Having freed themselves from TV, the Legends find themselves in a Nineteen Eighty-Four-like dystopia, where the world is controlled by the Fates and things aren't what they thought they would be. They must convince civilians to trust them and stand up for their right to choose, but the Fates don't make it easy by resurrecting the Encores once again.
Tropes
- Alien Abduction: Sara experiences this near the end of the episode, presumably setting up Season 6.
- Anti-Climax: Charlie goes to confront Lachesis...and instead of fighting her, forgives her and implores her to actually live a life rather than waste it trying to control everything.
- Appropriated Appellation: The Legends don't take much issue with being presented "villains" and "God Killers" in the Fate's museum. They rather take issue as only being ranked #2.
- Ascended Fanboy: Gary and Mona are very excited to work with the Legends and knowing that they did so in the past too.
- As Himself: Sisqó guest stars as himself singing "Thong Song".
- Back from the Dead: The Smell. So many resurrections have happened on this show, no one really questions it.
- Bait-and-Switch: When Charlie seems about to kill Lachesis with a knife, she instead forgives her.
- Beat Them at Their Own Game: Sara kills Atropos by pulling out her life thread and destroying it, thus using her own trick against her.
- Big Damn Heroes: After being motivated by Lita, Charlie arrives with Hellfire weapons to help her friends against the unkillable Encores.
- Bittersweet Ending: The Legends destroy the Loom and save the day. However, in the process, Charlie has been rendered mortal and possibly lost her shapeshifting powers, though she's embraced her freedom from her status as a Fate and is determined to enjoy her one remaining life. Worst, Original Zari is forced back into the Air Totem, likely forever, in order to preserve the new timeline and so Behrad lives. And right at the end, Sara is abducted, seemingly by aliens.
- Broken Bird: Charlie, after four months of Lachesis using her as the centerpiece of why free will is wrong.
- Bullet Catch: Behrad blocks several bullets with his wind powers.
- The Bus Came Back: Courtney Ford returns to the show since "Romeo v. Juliet: Dawn of Justness", though instead of Nora Darhk, she plays Marie Antoinette, who is last seen in "Mortal Khanbat".
- But Now I Must Go: With the trouble of her sisters dealt with, Charlie leaves the Legends to continue her band gig.
- Call-Back:
- Sara talks about where the Legends were before becoming part of the team: Nate having a kooky conspiracy theory, Mick being a temporal bounty hunter, Charlie being stuck in a disco outfit ...
- Charlie mentions Napoleon almost killing the Legends because of an ABBA record.
- Mick and Marie recognize each other from their encounter earlier in the season.
- The song Charlie and The Smell perform at the end is a punk rock cover of the Mr. Parker's Cul-de-sac theme song.
- Calling the Old Man Out: Astra publicly confronts Lachesis for being a crappy surrogate mother.
- Character Death: Atropos is killed. Every other character, including Lachesis, ultimately survives.
- Chekhov's Armory:
- Played for laughs when the Legends arm themselves with the displays in the Loom temple, which are random objects like shake weights.
- Played more seriously with the collection of Hell-forged weapons that the Legends gathered in "The Great British Fake Off", which Charlie brings to the team just in time for them to kill the Encores.
- Clarke's Third Law: After Lachesis reconstructed her control over the world she took tighter control over everyone by dictating their fates to them through smartwatches, operated by time-traveling supercomputer Gideon.
- Continuity Snarl: Apparently neither her old bandmates nor her fans question why Charlie now looks completely different than before.
- Cut Short: Subverted; unlike the rest of the Arrowverse shows, which had their seasons end early due to COVID-19, Legends filmed far enough ahead to complete their season.
- Cutting the Knot: While Original Zari is trying to hack into Gideon in order to shut down the new Loom program, New Zari ultimately just pulls the plug and cuts the power.
- Deal with the Devil: Inverted. John buys his soul back from Hell, as Astra hands it back to him in exchange for renting his house.
- Death Is Cheap: Lampshaded. As they watch the Smell perform, Behrad asks, "Weren't they dead?" Nate replies, "I mean, who hasn't died?"
- Disc-One Final Boss: Despite ostensibly being part of a Big Bad Duumvirate, Atropos is killed in the first third of the episode, leaving Lachesis as the Final Boss.
