This week’s episode of Legends of Tomorrow, titled Fail-Safe, is the second part of the Cold War episode. The team has to figure out how to rescue their captured counterparts—Heat Wave, Professor Stein and Ray Palmer. Check out Josh’s recap on this episode below, followed by our thoughtS!
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Episode Recap of Legends of Tomorrow, Season 1 Episode 5, Fail-Safe
Heat Wave and Ray Palmer
In the gulag, Heat Wave and Ray Palmer have basically been put into “general population”. Ray seems unsuited for the prison life, remaining his cheerful self, greeting fellow prisoners warmly, to which Heat Wave tries to get him to cut it out. Things come to a climax for Ray though out on the “quad” area of the prison. Ray tries to stand up for an older prisoner, but he ends up getting pounded on by a few guys. Heat Wave, meanwhile, just stands back and watches.
Ray is left on the ground, where guards have a bet running as to whether he will live or die. Once they figure out he is going to live, they return Ray to his cell. Ray, pretty badly beaten, is frustrated with Heat Wave for not helping him out. Heat Wave basically shrugs off the situation as not his “business”. Things get worse for these two in a little bit though, but let’s talk about Professor Stein first…
Professor Stein
When we first see Professor Stein things actually look pretty good. He is at STAR Labs, and Cisco is talking to him. Cisco begins asking questions about FIRESTORM. But this “Cisco” makes some mistakes—namely acting fairly robotic and not pulling off the “Cisco” jokes. Stein realizes what is happening and snaps out of the hallucinogens that Vostok has been pumping into him. Vostok then resorts to calling Savage in, to get him to talk. Savage threatens Stein with violence and torture—which he learned directly from Stalin himself, to which Stein attempts to shrugs off.
But what really tortures Stein is that Vostok tells him that she already has another Thermocore, which she presents to Stein.
Unfortunately for Stein, Savage has better ideas to get Stein to talk. Ray and Heat Wave are brought from their cells and tied up in front of Stein. They are then beaten in order to get Stein to talk. During this beating, the torturer grabs a hammer to whack Heat Wave with, but Ray, being the stand up guy he is, insults Russia and the torturer, so that the attention is turned to Ray—who is already pretty broken. Ray takes this beating, letting Heat Wave basically get off “beating-free”. Unfortunately, this beating causes Stein to give in to Vostok, and says that he will tell her the formula for FIRESTORM. Ray and Heat Wave are returned to their cells, and Stein gets to talking. For now though, let’s check up on the rescue team…
Rip, Sara, Kendra, Captain Cold, and Jax
So the team outside is trying to figure out how to bust their tam out of the gulag. Gideon informs the team that no one ever successfully has escaped this prison. Sara comes up with a plan though—talk with some former prisoners of said prison.
They head out to a spa (?) where they find some less-than-reputable people, and after some “negotiations” (meaning fighting and discussing), they finally get some of the help they need.
So back at the ship, they come up with a plan—Captain Cold and Sara will be infiltrating the base to free their team, while Kendra and Jax remain benched (which they are unhappy with, but there’s a good reason—Jax is the other half of FIRESTORM and Kendra is the only person who can defeat Savage, so its best to not let them fall into his hands). But there is another “contingency plan” Rip has for only Sara. Rip shows Sara what the future would hold for the world if Vostok succeeds—which is Soviet FIRESTORMs taking over the world. So Rip tells Sara that if she is unable to save Stein, she will have to kill him.
This secret side mission is not much of a secret though—at least not to Captain Cold who realizes it as he and Sara prepare for their mission. But the team moves out with their rescue mission. One other point made though—Stein is the mission, and Ray and Heat Wave are secondary.
Meanwhile, Jax and Kendra are feeling frustrated they can’t help, and Jax has been sensing that Stein is feeling hopeless. So Jax and Kendra come up with a way to send a message to Stein—by Jax carving the message “We’re coming” into his arm, which then appears on Stein’s arm.
Back to Sara and Captain Cold, Sara is “playing dead” under a sheet on a gurney while Cold is acting as a Soviet Guard wheeling her to the morgue. Unfortunately, Cold gets side tracked from the main mission to save Heat Wave, who he has spotted in a prison hallway. Sara is forced to move on alone.
Sara finds Stein, but Vostok is able to pull Stein into a lab as guards battle Sara. With this happening, Sara seems to be left with one choice, kill Stein to prevent the Soviets from winning the Cold War.
