The team plays dangerously close with the rules of time as they decide to take on Savage mere days before he conquers London and completes his world conquest
Tropes:
- Adaptation Name Change: Savage's daughter in the comics is named Scandal, not Cassandra. Although he does also have a less well-known daughter called Kassandra Sage in the comics.
- Always Save the Girl: Kendra chooses to save Carter over killing Vandal Savage for good.
- And This Is for...: Kendra says, "This is for Carter" when she confronts Savage.
- Antagonist Title: Referring to Savage's Killer Robot.
- Bad Future: The episode is set in 2166.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Savage has brainwashed Carter to be one of his bodyguards.
- Broken Pedestal: Cassandra Savage believes her father is a good man who will restore the world after it was ravaged by the Armageddon virus. Snart shows her otherwise.
- The Bus Came Back: The team is finally reunited with Carter, or at least an incarnation of him.
- Call-Back: Per Degaton's role in history is a major plot point in the episode.
- Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Savage invokes this by claiming if Kendra kills him, she will have no way to undo the brainwashing on Carter.
- Cool Versus Awesome: An enlarged Ray Palmer fights a giant robot.
- Cranial Processing Unit: Savage's giant robot is disabled as soon as Ray destroys its head.
- Cruel to Be Kind: Mick tells Kendra that she has to be ready to really kill Savage — otherwise, she will end up like Carter.
- Daddy's Little Villain: Cassandra, before she realizes his true nature.
- Depleted Phlebotinum Shells: After the team gets Kendra's ancient bracelet, they melt it down to coat Carter's old spiked mace. Not only can the mace now kill Savage, it has its hitting power greatly increased by a blue flash of light and can deflect a laser bolt.
- Delayed Reaction: During the attack, Stein gets a debris splinter in his gut and only notices it some time later before passing out.
- Elite Mooks: There was one particular laser gun mook who put up a very good fight against Kendra and her newly-magical mace. There's a good reason for that.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
- Played with. Vandal engineered the death of his wife and manipulated his daughter her entire life, but still wants to get her back from the enemy and has a quite conflicted look on his face when she turns on him.
- Played straighter with Cassandra, whose High-Heel–Face Turn is powered by finding out that her father released the virus that killed her mother.
- Heroic Second Wind: When Ray got knocked down by the giant robot, it took Jax to remind Ray about defying fate in order to get back up and fight.
- Humongous Mecha: The titular Leviathan, originally hinted by the show's trailer with a giant mechanical foot bursting through the roof of Savage's factory.
- High-Heel–Face Turn: Cassandra, Savage's daughter and the only visible female in his troops, joins the rebels and proves herself by giving the leader information on how to combat against Savage's army after seeing the truth about her dad.
- Idiot Ball: Hmm, Kendra...let's see now. An incarnation of your lover is so badly brainwashed that he's lost to you. The only person with the capability of restoring him — or so he claims — is a liar, and possibly the worst monster in all of history, who is desperately trying to save his own hide. This Carter is someone you don't actually even know, and he doesn't know you. Two obvious choices lie before you: spare Vandal Savage in the hopes of somehow persuading him to fix Carter (which he will never do because then he will no longer be useful to you and he knows that full well)...or simply kill both of them, ridding the world of Vandal Savage once and for all, and freeing Carter to move on to his next incarnation, in a world free of Savage. Nobody even thinks of the second option.
- Insane Troll Logic: Cassandra states the people against her father can't be innocent because they are against him.
- Insistent Terminology: Ray's compressed light weaponry, as usual.
- Instant Awesome: Just Add Mecha!: The show definitely plays up the "sci-fi fun" tone the show is known for by introducing a giant robot — the titular Leviathan — as a weapon used by Vandal Savage in 2166.
- I Resemble That Remark!: Upon being called a liar by Cassandra, Snart admits yes, he is, but not about the fact that Vandal Savage unleashed the Armageddon Virus.
- Mighty Glacier: The titular Leviathan is big, strong and durable but extremely slow. Likewise, Ray himself lost his speed when he grows himself to fight it.
