S06.E04: Bay Of Squids

[scarynikki12]

Quote

The Legends are shocked when Rory takes command and manages to find the location of an important Alien, but he also lands them in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

 

 

[scarynikki12]

The Legends need to market the pot candy Gideon makes. Their income would never end.

They didn’t even try to get a believable JFK. Bobby was slightly better.

Behrad getting Castro high was fun.

I know the people in charge of the show love Ava but they have done an excellent job of showing how bad a leader she is. I hope it’s on purpose.

I love Zari using her thumbs on an old typewriter.

Spooner and Mick worked well together. I don’t expect it to continue since they love pairing him with the newbies at first and then moving on.

So they solve the Cuban Missile Crisis with an Oval Office football game with the nuclear football? Yeah that makes sense.

Given the way the episode was structured I get why Sara was absent but I still missed her.

I do like Mick going solo to find Sara. And going to hook up with an alien. I’m on board.

[Jediknight]

The general was shooting at a nuclear weapon with a handgun.  He was firing at a nuke with a handgun.  And then he got squished.  Never change, Legends.

Casting could have been better for this episode, though.  Castro was great, but the actor playing JFK looked nothing like JFK.  It's like they didn't even try to get somebody who looked like JFK.  Props for the show mentioning his bad back.

And missed opportunity by not having anybody mention how much Zari looked like Jackie O.

[tennisgurl]

This episode reminded me a bit of older episodes, when the gang met a lot of historical figures and bumbled through historical events trying to keep the timeline on track. Not a bad episode, although I really missed Sara. I swear, it almost feels like the they really are setting up Ava to realize that she's a bad captain and give the title totally back to Sara and focus on administrative stuff that she is good at. She's really just not good with people, and the leader of the team really needs to be able to go with the flow and make up plans on the fly as the hijinks pile up, Ava freaks out when things don't go according to plan and starts going into yelling and panic mode. I know that wont happen because the writers love Ava, but I can dream. 

I don't think that Zari and Nate have really had a plot together, and I like that they acknowledged that seeing Zari 2.0 can be hard for Nate, who cant be with OG Zari anymore but does have to see a woman who looks just like her all of the time. I was never into OG Zari and Nate as a couple at all, but it was a big part of Nate's arc for awhile and it was a nice bit to have them talk about that, with a lot of maturity and understanding. And one boner joke. In general this was a good Nate episode, they remembered that he not only had superpowers, but also that he's a historian and that his grandfather was also a superhero. Him geeking out over meeting the Kennedy's was a lot of fun, especially his expression when JFK told him to call him Jack, he looked like he was about to tear up. The guy playing JFK didnt look much like him and didnt really get the accent, but its by far not the worst JFK I've seen on TV (The Crown anyone?) and to be fair, it seems like no one can do the Kennedy accent except for the Kennedys. The guy playing Bobby looked a lot closer, and the guy playing Castro wasnt bad at all. I also loved Zari's Jackie O outfit and everyone being amazed by her typing skills on the old typewriter. Of course the Cuban Missal Crisis was averted thanks to a football game in the Oval Office with the nuclear football, that sounds about right. And Behrad getting high with Castro on gummies. 

Ava was not really been impressing me with her leadership skills, but I did find her increasingly freaked out reactions as she realized how much they had fucked things up really funny. Putting Mick and Spooner together was fun, although I think they are still struggling to figure her out as a character and what she brings to the team beyond her connection to aliens. I like her, and she was more low key this week so that keeps her from going into "started out funny, ended up annoying" territory, but we just have so many characters already its hard to give everyone room. I am already excited to see Mick flying around looking for Sara with a hot alien he is definitely going to end up hooking up with. This chick is clearly his type. 

The budget seemed a bit up this episode, we got powers, a lot of the alien doing its tentacle mouth, Mick's heat gun, it was noticeable. The general might have been the bad guy, but I have to respect the guts (or the crazy) of a guy trying to shoot a nuke with a handgun. 

