Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Legends of Tomorrow: Season 2, Episode 13 - Land Of The Lost

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.



Plot

When a still-corrupted Rip Hunter forces The Waverider to crash, The Legends find themselves stranded in prehistoric times. As Ray, Nate and Amaya are forced into the wild to recover a vital piece of the ship, Sara and Jax must use the equipment in the med bay to enter Rip's mind and restore their friend to his true self. 


Influences

Land of the Lost (the title and the concept of people trapped in a prehistoric land), Jurassic Park (name-dropped by Rory, the encounter with Gertrude) Inception (technology being used to enter other people's minds) and Raiders of the Lost Ark (Jax just shooting the Evil Sara as Sara engages her in a martial arts fight.).


Goofs

The last episode ended with Gideon addressing Rip Hunter as Captain and seemingly listening to him. In this episode, Rip Hunter tries to speak to Gideon but is informed that she was instructed to ignore anything he had to say.

The red-black flames for Evil Firestorm are a terrible bit of CGI.


Performances

The relationship between Jax and Sara continues to grow subtlety and Caity Lotz and Franz Drameh do a fantastic job portraying the new Captain and her new protege.


Artistry

It's a subtle touch but Sara's costume in this episode is practically a stealth Black Canary cosplay, with a blue-tinted leather jacket.

The fight between the two Saras is perfect. Well-choreographed. Well-shot. And edited in such a way that you almost swear they cloned Caity Lotz rather than making clever use of a double. 


Trivia Of Tomorrow

The episode title (and base concept) come from a 1974 children's show which saw a park ranger and his two children stranded in a prehistoric land. In 2009, a movie was made that was also based on the show

The episode opens with Sara reading the show's standard opening narration.

After fighting the "evil Sara" in Rip's mind, Sara refers to her as "Bizzaro-me". In the DC Comics Universe, Bizzaros were evil or misguided versions of the various heroes native to the Bizzaro World. The most famous of the Bizzaros was Bizzaro Superman, who had all of the strength and invulnerability of Superman while also having freeze vision and heat breath, rather than Superman's heat vision and freeze breath.

Actress Amy Pemberton, who provides the voice for Gideon, appears in the flesh as Gideon with a physical form.


Technobabble

The sudden reconfiguration of Gideon's navigation system following her forced reboot also forced her to select the oldest destination in her logs as a destination when crash-landing.

The Waverider's primary temporal delineator was lost during the crash. Without it, the ship cannot travel.

Cognitive Intrusion is the process by which one consciousness enters another. The technology was developed in 2137 by The Time Masters and used as an extreme method of coercion. Before he went evil, Rip Hunter considered the process barbaric.

CI devices come standard with all Time Master vessels, including The Waverider.

One should not stay in a mindscape for longer than an hour. One risks becoming permanently stuck in another's mind if you do. The CI Devices are equipped with buttons that strap onto the wrist and allow the visitor to "shock" themselves awake.


Dialogue Triumphs

Jax: Hey, yo. I've got an idea.
Sara: If it's to try to get Evil Rip to tell us where and when Commander Steel is, I already tried.
Jax: And he didn't tell you nothing?
Sara: No, he told me a lot of things. All different variations of "go to hell".

Sara: (To Rory) Go stop him.
Rory: You mean kill him?
Sara: No. No killing.
Rory: No fun.

Sara: You two think you can figure this Cognitive Intrusion thing out?
Rory: With the professor as my assistant, yeah.
Stein: You can not be serious!
Rory: I'm very serious. Now, get me a beer.

Jax: Rip believed in me. There's a reason he made me Chief Engineer.
Rory: You're the only engineer.

(Sara and Jax raid the Waverider armory inside Rip's mind.)
Sara: You sure these guns are going to work in here?
Jax: I don't know. I ain't never been in nobody's mind before.
(Jax picks one of the guns up as a guard enters the room from behind them.)
Guard: Freeze!
(Jax whips around and shoots the guard, who goes flying into the wall.)
Jax: Yeah. Yeah, I think they'll work just fine.

(Sara and Jax look down at the defeated Evil Sara.)
Sara: God... I'm a bitch in Rip's mind.
Jax: If that's how he thinks of you in his subconscious-
Sara: - that explains why he wants to kill us in real life.
Jax: If that's right, then...
Sara: ... then there's more than just Bizzaro Me on this ship.
Jax: Like Evil Ray... Evil Stein...
Sara: Evil Mick. (pauses) I guess that's just regular Mick, but still.

