After going to the future and to outer space, the team of heroes travel back to the past. More specifically, they go to the 1950's. This actually works to their advantage, though, as Savage won't recognize them yet. Fittingly enough, this episode takes a step backwards in many respects.
Once again, the team fractures off, resulting in multiple subplots. Unlike other episodes where the end goals were clearly defined, here, it isn't. Ray and Kendra pose as a married couple to further their shipping and to show that the past wasn't so kind to interracial relationships. It makes you wonder why they paired those two. Wouldn't Sara have been the better partner for that one with Kendra acting as the nurse?
Yeah, Ray and Kendra end up across the street from Savage, but they seem caught off guard by this, which makes you wonder what they were doing. The other subplots are as flimsy, though they just happen to work to the heroes' advantage because the script said that it would.
Really, the whole episode is structured in such a way that the writers were obviously more concerned with preaching and making some attempt at social commentary than advancing the ongoing plot or having the team of heroes become legends. Honestly, every subplot is really just a pretense for this. Maybe this is just a personal gripe, as I have grown tired of heavy-handed writer soapbox preaching, but it got annoying, especially when even the slightest bit of common sense from even one of the characters would have avoided all of it.
It was good to have Vandal back, though. While he is still lacking as a villain in terms of being a threat that needs a team to be taken down (really, it seems like it would be more important that they help Barry take down Zoom), he was still creepy in a small scale murderous psychopath kind of way.
It was weird seeing him try to play normal, if only because Vandal did such a poor job of it. You can't help but wonder how anybody didn't suspect something was up. Crump looked like he was enjoying himself, though, so that's always something.
Having him just kill people would have been enough, but they try to give him some larger endgame and it gets ridiculous. I mean, bird people? They were probably going for some "mad scientist" type thing to fit with the 50's era but it doesn't get enough time and it comes out of nowhere.
Even the bird people themselves don't seem to pose much of a threat. They look silly and they don't ever challenge the heroes to any real extent. As such, the episode is sorely lacking in action. Considering this is supposed to be the epic superhero show, it's really shocking to see.
I was going to chide Kendra's plan to try and take on Savage solo. Yes, she had the dagger now, but Ray fails to remind her that Savage has done this song and dance hundreds of times because girl power or something. To her credit, though, she admits that it was a bad idea later on. So at least she and the writers acknowledged the lapse in judgment.
The episode does end on an intriguing cliffhanger, though. The Chronos attacks are becoming redundant (even Snart reacts to his arrival with a bored "not again" line) but it does drive the team to leave before Ray, Sara, and Kendra can return; leaving them stranded in the past. Considering the show is following Arrow's and Flash's lead and taking a multi-week break, it's not a bad note to end on.
Still, this episode kind of stunk. It wasn't well paced, the characters' actions make no sense, and the plot was utterly lacking on every conceivable front. I'd mark it as the nadir of the season in all honesty. Hopefully the break will do the show some good. It would be a shame to see this go down the tubes. I want to be excited to tune into this week to week, but it has to give me more to work with. I can't help but think that it would be more exciting to see the team just operate in the present without the time jumping. It would still achieve the goal of keeping all of these characters busy so that they can't always swoop in and help Oliver or Barry on their respective shows and it would keep viewers invested by giving them a consistent setting and showing the actual aftermath from their ordeals.
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