S07.E08: Paranoid Android

[scarynikki12]

Quote

Sara (Caity Lotz) starts to realize her team is making questionable choices when it comes to the timeline. Trying to figure out who is behind everything, Sara discovers some harsh truths. 

 

 

[scarynikki12]

I know they've done voiceovers many times on this show but Sara's VO this time gave me major Oliver Queen vibes.

Oh the botLegends think they're human and our Legends are the robots. That makes sense. Also they're all doing the Oliver Queen gruff speaking voice thing so the opening VO has to be intentional. Go for it guys just don't start doing his intense whispering.

OMG I LOVE THE CREDITS FOR THE BOTLEGENDS!!! I love them putting every name in quotations and the scenes they chose were perfect. 

I also love that botSara and botDr.Sharpe clearly hate each other so let's embrace this change, huh?

"Nate" is even more roid-y than normal which makes me laugh. Clearly Bishop/EvilGideon are Peacemaker fans.

Ok, botDr.Sharpe is in on the scam and botSara's suspicious. 

"They're trying to save the people [of Chernobyl]. Those monsters!" Yeah they'll never be true Legends. I would love to see Sara and botSara facing off though so fingers crossed.

Those arms they put on Zano are hilarious and the show leaning into the roid-y thing with him is working so well. 

Ok botSara was pouncing around like Sabertooth facing off against Wolverine. Maybe she was given a Canary Cry too?

I love that red wig on botAstra. 

With each passing minute I'm loving botSara more and more. Can we keep her? 

I also want to keep botZari. 

Alas they're both reprogrammed and back on Team Evil. Shame.

[Lantern7]

Great way to come back from break. "Lets do an episode from the doppelgangers' perspective! They think the real Legends are murderous androids! And they're raging exaggerations of the team!" Bonus: we get the Arrowverse tradition of actors having to play other roles. In the case of Nick Zano, that meant prosthetic arms and watching The Suicide Squad every day for at least a month.

2 hours ago, scarynikki12 said:

BOTLEGENDS!!!

Nice nickname. I originally read that as "BootLegends," as in "bootleg Legends." Are they how this Gideon sees the team? Nice touch with the wardrobe tweaks and not giving that Gary a human form. Also funny that the alternate/variant Sara wound up putting the clues together . . . only for Zari-v3 to foil her.

We probably didn't need the "More You Know" riff with Nate . . . but it was funny. Bonus: shaky VCR tracking effects! Anyone else remembers those?

[Lady Calypso]

I was wondering if 7B would be as strong as 7A was. And, yes, it's still early and things could still decline, but this first episode back was fun and I really enjoyed that even the Robot Legends (or, as they call themselves, Androids) got character progression. 

Robo Sara got more character progression than she has in several seasons. She got to almost be on her own with figuring out Dr. Sharpe's plans, with some help from Robo Zari, and almost foiled the entire mission! Except Robo Zari got tempted by Evil Gideon, and turned on her. 

Nick Zano looked like he was having a blast with Robo Steel. And Robo Spooner/Behrad trying to one-up each other constantly was fun. Have the two "newer" Legends (newer for us, at least) get to interact, especially since Spooner only interacts with Astra/Gideon now, and Behrad doesn't get to bond much with anyone beyond Zari and a little Astra. It was fun to see them mix up the pairings again. Even Sara/Zari, who haven't interacted one-on-one in several seasons, got to work together.

I think what was great to see was how Gideon/Dr. Sharpe programmed everyone. They clearly tried to keep SOME of the Legends' traits within these robot versions, but it almost backfired with Sara's leadership quality. Seeing her figure it out and get Zari on board was great to watch. It's a shame Zari got turned by Gideon by the mere temptation of becoming a better hacker, but it was an excellent way to derail the plan. And then Sara got reset to get rid of her smarts and leadership and became strictly an assassin.

Was the end card necessary? Hell no. Was it funny as hell? Hell yes.

Gary's robot self just being an alien was fantastic.

"Oh no! They're gonna live!" Best line of the episode.

[lurker22]

This was a fantastic episode. Tons of Sara, Nate was her No. 2 as it should be, Sara isn't gaga over Ava and was a total badass the whole time while looking good, Zari looked great too, Spooner and Behrad's competition with each other was hilarious, and even Gary was funny. And Sara got to go on missions with the team and actually talk to Zari on her own!

This episode was like going back to Season 1 when the Legends found out someone was controlling their destiny, and their mission wasn't what they thought it was. I'd glad they spent an episode focusing on the "villains" like they did in S2 with the Legion of Doom, and unfortunately like in S2, Sara got betrayed by a teammate too. I thought that maybe this Sara would join the real Legends when her team wouldn't listen to her. Too bad she got reprogrammed to Assassin!Sara. I felt bad for her and Dr. Petrov at the end. Galvanizing the Legends to turn against Gideon while on the Waverider probably wasn't too smart.

