History Notes: Legends of Tomorrow Episode 217, "Aruba"

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Submitted by RJ Carter on Wed, 04/05/2017 - 08:43

The Legion of Doom got the Spear of Destiny. Eobard Thawne (MATT LETSCHER), the Reverse-Flash, used it to alter reality to his liking, and then destroyed it, stranding the Legends in a world irrevocably changed.

Their only hope lies in time travel, so that the Legends of Tomorrow can team up with... the Legends of Tomorrow?

Yes, to stop Thawne and the Legion from corrupting the future, they need to go back to the Battle of the Somme (Episode 215, Fellowship of the Spear) and prevent the Legion from taking the Spear from the Legends. But first they need to find Rip Hunter (ARTHUR DARVILL) and restore the Waverider to it's full size, after it was shrunken by Thawne using Ray Palmer's (BRANDON ROUTH) technology. (Apparently his Atom suit doesn't just shrink Ray -- it also has a Shrink Ray!) That's nothing that three minutes of plot can't resolve easily enough, and soon they're on their way to the Battle of the Somme, again -- not Aruba 2017, which is the preference of Mick Rory (DOMINICK PURCELL).

Oh, one thing: If they're successful, they'll cease to exist, because the Legion of Doom would never have obtained the Spear in the first place to make this trip necessary. Time paradoxes are fun. Since they're not going to survive, that pretty much makes the Legends a "Suicide Squad" this mission. And to be successful, they have to avoid any interaction with their prior incarnations to avoid breaking time.

They break time.

The adventure is one gruesome death after another as, one by one, the Legends of Tomorrow from 2017-B fall to the Legion of Doom -- now joined by Eobard Thawne from the future (not the far future, just the 2017-B Thawne; no mention of where Thawne-Prime is at that moment; but I'm getting ahead of myself).

WIth two teams of Legends fighting, the Legion faces defeat, even with members of Team 2 dying left and right. It appears they've won -- until Thawne returns with his newest recruits: Eobard Thawne and Eobard Thawne and Eobard Thawne... well... you get the idea. He's recruited himself from multiple places throughout the time stream. This is something we saw Hunter Zolomon / Zoom do in the second season of THE FLASH, and that never seemed to break time one little bit. I guess the rules of time only apply if you're not a speedster.

As the powerd and unpowered Legends take on the Army of Thawne, the Spear ends up momentarily in the hands of Sara Lance (CAITY LOTZ), who fears using it because of the darkness within her. But she does use it and experiences a brief moment with her dead sister, Laurel (KATIE CASSIDY), before ending up right back at the moment where she held the Spear. Thawne takes it from her and prepares to wipe the Legends from ever having existed in the first place -- only to find out that Sara made one or two minor alterations: like depowering the Spear, and putting Thawne squarely in the sites of Zoombie, the Black Flash (an undead version of Hunter Zolomon from the Speed Force). The Black Flash pulls Thawne's own trademark move on him -- a vibrating hand through the heart -- and Eobard becomes Thawne of the Dead. Maybe. It's time travel, and who knows how many other iterations of Thawne are out there, even if all the other Thawne's evaporate upon this one's death.

To put time right, the Legends drop off memory-wiped Legion members Malcolm Merlyn (JOHN BARROWMAN), Leonard Snart (WENTWORTH MILLER) and Damien Darhk (NEAL MCDONOUGH) to their respective points of time. They're preparing to also bring Amaya (MAISIE RICHARDSON-SELLERS) to 1942, but she doesn't wish to go back just yet, opting to stay and see how things play out between her and Nate (NICK ZANO). So the crew decide it's time for some R&R and let Mick plot the course -- to Aruba, 2017.

But the time storm they caused in World War I by meeting themselves has continued unabated, and it throws the ship out of the temporal zone and crashing through skyscrapers in Los Angeles, 2017.

But Los Angeles 2017 also happens to be Los Angeles 3017 -- and Los Angeles 1 Million BC. Modern buildings stand side-by-side with twisting silver structures, while dinosaurs run wild. The last time I saw this scene in DC Comics...