Time to Bring it All Together
Back with Stein, Vostok doesn’t believe the formula Stein has give her. Then she sees it–the carved message in Stein’s arm. She realizes that he is half of FIRESTORM. She then decides that she would like to merge with Stein to become FIRESTORM. Stein tries to tell her that finding a perfect match for the pairing is hard to do, and they need a stabilizer to make the connection stable. Vostok isn’t really listening to this though…
As for Captain Cold, he finds Heat Wave and tells him to put a guard uniform on that he has procured. Heat Wave insists they bring Ray along, despite Cold wanting to leave him behind.
Meanwhile, Jax and Kendra convince the boss to let them in the “game”, so the three, including Rip, head down to help. Jax manages to get the power shut off, but seems to have hurt his leg in the dash he had to make. Sara also has a shot to take out Stein with, but ultimately decides that she would rather rescue him, rather than kill him.
Since the power is now out, the prisoner’s locks all disengage. This worries Heat Wave and Cold because they are dressed as guards…Luckily it is chaotic enough they are able to make their way out.
But another thing going on is that Savage has found Kendra. Rip has also shown up though, and Rip and Savage have a “quaint” conversation. Before Rip blows up Savage, he asks for his watch back that had a picture of his wife and son in it.
Outside, Vostok and Stein are joined, and Jax sees them. Jax makes a plea with Stein to kick Vostok out of their joining. Stein finally does, but this causes a problem—Vostok is now unstable, and about to go nuclear. The team has to make a break for the Waverider and get out of there before the explosion goes off—which they do.
Everything seems peachy as they team has made it to the “Temporal Zone”, but Chronos shows up to the party. Chronos fires on the ship, which knocks the ship into a random timeline—which turns out to be Star City 2046. The Green Arrow greets them—but not the Oliver Queen we are familiar with.
Josh’s Thoughts: Legends of Tomorrow, Season 1 Episode 5: Fail-Safe
This was an interesting end to the Cold War era episode. Rip surely seems cold though, willing to sacrifice a team member—and using another team member to carry out that plan. I do wonder if the going gets tougher, if we will see more of this happening, or if Rip might have a change of heart now.
It looks like Heat Wave and Captain Cold might slowly soften their hardened souls, given that Heat Wave wouldn’t leave Ray behind. I have to assume that these criminals are a part of the story so we can see them soften up. Otherwise, it would be pretty terrible for Rip to bring them along as team members, if all they’re going to do is cause trouble.
One odd thing I thought about this episode—it seemed like Kendra might have had the opportunity to take out Savage when Rip seemed to get the upper hand on Savage with the explosion. Have Kendra run in there real quick and shank him while he is debilitated! I guess I am still unclear on the “rules” for Savage’s death though. Can he be stabbed with the special blade after he has “died” in this incarnation? Or does he have to specifically die from a wound from this knife? I guess some clarification would be nice.
I am curious to see how 2046 Star City is though. Is Oliver still around? Based on stuff going around the internet, it seems he is, and might be missing a limb according to some photos we have seen.
Overall I still like the show. Time travel really intrigues me, and while there are certainly some cheesy aspects to the show, I for the most part can over look those for the story, which seems pretty god so far.
Violet’s Thoughts on Season 1 Episode 5 of Legends of Tomorrow: Fail-Safe
So, the best part of this episode were all the Prison Break references! Once again Michael Scofield, er Wentworth Miller, carried out a plan to break his brother (though not blood brothers this time), played by Dominic Cooper, out of prison. Once they mentioned tattoos, I was cheering for Captain Cold to get some tattoos that would help with the prison break.
Anyway, back to the show at hand. I’m not sure what to make of Captain Cold. On the one hand, it seems like he’s softening, but at the same time, other of his actions are contrary to that. He has this whole “criminal code” about not leaving a man behind, but I haven’t seen this code employed by other villains in this universe. Then he’s the one who wants to leave Ray behind, and somehow Heat Wave becomes the one that wants to save Ray. But then again, Cold is the one who judged Rip Hunter’s backup plan for Sara to kill Stein as “heartless.”
But yeah, so once again, we get no amusement from the 1980s, no real look at the fashion or feel. Just the knowledge that this is the Cold War. Other than that, it could have been any time period in the last several decades and I wouldn’t have known the difference. Oh, and yet another episode of chasing Vandal Savage but not actually killing him. I suppose this will happen off and on throughout the series.
The next episode is a futuristic episode, which already looks like it’ll capture more of that time travel feel that a time travel audience craves. Or at least that I do, anyway.
Scenes from Legends of Tomorrow, Season 1 Episode 6, Star City 2046
Here are scenes from the next Legends of Tomorrow episode, titled Star City 2046:
Awesome episode. That opening sequence almost got me. I loved all the little jail/prison break easter eggs/references . great job by the “brothers” breaking out all the other teammates. Loved the “Star city 2046” episode also!