Legends of Tomorrow 3x14 "Amazing Grace" Review

Legends of Tomorrow was all about saving Rock n Roll this week, with the team traveling to 1954 Memphis. It wasn’t anywhere near as bad an episode as previous, probably because the legends weren’t extras in their own show, but it still wasn’t that great.

Over the last 3 episodes now it feels as if the show has hit a bit of a rut. Character development has been at the forefront compared to story development. I want to argue against that, but I really can’t. The characters are as important as the story, dare I even say more important? Sure the story is what pulls us in and makes us turn the pages or keeping watching, but if the characters aren’t interesting or well developed, the story becomes a bit of a chore to get through.

Sometimes it is good to take a bit of a break from normal episodes and focus on building character. It worked wonderfully for Zari in ‘Here I Go Again’, giving her more character development than the whole season combined. But the problem is characters like Ray, Nate & even the Darhk’s are best in small doses.

Watching an episode where the hero is forced to team up with the villains and as a result, starts to thaw towards said villains has been done many a time before. As has characters travelling back in time to save something that is at the forefront of society, in this case music.

The fact that Nate’s motivation for going to Memphis was so he could get his hair gel back, geek out over Elvis and get Amaya to share his love of Rock really wasn’t that great. Nate & Amaya aren’t a relationship I’m particularly invested in, given the show has been at a pains to tell us that they won’t actually end up together. She eventually has to return to her time, so their relationship is only a temporary thing. And given how heartbroken Nate was when Amaya originally left, I don’t want to sit through that pointless angst again.

I’ve never been a particularly big fan of Elvis. Being a 90’s kid, he was way before my time. Sure the actor who played him here was half decent, and saving Rock n Roll ended up with the legends finding the final totem which transpired to be the death totem. But the whole storyline revolving around Elvis stemmed from Nate’s selfishness. After all the episode began with him wanting to find an anachronism that he could travel to with Amaya for a date.

There’s also the fact it was blatantly obvious that the actor playing Elvis was miming, which was a little off putting.

On the totem front though, it’s discovered that the guitar Elvis has contains the death totem. Its powers include summoning and controlling the dead, so when Elvis records a song using that guitar? The death are well and truly raised and come to his Uncle’s Church. Wally & Zari attempt to fight them off at first. Once Elvis, Amaya & Nate have been freed from jail thanks to Elvis’s Uncle proclaiming Rock music to be the devil’s music, Elvis takes to the stage with a soaring rendition of Amazing Grace and the death are at peace once more.

Music is saved. Nate & Amaya have had their slow dance. Everything is as it should be.

With Nate at the forefront of this episode, there really wasn’t a lot for the rest of the team to be doing. Wally got a bit more screen time this week, annoying Zari with his speed before his speed was eventually put to good use. Mick’s beloved rat ended up dead, which Ray organized a funeral for and Sara joined them in mourning. The death totem was placed inside a box on the ship for safe keeping, but we already know that’s not going to last long judging by the promo for the next episode.

The show is thankfully very much reaching the business end of the season with only 4 episodes left, so character development will once again be taking a back seat as storylines reach their conclusions.