Mick’s quest to be a good parent continues. He’s got weekend plans Lita initially rebuffs in favour of studying for a history test. That is until she sees a huge time ship appear in front of her. Where better to study history?
The rest of the Legends are waiting for the Loom light show to begin, Gary included who’s brought a plus one to the party. After his trip to Hell, he’s picked up an emotional support dog. An un-house (ship) broken support dog named Gary Jr. With Charlie ready to use the Loom there’s an argument on who it should be used for first. Astra and John vote for Astra’s mom, Nate and Zari vote for Behrad. Ava rallies for Sara being pulled out of her coma. Charlie decides for them, choosing Behrad.
In a downright gorgeous sequence she uses the Loom, finding Behrad’s thread, but when she tries to repair it and explosion rocks the Waverider causing a total shut down. They’ve got backup power, but most of Gideon’s functions are down. After the disaster of her first attempt, Charlie’s not sure she can use the Loom without her sisters. Astra offers to assist, but Charlie’s sure she won’t survive the experience. The explosion put all time-travel devices out of commission, much to Mick’s chagrin who wanted to take Lita to study history hand.
With the ship damaged, everyone on edge with each other, and Charlie unsure if she can use the Loom, Ava’s missing Sara’s steady guidance now more than ever. Maybe she heard her girlfriend’s plea for help, made she has a sixth sense to know when her team needs her most, but Sara wakes up. There’s a small issue, she can’t see. Gideon’s too damaged to determine why. There’s also a bigger issue when Ava touches Sara, Sara gets a flash of Ava- lying on the floor, in a pool of her own blood.
She hides the vision from Ava. Wrapping a blindfold over her eyes she’s ready to march out of the sickbay because a little blindness isn’t going to stop her from fixing her ship. Ava senses something is wrong but is willing to let it slide as they deal with the bigger problem. They run into Mick and Lita, who’s excited to learn the ship’s captained by a woman. But when they shake hands Sara gets another flash of Lita crying over Mick’s body. It’s clear something’s up with her, but Sara plays it off as her confusion to a kid being on board. Make that her confusion to a kid and a dog because right then they hear Gary Jr. somewhere in the ship.
Elsewhere on the ship, Astra catches Zari looking at photos of Behrad. When she asks about him Zari admits they weren’t close but were starting to be. Astra has her own theories on how the Loom works. She suggests Charlie’s got a few millennia of rust and just needs an easy thread, not muddled by time travel to get back in the groove. An easy thread like her mother’s. If Charlie gets it down once any attempt after would be easier. If she were to suggest the idea it would just get shot down, but if someone the Legends trusted put the notion forward, someone like Zari, they’d be more agreeable. At least that’s her logic. Logic Zari seems to agree with.
Meanwhile, Lita’s more interested in exploring the ship than studying for her test, but Mick insists she does, recruiting Nate for help. Nate introduces himself, shows off his powers, and makes Mick get snacks for them. Unfortunately for Mick, the fabricator is busted so he’s left to make food by hand. Gary, of all people, finds him and imparts actually good parenting advice. Not the strangest thing to happen on Legends, but it’s up there. Parenting is a lot of dull, thankless work but in the end, it’s worth it.
Constantine checks on Sara, giving her another vision of him dead when he touches her. He mentions Astra’s on the ship, which coupled with her visions has Sara’s alarms blearing. She doesn’t mention why she’s suspicious, just tasking Constantine to keep a close eye on her. While she and Ava are working on the ship together Charlie checks in with Sara. Charlie’s not buying Sara’s ‘there’s nothing wrong’ act, getting her say what’s really happening. Sara thinks the visions are just waking nightmares or rather, she needs them to be just nightmares instead of the more likely alternate. But it’s clear to Charlie what’s happening, Sara lost one sight to gain another. Her visions are ones of the future.
Sara doesn’t want to accept that because it means accepting the people she cares for are going to die. Ava asks for clarification on if dying means they’re going to die one day then they’re old and grey or die like later that day. Sara feels Ava’s shirt to confirm she’s wearing the same thing she saw in her vision. Astra’s the new element on the ship, so it has to be her. Ava defends her, after all, she’s the one who bonded with her in Hell.
But Zari joins them, not at all fooled by Astra’s manipulation earlier. Gary also joins, having found the case for the rings in the trash and minus the rings. When Zari asks for the surveillance feed she reveals they were sabotaged. They put Astra in the brig until they can confirm she did it or not.
Meanwhile, Nate’s been giving Lita the break down for all the Legends. She’s excited to know what Mick does until she learns his gimmick is a gun. Nate comes to the rescue, talking Mick up as the guy who pays all the bills. Of course, he pays the bills by stealing, the very thing that kept him out of her life. Nate still salvages the moment by prompting Mick to show her some of the things he has.
