S06.E08: Stressed Western

[scarynikki12]

Quote

With everyone finally back together, the Legends find themselves looking to Nate to keep everything calm while in the old West on a mission to find an alien.

 

 

[scarynikki12]

Behrad and Zari should open a restaurant.

Sara gets right to it and reveals her new physical identity. That’s my girl. And then she decides to not tell the team. It’s good there won’t be consent concerns with Ava but the team is more important.

That Saloon of Dorky Happiness is my kind of joint. I’m much better at Go Fish than poker and enjoy extra cherries in milkshakes. 

I see the LOT writers room also enjoys The Mandalorian. And of course the worm shits out gold and the town will kill to protect it.

Diggle! Yeah, yeah, Bass Reeves. 

My assumption would have been that whatever alien Sara was a hybrid of was really into dairy rather than cherries so that was a stretch from Ava. If Sara was only eating the cherries then sure but she was drinking the milkshakes and eating the cherries.

The troubadour was fun.

I take it the search for the Fountain of…Imperium? is the MacGuffin for the rest of the season. Hope we get to see Crowley again.

Of course Ava “I get offended when someone even says the word clone in my presence” Sharpe has a problem with Sara being a human/alien hybrid and it’s not resolved beyond her bringing a cherry milkshake.

[opus]

Anyone get a “babe” count in this one? Seemed like a lot.

[cambridgeguy]

I guess last week burned up an excess of Dominic Purcell screen time so he got to mostly sit this one out.  To compensate his significant other got to be a guest star, so I guess that worked out well for him regardless.

Sorry Sara, but you're not bulletproof if the bulllet goes straight through your skull.  Good thing you're not a normal human, or you'd be talking to Laurel right now.  And on your very first mission back, too!

[bettername2come]

I was kind of hoping Diggle was on time travel shenanigans and was just pretending to be Bass Reeves to the new Legends who didn't know him. But it's cool he can be descended from the Lone Ranger prototype. And David Ramsey got to direct!

Okay, I don't think Nate dating someone trapped in a totem is an improvement over his habit of dating women from other time periods. But I support his general annoyance with teammates and such. And love that he high fived Sara over joining the bulletproof team. 

Tremors monster! I kind of love how willing the show is to return to that Old West location. 

 

[Jediknight]

Barry, you're a dick.  Give Nate a chair at the Hall of Justice.

The Fountain of Imperium, you say?  Does this mean getting chopped by WALTER gets your magic back?

[Lantern7]

Poor Nate. He's never gonna get a seat at the Hall of Justice.  He did have a good plan to deal with the Tremors worm before Spooner jumped in.

So, basically, David Ramsey played a guy that looked like Diggle, plus a mustache. Cool. I think this is the third time we've seen a Bass Reeves on genre television (Timeless,Watchmen). Nice use of the character. Also, bonus points for not bringing in Jonah Hex again.

Great to see Sara back. Yeah, there's probably going to be trouble with her new status quo at the end of the season, but why stress now? Just go out, have an old-fashioned mission, and swap root beer with the locals that want to get rich off a giant worm's gold poop.

*sigh* At least Crowley coming back means we get to see Matt Lucas again. Well, hear him again.

[Cthulhudrew]

Can we trade Gary for the Cowboy Narrator?

[cambridgeguy]

7 hours ago, Lantern7 said:

Poor Nate. He's never gonna get a seat at the Hall of Justice.  He did have a good plan to deal with the Tremors worm before Spooner jumped in.

He's just bummed that he used to be the favorite but is now just another member of the ensemble.  So there's hope for those who hate Ava that someone else will take that title.

Speaking of hate, the babe stuff makes for a good drinking game.  If you take a shot every time they say it you'll be drunk like Mick in no time.

 

[Jediknight]

8 hours ago, Lantern7 said:

So, basically, David Ramsey played a guy that looked like Diggle, plus a mustache. Cool. I think this is the third time we've seen a Bass Reeves on genre television (Timeless,Watchmen).

