“Forgiven Too Quickly”

“FORGIVEN TOO QUICKLY”

I just finished watching the Season One episode of “LEGENDS OF TOMORROW” called (1.09) “Left Behind”. I have a major issue with this episode and it deals with the character of Sara Lance aka White Canary.

This problem had originated with the previous episode, (1.09) “Night of the Hawk”. In that episode, the Legends team went to a small town in Oregon 1958 to investigate a series of murders tied to Season One’s major antagonist, Vandal Savage. They discover that Savage was using an Nth metal meteorite – the same material that transformed Kendra Sanders aka Hawkgirl and Carter Hall aka Hawkman into meta humans, and Savage into an immortal – to create humanoid bird-like creatures. The team managed to create a serum to cure those victims of Savage’s experiment. Unfortunately, before all of them could leave 1958; Mick Rory aka Heatwave had arrived to attack the ship. Mick, who had ended up in the clutches of the Time Masters, had been brainwashed into serving the latter group in order to hunt down the Legends’ leader, Rip Hunter for attempting to use time travel to save his murdered family. Mick’s attack forced most of the team to leave Dr. Ray Palmer aka the Atom, Kendra and Sara behind in 1958. They remained stranded in time for two years.

So what happened? During the years between 1958 and 1960, Ray and Kendra continued their pose as a college professor and his wife. And what did Sara Lance do? Instead of remaining in close proximity with Ray and Kendra, she had decided to return to the Himalayas and Nanda Parbat in order to resume her association with the League of Assassins and her role as an assassin. Sara did not suffer from amnesia or anything like that. When the Legends – along with Ray and Kendra – traveled to Nanda Parbat, they assumed that she needed to be rescue. But Sara was not suffering from amnesia. She immediately recognized the other Legends and turned them over to her leader, Ra’s al Ghul, as trespassers to be executed. Rip invoked the trial-by-combat ritual to save the team and named Kendra as their champion. Sara was named as the League’s champion. Just as Kendra was able to get to Sara, Mick arrived as Chronos and the team was forced to capture him with Ra’s permission. He allowed them to leave, with Mick as their prisoner. Sara, on the other hand, did not become a prisoner. Dr. Martin Stein aka Firestorm had a ready-made excuse for her.

It occurred to me that the writers really went out of their to give Sara Lance an excuse for betraying the other Legends to the League of Assassins in “Left Behind”. The transcript written by Beth Schwartz and Grainne Godfree claimed that those two years Sara had spent with the League – between 1958 and 1960 – had led her to lose sight of her identity and all of the character developed she had acquired with Team Arrow and later, during her early months with the Legends.

I say bullshit to that. Sara had clear memories of the Legends when they arrived at Nanda Parbat in 1960. Also, Dr. Stein’s explanation only gave her an “excuse” for her decision to betray the team to Ra’s al Ghul. Stein’s words did not excuse or explain what happened back in 1958. No one bothered to question why Sara’s first instinct after getting stranded in 1958 was to rejoin the League of Assassins. “Left Behind” revealed a montage of Ray and Kendra settling down in that Oregon town and her, getting bored in their apartment. You mean to say, Sara never considered going back to school? After all, she was roughly 19 or 20 years old when she and Oliver Queen were shipwrecked on Lian Yu following the sinking of the Queen’s Gambit in “ARROW”. Sara could have continued her college education. She certainly had the brains to continue this path. Instead, Sara took the easier path and resumed her role as an assassin for the League of Assassins – but only in a different period in time. And her second instinct was to betray the other Legends to the League, despite knowing who they were. Yet, the other Legends were very quick to forgive her for her actions, in compare to Mick Rory aka Chronos, thanks to Schwartz and Godfree’s transcript.

The hypocrisy of this whole scenario still strikes me as truly amazing after four years. I am not saying that the Legends should have also quickly forgiven Mick. Nor am I saying that they should have never forgiven him or Sara. But the Legends should not have quickly forgiven Sara either. They should have confronted her about her decision to betray them to Ra’s al Ghul. They should have been just as reluctant to forgive her as they were reluctant to forgive Mick. The handling of Sara Lance’s character in “Left Behind” was one of the few cases of bad writing I have ever encountered on “LEGENDS OF TOMORROW”.

Favorite Television Productions Set in the 1820s

Below is a list of my favorite television productions set during the 1820s:

FAVORITE TELEVISION PRODUCTIONS SET IN THE 1820s

1. “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall” (1996) – Tara Fitzgerald starred in this superb 1996 adaptation of Anne Brontë’s 1848 novel. Directed by Mike Barker, the three-part miniseries co-starred Toby Jones and Rupert Graves.

2. “Wives and Daughters” (1999) – Andrew Davies adapted and Nicholas Renton directed this excellent adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell’s 1865 novel (her last one). The four-part miniseries starred Justine Waddell, Keeley Hawes and Francesca Annis.

3. “Brother Future” (1991) – Phil Lewis starred in this television movie about a Detroit teenager in 1991, who finds himself transported to 1822 South Carolina as a slave and swept up in Denmark Velsey’s failed rebellion in Charleston. Directed by Roy Campanella II, the television movie starred Phil Lewis, Carl Lumbly and Moses Gunn.

4. “Shaka Zulu” (1986) – William C. Faure directed this adaptation of Joshua Sinclair’s 1985 novel about the life of King Shaka of the Zulus. Henry Cele, Edward Fox and Robert Powell starred in this ten-part miniseries.

5. “Little Dorrit” (2008) – Claire Foy and Matthew McFadyen starred in this adaptation of Charles Dickens’ 1855-57 novel about a young woman who struggles to earn money for her family and look after her proud father, an inmate of the Marshalsea debtors’ prison. The fourteen-part miniseries was adapted by Andrew Davies.

6. “A House Divided: Denmark Vesey’s Rebellion” (1982) – Yaphet Kotto starred as Denmark Vessey in this television production about the latter’s attempt to start a slave rebellion in 1822 Denmark. Stan Lathan directed.

7. “Scarlet and Black” (1993) – Ewan McGregor starred in this adaptation of Stendhal’s 1830 novel, “The Red and the Black”. Directed by Ben Bolt, this three-part miniseries co-starred Rachel Weisz and Alice Kriege.

8. “Jamaica Inn” (2014) – Jessica Brown Findlay starred in this television adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s 1936 novel. Directed by Philippa Lowthorpe, the three-part miniseries co-starred Matthew McNulty and Sean Harris.

9. “The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby” (2001) – James D’Arcy starred in this adaptation of Charles Dickens’ 1838-39 novel, “Nicholas Nickleby”. Stephen Whittaker directed this television movie.