The Legends are tired of being chased by an evil A.I. and her robo-soldiers, so Sara decides to create an aberration that will allow the team to take the Evil Waverider. However, the Legends find themselves in a Bar for time-travelers, and quickly learn that this "fixed point" is popular with time-travelers, leaving Sara questioning her odds at winning. With Behrad and Astra growing closer, Zari and Spooner are forced to awkwardly interact with each other as the rest of the Legends are paired up on the mission. Ava hears Gwyn's plan to save his boyfriend, and Ava is forced to remind him of the consequences if he succeeds.
Tropes:
- Artistic Licence – History: Considering how much of a powderkeg Europe was in 1914, it's generally accepted that preventing Ferdinand's death would not have prevented or even delayed World War I by that much.
- Back from the Dead: Eobard Thawne, specifically the version of him played by Matt Letscher who appeared in Season 2 of this show. He reveals that after the Black Flash erased him he was resurrected by the Time Wraiths, stripped of his powers, and forced to become the guardian of the Fixed Point.
- The Big Damn Kiss: Gideon gives Gary one after Sara finally succeeds in saving the Archduke.
- Brought Down to Normal: Thawne has been stripped of his super-speed, a fact that enables Sara to easily get the better of him in a fight.
- The Bus Came Back: Matt Letscher returns as the time remnant of Eobard Thawne, last seen in the Season 2 finale.
- Cliffhanger: The episode ends with the Waverider landing in front of the Legends.
- Cold Open: The episode starts right with Sara trying to stop the assassination, before it jumps back.
- Did You Actually Believe...?: Invoked by the owner of the Fixed Point Bar who chuckles "you think you're the first to want to save Archduke Ferdinand?"
- Determinator: The Legends go from laughing stocks in the Fixed Point Bar to highly respected by everyone for their determination and ingenuity bringing them the furthest anyone's ever gotten in preventing the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand.
- "Eureka!" Moment: Sara correctly deduces that the Man in the Top Hat must be able to stop time.
- Famed In-Story: The Legends seem to have garnered some fame among the time-traveler community, with a few of the patrons at the Fixed Point bar being aware of their legendary status, while also mocking them for being "washed up superheroes".
- The Friends Who Never Hang: Zari and Spooner, who have little to do during the mission, point out that they never seem to do anything with each other. They then sit with each other at the bar and try some awkward small talk. Later, they actually manage to bond.
- Gayngst: Gwyn has a huge amount of self-hatred over his own homosexuality, as he thinks that God will never accept him for it. Ava eventually manages to convince him otherwise.
- Good Thing You Can Heal: Sara's Healing Factor really gets overworked here as her multiple attempts to prevent the assassination end messily for her.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: The Archduke Ferdinand's assassination is on a loop, reset for every time traveler's attempt to avert it. Eobard Thawne is also in a loop, living the entire day of the assassination on repeat.
- Heel–Face Turn: Eobare Thawne is revealed to have undergone one after reeducation by the Time Authority. Now he serves penance for his crimes against history by acting as a dedicated agent to preserve a highly targeted point in history from tampering.
- Hero Antagonist: Thawne of all people, who has the job of protecting the timeline by making sure World War I happens.
- Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act: The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand is such a tempting fixed point to change that legions of time travelers wind up taking turns at their shot. The exemption is enforced with a vengeance, leading to most of the attempts to end in humiliation and/or death, to the amusement of the rest of the bar.
- Hourglass Plot: Zari and Spooner start out a little awkward because Astra and Behrad hooking up means those two are left out of the loop. Bonding with each other leads to them having banter that Behrad and Astra don't get in the end.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: Gideon declares that she needs a drink to cope with learning how time defends fixed points.
- In Spite of a Nail: The assassination is a Fixed Point so changes to events do not propagate far. Stopping one assassin does not seem to have any effect on the other assassins or the behavior of the Archduke and his security detail. Additionally the chaos of the assassination and subsequent world war seems to nullify any other changes caused by time travelers. It does not seem to matter which assassin succeeds and how many other people might die in the attempt.
- I'll Take Two Beers Too: Gary and Gideon sit at the bar. Gideon orders two stouts and asks Gary if he wants anything. He only orders one.
- It's Been Done: Played for laughs as Sara's plans for how to stop the assassination are thrown by how the person on screen is doing exactly that and failing.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: The Hotshot trio that makes fun of the Legends throughout the episode provides them with their own tickets in the end, acknowledging that they always lash out when they feel threatened and that they are trying to solve this via therapy. They subsequently cheer Sara on.
- Lampshade Hanging: Thawne acknowledging the big twist of his presence.
- Look Both Ways: In one iteration, Sara runs into the road and deflects the knife thrown by the second assassin. A second later she is hit by a car.