The first 10 minutes of the Watchmen pilot out there educating people about Bass Reeves and the Tulsa Race Massacre.

[Sakura12]

I can see why they didn't hype up David's role since he didn't do much. 

I did miss Jonah Hex since I don't really feel like they did much this episode. I guess they were trying to do a character episode. They used to be much better at those, this one felt off and forced. 

They are treating this Sara Alien powers storyline really weirdly. We haven't had any interviews with Caity or the producers about it. They are treating this major change to a character that's been around since the beginning like it's as unimportant as the rest of Sara's storylines have been. The only saving thing is so far they haven't made it all about Ava. But I'm sure that's still going to happen and then we'll get the interviews from the producers and Jes on how Ava's dealing with it. 

And once again Sara's back to only talking to Ava (outside of group scenes) I forgot about how annoying the babe thing is. I did not miss that. 

Sara didn't even talk to Spooner and if she's the exact same Sara she knows about her powers and should've known not to hide what happened to her. That's why to me this Sara feels slightly off and not the same Sara no matter how many people say she is. She has no idea what Bishop did. He could've added part of his personality to her as well. She didn't even get checked out by Gideon. 

[tv echo]

I thought David Ramsey did a great job directing this episode and playing Bass Reeves. I wish that he had had more screen time. I also wish that they hadn't stuck him mostly in scenes with Astra and Spooner.

Despite all of the action, the giant worm, and lively, musical numbers, this episode felt oddly flat to me, for some reason. I don't know why.  I did appreciate Nate's big emotional outburst. I also liked the Zari and Behrad sibling scenes. 

It looks like Constantine is going to be away and missing from the next episode(s). I'm going to miss Matt Ryan.

Unless I missed something, or maybe it just wasn't clear, but I don't think Sara told the Legends team that the original human Sara is dead. They might just think that she is the original Sara but had been injected with alien DNA and thereby acquired new powers on the planet.

Instead of hand-waving away the Sara-Is-Now-A-Clone twist, I think it would've been more interesting if AlienHybridSara had succeeded in creating a "pure" Sara - and BOTH PureSara and AlienHybridSara returned to the Waverider, with both clones still in love with Ava.

ETA: In one of his media interviews about this episode (see Media thread), David Ramsey said that, in Sara's absence, Nate is the de facto leader of the Legends. But it certainly hasn't seemed that way this season.

Edited June 28, 2021 by tv echo

[appositival]

52 minutes ago, Sakura12 said:

She didn't even get checked out by Gideon. 

That would be the first thing I did after I became an hybrid evil alien clone. Maybe she has other powers besides eating milkshakes and quickly recovering from having the critical parts of her brain shot out. Seriously, the medulla or cerebellum, the corpus callosum, the frontal lobes, she didn't even bother to sit down.

Why was everyone fighting when the rage worm was looking for it's next meal? Did I miss a reasonable explanation or was that purely (and poorly) plot driven? Nate should have separated them for a "time out".

[Sakura12]

Also is everyone's partner going to be on the show this season. So far we had Tala's boyfriend and now Jes's boyfriend and Dominc's girlfriend. Lol

[lurker22]

This was just an ok episode for me.

It was nice to see Sara (and Nate) take charge again. The scene with the legends trying to give Sara a good breakfast, especially Behrad, was sweet. The duel was cool, though it was hardly fair when one party literally could not be killed. I think Sara can regenerate faster than Barry. I wonder if eventually the alien would take over like Amelia Hart, because many of its qualities are already manifesting (taste for cherries/regenerative power). Nice to see Sara having that tiny moment with "Dig", and fighting side by side each other.

But it was mostly back to normal (pun intended), with Sara mostly interacting with Ava outside of group scenes, and Mick disappearing after 30 seconds of screentime. Still hate the "captains" and "babe" every other sentence.

I wonder if Sara told everyone the OG Sara has died (other than she's an alien hybrid clone now). As expected, no one is going to mourn the real Sara's death because a copy of her is around.

