Legends of Tomorrow season 1, episode 7, “Marooned,” featured a cliffhanger that left the fate of one of the team members up in the air.
Warning: This story contains major spoilers from Legends of Tomorrow season 1, episode 7, “Marooned.”
“Marooned” saw the tensions between Leonard Snart and Mick Rory escalate. Mick was angry with Leonard for betraying their long partnership, while Leonard believed Mick would eventually cool down. However, this did not happen; the betrayal Mick felt was too strong. Instead, Mick brought a group of pirates onto the Waverider and told Leonard to choose a side. And Leonard did — he chose the heroes.
He was the one to bring his partner down and volunteered to take care of him since he couldn’t really be locked up indefinitely or returned to his own time. The way Leonard matter-of-factly volunteers to take this job is haunting and painful in and of itself. However, the confrontation between Leonard and Mick ended on a cliffhanger:
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The implication, of course, is that Leonard killed Mick. However, anyone familiar with comic book tropes knows that no body means no death. And even then, sometimes there is still no death (hi, Sara). The fact that we didn’t see Mick being hit by the cold gun leaves doubt as to his fate.
Due to the pain and struggle visible in Leonard’s face as he faced down Mick, I have a hard time believing he’d be able to actually kill him, especially with what we learned about how their partnership began. (Reminder: Mick protected a small, vulnerable, 14-year-old Leonard in juvie and has been standing up for him since.)
No, it seems far more likely that Leonard only immobilized Mick with the cold gun, as we’ve seen him do to The Flash. We’ve seen The Flash pretty quickly escape an ice trap due to heat packs in his suit. Considering Mick also exudes heat — his nickname is Heatwave, after all — he should be able to escape with some time. Either way, it’s clear that partnership officially shattered the moment Leonard pulled the trigger.
Since Legends is clearly interested in exploring how the bond between Leonard and Mick has fallen apart, seeing the relationship devolve even more provides more story opportunities. What could be more powerful than Mick, after escaping his encounter with Leonard, joining up with Vandal Savage to fight the Legends?
It’s clear that he’s realized he can’t bring Leonard back, based on him telling his partner that only one of them would leave the clearing alive. That leaves him with revenge. And he could provide Savage some vital information about the group he’s kept running in to at random periods in time.
It would be particularly poignant to watch future interactions between Mick and Leonard with the two on opposite sides of the same fight — especially with the history actors Wentworth Miller and Dominic Purcell share, having played brothers for several years and will again in the upcoming new season of Prison Break.
Being a hero does not come without sacrifice, a fact Leonard Snart is coming to learn.
Legends of Tomorrow airs Thursdays at 8:00 p.m. ET on The CW.