With the Waverider destroyed by a lookalike ship, the Legends have to figure out a way to travel back in time and prevent this from happening, while avoiding suspicion in 1925 Odessa.
Tropes:
- Bavarian Fire Drill: The Time Bureau has a protocol, Rule 44, for when a mission goes sideways where they assuage the suspicions of witnesses by pretending to be a circus. The team utilize this to try and cover both for their presence and the previous night's Zaguron invasion.
- Big Applesauce: The Legends need to head to New York in order to find Gwyn Davies, considered the Father of Time Travel.
- Blatant Lies: Nate and Ava aren't able to keep up their masquerade towards the Sheriff for very long, especially after Ava blurts out that the Sheriff will hear back from President Warren G. Harding, despite the latter already being dead and Calvin Coolidge being president.
- Boom, Headshot!: Hoover tries to shoot Nate in the head, only for the latter to instinctively shift into his steel form, causing the bullet to ricochet and hit Hoover's head instead. He doesn't look too bad afterwards.
- Circus of Magic: The Legends planned to incorporate their various powers into their circus cover before scrapping the plan entirely.
- Conveniently Unverifiable Cover Story: Nate tries to employ this by masquerading as Hoover in order to get the safe. Unfortunately, the local sheriff ends up seeing through it eventually and calls in the real deal.
- The Determinator: J. Edgar Hoover, as Nate keeps commenting on. The man even throws himself on top of the Legends' car to keep chasing them.
- Disposing of a Body: After the Legends accidentally kill Hoover, Ava has Gary eat his corpse to get rid of the evidence.
- Entertainingly Wrong: J. Edgar Hoover, who mistakes the Legends for a gang of bank robbers.
- Friendship Moment: Astra and Spooner call each other best friends.
- Get Back to the Future: The crux of the first arc of the season. The Legends are stuck in 1925 and need to find a way to Time Travel back to 2021.
- Heroic BSoD: After the Legends accidentally kill Hoover, Ava collapses as the despair over their situation (and the effect it's having on the timeline) finally overwhelms her.
- Heroic RRoD: Astra's attempt to recreate the Waverider with a resurrection spell she hasn't mastered yet causes her nose to bleed and her to eventually collapse.
- Hidden Depths: Zari is able to sew Circus costumes out of several amenities within Gloria's home.
- Historical Domain Character: J. Edgar Hoover appears, after being alerted to suspicious characters (the Legends) by the local sheriff.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Hoover ends up getting killed when he shoots Nate's steel form and the bullet ricochets back to him.
- Hope Spot: The Legends recover the emergency safe from the Waverider, only to find that Mick had previously borrowed the time courier it contained for a beer run and never returned it.
- Immediate Sequel: The episode picks up right after the Season 6 finale.
- Improvised Clothes: The Legends rework Gloria's fabric objects like curtains and pillowcases into circus clothing.
- In the Past, Everyone Will Be Famous: The Legends up running into current Bureau Investigator and future FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover...and accidentally kill him.
- Lampshade Hanging: When the team's only time courier runs out of power, Zari notes that they never work when they need them too.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: When asked by a local what their gang is called, Behrad tells her they're called "Legends...of Tomorrow." The lady tells him it's not catchy enough.
- Lock-and-Load Montage: The Legends undergo one as they prepare to go back and prevent the other Waverider from destroying theirs...only for their time courier to stop working.
- Make a Wish: This is how the human Gideon is created, with Astra inadvertently finishing the incantation she tried to use to recreate the Waverider by wishing that "Gideon was here" while talking to Spooner.
- Naked on Arrival: Gideon's human form is nude upon creation, as a "birth" metaphor to her gaining a true physical form for the first time. Her modesty is preserved by a combination of Toplessness from the Back shots coupled with Scenery Censor provided by the rubble and a convenient Lens Flare Censor on her chest when she stands up.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
- The Legends attempt to divert Hoover's attention from Spooner's mother by pretending to be the bank robbers he's been looking for. Unfortunately, this leads to a shootout that results in Hoover's accidental death.
- Also, the reason the sheriff called Hoover is because of Nate trying to pose as Hoover. If he had just pretended to be a typical federal agent or the like instead, the real Hoover likely wouldn't have gotten involved at all.
- Astra trying to piece the ship back together also creates yet another explosion.
- No Equal-Opportunity Time Travel: Sara lampshades the fact that Nate's biggest asset in 1925 is that he is a well-educated white male and can thus go and do things the other team members cannot.
- Pocket Dimension: The key that Constantine gave Zari before departing opens doors to his personal hideaway, a pocket dimension designed to look like his mansion.
- Present Absence: John's absence is noted several times throughout the episode, especially by Astra, who laments that she doesn't have his abilities.
- Ripple Effect Indicator: Ava moans that, with the Waverider gone, they don't even have Gideon to let them know how badly they've screwed up the timestream.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: The Legends plan to go back in time to before the Waverider was destroyed and save it. And they justify any damage their prolonged presence does to the timeline by saying that succeeding will undo everything anyway.
- Shout-Out: In reference to Marc Guggenheim, Sara introduces the team to the townsfolk as the "Guggenheim Circus".
- Skewed Priorities: A local doesn't mind bank robbery, but she objects to the Legends taking another gang's name.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- The Legends and their usual antics end up attracting more attention than they should, which ends up putting Spooner's mom, a single woman of color who lives alone, at risk of getting arrested. When Spooner warns them of this, they stop their plans for a circus.
- Their actions also lead to Hoover being on their tail. He keeps chasing them, thinking they're criminals, and ends up dead after shooting at Nate, who uses his steel powers to protect himself.
- Ava, who is uptight about maintaining the timeline on a normal day and isn't happy about being stuck in 1925, cracks under the pressure to not screw things up once Hoover is killed.
- Mick may have been a long-time member of the Legends, but he was still irresponsible. He took a back-up device for a beer run, and ends up screwing over the Legends in the process when they really needed it.
- The team's overreliance on both the ship's tech and Constantine's magic ends up hurting them when they lose both and have to scramble to solve their problem.
- Finally, as the sole white male human (Gary is an alien, after all), Sara points out Nate is the only team member who won't have a hard time in the 1920s.
- Title Drop: When discussing a name for their bank robbery gang, Behrad suggests Legends of Tomorrow. Also, when they settle on a different name, it's the Bullet Blondes.
- Weirdness Censor: Invoked by the Legends who pretend to be circus performers because people are willing to ignore weird stuff when the circus is in town.
- Wham Shot: The episode ends with Astra's resurrection spell creating a human Gideon from the remains of the Waverider.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Spooner and her mom are tied up and pretend to have been forced to cooperate with the "Midland Robbery Gang" when Hoover comes back, accusing them of having withheld evidence.
