#all I can think about is 2x08 and 1x08 of killing eve goodbye

[warningsine]

[kalinara]

The Updated/Revised List of Rip Hunter’s Angst and/or Trauma on Legends of Tomorrow

So, a while back, I made a list of all of the horrible/traumatic shit that has happened (or has been established to have happened) to Rip Hunter on Legends of Tomorrow.  Because, honestly even for the lead on a CW show, this is a little ridiculous.

I’ve been updating that list via reblogs, but that’s getting a bit cumbersome, and I wanted to refine a few of the entries anyway.

So, here we go, an episode by episode list of angst or traumatic events (updated as of 2x14, Moonlight):

1x01/1x02 - The Pilot

1.  Rip Hunter starts off this series with a sledgehammer of angst in the form of his dead wife and child.  We also see that his family home is the site of the second London Blitz in an Apocalyptic future.  I possibly could space these events into separate entries.  But honestly, this list will be long enough without that.

2.  Rip has also been cast loose by the organization to whom he has devoted his life, an organization that apparently thinks that sending assassins to stop a grieving widower is more appropriate than sending a grief counselor.

3.  Rip Hunter has recruited a team of people who he cannot remotely control or keep in line.  And sadly, one of them dies, because he recruited him.  Rip is devastated enough by this to scrap his own plan to get Savage to reclaim his body.

1x03 - Blood Ties

4.  We learn that Rip made a previous attempt to go back in time to stop Vandal Savage, and hesitated.  A failure which haunts him to this day.

5.  During the course of fighting Savage, Rip slips and gives Vandal Miranda and Jonas’s names.

6.  There is an implication at least that some of Rip’s experiences as a Time Master were unpleasant (” I've seen men of steel die and dark knights fall, and even then I accomplished my mission no matter what.”)

1x04 - White Knights

7.  Rip meets up with his former mentor, Zaman Druce, a man that he respects and trusts considerably, who seems to be offering a reasonable deal.  Instead, it turns out to be an ambush.

1x05 - Failsafe

8.  Gideon’s records indicate that, with Martin’s capture, the Russians will unlock Firestorm and weaponize it for an invasion.  Rip asks Sara to be ready to kill Martin to save the world, if there is no other choice.  (It didn’t happen, but he still has to live with making that order)

1x06 - Star City 2046

I don’t think there is any specific angst in this episode.

1x07 - Marooned

9. We see more of Rip’s backstory with Miranda, and their treatment from the Time Masters when discovered, including fairly horrific public humiliation and Miranda's resignation.

10.  We get Eve Baxter’s reaction and rejection of Rip’s help.  Both personally humiliating and even worse as a representation of the Time Masters and his old colleagues/family.

11. We get the fight with Mick Rory, where Rip, after some provocation, says some inexcusable things, providing Mick with the trigger to betray the group.

1x08 - Night of the Hawk/1x09 Left Behind

There really isn’t any specific angst in these two episodes to add to the list.  Unless you count Rip’s old bosses turning Mick into Chronos...

1x10 - Progeny

12.  Going by Rip’s scene with Mick in the brig, he does seem to have some self-blame for Mick’s predicament.  As we see from the way he tries to take the blame and divert Mick’s anger onto himself.

13.  The Per Degaton blunder - in which Rip chooses not to kill the dictator that will murder 1/4 of the world’s population, and in the process, speeds up the event.

1x11 - Magnificent Eight

14.  We learn, in this episode, that at some point in his career, a younger Rip Hunter befriended Jonah Hex and engaged in some heroism.  However, he ultimately chose his career over love heroics, and left the town of Calvert to its fate.  A decision that clearly haunts him to present day, and makes him quite unwilling to face his old ...friend.

1x12 - Last Refuge

15.  Early backstory angst!  Rip Hunter was once a starving five year old street thief.  And while we have no details about that time, it was apparently bad enough that he grew the instinct to stab any adult that threatens him.

(In my first draft of this list, I noted that they’d probably given him this angst so he has something to suffer about when his family angst was finally resolved.  I HAD NO IDEA what was to come.)

16.  We learn that the Time Masters recruit their members as children.  Which means that they aren’t just Rip’s bosses, they’re also the people who raised him.  Getting raised by a creepy time cult that forbids attachment totally counts for this list.

17.  We also have guilt over the risks to both his crew’s loved ones and the extreme danger of the Omega Protocol, and this ridiculous temporary solution.  Which leads into a much riskier decision.

1x13 - Leviathan

18.  In this episode, we get that lovely revelation that Rip didn’t just watch his family die once.  He actually tried to save them, only to watch them die “countless” times.

