This week on Legends of Tomorrow (S7E11), the gang’s plan to steal the Waverider from the Robo-Legends went south startlingly fast even for them, forcing Gwyn to step up and formulate a new strategy: Behrad would infiltrate the ship as his dead counterpart, while Sara, Nate, and Spooner would distract Evil Gideon’s robots by causing more historical aberrations in Sarajevo, 1914.
1. Everybody Dies!
Holy cow, I did not expect the Robo-Legends to slaughter everyone from the Fixed Point bar, and every other time traveler in Bosnia: the old bartender! The obnoxious but ultimately OK teens! And Thawne! Even he didn’t deserve to go out getting tricked by Robo-Sara. Of course, his death meant Sara was faced with the issue of who would become the new Fixer, making sure WWI does unfold, which left me worried throughout the whole episode that this would finally be the end of her. It wasn’t, thanks to Nate employing some reverse psychology on his dumbass of a counterpart, which was an interesting punishment; I would’ve thought Robo-Sara would be redeemed and take her place instead.
2. God Bless Gwyn
A lot of characters prove themselves to be smarter and braver than they ever thought possible this week: Zari defeats her doppelganger and Evil Gideon by simply pulling the plug on them, while Astra safely crash-lands the Waverider, finally kisses Behrad, and gives Gideon a chance to prove herself. Then there’s Gwyn: despite a PTSD attack after seeing Robo-Nate injure Sara, he uses everything he’s learned from the crew (especially Zari and Ava) to calm down, and get her to safety before the oversized dummy catches them. I felt so happy for him, and prouder still seeing him devise the plan to steal the Waverider, as well as how he picked up a bat to help Sara before the final fight.
3. Computers Are Dumb
Behrad’s infiltration was dependent on poisoning Robo-Ava and Astra, forcing them to use the bathroom, which he turned into a door to the manor dimension, allowing Gary to shove the two cyborgs into Hell. (Yes, it is funny Robo-Astra says “what the hell” before being pushed in.) Now while it was great to see the ruthless pair get brought down by stomach and bowel problems, I have to wonder why Evil Gideon made it necessary for the Robo-Legends to eat: did she really not think it was a flaw that needed to be corrected? Likewise, Spooner tricks Robo-Gary and her double into killing each other by simply pretending to be Robo-Spooner — or maybe Robo-Gary takes too much after the real one, I dunno.
4. The World’s Most Epic Nerd Fight
Sara, Nate and Spooner introducing Sarajevo to the wonders of Big Mouth Billy Bass and Star Wars spoilers was a lot of fun, but the funniest moment this week had to be Zari and Robo-Zari duking it out. I’m always a sucker for a homage to the mirror scene from Duck Soup, as well as the scene with the two Kirks in the Star Trek episode “Whom Gods Destroy,” but what made this great was how neither Zari could actually fight, yet it was scored to an epic trailer music track, as if it was truly the Great Battle to Determine Who was the Real Legend Once and For All. (I guess if Gary ate the wrong Zari, it would’ve certainly been one way to bring back the original permanently.)
5. The Exterminator
By the end, Evil Gideon and the Robo-Legends are defeated, there’s a new Fixer protecting 1914 from time travelers, and the gang have a new Waverider, so what now? Well, Gideon returns to the manor looking for Gary, and gets killed by a burnt Robo-Astra, who literally dragged herself out of Hell — oh no! Now who will be the ship’s A.I.? It’s dreadfully ironic too, since Gideon had come to see Astra — who gave her her body — as a surrogate mother. We should’ve seen it coming though: this episode was chockful of Terminator nods (complete with Robo-Nate developing an outrageous Austrian accent whenever struck in the head), and as any fan of those movies should know, burning a cyborg is hardly an effective way to slow them down — if anything, it just makes them faster!
Continued belowBonus Thoughts:
– Astra’s magic looks very Scarlet now; speaking of her, I can’t help but feel the mother-daughter relationship she’s developed with Gideon was introduced partly because of their height difference. (I actually cackled, “She’s so tall!” when they hugged.)
– I love that Gwyn’s reaction to hearing we put a man on the Moon was to assume that they committed a crime.
– Zari saying “My agent warned me against playing villains” feels like a very sly dig at Muslims always being terrorists on TV.
– I wondered why Ava was injured and largely offscreen here, then remembered who directed this episode, so yeah, that makes sense.
Thanks to the Winter Olympics, we’re going have to wait a few weeks for the penultimate episode of the season: sigh, at least we can speculate on who Donald Faison is playing right? (Please don’t be a red herring, please don’t be a red herring.)