- Loophole Abuse: Thawne allows Sara to prevent the assassination because he knows that this will create an alternate future where a second assassination attempt will occur 40 minutes later. As long as that one is successful, the timeline will proceed as before and the Fixed Point will be preserved.
- Move in the Frozen Time: Once the Legends realise that their attempts to change history are being foiled by someone with the ability to freeze time, they use components from Gwyn's time machine to build a device that lets Sarah do this.
- Mythology Gag: Thawne has a device, provided by the Time Wraiths, that enables him to freeze time. Being able to stop time is an ability that Reverse-Flashes other than Thawne, such as Hunter Zolomon and Daniel West, naturally possess in the comics.
- Obvious Stunt Double: It's pretty obvious that it isn't Matt Letscher who was fighting Sarah, especially when the camera pulls back to an aerial view.
- Oh, Crap!:
- One of the time travellers when his attempt fails.
- Spooner, when she spots a man in a top hat (Thawne) for a moment before he disappears.
- Overly Long Gag: Sara's montage of failures.
- Place Beyond Time: The Fixed Point, a bar where every time traveller who's ever tried to prevent Archduke Ferdinand's assassination can hang out and watch one another's attempts at it.
- The Reveal:
- After the Black Flash killed him, the Time Wraiths restored Thawne, stripped him of his powers and "re-educated" him about how the timeline can't be altered, placing him on the Fixed Point as its guardian.
- Spooner reveals to Zari that she is asexual.
- Ripple Effect Indicator: The film-reel of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which is watched by the patrons at the time-traveler's bar. It's archive footage sourced from the future, but 'updates' in real-time every time a time-traveler makes an attempt to prevent the assassination.
- Running Gag: A revelation leading someone to asking for a drink.
- Sentient Cosmic Force: The patrons of the bar believe that time itself is somehow stopping the attempts to change history, but Gideon is sceptical. It turns out she's right, history is actually being preserved by Thawne.
- Schmuck Bait: Gideon doesn't actually want to prevent World War I, she just wants to lure Evil!Gideon to the fixed point.
- Shout-Out:
- Sara mentions that her Healing Factor allows her to "Live-Die-Repeat," a reference to the film Edge of Tomorrow. It gets lampshaded.
- The fixed point bar gets called "Cheers meets Thunderdome".
- Astra and Behrad reference "Crocodile" Dundee when handing Sara a new weapon.
Astra: "You call that a knife?" *Hands giant bowie knife to Sara*Behrad: "Now that's a knife."- Ava also quotes Lin-Manuel Miranda's famous Miranda Tony 2016 Award "love is love" line.
- Tempting Fate: You'd really think Nate would learn better by now calling what they have a "foolproof plan."
- Terrible Artist: Nate, when drawing a diagram of the assassination. The other Legends try not to insult it, except they can't tell what any of the drawings are supposed to be. Gary settles for calling it "abstract".
- There Is Another: The first big twist of the episode is the Legends learning that there are still other time-travelers.
- Time Police: The Time Wraiths are apparently not just some mindless creatures, but an organization with enough reach to recruit from temporally erased time travelers as agents stationed at crucial points in history to insure no time traveler can change them.
- Time Stands Still: After discovering a mysterious man present at the assassination that momentarily disappears during failed attempts to avert it, Gideon deduces they must have a time stopping device. They dismantle Gwyn's time machine to build a device that immunizes Sara to it, allowing her to confront him in frozen time.
- Title Drop: By the Time Authority.
- Tricked Out Time:
- Gwyn's plan to save Alun from being killed during World War 1 without causing a Temporal Paradox. He intends to save Alun in a way that prevents his younger self from knowing about it, thus ensuring that the latter is still motivated to invent time-travel to save Alun.
- Thawne agrees to do this to help Sara in the end. He allows the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand to be delayed by 40 minutes, temporarily creating an aberration that will attract the attention of Evil!Gideon and give the Legends the chance to capture her Waverider, while ensuring that history ultimately stays on track.
- Wham Line: When the old man in the tavern casually identifies the Legends as time travelers.
- Wham Shot: The mysterious top-hat man turns around, revealing Eobard Thawne's supposedly dead time remnant.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are:
- Nate gives Sara a pep-talk after the latter gets frustrated by her repeated failed attempts at saving the Archduke.
- Ava gives Gwyn a heartfelt one, assuring him that his sexuality is nothing to hate himself over, giving him a hug.
- You Can't Fight Fate: Gideon has a bit of an existential crisis when informed that Time itself is supposedly preserving the fixed point, and spends part of the episode trying to process what that's supposed to mean. She's relieved to find it isn't some abstract cosmic force but an actual agent defending the fixed point of Archduke Ferdinand's assassination.
- You Kill It, You Bought It: Thawne makes Sara promise that she will take his place if she kills him, as the fixed point has to be protected.
