The first 3 minutes of last nights DC’s Legends of Tomorrow packed so much intensity and fire power into it that needed to take a breather from all of the awesome that I had witnessed. The episode started off with a stand off and eventual battle between the Justice Society of America and the Legends and it was one hell of a set up for an amazing episode.

After getting their tails handed to them The Legends team find themselves in a cell bickering, as usual, about their loss while the JSA watches them through a surveillance camera. The JSA seems pretty sure that they’re spies and are on the verge of either hiding them in a hole or shipping them to a loony bin when our resident historian, Nate Heywood, lets his grandfather know who he really is. Considering his grandfather had been his hero since he was old enough to hear stories about him, the initial in-person meet proves more than a little underwhelming. His grandfather’s legend is true but he’s not the man he expected him to be. Things get a little tricky when his grandfather’s dog tags disappear from around his neck and they’re forced to go back to 1942, ya know that year that they were told to stay away from, to save the JSA.

Reverse Flash is still cozied up with the Nazis, trying to wreak as much havoc as he can to further the Doomtastic agenda. Luckily for humanity, this time around the Legends are going to make sure they help the JSA stop him. The leap back in time finds our Legends in a Nazi speakeasy where the team’s newly elected leader, the Professor, is pretending to be a famous German singer to save the JSA. Their recon mission seems to be going well until Atom can’t bring himself to Heil Hitler and a fight breaks out. The melee leads to the OG Vixen’s cover getting blown in Paris and Sara discovering the historian Nate is a hemophiliac .

The mission to stop the Baron Krieger’s convoy leads to another kick ass fight sequence, there is some fighting between team leaders and trying to figure out who is the boss and whether they should be pursuing Krieger or the convoy with the amulet. The joined teams with no real direction split into separate duos one grabs the amulet, the others engage Krieger but, when he turns himself into a hulk like super-Nazi. Martin calls  for the team to retreat so he can get more data because, he’s a professor and scientist NOT a war time consigliere leaving a downed Atom and OG Vixen to be captured by Nazis.

Atom and Vixen are being held captive and the Nazi’s now have access to Atoms’ suit which is never a good thing. Martin is finding out for himself that heavy is the head that wears the crown because being a leader is not as easy as he thought it would be. When Sarah and Rex start bickering over the best course of action, Martin cracks under the pressure and excuses himself to clear his head leading to a heart to heart with Jefferson. In a moment that causes Rex to clutch his pearls and have his 1940’s white male sensibilities shaken to their core, Martin hands the reigns of the team over to Sara and announces that she is the new , worthy and capable leader.

Sara puts her plan to save Atom and OG(randma) Vixen from super-Nazi & Co. into action and with FireStorm diverting the planes and the rest of the available boots on the ground, they rescue their friends but, not without some casualties. Krieger goes superNazi again with his serum and Commander Steel is about to be pulverized when Nate shows up to rescue grandpa, personal risks aside. It looks like Nate gets to be a hero but, his victory lap is short lived when the blast that turns Krieger into spare parts , knocks him and his grandpa off of their side car motorcycle. Grandpa survives the blast but, Nate seems unsavable because of his condition. Good thing for him Atom was working on a way to give himself super powers by reworking the serum that Krieger gave him to recreate. Atom gives Nate some of the serum to save his life, giving up his chance of having any real powers without the aid of his suit.

The writers for CW have been killing it this season, between the self-sustaining but, seasonally cohesive episodes, the interesting story line, the refusal to rock the bad tropes and their willingness to go there when it comes to race issues, female sexuality, and feminism. In this episode alone we see female empowerment, ladies kicking ass, racism being addressed, and a call out to the notion that only old white men can be leaders. The brilliant writers manage to do all of this without turning the characters into cliches. They are real, complex characters and the minorities in the group aren’t made to feel different nor are the white male characters trying to hold themselves up as morally superior or hyper progressive because they are friends with the lesbian, woman or black male. The show treats these types of friendships and relations as they should be like they are a normal part of life. The characters are complex, often flawed and wonderful to watch.

Overall episode #2 was pretty damn close to pure fire. There was a decent fight to commercial ration which is what you want in a good comic book TV show. I noticed that each of the sections in between commercial breaks seemed like a stand alone issue and the episode itself was so cohesive that it could have been an arc. I’m looking forward to what the next episode will bring, especially since the trailer hints at Citizen Steel coming out to play and OG Vixen join the team. I’m also happy that the CW is leaving a nice opening for present tense Vixen to return to Arrow and maybe get her own spin-off while OG Vixen can kill it on Legends. Bring the diversity CW, we embrace you!

Overall: 9.2