[Lantern7]

Usual Legends craziness, with no Sara in sight. On the other hand? No Gary. Gotta take the good with the bad.

Of course the fate of the free world came down to a football game played with a device that could start WWIII, which just so happened to be nicknamed "football."Of course Behrad would pose as Che Guerra's brother and feed weed gummies to Fidel Castro. And, of course, Mick would try his hand at taking charge, ending with him hijacking the Waverider with an alien . . . an alien who takes an alluring human form. Mick's expression at the end wasn't really needed, but it was funny.

I'm still good with Ava being (interim) captain . . .but now I'm thinking Zari might be a good fit. I mean, she probably isn't as tough as Zari 1.0 ("Zar1.0"?), but she's able to go beyond her established skills. Also, I liked her fake accent. The thing with Nate, though? Please be honest . . . you think Legends might get into a series of events ending with a John/Nate/Zari "throuple"?

I also liked Ava's horrific Russian accent. I get how she can bug, but she doesn't big me that much.

[Cthulhudrew]

That is the first time that I can recall seeing the Nuclear Football treated like a real football. 🤣

And as much as I dislike Nate's character, it's nice to see that the writers remembered he is a historian.

This was such a fun episode; from Behrad being mistaken for Che Guevara, to "Peace Train," to "Go Crimson!", to some long-missed Rory antics. This is absolutely one of my favorite episodes of this series.

Edited May 24, 2021 by Cthulhudrew

[thuganomics85]

Hey, General Kilgore was played by Nic Bishop, who I haven't seen in a few years (probably the last thing I saw him in was either Dominion or Covert Affairs), but I'll always remember first as Peter on Body of Proof, with Dana Delaney and Jeri Ryan.  Good seeing him again!

So, the Legends quest to find Sara takes them straight into the Cuban Missile Crisis, where it naturally leads to them almost starting World War III, because that's what the Legends do!  I did like how they separated out the groups with their own tasks, and it involved most of them in Cuba, but Nate and Zari in D.C.

I honestly think they didn't even bother trying to find someone who looked like the real John F. Kennedy, because they knew any comparison would fall short, so why bother?  The guy playing Bobby was actually more accurate, I thought.  But I loved watching Nate fanboy over them and it all leading to them basically playing a game of football with... the nuclear football.  Probably not the craziest thing that happened during that time period!  A great episode for Nate in general.  And while I was never wild about his relationship with OG Zari, I'm glad they're at least addressing that it's hard for him seeing Zari 2.0. around, and remembering what he had and lost.  As long as they don't suddenly have her develop feelings for him and turn this into a love triangle...

At least this episode seemed to acknowledge that Ava was dropping the ball as the leader this go around: especially with the way she was handling Mick.  The question is if she'll actually learn from any of this or be back to her normal self next episode.

Behrad is certainly fitting right in with the rest of the Legends, by having Gideon develop weed candy for him and then being mistaken for Che Guevara (by none other than Fidel Castro himself!)

Spooner is still in the feeling out process for me, but I do think she works best opposite of Mick so far.

Ava's fake Russian accent was amusing, but I was truly impressed by Zari/Tala Ashe's southern accent as the "secretary."

No Sara whatsoever in this episode.  Still wondering if Caity Lotz needed a lighter workload this season or something to that nature.

Mick makes a new alien friend and is off to find Sara!  And, of course, the alien's holo human form is hot and totally his type.  Fun times will probably be had soon!

[paulvdb]

22 minutes ago, thuganomics85 said:

being mistaken for Che Guevara (by none other than Fidel Castro himself!)

It was one of the soldiers who mistook Behrad for Che Guevarra. When Behrad met Castro he said he was Che's cousin Jay.

[tv echo]

This was the worst episode of the season and arguably the worst episode of the series. In fact, it bordered on offensive.

