Nate: Sometimes we screw things up for the better.
Sara: That's a good motto, we should use that.
Sara: That's a good motto, we should use that.
Rip Hunter has formed a new organization to replace the Time Masters — the Time Bureau, thus putting the Legends into forced retirement. Bored by six months of mundane lives, they jump at the chance to prove themselves worthy and get back in the field when Mick encounters Julius Caesar in Aruba.
Tropes:
- Almighty Janitor: Saviors of the world a few times over, one's a deadly assassin and the other a promising entrepreneur and tech prodigy, yet Sara and Ray find themselves in low dead-end jobs in their forced retirement.
- Back-to-Back Badasses: Sara and Agent Sharpe demonstrate their effectiveness working together when surrounded by Roman legionnaires.
- Badass in a Nice Suit: Rip has traded in his Badass Longcoat for a sharp, navy blue suit, standard for agents of the Time Bureau. He has also shaved off his beard, presumably to look more professional.
- Bait-and-Switch: When Nate says he has a girl waiting for him, he goes to the park to meet up with a dark curly-haired Black woman...who is not Amaya.
- Blatant Lies: Sara, Ray, and Nate trying to convince each other that they enjoy their new lives. It takes all of a few seconds for them to give up, admit the truth, and set out to get the Waverider back.
- Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: The Time Bureau reports that while in Aruba, Rory has a racked up a collection of petty larceny reports, running up a room service tab...and a serious collection of STDs.
- Breaking the Fellowship: Briefly from the audience's perspective, but six months of narrative time for the Legends as they're forcibly disbanded by the Time Bureau and go their separate ways.
- Brick Joke: Where has Mick spent his time away from the Waverider? Aruba, where else?
- Bullying a Dragon: Sara's manager thinks it's a good idea to talk down to a girl who is clearly very proficient with knives.
- Call-Back: Jax and Nate refer to how they have experience dealing with legions, referring to the Legion of Doom.
- The Cameo: Wally appears in the opening montage helping Nate dispatch a group of thugs.
- Cassandra Truth: The Bureau dismisses the Legends' report that Mick has Julius Caesar...especially when, by the time the Bureau acts, Caesar escaped and Mick mistakes a college fratboy for him. The Legends only manage to verify Mick's claim when they say him with one of Caesar's gold coins.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- Ray uses Upswipz to distract some fratboys that are ready to join Caesar.
- Sara's experience as a sales clerk allows her to recognize the trap Caesar has set for the Bureau. (it reminded her of her store's trick to lure shoplifters)
- Cliffhanger Copout: After the disastrous Season 2 finale, the Legends wander the streets trying to figure out how to fix the mess they've made...and Rip shows up with his new organization, who easily deals with the problem.
- Combination Attack: Sara and Agent Sharpe (who is still cuffed, no less) do an awesome combination attack on a few Roman soldiers.
- Conflicting Loyalty: Rip is torn between his old friends and the Time Bureau. Eventually he relents to let them have the Waverider and do their thing, since he knows there's no way he can stop them.
- Continuity Nod:
- While in the Time Bureau, they see King Arthur who recognizes Rip and calls him "Dark Sorcerer".
- Sara avoids eye contact with him, presumably recalling his wife.
- When they return to the Waverider for the first time, the simulation the current class is using is about the Apollo mission during "Moonshot".
- Gideon uses her human avatar as a profile pic for the Upswips distraction.
- Curb-Stomp Battle:
- In The Stinger, some Belgian Imperialists try to plunder Zambesi. Amaya uses her totem to summon no less than four animal spirits at once, who quickly send them packing.
- Sara takes on Caesar on the beach in Aruba. She knocks him out so easily that it can't even really be called a fight.
- Mick confronts Caesar after the latter broke his nose. This time around, he knocks him out with one hit.
- During the forced retirement, Nate is helping out fighting crime in Central City. Then along comes Wally and quickly subdues the criminals, much to Nate's chagrin.
- Dude, Where's My Respect?: The Legends really hate how the Time Bureau look down on them, especially since all of their hard work is looked at as the way how not to fix time.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: Sara points out the similarities of what Caesar is doing to a tactic to catch thieves at her old place of work.
- Face Palm: Sara when the "Caesar" Rory was fighting with is revealed to be a frat boy.
- Famed In-Story:
- The Legends are infamous within the Time Bureau for being a bunch of screw-ups who could barely save the day; a reputation their former comrade Rip does nothing to dispel.
- Felicity Smoak is also infamous within the tech community for nearly ruining Palmer Tech. The stigma also applies to Ray since he's the one who put her in charge.
- Hypocritical Humor: When running through a simulated recreation of the time the Legends saved the Apollo 13 command module from meteorites, the cadet team leader laughed that "only a complete idiot" would use the Waverider as a shield while staring at Sara (of course, that decision also results in Nate's grandfather making a Heroic Sacrifice, which wouldn't have been necessary, if Sara did the same thing as the cadet). When the teacher mentions the next scenario is saving New York from an atomic torpedo, Sara, Ray and Nate laugh and look over at Rip. Guess how he solved that one.
- Idiot Ball: Yes, Nate, check to see if your textbook changes back right in front (and in plain view) of the man who wants to conquer the world. The other Legends don't hesitate to call him out on this.
- Indulgent Fantasy Segue: Sara copes with her annoying manager by fantasizing about beating him down and slashing his throat. Yikes.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Rip isn't wrong that the Legends are terrible time travelers, as they screw up history all the time. Seriously, Bill & Ted are complete idiots with far less resources and they're more competent at time travel than the Legends.
- Jumped at the Call: Every member of the team except for Stein, who has some reservations at first, is more than happy to leave their dull lives behind to finally jump back into action again.