19.  Savage has set up a situation where Kendra, the only one who can kill him, has to choose between killing him and saving Carter.  Rip protests, but then accepts her decision, even though it removed his one guaranteed chance to save his family.   

1x14 - River of Time

20.  In the flashback, we learn more about what happened when Rip failed to kill Vandal Savage.  He was captured, starved, and implicitly tortured.  (”Ramses’s men inform me that still you refuse to speak...”).  It’s not clear how long he was there, but it was definitely an unpleasant experience.

21.  Rip makes increasingly bad decisions trying to get the Waverider to Vanishing Point, culminating in putting Jax in a very deadly situation.  His self-loathing after is palpable.

22.  And then of course, Rip finally gets Savage to the Time Masters, proof in hand, only for that lovely, final betrayal.

1x15 - Destiny

23.  Rip learns that not only are the Time Masters working with Savage, they DELIBERATELY sent him after Miranda and Jonas, in order to set their plans in motion.

24.  The death of Leonard Snart, which Rip takes so badly, that he tries to abandon the entire crew in the next episode.

1x16 - Legendary

25.  Rip achieves his goal of killing Vandal Savage, but fails at saving his wife and child.  It’s not quite a pyrrhic victory, but it’s still fucking depressing, almost culminating with suicide by sun.

2x01 - Out of Time

26.  This is subtle, but Rip spends most of the episode looking anxious and perturbed.  Like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop.  As we saw from his goodbye message (which, as we see in Raiders, he had to have recorded much earlier), he definitely expected to have to flee.  From the look on his face in the flashback in JSA, he may well have realized what happened to Rex.

2x02 - JSA to 2x08 - Chicago Way

Rip isn’t in these episodes (except a tag scene and flashback.)  So no angst.  A few secrets, like the armory and tape.  But no suffering.  Yet.

2x09 - Raiders of the Lost Art

27.  We learn exactly what happened after the nuclear blast in Out of Time: Rip Hunter, in an attempt to hide a piece of the Spear of Destiny, undergoes “temporal electrocution” obliterating his identity and memories.

28.  “Phil Gasmer”, film student, is attacked out of the blue by the Legion of Doom.  He has no idea what’s happening or why.  In the process, he loses his script and film.  He also has terrible hair.

29.  “Phil Gasmer” is arrested without any clear charge or cause.  He is kept in an interrogation room, with no visible access to a telephone or an attorney.

30.  “Phil Gasmer” is kidnapped by people straight out of his script (pretending to be his psychiatrist!), informed that his life is a lie, and insulting him to his face.  And then, in an attempt to save them, he is kidnapped.

2x10 - Legion of Doom

31.  “Phil Gasmer” is tortured for an undisclosed amount of time, by two expert torturers.  He loses a tooth and is forced to wear a terrible purple suit as well.

32.  Eobard Thawne gets access to Rip’s mind and makes alterations.

2x11 - Turncoat

33.  Well, look, if you don’t think Rip isn’t going to be torturing himself for years about this entire episode?  You don’t know Rip Hunter.

2x12 - Camelot

34.  There are more things that Rip is likely to torture himself for, including the murder of Doctor Mid-Nite, the dead knights that he’s mind controlled, Galahad.  He also got abandoned and left to die by Damien Darhk.

2x13 - Land of the Lost

35.  Yet more guilt (this time for overriding Gideon and crashing the ship).  We also learn what the inside of Rip Hunter’s mind looks like: with the last bit of his own, true identity, imprisoned, hurt and terrorized by evil version of his friends.

36.  The team uses a machine that Rip himself thinks is too barbaric and violating to use, in order to go into his mind.  I doubt Rip will complain, as it had the desired results, but well, two mind-rapes make a right, I suppose.

(I considered adding the Gideon thing, but well, let’s see where that goes.)

2x14 - Moonshot

37.  Rip, having left an amiable Commander Steel in 1965, is greeted promptly by a punch to the face, and a cold shoulder from someone he seemed to think of as a friend.

38.  Rip is also dealing with the changes to the team since he was gone, and is at a loss regarding his role going forward.

39.  Rip’s proposed solution (opening the hatch) worked to save the ship.  However, Commander Steel sacrificed his life to do it.  More angst.  Yay.

--

39 incidents.  In 30 episodes.  He wasn’t IN SEVEN OF THOSE EPISODES..

And what are the odds that an episode called “Doomworld” will go remotely well for him?

At this point, I can’t bring myself to ask for a beach episode, because I think it would end with a shark biting off his foot.