Legends of Tomorrow: Season 6, Episode 15 - The Fungus Amongus

 For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.

Plot

With Bishop leading an alien invasion fleet to destroy humanity as part of some crazed plan to force Sara to help him give birth to a new and improved human race, the Legends will have to break all the rules of time travel and common sense to save the world and arrange the perfect last-minute wedding for their co-captains.


Influences

Doctor Who (story involving misfits fighting aliens with the power of love), Swamp Thing (the idea of a guardian alien mushroom is in the spirit of the Green and the Gray), The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (John's appearance as an ideal version of himself that might as well be called Constantine the White) and Hellblazer (John being a bastard who betrays his friends to save himself.)

Performances

Despite the rather sudden turn of Mick Rory deciding to become a father and Kayla's 180 on remaining with him, Dominic Purcell completely sells the change in Mick's priorities and gets a fine send-off.

By the same toke, Matt Ryan remains the perfect John Constantine, remaining a likeable bastard despite everything he did in the past few episodes, leaving the series with a grin and a wink and one more mystery for the Legends to deal with in his absence. 


Artistry

The script for this episode manages the neat task of balancing a wedding, an alien invasion and send-offs for two established characters while still giving everyone in the cast at least one neat moment. My favorite may be the silent scene where Astra hugs Spooner after she sends her mother to safety - a powerful moment given how neither woman is all that expressive about their emotions.


Trivia Of Tomorrow

This is the last episode of the series to credit Dominic Purcell as a regular cast member, leaving Caity Lotz and Amy Louise Pemberton as the only members of the original cast remaining as the series heads into season 7. It also leaves Astra Logue as the only member of the Legends directly based on a character from the comics. (Sara Lance, while heavily based on Gail Simone's version of Black Canary, is widely considered to be an Original Creation.)

This episode will reportedly be Matt Ryan's final performance as John Constantine in the Arrowverse. This is apparently due to the character being reserved for an upcoming HBO Max Constantine reboot produced by J.K. Abrams, which reportedly feature an as-of-yet-uncast actor of color playing Constantine as a London native. This move has confounded fans, given Warner Bros. announcement that they were no longer limiting themselves to one live-action incarnation of their superhero characters and embracing the multiverse model for their DC Comics productions. Thankfully, Ryan will be joining the cast as an original character and become a series regular in Season 7.

The concept of the Fountain of Imperium being an alien mushroom that acts as a protector of humanity that can bond with humans shares in lot in common with the concept of Swamp Thing and the forces of the Green and Grey, which connect all plant life and fungal life in the universe, respectively. 

The bit where the John mushroom allows him to commune with those who eat him is taken directly from Swamp Thing, who was able to temporarily connect humans to the Green by growing special plants through himself.

John makes reference to a demonic associate making a deal to buy his soul and save his life. While some fans thought this might refer to the Lucifer of Earth-666, that demon never trafficked in souls despite he and Constantine apparently coming to a bargain at some point in the past. It could be a nod to the First of the Fallen (John's nemesis in the Hellblazer comics), the Demon Etrigan (whom John worked with quite often) or the demon Negral (who gave John a demonic blood transfusion and reluctantly worked with John on several occasions.)

John gives Zari 2.0 a key, saying the Legends will figure out what it is for. Some fans have guessed this may be the key to John's house, the key to a different house (like the House of Secrets or House of Mystery) or possibly even the Key to Hell from The Sandman. Presumably this will be explored further in Season 7.

Technobabble/Arcana

Kayla is able to repair Gideon, but notes that her wiring needs to be completely rerouted.

Necrian eggs need to be rotated a quarter turn every 12 minutes under a heat lamp.

In Necrian culture, the mother raises her children alone without the input of the father. 

As the Legends come for the young Bishop, he has having trouble with his first Ava Prime clone, as her neural network keeps overloading.

Zagurons are deathly allergic to mushrooms.

Necrian babies are ravenous when they hatch and then tend to go for the first they see.


Dialogue Triumphs

Sara: Mick, you okay?
Mick: Charred. Nothing new.

Bishop: (on recording) I'm back! Hello, Legends. Did you miss me? By the time you see this recording, I expect John will be dead. The Fountain will also be dead, and my Zaguron friends should be on their way to destroy you. I hope I've got that right. Otherwise possible egg on my face, ooh. And because I can literally think Sara's thoughts, about now is the time that Sara Lance has figured out my plan for us to live together forever after everyone else has died as the new Adam and Eve. Sara, your mind must be racing, realizing that the only one who can save the Fountain is me. And, spoiler alert, I'm not gonna.

Young Bishop: Wow. Whoever made this is a certified genius... an evil genius, but a genius.
Nate: Yes. An evil genius who is not like anyone in this room. 

Behrad: I spoke to John. He is in the mushroom. He wants to talk to us... and we all got to eat him.

(John appears before Sara, with white hair and a white trenchcoat.)
Constantine: Hello, Sara.
Sara: Are you...  Are you alive?
Constantine: Not exactly. I'm... present. What I did was unforgivable.
Sara: It's okay because we're creating an antidote for the poison that you gave the Fountain, and we can still stop the Zagurons from coming.
Constantine: That won't be enough. Even if you heal the physical side of the Fountain, the spiritual side will remain ill.
Sara: John, I need your help. I need you and the Fountain to help.
Constantine: The Fountain has a mind of its own. It no longer deems human beings worthy of its protection.
Sara: Damn it, John, you did this! You need to fix this!
Constantine: I cannot separate myself from the Fountain. My life force is the only thing keeping the Fountain and Spooner alive. If I leave, they both perish. I must stay as long as I can and let the remnants of my soul be drained. Mushrooms feed off death, and so I'm gonna feed it. I owe it that much. Sorry it had to be this way. (smiles) Do you remember all those years ago, when I said that stable relationships weren't right for you and me? I was wrong. Loving and being loved, that is the point. I had that. It should have been enough, but I wanted more. Now the whole world, especially Zari, is suffering because of my mistake.

(Sara describes her vision of John to the rest of the team.)
Sara: He told me what this is about. He told me what everything is about. He said..."We are all connected."
Nate: I think I saw that on a bumper sticker once.
Sara: It was really profound in the moment.

(Ava is panicking because she hasn't written her wedding vows yet.)
Ava: Sara already wrote her vows, Gary. Sara, the person who never plans anything, already did the one thing that every wedding needs.
Gary: It's okay. Here's what's going to happen. You're going to walk down that aisle...
Ava: Mm-hmm.
Gary: To the love of your life. She's gonna say some very beautiful things to you.
Ava: That's not helping.
Gary: No, no, no. And then you... you're gonna look deep into those gorgeous blue eyes - of hers and say what you feel.
Ava: ...I feel sick.
Gary: Don't say that.

Nate: We're gathered here today on what may very well be our last to celebrate the union of these two amazing people. I fondly remember the moment they met. (looks to Ava) She had a gun. (looks to Sara) She had a glare. Destiny was at work. We've all been through a lot since that day, and on that journey, you've challenged each other to be the best versions of yourself possible. This moment, this wedding, this is exactly what the world needs. We're facing insurmountable odds, but even during the darkest of times, when hope seems lost, love. Love is what matters most. 

Sara: Ava, the perfect woman, what could a mess like me ever have to offer someone as special as you? I can't exactly say it was love at first sight, but you did look really good in that pantsuit. But the more that I got to know you, and I got to feel your kindness and your honesty, well, this heart, once so cold and guarded, it just... it just melted. And Ava, it's because of you that I get to know what true love feels like. And so, today, here in front of all of our friends... I want to make these vows to you. I will always be your champion, your lover. I will always be your family, and I will listen to you even when the words are hard to hear, and I will let you in every when I’m afraid. And I will support you. I will fight for you. And above all, Ava Sharpe, I will love you.

Ava: My life before you was a perfect fabrication, and then you came into my world and everything just became a whirlwind. You brought chaos into my tidy, predictable existence, and you pretty much brought me to life. So I vow to you to live this life together. Co-captains forever, baby. I love you so, so, much, Sara Lance.

Sara: All right, anybody without steel skin or regeneration fall back and barricade the house!

(Zari stands in the clearing where John died.)
Zari: I really did love you. I wish that could've been enough.
(Zari turns around to leave when a familiar voice comes from behind her.)
Constantine: What's the hurry, love?
Zari: You... you bastard! What, you've been sneaking around here this whole time?
Constantine: No, no, no, I just got here, honestly, really. You know, after the Fountain healed and could survive without me, it saw the purity of my sacrifice, and it's offered to give me another chance.
Zari: Your purity? Don't lie to me.
Constantine: (chuckling) Okay, all right. I was joking. The Fountain didn't think too highly of me. Even less after I contacted an old associate in Hell. Long story short, the chit to my soul now belongs to a demon once again, and the Fountain is very happy that I'm no longer bound to it.
Zari: Wow. You haven't changed at all, have you?
Constantine: You know, people can change and not change at the same time. I'm still a bastard. I know that. But I guess now I know what I'm missing by being a bastard.
Zari: (sighs) We mucked it up. We mucked it up just like you said we would.
Constantine: (sadly) I'd do it all over again in a heartbeat, love.
Zari: (softly) Me too.
Constantine: Listen, I have to walk a different path now. Away from the Legends. 
(John sighs, looking honestly regretful.)
Constantine: But here, take this.
(John hands her an old key.)
Zari: An old key. What is this for?
Constantine: You'll find out.
(With that, John turns around and vanishes through a portal. Walking alone. As he must.)

Sara: Life's crazy, isn't it? Imagine if our first day on the Waverider, we travel to this moment to this house, and we saw me, a captain with a wife and you with 48 kids.
Mick: 49. And a grandbaby on the way.
Sara: I don't think we would have recognized ourselves.
Mick: No. Got to move forward, I guess. To the next job. A new partner.
Sara: Yeah, I had a feeling that was coming. You know you'll always have a home on the Waverider. But I guess you'll be busy taking care of punks.
Mick: Well, I've learned a thing or two about handling punks. Watched you do it for six years.


Continuity

The episode opens with a repeat of the scene from 614 where Mick, Kayla, Sara, Ava and Gary try to save Mick and Kayla's eggs from the bomb Bishop planted on the Waverider.

Mick is revealed to have survived the fireball, only slightly charred, shielding the one egg with his body.

The bomb destroys Gideon's mainframe, taking her off-line.

Bishop steals Kayla's ship.

Behrad returns to discover his couch and living space (which were in the lab) were destroyed by the bomb.

Behrad notes that he has fought addiction and should have seen the signs of it in John.

Zari, Nate and Astra explain how the Fountain of Imperium is an ancient fungal network and that John Constantine accidentally poisoned it by poisoning himself.

