The Legends are pretty comfortable in their retirement, but then learn they have to go back to active duty to save a friend. However, this means they have to contend with not just both Gideons for going back on their word, but another Fixer who also wants history back on track.
Tropes:
- Apologetic Attacker: Mike is very fond of the Legends and regrets having to stop them.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted, Nate has quite a few burn marks after being exposed to mustard gas.
- Bishōnen Line: After spending most of the season as a digital avatar, Rogue Gideon gives herself a robot body of her own. She is completely impervious to both Astra's magic and regular gunfire.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: Sara got pregnant from mere liplock with Ava.
- Body Horror: After having to run through a deadly mustard bomb explosion, Nate's steel body begins to rust. When returning to normal form, it leaves him horribly burned.
- Book Ends:
- The season premiere had Astra attempting a spell to reconstruct the Waverider from scrap, only for it to fail. Here she tries again, and succeeds, while simultaneously protecting herself, Spooner, and Gideon from the temporal zone on top of that.
- The Legends' current time machine getting destroyed by the Waverider. In the previous season finale it was the original Waverider, here it's Gwyn's prototype.
- Nate's first mission with the Legends led to him acquiring his steel skin, during a world war. His last mission with the Legends during this episode leads to him losing his steel skin, during another world war.
- Brain Uploading: Rogue Gideon convinces her human counterpart to transfer herself to an android body, with her choice of memories and emotions. Fortunately, Astra and Spooner arrive at the Waverider via the spare courier to stop the process and get Human Gideon to change her mind.
- Brought Down to Normal:
- Sara loses all her alien abilities, having passed them down to her baby. Though considering that it is still Sara we're talking about, it is more Brought Down to Badass.
- Nate loses his powers as a result of mustard gas corroding his steel body.
- But I Can't Be Pregnant!: Sara's reaction when Gary tells her.
- Canon Character All Along: It's revealed at the end of the episode that Mike the Fixer is really Booster Gold with a Race Lift.
- Catch and Return: When being shot at, Zari uses her Totem to send a projectile back at a pair of soldiers.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- Zari keeping a time courier just in case of an emergency.
- If it weren't for Astra duplicating John's magic key, Gary would have been permanently stranded in prehistory without the other Legends knowing.
- Collective Groan:
- The Legends after Gary's Tempting Fate. Behrad's the only one who accepted it, believing it to be "positive thinking".
- The Legends again, after learning that they are under arrest for time crimes.
- Deflector Shields: In her new body, Rogue Gideon uses one of these to easily fend of one of Astra's spells.
- Cut Short: Due to the cancellation of the show, the cliffhanger ending of the Legends being arrested will likely never be resolved, save for a Fully Absorbed Finale on another show.
- Deus Exit Machina: Only Astra, Spooner and Human Gideon fight the android Gideon, as the other Legends are still trying to help Gwyn. If they didn't split duties then the android wouldn't have been too much trouble.
- Didn't Think This Through: Said verbatim by Gideon after tricking Rogue Gideon into a Logic Bomb, as it seems like she, Astra and Spooner are gonna blow up right alongside the Waverider. Thankfully, Astra protects them.
- Disappointed in You: Astra didn't bother sugarcoating her disappointment upon seeing what her "daughter" has become under the influence of her AI counterpart. The rest of the Legends didn't say anything, but their sentiments are the same.
- Evil Knockoff: Rogue Gideon transfers herself into a duplicate body.
- Exactly What I Aimed At: Human Gideon prepares to fire a shotgun as Rogue Gideon advances on the heroes...but the shot wasn't for her, it's for the Waverider's cloaking device. The Waverider becomes exposed to World War I soldiers, turning Rogue Gideon herself into a time anomaly.
- Exact Words: Gwyn leaves a note behind, thanking the Legends for giving him the strength to find his one true love. Only when Gary tells them about what happened, they realize that he meant going back in time to save the real Alun.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: Confronting Mike on the Waverider, Zari notices that he is wearing handcuffs. He then tells them that they're about to get their own, revealing the sting operation.
