The Legends journey to safeguard the Spear of Destiny brings them to World War I and a young soldier named J. R. R. Tolkien. Meanwhile, the Legion of Doom recruit a new member: A still criminal Captain Cold.
Tropes:
- All Germans Are Nazis: Mick calls the German soldiers Nazis; Nate is quick to correct him.
- Actor Allusion: Jax helps Rip by turning the case containing the Spear fragment into Rip's favorite candy, jelly beans. A very similar-named candy was a particular favorite of one particular character from a show Rip's actor used to be on.
- Apologetic Attacker: Mick tells Sara that he wished things could have been different before he ports away with the Legion.
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Stein is at first skeptical again about Mick seeing Snart, despite Back from the Dead not being such a big deal in this universe, though Mick having hallucinated Snart before does make it plausible that it's another one.
- Artistic License – History:
- This episode heavily implies that aspects of the Spear of Destiny inspired the One Ring in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings (if not his whole adventure with time-travellers itself being a key inspiration for his books). In real life, he only started writing about what would become the "First Age" of his Middle-earth universe during World War I. The Lord of the Rings is set in the "Third Age", and he only started writing it in 1937 as a sequel to a book which wasn't even originally part of the universe. (His writing process can be seen in The History of Middle-earth.)
- Tolkien's intimate knowledge of medieval Arthurian literature is crucial to the plot. In real life, while Tolkien had some experience with Arthurian legend (he did a modern English translation of the Middle English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and he wrote his own unfinished verse retelling of the legend, The Fall of Arthur), his academic field was linguistics. (A closer example of a literature-focused academic would be his friend C. S. Lewis.)
- Then there's the fact that a Knight of the Round Table (established a few episodes previously to have existed in the early 6th century) apparently went on Crusade (the Crusades started in the 11th century, in reaction to the rise of Islam — the Prophet Muhammad wasn't even born until the late 6th century). Given how calmly everyone accepts this, the history books in this universe must be very different.
- The Bad Guy Wins: The Legion of Doom, now with five members (including Mick), acquires the Spear of Destiny and prepares to use it to rewrite reality.
- Being Evil Sucks: Mick doesn't seem particularly happy to be back with Snart or be part of the Legion.
- Big "NO!":
- Thawne has one after the Legends manage to abscond with the Legion's two pieces of the Spear.
- While Rip doesn't outright say it, the implication is still apparent as he shuts down Sara's attempt to plot a course for the Crucifixion.
- Birds of a Feather: Nate instantly hits it off with Tolkien, as fellow historians.
- The Bus Came Back: Snart, for real this time.
- Butterfly of Doom: Indirectly referenced. When the team suggests going directly to the source to get the blood of Jesus in order to destroy the spear, Rip shoots that idea down immediately. As he puts it, there are certain moments in history cannot be changed in any way whatsoever, as the damage stemming from that could be catastrophic. Everything to do with Jesus is one of them, including his crucifixion and death.
- Call-Back:
- The Legends return to the Vanishing Point, the Time Masters' former headquarters and where Leonard Snart made his Heroic Sacrifice last season. The Legion actually fashioned it into their Supervillain Lair.
- Mick declares he didn't have friends but he did have partners, calling back to season 1 in "Fail-Safe" where Mick stated the only team he was on was "[him] and Snart's."
- Cassandra Truth: Past Snart finds it hard to believe that he had actually gone through some heroic Character Development and willingly performed a Heroic Sacrifice.
- Celebrity Paradox: Given that J. R. R. Tolkien is the Guest-Star Party Member, the episode gives gazillion of Shout Outs to his literary works, incuding The Hobbit. Manu Bennett (Slade Wilson) plays a major antagonist in its film adaptations.
- Combat Medic: Sara and Amaya disguise themselves as nurses and fight soldiers in those attire.
- Continuity Nod: Mick's hatred for Nazis is brought up.
- The Corrupter: Snart who, with some help from the Legends is able to convince Mick to join the Legion and use the Spear to rewrite his own destiny.
- Cosmic Retcon: Due to being recruited into the Legion prior to joining the Legends, Snart's Character Development from the first season is completely undone and he actually starts developing into a more villainous character.
- Create Your Own Villain: The Legends' paranoia over Mick betraying them leads it to actually happening.
- Darkest Hour: Things look very bad for the Legends at the end of the episode. Mick has betrayed them, the Legion has the spear and are about to use it, and they have lost the only way to destroy it.
