As I was watching “Amazing Grace,” even with the ghosts, the Elvis Presley and the debut of the last totem “Death” – a thought kept racing through my mind.
If it walks like a filler episode, talks like a filler episode and smells like a filler episode then it most likely is a filler episode.
Now don’t get me mistaken. Filler episodes can be good. Filler episodes can be fun. “Amazing Grace” has it’s moments of charm and groan like all Legends episodes do. It just felt like for about 90% of the episode, it was just a quirky adventure trying to save Elvis to save rock n’ roll. The preacher father who doesn’t like that “Devil Music” his son’s been singing. That story has been done what feels like a gazillion times. So that could be another reason why I feel as if this was a filler episode to a season that had been ramping up the story in the last few weeks.
The saving grace (Pardon the pun) of this episode however was the insights we got into several of the team members as they are dealing with the changes on the Waverider. That’s what First let us mourn the passing of a rat named Axl….
WOODEN HEART
Now, we all know that Mick isn’t the nicest or kindest person to ever grace the Waverider. There are still times when my head hurts from a one-liner he spits out. But this episode gave us a actually emotional moment for Mick and a little insight into how he feels about all the changes on the team.
This happens when Axl, Mick’s beloved pet rat, gets into some poison on the ship and passes away. Mick and Ray find the deceased creature on the floor of the med lab next to the tell-tale vial of poison. Also, this has to be brought up, but why do they keep poison in vial like that? It looks very unsafe. Anyway when Ray he tells Mick they can always get him another pet rat, Mick’s response is interesting to say the least. Sarcastically, he sadly says…
Because what’s one more change on this ship?
We have never got any real insight into how all of the crew changes have affected Mick. The pain of seeing his best friend leave twice now has to sting inside of him. He’ll never admit it but a part of him liked “The Professor” and Jax. Two more people that he knew and gotten use to gone from the Waverider. Even for the most hardened person, that has got affect you in some way. So when Ray holds a funeral for Axl, the tears start coming from Mick. The death of a beloved pet is one of the most hurtful things that could happen to somebody. Add onto that the leaving of his fellow Legends just in this past season and it’s got to get to even the most damaged sociopath.
Thanks to Elvis’s guitar playing on the death totem (reread this sentence for a second), Mick gets a final moment with the ghost of Axl. It’s short, but sad, as Dominic Purcell plays it so well that you can’t help but tear up a moment thinking about when you would say good-bye to a beloved pet you lost. The hurt never goes away but the love stays there forever. Mick may hate people but he loved that rat and he always will.
ALL SHOOK UP
So, the Legends found the last totem via Memphis in the 1950’s and one Mr. Elvis Presley. Casting Elvis is pretty hard, but the actor they chose for the role did a pretty good job I thought. However, the story of Elvis has been done countless, countless times. We all know he came from a religious background and had a religious father. We know without him rock n’ roll wouldn’t be what it is today.
(What it is today is a whole another story for another day.)
What i’d like to focus on with the Elvis storyline is Nate, and how we look up to our heroes. Sometimes our heroes let us down pretty hard and sometimes we never get to meet our heroes. For Nate, he’s meeting his heroes all the time. He’s meeting them at their best and at their beginnings like he does here with Elvis. Nate always keeps his enthusiasm up and has never let it make him disheartened about any of these meetings. That says something about what kind of guy he is in his heart.
Seeing Nate try to get Amaya into rock n’roll was one of the biggest times I’ve liked seeing them together on screen as a couple. Now, I’m not against the pairing but I’ve never been a full-fledge shipper of the pairing either. Here though it was lovely watching Nate showing her a true insight into him as he wanted to have the perfect music moment for them. The first few attempts go sideways but as Elvis fights off the ghosts created by his playing with the Death totem fueled guitar, they finally get their moment under the song “Amazing Grace”
(Yes, Elvis is able to defeat the ghosts by playing Amazing Grace with the assistance of the totem that brings back the ghost of his dead twin brother too. On Legends of Tomorrow, this is just a okay episode. Think about that for a second.)
So yes in the Arrowverse shows there will always be the character that annoys you and makes you want to throw things at the tv.
For The Flash, lately that’s been Ralph.
For Arrow, it’s Curtis, Rene, Dinah, Quentin, Dragon, and on and on and on and on
For Legends of Tomorrow, to me that’s Nate. But here on this day, in this episode, I can say that I related to Nate more that any other time on the show. And that makes me happy and befuddled all at the same time. If that doesn’t sound like Legends of Tomorrow to me, I don’t know what does.
QUICK THOUGHTS:
- We got to see Zari and Wally bond a little bit over Zari’s annoyance at Wally’s superspeed being able to do everything so quickly. It was nic,e but way too brief for my liking.
- So the secret of Nate’s hair was revealed, he does it like Elvis’s. Elvis’s is better.
- Anyone else notice that Sara didn’t do a heck of a lot in this episode or was it just me?
- No Dahrks in the episode was kind of a bummer. But I suppose absence makes the heart grow fonder.
- Ray has created “Lockboxes” for the totems to keep them safe and out of the wrong hands. How much you want to bet they end up in the wrong hands?
Legends of Tomorrow airs on the CW at 8 pm on Monday Nights.
