A ruthless assassin called the Pilgrim (Faye Kingslee) is targeting the younger, powerless versions of the Legends, hoping to kill them before they join Rip Hunter’s crusade through time to stop Vandal Savage. At first, she attempts to ‘surgically’ remove each one of them at the point in time when their deaths will not cause damage to the timeline (like Mick and Sara when they were both teenagers), but as the team thwarts her plans, the Pilgrim grows desperate and decides to target them wherever she can locate them.
To protect their younger selves, Rip takes the Legends to the Refuge, an orphanage for future Time Masters that is overseen by Rip’s adopted Mother (Celia Imrie). There they will be hidden from the Time Masters and safe from the Pilgrim. But when she realizes she can’t get to the Legends, the Pilgrim begins to capture and threaten their loved ones, including Jackson’s father, James (Eli Goree), who will be her first victim unless they give themselves up and allow her to erase them from history.
If you ignore how much this episode owes to the Terminator franchise, even down to Ray telling the young Mick Rory “Come with me if you want to live!”, this is a pretty successful installment of the series. There are some really outstanding moments and two of the cast members who started out being weak links actually turn in the best performances.
First up, Dominic Purcell as Mick Rory seemed poised to be the show’s comedy relief, the crook with the low IQ who liked to burn things. Good for a laugh, but the last guy you thought would bring the drama. Then he became the loose cannon of the team, the mad dog that couldn’t be kept on his leash anymore and had to be put down, or so it seemed. But now, after his time serving as Chronos, Mick is changed. He still has the anger issues, and he is still good comedy relief, but he is also the one person on the team who knows more about the Time Masters, if not more, than Rip. Here we get to see the tragic death of his family and his role in the fire that took their lives. Heat Wave is actually quite a damaged character and the interaction between Purcell and his younger self (Mitchell Kummen) is quite moving, especially when he forgives his younger self for the fire he caused and his parting advice to the boy, “Don’t be like me. Be better.”
Second, Arthur Darvill’s Rip Hunter is like an onion. He has layers and the more you watch this series, the more of those layers you’ll see explored. Here we meet the woman who raised him, the home that nurtured him and the younger version of himself that had a vicious streak a mile long. Darvill is terrific with guest star Celia Imrie and I hope we’ll get to see more of them together.
Besides Purcell and Darvill’s outstanding turns, we were also treated to a scene with Jackson getting to meet the father he never knew, and perhaps getting the chance to save his life, and a new wrinkle in the Ray and Kendra relationship as Kendra accepts Palmer’s marriage proposal.
Still, through it all, my favorite scene has to be Kendra and Sara going googoo over Baby Snart (the only kid in the nursery wearing dark clothes by the way). Even as a kid, Captain Cold was a charmer. In the end, “Last Refuge” is a winner and I give it 4 Stars.