Rip (Arthur Darvill) and Gideon start the Waverider and soon discover they and the ship have shrunk. The Legends figure out how to contact Rip. Rip gets their message and the Waverider arrives at Nate mom’s basement. After Mick (Dominic Purcell) manhandles the little ship, they figure out that Thawne (Matt Letscher) used the ATOM suit to shrink the Waverider. They go to Star Labs to retrieve Ray’s (Brandon Routh) suit. After taking out some guards, Ray reunites with his suit. Jax (Franz Drameh) is uncomfortable with Ray’s passionate reunion with his suit. (Get a room, Ray.) Damien Darhk (Neal McDonough) walks in to stop the Legends. The tiny Waverider opens fire on Darhk. He is amused until Mick knocks him out from behind. They unshrink the Waverider and it crashes through the roof of STAR Labs. The Waverider heads back to France 1916. Rip warns them that they can’t interact with their past selves. If they do, it will cause time-quakes. If they get the Spear of Destiny and destroy it in 1916, they the aberrations from the alternative reality will not exist. (From here on I will refer to the Legends who left Doomworld, Alt for Alternative, and the Legends who are still in 1916 will just go by their regular names.)
The Alt Legends are back on the battlefield. Alt Ray in his ATOM suit goes to get the vial of the blood of Christ. Thawne shows up from Doomworld, he figured that the Alt Legends would go back to 1916 to reverse his alternative reality. He takes the vial of blood from Alt Ray, crushes it, and savagely snatches Alt Ray’s heart out of his chest. Alt Rip and Alt Sara (Caity Lotz) can only look on in horror. Back on the Alt Waverider, Alt Mick points out that since they are aberrations it doesn’t matter if they die.
Back on mission, Alts Rip, Mick, and Nate (Nick Zano) go on the Waverider to steal the Spear of Destiny from themselves. Alts Sara and Jax remain outside the ship as lookouts. Thawne brings Malcolm (John Barrowman) from his search for the Kalabros. He explains what is happening to the rest of the Legion of Doom, confusing everyone. Sara asks Alts Rip, Mick, and Nate why they are back so soon. They mumble some excuses and lies. Alt Nate runs into Amaya (Maisie Richardson-Sellers) and nearly loses it. She wonders why he is acting so strange. Alt Mick gets the spear. Alt Sara contacts them, the other Nate, Mick and Rip are heading towards the ship, they have to hide.
Alts Sara and Jax try to stop Nate, Mick, Rip, Ray, and Tolkien (Jack Turner) from going aboard the ship. Sara calls Ray, he tells her he is looking at her. She calls Alts Sara and Jax imposters and orders Ray to take them out. (Sara thinks the Alts are the Legion impersonating them.) A fight starts and eventually Nate in Steel form knocks out Alts Sara and Jax. Firestorm and the rest of the crew captures the Alts on board the Waverider. When Rip sees Alt Rip, it causes a time-quake.
Alt Sara explains why they are there. Ray realizes not all of the Legends are with the Alts. Alt Mick points at Ray and Amaya, “Dead”, points to Martin (Victor Garber), “Well as dead”. (Alt Martin is still in Doomworld.) Alt Nate advises Nate to tell Amaya he loves her before it is too late. Sara walks away from the group; Alt Sara follows her. Sara blames herself for losing the spear and getting members of her crew dead. She also blames herself for not using the spear when they had the chance. Alt Sara tells her the right call was not to use the spear, it taps into your dark side; it’s a weapon and she knows what they do with those. The Legion attacks the ship and knocks out its shield. They try to take off and it causes a time-storm. The Waverider crashes.
They all have to get to the other Waverider. The Alt team is ready to sacrifice themselves. They will get that chance because they will soon battle the Legion of Doom. Ray and Firestorm give air support to the Alts. Damien and Malcolm decide to kill them the old-fashioned way, without modern weapons. Malcolm shoots down Firestorm with an arrow. Jax has the arrow in his arm. Malcolm prepares to kill Martin but Alt Jax jumps in front of Martin and catches the arrow. Martin mourns his death. Jax takes the arrow out of his arm, stabs Malcolm in the leg, and knocks him out. Snart (Wentworth Miller) shoots Ray down. Alt Mick prevents him from killing him. Snart tells him they are partners. “I don’t have a partner. I have a team”, responds Alt Mick. Snart kills Alt Mick with his cold gun. Mick captures him. Damien kills Alt Nate. He and Alt Sara begin to fight. She defeats him but decides not to kill him. Sara shows up and knocks him out with a punch. Thawne appears with an army of Reverse-Flashes from different points of his timeline. The Reverse-Flashes surround the Legends.
