TV Review: LEGENDS OF TOMORROW: Season 1, Episode 4: White Knights [The CW]

The CW‘s Legends of Tomorrow White Knights TV Show Review. Legends of Tomorrow: Season 1, Episode 4: White Knights finally brings several characters into likable territory, despite the show’s still underwhelming and sometimes embarrassing presentation. The team has now arrived in the 1980s, which are even less well-defined than the 1970s were in the series; in fact, so far as the part set in the United States is concerned, it could just as easily be the present day. The team has learned that the FBI had been collecting intel on Vandal Savage (Casper Crump), and although the only document released to the public was blacked out, there is some hope in stealing the original in the 1980s. Leonard Snart (Wentworth Miller), Sara Lance (Caity Lotz) and Kendra Saunders (Ciara Renee) sneak into the Pentagon, and as anyone with half-decent ability to observe trends can predict, their cover is blown and the mission degenerates into Captain Cold freezing people, White Canary kicking people, and hey; a new one: Hawkgirl goes berserk and claws out a guard’s eyes!

Despite this, they manage to get the document, and learn from it that in this era, Vandal Savage is in the Soviet Union heading a project to develop a new weapon, so they fly over to the USSR, which at least features soldiers in authentic uniforms to remind people this is before 1992. In the process, various character interactions occur. White Canary and Hawkgirl bond over their common struggle to find a good balance between being human and being badass. Jefferson Jackson (Franz Drameh) and Dr. Martin Stein (Victor Garber) have another of their arguments (getting old, guys), a Time Lord named Zaman Druce (Martin Donovan) comes gunning for Rip Hunter (Arthur Darvill), and offering a way out for the rest of the team, and others go incognito into Soviet Society to find Savage’s employee, Valentina (Stephanie Cornelliusen). Leonard Snart steals the show throughout the episode; his deadpan dialogue is frequently charming, and his desire, unique among the team, to have fun with the whole time travel bit, is easy to empathize with; however irresponsible.

No recap of this episode is complete without a straightforward mention that astoundingly enough, the show’s handling of foreign languages has actually gotten stupider than it was last episode! At least they try to explain the utter lack of language barrier presented then, by explaining that Rip Hunter has an ample supply of foreign language pills (Exactly what it says on the tin), but from there, the narrative stumbles over itself. Ray Palmer (Brandon Routh) and Leonard Snart are shown speaking Russian onboard their ship, with English subtitles, but the moment they get out into Russian society, it all sounds like English again! That is absurd on multiple levels. Viewers have long resolved to suspend disbelief to fit the warped rules of fictional worlds, but it’s a whole different matter when those rules keep changing!

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