Yuki's Fangasm

Rip Hunter Appreciation Week - Day 7: Free Day

Legends of Lego - Tertiary Phase (Part 3)

(Part 1)(Part 2)

Plus bonus after credits scene!

Rip Hunter Appreciation Week 2021 Day 7 - Free day

And there’s something funny about that to me.  I mean, on one hand, I think it encapsulates Rip’s feelings about the issue very well.  Rip is at heart a people person.  He befriends Jonah Hex (and presumably a far future Barry Allen)On th, allies with the JSA, he gathers the Legends, he establishes the Time Bureau, he picks up Wally.  He’s just simultaneously awful at actually interacting with people.

On the other though, it’s pretty hilarious that Rip is far far more effective on his own than he is with other people.

Rip is a decent fighter with the team, though I wouldn’t list him as one of the strongest.  He had trouble taking on one giant Russian in a sauna, after all.  And yet in Out of Time, as soon as the Legends leave, he takes on an entire room of Nazis, in a poorly fitting dress uniform, all without spilling a drink.

Look at evil Rip, that calm, efficient way that he ambushed the Legends and tore through the ship for the spear shard.    Look at his takeover of Camelot, and the destruction of the compass in Land of the Lost.  That is a very efficient, very skilled man.

Hell, look at the Time Bureau.  As soon as the man’s away from the legends, he manages to create a full on, theoretically self-sustainable agency (okay, it only lasts one more season, but I blame poor management) with a completely new operating style and technology. 

Hell, he makes a pretty good showing in Return of the Mack, with those time pellets.  Sure, Dahrk ended up getting the better of him, but no one’s perfect.

Rip is a man who is credited with inventing the Time Sphere, off screen.  He adjusted Mid-Nite’s emotional stabilization device to mass mind control.  He presumably built the time corridors and the time pellets.

The man is terrifying!  As long as he’s not with the group.

I’m sure there are Doylistic explanations for that (for one, we actually want the team to be able to do things, and the characters tend to lose abilities anyway as the plot demands - see Sara and her ability to control the team in late season 2 vs. any later season), but I’m more interested in the Watsonian end, because it does seem intentional.  It would be easy enough to just make Rip an overwhelmed bumbler the whole time.  Or even just a chaotic wild card like the Doctor, who can’t be expected to be consistent.  

But they make a point of it.  Jon Valor talks about his impressive reputation.  Zaman Druce is fairly desperate to win him over.  And as the examples show, under certain circumstances, Rip IS badass.

We can theorize why.  The Time Masters were not team players.  Each Time Captain we’ve seen has been alone with their ship.  Miranda was praised for a maneuver that put her and her partner in danger without telling him.  Rip had a childhood where relying on other people was not an option, and he’s a basket case that needs decades worth of therapy.

This topic makes me think of season one and what I truly did love about it.

I’m not going to claim season one was perfect.  In my opinion, it took a little too long to find its groove, and while there were a few great episodes in the front part of the season (particularly blood ties, dealing with Sara’s blood lust and her continuing fight to control it), I didn’t feel like it truly gelled until after Marooned shook things up a little.

But I think overall, there was a pretty powerful theme of grief, acceptance and moving on.  Rip was the most obvious example, but I think it was true for most of the characters to some extent.

Sara, for example, was grieving over her lost innocence.  It didn’t consume her the way that Rip’s grief was consuming him, of course.  But it was something she dealt with every day: when she found herself compelled to violence, when she succumbed to the effects of the 1950s and rejoined the League.  When she found herself drawn to the nurse Lindsay and her responses to that.  It wasn’t overt, but over the course of the season, we saw Sara come to terms with her past and find strength and purpose aboard the Waverider.  

Kendra was grieving her normal life.  People mocked her barista line, but that’s because people lack fucking empathy.  The poor girl had an ordinary, happy life before she was suddenly swept up into this crazy nightmare of loved ones she can’t remember, an abuser obsessed through lifetimes….

Not all the characters were so strongly tied to their losses, but they were at least touched upon: Ray’s fiancee, Jax’s dad.  Leonard Snart tried to save his childhood through keeping his father from prison.

Even Mick found himself grieving the man Snart was, or at least he’d thought he was, before they’d joined the team, while Last Refuge showed us that some hurts run deeper than that.

But each character had their own arc that moved them past that.

And of course, Rip’s arc was center stage.  And as cheesy and ridiculous as season one could be, I’ll never forget Rip flying the Waverunner into the sun and then, finally, choosing life instead.  

(Later season Legends has committed many sins, but I will never forgive the showrunners for having Rip take back that choice.)

I guess it’s funny.  The theme is darker days, but I’m talking about how Legends was better then.  But I think it was.

Season 1 Legends wasn’t afraid to be dark, and it wasn’t afraid to be painful.  And yes, it could be very funny, but that wasn’t the point.  The humor in season 1 came from the characters.  And sometimes it came from pain or callousness, or anger.  The characters weren’t always likable and they weren’t always fun, but they grew and became stronger and better.