All that was left of Constantine after his body decomposed was a single mushroom.

Spooner is also dying, but her mother, Gloria, is using all her tricks as a healer to try and slow the poison.

Mick tells Kayla that he screwed up his daughter Lita's life by not really being there for her when she grew up and he has no intention of abandoning his children again.

Spooner can't be taken to the Med Bay on the Waverider, due to Gideon being off-line.

Ava, Sara and Nate discover a scout ship of what turn out to be Zagurons, who send a signal summoning their race to Earth.

Sara thinks the Zagurons are somehow tied into Bishop's plan.

Behrad plants John's mushroom and claims that he can hear John's voice in the mushroom.

Zari doesn't believe Behrad and says she would have nothing to say to John even if he were telling the truth.

Kayla plans to get off Earth as soon as she can fix Gideon, but offers to let Mick come with her and their eggs.

Bishop left a message for the Legends on Gideon, which plays as she reboots.

Nate and Ava suggest, since Bishop is now 6% Sara and can effectively predict everything she would do, they have to do the exact opposite of what Sara would want to do to beat him. This leads them to travel forward in time and retrieve a younger version of Bishop to make an antidote to the poison that he used on the Fountain of Imperium.

Behrad tells the rest of the team that he sampled the John mushroom and spoke with him and that he wants to talk to the whole team.

Sara refuses to allow this to happen and sends the rest of the team away, before sampling the John mushroom herself after hearing John's voice.

Sara has a vision of John in a bleached-white trenchcoat with his blonde hair now dyed white.

John explains that the spirit of the Fountain of Imperium is ill, along with its body, and that it no longer feels humanity is worthy of its protection. Even if they can create an antidote it still won't help and John is giving up his soul to keep the Fountain and Spooner alive. 

John tells Sara secret of all life is that we are all connected.

Mick refuses to let Kayla flee the Earth, saying he knows there is a part of Kayla that care enough about him to want to stand with him and his friends.

Young Bishop's antidote is able to heal Spooner.

Spooner can no longer hear the thoughts of aliens and can't pick up the presence of the Zagurons.

Spooner confirms what John said about the Fountain not wanting to help them.

Sara asks Ava to marry her today, leading the other Legends to start organizing a last-minute wedding. 

Gary prepares the clothes, Zari does the brides' make-up, Astra conjures up some floral arrangements and Behrad caters and provides the music for the ceremony.

Spooner's mother offers up the tablecloth from her own wedding.

Spooner sends her mother way to protect her from what is coming next.

Ava is having trouble writing her vows and takes Gary's advice to just wing it while looking at Sara and opening up her heart.

Ava asks Gary to walk her down the aisle.

Mick walks Sara down the aisle.

Both Young Bishop and Kayla attend the ceremony, along with the Legends.

Nate officiates the ceremony, having become legally certified to marry people on-line.

Bishop attacks the wedding in Kayla's ship as the Zagurons emerge from their ships.

Sara realizes John's message was meant to tell her that Spooner could use her connection to the Fountain to connect the Legends and switch their powers out during the fight. This leads Sara to give her healing factor to save Behard after he is stung and Ava to acquire Nate's power.

The love the Legends have for each other revitalizes the Fountain, who destroys the Zagurons as they are about to overwhelm the house.

Mick and Kayla's eggs hatch and the babies devour Bishop alive.

Young Bishop swears to change, having seen his eventual fate, but the Legends erase his memory and send him back to where they took him to preserve the timeline.

John sold his soul to a demon to save his life.

Constantine gives Zari an old key and says she'll know what it is for when the time is right.

Mick leaves with Kayla and their kids in her ship.

As the Legends are about to leave, another time-ship appears and blows up the Waverider.

Location

Odessa, Texas, USA - 1925
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada - 2212


The Bottom Line

An amusing ending to a good season and a solid send off for Constantine and Heatwave.

Legends of Tomorrow: Season 6, Episode 4 - Bay of Squids

  For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.

Plot

The good news is Mick's plan to lead the team to Sara does result in their finding an important alien with information that can help them. The bad news is it also throws them into the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis and threatens to start World War III!


Influences

Dr. Strangelove (Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb) - comedy about nuclear war and the end of the world.


Performances

Shayan Sobhian is a pretty good guitar player and gives a great rendition of Cat Stevens' "Peace Train."

This is probably Dominic Purcell's strongest episode in a season, as Mick gets some honest conflict and we see the cunning, if not exactly smart, crook he was when the series started.

Artistry

The montage of soldiers preparing for war set to "Peace Train" is a fun bit of ironic composition.


Trivia Of Tomorrow

This is the first episode of the series not to feature Caity Lotz.

During the battle to recover the nuclear football, John Kennedy injures his back and has to be helped to a chair. Kennedy suffered from back problems throughout his life - a fact that was largely kept secret until after his death.


Technobabble/Arcana

The nuclear warhead Mick accidentally stole is a Soviet SS-4 medium range ballistic missile. 

The alien turbo-charges the Waverider engine using plutonium. 


Dialogue Triumphs

(Nate is walking down the hall and freezes up when he sees Zari. They are both still in their night clothes.)
Nate: Sorry.
Zari: Oh, you're not used to my nighttime makeup. I mean, no makeup. Sorry to ruin the illusion.
Nate: No, you, um... you look just like her.
Zari: Oh. You mean the other Zari.
Nate: Yeah.
Zari: I could change my hair if it would help.
Nate: Help what?
Zari: Whatever's happening down there.
(Nate looks confused for a second and then discretely covers his manhood region with his hand.)
Nate: It's not my fault!
Zari: (smirking) Mm.
Nate: I was sleeping!
Zari: Yeah
Nate: It's natural!
Zari: Whatever you say, Steel.

(Mick is rushing everyone out the door after arriving in Cuba.)
Spooner: Okay, hold up, I thought this was a time machine. Why not bring us back an hour earlier? That way, y'all can change out of your PJ's?
Zari: Oh, girl, we don't ask those questions.

Mick: Cover me.
Zari: With what? I'm wearing slippers.

Behard: Look, Captain. Authoritarian leaders, secret bunkers, nuclear missiles, I'm just not feeling the energy of this mission.
Ava: Too bad, because I need your energy, okay? (looks at Mick) Can't afford any hotheads starting a nuclear war.
Mick: Hey, I'm just trying to help you find your girlfriend.
Ava: You know what you can help me do is get the missile back to the people that we stole it from.
Spooner: Wait, the Russians?
Mick: That defeats the purpose of stealing!
Ava: Our job is to protect history. Remember that next time. 

Nate: This reminds me of the 1942 Princeton game.
General Kilgore: Refresh my memory, son, I was too busy fighting a World War.
Nate: Thank you for your service. It was a tie. A defensive stalemate. Neither team put the ball in the air, and neither got close enough to kick a field goal.
General Kilgore: What a terrible game. Both sides lost.
Nate: But... when we're talking about lobbing nukes at one another, that is the only way both sides win.

(Mick and Spooner are walking through the Cuban camp. Suddenly, Spooner cries out and clutches her head.)
Mick: Headache, huh? That time of the month?
Spooner: Very funny.
Mick: No, I'm being serious. My daughter, she has the same...
(Spooner grunts in pain.)
Spooner: Oh, that's very sweet of you then. But it's not my period. It's the alien. 

Behrad: Guys, thought you might like a little update on El Comandante.
Ava: Wait, you're with Fidel Castro?
Behrad: Yeah, we're super tight, but the problem is, he thinks the alien was sent to kill him.
Ava: Why would he think that?
Behrad: Because it tried to kill him. 

Ava: Okay, sounds like you're up, Rory.
Mick: Thought I was in the doghouse?
Ava: That's when we were trying to finesse the situation. Plans change.
Mick: You want us to kill the alien?
Ava: We don't have a choice, okay? Spooner, I need you to help him track it. We need to deescalate the situation and get history back on track.
Mick: Screw history! You kill the alien, you kill any chance of finding Sara.
Ava: And if we don't kill it, then Castro starts a nuclear war, and Sara doesn't have a home to return to, okay? I do not have time to game this out with you, Rory. We will find another way to find Sara.
Mick: Right. Lot of big brains on this ship. I'll just stick with what I know. You should never have cleaned me up. I'm better off doing what I do best: being a goon, killing people.
Ava: Yes.
(There is a long pause as Ava just stares at Mick.)
Ava: That's exactly what I need.
Mick: Right. Least I know what I'm here for.
(Mick grabs his flamethrower on the way out of the room, clearly pissed off. Spooner follows after him.)

Spooner: You know, it wasn't right for Ava to try to pin this all on you.
Mick: I don't give a rat's ass.
Spooner: You were just trying to find Sara.
Mick: No, I was pretending to be somebody I'm not.
Spooner: So you're just gonna go back to being a dumb drunk? That it?
Mick: Yes. 

Mick: You said your job is to protect history.
Ava: I also said your job wasn't to think for yourself, but had you listened to any of my orders, we'd have absolutely no hope in finding Sara, so I... I guess you got this.
Mick: Stop saying nice things. 

Zari: I hate that I'm a reminder of everything you lost.
Nate: You're not. I mean, I guess at first. But now? Now you just remind me of you. 


Continuity

An alien pod lands in the mountains of Sierra Maestra on October 16, 1962 and is discovered by Cuban soldiers.

Rory sounds the alarm to wake the rest of the Legends.

Nate is stunned by the sight of Zari without make-up as it reminds him of Zari 1.0.

Spooner works-out to hip-hop music.

Behrad has Gideon making edible marijuana candy for him to help him sleep.

Using the sketch he drew in 603, Mick was able (with Gideon's help) to find a photo of the alien in question among some redacted KGB files.

According to Gideon, Vladmir Putin was ousted from power in Russia in 2044.

Mick moves the Waverider to go after the alien, leaving John and Astra behind in the present at John's house.

Mick commandeers a Cuban military vehicle he thinks is holding the alien. In truth, it contains a nuclear warhead.

Nate forgot to set the cloak on the Waverider before leaving, resulting in the ship showing up on photos taken by an American spy plane. This leads them to believe that the Russians have some form of advanced bomber.

Nate wrote his doctoral thesis on John F. Kennedy and his use of diplomacy during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Nate and Zari go to Washington DC to find some way to infiltrate the White House and ensure JFK doesn't start a nuclear war.

Spooner is able to find out where the alien is listening in on the Cuban army's radio signals.

Ava takes Behrad with her, posing as a Russian scientist named Yevgania Shostenko who is an expert on aliens, while he dresses as a Cuban soldier.

The Cubans believe that the United States has invaded them with mutant soldiers, leading them to commandeer the truck with the nuclear missile before Mick and Spooner can return it to the Russians.