I think the show jumped the squid with this episode.

Edited May 24, 2021 by tv echo

[cambridgeguy]

4 hours ago, thuganomics85 said:

No Sara whatsoever in this episode.  Still wondering if Caity Lotz needed a lighter workload this season or something to that nature.

She's directing the next episode so they probably wanted to give her time off to prep.  I don't know what things are like behind the scenes but this is usually the point when the stars of a long running series start to wear out and get more time off.

9 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Putting Mick and Spooner together was fun, although I think they are still struggling to figure her out as a character and what she brings to the team beyond her connection to aliens.

She's Mick 2.0.  Aside from the alien stuff she's redundant right now because she does the exact same thing Mick does - will shoot first, mouth off, and be outwardly hostile towards the others.  Kind of like how Behrad is Ray 2.0 (or 3.0 if Nate counts as 2.0).

[Artsda]

That reminded me of the episodes where they'd mess up history all the time. It was great!

[Sakura12]

An episode without Sara is already a downgrade. But this episode was so cringy. The whole football in the Oval office was dumb. And not this show dumb, just dumb. And they like to mention Nate's a historian without him actually using that knowledge for anything. 

Tala Ashe is a treasure,  it's too bad she's on this show. She deserves better too.

Ava is once again showing she's a terrible choice to be leader. She has no real life experience to deal with anything. She asks the Alien where her girlfriend is. Like the Alien is going to know her. She has a name! The Alien specifically went after Sara Lance. But that is all she is to this show now. Ava's girlfriend. 

I really hope Mick finds Sara and we get their reunion first, before Ava takes over and they get their cliche kiss and probably takes credit for saving Sara. 

I don't know if Spooner is sticking around but she does seem like a Mick replacement. For a show that wants to have a revolving door, they just keep replacing the originals with similar characters. Ava is the Sara replacement, Nate is the Ray replacement and now Spooner is the Mick replacement. 

Also what's up with Gideon, she seems a little murder happy this season. 

[lurker22]

I'm glad I found out about Sara not being in this episode before it aired so I could just watch it with no expectations whatsoever. That said, I found the episode all over the place, and kind of difficult to follow at times.

Is Behrad the new Charlie - the one they keep forgetting during missions?

Ava's treatment of Mick gave me whiplash. But she really reminded me of S1 Rip when she basically said Mick was of no use to her other than as a killer, the way Sara, Snart and Mick were just the killer, klepto and pyro to Rip.

Mick was the only competent one on the team that seems to be getting closer to finding Sara. I'm interested in seeing how he interacts with Human!Kayla.

I'm glad they remembered Nate is a historian.

18 minutes ago, Sakura12 said:

I really hope Mick finds Sara and we get their reunion first, before Ava takes over and they get their cliche kiss and probably takes credit for saving Sara. 

Spoiler

I think that's going to happen, because I think Dominic was the first Legend to be pictured with Caity and Adam. And they looked like they were on the Waverider. Plus, without the ship, none of the other Legends can reach Sara.

 

[diebartdie]

15 hours ago, scarynikki12 said:

I love Zari using her thumbs on an old typewriter.

 

My god, I laughed and laughed!

15 hours ago, Jediknight said:

Props for the show mentioning [JFK's] bad back.

That was something no one under a certain age would get at all. Well, they might get the idea of someone's back going out like that but if you really know, that was just amazing.

Also, do none of the people currently on the Waver rider know Mick is an accomplished novelist? A romance novelist at that, why wouldn't he have a strong vocabulary? Nate at least should've remembered that. Anyway, Im pretty sure Mick is thinking he's met his real life Garima (too bad she's probably Gary's wife)

[dmeets]

12 hours ago, Lantern7 said:

Please be honest . . . you think Legends might get into a series of events ending with a John/Nate/Zari "throuple"?

