The day after bidding Charlie farewell, the Legends find out that Sara has been abducted by aliens. Ava takes the reins in her absence and sends Rory and Behrad to visit a woman who claims to hear extraterrestrials, Constantine — accompanied by Zari and Astra — attempts to reach Sara with magic, while Sara herself investigates the spacecraft she's aboard and discovers the truth about one of her teammates.
Tropes:
- Achilles in His Tent:
- Mick refuses to do anything because he believes Sara is the only one who can take charge.
- John initially gives up on helping find Sara, since he specializes on myths and the occult, not with sci-fi.
- Alien Among Us: Gary, as it turns out, who's been undercover on Earth since at least 2017. He was supposed to leave sooner but grew to enjoy the company of humans, particularly the Legends, and only left due to his boss telling him to come back.
- Aloof Ally: Astra is still on the fence with being considered a "Legend", instead wanting to try and go back to life as a mortal.
- Bait-and-Switch: When Spooner begins asking Behrad if he can hear something once she's on the Waverider, he assumes she meant Gideon's off-color joke about dissecting her brain, but she was actually referring to the sounds of the aliens scattered across time by Sara.
- Becoming the Mask: Gary was sent on Earth to kidnap the quintessential human (Sara), but he grew to like humanity.
- Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: John mentions that Aleister Crowley was a crackpot who believed in aliens, which the events of the episode suggest he may have associated with them after all.
- Beneath the Mask: Averted. In terms of personality, Gary is effectively the same lovable Butt-Monkey as an alien that he's been masquerading as while pretending to be human.
- BFG: Spooner packs a gun strong enough to damage the Waverider.
- Black-Hole Belly: The alien Kayla completely devours Spartacus in her torso but shows no change in mass afterwards.
- Brain Bleach:
- Ava throws up early on in the episode, but she insists it's because of her hangover, and not because she learned Zari and John slept together.
- Zari herself almost retches when she sees the cocoon in Gary's room.
- The Legends when they see Spooner drink the potion containing a bit of Gary's alien chrysalis.
- British Royal Guards: Behrad is in the process of trying to befriend one when the team picks him up.
- Brutal Honesty: Ava admits to Spooner that they are only nice to her so that she helps them find Sara.
- Call-Back: Nate mentions the fling Sara had with Alex Danvers to Ava when asking if it'll be awkward to contact the DEO, confirming this also occurred Post-Crisis.
- The Cameo:
- The Smell and Charlie, in what is perhaps her last appearance, in David Bowie's video of the concert in the Season 5 finale.
- There are pictures of both of Gary's pets (Marchosias is in his Killer Rabbit form), in Gary's bedroom.
- Cardboard Prison: Sara escapes her containment cell using a hand-scanner located inside. It's later revealed that Gary intentionally put it there.
- The Chains of Commanding: Ava is once again seen struggling after being forced to take up command of the Waverider, though she handles herself a lot better than last time.
- Combat Tentacles: The aliens that abducted Sara have prehensile tentacles extending from their backs that can easily impale and lift a human.
- Coming in Hot: At the end of the episode, after failing to get into the wormhole, Sara and Gary's ship falls towards a nearby planet.
- Continuity Nod: The plan to contact the DEO for alien whereabouts hits a snag, as the headquarters was destroyed by Leviathan in the penultimate episode of Supergirl's previous season.
- Crazy Survivalist: Spooner is beyond prepared for dealing with any intruders or another alien attack, packing tons of weapons and even wearing tinfoil cowboy hats. According to her, the tinfoil actually works!
- The Cuckoolander Was Right: After getting high, Behrad came across an article about a young girl who claimed to have met aliens and he suggests to Ava that the Legends should ask for her help in 2020. It ends up being the lead they were looking for.
- Do Not Call Me "Paul": Esperanza Cruz insists on being called Spooner.
- Ear Ache: Spooner rips out Behrad's communicator from his ear. Given how long the cord is and his pained reaction to it being pulled out, it must have been in deep.
- Eaten Alive: Gary's boss, Kayla, eats Spartacus whole when he and Sara try to ambush them. Gary mentions he was her lunch anyway.
- Eating the Eye Candy:
- Astra obviously finds David Bowie handsome.
- Zari does the same with Constantine after he claims he can't help Sara.Astra: [in annoyance] What an ass.
Zari: [stares at John's as he leaves] Yeah, he's got that going for him.
- Everyone Can See It: Astra shoots down Constantine's claims that his relationship with Zari is just a fling.
- Everyone Has Standards: Astra may not yet consider herself a Legend, but she and Zari convince John to continue finding Sara.
- Evolving Credits: The new intro, in addition to a rearranged theme from last season, shows new snippets of the team; including Astra and new main cast members Behrad, Gary, and Spooner.
- Failed Attempt at Drama: After being awoken in front of the bathroom toilet from a night of heavy drinking, Ava tells Mick they need to find Sara and they heroically leave...only for her to come back in ready to throw up again as the intro starts.
- Fangirl: Sara is very excited when meeting David Bowie.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing:
- Nate tells Ava to calm down and take a deep breath before moving on to Plan B. Ava does so, and, smelling something, declares "Plan B smells like pot." Cue Behrad, smelling of pot, running in with an idea for Plan B.
- Constantine, Astra and Zari finding a strange cocoon in Gary's room just before he reveals his alien nature to Sara.
- Foreshadowing: When the team discusses what they know about aliens, Behrad just says that they're green. Later in the episode, Gary Green turns out to have been an alien all along.