Zari is presumed to be a secretary and has no issue getting into the Oval Office. Nate pretends to be a former Harvard man, whom JFK pretends to recognize from the class of 1940.

Nate is introduced to the rest of JFK's inner circle - Bobby Kennedy, Rober McNamara and Douglas Dillion - all former Harvard men.

General Kilgore is an Army general who is advising JFK to take the country to DEFCON 3, based on the pictures of the Waverider. Nate dismisses the pictures as obvious fakes.

When General Kilgore questions Nate's credentials, he attempts to win over JFK with a football metaphor involving the 1942 Harvard vs. Princeton match.

Ava discovers the Cubans intend to vivisect the alien, which is sedated.

Behrad cannot stand the sight of blood and leaves the operating field to throw up.

Ava is able to delay the surgery by cutting the hose for the anesthetic and knocking out the other medical technicians.

Behrad is mistaken for Che Guevara and, when asked about it, claims to be his cousin Jay Guevara. He is then taken to meet with Fidel Castro.

The Russian Ambassador calls the White House demanding an explanation for the stolen nuclear missile and why the United States is attacking them with a man made of Steel.. JFK has none to offer and says it sounds like the ambassador is drunk and rambling.

General Kilgore shows JFK spy photos of Nate, in his Steel form, fighting Cuban soldiers.

Nate once again tries to dismiss the photos as obvious fakes, but is informed that DARPA had been working on a serum that could turn a soldiers' flesh into metal and had successful secret tests.

General Kilgore believes one of the test subjects of the steel soldier project went rogue and urges JFK to launch a pre-emptive strike on Cuba.

JFK gives the order to go to DEFCON 3.

Castro tells Behrad that he is sick of being a pawn of the Russians but that he now has a nuclear missile that will let him destroy Washington DC on his own.

Behrad shares his edibles with Castro when he asks about the candy.

Spooner's powers seem to be getting stronger. Beyond sensing the presence and emotional state of aliens, she can now almost understand what they are saying.

The alien wakes up as Ava is escaping with it and it almost attacks her. Thankfully, the alien is driven off by Mick and his flamethrower.

Behrad sings Cat Stevens' "Peace Train" to Castro, inspiring the stoned leader to call Washington DC and tell JFK they should live in peace.

The alien almost gets Castro at this point, making him paranoid and spurring him to order they launch the nuclear missile now.

In Washington, the Army has learned that the Cubans now have their own nuclear missile and are preparing to launch it at Washington DC.

JFK gives the order to go to DEFCON 2, but Zari (who is tying up the order) instead gives all of Strategic Air Command a three-day weekend, effective immediately. 

Behrad is forced to flee Castro's bunker after Che Guevara calls and confirms he doesn't have a cousin named Jay.

Ava sends Mick and Spooner to kill the alien before the timeline is disrupted any further.

Spooner senses that the alien is looking for something. She and Mick find it next to the nuclear missile as it is about to launch. 

Mick angrily tells the alien that the rocket is not a spaceship and can't get them off the planet.

Mick tells the alien it can help it get back to its spaceship if it helps him find Sara.

General Kilgore gives JFK the nuclear football and tells him they can use it to get all their nuclear sumbarine captains to fire an all-out strike on the Russians. When JFK wants to call Khrushchev, General Kilgore takes the nuclear football and gets ready to order the strike himself.

Nate reveals his powers and says he didn't go rogue but was working to protect the world from people like General Kilgore.

General Kilgore takes Zari hostage.

JFK leads Nate and his cabinet in a football charge against the army men with General Kilgore.

JFK injures his back during the play.

General Kilgore leaves the White House, firing his gun at the missile, which crushes him as it lands on the White House lawn.  It does, not, however, explode.

It is revealed later that the nuclear missile didn't explode because Mick and the alien removed the plutonium from it.

Mick commanders the Waverider, leaving the rest of the team behind, while he goes into space with the alien to find Sara.

Zari's phones were all on the Waverider when Mick took it.

The rest of the Legends decide they can operate out of John Constantine's house for the time being.

The alien puts on a ring which gives her a human form and allows her to be understood in English.


Location

Sierra Maestra Mountains, Cuba - October 16, 1962
Washington DC, USA - October 16, 1962


The Crisis Factor

Even by the standards of this sow, JFK and the Harvard men in his cabinet playing football with the nuclear football is a bit much.


The Bottom Line

A fun episode that gives Mick and Spooner some much needed character refinement, though it does go a bit too far in its comedic take on nuclear war. Even Stanley Kubrick thought twice about ending it with a pie-fight.

Legends of Tomorrow: Season 4, Episode 1 - The Virgin Gary

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here. 



Plot

The Time Demon Mallus is defeated but he wasn't the only thing unleashed when his prison in time was broken. Now all manner of magical beasts are running wild around the time-stream. John Constantine thinks he knows how to defeat the new threat, but he will need the help of The Legends and their special brand of chaos and kleptomania to help him set things straight.

The problem is that with The Time Bureau finally off their backs about The Anachronisms they caused when they broke time over a year ago, The Legends aren't convinced that anything is really wrong five months after John's doom-saying in Aruba. Still, circumstances will see various members of The Legends traveling to Woodstock to investigate a disturbance in the time-stream on the down-low to make sure things really are okay. Meanwhile, Nate and Rory go on an adventure of their own, leaving Nate facing someone from his past he's been avoiding since joining The Legends.


Influences

The NBC Constantine series (music, general tone of the John and Sara scenes, John's technobable regarding his spells and the artifacts he has.) and Woodstock: The Movie (split-screen sequence, music used)


Performances

Dominic Purcell's comic timing cannot be praised enough. There are many great lines here that are great precisely because of how he says them.

The interplay between Caity Lotz and Matt Ryan is amazing. Honestly, I could just watch a Canary & Constantine series forever.


Artistry

The effects for the unicorn are nice. Not at all realistic, but perfect for what they are meant to convey.


Trivia Of Tomorrow

The Legends of Tomorrow title card for this episode includes a magical seal similar to the one from the title card of the Constantine series.

When John first appears in the shadows, his musical sting from the Constantine series plays.

When John first approaches Sara in this episode, he says something about how The Darkness is Rising. The great evil that John was fighting in his short-lived solo series was The Rising Darkness.

Tom Wilson, who plays the role of Hank Haywood, is most famous for his affiliation with another famous time-travel comedy franchise. He played the various members of The Tannen Family in the Back To The Future films.

The split-screen editing used when Sara, Zari, Nate and Ray are talking to each other is a visual reference to Woodstock: The Movie.

There's a bit of a nod to John's famous battle during The Newcastle Incident here, with John attempting to save an innocent from being dragged into Hell. This time, however, he is successful.


Technobabble/Arcana

The knuckle bones of a martyred saint can act as a divining rod and be used to detect the presence of beings not of the material world.

Unicorns are vicious predators whose beautiful appearance enraptures the unwary. They impale people on their horns and eat their hearts. They are immune to fire.They also spray a glittery musk that has psychotropic effects.

John Constantine has King Solomon's original grimoire - the oldest magical textbook in existence.

The spell to banish a magical creature from the mortal realm requires a number of rare ingredients - the saliva of a nine-fingered man, the protection stone of a powerful shaman and a lock of hair from a doomed woman. In the case of a unicorn, it also requires a virgin as bait.


Dialogue Triumphs

Mick: Never met an Englishman I haven't wanted to punch in the face.
Nate: Relax, Mick. If it wasn't for The British Invasion, there'd be no Rolling Stones. No Led Zep. (pauses) No Black Sabbath.
Mick: (suddenly quiet) Black Sabbath?
Nate: Nope.
Mick: (stammering) Well then, we-we've got to protect these mop-heads from whatever is screwing up history!

Nate: Look, all I know is Constantine promised us new, mysterious monsters. So... where all they are hiding?
Sara: I'm confused. We are all happy that there was only one dragon, right?! We don't want to be fighting werewolves at The Alamo!
Nate: (shrugs) Eh.
Ray: Well, it would be good for our ratings.
(Everyone just stares at Ray.)
Sara: What ratings?
Ray: Oh, you don't know? The Time Bureau rates all of their employees. But don't worry. We have a few dedicated fans.
Zari: Yeah, Gary doesn't count.

(John has just left Ava's apartment.)
Ava: Should I be worried about your ex-lover breaking into my apartment, or...?
Sara: (smiling) Well, I thought that... this was our apartment?
Ava: (sighs) You. Are. Smooth.

(Mick revs the engine on his stolen car.)
Mick: You ready to steal something, Pretty?
Nate: Yeah. I could do some light theft.
Mick: What is this? Spring Break? I'm talking about a felony.

Dorothy: Mr. Rory, do you like, ah- sandwiches?
Mick: You bet your ass I do, ma'am!

The entire sequence of everyone starring at the majesty of the unicorn enraptured as it approaches the hippie woman holding a flower... only to impale her through the chest, throw her to the ground and start eating her heart.

John: You know, for someone with a time-traveling machine, you seem to be in an awful hurry-
Sara: John, the unicorn has already gored two hippies!
John: Oh-ho! A unicorn?
Sara: Yeah.
John: Well, alright, I'm in. But first I need to know - was any of your team get... musked by the beast?
Sara: If that's what you're calling its sparkle sauce, then yeah. Why?
John: (grins) Oh, they're in... for one hell of a ride.

John: I'm just trying to look after you, love. You and I are both similar. We're both survivors but our survival comes at a terrible cost. Look - You can take it from a man whose brought nothing but misery to everyone he's ever loved. Trust me. End it with Ava before its too late.
Sara: You ever think that you cause misery, not because of some romantic "I was born to walk alone" crap but because you're an ass who doesn't know how to trust people?
John: You know, I trust... that people around me get hurt, killed, or far, far worse.
Sara: You think that I'm not scared? That I don't know grief?
(John shrugs.)
Sara: I'm not willing to turn my back on life. Because that is exactly what you are doing, John! Our friends and family, they don't make us weaker. They make us stronger. (pauses and smiles) You know what you need?  YOU need to be a part of a team.
(John snorts at this and starts to turn around to walk off. He stops and makes a face.)
(Cut to: John's POV as we see Ray kissing a tree, Zari rolling around on the grass and Nate and Mick playing wheelbarrow. Sara turns to look at what John is looking at and sighs.)
John: You were saying?

(John is searching through King Solomon's grimoire looking for a spell to fight a unicorn)
Sara: Well, not to pressure you, but the entire fate of the sexual revolution is in the balance here.
John: That IS my favorite revolution.


Continuity

Five months have passed since John Constantine met The Legends in Aruba in 318.