Nah, I think this episode set in stone the friendzone between Nate and Zari 2.0. I think eventually either Zari 1.0 is going to be able to leave the totem, or Nate will end up inside the totem to reunite with her if Nick Zano ever winds up leaving the show before it ends. I like that Nate ended up assuring Zari 2.0 that when he looks at her, he sees her.

Ava did get a chuckle out of me when she noted how remarkably on brand both Nate's and Behrad's adventures were during this mission.

 

[Primal Slayer]

I tried but those first 10mins were just to cringe for me. Had to turn it off.

[Sakura12]

Once again Ava's all about Ava and doesn't realize that everything Mick was doing was because he wants to find Sara. But in Ava's mind only she cares about Sara. So instead of working with him she yells at him. Even though he made more progress than she has. Sara and Mick have a history. But Ava likes to pretend Sara has no family or other friends. 

I hope Mick remembers to not trust Kayla now that she's hot. Sara tried to kill her so she's not going to be happy to see her. 

 

[driver18]

This episode had me thinking that the show is setting it up to make everyone realize, especially Ava, that she is not captain material so that when Sara comes back it will really be clear that Sara, just Sara, is the captain. Once Sara comes back she's just going to so easily fall into place as captain and Ava is going to realize, yeah, no, she's not a captain.  She's not even a co-captain. She can't do what Sara does so naturally. We've just been seeing her fail over and over in so many different ways so often. I could be wrong, but that really does seem to be Ava's Arc this season and I don't think that this would have worked with Sara around. And I think that is why they took Sara out of the equation. So that everyone, viewers included, could 100% see that.

[blackwing]

I thoroughly hated this episode.  Hated just about everything about it.  The only good things were 1) No Gary and 2) Nate actually using his knowledge and 3) better use of Mick.

The Cuban Missile Crisis plot was terrible.  The depiction of the Cubans was a bit offensive, and the portrayal of the White House wasn't much better.  The politicians were all cartoons, especially the warmonger general.  Didn't like the portrayal of John F. Kennedy at all, the guy looked nothing like him and the accent was cartoonish.  I know that Kennedy had chronic back problems but "My Back!!!" while throwing the nuclear football around was supposed to be played for laughs and just fell flat with me.

So that alien is supposed to be Kayla?  Gary's fiance?  I thought she died when Sara blew her out of the airlock.  How is it explained how she arrived in 1962?  Or is she supposed to be an alternate timeline version of Kayla?  If so, how is she supposed to know where Sara is?

Behrad as the long-haired hippy stoner is really getting old.

Are the cast getting paid per episode?  Is that why Astra has barely appeared, and she only briefly appeared in the first episode and that was it?  I get that they promoted her to main cast because Maisie Richardson Sellers left the cast, and this show has a not-so-subtle history of replacing a departing minority cast member with another of the same race.  This episode, we didn't see Sara, Gary, John or Astra at all.  Although we got the explanation that John and Astra were at his house, and now next episode they are all apparently going to have to camp out there since they lost their ship.

On 5/24/2021 at 1:38 AM, thuganomics85 said:

Ava's fake Russian accent was amusing, but I was truly impressed by Zari/Tala Ashe's southern accent as the "secretary."

I thought Ava's Russian accent was great, and perhaps the only time I've actually liked the character.  Especially after she got exposed to the laughing gas and was all "vye am I still talking like thees".  Southern accents on TV and movies are a dime a dozen, but I thought the Natasha-like accent from Ava was spot on.

On 5/24/2021 at 7:01 AM, tv echo said:

This was the worst episode of the season and arguably the worst episode of the series. In fact, it bordered on offensive.

I think the show jumped the squid with this episode.

Fully agree... it was awful in all regards.

[greekmom]

10 hours ago, blackwing said:

I thoroughly hated this episode.  Hated just about everything about it.  The only good things were 1) No Gary and 2) Nate actually using his knowledge and 3) better use of Mick.

Agreed. I was waiting to see who the heck that guy is that Sara sees at the end to having to wait next week.

