The crew heads back to the old west to stop another time aberration, which means we get another Jonah Hex cameo for the Legends of Tomorrow.
A lot of important plot structures are lined up conveniently here for the episode before the big four episode crossover event the week after Thanksgiving, most notably with the discovery of dwarf star material thanks to a local outlaw planning to utilize it as a weapon to claim ownership of the Wild West as his own nation apart from the unionized United States. That Dwarf star material however, being the densest material in the universe, also proves Ray Palmer with material to finally rebuild his Atom suit after a few episodes of self reflection on how to be his own hero, as well as some spare material to build a super suit for Nick Zano AKA Steel AKA the library dude. That fancy new suit is definitely deserved when the character has enough courage to use his own brute force to stop a train, literally, in its tracks, and the visual effects surrounding it don’t fall apart while he does.
For Jax and Martin Stein, the pilot is more internal to their own relationship and the course of events through adjusting the timeline in their most recent quests, specifically as Stein begins to have strange visions of a woman he’s not familiar with. By the episode’s end he comes to the conclusion that he even loves this unfamiliar woman. This is some more Back to the Future kind of plotting, unfortunately for Stein, as their impact on his younger self in the 1980’s last week somehow affected his marriage and his career in physics as one would assume when meeting their future self twice in one lifetime.
For Dominic Purcell, Mick Rory has become more likable than ever in the last couple of weeks, and his internal distrusting conflict between himself and Amaya / Vixen culminate in the old west when he openly tells her that she’d seen his “real self,” as he supposedly performed as right ass in a bar. Their conversations eventually turn into a metaphor as she claims to know “animistic nature” of men, or even the most reserved people, but each seem to be convinced, and acknowledge, that there’s more to the animal side of an individual, despite how strongly the two contrast to one another. In the absence of Captain Cold throughout these six episodes, Purcell has had the opportunity to show that he’s possibly just as compelling a performer as Wentworth Miller, and the writers room allows for this through strong character moments.
8/10
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