Paul Revere shows up in the midst of The Beatles arrival at JFK on Februrary 7, 1964.

Returning Paul Revere to his proper place in time is the final anachronism The Legends needed to fix.

Wally West is said to have left The Legends to travel the world and find himself, as per his discussion with Joe West in F501.

Zari, Ray and Nate each told Ava about John Constantine's slaying a dragon and his warning that more monsters were coming.

Sara and Ava are still dating.

Zari has figured out that Ray helped Nora Darhk escape in 318. She says he's a good guy for doing it, however.

Ava asks Sara to move in with her. Sara accepts.

The Legends are given medals for their work. Unfortunately, Gary confiscates them as the existence of The Time Bureau is top-secret.

Nate's parents live in Washington DC.

Henry "Hank" Haywood just took a new job with the Pentagon. He disapproves of his son's career and resents his not joining the military, despite Nate being a hemophiliac.

Sara gets Gary to scan the timeline for anomalies. He finds one in Woodstock in 1969. Sara steals his Time Courier to go there.

Ray has Gideon monitoring the Time Bureau for unusual activity. He detects Sara's noticing the anomaly in Woodstock and takes The Waverider's jump-ship to go there. Zari comes with him. Ray thinks Nora is the cause of the anomaly.

Zari doesn't know what a hippie is.

Ray still carries his Eagle Scout compass.

Zari and Ray discover a dad body in a tree that had its heart ripped out.

Nate has barely called his parents in the last two years.

Nate figures out that history has changed after his father says he has nothing but pity for the Hippies after what happened at The Woodstock Massacre.

The Woodstock Massacre ended the Hippie movement before it started in the new reality. Reports from the survivors are sketchy but it's agreed that there were a series of murders that ultimately led to the stampede of a panicking crowd of 400,000 people trying to escape at once.

Nate and Ray are both Bronies.

John is about to have a threesome with two contortionists when Sara finds him.

Mick's father beat him, burned him and dressed like a clown to scare him when he was a child.

Nate's father was emotionally distant and cold toward him when he was a kid.

Nate sees Mick as his father.

Mick sees Nate as his dead rate, Axl.

Zari begins seeing love as a light around her. While she's high on the unicorn musk, she realizes Ray has fallen in live with Nora Darhk.

Roy hallucinates that a tree is Nora Darhk and starts kissing it.

The spell to banish a magical creature from the mortal realm requires a number of rare ingredients - the saliva of a nine-fingered man, the protection stone of a powerful shaman and a lock of hair from a doomed woman. Nate gets the saliva of a nine-fingered man by stealing a joint from Jerry Garcia, who lost most of one finger in a wood-chopping accident. Mick steals a necklace from Jimi Hendricks. A shrunken Ray steals a lock of hair from Janis Joplin.

Something happened between Gary Green and John Constantine, but John insists that it doesn't count as sex and that Gary is still a virgin. Technically.

The effects of the banishment spell opens a portal to Hell that draws the magical creature into it.

The unicorn bites off Gary's left nipple.

John offers to take Gary to go get a drink and maybe do something about the "virgin" situation.

Nate goes to visit his dad with a six-pack of beer so they can talk.

Ray claims to have felt a spark when he touched Nora Darhk's hand when he gave her the time stone.

Zari and her mother lived in Washington D.C in 2018.

Zari says she knows she can't change her family's past without screwing up the timeline and dooming all the people she saved as a Legend but she still feels guilty.

Ava puts The Legends medals in a frame on the wall of her kitchen.

Gary finally told Ava about the monsters being unleashed into the time stream.

Sara decides to not move in with Ava just yet.

John is attacked in his hotel room by some presence that says it is coming for him, writing a message in blood on his mirror.


Location

JFK Airport, New York City - February 7, 1964.
Time Bureau HQ, Washington DC - 2018
Ava Sharpe's Brownstone, Washington DC - 2018.
The Haywood Home, Washington DC - 2018
Woodstock, New York - 1969
John Constantine's Hotel Room, Washington DC - 2018



Untelevised Adventures

Something happened to John within the past five months that has made him more miserable than usual.


The Bottom Line

Words cannot express how much I missed this show and how much I loved this episode. It's goofy fun and Constantine only makes it better, with the whole episode feeling like some lost Garth Ennis story. Practically perfect in every way.

Legends Of Tomorrow: Season 3, Episode 7- Welcome To The Jungle

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.


Plot

Sara Lance is still in a coma, but The Legends are still committed to fixing anachronisms while their Captain recovers. Traveling back to the time of The Vietnam War to investigate reports of a monster killing both American and Viet-Cong soldiers, Nate and Rory run into a familiar face from Rory's past.


Influences

Various Vietnam War movie tropes, particularly Apocalypse Now.


Performances

Dominic Purcell delivers a great performance here, as Mick Rory is forced to understand the abusive father he hated and what made him into the man he knew.


Artistry

There's a great shot of Rory staring at a bonfire that is a nice visual nod to Apocalypse Now.

There's some great moments in the script, with Rory confronting his daddy issues and Zari getting a touching scene with a female VC villager working with Grodd who lost her parents and brother in the war and is desperate for an end to the fighting.

The CGI for Grodd is impressive for broadcast TV.


Trivia Of Tomorrow

The episode title comes from a 1987 Guns N' Roses song.

Much of the plot and imagery of this episode is inspired by the 1979 film Apocalypse Now, which detailed an American Army Captain being sent into Vietnam at the height of the war to kill a rogue Colonel who had set himself up as a god among the survivors of a local tribe. Nate directly name-drops the film at one point. 

Nate gives Rory the alias Officer Schwarzenegger. This is a nod to actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, famous for playing gun-totting soldiers in many films. Nate later mentions the movie Predator, which - while not set during The Vietnam War - was filmed as an allegory for it and starred Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The three figures Stein recruits to help him solve the problem with The Firestorm Matrix are Sir Issac Newton, Galileo Galilei and Marie Curie. All three are prominent physicists who were also masters of other disciplines. Newton was a mathematician, Galileo an astronomer and Curie a chemist.


Technobabble

Stein attempts to find a salient stimulus - a noise or sound that provokes an emotional connection - to bring Sara out of her coma. In this case, he attempts to beat on a training dummy with Sara's escrima sticks.

Stein says that there must be a theorem that supports the deceleration of the subject's rate of fission to individually power the thermacore. Madame Curie says there is only one way to safely split the thermacore but it would leave both Stein and Jax powerless.

Grodd creates a communications jammer which blocks all comms around his village.

By freezing a mine trip-line, a person who pulled the wire should be able to step away from it.

When Sir Issac Newton knocks out Sara, he says this proved his Laws of Motion. Indeed, knocking a person unconscious does prove all three of Newton's Laws of Motion. The first law states that an object will stay in motion until another force affects it (i.e. Newton knocking Sara out). The second law states that Force equals mass times acceleration (i.e. when you hit someone, the faster and bigger you are, the more it will hurt). The third law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. (i.e. Sara was going to hit Martin, Newton hit her first.)

Ray rebuilds the Molecular Hyper Compressor. (i.e. shrink ray)


Dialogue Triumphs

(The team discusses what to do while Sara is in a coma.)
Rory: How about you drop me off on an island full of beautiful women like Zari did with that Helen chick?
(Everyone stares at Zari.)
Zari: Rory, you weren't supposed to say anything.
Amaya: Wait, you didn't take Helen back to Troy where she belongs?
Zari: That's what The Time Bureau does. We - we - do something different.
Nate: No, we do it different... ly.
Ray: Yeah. More messy.

Rory: You know why I've never seen a shrink?
Nate: Why?
Rory: I don't regret killing my old man.
Nate (shocked) What?!
Rory: That's right, Pretty. You heard me. I let my old man burn to death. How's that for tough love?
(Rory walks off, leaving a stunned Nate behind.)

Ray: Look, I'm sure it's not easy learning that your granddaughter is in league with Damien Darhk. If you ever want to talk about it-
Amaya: What happened to men? When did you all start talking about your feelings?
Ray: Uh... early 90s?

Jax: I've never told anyone this before but... I'm scared.
(Jax turns to look at Sara, still in her coma.)
Jax: I don't know who I am if I'm not a part of Firestorm. But then you've never had any super-powers and that's never stopped you from being the most kick-ass person I've ever met.
(There is a long silence as Jax just watches Sara, as if waiting for a response.)
Jax: Well, good talk, Captain.
(Jax take's Sara's hand and pats it gently before turning around and leaving the room.)

Zari: Where are we taking Grodd when we return him to where belongs?
Ray: Well, last I heard he was in an ARGUS prison.
Zari: Wait... he's just another persecuted meta?
Ray: Okay, I know you're not a fan of ARGUS, but Grodd is a psychopath. And... well, a giant gorilla!

Rory: My whole life I saw him as a monster. Blamed him for all the sick things that I've done. But now I see... I'm worse than him. Should have been me that burned in that house.

Zari: I know what it's like to lose the people you love in a senseless war. It makes you desperate. But if you really want peace, it starts with you.

Stein: I swear to you, if I die today because of a telepathic gorilla, I'm going to be very upset!

(Rory is in a stand-off with his own father.)
Rory: I've got nothing to lose. But you do. You get to go home. But if you kill these people, you'll hear their screams forever. Then one day... when you have a family... you won't be able to look them in the eye. Because this day - this act you're about to commit - will be burned in your memory forever.
(Sgt. Rory lowers his gun. Rory sucker-punches him, knocking him out.)
Nate: Why did you do that?!
Rory: I always wanted to!

(Jax examines the minefield between where he and President Johnson are and safety.)
Jax: Follow my lead. And, uh, if I don't blow up, path's clear.
President Johnson: And if you blow up?!
Jax: Then you're on your own, Sir.

Stein: Where is Captain Lance when I need her?
(Sara steps onto the bridge. Her movements are slow and forced.)
Stein: Sara! Were you just waiting for the right moment to make a dramatic entrance?!
(Sara continues her slow steps. Stein notices something is odd about her behavior.)
Stein: Are you all right?
Sara: There is no Sara.
Stein: What?!
Sara: (pulls her escrima sticks) Only Grodd.
(Sara takes a swing at Stein as he nervously backs away.)
Gideon: It appears that The Captain is under some kind of telepathic control.
Stein: (sarcastically) Really, Gideon? Do you think so?!
Sara: I claim this ship for The New God! Kneel before Grod-
(Sara is cut off suddenly as Sir Issac Newton sneaks up on her and hits her across the back of the head with a frying pan.)
Sir Issac Newton: Oh, how I do love proving my laws of motion!
Stein: (tiredly) Please save that lecture for another day.


Dialogue Disasters

"One Nation Under Grodd!"