Nate would actually make a better captain than Ava. No wonder Astra and Spooner ignored Sara's order to stay on the ship. They barely know Sara.

So are we still going to see Constantine? 

[tennisgurl]

I don't know what the more annoying repeated phrase is "babe" or "captains"? They just say them over and over until they cease to have meaning, and its symptomatic of the show refusing to just let Sara have her own things that don't involve Ava. This episode was pretty good, its clear that the show really loves the old west setting and revels in those tropes, and while it wasn't the best character based episode they've done, they did have some nice moments for just about everyone. I was just so happy to have Sara back (or clone Sara, which I guess I will have to be happy with) with the team, even if she did spend most of her time with Ava, as per usual. They all did have to be pretty dumb to keep up all the bickering when they were hiding from the worm though, I was right there with Nate when it came to being annoyed with everyone putting them in danger when all of these arguments could clearly be had later. 

David is really doing the rounds all around the Arrowverse isn't he? I wish that he had more to do as Bass Reeves besides playing basically Diggle with a mustache, and I would have really liked to see his interactions with Sara more, being as she's a friend of his presumed great great great grandson, but it was fun to see him and he did a good job directing. Watched Tremors lately writers? Or that episode of The Mandalorian with the giant desert worm? I loved the Cowboy Narrator. When he ended up on the Waverider I thought it would be revealed that he was actually an alien all along.

I am glad that at least the show is mostly focusing on how Sara is dealing with the whole clone alien thing and not filtering it through Ava's clone issues and that it didn't take long for Sara to tell everyone the truth, even though I think we are really underselling the gravity of what has happened here. I really wanted them to show Constantine taking a look at her soul to make sure that she still has the same one he stuck back into her body ages ago, or Gideon scanning her to make sure she is what she thinks she is and doesn't have any new weird issues to deal with, and I guess that fits with the theme of Sara and Ava wanting to avoid talking about what happened, but it more feels like the show itself just wants to get back to Avalance as soon as possible. I am glad that at least we were spared Ava doing off the existential deep end about Sara being a clone, or even worse, being thrilled that they can both be clones now, but we will probably come back to that at some point. I am also hoping that Constantine will be back soon, but I guess I am not surprised that he might be taking a break. I don't know if its because Matt wanted time off or it was a writers choice, but it is noticeable that, despite the show originally partially existed to give random Arrowverse characters a place to go when they didn't have much to do in their parent show, the show has increasingly written off all of the characters that were created on other Arrowverse shows and have added more and more of their own original characters. I guess Astra is technically from another show, but she is basically her own new character by the time we actually met her as more than a tragic flashback on Constantine. 

I have been saying all season that Nate is a better qualified temporary replacement captain than Ava, so it was fun seeing that basically acknowledged and that he got to let off some steam. His plan actually seemed pretty decent, although a plan ending with being eaten, even while being made of steel, seems like a pretty risky plan, but it was an actual plan, which is more than anyone else could say. 

[thuganomics85]

Aww, man!  I would have been down with Cowboy Narrator sticking around!

David Ramsey not only directs this episode, but shows up on camera as Bass Reeves!  I love that the brief exchange with Sara where she clearly recognizes him, but it's never really explained why Bass looks exactly like Diggle with a glorious moustache.  To be fair, that really is far from the craziest thing to happen on this show.  Hell, Nic Bishop showed back up to play Levi Stapleton after playing Kilgrave in this season's "Bay of Squids" episode, and it was never acknowledged.

Nice to see Sara back with the Legends again, and getting to go on missions.  But it is clear that there is something going on with her technically being an alien hybrid clone, and I have to think that is going to come into play soon.

Nate's outburst was well done and relatable.  Nick Zano has been really bringing it this season.

Zari and Behrad really can be bickering siblings, heh.

The Astra/Spooner duo was surprisingly effective.

Looks like Constantine has found a possible way to get his powers back, but it certainly sounds dangerous and deadly, and it might keep him away from everyone else for a bit. 