The Reverse-Flashes easily defeat the Legends, even though Ray in the ATOM suit and Nate in steel mode give good accounts for themselves. Sara is the only one left standing so she uses the Spear of Destiny. (I don’t know which Sara this is.) Sara finds herself in a living room with her late sister Laura (Kate Cassidy). It isn’t Laura, but a projection of the spear. It is telling her she can use it to change reality and bring her sister back. Laura tells her you don’t have to be spotless to use the spear, only strong enough to do the right thing. She hugs her sister and knows what she has to do.
Sara stands before the army of Reverse-Flashes. Thawne laughs and takes the spear. It doesn’t work. Sara has depowered it. Thawne says he can still kill her with it. Before he gets the chance, the Black Flash appears and kills Thawne. He slowly disappears from reality. All of the Reverse-Flashes disappear. The Legends have won and saved reality. Alt Sara disappears because Doomworld never happened.
Snart and Damien are in a cell in the Waverider. They have already dropped Malcolm off in 2016 to his crappy apartment. They are returning the Legions to their time periods before Thawne recruited them. Mick drops Snart off in 2014. Snart thinks Mick is going to kill him. Mick has a worse punishment, Snart is going to live and join the Legends a few years later, becoming a good man. Mick wipes his memory and leaves. Sara drops Damien off in 1983 in his Miami Vice clothes. He tells her he’ll still kill Laura. She understands that and accepts it. She wipes his memory and leaves. Since they have dropped the Legions off, Amaya is packing. Her mission complete, she is ready to go back to 1942. Nate request to join Amaya in 1942. He loves her and doesn’t want to be without her. Amaya decides to stay on the ship. She wants to be with Nate too. She knows she has a destiny but decides that time is strong; if she has a destiny; time will wait for her. Rip is leaving the crew. He thinks the crew has responded better under Sara’s leadership. He has taught Sara all he knows. He request Captain Lance’s permission to leave the ship, Sara grants it.
Sara asks Mick where he would like to go; he picks Aruba 2017. A time-quake hits them; they drop out of the temporal zone. They crash land in 2017 Los Angeles. Except this LA doesn’t look like our LA, it has a mixture of older and futuristic buildings, and dinosaurs are roaming the streets. Sara says, “Guys, I think we broke time.”
***
This episode was timey-wimey, batshit crazy level good. It was the most comic booky episode of TV I have seen, and I loved it. If this was the Olympics, the Legends of Tomorrow final routine scores a 10. You had a miniature Waverider fight Damien Darhk. You had multiple Legends interacting with each other, causing a time-quake. Thawne snatched Ray’s heart out of his chest! That is some batshit crazy Kung-fu movies sh*t right there. Eobard Thawne brought an army of Reverse-Flashes with him and still lost. To top it all off, because of the Legends actions, they broke time and now there are dinosaurs roaming around in present day Los Angeles. If you need more craziness than that, you are one greedy SOB!
In a time travel show, you have to have some rules. Even if they don’t make sense. If the rules are broken, there have to be consequences. After creating a time paradox by interacting with themselves, something big and important had to happen, and it did. It looks like time might have collapsed on itself. The final scene in LA reminded me of the Doctor Who episode “The Wedding of River Song”. Because River interfered with a fix point in time, time started collapsing on itself. London had a mix of all the different time periods. Similar to what we saw this episode. That is having consequences for your hero’s actions. It means there are stakes in this world. There is an internal logic to this show and they are following it. I respect that.
The episode highlighted what a great season this has been. As I said in an earlier review, I didn’t like this show in its first season. A few things I liked, but the things I didn’t like outweighed the good. I don’t know if the producers read my mind, but they got rid of the things I didn’t like, (Hawkman and Hawkgirl), they created a compelling villain(s) (Legion of Doom) and they improved the show’s writing. The new additions to the cast were good, allowing the cast to gel into a tight ensemble. Most important they found the right tone for the show, fun and silly, but not stupid. It is a good adventure show, laced with humor and heart. It is what a good comic book show should be. I like dark serious shows, but I need the fun lighthearted shows too. Hats off to everyone for making the show so good. With the cliffhanger they left us with, I am looking forward to Season 3.
Episode Grade: A
Season Grade: A-
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