(Nate and Amaya ask Ray to explain why this one dinosaur has a grudge against him.)
Ray: Well, it just so happens that lady dinosaurs are rather maternal.
Nate: And?
Ray: And... I may have eaten one of her eggs.
(Nate makes a disgusted noise.)
Ray: But I was starving!  I needed protein! (defensively) I mean, one egg made me like 70 omelettes! I regret nothing!

Ray: Do not leave the urine perimeter!

(Jax confronts a woman with Gideon's voice who says that she is Rip's vision of Gideon.)
Jax:
Wait, wait... How can you be Gideon? I mean -
Gideon: Am I not what you imagined?
Jax: Well, I always pictured you as a redhead, myself, but ah- This is Rip's world. I guess we're just living in it, right? I have to find him. I need to ask him where Nate's grandfather is.
Gideon: It won't be easy getting that information.
Jax: What do you mean?
Gideon: Eobard Thawne twisted his consciousness. Turned friends into foes.
Jax: But you're still a friend. Why aren't you corrupted?
Gideon: It did not occur to Mr. Thawne that the AI inside the Waverider needed corrupting.

Ray: You can't date Amaya.
Nate: (sighs) Ray, I'm not dating Amaya.
Ray: Well, you're doing something with her. Why do you think I yelled "yoo-hooooo!" when I came back to camp?
Nate: Because you're the type of guy who still says "in a jiffy"?
Ray: Because I didn't want to interrupt any... shenanigans.
Nate: And still says "shenanigans".

Rip: Gideon?
Gideon: Yes Captain?
Rip: I'm uh... I'm really sorry for everything I put you through.
Gideon: Forcing me to disable the ship? Or the kiss?
Rip: How did-
Gideon: If it's the later, I rather enjoyed it.
Rip: ... as did I, Gideon. As did I. 


Continuity

"Spaniel. Broad. Tricycle." is the override command Rip Hunter programmed into Gideon to allow him to reassert control of the ship, unlocking the brig and sealing all the doors within the ship except for those leading to the armory and the Jump Ship. It also disable Gideon's ability to respond to commands to override the original override unless the entire ship is rebooted.

Nate is strong enough, in his steel form, to open the sealed doors of The Waverider by force.

The Spectrum Protocol is The Waverider's self-destruct sequence.

Rip Hunter destroys The Longinus Medallion.

Ray identifies 69,997,983 BC as the precise year that he was stranded in following Rip's TimeScatter in 201. Gideon says this was not a coincidence, as that date was the oldest one in Gideon's logs and the sudden reboot made her automatically choose the oldest location as a destination.

The Time Masters created devices which allowed one person to enter another's mind in 2137.

Gertrude is the name Ray gave to the female Tyrannosaurus Rex with whom he fought for territory.

Nate is more comfortable indoors than outside and is afraid of snakes.

Amaya's medallion allows her to communicate with animals as well as replicating their abilities. She later uses her powers to speak to Gertrude and convince her to leave them alone.

Amaya says she has reconsidered her rules on dating teammates in the wake of her and Nate's having sex in 211.

Mick Rory has seen others use Cognitive Intrusion technology and had his mind invaded but he's never entered into another person's mind himself

Ray confirms that he spent six months living in the Cretaceous period waiting for rescue.

Ray used male Tyrannosaurus Rex urine to drive Gertrude away from his home. How he got the male Tyrannosaurus Rex urine is not explained.

Ray made little dolls of his crew-mates when he got lonely.

Jax knows Morse Code. The Gideon in Rip's mind uses this knowledge to contact him with an SOS.

In Rip's mind, Gideon appears to be a stunningly gorgeous brunette woman. The two kiss as Rip's mindscape of the Evil Waverider is destroyed. Somehow - presumably through the Cognitive Intrusion technology's link to the ship - the real Gideon knows about this kiss later.

Rip's true self is locked in The Waverider's brig in his mindscape.

Ray refers to his dating Hawkgirl in Season One.

Ray refers to the events of the second season of the Vixen animated series and how he met Amaya's granddaughter, Mari. He tells Nate that he can't date Amaya because she is destined to go back to 1942, return to her village and have a daughter before her village is destroyed and Mari winds up in foster care in Detroit.

Rip Hunter's memories are restored and he is back to his normal self. It is unclear if he is taking back his position as Captain of the Waverider.

As the episode concludes, we see Eobard Thawne, posing as a doctor, treating an astronaut.


Location

The Temporal Zone.
Somewhere in South Dakota. - 69,997,983 B.C.
Nasa Flight Operations Base - 1970

The Bottom Line

A wonderful, smartly-written and well-presented episode that gives everyone in the ensemble a chance to shine. 

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