- Foreshadowing:
- Sara cutting herself by opening a bottle of bubbly, but she sees that her healing isn't kicking in.
- Mike the Fixer wears a lot of gold; he even has a gold-colored golf ball with a blue star. He also has a case of Small Name, Big Ego, thinking he has a really important role at his fixed point when it really turns out that his higher-ups don't share that same opinion. All these point to his true identity later.
- Freak Out: Happens to Sara because of her pregnancy, twice. First upon learning the news from Gary, leading to her briefly acting like she's already in labor that he had to calm her down. The second time, it was because Mike hijacked the Waverider stranding the Legends in the middle of World War I, putting everyone in danger including her baby.
- From Bad to Worse: Mike hijacking the Waverider is already bad enough, but then he had to destroy the other time machine, indefinitely stranding the Legends. And the explosion broke the ceasefire, so war erupted again.
- Given Name Reveal: From one of the arresting officers shutting Mike up, calling him Buster, only for the latter to correct him. "Hey, it's Booster. I'm Booster Gold, okay?"
- History Repeats: Gary's Tempting Fate over their World War I mission, just like a past Legend had done, before all things go bad to worse from there.
- Homosexual Reproduction: It turns out that Sara, thanks to her human/alien hybrid DNA, gets knocked up from so much as a kiss from Ava.
- Hope Spot: Mike returns with the Waverider, the Legends are relieved just to see their ship again, and prepare to confront Mike for the hijacking. But then Mike tells them he actually set them up for a sting.
- I Hate Past Me: Gwyn, being ashamed of his young self's cowardice. However, he then sees himself staying at a dying soldier's side, praying, something he had no memories of.
- Immediate Sequel: The first scene, with Gary landing in the Stone Age after being thrown out the airlock by Rogue Gideon.
- Internal Reveal:
- The Legends, and later Human Gideon, learns that Rogue Gideon tried to kill Gary as well as the fact that the Alun they met was a robot because the real one's death is a fixed point.
- Sara having a panic attack in the middle of a battlefield leads to her revealing her pregnancy to the rest of the team.
- Jerkass Façade: When reuniting, Gideon acts quite cold and even hostile towards the Legends, even trying to rationalize away Rogue Gideon trying to kill Gary. However, she immediately breaks down crying afterwars.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Rogue Gideon tries to talk Gideon into being transfered into a new body, with all the painful memories of her friends being erased. Thankfully, Astra and Spooner arrive just in time to stop her.
- Last Episode, New Character: Due to the show's abrupt cancellation, Booster Gold is an unintended example of this trope.
- Logic Bomb: Literally. When Human Gideon exposes the Waverider to 1918, she reasons that android Gideon herself is now a time anomaly, that she no choice but to "correct" herself, via self-destruct.
- Lured into a Trap: The Time Police uses Mike as bait to trap the rest of the Legends.
- Manipulative Bastard: Mike uses the Legends to steal the Waverider.
- My God, What Have I Done?: After getting shamed by the Legends, Gideon was beside herself with guilt, especially with learning that she condemned Gwyn to death.
- New Powers as the Plot Demands: Astra, in an impressive display of magical powers, protects herself, Gideon and Spooner from the explosion of the Waverider and puts the ship back together.
- Noodle Incident: Gideon stops several time rogues trying to amend the American Constitution.
- No Ending: The series ends with a Cliffhanger involving the Legends being arrested by Time Police, essentially ending the series on a Downer Ending. This was intended to lead into another season, but was ultimately cancelled.
- No One Gets Left Behind: The Legends refuse to let Gwyn get killed by the Fixer.
- No-Sell: Rogue Gideon is neither harmed by magic, nor bullets. Even when Spooner shot her in the head, the human shell just instantly heals itself.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Downplayed; Gideon's missions protecting the timeline are not shown, but, judging by her bored expression each time she returns to the Waverider, those missions were seemingly unremarkable anyway.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Human Gideon realizing that Rogue Gideon is dowloading herself into the android she was shown earlier.
