At long last we are in 2166, and as the Waverider descends on the London of this time period (apparently the last free place on earth that is not completely under the control of Savage and his forces). One cannot help but feel that the season of “Legends” has finally hit its end game and will soon be coming to a close.
First things first, Rip takes Snart, Mick, and Sara with him on a kind of scouting mission to see Savage and potentially kidnap the man so they can deal with him back on the Waverider. And as usual, the mission is botched by Mick and Snart going off on some half-cocked plan that almost gets Rip killed and alerts Savage to their presence in that timeline. Good news, though, is that they spot one of Savage’s lieutenants who happens to be wearing a bracelet that belonged to Kendra in her first life, which she can use to kill the immortal villain once they figure out how to weaponize it.
So they return to the Waverider to regroup, and Kendra informs them that they need to steal the bracelet. So the team splits up once more, with Sara and Kendra brainstorming ways to weaponize the bracelet which Mick and Snart head off to steal. Meanwhile, Jax, Rip, Ray, and Stein head out to a nearby refugee town to meet the freedom fighters and learn they are just innocents on the run from Savage’s forces. Stein and Jax promise to bring food from the ship back to the people while Rip tries to talk strategy to the head of the town. Stein asks Rip why he is not currently going to his wife and son and trying to save them from Savage (who apparently is slated to kill them in 3 days according to the original timeline), and Rip explains that he has tried many times to save his wife and son, but it seems time itself wants them to die, meaning his quest might just be hopeless.
Fortunately for the team and for Kendra, she has some flashbacks to past lives in this episode, to one moment in particular when she walks in on Carter practicing with his mace, the man having completely forgotten their anniversary (in his defense, with all of their past lives, they do have A LOT of anniversaries). He decides her present will be him teaching her how to fight with his mace, in case she ever has to take on Savage alone, which is fortunate because, in the present, that is exactly what she has to do.
Snart and Mick are successful in their task, only they bring back more than just the bracelet, also kidnapping the women who wore it. As it turns out, she is actually Vandal Savage’s daughter and completely buys into her father’s lies and propaganda, something that Snart intends to educate her about. Using Heatwave’s gun, Kendra manages to melt down the bracelet and apply it onto Carter’s old mace, thus making her a Savage killing weapon. While Snart talks with Savage’s daughter, the ground shakes, and the team realizes that Savage’s new weapon is on its way. Ray and Stein research this supposed weapon, using the last camp it destroyed as evidence, and they both come to the same conclusion at the same time – the weapon is a giant robot. In order to protect the nearby refugees from the weapon, Stein rushes them all aboard the Waverider, and just as the ship is about to take off to safety, it is grabbed by the robot, code-named Leviathan, and violently thrown back to the earth some miles away.
The team awakens in the damaged ship, whose propulsion systems are offline, and they realize they have less than an hour until Leviathan returns. So with a giant robot coming to kill them and all the refugees, and the fate of both the future and Rip’s family on the line, the team comes up with multiple plans. First of all, Snart convinces Savage’s daughter that her father is evil and was responsible for the virus that destroyed so many lives, including her mother’s. She agrees to help them get to her father, so most of the team prepares to go with Kendra and take down Savage once and for all. Unfortunately, Firestorm will not be attending, as Stein was injured in the crash, and is currently recuperating in the med-bay. Instead, Jax teams up with Ray to use power from the Waverider to reverse the polarity of the dwarf star in the ATOM suit, so Ray can grow (instead of shrink), and thus be able to take on the titanic Leviathan.
Ray’s battle with the robot goes all right, though they seem pretty evenly matched, even if Ray does have lasers and stuff. Eventually, he is knocked out cold, but with just enough consciousness left for him to hear a pep talk from Jax who has been in radio communication with Ray since he grew gigantic. Ray, inspired by Jax to save the refugees, jumps up and faces the robot, this time punching through the machine’s head with enough force to completely knock it off the body, thus destroying Savage’s big weapon.
Meanwhile, at Savage’s bunker, the villain is attacked by the rest of the Legends shortly after figuring out that his daughter has betrayed him. He sics his men on the team, but not before Kendra swoops in and drags Savage into another room, where she can kill him quickly with the mace. While she beats the magic out of him with each powerful blow, Savage is looking less and less confident, at least until a new shooter enters the room and attacks Kendra. She momentarily leaves Savage be and takes out the new attacker and is shocked to see Carter’s face under the mask. Savage reveals that he found Carter in this timeline, before he remembered his past lives, and brainwashed him, locking away his true self and that if Kendra kills him, she will never get Carter back. Rip enters and demands that Kendra kill Savage, but she cannot do it with Carter in danger. So instead, they take both Carter and Savage back to the Waverider.
So now the team is stranded in 2166, Kendra and Ray are having a “talk” now that Carter has found his way back to her, Savage is locked up but not worried, as he does not think the Legends can hold him for long, the Waverider is grounded until they can fix the engines, and Savage’s force are undoubtedly moving toward them. The good news is that Savage’s daughter has met up with the leader of the resistance, and is telling her about her father’s forces and their weaknesses, which might be very helpful in the long term.
THEORIES FOR TOMORROW:
– So does this mean that Savage has taken ALL of Carter’s memories of his past life? And if Kendra kills Savage, does her and Carter’s reincarnation end? Meaning that if she kills Savage with Carter not having his memories, she will never get him back?
– I’m ok with the ATOM going huge (though it does feel a bit like Ant-Man/ Giant-Man on the Avengers), though I wish he managed to figure it out without having to drain energy from the Waverider, mainly so it could be done again without having to have the ship around.
– Savage’s daughter turned against her pop pretty quick, that kind of bothered me, even if she did have the bonding moments with Snart over bad fathers and rough childhoods.
Definitely feels like we are close to the end of the season, and I have to admit, the show has grown on me, wonky time travel rules and all. I am looking forward to seeing where the characters will end up at the end of the season, how they deal with Savage, and see if maybe Carter will be rejoining the Legends now that they have finally found another version of him. See you back here soon!
Nick is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles, who belongs to the privileged few who enjoyed the ending to ‘Lost.’ For more of Nick’s thoughts and articles, follow him on Twitter.
