In Legends of Tomorrow 2×10 “The Legion of Doom,” the baddies finally became a cohesive team.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A speedster, a one-handed assassin, and a dead man walk into a bar…
“The Legion of Doom,” as the title suggests, was a villain-centric episode. In season 1, one of the biggest complaints critics and fans alike had was the villain. Season 2 rectified that by bringing in three popular Arrow-verse villains in The Reverse Flash, Damien Darhk and Malcolm Merlyn. And Leonard Snart is coming.
If you’re a fan of watching these actors chew up the scenery (I know I am), this episode was nothing short of heaven. Merlyn and Darhk were trying to out-snark one another (Darhk lampshading Merlyn’s need to remind everyone that he was Ra’s was hilarious) and literally ended up at each other’s throats when they decide to duke their villain problems out until Rip Phil points out that setting them against each other is exactly what Eobard wants.
Side note: Darhk hasn’t been using his magic on Legends of Tomorrow. I know he’s from the past, but I would assume he’d have mastered sorcery by the point that Thawne joined forces with him. Perhaps it’s because the mysticism of Arrow season 4 was poorly received?
Anyway, Merlyn and Darhk realize Thawne is hiding something from them so they agree to work together to make sure they become equal partners with Thawne. They eventually force him to confess why he keeps running away in the middle of their plans — because they lock him a bank vault. Why Thawne couldn’t just phase through the door or wall to escape is beyond me, but the scene did reveal what’s happening.
Since Barry pulled Thawne out of the timeline in order to save his mother (Flashpoint continues to have side effects), Thawne has been chased by his fate of being written out of existence. That takes the form of Zoom, post-death at the hands of the time wraiths from the Flash season 2 finale. In his death, Zoom became Black Flash, the grim reaper for speedsters.
Merlyn and Darhk promise to help him escape from Black Flash as long as he promises to treat them as equal partners. Because Black Flash senses the use of the Speed Force, Thawne serves as bait by standing still out in the open.
Black Flash struggles to find him because he is completely still, and the combined forces of all three villains are able to lock Black Flash in some kind of energy net inside the bank vault. That won’t hold Black Flash permanently, but it gives Thawne a head start.
The scene is tense, Black Flash is creepy as hell and I’m pretty much in love with everything Legends is doing right now.
Speaking of the bank vault, the Legion also recovers a device that contains Rip’s memories. But before returning them to him, Thawne is going to alter them to change who he is. The final scene of the episode is Rip trying to assassinate George Washington during the Revolutionary War, so it looks like Thawne altered Rip to become evil.
Meanwhile, Professor Stein brings his time aberration daughter on The Waverider, thinking she can help them decode the amulet they recovered from the Legion. Lily and Ray work together to upload the contents of the amulet into Gideon’s memory. But during their celebration, Mick reveals the truth: she’s an aberration.
Lily is understandably hurt and horrified; realizing her father never even wanted children disturbs her, especially since she takes so much after him. At first, Stein has no idea how to respond to her pain. He tells Jax that he never wanted children because he didn’t want to turn out like his own father.
Jax encourages his emotionally-stunted other half to tell his daughter he loves her. Stein takes Jax’s advice and assures Lily that he does not regret her being in his life. Father and daughter reconcile, and Lily returns to Central City to the work she left to help the time travelers.
As this is going on, the rest of the team is trying to figure out who the mysterious speedster is. They have records on all the speedsters Team Flash went up against, except one. Because he was erased from existence.
The combination of trying to figure out what the speedster was trying to fix with the Spear of Destiny and being in the presence of a human time aberration helps Nate realize that their speedster could be the opposite of Lily: rather than the creation of a person, the erasure of a person.
Stein, having been around Team Flash in season 1, immediately recognizes this as describing Eobard Thawne.
It’s clear, then, that Thawne wants the Spear to fix his erasure from existence. Merlyn, meanwhile, wants to change the past that led to him losing the League and a hand and Darhk wants to avoid dying in 2016. And with them operating as equal partners, they have a much better chance of succeeding — especially with a brainwashed time master on their side.
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