[Lady Calypso]

I'm pretty sure the "babe" count hit in the triple digits this episode!

Ok, joking. But it WAS a lot and too much. If it's quite noticeable that a word is being overused, then you should probably TONE IT DOWN. And the reveal of Sara being a human-alien clone was so lackluster. I appreciate that Sara at least told Ava right off the bat, but the entire team didn't seem to care much. They didn't even react to Sara getting a hole blown through her head. They stood there, staring as if they've seen it happen before. I get she's died before, but she's never had her head almost blown off like that before. 

I'm fine with them not being over the top in their reactions, but...besides Ava, everyone seemed to be not reacting at all. Ok, besides Nate, who gave Sara a high five. But did Sara even give Ava and the Legends a full run-down or not? Because it seems like she didn't really tell them much, or else they'd be more concerned. 

Speaking of Nate, his venting at the Legends was glorious. He's actually been mostly underused this season, and I could do without his "great" love Zari, who he dated for all of a month at most, but I really have enjoyed seeing him take more charge this season. He's had to step it up the last couple of episodes and, bad plan involving the worm aside, his venting was actually a great scene. I actually think he'd make a decent de-facto captain. I miss historian Nate as well; they most often turn to him as the douchey frat-bro, despite the fact that it doesn't line up with his background, so when they give him historical scenes and when he has to step it up like this, he becomes his best self.

Astra and Spooner, the two newest Legends, getting scenes together was nice but I kind of want to see them both interact with other members of the team too. 

Zari/Behrad's subplot was fun. I want to see more of their sibling scenes because we don't get nearly enough of them. And now with John off to search for this magical fountain, she SHOULD get more scenes with her brother. Although I worry, with Behrad giving Nate the totem to visit Zari, that something weird is gonna happen where Nate/Zari share more scenes. I just want the show to give up on Nate/Zari 1.0. Although, with them mentioning Zari 1.0, it feels like they might finally just merge the two Zaris together at some point, or bring Zari 1.0 back, which would be lovely. Just...I hate that it would be for Nate. 

David Ramsey did a decent job directing, although I could have done without that spinny camera trick at the beginning which made me feel like I was in a Bamford fight sequence. And DR's Bass was great, although way minimal.

The episode, overall, was just ok. It didn't really make much sense and it was clear that their intents wasn't the mission, but for the characters, but it didn't really work for me.

[lurker22]

9 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

it is noticeable that, despite the show originally partially existed to give random Arrowverse characters a place to go when they didn't have much to do in their parent show, the show has increasingly written off all of the characters that were created on other Arrowverse shows and have added more and more of their own original characters.

I actually think the same is happening for the character of Sara Lance too. The writers can't get rid of Sara because she's the reason they pat themselves on the back for LGBT representation, but they dislike writing for characters that they didn't create themselves. So what did they do? They killed off the original Sara, and replaced her with an alien-human hybrid clone - Legends created clones in Arrowverse, and aliens are their theme this season. Now they can play around with this new Sara clone (while involving their favorite Ava clone all the time of course).

[DavidJSnyder]

On 6/27/2021 at 11:10 PM, Lantern7 said:

Cool. I think this is the third time we've seen a Bass Reeves on genre television (Timeless,Watchmen). 

He's also been on Sara's favorite Winonna Earp.

[blackwing]

I like Westerns, so I really liked the set on this episode.  I also liked that they actually went further in the past again instead of sometime in the 1900s.  The thing with the worm was a weird but in line with the show.  I thought Nate was going to steel up and allow himself to be eaten and then burst the worm apart from the inside.

