You always hear that phrase, “every ending is a new beginning.” In the case of Legends of Tomorrow, though, that’s doubly true–the ending of Season 5 is the beginning of Season 6 not once but twice. Spoilers follow for Legends of Tomorrow Season 6, Episode 7, “Back to the Finale Part II.”
“Back to the Finale Part II”
Don’t worry, you didn’t miss Back to the Finale Part I. It’s a Back to the Future Part II joke. Weirdly, I watched that movie literally the night before this episode aired by pure chance. The naming is definitely intentional and there are some thematic parallels, though it’s not as clear cut as some previous homages. In fact, looking back at the season and at next week’s preview, it sure seems like the whole season might be an homage to the classic 80s trilogy. They started out by going to the 1950s, they tried to fix their own timeline this week, and next they’re going to the Wild West.
This week, though, is clean-up time. While Sara is finding out that she’s a genetically-modified clone of herself, created by the man calling himself Bishop, most of the rest of the Legends are finding out that Sara is dead. Mick is having sex with an alien. Is Gary a Legend at this point? I’m still not sure.
Back In Space
Sara’s chunk of the story is pretty straight-forward. While Mick, Gary, and the Avas are working to save her, Sara is coming to terms with her new form. She persuades an Ava to rebuild a purely human version of her, but a poorly-timed badass move from Mick results in Bishop beginning to upload his consciousness to… somewhere. Sara has to decide between being a human-alien hybrid with the memories and jump-kicks of Sara Lance or letting Bishop execute his plan.
The rest of the Legends, meanwhile, have it a bit tougher. For Ava, that means mourning. To her, Sara is dead, and all she can do is watch the video of the love of her life–as filmed by David Bowie–saying that she’s planning to propose and that she has the ring and everything. The rest of the team is in mourning, too. But unlike Ava Sharpe and Emmett “Doc” Brown, they’re not ready to play by the rules of time travel so strictly, and once they find a board full of equations written by resident stoner Behrad, things go off the rails and suddenly the team is back in 1970s London where Charlie is playing a punk show.
Back In Time
Instead of doing a shot-for-shot remake of the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance (but instead it’s a punk show), things mostly happen outside the show, with the team trying to figure out how to make it happen without breaking the timeline.
The best scenes of the episode come from that second storyline. The first has Spooner going into the concert and running into Sara. Spooner has two things going for her–she wasn’t part of the team yet at that point, so she can’t break the timeline nearly so easily, and like Sara, she seems to be part alien, though neither of them knows that quite yet.
The two have the kind of heart-to-heart that only television strangers can have, imparting wisdom that the other one is going to need to hear in the coming episodes. Spooner is the newest member of the Legends, while Sara is the oldest, if only by virtue of having been introduced initially in Arrow Season 2. It’s an interesting juxtaposition to have these characters meet unknowingly, and for Sara to so effortlessly give Spooner the reassurance she needs. There’s no doubt that Sara is the captain of the Legends.
Back Together
The other comes when the Legends are trying to come up with a harebrained scheme to get Sara to propose to Ava before Kayla can abduct her. Nate steps away to use the restroom and Future Nate, from a terrible dystopian future, warns the Legends that their plan is incredibly stupid and not only doesn’t work, but make things way worse. It’s the kind of silliness that only Legends can pull off with a straight face. It’s utterly slapstick and yet totally works within the bounds of the show’s fiction.
The other really enjoyable bit is Sara and Ava reuniting and meeting up with the Legends. Sara and Ava have great chemistry that make them easily one of the best couples in the Arrowverse. Lois and Clark are up there already, but it’s Sara and Ava all the way. They’ve been through the shit together and come out stronger and stronger each time, with the story testing but never breaking their bond. For Sara to propose to Ava is incredibly satisfying, and for once I think the writers might know better than to kill one of them as soon as they tie the knot. It’s worth noting that Sara and Rory’s reunion is almost as heartwarming as Sara and Ava’s.
This episode acts as kind of a finale, insofar as it finishes out the “Sara is Missing” storyline, but we’re still left with questions. Kayla and Bishop are both seemingly dead at the end, but both are too charismatic and dangerous to simply disappear. They’re both going to be back. Now, though, the Legends are back together and we can see where the back half of the season is going.
