The Legends discover Commander Steel has become a NASA engineer and has hidden his part of the Spear of Destiny in the Apollo 11 flag pole, while Thawne has taken the place of one of the Apollo 13 astronauts in an attempt to recover it.
Tropes:
- Aesop Amnesia: Once again, two members of the team (Nate in regards with his father and Amaya in regards to her village) try to tamper with the timeline to fix their own personal problems, obviously having forgotten that things like that don't go well. Although in the latter case it is likely Nate told Amaya about her future simply out of anger.
- Artistic License – History:
- The Apollo 11 flag was actually knocked down by the exhaust of the module taking off. On the other hand, history was already changed by Henry putting the Spear fragment inside, so he may have made the whole thing resilient enough to withstand the exhaust.
- Apollo 13 was not the seventh manned mission to the moon. It was the seventh manned Apollo mission, but only the fifth to go in lunar space. Two missions remained in Earth orbit for their duration.
- Artistic License – Physics:
- Yes, Eobard wouldn't be able to run without gravity, but he should still could have made repairs to the capsule with his superspeed, and react in Bullet Time during his fight with Ray.
- Spaceships need to be airtight for obvious reasons, no matter how small Ray would get there is no hole he could use to get on board. Unless he went down to subatomic size, in which case, he could shrink between the atoms.
- Artistic License – Space: The stars should not be visible during the day on the moon due to glare coming off the lunar surface.
- Brought Down to Badass: Even without his speed, Thawne is still skilled enough in combat to evenly fight Ray in his suit. Possibly justified, in that he was likely not using speed at all to keep the Black Flash away for as long as possible. Thawne's combat skills were shown previously during his three-on-one fight with Barry, Oliver, and the original Firestorm. In fact, he fought Ollie on equal terms after being injected with speed-draining nanites (strangely enough, Ray appears to have forgotten designing these).
- Brought Down to Normal: Getting stuck in low gravity apparently deprives Thawne of his superspeed. Likely self-inflicted, since his realization that the Black Flash is drawn to him when he uses his speed.
- Call-Back:
- Thawne mentions that he had honestly enjoyed working beside Caitlin and Cisco at STAR Labs when he was impersonating Harrison Wells. However, this version of Thawne never actually worked with them in the first place.
- Thawne mentions that the anti-speedster weaponry in the ship was designed by him, further implying a previous history between himself and Rip Hunter as he alluded to in the Flash season 1 finale.
- When Sara and Rip argue over the time-scattering, she brings up how she was nearly hanged as a witch as a result.
- Calling Parents by Their Name: Nate tells Henry he calls his father "Hank" as they have a bad relationship.
- Cardboard Prison: Turns out Eobard can escape the brig at well, by just phasing through it. He does willingly remain there until the end of the episode, to allow the Legends to land the ''Waverider'' safely.
- Creative Closing Credits: More footage of Stein singing "Banana Boat Song" plays over the closing credits.
- Cruel to Be Kind: Amaya tells Henry about the potential side-effects of altering the timeline, much to Nate's frustration.
- Enemy Mine: Ray and Thawne have to cooperate in order to be rescued from the moon.
- Explosive Decompression: Of the correct sort, Henry is blown out into space as soon as he opens the outer doors but doesn't explode.
- Genius Bruiser:
- Henry is fluent in 7 languages and knows enough to become a NASA engineer, besides being a World War II soldier.
- Eobard Thawne, naturally. In fact, he's able to put up a good fight against Ray even without his speed.
- Even Ray can kick some ass by this point, although he only wins the fight with Thawne by blasting him with his suit.
- Guest-Star Party Member: Henry joins the team for the duration of the episode.
- Heroic BSoD: Nate breaks down into tears after his grandfather's Heroic Sacrifice.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Henry sacrifices himself in order to save the Waverider during reentry.
- Historical In-Joke: Business as usual for the Legends, but the fate of Apollo 13 is drastically different than how the audience knows it. Barring a Gas Leak Cover-Up by NASA, Ron Howard and Tom Hanks have a very different movie about it in the Arrowverse.
- Hypocritical Humor: Thawne doesn't think too highly of puns, yet at the course of the episode he occasionally makes a few at Ray's expense (regarding his powers).
- Idiot Ball: Nate, in a moment of anger, lets slip to Amaya the fate of her village in the future.
- Internal Reveal:
- Henry learns about Dr. Midnite's death and the side-effects of time travel.
- Amaya learns about the destruction of her village and her granddaughter Mari.
- It's All About Me: Nate flat-out admits that he doesn't care about the effects his actions could have on the timeline, his own family is worth more to him.
- Lame Pun Reaction: Thawne is not impressed with Ray's quip about him being "tied up at the moment."Thawne: Puns. The lowest form of humour.
- Leader Wannabe: Rip who throughout the entirety of the episode tries to ineffectually lead the team and come up with ideas only for the team to have already come up with better ones. It eventually leads him to realise that Sara has become a much more capable leader in his stead then he ever was.