Continuity

As the episode opens, Sara is still in a medically-induced coma, though she has just been taken off of sedatives.

Zari told Rory the truth about where she dropped off Helen of Troy in 306 - a secret Rory lets slip to the rest of the team.

Zari shows the team that there is no anachronism in Troy, despite Helen's absence.

The anachronism in 1967 Vietnam is a Level 8. Gideon reports that both American and Viet-Cong soldiers were disappearing amid reports of a monster in the jungle.

Ryan Sanders was the sole survivor of the group of soldiers attacked in the opening scene.

Mick Rory hates jungles.

Mick Rory's dad, Sgt. Dick Rory, fought in the Vietnam War. He was a Green Beret.

Mick tells Nate about how he killed his own father - a fact we first found out in 112, where it was also suggested that Mick's father was abusive.

Jax's favorite desert is his mom's pecan pie.

Professor Stein has formed an advisory board made up of Sir Issac Newton, Galileo Galilei and Marie Curie to help him ponder how to give Jax all of The Firestorm Matrix. They are unable to find a solution that will not depower both Stein and Jax.

Nate refers to the events of 202 and how he got to meet his own grandfather thanks to time travel.

Ong Troi Moi - The New God uniting Viet-Cong and American soldiers - is revealed to be Gorilla Grodd, last seen in F314.

Grodd's plan to assassinate President Lyndon Johnson while he is in Vietnam will bring about the start of World War III. This escalates the anachronism level to 10.

For saving President Johnson's life, Jax is rewarded with Ladybird Johnson's secret pecan pie recipe.

Jax still thinks his mom's pie is the best.

Damien Darhk rescues Grodd from falling to his death, teleporting him through time to Central City 2017 with his rune stone.


Location

3 Klicks East of Khe Sanh, Vietnam - December 1967
Central City - 2017


The Bottom Line

A shockingly good episode considering Caity Lotz - usually the glue that holds the show together - is absent for 95% of it. In fact, this may be one of the best episodes ever. The script gives most of the cast some honestly good dramatic moments and nobody is forced to act like an idiot to make the plot or jokes work. Dominic Purcell steals the show, however, and the effects work on Grodd is fantastic.

Legends of Tomorrow: Season 2, Episode 15 - Fellowship Of The Spear

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.




Plot

After retrieving the other half of The Spear of Destiny from The Legion of Doom's hideout in what remains of The Vanishing Point, The Legends travel to WWI. It is here that they team with a young soldier named John Tolkien to find the means to destroy The Spear. The power of The Spear speaks to them all, however, and they must contend with The Legion's latest recruit... Leonard Snart!


Influences

The Lord of The Rings (plot involving heroes seeking to destroy a magic artifact that risks corrupting them, secret writing is revealed when the artifact is exposed to fire, and numerous other nods to the original books by Tolkien and the Peter Jackson films based upon them), Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (the scene of the team searching an old church for clues to locate a holy relic) and The DaVinci Code (idea of ancient conspiracy built around Jesus Christ and The Crusades).



Goofs

The show uses an establishing shot of The Amiens Catherdal to identify the church where Gawain was buried. In the show, Tolkien says it was built in the 1600s. The real world Amiens Cathedral dates back to the 13th Century and is the oldest Gothic cathedral in France. (Then again, the building is also identified as The Amenis Church so it could be an entirely different one..)


Performances

Dominic Purcell gets a fantastic turn here. After being the comic relief for so many episodes, he gets a chance to display some genuine pathos here as we see his fear at not being quite right in the head after he starts seeing Snart again. Then there's his internal conflict that Snart is right about how his teammates will never view him as anything but a dog to be kept on a leash.


Artistry

The battle sequences do a good job of capturing the horrors of trench warfare.


Trivia Of Tomorrow

Rather than the usual opening narration, this episode opens immediately with a "Previously on Legends of Tomorrow" announcement before showing clips from previous episodes.

The book which Nate refers to - The Burden Of The Purest Heart - Sir Gawain's Secret Treasure by J. R. R. Tolkien - is not a real one. Tolkien did produce what many consider the definitive translation of Sir Gawain and The Green Knight.

As depicted in this episode, Tolkien did serve as a Second Lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers during The Battle Of The Somme.

Nate describes The Battle of Somme as one of the bloodiest conflicts in human history. It was definitely the largest battle on the Western Front of World War I, with over one million men wounded or killed on both sides of the conflict.

As depicted in this episode, Tolkien suffered repeated health problems while enlisted and was frequently removed from the front lines. Eventually he was declared unfit for fighting. Despite this, he maintained his rank after being demobilized in 1920.

As depicted in this episode, Tolkien did not enjoy military life. Even ignoring his continual ill health in the trenches, he preferred the life of an academic and it's quite likely he would have avoided joining the army had the social stigma for young men avoiding volunteering been so great at the time. Indeed, he delayed volunteering until after he had earned his degree - presumably in the hopes that the war would be over before his graduation date.

The Spear of Destiny is said to glow in the presence of Jesus' blood. This is similar to how, in The Lord of The Rings, some Elven blades would glow blue when orcs and goblins were nearby.

The Spear of Destiny urges people around it to use it. This is similar to how The One Ring in The Lord of The Rings attempted to tempt people around it.

The Spear of Destiny can only be destroyed by The Blood of Jesus Christ - the same substance that empowered it. This is similar to how, in The Lord of The Rings, only the fires of Mount Doom - which were used to forge The One Ring - could destroy The One Ring.

A secret message is revealed when The Spear of Destiny is set on fire. The One Ring from Lord of The Rings also presents a secret message when tossed into the fire.

At one point, Stein says one does not simply walk into the middle of a war zone - a nod to a complaint about simply entering Mordor in The Lord of The Rings.

Amaya's argument that they can use The Spear wisely against their enemies rather than destroying it mirrors that of Boromir in The Lord of The Rings.

Rip's speech about the courage of men not failing this day is a nod to Aragorn's speech in The Return of The King.


Technobabble

Stein theorizes that The Spear of Destiny is made of some magnetized compound which acts as its own sealant.

The British army broadcast on a frequency of 3 mHz.


Dialogue Triumphs

(The Legends look over the two pieces of The Spear of Destiny that they have.)
Rip: It's hard to imagine that when joined with their siblings, they're as powerful as God.
Jax: But right now, that's just a useless piece of wood.
(Sara picks up the wooden piece of The Spear.)
Sara: It's not useless. I know ten different ways to kill somebody with this.
Mick: Not to mention it's great for scratching those hard to reach places.
Ray: Please don't tell me you used The Spear of Destiny as a back-scratcher!
Mick: Who said anything about my back?
(Sara drops the piece of wood.)
Stein: Well, as Mister Rory has demonstrated, in the wrong hands, this divine artifact can be put to truly horrific use.
Mick: Yeah!

(Sara comes up behind Mick, who is staring at the place where Snart died.)
Sara: Mick? Mick! Are you okay?
Mick: Am I okay? Why wouldn't I be okay?
Sara: ... I miss him too.
Mick: He blew himself up. For what?
Sara: So the rest of us could live.
Mick: Idiot:
Sara: Mick, we've got to go. (harder) Look, this is a heist. We have to steal the other pieces of The Spear and get out of here. (pauses) You think this is what Snart wants?! You waiting around so that you can get caught?!
Mick: ... probably not.
(Wordlessly, Mick turns around and walks past Sara. She looks back to the point herself before following after.)

(Rip tries - and fails - to shoot his way into the obelisk holding The Legion's pieces of The Spear of Destiny.)
Rip: Your try, Mr. Jackson.
Firestorm: Oh. (pauses as he looks at the obelisk) What's your favorite candy?
Rip: Jellybeans. Why?
(Firestorm slaps Rip on the shoulder and walks over to the obelisk. He touches it and it begins to flash yellow and red. Within a few seconds, the material collapses into a pile of jellybeans along with two pieces of wood. He smiles and gestures like a magician having just accomplished a great trick.)
Firestorm: A little transmutation trick me and Grey have been working on.
(Rip slaps Firestorm on the shoulder and kneels down. He takes one of the jellybeans and looks at it carefully before putting it in his mouth. He clearly enjoys the taste and savors it a moment before grabbing the pieces of wood.)
Rip: Both delicious and impressive, Mr. Jackson.

Thawne: This can't be happening. They're not smart enough for this to be happening...

Snart: My, my my - how the mighty have fallen.
Mick: You said that the last time you appeared. Huh. You picked a hell of a time to show up. I'm kind of in the middle of something.
Snart: Yeah. In the middle of being a good little doggie to those insufferable wannabees.
(Mick closes his eyes and clutches his forehead.) 
Mick: Stay on mission, now. Gotta find this Hobbit guy.
Snart: J.R.R. Tolkien? Why? Hoping for an autograph?
Mick: I don't even know who the guy is! All I know is I gotta find this Hobbit guy who knows the guy that's buried with Jesus' blood. Then we can destroy The Spear of Destiny!
Snart: Mick, Mick, Mick - when have we ever destroyed anything we've ever stolen, let alone the most valuable score in the universe? What have they done to you?

(Snart is trying to convince Mick to use The Spear of Destiny to save his life.)
Mick: You're in my head. You're an... illumination.
Snart: A hallucination?
Mick: That's it.
(Snart punches Mick, bruising his face almost instantly.)
Snart: Now, did that feel like a hallucination?
(Snart leaves, leaving Mick to rub his face in confusion.)

Rip: This darkness will pass.
Tolkien: You speak as someone who has seen the future.
Nate: Haven't all students of history? Those who suffer, heal. Everything destroyed gets rebuilt and our towers grow a little taller every time.
Tolkien: I should like to believe you. Tell me - why do you seek The Grave of Gawain?
Rip: Ehhh... It's a long story.
Tolkien: Well, I enjoy long stories.
Nate: Yeah. He does.

(Mick grabs Stein, gesturing to the bruise on his face.)
Mick: Snart did this!
Stein: I believe you!.
Mick: You do?!
Stein: Of course not! I just don't want you to hurt me!

Snart: Pretty pathetic if you ask me.
(Snart emerges from behind the team, cold gun in hand. Mick looks at him in disbelief. Everyone else is stunned.)
Rip: Mr. Snart?
Mick: Wait... you can see him?
Ray: You're supposed to be dead!
Snart: Yeah, they told me all about how I get soft and die for you losers. I didn't believe them:
Mick: Believe who?
Darhk: (entering from behind Snart) Well, if that's not an entrance line, I don't know what is.
Tolkien: What is going on here?
Rip: The Legion must have traveled back in time and picked up Mr. Snart before he joined The Legends.
Darhk: He told us all about your plan of how you were going to destroy The Spear.
Snart: (mock-cheerful) Thanks for the tip, Mick!
(The rest of the team turn and look at an embarrassed Mick.)
Mick: ... I didn't think he was real!
Darhk: No-no-no! No need to defend yourself. (pauses) Actually, there is. Angriff!
(German soldiers swarm the church and begin firing on The Legends.)