I thought the alien that Rory left wasn't Kayla but another one of their kind.  Why didn't the alien just use the ring to change into human and get away from the Cubans?

[blackwing]

12 hours ago, greekmom said:

I thought the alien that Rory left wasn't Kayla but another one of their kind.  Why didn't the alien just use the ring to change into human and get away from the Cubans?

Ah ok, maybe it's just people here that are assuming it is Kayla.  I haven't gone back and looked at previous episodes but I thought she looked similar to Kayla and when others here called her Kayla I just assumed it was her as well.

My question is, why didn't she just EAT the Cubans?  This alien race shouldn't be afraid of humans.  Kayla ate the warrior slave Spartacus without a second thought, the Amelia Earhart alien became aggressive, Gary Alien ate all those Avas and belched.

[Sakura12]

That is Kayla. She would be the one to know where to look for Sara since she's the one that took her. They wouldn't have time to introduce another one. This show doesn't care about making an actual story for Sara. So they are going to go with simple. Kayla will take Mick to the planet that she was heading to and they will find Sara. 

As for her surviving, Sara hit with her with the pods, she probably opened it and threw whatever creature was in there out and got in the pod. That's probably the dead Alien that hit the windshield. 

[marketdoctor]

I liked "Peace Train" a lot.  It made me want a musical episode, though I'm not sure how well the others can sing.

I also liked the meta-comment about "we have a time machine, why couldn't we just arrive an hour earlier?" 

Overall, I liked it, in part because I once wrote a short story (unpublished and lost to time) about a nuclear missile landing on someone's front lawn and not going off.   And the idea of Mick stealing a warhead, and only Gideon noticing right away, was funny.

And yes, Gideon seems more open to killing as needed.  Or desired.  Or...I hope she's OK.

 

 

[bettername2come]

Ava, how dare you not think Mick knows words?! He's a best-selling novelist! I love how he's trying so hard to save Sara.

I love that Nate used his powers and remembered he's got a history doctorate. And he accidentally posed as his grandfather. But of course, the one time he uses his powers in history, he sets off the Cuban Missile Crisis. 

Love Behrad accidentally posing as Che Jay Guevara. I knew he looked familiar and then he put on the hat and it clicked. Did not call him and Castro getting high off Gideon's candy. Nor Castro getting teary-eyed at Behrad singing Cat Stevens "Peace Train." He and Zari can have some kind of Donnie and Marie act if Legends ever gets a musical ep.

I seem to have liked this one way more than anyone else. What can I say, I'm a sucker for crazed adventures and using skills the team's been shown to have. Although the casting for JFK could've been better. 

[Bulldog]

As someone who has really thought that this season has been lacking so far, I actually enjoyed this one.  The show does best when it has the cast interact with historical figures.  Ditch the alien stuff and concentrate on that. 

Nate looked more like a Kennedy than either of the actors who were playing JFK and RFK. 

Zari typing with her thumbs was definitely the highlight of the night. 

I like semi-competent Mick!

[benteen]

Another really fun episode.  Only Legends could have an actual game of nuclear football.  Nice touch with JFK throwing out his back, which was an actual example of historical accuracy.  

Quote

They didn’t even try to get a believable JFK. Bobby was slightly better.

It was still better than Michael C. Hall's AWFUL JFK on The Crown.  But then again, it's not much of an effort to top that JFK.

Definitely a strong episode for Nate, who benefits from being the new first officer (He and Mick both would make better captains than Ava).  It's nice when his character gets to be an historian and he got to use his powers AGAIN, always a plus.  He and Zari continue to have strong chemistry as well.  I also enjoyed the fact that she could use a typewriter with only her thumbs.

Mick benefits as well from being back in the middle of the action.  Also agree that he and Spooner work well together.

No Sara is definitely a negative and her being in this episode might have made it an all-timer.  They need her back as captain soon.