With Ava a wreck, the Legends make a last-ditch effort to keep Sara from being abducted in the first place, even knowing that it will alter the timeline. Sara grapples with what she has just discovered about herself but is also shocked when Rory finds her on the mystery planet. With no time to spare, Sara, Mick, and Gary devise a plan to help defeat Bishop. Meanwhile, Spooner envisions what her life would be like if she hadn’t joined the Legends.
Tropes:
- Achilles in His Tent: Ava, upon learning the truth in the previous episode, is in mourning and refuses to do anything.
- Aesop Amnesia: Past Ava scolds the Legends for trying to tamper with the timeline again, pointing out how it has always made things worse whenever they try it.
- Alternate Timeline: What the Legends are trying to do to prevent Sara's latest death. According to future Nate, it goes very, very badly.
- Alternate Self: An alternate Nate appears, saying that the "explosive mannequin" plan backfires spectacularly, leading to him going undercover as Constantine and then traveling back to warn the present Legends.
- Back to the Early Installment: Nate, Astra, John, Zari, Behrad, and Spooner travel back in time to the Season 5 finale in order to save Sara before she gets abducted.
- Bad Future: Behrad eventually comes up with a plan to make a mannequin look like Sara, fill it with explosives, then use it in place of the real Sara. A future version of Nate eventually arrives to tell them that successfully completing the plan leads to the alien ship figuring things out immediately, turning around to grab Sara right afterwards. The exploding mannequin then causes the aliens to then go on to cause untold chaos through the timestream, resulting in most of the Legends dying and Nate himself going undercover as Constantine (except with an eyepatch) in order to use magic to fix things.
- Bait-and-Switch: Upon learning of Behrad's plans, the Legends intercept him in the Smell concert. He believes they're there to stop him, but the Legends are really there to help him.
- The Big Damn Kiss: Sara and Ava finally get theirs, complete with fireworks in the background thanks to Behrad's explosive mannequin.
- Big "NO!":
- Behrad, when Sara gets abducted by the aliens anyway.
- Bishop, when his Brain Uploading fails.
- Brain Uploading: What Bishop does after Mick kills his latest body. His base is destroyed before he can upload to the Cloud.
- The Bus Came Back: Charlie, but only through recycled footage.
- Butterfly of Doom: Past Ava quickly finds the current Legends and warns them about changing the timeline for this exact reason.
- Character Development: A slight example with John. He goes along with the plan to break time in order to get his powers back at first. He then listens to past Ava when she warns them of the consequences. At the end, he admits to Zari that while he is willing to do everything he can to get his magic back, he is also considering a life without it.
- Clone Army: What Bishop's main plan is. To make an army of clone Saras merged with alien DNA and spread out across the universe.
- Continuity Nod:
- Ava is crying in bed while watching Sara's video from the season premiere.
- Bishop found out about Sara from the start due to reading Rebecca Silver novels.
- Sara mentions that she dies "about once a year".
- Nate brings up him dying in the Season 4 finale.
- All of the characters bring up how they were wasted in the premiere, with Nate in particular lamenting the loss of his Zari.
- Sisqó gets a mention.
- Spooner brings up being attacked by Amelia Earhart and getting turned into a fork by Astra.
- When trying to think of a way to get Sara to come back on the Waverider, Behrad mentions the Fates from Season 5 coming back as well as her sister and dad needing her, before wondering if they're even still alive.
- Past Ava mentions Charlie when pulling past Sara into the club. Charlie herself appears later on via recycled footage.
- Do Wrong, Right: Behrad thinks his friends have followed him to stop him from trying to change the timeline — but they are here to help him do it right.
- Eyepatch After Time Skip: Future Nate wears one when masquerading as Constantine in his time.
- Eye Scream: The alternate timeline damages or outright destroys Nate's right eye, judging from the scar and the eyepatch.
- Expendable Clone: Sara considers her current body to be this. She orders one of the Avas to make her a fully human body so she can transfer her consciousness there and then escape back to Earth.
- Fantastic Time Management: Past Sara's reasoning for not going with Behrad.
- Five Stages of Grief: Ava is on "Depression", going through a Heroic BSoD while watching the video of Sara planning to propose on a loop.
- Grandfather Paradox: Brought up multiple times. If the Legends prevent Sara's abduction, Spooner would return to her own life and never meet the Legends, while Constantine will have his magic back.