- Mirror Match: The Leviathan is basically an A.T.O.M. robot built on a giant scale. When fighting a giant Ray, it even takes a page out of his book and flies into the air to floor Ray with a photon blast.
- Mythology Gag: Kendra finally gets a mace, Hawkgirl's weapon from the comics.
- New Era Speech: Savage is giving one when the team first find him in 2166.
- No-Sell: The Waverider laid into the Leviathan with its full complement of lasers and missiles. Didn't even scratch it.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Snart gets to Cassandra by telling them they both have really horrible fathers.
- Oh, Crap!: Savage's reaction when he realizes that Kendra's mace can hurt and kill him.
- Off with His Head!: Ray does a nice leaping haymaker on the Leviathan and this is the result.
- One-Steve Limit: Chay-Ara's 1940s incarnation is also named Kendra. The new incarnation of Carter is also named Carter, although we don't find out about this until the next episode.
- Plot Hole:
- The Synchronization between Jax and Stein does not come into play when Stein is stabbed, nor when he is given a sedative by Gideon.
- Both Kendra and Rip rather bizarrely act like she'll lose Carter forever if she can't save this particular version, although it's possible they think that their reincarnation is somehow tied to Savage being alive.
- Praetorian Guard: Carter's 2100s incarnation was brainwashed by Savage and made him into one of his elite soldiers.
- La Résistance: The team joins up with a struggling and all but defeated one.
- Reverse the Polarity: Ray managed to grow large instead of shrinking by doing so with the time drive boosting the ATOM suit. Actually used appropriately for once!
- The Scapegoat: It is made completely clear in this episode that Savage was the one to activate the virus, put the entire blame on Per Degaton to make him the equivalent of Hitler to the world, then killed him to make himself appear as the savior of mankind.
- Screw Destiny: While Rip believed that he couldn't save his wife and son no matter how many times he tried, Ray on the contrary said they have the choice to defy fate.
- Ship Tease: Snart and Cassandra got a lot of Foe Romance Subtext moments.
- Shout-Out:
- Ray's fight with the Leviathan, with his flashlights-turned-floodlights contrasted against Leviathan's sickly-green highlights, is a Homage to Pacific Rim, itself a homage to various Humongous Mecha franchises.
- It's also an homage to the Ultra Series, particularly the shot of Ray growing being identical to the franchise's Transformation Sequence and the fight scene having several line posts visible during the battle being a staple of that franchise.
- While engaging the Leviathan, Rip tells Gideon to "Fire everything!"
- And, of course, reversing the polarity to make the magic happen.
- Spanner in the Works: A brainwashed Carter appears mere moments before Kendra was about to strike her final blow against Savage.
- Spoiled by the Format: There are still three episodes left so we know Savage won't be defeated here and then.
- Strong, but Unskilled: Ray is still something of an amateur in a fight. Jax has to coach him in the battle with the Leviathan, including reminding him that the A.T.O.M suit has "laser blasters" so he should use them.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Savage sends a gigantic killer robot to wipe out a few tents. Snart is later able to point this out to Cassandra to show what a monster her father is.
- Trash the Set: The Waverider is literally thrown like trash by the titular Leviathan.
- Tron Lines: The titular Humongous Mecha has green accents throughout its body.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Among his own followers, Savage is seen as the hero who valiantly struck down the tyrant Per Degaton and is crusading to reunite the chaotic world.
- Wham Shot: Kendra seeing the face of the Praetorian Guard who intervened during her fight with Savage.
- Wrestler in All of Us:
- Defied. Jax actually scolds Ray for using too much wrestling moves on the Leviathan.
- Played straight with Mick, who spears a mook during the climatic battle.
- You Can't Fight Fate: Rip sadly reveals to Ray that he did try to save his family multiple times before he assembled his team, and each time he failed.
- You Monster!: Said to Savage by Cassandra after she discovered that her father was the one who unleashed the Armageddon Virus and got her mother killed.
