The Time Masters have sent their most deadly assassin, the Pilgrim, to Ret-Gone the Legends from history, leading to a desperate scramble to save their past selves before it's too late.
Tropes:
- The '50s: The infant self of Stein is taken from 1950, at the very exact moment he was born.
- The '70s: The infant self of Snart is taken from 1972, the year he was born.
- The '90s: The younger selves of Mick and Jax are respectively taken from 1990 and 1993.
- Acting for Two: Caity Lotz manages to handle playing both the adult Sara and the teenager version meeting up.
- All for Nothing: Rip and The Team's entire efforts to gradually weaken Savage throughout the season became pointless since they have to engage him at the height of his power anyway.
- Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: The Pilgrim's hair is as dark and rigid as her demeanor.
- And Your Little Dog, Too!: When the Legends foil the Pilgrim's assassination attempts, she kidnaps their loved ones in order to coerce them to surrender their younger selves.
- Brick Joke: In the previous episode, Snart asked Rip if he had a memory-erasing device. As it turns out, they actually DO have a pill with a similar effect.
- Bullet Time: Happens during the climactic battle against The Pilgrim, as it shows her Time Master (no pun intended) powers in a glorious manner.
- Chekhov's Gunman: The kid with the brown jacket at the orphanage turns out to be the young Rip, who is a key factor in defeating the Pilgrim.
- Cliffhanger Copout: The last episode ended with the Pilgrim firing at young Mick Rory. Here the team manages to rescue the youth before she can fire.
- Combined Energy Attack: The Pilgrim is finished off by all the Legends with energy attacks hitting her at once, reducing her to a pile of ash.
- Come with Me If You Want to Live: Said word-per-word and lampshaded by Ray when he rescued teenaged Mick from The Pilgrim.Ray: I've always wanted to say that.
- Continuity Nod: The death of the man who is Ret-Gone by the Pilgrim at the beginning of the episode is visually similar to when Eobard Thawne was RetGoned.
- Cuteness Proximity: Sara and Kendra both find baby Snart adorable and can't help but coo over him as they're kidnapping him.
- Dark and Troubled Past:
- Mick accidentally set his house on fire when he was a teen, but was too scared to save anyone but himself.
- Rip was a street urchin until he was brought to the Refuge - and given his handiness with a knife definitely knew how to survive.
- Delayed Ripple Effect:
- Discussed, with Ray wondering if they could already be dead in the past and not know it yet.Ray: Maybe I am dead right now...Hello? Can anybody hear me?
Snart: No. - Also, removing the younger self of the team from their personal timelines will lead to them getting erased from the minds of their present-day friends and family... with the changes gradually becoming permanent.
- Discussed, with Ray wondering if they could already be dead in the past and not know it yet.
- Disappeared Dad: Jax's dad, who was killed in a combat mission not long after his son was born.
- Do Wrong, Right: First, Sara tries to tell her younger self to keep her hands to herself regarding younger Mick. Then she amends that by saying that if she is going to slap him, to use her flat palm next time.
- Epic Tracking Shot: Across all the frozen heroes during the climax.
- Fake Brit: While he makes a valiant effort with the accent (for a kid), it's still very obvious that Young!Rip's actor isn't natively from England.
- Fake Shemp: Clarissa Stein is normally played by Isabella Hoffman, but here she is only seen from the back and is obviously played by a stand-in.
- Godzilla Threshold: With the timeline coming dangerously close to resetting and the possibility of the vast majority of the team being erased from the hearts and minds of their friends and families, Rip decides that they have to find and kill Vandal Savage as quickly as possible, meaning they have to engage him in the only time they know he will be in with 100% certainty — the year 2166, when Savage is at the height of his power.
- Hormone-Addled Teenager: Teenaged Mick finds 20 year-old Sara hot and can't keep it in his pants. He gets himself slapped.Future Sara: You're not her type.
- Hospital Hottie: The Legends disguise themselves as hospital crew to take the infant selves of some of their members. Sara, Kendra and Ray in particular dress as nurses.
- I Always Wanted to Say That: Ray says this after saying "Come with me if you want to live" to past Mick.
- I Hate Past Me:
- Mick is not fond of his teenage self...at first.
- Rip is ashamed of his youth as a cutpurse before he was saved by the Caretaker.
- I Have Your Wife: Since she couldn't kill the younger selves of The Legends, the Pilgrim kidnaps their loved ones instead. In Stein's case she specifically has his wife.