- There's a brief cut to Ava when she sees Mike's "aggressive jewelry", recognizing it for what it actually is.
- Once More, with Clarity: In-Universe, as Gwyn goes back to the time when Alun died, and sees what he calls "his great act of cowardice"...only to see himself cradling his dying comrade in his arms and praying.
- Power-Strain Blackout: Using her magic to protect herself, Gideon and Spooner from the Waverider's self-destruct blast then repairing the Waverider while in the Temporal Zone left Astra rather drained.
- Put on a Bus: Nate leaves the team to live with Zari 1.0 in the totem full-time. Had the series gotten an eighth season, Nick Zano and Zari Tomaz (Zari 1.0) would've departed here while Tala Ashe would have stayed on as Zari Tarazi (Zari 2.0).
- Series Finale: With the show's cancellation on April 29, 2022, this episode retroactively becomes this, ending with seven seasons and 110 episodes.
- Sequel Hook: Just when the Legends plus Alun arrive on the Waverider, thinking Mike returned it to them, they get arrested by the Time Police.
- Shout-Out:
- Booster Gold's alias as "Mike The Fixer" may be a reference to Mike Ehrmantraut.
- Rogue Gideon's face getting blown off, revealing a metallic robot skull with big, glowing red eyes, before fixing itself with nano tech string, is one big references to the various Terminators.
- Slipping a Mickey: Gwyn's first onscreen attempt to save Alun involves drugging his drink. It fails because a stray bullet knocked the mug out of its perch and spilled its contents, then ricochets to kill Gwyn for good measure.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Mike assumed he was assigned to defend the Fixed Point of Alun's death because he was considered the best, and that no time bandits ever came because his reputation was that infamous. Unbeknownst to him, he's redundant to Thawne already protecting World War I. Gwyn also points out that averting Alun's death, besides no one else knowing who he is, would be a pointless paradox because it directly inspired the invention of time travel.
- Snipe Hunt: Mike the Fixer was given the time police version of this. He presumed it was because he's considered the best, but it takes Gwyn to point out to him that his charge is the direct inciting incident for the invention of time travel, so no one else besides Gwyn would bother messing with it. Mike is infuriated to discover he's basically been put on a pointless assignment to get him out of the way.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: While the Legends have both good reasons and intentions, they are changing history at the end of the day. So, it's no real surprise that there would be some force or organization that would take them to task over their actions...which is how the episode (and series) ends, with their arrest.
- Tempting Fate: Upon landing at World War I, Gary just had to say "This mission is going to be a cinch." The others call him out for jinxing them from the get-go.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Mike the Fixer knows the Legends because they are all famous. Including Gary, which to everyone else is actually touching enough.
- Time Skip: After the initial Immediate Sequel above, the episode jumps a month and then another 6 weeks ahead, to the Legends reuniting in the mansion.
- Time Travel Escape: How Alun gets saved in the end, swapping him with his robot duplicate.
- Trapped in the Past: Gary gets stranded in prehistoric times, and spends weeks with a couple of cavemen building a door to get to Constantine's mansion.
- War Is Hell: The battle sequence is surprisingly dark.
- Wham Line:
- First one:
Gary: You're not actually planning on going on this mission, right?
Sara: Gary, I might be retired, but I'm still a Legend.
Gary: Well yeah, but you're now a pregnant Legend.- Second one, to set up the Once a Season Cliffhanger:
Zari: What's with the aggressive jewelry? (referring to Mike's handcuffs)
Mike: Oh, this? You like? Because you're all about to get your very own. Guys, COME ON OUT, THE LEGENDS ARE HERE! (the Legends get surrounded by Time Police) - What Have I Become?: Gideon, after the Legends (in particularly Astra) call her out. The pain she feels is so bad that Rogue Gideon almost talks her into erasing her memories.
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: Android Gideon gets defeated halfway through, and the Legends finally get the Waverider back, but then Mike betrays them. And there's still a good portion of the episode left.