Wonder how Spooner knew about Sara's bo staff when she hasn't held it in years. And this Sara's high tolerance for pain (do Androids feel pain?) reminded me of how Sara had "come to an understanding with pain" back on Arrow. Evil Gideon did a good job building Android Sara from her history. This Sara is someone I recognize, unlike the one we have now. Can we keep this Sara (if she overcomes her new programming), lol?

[thuganomics85]

Pretty great return, I thought!  Loved them having an episode just focused on the "Robo Legends" and showing them at the aftermaths of what had gone down during missions with the regular Legends.  Basically being assigned to not just try and take them out, but fix any of the changes that were caused.  And, of course, they themselves had been programmed to believing that they were the true Legends and "heroes" of this story.

The entire cast was clearly having a ball getting to ham it up and play different type of characters this go around.  Plus, lots and lots of evil eye-liners and seeing who can make their voice deeper and raspier than normal!  A good battle, but Nick Zano definitely wins in the latter category.  He really has been one of the highlights this past two seasons.

Liked how this scenario allowed for a few unexpected and refreshing interactions like Robo Behard and Robo Spooner having some kind of competition with one another during missions (naturally reminding me a lot of Gilmi and Legolas in Lord of the Rings) or Robo Sara and Robo Zari being one on one a lot, which is something that I feel like hasn't happened in a while.  Hope we get more of this going forward (assuming we hang out with the Robo Legends some more.)

Made sense that Robo Sara would be the one who would realize something is up since her programmed version of Sara's leadership skills would be able to put all the pieces together.  And she even went about it the smartest way possible by aligning herself with Robo Zari, who would also be willing to listen compared to the others.  It's just too bad that no one realized that Robo Zari's need for more knowledge would cause her to throw in with Evil Gideon instead.  So, now Robo Sara is been made to be more like her assassin version instead.  Uh oh!

The "And the More You Know"/anti-bullying gag with Nate at the end was great: especially them just flat-out acknowledging the comparisons between him and John Cena/Peacemaker.

Can't wait to see how the rest of this season plays out!

[tennisgurl]

I thought this was a really fun return to the show, having the episode focus on the Robo Legends was a really good idea. It turns out that they were programmed to think that its the real Legends who are evil robots while they're the heroes, which is actually a bit of a variation on the first season, when the Legends found out that the people they were working for were sketchy and their real mission was different then the one they thought they were on. 7A was a really good half season arc, and this season is off to a strong start. You could really tell how much the actors were having fun hamming it up as the evil Legends, complete with evil eyeliner and raspier voices. Everyone was delightful, but Nate with his giant arms was the comedic highlight, Nick Zano has really stepped up to become the stealth MVP of the last season or two. 

One of the reasons why I liked this so much is probably because it was a real showcase for Sara, who is such an awesome leader/ person that even a robotic Sara programmed to want to destroy the Legends eventually realized that she's on the wrong side and tries to make things right. Caity did a great job, especially in her scenes with the Soviet general when he was asking what kind of hero would give people cancer and calling them monsters for threatening his kids, you could really see her thoughts as she realized that he was right. Her big mistake though was trusting Zari and also probably not telling the team the truth on the Waverider where Gideon is still in control, and now she's been reprogrammed to be just assassin Sara without all the morals that were so hard to scrub out. This season has actually done a lot for Sara, or at least its been an improvement. Sara has gotten more time to just be Sara as a character, and not one half of Sara/Ava where she ended up so often for awhile, just a prop for Ava and her clone angst. It seems like evil Gideon gave all the Robo Legends some basic traits of the real Legends, but gave Sara just a bit too much of her spunk. 

The PSA at the end was hilarious, with the meta jokes about John Cena/Peacemaker, which is some nice synergy considering his show just dropped. The more you know!

[Sakura12]

I haven't watched this since the 100th episode but I heard Sara got to actually do things besides prop up Ava, so that was enough for me to watch.

Evil Gideon made a better Sara then Bishop. This one felt like my Sara and according to this show, a person's memory is all we need to be the same so this Sara is real Sara too. Can we keep her? She feels more like Sara them the alien/hybrid one. 

I loved that she hates Ava and got to spend time with her team and showed why she's the leader and doesn't need a co-captain holding her back. Which is exactly what both evilAva and real Ava do. Sara finally got to shine on her own which she hasn't been able to since Ava showed up. 

Nate and his prosthetic muscles was hilarious, I liked the Peacemaker/John Cena dig too. 

I'm going to guess that evilGideon has more info on Sara and that's why Sara felt more real then the other Legends. Or she actually respects her. The others felt like caricatures. 

I guess upgraded Zari is the new leader of the evil Legends since they turned Sara into a mindless assassain. 

[benteen]

Great episode and great fun!  I love that they did an episode based on the botLegends and this would and a show featuring a team of bad guys ruthlessly repairing the timeliness would be darkly awesome and potentially hilarious. Definitely a great episode for Sara even if it wasn't truly Sara.  Dara doing the voiceover totally works.

Nate as RoboSteel is pretty great too and the John Cena comparison works on many levels.  A fantastic return for the show!

Edited January 25, 2022 by benteen