Legends of Tomorrow: “Helen Hunt” Review

By: Jaclyn Cascio (@jaclynator)

Legends of Tomorrow premiered the sixth episode of its junior season this week. The team sought to resolve an anachronism that was supposed to be an easy fix. But in true Legends fashion, the entire operation was bungled from start to finish, exacerbated by some villainous interventions throughout the episode. Read on for a spoilery review of “Helen Hunt” and see how everything went.

While the team time travels and makes their way through various timelines to sort out the problems they created when they broke time, there’s always more fun to be had. Legends of Tomorrow didn’t stop with a simple anachronism this week, with Helen of Troy (Bar Paly) making her way into 1930s Hollywood. As the cherry on top of “Helen Hunt,” a body-swapping Freaky Friday situation was thrown in. Appealing to the light-hearted feel of the show, body-swapping is a pretty reliable recipe for comedic shenanigans. In an attempted relocation of all Firestorm powers to Jackson, the science experiment of Ray Palmer (Brandon Routh) went awry, leaving Jax (Franz Drameh) and Professor Stein (Victor Garber) swapped into each other’s bodies. Because the characters have been working as a united pair for so long, with a telepathic link to boot, the attempted fish out of water humor was lacking. The two character already have a fairly deep understanding of one another so the surprises were few.

That being said, the two actors basically doing impressions of each other for the entire episode was still ridiculously amusing. Garber’s impression of Jax was understated, but still recognizable. Meanwhile, Drameh was clearly having a blast pretending to be Professor Stein. His enjoyable performance was dramatic and a little over the top, as most impressions are. Going over-the-top was highly successful; the dramatic flair made the distinction between the characters in swapped bodies easy to follow and remember throughout the episode, while showing off Drameh’s acting chops. (As if he wasn’t already doing that every week in pulling off a fantastic American accent.)

While Hollywood was rescued from Helen of Troy’s beauty (and Themiscyra gained a new warrior), villains abounded within this week’s episode. Damien Darhk (Neal McDonough) and his unexplained daughter, Eleanor (Courtney Ford), otherwise known as Rip Hunter’s (Arthur Darvill) obsessive focus, Mollus, were at work in the 1930s. Their plans in the 1930s and a desire to maintain anachronisms such as Helen of Troy in Hollywood are not yet understandable. The last time we saw Darhk on Legends of Tomorrow, he was working under Eobard Thawne’s thumb alongside Malcolm Merlyn (John Barrowman). Now that he has been revived and is working as a free agent with his newly revealed daughter, we can only guess what nefarious deeds he hopes to achieve. In fact, that’s all the audience has been able to do at this point: guess.

Darhk and daughter apparently have their plans, which we certainly hope will be revealed soon. Meanwhile, the mysterious lady of the water was revealed this week as Kuasa (Tracy Ifeachor) – the granddaughter of Amaya (Maisie Richardson-Sellers). Ray Palmer seemed to know more than anyone about Kuasa, and even offered his knowledge to Amaya. She refused, but we still have to wonder how Ray came across the information to begin with. A smart man, his knowledge is usually confined to science, technology, engineering, math, and pop culture references. While Palmer seems to be “in the know” the viewers are not as fortunate. Let’s be honest…do any of us really understand what the story with these totems is? “Helen Hunt” appeared to once again tease that the common thread running through this season of Legends of Tomorrow is tied to the totem-bearers, yet their story remains largely untold six episodes into the season. This week’s episode brought some answers in the form of revealed identites, but once again left out the characters’ game plans.

The episode had plenty of tension and conflict between the Legends and multiple villains. Unfortunately, the audience has not yet been privy to the motivations of the villains. Generally, their devious deeds have only been classified as such because they oppose the show’s heroes. The dastardly plans of the dark side have yet to be revealed. “Helen Hunt” brought the heroes and villains into direct conflict with one another with loads of action eye-candy for all, but there was very little meaning behind the fighting. Will we find out what the baddies’ games are before the season is finished, or will we be left questioning repeatedly, as the Daleks once demanded of the Doctor, “Explain! Explain!”

What did you think of this week’s episode of Legends of Tomorrow? Were you caught up in the action and body-swapping humor, or left in confusion about what the team is really up against this season?

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via The Nerd Machine

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