TV Review: ARROW: Season 4, Episode 8: Legends of Yesterday [The CW]

The CW‘s Arrow Legends of Yesterday TV Show Review. Arrow: Season 4, Episode 8: Legends of Yesterday concluded the story of Team Arrow and Team Flash against the immortal Vandal Savage (Casper Crump). The Flash‘s Legends of Today began the 2-part crossover by revealing that Kendra Saunders (Ciara Renée) was the winged creature in one of Cisco’s (Carlos Valdes) visions, that she was in danger of being murdered by Savage, that The Flash is actually too slow to defeat his arch enemy Zoom, that The Flash had a coffee drink named after him, and that Oliver may have run into his 9-year-old son. (Thanks for that curve ball cliffhanger CW!) Understanding that his team had little experience with mystical beings, Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) decided to request help from Team Arrow in Star City. Legends of Yesterday resolved major issues including Vandal Savage’s mortality, Cisco’s  romance, and Oliver’s (Stephen Amell) uh… issues.

Honestly, I think the B-story pretty much overshadowed the event….. Oliver is a father! He tracked down the woman his mother paid to disappear in Season 1 and confronted her. That conversation was intense. Oliver exhibited an enormous amount of self-control in a highly emotional situation, giving all the power over to the mother. Sure, he was furious, as he had a right to be, but it was like the most explosive conversation of the year was carried out in whispers.

Oliver moved the whole team to a farmhouse outside of Central City in order to plan and prepare for the final showdown, while he tracked down the mother of his child and conducted secret paternity tests with Barry’s help. Unwittingly, Barry let the secret slip when Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) demanded to see the test. Felicity was understandably hurt and upset that Oliver did not trust her enough to tell her about this. Their argument left me thinking that relationship was broken, which was cruel because of course, it had been foreshadowed earlier in the episode that Barry was going to time warp, but the emotions were going all over the place and I just forgot.

Also, I was a little taken aback by her reaction. Felicity is supposed to be extraordinarily understanding. I mean, she held out the longest hope that Oliver had not turned evil when he joined the League last year… and he was kidnapping people. Oliver made his son long before he and she got together, the whole process of finding out he was the father was understandably disturbing. You could see the distress in Oliver, and he was forbidden from telling anyone about his son. Felicity’s issue is secrets, and I get that, but that secret is crushing. It involved multiple lives, including the child’s, and not just their relationship. I wonder if she would think about all of that.

We might never know since Barry warped back in time and changed the sequence of history by warning Oliver of the impending fight he would have with the love of his life over the paternity test – an emotional disturbance that would contribute to the team’s failure against Savage. Oliver decided not to tell Felicity anything, which coincidentally would have been his earlier decision anyway, only he did not have to bear the consequence of insulting her. At least, not yet.

The main plot line was of course Barry Allen’s request for Team Arrow’s help protecting Kendra aka Priestess Chay-Ara aka “Hawkgirl” from the murderous intentions of Vandal Savage. It takes a true leap of faith off a very tall building before Kendra fully accepts her ancient Egyptian heritage as a priestess locked in a generational loop of fated love with Carter Hall (Falk Hentschel) lasting the past 400 years. Wow, Cisco – basically any human – would have a hard time competing with that kind of love. So when she chose Carter in the end, it was not surprising. I felt bad for Cisco, but come on, Kendra and Carter aka Prince Khufu aka “Hawkman” were 400-year-old lovers. There really was no choice there. The two of them have some catching up to do.

Malcolm Merlyn (John Barrowman) is such a liar (and he makes some of the funniest entrances). He said he knew nothing of Savage’s magic, yet in the end we hear him speak the very same words that Savage spoke on the day he cursed the couple and himself over 400 years ago in ancient Egypt. Now, how in the world would he know those words? What does he think to gain from Savage’s ashes? This guy! I do love to hate him.

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