times and so many others are available. Yet if you look deep in your heart, the first thing you would do with time travel is see family while they were alive or/and young. That’s what I would do and I suspect the majority of the reading audience would as well.
Mick Rory gets this and so much more in “Welcome to the Jungle,” when he comes face to face with his pa in the jungles of Vietnam. And of course, they meet each other by pointing guns at one another. Mick doesn’t want anything to do with his “daddy issues” as he’s very cool with killing his father. However, Nate is all “Operation Tough Love!” and this leads to some bonding moments between Mick and Dick Rory.
(Seriously, Legends’s writers : Dick? What next? Have the team work with I.P. Freely?)
I understand what the show was going for in this episode – having Mick confront the thing that turned him into a monster: His father. Get insight into why Mick is the way he is. Thing is….Mick has changed. Mick chooses to save his friends by saving them from his father. The character growth that Mick Rory has obtained is because of his time with the Legends., especially last season. Mick may have gotten to see a new side to his father, but his real family will always be the Legends. Also Mick punching out his father was probably more therapeutic than any Nate talk could give him.
As for the rest of “Welcome to the Jungle” – how you’ll enjoy the episode is determined by how you feel about one character: Gorilla Grodd.
MONKEY BUSINESS
So, Gorilla Grodd is one of those characters that people feel one way or another about. Hardcore comic book fans geek out every time he’s on screen while the more casual comic book/tv fan is like “why is there a talking ape on my screen?” It never feels like there is a in-between. As for “Welcome to the Jungle,” I think this was Grodd’s best appearance. His Flash episodes have been hit or miss (leaning towards miss) but here we got a Grodd in the shadows that has made soldiers on both sides worship him.
Zari, Amaya and Ray go undercover as reporters to try to find out more but in typical Legends fashion lately….they get captured. Grodd’s plan of starting WW3 becomes a plan to capture the Waverider to create a gorilla planet from the beginning.
(Though the way men act, this already is a gorilla planet)
Thanks to a quick thinking Stein, a increasingly sassy Gideon and a smack to the head of a mind-controlled Sara by Issac Newton, Grodd is kicked off the ship into a napalm-caused fire in the jungle. I hope the ASPCA wasn’t watching this episode.
BUT….Grodd does not perish as through some timey-wimey magic, he is transported instead to present day. And who’s there to meet him but of course a Mister Damien Darhk. After a few glowing words, Darhk offers him the chance to time-travel with a single thought. Score another one for Team Mallus!
Overall a good, but not great episode that was hampered by no Sara Lance hardly in the episode. She is one of the most important characters in the Arrowverse and the hole she left in this episode just could not be filled no matter how many historically figures you threw in there (HI LBJ) As we head to the crossover, the course of the season is starting to take shape. Mallus is getting a team of all-stars but we need to see this start to pick up more traction. I don’t want Legends of Tomorrow to become just like Vietnam – Slogging along for no purpose in sight.
OTHER THOUGHTS
- This show can miss a lot of people on here but it can’t survive without Caity Lotz. The heart and soul she brings to the show as Sara Lance and how it was missing in this episode was in full effect.
- “Ah Vietnam. Crappy War. Bitchin Music.”
- I don’t know about you but I like Ray/Amaya more than I do Amaya/Nate in my ship pairings for team members.
- Sorry Jax but I rather have the medal than a pecan pie recipe.
- As for why Issac Newton was there, Stein brings him in to figure out ways to give the Firestorm power to Jax. This subplot has been going for a long while but I only see it ending in tragedy I think.
Legends of Tomorrow airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on the CW.