Rip: Attention all combatants! May I have your attention, please? There are casualties on the battlefield. Brave men on both sides who are in urgent need of medical attention. I know that the divisions between us run deep. That they may very well be insurmountable. But I implore both of our armies, for this one moment, to come together as allies and honor a ceasefire so that the injured may be removed from the field of battle. There may come a day when our courage fails us. When we forsake our friendship sand break the bonds of fellowship. But today is not that day! And perhaps in showing our humanity, we might just save it.


Dialogue Disasters

(As The Waverider flies away)
Thawne: Nooooooooooooo!


Continuity

Rip reveals that The Legion of Doom have been operating out of The Vanishing Point.

The pieces of The Spear of Destiny are attracted to each other and can be used to track one another.

Mick flashes back to the events of 115 and Snart's death.

Firestorm has refined his transmutation powers to the point that he can transform the laser-resistant pillar holding The Legion's spear fragments into jellybeans.

"Natum de sanguine, perditus a sanguine" is written on The Spear of Destiny in letters of fire, which are revealed when the spear is burned. The phrase means "Born of blood, undone by blood."

Nate knows Latin.

Nate spent a year in Oxford while working on his Masters Degree. During that year, he dated a woman named Wendy.

Nate theorizes that only The Blood of Christ can destroy the Spear of Destiny.

According to Rip, there are several points in time which a time-traveler cannot risk interfering with. The birth, life and death of Jesus is one of these points.

Nate remembers a paper he read where a young scholar suggested that Sir Gawain did not find The Holy Grail, as legend claimed, but instead had a vial of Jesus Christ's blood.

Darhk says he and Merlyn were sent to locate The Kalabros Maniscript when The Legends raided their base and took their pieces of The Spear.

Mick refers to the hallucinations of Snart he had up until 209.

Nate cannot do a convincing British accent.

Nate played Bert in his middle-school production of Mary Poppins.

Amaya tells Sara that she saw the future of her village, her daughter and her granddaughter.

Laurel Lance told Sara about Amaya's grand-daughter - the modern-era Vixen.

Gawain's burial place is in a cathedral in Amiens.

Darkh reveals that The Legion of Doom took Leonard Snart from a point in time from before he joined The Legends.

Amaya claims to hear the voice of her mother when she is near The Spear. The voice urges her to save their people and their legacy.

Mick claims to hear the voice of his parents around The Spear, only they're begging him not to play with fire.

The location of the blood of Jesus is revealed to be smack dab in the middle of No Man's Land.

The Spear of Destiny glows in the presence of Jesus' blood.

Mick betrays The Legends to join The Legion of Doom. He offers Amaya a chance to go with him but she declines.

The vial holding Jesus Christ's blood is destroyed.

Merlyn locates The Kalabros Maniscript - The Word of God and an owner's manual of sorts for The Spear of Destiny.

The episode ends with The Legion of Doom using The Spear of Destiny.


Location

A battlefield near the Somme River in North-Central Framce - 1916
The Vanishing Point
The Church of Amiens in Amiens, France - 1916.


Untelevised Adventures

We don't see how The Legion of Doom persuaded Snart to join with them.

We also don't see the "not easy" adventure Malcolm Merlyn had to go on to retrieve The Kalabros Maniscript.


The Bottom Line

A great episode with one hell of a cliff-hanger and Dominic Purcell's best turn yet as Mick Rory.

Legends of Tomorrow: Season 2, Episode 1 - Out Of Time

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.





Plot

Historian Dr. Nate Heywood seeks out Oliver Queen when he discovers evidence of the timeline being altered and The Legends being endangered. Heywood's trail leads to a stasis-locked Mick Rory, who tells them about Rex Tyler's warning not to travel to 1942 and The Legends' ignoring that warning to prevent the Nazis dropping the first nuclear bomb on New York City! But Sara Lance has her own agenda in the middle of all this - killing Damien Darhk in the past before he can kill her sister.


Influences

The Three Musketeers (the France 1637 sequence is set in the same time period, Stein, Rip and Rory are teamed together while dressed in Musketeer garb), Das Boot (the submarine fight sequences) Men In Black (Rip's weapon that knocks a person unconscious with a light blast looks like the memory erasing tool) A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court (Jax and Stein wind up posing as wizards in the British royal court) and Geoff Johns' JSA (The character of Nate Heywood, the appearance of the JSA at the end of the episode).


Goofs

Einstein says that his wife divorced him 30 years earlier. He may be rounding up or mis-remembering, but Einstein's first wife did not divorce him until 1919. They were separated for at least five years before that, so Einstein may have considered himself divorced after his wife left him, regardless of when the marriage legally ended.

Oliver Queen says he doesn't have time to time-travel. Logically, with a time-machine, he should have all the time in the world! (I know they can't have Stephen Amell on this show all season, but they could have come up with a better excuse!)

Given Mick Rory's time as Chronos, his ability to pilot a time-ship shouldn't be so surprising.

While we don't know how long Jax and Stein were in 821 England, one marvels at his smart phone holding a charge for however long he was there given that he and Stein had time to become court wizards.

It's unclear just how Einstein acknowledging his ex-wife as a secret collaborator on his work will protect her or him from being abducted by Nazis.


Performances

Nick Zano doesn't get much time to establish Nate Heywood as anything beyond the typical excitable academic figure. Still, he does well enough with what he has.

Dominic Purcell damn near steals every scene he's in.


Artistry

The whole of the Louis XIII scene is brilliantly executed - excellent direction, wonderful fight-choreography and tremendous editing of the various scenes that are going on simultaneously.

The fight scene between Sara and Darhk.

Excellent set design on the new Time Library and Waverider bridge.


Trivia Of Tomorrow

In the comics, Nathaniel "Nate" Heywood was the real name of the superhero Citizen Steel. A former football star who lost his leg following an injury, Nathaniel Heywood was the grandson of Henry Heywood (the Golden Age hero Commander Steel) and the cousin of Henry Heywood III (the hero Steel).

Commander Steel was a US Marine who served during WWII. After suffering severe injuries, portions of his body were replaced with metal and motors and enhanced by a bio-formula that gave him advanced healing powers. His son was killed in Vietnam and the Commander saw the same process inflicted upon his grandson, in his warped desire for a legacy. His grandson, Steel, served with distinction in The Justice League before his death.

Nathaniel Heywood developed super powers after a Nazi-themed super-group called The Fourth Reich targeted a Heywood family reunion with the intent of killing all of Commander Steel's bloodline. Apart from a few children and "Uncle Nate" they were successful. Nate came into contact with the metallic blood of Reichsmark - a villain whose touch killed instantly and transformed people's bodies into metal statues. Somehow, the metal bonded with Nate's body, regrowing his lost leg and granting him super-human strength and durability on par with his grandfather. Having not served in the military, he refused to take his grandfather's name and was dubbed Citizen Steel by Power Girl after she tried to recruit him for the JSA.

As introduced, the DCTVU version of Nate Haywood does not have any superpowers. Also, unlike his comic-book-counterpart, he is a doctor of history - a specialist in deductive historical reconstructions.

There is some historical evidence that Louis XIII was gay and preferred his male courtiers to his wife, Anne of Austria. He was recorded as having taken no mistresses, earning him the honorific Louis The Chaste. What is known is that the two of them finally had a child together after 23 years of marriage and four still-births, as depicted in this episode.

There is not any historical evidence that Anne of Austria was a lesbian or bisexual.

When Sara breaks off from the rest of the Legends in 1942 New York, she asks a cabbie to take her to Conway and 5th. This is a nod to legendary comics writer Gerry Conway who - among other accomplishments - was responsible for co-creating Firestorm, Vixen, Steel and Vibe. He also wrote a 1970s revival of the All Star Comics series, featuring The Justice Society of America and was the author of the first official crossover comic between Marvel Comics and DC Comics - Superman vs. The Amazing Spider-Man.

Albert Einstein's portrayal as "a pig" in this episode is true to the historical record. Einstein's was a notorious womanizer. He is said to have cheated on his first wife with her sister and cheated on his second wife with his secretary, in addition to having at least six other affairs. He was even said to wear a silk robe at social gatherings, so he could "accidentally" expose himself and see which women were more interested than offended.

As Einstein notes when questioned about his wife, his first wife divorced him (in 1919 following a long separation) and his second wife died (in 1936).

Einstein did not publish his theory of Unified Field Theory until 1950.

Einstein's first wife - Mileva Maric - was a Serbian physicist. It has been suggested that she may have collaborated with him on some of his earliest published works in 1905 but opinion is divided upon the subject.

There is no evidence of Einstein and Maric collaborating on anything as late as 1942. Indeed, their oldest son said that his mother gave up all interest in the study of science after marriage.


Technobabble

The Waverider's medical bay is capable of putting a person into stasis, freezing them in time.

Aberrations are the technical term used to describe problems in the time-stream caused by rogue time-travelers.

A time quake is a disturbance in the temporal zone caused by an unusually large aberration. They are rare enough that even Rip Hunter hasn't experienced one.

People in the temporal zone when a time quake occurs are immune to its effects so long as they remain outside of normal space-time.

It takes time for the consequences of a aberration - even one as large as changing a World War- to ripple throughout history and change things.

The sensors in The Atom suit can be used to track radioactive signatures.

The subliminal variance of the quantum manifold is two microns.

If one wants to divert power from the axial array, it cannot be done. You would have to go through the clavian adjunct.

The Timescatter is a last-ditch option Rip Hunter designed. When activated, it teleports everyone on The Waverider to a different random point in time. He uses this to send everyone (with the exception of Mick Rory) away during his attempt to intercept the atomic bomb that threatens New York City.

A ship that is designed to travel in space and an atmosphere is ill-equipped to handle the pressures of an underwater environment.

Ray attempts to bypass the tertiary subsystem array.

Once again, Rip uses a device capable of rendering a person unconscious with a flash of bright light.


Dialogue Triumphs

Stein (voice-over):  The Time Masters were an organization charged with protecting history from rogue time-travelers, but they were destroyed. Under the leadership of Rip Hunter, we have taken up their mantle. Sara Lance - former member of the League of Assassins. Dr Raymond Palmer - The Atom. The arsonist, Mick Rory. And Firestorm - the merged super-form of Jefferson Jackson and myself, Martin Stein. We are the only ones left to protect history. We are the Legends of Tomorrow.