He takes her to a room filled with gold and other valuables he’s stolen. Seeing it all she has the idea to go back in time to invest it all. Realizing this is a side to Lita he doesn’t like, he bans her from the room. Lita’s pissed he’s pushing her away just when she found something they had in common, storming off to lock herself in the library.
In the brig, Zari confronts Astra about the rings. She maintains her innocence, challenging Zari to find the real culprit. Elsewhere Ava and Sara are trying to fix the recording system when Constantine shows up to berate them for judging Astra. Sara has another vision when she grabs his hand, seeing herself as the killer. She makes Constantine and Ava lock her in the med bay until they can figure out what’s happening.
Zari works on recovering the lost footage as Nate and Charlie join her. The footage doesn’t show them in the best light, revealing they were behind the missing rings and Gideon being sabotaged, not that they remember any of it.
Gary, meanwhile, not wanting Sara to be alone offers her his support dog. As she’s holding the dog she has another vision where she kills Gary because the dog tells her too. Realizing it’s the dog she rushes out to warn the others. Constantine and Ava don’t really believe her, but stranger things have happened to them so they go to find the dog. Gary lost track of him again so he and Ava look for the dog while Constantine stays with Sara.
Gary reveals he picked up Gary Jr. while in Hell. Ava, serial killer fanatic that she is realises this is the dog that Son of Sam blamed his killings on. At the same time, Zari zooms their footage out to reveal the dog was there when they each committed their crimes. The dog shows up, telling Nate to kill everyone. Gary uses a dog whistle before Nate can bludgeon anyone so the dog decides to kill them itself. They all take refuge in the brig as it transforms into a full hellhound.
Constantine and Sara hear the dog and Constantine glimpses it slipping into the vents. Realizing she was right they go to find it. In the brig Astra takes the controls, letting herself out and leaving the others trapped in there. Sara uses her vision to see the hellhound attacking Mick in the library.
In present time Mick’s just outside the library trying to talk to her. The hound attacks her from the vents, Mick forcing his way in when he hears her in danger. His flame gun isn’t much good against a hellhound, but Constantine and Sara arrive just in time, making the hound follow them.
Sara Lance, even blind, is still a total badass. She doesn’t need sight to deal with one hellhound. Constantine needs the demon’s name to send it to Hell, which luckily Astra knows and she just happens to strut around the corner just then.
With the hound back where he came from things return to normal. Well, normal for the Waverider. Sara and Ava fix the ship. Gary fishes the rings out from the plumbing. Mick and Lita reconcile. She even calls him dad. Zari apologises to Astra and offers to be friends. Astra isn’t there to make buddies, but she appreciates that Zari made an effort.
With order resorted, the captain and interim captain can finally have a moment to themselves. But the moment’s short-lived when Gideon can’t find anything wrong with Sara, leaving her blind.
Review
‘Ship Broken’ the title of this episode is literally about the ship being broken, but it’s also about an untrained emotional support dog that happens to be a literal hellhound. If that doesn’t say something the utter absurdity Legends of Tomorrow has cultivated into its norm then I don’t know what will. Because of course, of course, it was the dog.
It’s always a delight watching this show weave off the wall plots around well thought out character beats. This episode alone gave us Mick and Lita arriving at a place of mutual understanding, development for Zari and Astra and an exploration of Sara’s newfound powers.
If I had any complaints it would be Sara’s fight should have been longer. Everyone knows she’s a powerhouse but it’s nice to get the occasional scene of her absolutely wrecking an enemy as a reminder. As for her powers, what could be more poetic than Sara Lance gaining future sight?
Losing her vision is a balanced trade-off and it was handled well here. Of all the things Sara’s experienced in her life, losing her sight is far from the worst. No one treated her like a burden or changed the way interacted, see my previous point on everyone knowing she’s a powerhouse. She treats it like a mild inconvenience assuming it was temporary until Gideon could heal her, but that’s what it is. Just for now, at least.
Going forward, be this something she has for the rest of the season or something that’s longer-term I’d like to see how it affects her personally but I don’t expect her role on the team to shift. No doubt she’ll continue being the fearless captain ready to kick ass and drop sassy one-liners.
Only Legends Could
- It was the dog!
- Loved the callbacks to Sara’s assassin days. Although it was short, her fight scene was glorious.
- “I’ve heard of it,” – Mick Rory, about a historical event he was present for.
- “Baby, you’re an amazing assassin, okay but you’re blind and now you’ve warned us. The idea of you killing everyone is…” “Arrogant, delusional and just plain rude”
- Nate apologizing after almost murdering his friends with a stool is classic Legends.