- Grand Romantic Gesture: Sara finally gets to actually propose to Ava. She immediately says "yes," but Sara wants to read the speech she prepared beforehand first.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Sara's new body is half-alien.
- Healing Factor: Sara's new body quickly heals wounds due to being part-alien.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Kayla performs one against the Zagurons to let Sara, Mick, and Gary get back to Earth.
- He's Back!: Sara finally returns and proposes to Ava.
- I Am a Monster: Sara considers her current body to be this.
- I Am What I Am: Mick convinces Sara to think like this instead.
- I Choose to Stay: The various Ava clones stay behind on the mystery planet.
- Internal Reveal:
- After she deduces it, John admits to Zari that his magic truly is gone.
- Sara learns about John and Zari being in an official relationship now.
- It's All My Fault: Behrad, after him calling out for Sara is revealed to be what got her abducted.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
- Sara tells Bishop that she dies "about once a year."
- When the gang head back to 1977 London, Spooner asks where they are. Astra replies "last year's finale." Nate then mentions they're usually pretty fun "except for the one where he died."
- Behrad wondering whether Laurel and Quentin are alive in this timeline is this considering Behrad himself is only alive by doing what he's trying to do now.
- Nick tells past Ava that they're "celebrating the finale."
- Let's Split Up, Gang!: Sara suggests this after meeting up with Gary, Mick, and the Ava clones in order to destroy all the Sara clones.
- Missed Him by That Much: Nate has a Potty Emergency and rushes to the comfort room, at which point a Bad Future version of himself shows up. The future Nate fades from existence just a split second before his present self returns.
- Never the Selves Shall Meet: The Legends go the extra mile to make sure they never meet themselves.
- Once More, with Clarity: Sara's clone body creation is shown alongside flashbacks of previous episodes.
- Out of Focus: While Jes Macallan appears throughout the episode, present Ava only appears in the beginning and end of the episode.
- Potty Emergency: Nate has one after eating too many curry dishes. It allows future Nate to warn the Legends about what their plan will lead to.
- Sadistic Choice: Sara is forced between choosing to let Bishop upload himself or being stuck with her new alien body. She chooses the latter.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: The Legends travel back to before Sarah was abducted to try to prevent it from happening, despite the paradoxes this would cause. Ultimately though they fail to change the past and Sarah makes her own way back.
- Shout-Out: Towards Back to the Future Part II.
- Something We Forgot: Behrad wanted to replace Past Sara with a mannequin rigged with explosives, which he leaves behind because the plan falls through and Sara still gets kidnapped. He then has an Oh, Crap! when Nate asks him what happened to the mannequin, only for it to blow up in the distance right as Sara and Ava had their reunion.
- Spotting the Thread:
- Zari instantly deduces that John would never say something like "I just love love," meaning it has something to do with him - he also wants to change the timeline to get his magic back.
- Past Ava quickly figures out that there are time traveling Legends about.
- Tempting Fate: While Behrad prepares his "explosive mannequin" plan, he has Spooner do recon inside the club, warning her not to interact with Sara. Spooner tells Behrad that she's never even met Sara. Cue past Sara appearing right next to Spooner at the bar.
- Tomato in the Mirror: While Sara manages to brush off finding out that she's a clone, she's hit harder by finding out that she's now an alien-human hybrid.
- Twin Maker: Bishop thinks nothing about killing himself and making a new clone of himself. Sara is perfectly willing to let herself die as long as she can make a new "pure" clone of herself to send back to the Legends. When that plan doesn't work out, Sara just replaces the now-deceased original Sara with only her and Mick knowing what she really is.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: When Astra, Nate, Spooner, John, and Zari travel back to 1977, none of the random partygoers seem to notice or care about the giant portal opening in the parking lot or the four people walking through it.
- Welcome Back, Traitor: Gary officially rejoins the Legends.
- What Have I Become?: Sara wants to make a fully human body due to believing this. Mick talks her out of it.
- You Already Changed the Past: Together with Stable Time Loop, despite all efforts to save Sara from being abducted, all of the Legends' attempts only help keep the past events intact. This is also why Ava got so drunk she couldn't remember the previous evening in the season premiere.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Mick, of all people, gives Sara this speech.