Nate: I'm a historian. I specialize in deductive historical reconstruction. In layman's terms, I'm a time detective. Which I really don't have to be to look at a calendar to see one week after you came to this city, Robin Hood showed up.
Ollie: You said that Sara and Ray are...?
Nate: ... traveling throughout time with the other Legends. Legends is what they call themselves. (fumbling with notes) Now, for the past six months I've been noticing subtle changes to history. Almost imperceptible, Actually, if it wasn't for a friend of mine who is a quantum physicist, I wouldn't have been able to detect the subliminal alterations. The point being, I think your friends are responsible.
(Ollie just stares at Nate skeptically.)
Nate: You're look at me like you want evidence. Evidence! Okay. (starts holding up documents) An illuminated manuscript from 1216 depicting a knight. Looks a lot like your friend  Dr. Palmer. Same nose and chin. Erratic text, describing a woman in white with a bo staff!  Hieroglyphics from Mesopotamia depicting an albeit crude ship that flies through the air and disappears...
Ollie: Let's skip to the part where they're in trouble...
Nate: UFO sighting! New York City! 1942! Multiple witnesses report a flying machine diving into the Atlantic, which matches not only the Mesopotamian hieroglyphics-
Ollie: (impatiently) The part where they're in trouble!
Nate: (frantically) Contemporaneous with the sighting were multiple reports of an underwater detonation of an atomic bomb!  Now, the government has denied this-
Ollie: Did you say 1942?  That's three years before...
Nate:  - before the atomic bomb was supposedly invented, yes. I told you history was changing!
Ollie: Dr. Heywood, if The Legend's ship met an A-bomb they aren't in trouble. They're dead.

(Ollie and Nate enter the med bay of The Waverider. They find Mick Rory, lying on a bed, bathed in blue light.)
Ollie: The ship's keeping him in stasis.
Nate: How do you know that?
(Ollie gestures to a panel on the wall next to the bed which reads STASIS ACTIVATED.)

(Sara walks behind Queen Anne, placing a necklace around her neck as she looks at herself in the mirror.)
Sara: It's beautiful, Your Grace.
Queen Anne: As is yours. Who gave it to you?
Sara: (sadly) My sister.
Queen Anne: You speak of her as if she is gone. I hate to see a lady so beautiful, so sad.
(Queen Anne stands and moves behind Sara, rubbing her shoulder.)
Sara: Your husband-
Queen Anne: Enjoys the company of his male courtiers. Why should I be denied a similar.. pleasure?

(Upon seeing Firestorm and The Atom flying over Louie XIII's chateau.)
Rip: Oh bloody hell...
(The Atom lands in front of Rip, smiling.)
The Atom: That was the last assassin.
Rip: What did we say about using powers and future-tech, Dr. Palmer?
The Atom: (sheepishly) Well, yeah but... they started it.
(Enter Rory, guiding a panicked Louis XIII)
Rory: Don't look at me. I left my gun on the ship like a good little Boy Scout.

Sara: Nobody wants to address the fact that Cardinal Richelieu's men were armed with laser guns?
Stein: Clearly provided to them by a time-pirate or some-such.
Jax: Grey's right. We need to find out who, so-
Rip: - you can get another chance at destroying the very history that we are supposed to be protecting?
The Atom: Ah, I knew I forgot something! The part where Rip tells us everything we did wrong.
Rip: As in seducing the Queen of France just before she's suppose to conceive the country's greatest hope for the future?
Sara: She seduced me.
Rip: Or wrong as in violating our policy of not using super-powers in front of people?
Jax: They had laser guns.
Rory: At least I didn't screw up this time.
(Rip walks over to Rory, grabs at his sleeve and retrieves a golden cross on a chain in one smooth motion.)
Rory: Stealing's not screwing up.

(Stein and Rory see Einsten from across the room at a cocktail party. He is walking up to a group of young women, )
Stein: That-th-that's him!
Einstein: Good evening, ladies.
Stein: The greatest mind the world has ever known!
(Einstein's hand suddenly runs down one lady's hip and grabs her backside. She slaps his hand away.)
Einstein: (chuckling) I am merely demonstrating Newton's Third Law - for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Rory: (laughs) I like him! He's a pig!

(Stein and Rory approach Einstein.)
Stein: Oh, Herr Professor, I am so sorry to interrupt!
Einstein: Who are you?
Stein: My colleague and I were just having a rather spirited debate about your theory of relativity. Perhaps you could help us settle it?
(Einstein looks on helplessly as the two women he was talking to walk off.)
Einstein: I was -this- close to getting them both to come back to my room!
Stein: (shocked) Well, what about your wife?
Einstein: The one who died or the one who divorced me thirty years ago?

(Einstein awakens in The Waverider's brig.)
Stein: Guten Morgen.
Einstein: What is this? Some sort of prison? What am I doing in here?
Rory: Good question.
Stein: I'm sorry. I never had the opportunity to introduce myself. I'm Professor Martin Stein. Just like Einstein. Minus the Ein. There's just so much I'd like to discuss with you...Such as your paper on Unified Field Theory.
Einstein: I have not yet published my paper on Unified Field Theory! Who are you? Why have you abducted me?!
Rory: The guys at the party wanted you to build an atomic bomb for "ze Furher"
Einstein: No. Not even a man as mad as Adolph Hitler would want to create such a terrible weapon.
Stein: You yourself once said that two things are infinite - the universe and human stupidity.
Einstein: And you are living proof of the latter!
Rory: (smirking to Stein) He just called you stupid.

(Rory just saved Ray from a dinosaur)
Ray: Mick!  Buddy!  How did you find me?
Rory: I didn't. Pretty did.
(Rory nods to Nate, who is throwing up behind him.)
Ray: Is he okay?
Rory: Side effects of time-travel.
Nate: Speaking of, you're never going to believe where the rest of your team ended up.
(Nate vomits again as Ray looks on in disbelief.)


Dialogue Disasters

Ollie: I don't have time to time-travel.


Continuity

According to Mick Rory, The Legends spent six months repairing the time stream before the incident that put him into stasis.

Mick Rory says that after appearing to The Legends in 116 and introducing himself, Rex Tyler said the team could never travel to 1942 or it would mean their deaths before disappearing.

Damien Darhk was alive in 1942, thanks to his use of The Lazarus Pit.

In the revised timeline, The Germans get the Atomic Bomb three years before The Allies and bomb New York City in 1942. The Allies still win World War II but it takes them an additional two years, during which time 12 million more people died.

The Waverider is now equipped with a "time library" that enables anyone to research anything involving the current state of history.

In the previous six months, Rip has had Jax create the time library, modify the bridge of The Waverider, and several other technical tasks.that he only trusts Jax to manage instead of going out on missions.

Nate Heywood's lead on finding Ray Palmer is an article entitled - Jurassic Man - Real or Hoax?

The side effects of time travel on the human body can include nausea.

Stein and Jax were sent to England in 821, where they play at being wizards.

Sara was sent to Salem at the time of the witch trials, where she was nearly hung.

Damien Darhk was working with The Nazis in WWII. At the end of the episode, he is revealed to also be partnered with The Reverse Flash.

The Justice Society of America stop The Legends as they are about to leave 1942. Full write-ups on each member we see will be included in next week's entry.


Location

Star City 2016
The floor of the Atlantic Ocean 2016 (one day after Star City)
France 1637
New York City 1942
Hoboken, New Jersey 1942
South Dakota - 70 million years ago.
Tintangel, England 821 AD
Salem, Massachusetts 1693


Untelevised Adventures

The Legends had been working at protecting history for six months between when they met Rex Tyler and their rescuing King Louis XIII.


The Fridge Factor

Granting that Sara Lance is a sensual woman, it's a little hard to believe that she wouldn't have the common sense to curb her appetites when she's stranded in Salem at the time of The Witch Trials and the local civic leaders were looking for any signs of deviant behavior among the local women.

Also, have the writers decided that Sara is a full lesbian rather than bisexual? We've yet to see her get involved with a male character out of the many dalliances she's had since she started time-traveling. It would be nice if this point were clarified, yet it hardly matters as it seems the writers are encouraging the stereotype of bisexuals and lesbians being promiscuous either way.


The Bottom Line

Definitely more than the sum of its parts. The penultimate section of the show is particularly weak and Stephen Amell's cameo is wasted. There's way too many cheap jokes about Rory being slow-witted and Sara being promiscuous that really don't make sense in context. And yet, there's so much that DOES work that you find yourself liking it anyway. And then you get the double-whammies in the final two minutes that I can only imagine were truly shocking for those, unlike me, who hadn't read the news about the plan for merging the various DCTVU shows together this year. As an episode, it's merely decent. As the base for something bigger, it's perfect.

Legends of Tomorrow: Season 1, Episode 12 - Last Refuge

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.



Plot

The Time Masters' best assassin - a woman called The Pilgrim - has been dispatched to kill all of The Legends before they joined the crew of The Waverider.. A race begins as our heroes move to save their past selves, with Rip offering the young counterparts safety in the Time Master orphanage where he grew up - The Refuge.


Influences

Geoff Johns's runs on The Flash (Mick Rory's background in this episode) and JSA (Kendra's storyline here mirrors the conflict of Hawkgirl in the comics had regarding her own romantic life, one storyline focused on several JSA members, led by Rip Hunter, traveling in time to save their past selves and their teammates from a time-traveling assassin),  Superman: The Movie (the opening trial of the time pirate resembles Zod's trial before the High Council of Krypton stylistically) and the movie The Terminator (base concept of an cybernetic assassin being sent from the future to alter a future timeline, Ray quotes the movie when saving a young Rory)


Goofs

We're told that The Omega Protocal requires a certain degree of precision and subtlety. Given that, how does storming a police station in broad daylight and killing several police officers - as the Orphan does in her attempt to kill a teenage Sarah Lance - qualify as precise and subtle?

Granting that Rip probably did have Gideon check to make sure that Martin Stein's mother would be okay first, it still seems incredibly foolish for Rip and Rory to snatch baby Martin as he is literally fresh out of the womb and leave his mother behind without seeing her safely to a hospital after she gave birth in the backseat of a car with only her husband assisting her with the birth.

Jefferson Jackson's birthday is said to be sometime in 1993. However, he was a high-school football star when the Particle Accelerator Explosion occurred in Central City on December 11, 2013. While it isn't impossible for Jax to have been held back a few years, it still seems unlikely.that he was still in high school at the age of twenty. Particularly since he's been depicted as being too young to drink legally in 2016. (21 being the drinking age in the USA).

Again, regarding the precision required of The Omega Protocol - how does kidnapping and threatening to kill six innocent people in order to bring about the deaths of six other people count as precise?

