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Notes on - Legends of Tomorrow: The Fixed Point

 

The Fixed Point notes

Nice jumping right in to Sara trying to stop the assassination and then pausing.  Is it a flash forward?  Are they imagining what might happen?  Sets up nicely the gamification of the assassination stoppage later on

They’re lifting the ‘fixed point’ verbiage from Doctor Who, but explaining it better.  Time travel ‘isn’t allowed’  Allowed by whom?

It’s a clever plan to lure in Evil Gideon and her crew of robots.  But wouldn’t any old change in history do it?  They justify it by it having been so chaotic, and cleaning it up would be so big that it will take all the robots attention

The gag about them not recognizing Nate’s drawing is cute.  They’re trying so hard to be supportive of his work.

Sarajevo 1914

Their plan to drug the assassins is a pretty good one actually.

Great job making fixed point guy very threatening at first.  It’s clear that he knows they plan to drug the assassins and is going to stop them

The Proprietor:  You clearly don’t belong here

Nate and Sara simultaneously: We’re on our Honeymoon/ We’re backpackers.

Sara and Nate simultaneously: What he said/What she said.

Nate:  We really should be better at this by now.

And a great reveal that the Proprietor knows that they’re time travellers.

They literally just went through the looking glass.

The Fixed Point is the name of the bar.  Very cute.

Such a great setup – so many people have come back to try to stop0 the assassination that they’ve started a bar for them

The 1920s credits are back!

Why did they go to the effort to transform the time machine into a cassette tape?  Cute gag about ELO though

The Proprietor refers to them as competitors and the whole thing has basically become American Ninja Warrior which is just such a great story hook.

And they can watch him in real time through archive footage.  Very clever time travel gimmick.  The film updates every time an attempt is made

Very American ninja warrior style music during the competitors attempts.

Clearly not everyone in the bar is in line to try to save the archduke.  There’s just too many of them.  Most of them must just be hanging out.

Ava stayed behind to help Gwyn figure out how to save his feller.  Very sweet and practical

Gary:  Astra said it should change back soon.

Gwyn:  Well, I’ll just assume that that makes sense then.

Ava:  No, that makes absolutely no sense.  What happened with the Archduke?

Gary:  Oh, we’re still waiting our turn in a sort of time travel Cheers meets Thunderdome

Good on Ava for giving Gwyn credit for getting time travel started.  And thank God they finally pointed out the inherent paradox in saving Alan.  And wonderful that Gwyn had already thought of that and chosen the most pragmatic way around it.  He just has to let his younger self believe it still happened and be miserable forever.  Which of course Ava isn’t down for.

Gideon is seriously bothered by the idea that Time itself can actively kill people

Zari and Spooner are getting ditched by their usual companions due to their whole new love thing.  Nicely observed that Zari and Gideon don’t have any history of being solo together.

Are we going to get a twist reveal of who the Proprietor is?

Gideon:  All these years and I never even knew the fixed point had a bar.

I like the way the script is really digging into there being no obvious common ground between Zari and Spooner, and even though neither of them is being a dick about it they still just can’t come up with any overlap between themselves.

And it’s sweet that they both make overtures to try to talk about things they know the other one likes. 

The punk kids know the Legends by reputation

I suppose they were do a joke about how all the Legends are getting older.

I’d totally forgotten that Sara is invulnerable now and was afraid for her well being.   That allows for more comedy even if it lowers the threat level a bit.

Nice setup of the eerie noise Sara hears which they explain later on.  Nicely structured

*** At least her comedic timing is impeccable

It’s not really clear how they received their tickets.  Did I miss something?

I suppose they can laugh at Sara’s footage because she didn’t die, so it doesn’t have to be sad

The running joke about the mean alien teen speaking alien and only Gary understanding it is cute.

Ava is understandably upset at how resigned Gwyn is to living his life heartbroken.  He thinks he deserves it for being gay

They handled his understandably 1920s views on being gay very respectfully.  They’re not sneering at how people used to think that way and they’re treating his views about hod God views his sexuality very respectfully

Zari:  Wait… I can talk about people I don’t like literally all day.

Spooner:  Right?

They’re right, they did both get abducted initially, didn’t they.

Zari thought Spooner didn’t like her and Spooner that Zari thought she was better than her.  Lovely little moment between them.

Nate’s really become Sara’s go to for emotional support.  That’s nice

Behrad and Astra are a little irritating in their new couple phase

*** We’ve got something those hotshots don’t have, and that’s experience.  Experience at failing.

Live/Die/Repeat.  I’ve never heard of that.

I don’t evcen want to check if the number of attempts they get tracks.  The montage is too much fun

Where have I seen this ‘repeated death getting further each time’ gimmick?  It feels familiar.  Tons of fun though

Random Crocodile Dundee reference

The poison death is funny.  So many cute sight gags in this

The finite number of tickets thing could have been seeded a little better

Smash/Marry/Kill – Nate/Gwyn/Gary.  She didn’t include Behrad, understandably

LOVE how unphjased Zari is when Spooner tells her she isn’t into guys and then follows it up by being totally cool with asexuality too.

A lot of this episode is people from decades in the relative future reassuring people from their relative past about their sexuality.

Spooner:  What about you, Z?  Besides broody wizards, what’s your type?

EXPERTLY handled transition from the character moments to the plot reveal.

Nice realization that they’d all been seeing him and clever usage of the film footage to find him

Good reveal that it’s a person, not time itself, doing the fixing

Gideon is so happy that it’s a person not time

All of this really tracks well with its own internal logic, even though the anti time manipulator is a bit of a rabbit out of the hat

I love that they’re not sneering at Gwyn’s religious beliefs

Ava’s speech about love is sweet and still respectful of Gwyn’s beliefs

It’s Ava’s faith that there’sd always a way that really  brings Gwyn around.

Matt Ryan is so good as this new character.  I literally never think of him as John Constantine anymore.

The rules about number of tickets are a little convenient, but it is a nice way of unexpectedly redeeming the mean kids.

Everyone:  Take a chance on Sara Lance!

The music cues in this are really on point.

The rules about the time stopper thing are a little muddy, but it’s such a great reveal of Thawne that who cares

Jaw dropping reveal of Thawne, and I don’t even like Thawne

Sara asks about his not having speed at the exact moment the audience is wondering it as well.

Caity Lotz is a goddamn treasure.

Thawne looks great in those period clothes.

LOVE that they did the thing the show is best at – give up pointlessly fighting and just sit down and talk.

Porridge?

I don’t remember any of this backstory that Thawne is catching us up on.

June 28th, 1914

I’ve never liked Thawne this much.  He’s charming, self effacing, appreciates a joke and the value of having a conversation over drinks.

Is 40 minutes a random number on Thawne’s part?  Ooo, nice stakes with Sara promising to take his place if things go wrong, and of course they’re going to go wrong.

Gideon dipping Gary made me so happy.  It’s weird how well they work as a couple.

SUCH A GREAT SET UP FOR NEXT EPISODE!

 

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