Said anachronism happens to be in Vietnam circa 1967. Not the most ideal of time periods. Even Mick doesn't want to go, though he has his own personal reasons for wanting to avoid it. Conversely, Amaya is more than willing. It was a nice callback to her origins as something of a soldier, though the others do point out that this war was very different than the one in which Amaya fought.
Not that it matters as the group has a third party antagonist to deal with. Said antagonist is revealed to be a time displaced Gorilla Grodd. It's been a while since we've seen him. His episodes were always a season highlight back on "The Flash", so it was nice to see him show up here. Unlike Thawne, this isn't a rogue that any of the Legends have dealt with before, so they're just as thrown off by the development as anybody else. They get caught up pretty quickly, but it was an interesting twist to throw in.
David Sobolov continues to do a great job of voicing Grodd. He presents the character with menace in spades, but also captures the more sympathetic elements rather well.
Villains having layers is a recurring theme with this episode. Grodd's nature initially throws Amaya for a loop, but it also gives her a new point of view in regards to Kuasa.
It also becomes a factor for Mick, who runs into his father. While Mick is often used for comic relief with some awesome moments in fight scenes, it was nice to see the character have some more serious material to work with. Purcell took to it quite well and it made for some of the episode's highlights.
One other thing to note is that this is yet another instance this season of an anachronism being tied to the Legends or their family. It's such a common time travel trope that I really hadn't thought that much of it, but they are right to point out how slim the odds are of it happening even once, let alone multiple times. Maybe there's more to the anachronisms than meets the eye? We'll see.
Oddly enough, this episode doesn't really touch on Mallus, though the sequel hook does have Darkh recruiting Grodd to his new team. Even stranger is the fact that there is no mention of the upcoming crossover. They did a good job of it last year, but I guess they wanted to mix it up a bit.
The episode isn't without its flaws, unfortunately. Evan Jones' depiction of Mick's dad, Dick Rory (rhyming names? really?) comes off as very forced. He tries to do a raspy growl, but it doesn't sound natural. The bonding scenes between the two still work, but it is a very noticeable weak spot.
The depiction of Lyndon Johnson is also a bit on the strange side. Admittedly, I don't know what Johnson was like in real life....but I wouldn't have pictured him like that.
Jax does get to show his heroic chops by saving him from a minefield. It was nice to show Jax grow as a hero without Firestorm, but at the same time, the two rarely fuse nowadays anyway, so the change might not be as drastic as you'd originally think.
The episode may not be one of the season highlights, but it did have some solid character arcs. It also gave a fan favorite villain a return appearance and laid the groundwork for more appearances in the future.
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