'DC's Legends of Tomorrow' Season 5 Episode 7: Why Ray and Nora's departure from Waverider makes no sense
Spoilers for 'DC's Legends of Tomorrow' Season 5 Episode 7 'Romeo V. Juliet: Dawn of Justness'
This episode bids a fond farewell to Nora Darhk (Courtney Ford) and Ray Palmer (Brandon Routh) as they exit the Arrowverse and 'DC's Legends of Tomorrow'. It's especially hard losing Brandon, whose Ray Palmer has been a part of the show right from the beginning. 'Romeo V. Juliet: Dawn of Justness' is one of the season's best episodes so far, and in that sense, it's a fitting farewell to the couple. But on the other hand, their departure is abrupt and doesn't make all that much sense the more you think about it.
Brandon and Courtney were already scheduled to leave the show and they were written out to support the CW's decision on that front, instead of them leaving because their story had come to a natural end. As Sara Lance (Caity Lotz) and Ava Sharpe (Jes Macallan) have shown, marriage doesn't mean the end of a story — it's just the start of a wide range of new ones.
In the episode, after their first night together as a married couple, Ray comes to the conclusion that he and Nora can't really have a life together if he is tied to the Waverider. For an ordinary couple, this would make sense, but Ray and Nora are anything but ordinary. Nora is a fairy godmother, a being of immense magical power who has been shown teleporting on and off the ship whenever she pleases and there's no reason for Ray to have to leave the ship to be with her.
However, wanting to start a life together without having to share a bathroom with half a dozen other superheroes is understandable. That doesn't mean that Ray can't continue his time as a Legend and as a supportive husband. As the founder of Palmer Industries, Ray doesn't need to worry about finances and a career as a time-traveling superhero is one that he obviously has a lot of passion for, right up to the very end.
There are many couples who both pursue their own careers while building a life together and Ray's career doesn't have the same time constraints that other careers do. In fact, the case is quite the opposite. The Waverider travels through time. It can pick Ray up and drop him off the instant he left, from anywhere in the world.
One can argue that 'DC's Legends of Tomorrow' is a show that's silly enough to not need a very good excuse to send its characters away, but it's that very argument that undercuts itself. There are innumerable reasons that would be a better reason for the couple to have to leave.
A Ray Palmer from the future can tell current Ray that a terrible accident will happen to Nora unless he's there to prevent it. Maybe a Council of Fairy Godmothers forbids time travel or fairy magic starts interacting chaotically with tachyons or the two have to raise a dinosaur together in the present for some reason. It would be silly, but in its way, it would make more sense within the framework the show's established.
While Nora and Ray's departure was inevitable, it could have been handled a lot better. As it stands, though the pair had a wonderful wedding and a truly fun final episode, the couple still deserved more.
The next episode of 'DC's Legends of Tomorrow' airs March 24 on the CW.