The Legends of Tomorrow head to cowboy-country in Season 1 Episode 11, The Magnificent Eight. We meet Jonah Hex in the DC TV universe, and the team takes it upon themselves to save a small Dakota town!
- Her thoughts on Legends of Tomorrow‘s Season 1, The Magnificent Eight
- His thoughts on Legends of Tomorrow ‘s Season 1 The Magnificent Eight
So, since Rip is trying to hide from the Time Masters’ minions, they decide to head to the late 1800s. They wind up in a town called Salvation in the Dakotas. Rip initially tells the team that they aren’t going to be able to look around given how much trouble they get in, but Ray and the others decide they want to have a look around anyway.
The Legends of Tomorrow Meet Jonah Hex
The group ends up in a saloon, where…nothing can go wrong right? Sara and Rory actually get along some, with Mick telling Sara about his years upon countless years he spent there training. Interestingly though, Rory has decided to join the team again, and doesn’t seem to hold a grudge anymore.
Of all people in the group, it is Stein who riles up one of the saloon’s patrons. He wins a few poker hands, and the patron gets pretty agitated. He pulls his gun on Stein, but he falls over pretty quickly. Snart had taken it upon himself to take out the guy before Stein got hurt. This leads to big barroom brawl. The person to stop it is a familiar face to comic fans—Jonah Hex. Somehow Jonah has figured out that these new people in town are time travelers, and seems to know who their leader is, and demands to see Rip Hunter.
So, Jonah gets his wish. We learn that these two have some sort of history, when Jonah comments about his jacket looking good on Rip. We also learn that there is a gang—the Stillwater Gang—terrorizing the locals of the town. Ray is upset to hear this, and wants to take the gang down.
The Stillwater Gang
So Ray and Jonah head into the local jail. Oddly enough, the timing is pretty perfect as the sheriff decides to abandon his job, passing the badge off to Ray. Meanwhile, Stein heads to the saloon to get some information about the Stillwater Gang, where he finds a woman mourning her ill son who she says only has a short amount of time to live. Stein meets the child and realizes the he has tuberculosis. But Stein is called outside by the sound of gunfire—the Stillwater Gang has shown up for a visit.
Ray confronts the leader of the gang, so the leader pulls a gun on him. Snart has his back though, as a sharpshooter, shooting the gun out of his hand. The Stillwater Gang leaves town, and Ray and Snart celebrate their victory over the gang.
Jonah, on the other hand, is not really convinced the problem is over, and the gang will come back eventually, and the team won’t be around to help anymore. Jonah eludes to the fact a city, Calvert, had been leveled previously. Stein winds up looking into this, and finds that it is completely wiped off the map—and it looks like due to a similar situation. Rip had been keeping a gang at bay, but when he left, the town was destroyed.
Stein’s Dilemma to Help A Sick Child
Stein, meanwhile, has resolved to help the sick child he met previously. Rip however says that he should not do so, as the medicine required is not available this early in the time line. Stein doesn’t seem to care, and heads out with the medicine.
He meets the woman, and provides the child with a cure, and gives the remaining doses of the medicine to the mother, telling her to destroy everything left over when she is done with it.
Ray and Jonah Head to the Stillwater Gang Hideout
Jonah reveals where the Stillwater Gang is hiding out, and he and Ray, Jonah and a few of the team members decide to head out there. They capture the Stillwater leader, but in the process, Jackson is taken.
The team debates how to proceed, and a “quickdraw” duel seems to be the best course of action, they think. Rip decides to volunteer for this, after telling Jonah why he left Calvert when he was still a Time Master.
Kendra and Sara
Kendra and Sara, meanwhile, have wandered off. Kendra has decided to look for a woman who had recognized her at the saloon before the brawl broke out. Sara seems to just want some fresh air. On their way to find this mystery woman, Kendra says that she feels drawn to where they are going.
They find the mystery woman, who pulls a gun on the two. It is in this moment that Kendra comes to the realization that this woman is herself—much older. The two then decide to talk, and this older woman talks about meeting Carter in this timeline, saying that any relationship with someone other than Carter will not work out. Kendra also discovers a bracelet in a photo that Kendra had in her first life—and things she had in her first life can be used to kill Savage.
Kendra and Sara return to the ship, and Sara tells Kendra that she doesn’t have to listen to her older self.