- Manly Tears: Nate breaks down after Henry's Heroic Sacrifice and cries on Amaya's shoulder.
- Million to One Chance: Stein gives the Waverider "a snowflake's chance in hell" to enter the atmosphere safely, as Mick puts it. Of course they manage to do it, though Henry pulls a Heroic Sacrifice.
- Missed Him by That Much: The episode starts in 1965, with Rip dropping off Henry. As Rip leaves, practically seconds after, we see in the background Rip enter with the Legends, looking for Henry. It helps that the second Rip is wearing a blue suit instead of his usual attire.
- More Hero than Thou: In order to stabilize the Waverider during reentry, someone will have to open the cargo bay doors. Rip and Sara are ready to do it, but Henry beats them in getting there. By the time Nate arrives and tries to take his place, Henry has already shut the inner door. It's possible Nate could have survived the Explosive Decompression by "steeling on" and using his enhanced strength to hold on until all the air rushed out, but there's no guarantee of that.
- Not Evil, Just Misunderstood: What Thawne claims to be during his dialogue with Ray. Ray naturally doesn't buy it.
- "Not So Different" Remark:
- Thawne makes the claim that Ray isn't so different from him, and makes valid points as to why that is.
- After Rip gets despondent wondering what his purpose on the ship is now that Sara has become a more capable leader Sara says this makes him an outcast and a misfit, a.k.a. a Legend.
- Oh, Crap!: Henry realizes from what the Legends are saying about Apollo 13 that the timeline has been altered.
- Omniglot: According to Amaya, Henry is fluent in 7 languages.
- Reed Richards Is Useless: Thawne points out that Ray could have used his white dwarf technology to power an entire city. Instead, he chose to make himself a suit, so he can be a superhero. By that same token, there's a lot Thawne could have done with his genius.
- Refuge in Audacity:
- Stein's idea to distract the NASA mission control room while Jax disabled communications was to loudly sing "The Banana Boat Song", at one point shouting "Everybody!" to start a singalong. Only Mick joins in.
- Downplayed: Upon learning that he is (for the moment) stuck on the Moon, Ray records a video aboard the moon lander concerning his situation... and it is blatantly plagiarized from The Martian.
- Retirony: Henry really wants to go back to his own time now that his duty of guarding his piece of the Spear of Destiny is over. His Heroic Sacrifice sadly cuts that short.
- Shout-Out:
- After Ray learns he's stuck on the Moon: "Now I know how Matt Damon felt."
- He takes it one step further when he makes a video recording of him describing his situation, even saying "I'm gonna have to science the shit out of this." Except the word "shit" gets cut out by some static.
- To Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, when Henry punches out Rip in the middle of a press conference then tells the reporters that Rip doesn't have his credentials, causing the frightened reporters to hurriedly show theirs to him. In addition, Amaya's description of Henry's ability to blend in is very similar to Indy's description of Marcus Brody to the Nazis (except it happens to be true in regards to Henry).
- Professor Stein spontaneously busting out "The Banana Boat Song" is likely meant to evoke the dinner scene from Beetlejuice.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: Nate seems to have taken Ray's advice at heart and tells Amaya that they have no future together.
- Standard Snippet: "Also sprach Zarathustra" starts to play when Ray steps onto the Moon's surface.
- Villain Has a Point: When Ray protests he's nothing like Thawne, Thawne points out that Ray could have used the ATOM suit's dwarf star reactor to provide the energy for a city but instead he used it to create powered armour and play superhero due to his ambition and desire to be someone more than he had been. Ray is unable to dispute the argument.
- Villains Out Shopping: Ray and Thawne's bickering leads to Ray quipping to Thawne if the Legionnaires should indulge in "karaoke night".
- We Need a Distraction: Stein provides one for Jax to disrupt NASA communications so they won't see Ray's barely-averted crash landing. How does he do it? In classic Victor Garber fashion: By singing! He even gets Mick to join in, though Mick is definitely not thrilled with it.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: We don't know if Jack Swigert
was killed by Thawne, based on his modifications to his Kill and Replace device. But Swigert has not been seen or mentioned since the end of the previous episode. There's also the matter of "Swigert" suddenly disappearing on the mission, so a spacecraft with three men comes back with only two aboard. - We Will Meet Again: Said almost word for word by Thawne to Ray, before he is forced to run away without the piece of the spear, as the Black Flash is approaching.
- Worf Had the Flu: Due to the effects of being in zero-gravity Thawne is unable to use his Super-Speed which allows Ray to fight him on a more even playing field. While he does get his speed back once the Waverider re-enters the Earth's atmosphere he's forced to leave without claiming the Spear of Destiny fragment since the Black Flash is coming.
- Window Love: Nate and Henry before the latter is sucked out of the Waverider.