- Immune to Bullets: The SCPD officers fire dozens of shots on the Pilgrim, but they don't do a thing. Whether it's her clothes or her skin itself isn't made clear.
- It Only Works Once: The Pilgrim only has one shot at trying to Ret-Gone her targets, as multiple attempts could lead to paradoxes.
- Karmic Death: The Pilgrim's MO is to Ret-Gone her targets by killing their younger selves. She dies by younger Rip's hands.
- Knight of Cerebus: The Pilgrim is the first villain to fully utilize the Time Travel aspect of the show to eliminate her enemies, and is treated as The Dreaded to boot.
- Lying to Protect Your Feelings: Present Sara tells Past Sara that her dad will never lose her. In the present of Arrow, Quentin has lost her three times (when the boat sank, then when she died, then when she left with the Legends).
- Mama Bear: The Caretaker at the Refuge is more concerned with her charges than her loyalty to the Time Masters, which is why Rip trusts her completely.
- Manly Tears: Jax is very emotional upon meeting his father.
- My Future Self and Me: An important plot point, as The Legends have to rescue their younger selves from the Pilgrim.
- Mythology Gag:
- Mick's Start of Darkness is taken straight out of the comics.
- Rip's real name is revealed to be Michael. The real first name of Booster Gold, Rip's father in the comics, is Michael Jon Carter.
- Named by the Adaptation: Rip's real name in the comics is not revealed. Here, it's Michael.
- No Body Left Behind: How The Pilgrim dies.
- No Name Given: The Pilgrim's name is not mentioned at any point in the episode.
- Not So Above It All: Sara is initially annoyed when Kendra takes the time to fawn over a newborn Snart, until she arrives at his crib and starts gushing over him too.
- "Not So Different" Remark: When Sara advises Kendra to think of the newborn they're kidnapping as just another standard mission, Kendra notes she's beginning to sound like Snart, much to Sara's disgust.
- One-Man Army: The Pilgrim was able to hold her own against the Legends by herself throughout the episode.
- The Place: The titular last refuge is the orphanage where Time Master trainees are taken.
- Ret-Gone: The Pilgrim's mission is to erase the Legends from the timeline.
- Series Continuity Error:
- When The Team travels to save younger Ray in 2014, the watermark reads "Star City" instead of "Starling", as the Meaningful Rename will not occur until the middle of 2015. What's jarring is that the watermark was written correctly during younger Sara's rescue in 2007.
- The episode shows Mick as a child during the 1990s, which doesn't line up with Snart's personal history. He was a child during the 70's and the two had been in juvie together. At best it should be the late 1980s.
- The episode depicts Jax as being born in 1993 (Franz Drameh's birth year), despite only being a High School Senior during the Particle Accelerator explosion in 2013. He was also stated to be twenty years old in an earlier episode, meaning he would have actually been born in 1995/1996.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: How The Pilgrim dies. First younger Rip stabs her a few times, then the entire Legends simultaneously gun her down until there is No Body Left Behind.
- Time Stands Still: The Pilgrim's power. She can use it on several people at once too. Though she has to stretch her arms and keep them in place for it, which ultimately leads to her defeat.
- Time Travel: The episode which has the most decades traveled by The Team to date with five; The '50s (1950), The '70s (1972), The '90s (1990 and 1993), The Turn of the Millennium (2007) and an unspecified period where young Rip is living.
- Trojan Horse: In the final battle with the Pilgrim, the Legends all attack her at once even though she can manipulate time to stop their attacks. Turns out it was just to distract her while Kid Rip stabs her to death.
- Turn of the Millennium: The younger self of Sara was taken from 2007, around or a short while before she fatefully boards the Queen's Gambit.
- The Unreveal: The time period young Rip was staying was not stated, nor is the point in history where he originally belonged to.
- Villainous Breakdown: When the Legends thwart the Pilgrim's attempts to Ret-Gone them, she kidnaps their loved ones in order to make them hand over their younger selves so she can kill them all.
- Where It All Began: Rip tells The Team that they have no choice but to fight Savage at the height of his power — 2166, the year where Rip came from.
- Whole-Plot Reference: To The Terminator, which Ray effectively lampshades by directly quoting from it.
- Would Hurt a Child: The Pilgrim has no problems killing the younger selves of her targets, even as infants.