- Kick The Son Of A Bitch: Amaya summoning spirits to rip people apart is horrific, but the people she's killing are Belgian imperialists who were about to plunder her village and worse. Given their historical record of horrific atrocities, it's hard to feel sympathetic.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Apparently, the Legends breaking time caused something called Mallus to appear. None of the Legends are aware of it, but Rip believes they are the best hope for stopping it, despite Agent Sharpe's condescending view of them.
- Mood Killer: Stein's excitement about being a grandfather is hampered the minute the Waverider shows up. Subverted when he goes along anyway, since he considers his team family.
- Mythology Gag:
- After commandeering the Waverider and booting up Gideon for the first time in six months, Sara orders "Engines to power, turbines to speed!"
- When Stein sees the Waverider landing in front of his house, he shouts "Great Caesar's ghost!"
- Never My Fault: The other Legends are quick to blame Sara for the massive Time Crash they all helped cause. Similarly, Rip blames all of them despite having been part of the problem (in fact the two Rips were the first to see each other) himself. Of course, it was Sara's idea and she was the most adamant about it.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: By allowing Julius Caesar access to a history book on Ancient Rome, the Legends ensure that Caesar avoids his death and other mistakes to create a Roman Empire so powerful that it lasts through the 21st century.
- Noodle Incident: Both Sara and Ray have been declared legally undead during the time skip.
- Obvious Trap: Pointed out by Sara when Rip's agents are captured by the Romans.
- Overly Narrow Superlative: Nate proudly states he's the second most popular superhero In Central City, and Ray is the "first most popular" in Silicon Valley.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: The leader of the Belgians who tried to attack Amaya's village, no doubt to plunder and rape, gets killed by her (off-screen) quite gruesomely.
- Plot Hole: How Julius was speaking English in Aruba is explained, but how is he able to read a book written in English after having his memory erased?
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Caesar is dismissive of Sara because she is a woman and feels humiliated after getting defeated by her.
- Pun-Based Title: The episode's title is a pun on Arubanote and "Crossing the Rubicon" note .
- Putting the Band Back Together: The first half of this episode is devoted to the Legends minus Amaya reuniting after being forcibly disbanded by the Time Bureau.
- Rank Scales with Asskicking: Caesar is actually able to escape Mick's restraints and get the drop on the latter.
- Riches to Rags: Ray Palmer is reduced to working for a second-rate tech startup since he no longer has a company to go back to; he gave his controlling interest of Palmer Tech to Felicity who was subsequently voted out by the board for her inattention to it, and there's zero chance they'd welcome him back with open arms since they likely hold him responsible for nearly ruining it by appointing Felicity to run in the first place.
- Secret Test of Character: Rip implies that everything that happened with Caesar was something of a test of character for the Legends.
- A Simple Plan: In true Legends style, dropping off Caesar goes off the rails fast. Why? Because Caesar stole Nate's history book, allowing him to circumvent his assassination and conquer the world. Literally.
- Self-Deprecation:
- During a recreation simulation of an old Legend mission, the team leader suggests using the Waverider as a shield for the space capsule against the meteorites, then laughs and says only a complete idiot would do that, then has one of the capsule's air tanks punctured via laser cannon so that it's pushed out of the way. It works perfectly and Sara is quite offended.
- Felicity's terrible job as CEO of Palmer Tech is also referenced.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Despite the impressive way they went Back-to-Back Badasses, Sharpe still insults Sara and refuses to thank her for the rescue.
- Thought You Were Dead: With realistic consequences. Ray being declared dead for over two years plus Felicity's botched management of Palmer Tech means his reputation is in tatters and he's no longer the awed tech guru he once was. In the same vein, Sara having been declared dead twice and having a massive gap in her job history (assuming she even has one) relegates her to a pitiful minimum wage job in spite of her skills.
- Timeline Altering Macguffin: Nate's history book.
- Took a Level in Badass: Amaya. She can now use her totem to summon at least four animal spirits at once instead of having to switch. And the best part? She doesn't even need to do any fighting herself.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Rip. He barely even bothers to tell the Legends what he's been doing and sends them out to pasture without so much as offering to let them join his new organization. There's also the fact he shut down Gideon for six months if not five years. At least unlike the rest of his agents, he still treats them with civility, if not quite respect — and vouches for them in private at the end.
- Ungrateful Bastard: None of the Time Bureau agents are particularly grateful to the Legends for saving their lives, save Rip, who lets them keep their old ship and privately admits to his agents that the Legends have their uses. Then again, it was the Legends' fault the mess was even created, so they have kind of a point there.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight:
- It takes Rory several seconds to care that Julius Casear is standing in front of him.
- The crowd also doesn't react to Time Agents or Rory disappearing in a flash of light.
- Wham Line: Mallus.
- What Happened to the Mouse?:
- Sara having to work a demeaning job because she was legally dead for years and has no career history makes sense, except that she is a close friend of the mayor, who freely admits he chooses his employees more based on trust than qualification.
- After such a big deal is made about the Time Bureau somehow missing Julius Caesar being time-displaced, they don't seem worried about this at all once it's confirmed to be true, and we get no answer about it. Although by the end of the episode, Rip implies everything with Caesar has been a Secret Test of Character to see if the Legends are ready to face Mallus.
- What the Hell, Hero?:
- Sara tears Rip a new one for sending them out to pasture, especially since in his words, he had nothing left to teach her. He replies that history breaking proved him wrong, and that their messy behavior could no longer be tolerated.
- Nate calls out Rip for forcing Amaya to break up with him, only for Rip to reveal it was her choice and her choice alone.
- Year Outside, Hour Inside: Rip shows up with the Time Bureau team to put the Legends' mess back together. Sara remarks that he just left them fifteen minutes ago. For him, though, it's been five years of forming the Time Bureau and cleaning up after them.