- Downer Ending: Once again, The Bad Guy Wins (see above).
- Dramatic Irony: Snart tells Mick that he's gotten soft for working with the Legends, when his future self had done some pretty heroic things himself.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Deconstructed with Mick; despite his simple, thuggish appearance, he picks up pretty quickly that the rest of the team treats him like a wild animal despite the fact that he's saved them time and again, and thus Snart has an easy time convincing him to betray them.
- Godly Sidestep: Just when it looks like the Legends might visit Jesus himself, Rip panics and vetoes it.
- Guest-Star Party Member: The Legends actually convince Tolkien to help them in their cause.
- Historical Domain Character: For this episode, it's J. R. R. Tolkien.
- Hope Spot: After losing the Spear to the Legion, Nate believes they might be safe for now as the Legion does not know how to actually use the spear. Cue Merlyn reconvening with the rest of the Legion with an ancient tome that explains exactly that.
- Idiot Ball: Despite considering Mick's judgment to be in question, Sara casually hands him The Spear of Destiny without a second thought. This ends badly.
- I See Them, Too: Mick is shocked when the rest of the Legends indicate they can also see Snart this time.
- Jerkass Ball: Grabbed firmly by Jax and Stein, more than anyone else. Apparently they chose to forget the countless times that Mick saved their lives and immediately regard him as no different from a common thug. This applies to Stein even more, considering that Mick told Stein about his hallucinations and Stein didn't believe him.
- Jerkass Realization: While Jax is pissed that Mick betrayed them, Ray and Rip counter that the rest of the team never really liked him, respected him or even trusted him — something Mick was well aware of as much as he tried to hide it, which is why Snart had so easy a time getting Mick back to his side.
- MacGuffin: The vial containing the blood of Christ, which the Legends need to destroy the Spear. They spend most of the episode trying to find it, and in the end it's destroyed before they can use it.
- Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Mick turns on the team after having been met with distrust and disrespect one too many times.
- Mythology Gag: A time-displaced Snart joins the Legion of Doom. He was part of the original Legion of Doom from Challenge of the Superfriends.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
- When he still thinks of him as an illusion, Mick tells Snart how the Legends plan to destroy the spear.
- The entire team has one retroactively for not treating Mick with respect, motivating him to betray them.
- Not Now, Kiddo: How Sara reacts when Mick tries to back up Amaya.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Merlyn is the only Legionnaire absent for most of the action this episode, because he was on another mission, retrieving the tome the Legion needs to properly use the Spear.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Eobard has a big one when the Legends steal the last two parts of the spear under his nose.
- The Legends have one when Eobard whisks the Legion and Mick away with the Spear.
- Out of Focus: Malcolm only appears at the very end of the episode. He even lampshades this, after noticing both Snart and Mick, now with the Legion that he "missed a lot".
- Patrick Stewart Speech: Rip gives an epic one to both sides of the war (that he cribs several lines from The Lord of the Rings movies for), which convinces them to make a ceasefire.
- Pop-Cultural Osmosis: A lot of the Tolkien-themed Shout Outs are more directly to the movie versions, not his books, most notably the scene riffing on Aragorn's Black Gate speech (the book scene had rather the opposite vibe to the movie scene, with no time for a speech and the good guys more grimly Defiant to the End). Plus his stuff being referenced is only the stuff that got movie versions (LOTR/Hobbit), not the stuff that hasn't (Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, etc.) due to catering towards general audiences who are more likely to just have watched the movies, not read the books.
- Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: To J. R. R. Tolkien's book, The Fellowship of the Ring.
- Pragmatic Villainy: Mick doesn't object to Snart finishing the ceasefire for moral reasons, but because it endangers them too.
- Real After All: Mick's having visions of Snart again, but this time they're very much real, as the Legion has plucked an earlier version of him from time to both join them and recruit Mick to their side with the Spear.
- Replacement Flat Character: Snart is this for both Mick and himself since the legion pulled him out of the timeline before his Character Development.
- The Reveal: The Legion of Doom's Supervillain Lair is actually the Vanishing Point.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: Tolkien's real-life condition is referenced when Nate slams a book down and he jumps at the noise. He then echoes the belief at the time that the condition was just an excuse for cowardice, but Nate assures him of its legitimacy with his present-day view.
