By Steve McGowan
The Legends are back! But as the first episode of season 2 opens, they’re in trouble, or so surmises Dr. Nate Heywood as he barges into Oliver Queen’s office, asking for his help. Dr. Heywood is a “time detective”, which means he investigates changes in history by time travellers. Abe mused Oliver gives Dr. Heywood a chance to explain himself, and we see evidence of the Legends across time, preserved in things like ancient manuscripts and hieroglyphics. Turns out the Legends’ ship disappeared underwater and was destroyed by an atomic bomb in 1942, three years before the a-bomb was “invented” (or rather, before the first atomic bomb was used against another nation in an act of war). This intrigues Ollie enough to follow Dr. Heywood on an expedition to find the wreckage of the Waverider in the present day. Sure enough they find it, but with no one seemingly on board… except for Mick, who was kept alive in a stasis beam. They revive him and Mick tells the story of what they’ve been up to before the ship crashed…
…and we’re treated with tales of the Legends protecting history from time criminals, now that the Time Masters are gone. They find themselves playing the part of swashbuckling musketeers, saving Louis XIII (with Sara seducing/being seduced by the Queen). After that amusing little anecdote, Mick decides to tell Ollie and Dr. Heywood about the time quake they experienced after they found out the Germans, aided by mysterious time travellers, nuke New York in 1942. Despite being warned by Rex Tyler (from last season’s cliffhanger) to not go there, they decided to go anyway because who else is going to save the day from the Nazis?
How did the Nazis make a functional atomic bomb in 1942 anyway? It turns out, Albert Einstein was forced to build one. Einstein was kidnapped for this purpose by Nazis with the help of Damien Darhk, who Sara has a huge grudge with since Darhk killed her sister. Sara goes out to kill Damien Darhk at all costs, and this has serious repercussions for the team. I won’t reveal how the Legends save the day, but I’ll tell you this : they play fast and loose with the science on this. I’m not sure how much help Einstein alone would have been for the Nazis to have built a nuclear weapon, but it plays into the common movie trope where “smart scientist” is a storytelling shorthand for “genius who can do everything”.
Besides the science gaffe, it was an entertaining episode, and by the end of it one of the main characters disappear! Will we see them again? We’ll have to keep watching to find out!
Catch up with our Legends on Netflix now!