Legends of Tomorrow season 1, episode 7, “Marooned,” explored Rip’s backstory and featured some complications among the team.
Leonard Snart and Mick Rory
Despite the space pirate attack, the core conflict at the center of this episode is between Leonard and Mick. Since Leonard knocked Mick out and brought him back to the ship, Mick has been furious with his partner. Leonard believes Mick would eventually cool down — instead choosing the company of Sara in the meantime — but this proves to be a vain hope.
Feeling betrayed, Mick in turn betrays Rip when he makes a deal with the pirates to give up the ship in exchange for being returned to Central City in 2016. Mick ends up bringing a crew of pirates back to the damaged Waverider and tells Leonard to choose a side. And Leonard does.
He chooses to be a hero.
The team manages to defeat Mick and his pirates. Once everyone is reunited, they try to decide what to do with Mick. He can’t just be locked up in the brig until they defeat Vandal Savage, and they can’t return him to his own time since several members of the team have loved ones back then who will be in danger of retribution. Leonard says he’ll handle Mick. He ends up dragging Mick into a deserted clearing and wakes him up. Mick tells Leonard only one of them will leave alive; Leonard agrees and fires his weapon.
This is a bittersweet story in some ways. We learn how Leonard and Mick became partners: Mick protected a scrawny, 14-year-old Leonard in juvie, and they’ve been a team ever since. This is backstory that makes the whole conflict more painful. Leonard visibly suffers as he talks about their past and as he chooses to move forward without Mick.
But it’s also to his credit that he chooses to join the good guys. All the internal conflict in the world is useless if it doesn’t eventually result in a change, and for Leonard, it does. He’s evolved as a person — just as Barry predicted he would — but Mick hasn’t.
Mick has no interest in changing who he is, and that’s dangerous to everyone around him. For Leonard, taking out Mick — if we take that final scene to its implied conclusion — must be his responsibility; keeping Mick in line has always been his responsibility, and now that it can’t be done any longer, he must do what’s best for the group as a whole.
Leonard’s arc continues to be one of the best parts of the entire Arrow-verse.
Rip’s history
In a series of flashbacks, we learn that during Rip’s time training with the Time Masters, he was conducting an affair with his wife-to-be, Miranda. However, relationships were forbidden and both were court martialed. Neither disputed the charges, and Miranda resigned. Rip had intended to resign first because Miranda was a superior soldier, but Miranda replied that she could not be part of a group that refused to accept the importance of love.
It was nice to see some of Rip’s backstory, as we’ve mostly heard bits and pieces in passing. The sequence in which Rip watches his wife and son leave him a holographic message is heartbreaking, as it is likely the last thing Rip has of his loved ones. They are his motivation to do what he’s doing. This also gives more insight into how it was so easy for Rip to betray the Time Masters in the first place; he’d already been prepared to throw it all away for love once. Now he has nothing to lose, as he’s already lost it all.
Kendra and Ray
A minor plot in this episode revolves around Kendra and Ray finding romance. We see the two playfully flirting, and when Ray nearly dies while trying to patch the hull of the Waverider, Kendra begs him not to leave her while performing CPR, which revives him. Ray eventually recalls what Kendra said and the two kiss.
This is probably the least interesting part of the episode, though it is a bit disappointing that Kendra is going back on her desire not to complicate her already-complicated life. Don’t get me wrong; they’re both cute and have the potential to be cute together. However, this plotline just doesn’t have the oomph of the other stories.
Also worth noting
- Martin Stein gets the chance to be a Big Damn Hero in this episode, as he infiltrates the pirate ship and helps rescue his teammates.
- Rip has a reputation among the time pirates as a fearsome warrior.
- Rip also earns the respect of a fellow Time Master, who was prepared to turn him in but ends up helping him after Rip and his team help her retake her ship from the pirates. Perhaps there is hope for him yet?
Watch a promo for the next episode
