Arrow season 4, episode 8, “Legends of Yesterday,” aired tonight. Read our recap and discuss the episode with fellow fans.
“Legends of Yesterday” was the second of a two-part crossover with The Flash that set up DC’s Legends of Tomorrow.
Fighting Savage round 1
While the team goes into hiding to keep Savage from tracking them down, Oliver tracks down his ex, Samantha, and her son, William, after seeing them at Jitters. He asks whether William is his. When she denies it, Oliver has Barry run a DNA test that confirms he is, in fact, William’s father. Oliver asks to have a relationship with his son, but Samantha only agrees if Oliver doesn’t tell anyone else. She doesn’t want William getting pulled into his sphere of crazy. It’s kind of hard to blame her; she only knows a portion of the craziness that is his life, after all.
Felicity, though, convinces Barry to give her the DNA test results, and she confronts Oliver with them when he doesn’t come clean about the situation. She’s not mad that he has a child; she’s mad he lied to her about it. She tells him that if he trusted her, it would not feel like a burden to tell her the truth — it would be a relief. The two seem to break up.
The team goes up against Savage, pretending to give up Kendra and Carter but planning to steal the Staff of Horus and use it against him. However, Oliver is distracted due to finding out he has a son and Kendra is unable to access her powers as Hawkgirl. The first encounter ends with the deaths of everyone as Barry flees (Oliver echoes the “Run, Barry, run” catchphrase to convince him to leave). Barry ends up traveling into the past.
This echoes Barry’s first travel through time, as that also saved the life of a friend who was killed in the original timeline, but we’re now introducing time travel and its potential effects on Arrow. While Arrow and The Flash are in the same universe, we didn’t necessarily see the effects from Barry’s season 1 time travel on Arrow.
Fighting Savage round 2
After going through the meeting with Savage a second time, Barry fills Oliver in on the fact that they failed trying to take down Savage. He tells him about his child and his apparent breakup with Felicity. Oliver decides they need to take this second chance to fix what went wrong.
Barry is hesitant to tell the truth about what happened in the previous timeline because he’s had experience with messing with time before. However, the outcome of the previous timeline is pretty awful, so he takes the chance. We have a feeling this won’t be the last we hear of the effects of this time travel, though.
Oliver has Cisco talk to Kendra and he’s able to coax her memories out of her. She remembers her first death, and this gives the team insight into defeating Savage: they need pieces of the meteorites that fell at the time of Khufu’s and Chay-ara’s deaths. With those pieces of metal and the rest of Team Arrow in play, the plan works and the team defeats Vandal Savage.
Unfortunately, we know this death won’t last since Savage will be the main villain on Legends of Tomorrow. This episode also gives us more insight into why time travel is going to be heavily featured in Legends. Savage is apparently impossible to beat on the first try. Hell, Hawkman and Hawkgirl didn’t get a win until try 207.
Odds and ends
- Kendra and Carter decide to go off and help people, as they have in their previous lives. However, Kendra and Cisco have a lovely farewell, and he gives her a GPS that will connect them if needed.
- Barry encourages Oliver to be a part of William’s life. He knows what it’s like to grow up without a father. The two hug, and Oliver goes to see Samantha and William. He agrees to Samantha’s terms and starts a relationship with William. He asks if he could come by sometimes to see him. William’s love of the Flash is adorable.
- When they return to Star City, Felicity wants to know what’s going on with Oliver. Oliver doesn’t tell her, however, which is something Barry believes will cause issues with the timeline.
- Malcolm collects Vandal Savage’s ashes so Vandal can be the villain in Legends of Tomorrow. His evilness never ceases to amaze.