- Easily Forgiven: Even after all the harm she caused, Charlie is willing to forgive Lachesis and give her a shot at life.
- The Evils of Free Will: In the new world under Lachesis's control she turned the Loom Temple into a museum dedicated to demonizing the history before the Fates took control because of all the atrocities humans committed with free will.
- Happiness in Slavery: After the Legends destroyed the Loom everyone's memories of how the world was before was destroyed. Exploiting their panic to reestablish control, everyone much more happily and more closely follows Lachesis's commands.
- Heroic Rematch: While she does need to be saved by her team in the end, Sara's second fight against Atropos is much more evenly matched.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Old Zari voluntarily reenters the Air Totem once she realizes that the longer she is outside the totem, the closer Behrad is to death.
- History Repeats: Once again, Nate is separated, seemingly forever, from the woman he loves due to the consequences of time-travel...with the Original Zari having to return to the Air Totem in order to preserve the new timeline where her brother Behrad lives.
- Humanity Ensues: After the Loom is destroyed, both Charlie and Lachesis turn into mortals. This is what ultimately motivates Charlie to forgive and spare Lachesis despite what she's done, telling her to live the one life she has.
- Improvised Weapon: The Legends grab various objects from the "Hall of Bad Ideas" (pogo sticks, shake weights, etc.) to do battle with the Encores.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: The entire team after the old Zari has to return back inside the Air Totem.
- It's All My Fault: Charlie is extremely guilt-ridden throughout most of the episode, blaming herself for destroying the Loom in the first place and refusing to consider the arguments from her friends in favour of free will. Lita finally manages to make her change her mind.
- Karmic Death: Atropos gets killed by/with the Loom.
- Kill the God: Sara kills Atropos by entangling her life thread with the Loom of Fate and then blowing it up. This might indirectly count as killing Clotho and Lachesis, too, as destroying the Loom has rendered them mortal.
- Legion of Doom: In the finale, the Legends find themselves facing a small army of Encores.
- Moment Killer: Old Zari and Behrad interrupt New Zari and John kissing over the radio.
- Motive Rant: Astra gives one to John, explaining on why she let Lachesis manipulate her.
- Nobody Here but Us Statues: The Legends hide themselves in the museum in a display "dedicated" to them to ambush Lachesis. She turns it against them, however, when the other displays are actually Encores.
- No Ontological Inertia: When Atropos is killed, Sara's sight is restored and she loses her precognitive abilities, as both states were caused by exposure to Atropos's full power.
- Oh, No... Not Again!: Marie Antoinette's reaction to her head getting knocked off again.
- Only One Finds It Fun: Nate is the only one disappointed when the Thong Song gets cut off during their climactic fight with the Encores.
- Powered by a Forsaken Child: The Fate Watches are powered by Gideon.
- Put on a Bus:
- Charlie leaves the Legends this episode.
- Downplayed with Zari, whose old self returns to the Air Totem so Behrad's existence won't be threatened, but her new self is still aboard the ship.
- Reality Bleed: Having two Zaris in the same timeline is slowly imposing Behrad's death from the original timeline onto him.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Astra takes Lachesis down a notch, calling her out on her actions and telling her that she doesn't need her anymore.
- Self-Deprecation: Sisqo plays an animatronic of himself who's mostly there to take potshots on how terrible "The Thong Song" is.
- Sequel Hook: At the end of the episode, Sara is abducted by aliens.
- The Slow Path: A short-term example, as Charlie, Mick, Lita, Mona and Gary have to actually live through the four months that the rest of the Legends skip over after recovering the Waverider and escaping from the Loom Temple.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: Poor Nate once again loses a woman he loves, as Zari has to return back inside the Air Totem.
- Take That!: The Fates' museum that demonizes history before their control includes a lot of petty exhibits, one of them being the Thong Song. Among the "Bad ideas" are also notoriously ridiculous concepts like the "Flat Earth" theory.
- Villain Has a Point: Sara gets John to concede that the Fates are right to condemn cigarettes, since he died of lung cancer.
- Villainous Breakdown: Lachesis has several over the course of the episode.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: John, at two points in the episode, manages to convince Astra to do the right thing and believe in herself.
