‘Arrow’ 4.08 Episode Recap and Review: Legends of Yesterday

So after the events of “Legends of Today” over on the Flash, the whole gang is holed up in a farmhouse on the outskirts of Central City. While most of Team Flarrow gets to work on various ways to defeat Savage, Oliver decides to track down his ex with the potentially not-miscarried kid.

Samantha tells Oliver that William isn’t his, but Ollie’s never been good at leaving well enough alone. He sneaks one of William’s hairs from his baseball cap and takes it to Barry for testing.

Meanwhile, Malcolm Merlyn has arranged a parlay with Oliver, Barry, and Savage. Ominously enough, Barry catches a glimpse of himself as he runs to the meeting. We all know what that means – at some point, Barry’s going to have to come back in time. Savage wants Carter and Kendra delivered to him within 24 hours, or he’s going to destroy both Central City and Star City.

ARGUS has sent Team Flarrow a Betamax tape from a conspiracy group in 1975. According to the information on the tape, any object that was close to the “calamity” that created Savage and the Hawk-people has the ability to kill him. Like, oh say, Savage’s staff.

Barry lets Oliver know that the DNA results are in. William is definitely his son. Oliver goes to see Samantha to ask to be part of William’s life, and Samantha agrees, but with one caveat. No one can know that Oliver is William’s father. Not even Felicity. Oliver agrees, not realizing that Felicity has already seen the results of the test that Barry ran, so when he lies to her about what he’s been up to, she calls him out on it. The two fight over Oliver’s return to keeping secrets and break up.

Oliver, Barry, Carter, and Kendra go to confront Savage, but their plan fails epically. The gauntlets that Cisco created to allow Barry to fight Savage’s magic don’t work, and Kendra isn’t yet in tune with her past enough to allow her to hawk out at will. Carter and Kendra are both killed, and the shockwave from Savage’s staff kills everyone except Barry.

Barry outruns the shockwave and runs straight back into the past by 24 hours. He explains everything that went wrong to Oliver, including the parts about William’s DNA and the fight with Felicity. He also tells Cisco that he is the one who should be talking to Kendra, not Carter. Carter has been telling Kendra to focus on her warrior rage, but Shayera, Kendra’s past self, was a priestess, as well. Cisco has her focus on that peace, and Kendra is able not only to hawk out, but to remember the glowing dagger that was part of the “calamity” (an untimely meteor shower, as it turns out).

Armed with this new information (and meteor isotopes to coat the anti-magic gauntlets), Team Flarrow dives back into the fray with Vandal Savage. This time, if only because there are only 15 minutes left in the episode, everything works as it should, leaving Kendra and Carter alive and Savage a pile of dust. Of course, since Savage is the primary villain of Legends of Tomorrow, that can’t be all there is. Merlyn sneaks back after everything is over to retrieve the ashes and swears to resurrect the immortal.

The team gathers again to say goodbye to Kendra and Carter, who have decided to travel the world and figure out how to be superheroes in a new city. This, of course, isn’t fantastic news for Cisco. Kendra breaks up with him in order to be with her soulmate, regardless of the fact that she doesn’t like Carter that much. (Yes, I have issues with this part of the story. I know it’s necessary, but seriously?)

Barry warns Oliver about temporal backlash and how something inevitably turns out worse than it did before. Since everyone is alive and Savage is gone, Barry is understandably afraid that the backlash is going to come back on Oliver and Felicity. Oliver decides that if Felicity finding out about his secret is what broke them up, obviously the answer is to make sure she never finds out.

Oh Oliver, my sweet summer child. You know what? No. I’m not going to dissect Oliver’s poorly thought out decision to lie to Felicity about his surprise kid in Central City. There’s not much I can add to the collective rage of thousands of Tumblr users. We all know how this is going to play out, anyway. Oliver’s secret is going to come out in the worst possible way, because we’re watching Arrow, not Flash. There will be anger, tears, and a break-up that lasts probably about half a season.

Moving right along, this Flarrow two-parter was a fairly decent way to start queuing things up for Legends of Tomorrow.  The only character we aren’t familiar with now is Rip Hunter, and we have to save someone for the pilot, right? (There will come a day when I stop giggling that Arthur Darvill is playing a “Time Master.” But it is not THIS day.) I’ll be interested to see how Vandal Savage becomes the problem of everyone on the team and not just the Hawk-folks. Again, I guess we have to leave something for the pilot!

Arrow 4.08 Episode Recap and Review

Best quote:

Thea: “Bunch of superheroes in a farmhouse? Feel like I’ve seen that in a movie before.”

Things to Ponder:

• Theory: Malcolm is going to try to resurrect Vandal Savage as a way to bypass or rejuvenate the Lazarus Pit.
• Is this the time to point out that Betamax wasn’t released until about a month after the date on that video? I’m also dying to know how Felicity managed to hook it up to her laptop.
• So how likely is it that either Samantha or William is the one in the grave from the first episode of the season? Thoughts?