I was expecting a drawn out "you're the captain" / "no, YOU'RE the captain" exchange between Babe! Sara and Babe! Ava, so I was pleased it didn't happen.  I did notice that Gideon said "welcome Captains" acknowledging they are both Captain, but glad there was no further discussion.  But I'm sure at one point, Sara will officially make Ava the captain because of her alien hybrid issue

20 hours ago, Lady Calypso said:

Speaking of Nate, his venting at the Legends was glorious. He's actually been mostly underused this season, and I could do without his "great" love Zari, who he dated for all of a month at most, but I really have enjoyed seeing him take more charge this season. He's had to step it up the last couple of episodes and, bad plan involving the worm aside, his venting was actually a great scene. I actually think he'd make a decent de-facto captain. I miss historian Nate as well; they most often turn to him as the douchey frat-bro, despite the fact that it doesn't line up with his background, so when they give him historical scenes and when he has to step it up like this, he becomes his best self.

I like historian Nate too and don't understand why they always just use him as the douche bro.  They have Behrad for that role now so Nate can go back to being defacto deputy captain.  Also, as much as I like Zari 1.0 (2.0 is too vapid and written for laughs), I liked him better with Amaya.  But this show hardly ever mentions people who have come and gone, it's like they don't exist anymore.

[questionfear]

On 6/28/2021 at 10:31 AM, Sakura12 said:

Also is everyone's partner going to be on the show this season. So far we had Tala's boyfriend and now Jes's boyfriend and Dominc's girlfriend. Lol

I read somewhere it was to make it easier for COVID protocols, which makes sense. Far better to cast an SO and have them on-set than have your actors needing to head home to see someone and then needing a quarantine before they can return to filming. 

[lurker22]

15 minutes ago, questionfear said:

I read somewhere it was to make it easier for COVID protocols, which makes sense. Far better to cast an SO and have them on-set than have your actors needing to head home to see someone and then needing a quarantine before they can return to filming. 

Yeah, I think it was to keep their Covid bubble small. I bet there are many logistics issues getting different actors there due to all the rules. Perhaps the SO are already in Vancover because I don't think the cast gets to go home during filming as they can't afford to quarantine 2 weeks each time. Why not get the SO of a cast member who is already an actor and already in Vancouver to play the guest role(s)? In fact, I think Jes' boyfriend will play 3 different characters, so we'll see him one more time.

I think this is not the case of Ava becoming co-captain simply because she's the captain's girlfriend.

[Sakura12]

Nate should just ask Sara for a seat at the hall of justice, because despite this show wanting to ignore Sara's life outside her relationship with Ava. She's a member of the Arrowverse justice league and can probably get him a seat. 

 

[janeta]

So is Purcell working on something else to only have a minute or two in each ep?

[benteen]

I thought this one was a lot of fun.  Happy that Sara featured so prominently again.  Was glad she told Ava the truth at first, annoyed that they had her be another hero who keeps a secret and then glad again when the truth was revealed.  No need to drag that out.  I liked the stuff with the town and the slug...reminded me of Tremors.  Don't know why Rory was badly in this episode.  I would have liked to have seen his reaction to an Old West town where everyone was nice and having to behave themselves.

Really good episode.

[immortalfrieza]

On 7/7/2021 at 11:08 AM, benteen said:

 Don't know why Rory was badly in this episode.  I would have liked to have seen his reaction to an Old West town where everyone was nice and having to behave themselves.

Probably because Rory wouldn't have been able to keep his cool for 5 seconds, much less calm down when a giant worm thing was bearing down on him.

[Josh371982]

On 6/27/2021 at 11:01 PM, Jediknight said:

 

On 6/28/2021 at 10:31 AM, Sakura12 said:

Also is everyone's partner going to be on the show this season. So far we had Tala's boyfriend and now Jes's boyfriend and Dominc's girlfriend. Lol

 

I know Bishop is Tala's boyfriend  in real life. Who's the other 2 ? 

[Sakura12]

1 hour ago, Josh371982 said:

I know Bishop is Tala's boyfriend  in real life. Who's the other 2 ?

Jes' boyfriend played a couple characters, he was the Sheriff in the Western episode, the bowling leader in the bowling ep and the general that got killed by the nuke in the JFK episode. Dominic's girlfriend was the Saloon girl that turned on them to keep the gold pooping Alien.