Skip to Content

DC’s Legends of Tomorrow Ep 1.12 “The Last Refuge”: The Rich Space Adventure We Deserve

DC’s Legends of Tomorrow Ep 1.12 “The Last Refuge”: The Rich Space Adventure We Deserve

 

DC Legends Of Tomorrow 1x12 Promo - Last refuge

DC’s Legends of Tomorrow Season 1, Episode 12: “The Last Refuge”
Written by Chris Fedak & Matthew Maala
Directed by Rachel Talalay
Airs Thursdays at 7pm ET on The CW

A rich, rewarding episode, “Last Refuge” is the best Legends of Tomorrow episode to date, and very nearly single-handedly provides a justification for its second-season renewal. Delivering a chilling villain, new and textured mythology, high stakes, and multiple twists and turns, it’s the space adventure we’ve been waiting for and deserve.

The Time Masters send their best assassin, the Pilgrim, after the team, and she proves to be the first force in the universe, including Savage, who can easily defeat the Legends. Played with panache by Faye Kingslee, the Pilgrim is an icy figure of pure, competent evil in a universe marked by grandiose, ineffective villains. As lethally trained as Sara, her true power is her ability to temporarily slow time, or as Rip calls it, “temporal micromanipulations.” She takes off in time to find and kill the younger versions of the Legends, which provides a ticking time bomb that gave the episode its deliciously refreshing pace.

Surprisingly little is revealed about the Legends’ previous selves in this episode, but the younger versions of Mick, Sara, and Rip are all extremely well-cast, and each has a brief moment in the spotlight. Mick’s backstory is particularly effecting, and his berations of his younger self display the emotionally astute writing the show is occasionally capable of.

Perhaps more importantly, a physical location that could potentially act as an occasional homebase, a “refuse” for the Legends, is established, as is much more of Rip’s backstory. In a canny move the showrunners brought on Celia Imrie, TV heavyweight and alumn of The Phantom Menace and one episode of Doctor Who, as Rip’s mother. As the no-nonsense manager of a home for orphaned future Time Masters, she’s a dryly wonderful character. The gradual reveal of Rip as a troubled but brilliant orphan also does much to expand and illuminate a fairly flat character. It’s Rip’s childhood self who pulls off the best, most unexpected moment of the entire episode, when in a ruthless move, he stabs and allows the Legends to kill the Pilgrim. Ferocious and ruthless, it’s a bold move on the show’s part to portray a child this way, but great storytelling, particularly as it’s entirely unheralded so comes as a genuine twist.

Kendra and Ray, meanwhile, have a subplot of relationship conflict, but it’s realistic conflict, and worth the investment of screentime to continue to develop perhaps the most complex relationship among the Legends right now. Frustratingly, it’s resolved by episode end, tying up in a neat bow a situation and emotions that are not tidy, and it’s doesn’t feel true to Kendra for her to rush, after all, into a commitment. I give these two low odds of still being together by season’s end.

The whole episode builds toward the showdown with the Pilgrim, in which spectacular CGI, the high stakes (every single member of the Legends is outmatched, and the lives of children and family members are at stake), and the aforementioned twist of young Rip Hunter’s involvement make for a climactic, satisfying scene.

The aftermath effectively jolts the Legends into their final dash toward the season finale, moreover, since having kidnapped their infant selves, they have a limited time before their entire histories are erased from time. Because of this, they’re finally headed to 2166, the pinnacle of Savage’s power and the time period when he killed Rip’s family. Ideally, this show would use the chance to kill off Savage in the upcoming finale – a character who week in and week out makes the show much worse than it needs to be, but I fully expect that’s too much to hope for. Regardless, a strong, twisty episode that bodes extremely well for the future of these time-travelers.

 

Notes:

Rip’s real name is Michael. It’s possible that his father is time traveling superhero character Booster Gold, whose real name is Michael Jon Carter.

This was such a great episode for female characters. Not only was the Pilgrim thoroughly badass, but Sara and Kendra had warm heart-to-hearts and the hand-to-hand fights between the Pilgrim and Sara represented something extraordinary rare on television: adversaries who are both highly trained, competent women.

[wpchatai]