- Heroic RRoD: John's body begins to break down when casting a spell to contact Sara, only for Zari to stop him before he dies.
- Historical Domain Character: Nate is seen talking to David Bowie about the woes of his doomed relationship with Zari 1.0, which becomes relevant when he begins singing about witnessing Sara's abduction.
- Human Disguise: Gary maintains his human appearance by wearing his glasses. The disguise is so good that it was even able to incorporate his previous nipple injury, although strangely his true form doesn't appear to even have nipples.
- Immediate Sequel: To "Swan Thong"; it starts the very next day after the rest of the Legends finish partying.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: Nate scoffs at the idea that Spooner's homemade gun could damage the Waverider. Immediately after, she shoots, and the blast punches a hole through the floor near his feet and into the ceiling.Nate: Touché, Spooner.
- Instant Sedation: Spooner shoots Behrad and Mick with tranq darts, and they instantly drop to the floor, unconscious. The same thing happens to her when Mick shoots her back later on.
- Internal Reveal: The team learns both about John and Zari having a fling, as well as Sara being abducted by aliens. They also learn about the DEO being destroyed.
- Literal-Minded: When Sara tells Gary to tell him about "this ship" (meaning, the alien ship they are on right now), Gary proceeds to talk about AvaLance.Sara: Now tell me everything about this ship.
Gary: Well...when you first met, you butt heads. But any fool could tell you two were meant for each other-
Sara: This spaceship, Gary.
Gary: Oh. - The Load: You wouldn't expect this from a famed military leader, but Spartacus, full-stop. He refuses to listen to any common-sense advice that Sara gives him, opens up a prisoner pod that contains an alien that attacks them, stands by and does nothing while Sara beats and forces said alien back into its pod, and impulsively charges two aliens on his own and ends up getting Eaten Alive by one.
- Mass "Oh, Crap!": The Legends are happy for Ava when they learn Sara is going to propose to her, until they get to the part of the video that shows Sara get kidnapped.
- Mythology Gag: When Astra suggests Crowley escaped from Hell, John replies that he summoned him. In Hellblazer, John used Crowley's spirit to animate his magical clone, "Demon Constantine".
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Sara releases aliens into the temporal zone while attempting to eject Kayla. The Legends take it as a sign that Sara's out there.
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: With the big reveal of this episode, Gary is literally a (ex-)Time Police Alien Apprentice Sorcerer.
- Noodle Incident: Constantine resurrected Aleister Crowley and left him stranded on Earth, but this is hardly touched upon.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Behrad and Mick when they wake up Strapped to an Operating Table, and again when Spooner declares that she's not letting them go.
- The Legends on board the Waverider when Spooner rips out Behrad's comm; all they can hear are his cries of pain.
- Outside-Context Problem: John invokes this, saying that he is more than capable with magic and ghosts, but aliens are above his paygrade.
- Pipe Pain: Sara arms herself with a large metal pipe, and threatens one of the aliens with it, only for The Reveal to happen.
- Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: Ava fails to recognize any of David Bowie's nicknames.
- Properly Paranoid: While maybe not specifically after her, Spooner was completely correct about the existence of extraterrestrial life long before they became more publicly known on Earth-Prime.
- Rearrange the Song: The season 5 intro theme is changed into a more sci-fi/80s-themed arrangement.
- The Reveal: Gary is actually an alien, who abducted Sara because he considered her very special as a human.
- Rewatch Bonus: Obviously, the alien reveal changes almost any past scene involving Gary working with the team.
- She Is Not My Girlfriend: John denies his relationship with Zari is anything but casual.
- Ship Tease: Plenty with Zari and Constantine, despite both claiming it's a "no strings attached" deal.
- Shipper on Deck: Even after revealing his true identity, Gary is still very invested in Ava and Sara's relationship.
- Sleeping with the Boss: Gary says that he and Kayla are engaged.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Monster of the Week Kayla ends up becoming the source of the problems for this season: her "collection" of various alien species are accidentally thrown into the Temporal Zone, giving the Legends a new mission.
- Superman Stays Out of Gotham: Justified. As Supergirl is themed around aliens and they now live on the same Earth as the Legends, their first choice is to contact the DEO for assistance...only for them to not know the headquarters is a bunch of rubble now. That, and the Superfriends are busy trying to get Kara out of the Phantom Zone.
- Take That!: Sara claiming that "being an Avenger" is stupid.
- The Tape Knew You Would Say That: Ava's checklist. Not only does everything on it happen, it happens in the order in which she wrote it.
- Thrown Out the Airlock: Sara takes out Kayla this way, with her and the aliens captured onboard sent into the Temporal Zone and scattered across time.
- To Serve Man: Kayla eats humans, though Gary doesn't...anymore.
- Wacky Marriage Proposal: Upon learning in a video that Sara planned to propose to Ava, she accepts it when managing to reach out to her light years away via Astral Projection.
- We Need a Distraction: Sara distracts Kayla in order for Gary to open a wormhole.
- Wham Shot: The freaky alien puts on a pair of glasses and transforms into...Gary?!
- The Worf Effect: Kayla takes out Sara, though after a Heroic Second Wind, the latter manages to fight on par with her for long enough until Gary opens the wormhole.
- You Are in Command Now: With Sara's abduction, Ava is left in charge of the Legends.
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: After Kayla's defeat, Sara and Gary try to go through the breach to the Temporal Zone, but the breach closes and they couldn't make it in time.
