Previously on Legends of Tomorrow, Rip was being hunted by bounty hunter Kronos and the Waverider got knocked out of the timestream, landing the Legends in Star City in 2046, where chaos reigns and the Green Arrow is not Oliver Queen.
Our ragtag team of misfit Legends finds themselves faced with Green Arrow 2.0, who starts shooting at them, despite them name-dropping Oliver Queen. He’s relentless enough that they all scurry back to the ship, STAT.
Once they’re safe from the bombardment of arrows, Sara wants to know WTF is happening.
She thought the future was secure for now. But Rip assures her that this future isn’t set yet, and the best thing they can do is fix the ship and get the hell out of dodge. But to fix the ship, they’re going to need something from Smoak Technologies (the artist formerly known as Palmer Tech).
Rip says Sara and Ray can’t go out into their own timestreams, but Sara tells Rip to go float himself. Sara knows Star City better than anyone, and the team is useless without her.
Plus, she could kick his ass in her sleep, so she dares him to stop her.
Sara leads Rip and the Thieving Duo towards Laurel’s old apartment and Snart teases her, saying her dad must have sucked at his job as police captain if this is the shape of his city. Sara’s eyes grow sad, and she says there’s no way her family and friends are alive if this is what the city has come to.
I’m probably going to ignore most of the whole Jax/Ray/Kendra flirt circle storyline because it was just filler I think, but I WILL give you a photo of Kendra channeling her inner shipyard welder.
Outside, the ground crew hears a boom, and suddenly they’re surrounded by a motorcycle gang. They get out of the firefight by hiding in an abandoned school bus. Green Arrow 2.0 drops in to fight but gets shot, and Sara runs out to help. Turns out he was wearing kevlar, so he’s fine, which is convenient since Sara has questions. Starting with, where the hell is Oliver Queen.
Green Arrow 2.0 says, “Oliver Queen is dead.”
Green Arrow 2.0 says that no one has seen Oliver since the Uprising 15 years ago, since “He” brought an army. Sara asks who “he” is, and Deathstroke appears as an answer. Sara whips her weapons out on instinct and asks how he got off of Lian Yu. She asks how Slade’s even still alive, and Deathstroke laughs. He takes off his mask; it’s not Slade, it’s his son. Deathstroke Jr. heard that her last name was Lance and asks if she’s related to “the late” Captain Lance and Sara twitches a bit at the thought of her father dying. But she bounces back in a heartbeat, saying she knew Slade. He doesn’t question how she still has a baby face but instead calls his army in. Green Arrow 2.0 shoots a rope arrow in the air and gets them outta there.
Once they’re alone again, Sara tries to wrap her head around this future. Green Arrow 2.0 explains that Oliver tried to raise an army, but everyone evacuated. He couldn’t rally enough troops to save the city. Rip knows Sara is blaming herself but asks her to stay focused on the mission. Rip tells Green Arrow 2.0 that they need one of Felicity Smoak’s old projects, and he says he can take them to where they’re located.
Much to Sara’s dismay, that place is the old Arrow Cave, now abandoned and looking more like a cave than ever. A voice yells from the shadows, ordering them to get out, and AARP Oliver Queen steps out, whiskers and all.
Sara tells him that everyone thinks he’s dead, and he mopes about saying he might as well be. He calls Green Arrow 2.0 “John” and it’s reveal that he is John Diggle, Jr. But ever since his dad died, he hasn’t felt worthy of the name, so he goes by Connor Hawke now. Sara asks Oliver what happened. To him, to everyone. Oliver says that everyone’s gone, but doesn’t say who is dead and who just fled. He also throws a little shade Sara’s way, saying that he can’t blame Sara and Ray leaving entirely, but they never came back, and he sometimes wonders if it would have made a difference.
Anyway, he’s done with this trip down memory lane, so he tells them where to find Felicity’s old equipment and the code to get in and tells them to let him mope around in peace.
Connor decides to go with Rip and Sara, since he doesn’t really have much to do anyway, and Sara asks Rip if he knew this was Star City’s fate. Rip assures her this is just a potential future, and as long as they get back to 2016 eventually, everything will be just fine.
They split up, and Rip finds what they need to fix Gideon, but there’s an explosion, and Deathstroke Jr.’s army flies in. Sara, Rip and Connor are outgunned, outmanned, outnumbered, out-planned, but Snart and Rory show up just in time. As the fighting dies down, Sara realizes that Connor is missing. Taken.
Sara wants to save Connor, but Rip says it’s pointless since this world isn’t even real. But it feels real to Sara; he wanted her to get in touch with her humanity, and she did. She can’t just turn it off now. She tries to ignore her feelings and convince herself it’s fake, but she’s really worried about this future; if it does become true, shouldn’t Connor be alive in it?
Jax and the Professor agree with Sara, but Rip isn’t having it. Sara confronts him now, asking why they’re only allowed to break the rules and laws of space and time when it benefits saving his wife and son. Rip says it’s more than that, that he’s trying to save the whole world, and that Sara is being selfish, risking everything to save her own timeline.
But there’s a fire in Sara that can’t be doused by some man’s words, so he gives her an hour to do whatever she wants. One hour, then they leave, with or without her.
Sara goes back to Arrow HQ and tells Oliver that Connor has been kidnapped and that she needs his help. She hands him a badass retractable bow and says that Star City needs a Green Arrow, even if it is an older model.
After 90 minutes, Rip is ready to leave. Stein tries to explain to Rip how Sara must feel, seeing her city crumble like this, but Gideon lets them know that they should really get moving. The Professor says he would rather get stuck in this future with Sara than be anywhere else without her; they’re a team, for better or worse, when will Rip learn that?
Connor is about to be publicly executed by Deathstroke Jr. when someone interrupts to bring Sara forward, saying she was caught on the perimeter. Deathstroke Jr. laughs, knowing this is sloppy for someone from the League of Assassins, but being too proud to realize how right he is and that he got played until Sara tells him flat out that she was just a distraction.
Oliver and his superarm (his real one was lopped off at some point in the last 30 years) drop in and there’s more fighting. Oliver and Deathstroke Jr. end up going head to head, and Mr. Queen is pretty spry for an old guy. Things start to look a little overwhelming down on the ground for Sara and Connor when Team Legends storms in to help. Sara asks how they convinced Rip to let them help her, and they tell her it was his idea in the end.
Everyone fights and eventually the Green Arrows take down Deathstroke Jr. Oliver thanks his friends and their new crew for helping out, and tells the little Arrow he’s proud of him, and his father would be too.
They head back to the Arrow Cave, and Oliver says he has a lot of work to do. Sara is tempted to stay and help, but Oliver knows that what she’s doing is important too, so they say their goodbyes.
I will jump back into the flirt circle story, because after Ray, Jax and Stein stop talking to EACH OTHER about Kendra and talk to her instead, she says her life is too complicated for a relationship right now, what with the whole barista turned hawk goddess thing.
In his office, Rip is trying to figure out where to go next when Sara comes in and thanks him for sending in the cavalry. He tells her that she was right, and that the future-any future-is always worth fighting for. But he does want one thing from her: A promise that she’s a team member first, a rogue canary second. She smirks and says she can handle that.
As they get ready to head off again, to a new place and time, Rip asks Gideon if Jax and Ray fixed up the ship okay. Gideon says that actually Ms. Saunders did most of the work while the men putzed around and acted like schoolboys.
So off they go again, our little Legends, to find themselves and save each other somewhere and sometime new.
What did you think of “Star City 2046”? Two more weeks until Ali Liebert!
