In the latest Legends of Tomorrow installment, “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Scientist,” Nate (Nick Zano) declares how “protecting the timeline is literally our job.” The trouble is, the Legends suck at their job. So many episodes involve shortcuts and hare-brained schemes to fix immediate issues, such as them abducting their younger selves or screwing with history. The Legends stampeding ahead with their own agenda has been a reoccurring issue – such “footsteps” were even the subject of “Speakeasy Does It” last week – and this episode puts such impatience right at the center.
After several weeks the Legends have finally arrived in New York, eager to meet the inventor of time travel Doctor Gwyn Davies, played by John Constantine’s actor Matt Ryan. But it doesn’t seem like Davies is related to Constantine – despite a joke being how the team is unsure who Davies reminds them of – as he isn’t an obvious doppelganger and seems like a distinct character. Instead, it feels like Legends of Tomorrow just wanted to keep Ryan around despite having lost Constantine, a trick they also pulled with Maisie Richardson-Seller playing multiple characters. As Davies, Ryan uses his natural Welsh accent and plays a more uptight and fidgety character, whom Sara (Caity Lotz) swipes the time travel designs from.
Looking over the plans, Behrad (Shayan Sobhian) and the recently swapped-in Zari 1.0 (Tala Ashe) are confident they can build a time machine. It will only take 4-5 years to make. Sara understandably doesn’t want to wait any longer, and instead wants to use Davies’ ready-made time machine, despite Ava (Jes Macallan) being concerned about further altering history. What makes this dilemma interesting is that there is nothing rushing the Legends. Five years is a long wait, but it isn’t a lifetime, and (as far as the Legends know) there is no deadline. The Legends could easily hunker down and slowly make their own machine, but this is a team that likes to take shortcuts.
This same impatience is plaguing Spooner (Lisseth Chavez), Astra (Olivia Swann), and Gideon (Amy Louise Pemberton) as they hitchhike to New York, racing there to stop the Legends from hastily taking off and blowing themselves up. They are rushing to stop the rest of the team’s speed. To soothe Spooner’s anxiety, Astra enchants a “lucky rock” to make their trip easier. Soon, they are hitching a ride with famed race-car driver Erwin “Cannon Ball” Baker, and making good time towards the Big Apple.
The other Legends have predictably run into obstacles on their shortcut. After Gary (Adam Tsekhman) took the final component from Thomas Edison’s lab, Edison had Davies arrested and sectioned for pursuing time travel. Then, when Sara tries to start the machine without Davies, Gary, Ava, and her time bureau manual disappear, this final footstep a big enough impact to remove them from history. To get them back, the Legends need to return Davies to his scheduled maiden voyage.
As this is happening, Nate and Zari tinker with the robot of J. Edgar Hoover (captured last episode) to understand who sent him. While they don’t get definitive answers, Zari can peek inside Hoover’s mainframe to find his directives – which include “destroy the Legends” and “pick up stationary” – and Waverider technology. This points towards the rogue Waverider from the season start (or perhaps a newly enhanced Bishop) being responsible for these robotic replacements.
Zari manages to reprogramme the Hoover robot with a toothy grin and access to Edison and the confiscated time travel files. But the rewired Hoover starts to malfunction, and ultimately explodes inside the office, giving Edison a fatal heart attack. Zari explains the Hoover robot was being pulled in too many contradictory directions. Much like her and Nate’s relationship.
Nate and Zari’s relationship has taken a backseat in Legends since “The Final Frame,” as she’s so often hidden away inside the Air Totem. But there isn’t any awkwardness between them, as they fall into an easy rhythm once Zari is outside. Instead, it’s a question of how sustainable this is. With some funny prompting by Gary, Nate finally talks to Zari about “their future.” Zari suggests that they should move in together, as in inside the Air Totem, where she has found a “good community” and they can both exist without harming the other Zari. Nate understandably asks for time to consider this, being one thing that he doesn’t want to rush.
The two are hurried along by a new robot Hoover quickly coming into the office, as well as a robot Thomas Edison. Somebody is covering their tracks in the timestream. Sara manages to break Davies out of the insane asylum, bonding over their shared reasons for needing the machine (Ava and Gwyn’s own undisclosed relationship) in a touching scene. As Davies boots up the time machine, Ava and Gary reappear, making it seem like history is back on track. But as Gideon knows, history says the Legends will soon die in an explosion.
Astra and Spooner’s “good luck” appears to be running out, as Erwin Baker’s car is stolen during a bathroom break. But Astra informs Spooner their “lucky rock” was a fake, a white lie to make her feel better. They have been making their own luck the whole time. So even though they are still miles from the city, Spooner suggests Astra use a lightning spell to overload the power grid, thereby preventing the Legends’ self-destructive time travel attempt. After a tense climatic cross-cutting, the two create a blackout and find their friends sitting around in candlelight before they reunite and catch up with them.
“It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Scientist” somewhat contradicts itself. It stresses the importance of patience and thinking through plans (in Sara’s storyline) and of being impulsive without relying on outside intervention (in Spooner’s storyline). They are repeatedly warned about making too many footprints in history, but also solve the episode through a mental hospital breakout, killing Thomas Edison, and causing a city-wide blackout.
Still, such impulsive behavior and loose rules are common for Legends, and the episode compensates with tight storytelling and some very funny off-the-cuff moments. "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Scientist" may not have a show-stopper moment like "Speakeasy Does It," but it remains consistently built all the way through. Gary and Zari particularly add in some dry humour, including Zari being “somewhat offended” with Sara doubting their time machine construction. And Matt Ryan plays this fussy scientist very well, having a fun engaging energy while still feeling like a real, fully-dimensional person.
By the episode end, all the Legends are back together again, and make a fully-operational time machine with the Waverider parts from the exploded Hoover robot. Although the trip does not land them in “Tahiti 2021,” but a windswept forest area, meaning the Legends haven’t reached the finish line just yet.