If The Omega Protocol can't be applied to Time Masters, how can the The Pilgrim agree to killing a young Rip Hunter instead of her targets? I had thought it was going to be a trick but it turns out she really did capture all those loved ones and was ready to bargain in good faith.

How can The Orphan shrug off bullets but be incapacitated by a knife slash administered by a ten year old street kid?

Considering that Ray lost his fiancee to violence, you'd expect him to be a little more conflicted than he seems to be here about seeing her alive and well again, regardless of his feelings for Kendra.


Performances

Ciara Renee gets a nice moment of non-verbal acting in her reaction to Ray's proposal. She's smiling but her eyes betray her fear that the universe really IS trying to stop her from being with a man besides Carter Hall/Prince Khufu given how Ray's proposal attempts have been thwarted twice now.

Caity Lotz does a fantastic job playing the younger Sara Lance. For a while I wasn't certain if it was her in a wig or just a very well cast younger actress.

It's always nice to see Paul Blackthorne as Quentin Lance, however briefly. His scene at the end with Sara is a sweet one.

Franz Drameh hasn't been given a lot of moments to show his dramatic chops The scene where Jax meets his father, for the first time, however, is a great scene that shows he should be given the center stage more often.

Dominic Purcell has often been relegated to being the comic relief or the heavy on this show. And while he does get a number of funny moments in this episode, he also gets two wonderful dramatic scenes trying to scare his past self straight.


Artistry

The team's combined attack on The Pilgrim - while probably the show's cheapest use of CGI to date - is very well shot.


Trivia Of Tomorrow

In the opening sequence, we find out that Mick Rory's parents died in a house fire. In the origin for Heatwave written by Geoff Johns during his run on The Flash, Mick Rory's entire family died in a fire he started as a child.

It is revealed in this episode that Rip Hunter's birth-name was Michael. In the comics, Rip Hunter is the son of the superhero Booster Gold, whose real name was Michael Jon Carter.


Technobabble

The Omega Protocol calls for a certain degree of precision. This means that if the assassin carrying out the hit fails, they cannot go back and try it again a week earlier for fear of damaging the timeline.

Gideon is able to track The Pilgrim by monitoring the temporal wake of her ship.

Under normal circumstances, it is impossible for a time ship to hide its temporal wake. The Time Masters, however, have ways of hiding a time ship's passage under extreme duress.

Temporal Micro Manipulation is the ability to control time in one's immediate vicinity. This includes slowing time's passage, stopping it completely and causing it to run in reverse.

When history is altered by a person's past-self being taken out of the normal flow of time for too long, that person's future self disappears from the minds of everyone who ever knew them.

The Refuge is a secret orphanage located at an unknown point and location in history. The Time Masters use it to raise children with no connections who can be trained as future Time Masters.


Dialogue Triumphs

Ray: (To a young Mick Rory) Come with me if you want to live! (aside) I always wanted to say that!

Sara: So it seems like you decided to ignore the advice from Old West you about not being with Ray.
Kendra: Ignoring her advice about Ray was your advice. Remember?
Sara: Don't listen to my advice. (putting her staff down to pick up a water bottle) So did you tell him what she said?
Kendra: Oh, sure! (mock-cheerful) "Hey, Ray, by the way? The woman I met in 1871 was me and she told me our love was doomed to fail because you're not Carter."
Sara: (deadpan) So is that a no?
Kendra: Look, Ray and I are happy together. We should be able to enjoy that before i have to drop the whole doomed love-affair thing on his head.
Sara: (sarcastically) Yeah, I mean who wants a relationship based on honesty and communication? (gags and pretends to vomit)
Kendra: Believe me - a relationship based on an ancient Egyptian curse doesn't work much better.

(Sara fights The Orphan as her younger self watches. Suddenly, Young Sara seems to recognize her older self.)
Young Sara: My God, she's-
Rory: - quite the badass!

Young Mick: She slapped me!
Young Sara: The little weirdo said that he liked the way I smelled!
Young Mick: I'm usually a lot smoother but I'm kinda freaking out right now.
Sara: (pointing to her younger self) You! Hands to yourself! (whispers) And the next time, hit him with a flat palm. (looking to Young Mick) And you... you're not her type.

(Rip explains that they run the risk or making their future selves be forgotten by the people they love by kidnapping themselves as infants.)
Jax: You mean my own mom won't even know me?
Stein: My wife...
Rory: Yeah, and my... my uh.... I don't have anyone.

Sara: All right. This is just like any other mission. The mark may be a newborn but it might as well be a diamond or a microchip.
Kendra: You know what? You're starting to sound like Snart.
(Sara makes a disgusted noise.)

Rory: You guys asked for a doctor, right?
Mr. Stein: (confused) How would we?
Rip: Ah - he means that we were on our way to the hospital and we saw your automobile.
Rory: Yeah! And this little munchkin needs a checkup.
(Rory takes the baby Martin away from Mr. Stein.)
Rory: Pre-natal care! It's very important.
Rip: (quietly and quickly) He means post-natal. We'll take him straight to the hospital. We'll meet you there.
(Rip and Rory walk off.)
Mr. Stein: What about my wife!?

Stein: It is somewhat disconcerting that my father would give me up so willingly to two complete strangers.
Ray: Well, the 1950s was a much more trusting time. Trust me - I lived then!

Jax: You were supposed to be shipping out.
James Jackson: How do you know that?
(Jax just nods to the kit bag on the ground.)
James Jackson: Ah! Right. My transport's been delayed. I told my CO my wife's giving birth. He gave me a pass. And a Jeep. And I made it. I saw him. (points to a baby through the glass) My boy. Which one's yours?
Jax: Oh, ah-no. I'm - I'm - I'm not a dad. I'm just... I'm here for my family.
James Jackson: Well, I hope you get to experience this for yourself one day. Imagining all the things my boy's gonna be when he grows up.
Jax: How do you know?
James Jackson: He's my son. Jefferson Jackson. Remember that name.
(Jax chuckles.) 
James Jackson: He's destined for great things. (glancing at his watch) I've got to go. Will you give the nurse a message for my wife?
Jax: You're leaving already?
James Jackson: I'm AWOL if I don't. I just want her to know that I saw my son. And that I couldn't be more proud and happy. And, uh tell her that I'll be home as soon as I can. Can you do that for me?
(Jax just nods as his dad picks up his bag and moves down the hall.)
Jax: Wait!
(James Jackson turns around.)
Jax: I got to tell you something.
(Jax tries to speak and winds up chuckling again.)
Jax: Congratulations.
James Jackson: Thanks. Appreciate that.
(Jax just watches his dad walk off this time.) 

Stein: If all goes according to plan we'll only be here for a a few minutes and then presumably never remember.
Ray: When's the last time anything went according to plan?
Kendra: I don't think there was a last time.

(Rory rounds a corner and finds his younger self staring at a lit match.)
Rory: Where'd you find the match?
Young Mick: You can always fine one.
Rory: Beautiful, isn't it? Not as beautiful as a whole house going up in flames though...
Young Mick: It was an accident...
Rory: Sure it was.
Young Mick: You don't know me. You think I wanted to kill my family?!
Rory: I think you fell in love with your dad's lighter fluid. I think you fell in love with flames dancing around. But then you realized you couldn't control them and you ran without waking your family. The only thing you were concerned about was saving your own skin. (getting up in his younger self's face) Now, while I'm gone there better not be any accidents. If there is, I'm gonna come looking for you. And I'm gonna kill you!
Young Mick: You sound just like my dad.
(Rory turns around and walks away, looking somewhat disturbed at that thought.)

Young Rip: Thought you could snuff me out? You don't know me at all, Miss.

Rory: (to his younger self) You can't change the things you did. But you can change what you become. Don't be like me. Be better.


Continuity

When a person's past self is murdered, their present self mirrors the damages they suffer in the past before dying. Their body then disintegrates into a pile of blue powder.

Mick Rory's parents died in a house fire in 1990. It is suggested that he started the fire by accident and watched it burn rather than try and save his family. It's also implied that his father was abusive.

Jax tells the young Rory that they're part of a secret group called ARGUS. ARGUS is, of course, the government espionage group run by Amanda Waller then Lyla Michaels on Arrow.

Sara refers to her and Kendra's encounter with Kendra's 1871 self in 111.

The Omega Protocol cannot be applied to rogue Time Masters, due to the potential side-effects on the time line. They also can't be applied to the continually reincarnated, like Kendra, because there's no real point to it.

Rip has a secret stash of vintage cereal on The Waverider.

Fruit Brute is Ray's favorite cereal.

The Pilgrim's powers include super-strength (throwing around fully-grown police officers with ease), super-endurance (She is able to survive blasts from both The ATOM suit and Mick Rory's flamethrower) and temporal micro-manipulation (slowing and then turning one of Firestorm's blasts back upon them).

Sara Lance made $5000 in one summer babysitting.

Ray proposes to Kendra. She accepts, but feels somewhat strange about it.

Jax's dad was a soldier, who died in Somalia two weeks after his Jax was born.

Jax was told that his dad was shipped out before his wife went into labor. The truth is that his father was granted a pass and a jeep to drive to the hospital to see his son before heading out.

Rip Hunter's birth name is Michael. He was raised in a Time-Master run orphanage called The Refuge.

The Time Masters pull orphans from around time and raise them in The Refuge to fill their ranks.

Rip was a cut-purse from the age of five onward. His ten year old self is a hardened enough youth to think nothing of stabbing a woman that tries to kill him.

Clarissa Stein no longer remembers her husband.

Quentin Lance recognizes his older daughter and says that he is proud of her.

Jax tells his father about the attack that takes his life in the hope that it might save him once he is returned to his proper place in time and space.


Location

Vanishing Point
Central City - 1990
The Temporal Zone
Starling City - 2007
Starling City - December 9, 2014
Central City - 1972
Ivy Town - 1950
Central City - 1993
The Refuge
Abandoned Time Masters Outpost


The Fridge Factor

Every conversation Kendra and Sara have in this episode is about Kendra's relationship with Ray.

Honestly, Kendra's entire character arc in the past few episodes is based around who she is dating rather than anything about her as a person.


The Bottom Line

A problematic episode, to say the least. There's some good character defining moments for characters like Jax and Heatwave who haven't gotten a lot of moments to shine so far. But the Kendra/Ray romance feels horribly rushed, the rules regarding what The Pilgrim can and can't do are inconsistent and a lot of the characters written horribly out of character for the sake of a few jokes. (Shouldn't Rory be past being dumb muscle now after all his time as Chronos?) The cast make MOST of these scenes work but a lot of them don't. You know it's going to be a bad time when Rory has more witty lines than Snart.