The Hunters Show Up To Take Down the Legends of Tomorrow
So the team heads out to watch the duel, and Rip wins the quickdraw, shooting Stillwater in the chest. But their victory is short-lived—the Hunters have arrived. The team takes on the Hunters, and manages to take them down. One Hunter warns Rory though—the “Omega Protocol” has been initiated. Sounds ominous.
The Legends clean up the town, and Rip figures everything will be okay regarding the future, as their stories fade into obscurity. We learn one interesting thing about the kid that Stein saves though. It is the famous author H.G. Wells.
Rounding out the episode, we have Rip warning the group about the “Pilgrim.” She hunts down younger versions of her targets. Oh, and Kendra tells Ray that she wants to be with him. We’ll see how long that lasts.
Legends of Tomorrow – The Magnificent Eight: His Review
I can’t wait to see what Violet thinks about this episode. She hates all things western! But I thought the episode was pretty interesting. I am a little fatigued of both Legends of Tomorrow and The Flash being a little contradictory with their time travel philosophies. They insist that they cannot change the timeline, otherwise they could have a catastrophic effect on the future, but at the same time, various team members will do something that would potentially have a huge impact on the future. It is a bit nerve racking when you see this constantly happening.
One thing that really made me curious about the “logic” of time travel in this world was just a minor throw-away thought by the writers I think, but it has been bothering me. We learn that Professor Stein saved H.G. Wells from “consumption” (tuberculosis). So my question is—did Stein actually save him? Or was he going to survive all along? Or did Stein ALWAYS save him, and that is how time has always been? So confusing! It makes me wonder if the writers have a strict philosophy on their time travel, or is it just “whatever suits the story”?
As far as the actual story, it was an interesting way to learn a little bit more about Rip Hunter. There are a lot of big Jonah Hex fans out there, so hopefully that came across for them. I do not know much about Jonah Hex, but what I saw was a pretty interesting storyline, I thought.
I am curious to see where the story goes from here though. How can Rip possibly keep track of the younger versions of his entire team? It seems like an impossible task. Almost as if you would have to wait for the Pilgrim to strike, then backtrack and find out where it happened. Hopefully it comes off well when this story is told.
Legends of Tomorrow – The Magnificent Eight: Her Review
When I saw that a Western episode of Legends of Tomorrow was coming up, let’s just say I was less than thrilled. Of all genres, Westerns are my least favorite. But as I was watching the episode, it wasn’t really all that bad. I think the futuristic and time travel aspects are what saved it for me. I’m also reminded of something that Joss Whedon said at San Diego Comic-Con a few years ago, something along the lines of if his Westerns don’t have a spaceship in it, then he tends to get grumpy. That made sense to me, and explained why, although Firefly is pretty much a Western, I still love it — it’s because it involved a spaceship. Well guess what — Legends of Tomorrow involves a spaceship as well! The episode involved all the cliche aspects of Westerns, so I suppose fans of that genre would probably like this episode.
As for the other aspects of the episode, I felt like the casting was a little off for Kendra’s older self. I was confused about who this woman was supposed to be, because she didn’t have a similar skin tone to Kendra, or at least it didn’t look like it to me. For a little while, I thought that maybe Kendra doesn’t always look the same in her previous lives, but since her older self recognized Kendra as her own younger self, apparently that wasn’t the case.
I thought it was a little too easy to beat the Hunters. They were supposed to be so menacing and devoid of all humanity, but the Legends were able to easily defeat them in just the last few minutes of the episode. I would have expected more of a challenge.
Finally, it seems like Legends of Tomorrow continues to be unclear about what the actual time travel rules are. They’re always so concerned about messing up the timeline, yet often it seems like certain actions they take end up actually making it so that things happen the way that they’re “supposed” to. In this episode, Stein saves the life of the famous writer H.G. Wells, who ironically goes on to write a book about a time machine. If Stein hadn’t intervened, despite warnings not to, then H.G. Wells would have died as a child, and not gone on to write that book, or any others. Again, I feel like I have to face these things with a “just go with it” attitude.
Anyway, next up we have the latest attacker, the Pilgrim. It should be fun seeing the younger versions of the team members.
I think HG Wells was always suppose to survive, since the timeline wants to remain consistent, and that it was just Stein that saved him in this instance. I think that if Stein hadn’t done anything, something else would have happened to allow HG Wells to survive.
I thought this episode provided a lot more insight into Rip and some of the things that made him into the person he is. Like meeting Jonah Hex, watching the town get destroyed, etc.
That makes sense Serena, as Rip has always said, time tries to remain consistent. I guess that Stein just gets to gloat that he is the one who was able to save him in this version of the timeline.