- Shout-Out: Given that the historical personage they need is J. R. R. Tolkien, shout outs to The Lord of the Rings are expected.
- When Mick torches the Spear, it reveals writing hidden underneath... just as putting the One Ring into fire revealed elvish writing on it. In fact it's implied seeing it done with the Spear is what inspired Tolkien to put it into his book.
- The Spear tempts people to use it, that even people intending to use it for good become corrupted by its power.
- They discover the power that created the Spear is also the power that can destroy it.
- Tolkien's captain calls him "fool of a Tolkien," like Gandalf's repeatedly calling Pippin "Fool of a Took."
- Tolkien realizes that the place to destroy the Spear was "the middle of hell on Earth".
- Some parts also reference stuff only from the movie trilogy.
- Stein makes the remark "One can not simply walk into the middle of a war zone", echoing the famous line from Boromir: "One does not simply walk into Mordor".
- In order to encourage a temporary ceasefire, Rip makes a speech that includes parts of Aragorn's "Not this Day" speech in front of the Black Gates.
- On a non-Tolkien related front, Sara refers to Mick, Nate, Ray and Rip collectively as the Backstreet Boys.
- Rip absolutely loves jelly beans, which may be yet another reference to Doctor Who, who adores jelly babies.
- Skyward Scream: Thawne after the Waverider takes off, with the Legion's spear fragments on board.
- Spoiled by the Format: Given that there's two episodes left and the next one is called "Doomworld", it's pretty easy to guess what happens at the end of this one.
- Stating the Simple Solution: While the rest of the Legends try to come up with a plan to find the blood and use it on the spear, Amaya suggests using the Spear's power to kill the Legion pre-emptively. The rest of the team (minus Mick) turn her down since their worried about the power of the spear corrupting the wielder.
- Supervillain Lair: It's revealed that the Legion's been operating out of the ruins of the Vanishing Point this entire time.
- Talk to the Fist: When the British CO refuses to order a ceasefire, Rip eventually gets fed up and punches him out, then proceeds to give the order himself.
- Tantrum Throwing: Thawne after the Legion's spear fragments get stolen, much to Darhk's amusement.
- Tasty Gold: While searching the bombed-out church for the Blood of Christ, Mick finds a chalice which he bites in order to determine that it is gold.
- Then Let Me Be Evil: Mick's reasoning for joining the Legion of Doom is that the Legends will always see him as an untrustworthy criminal anyway.
- This Cannot Be!: Thawne has an epic moment of this when he discovers that the Legends actually managed to swipe the Legion's spear fragments out from under his nose and escaped with them before he could stop them.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: The entire team acts particularly dickish towards Mick this episode, which makes his Face–Heel Turn more believable. Everyone forgets all the times Mick has saved them, and all the bonding moments they shared. Stein especially, who thinks Mick's serious mental traumas are no excuse for making a mistake, and Ray who is normally The Paragon. At least Ray recognizes their mistake at the end of the episode, reestablishing his status.
- Villainous Breakdown: After the Legends sneak into the Vanishing Point and steal the Legion's Spear fragments, Thawne freaks out and starts smashing things, until he calms down and realizes that now the Legion can just steal the whole Spear.
- War Is Hell: The teams travels to the Battle of the Somme, one of the bloodiest battles in one of the most spectacularly pointless and wasteful wars in history. The limits of network television violence are pushed even further than in the slavery episode.
- We Can Rule Together: Mick offers Amaya to join the Legion too and change her future. She declines.
- Wham Episode: A pre-Legends Leonard Snart is extracted from the timeline (most likely the version during The Flash (2014) Season 1's time frame), and Mick betrays the Legends to defect to the Legion, taking the Spear of Destiny with him.
- Wham Shot: Snart punching Rory and leaving a bruise, confirming in-universe and out that Snart is not a hallucination this time.
- What the Hell, Hero?:
- Jax chews Mick out for telling Snart their plan — Mick counters he assumed it was just a hallucination.
- Amaya chews out Sara and the rest of the Legends for turning down her plan of using The Spear of Destiny to wipe out the Legion pre-emptively since now the Legion has the completed Spear. Justified, given that they had no idea how to use it, rendering that plan moot.
- Where It All Began: The Legends recruit Tolkien, plucking him out of the Battle of the Somme to help them find the Blood of Christ, which can destroy the spear. After finding Gawain's grave and the clue therein, they soon figure out that the vial containing the blood is right back at the Somme.
