Recap / The Flash 2014 S 2 E 8 Legends Of Today

Season 2, Episode 8:

Legends Of Today

In the first part of the Arrow/Flash crossover, Barry and Cisco take Kendra to Oliver and his team, looking for protection when a mysterious immortal comes seeking Kendra. However, a figure from her past arrives to tell her the truth. Meanwhile, Jay refuses to help Harrison test his new speed-enhancement serum, Velocity-6.

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Tropes:

• Artistic License – Physics:
  • This episode brings back Barry's supposed Top speed of Mach 2. Apparently the writers still haven't figured out that his top feats are far faster than that and that Mach 2 is not even close to being enough for Time Travel (otherwise every second jet Pilot would be a time traveler). Hell, Jay Garrick even stated in a previous episode that he could reach near-light speed and that Barry is much faster than him. Though there is a chance that Barry is still being somewhat held back by memories of his brutal defeat at Zoom's hands and that the "Mach 2" top speed is the fastest speed Star Labs can actually measure.
  • Any electromagnet small enough to fit inside a Trick Arrow would not be powerful enough to wrench firearms from people's hands.
• Actually Pretty Funny: Darhk concedes that a magnetic arrow to snatch the Ghosts' guns is a pretty good ploy.
• Arrow Catch: Besides Barry catching throwing knives, Savage catches two of Oliver's arrows.
• Attack on the Heart: A bullet to the heart simply isn't something one person can handle, no matter how brilliant they are. The best Caitlin can do is stabilize Harry until Jay shows up. One person + Chemically-induced-superspeed can handle it.
• Ballroom Blitz: Vandal Savage crashes the party at Oliver's loft.
• Behind the Black: From the angle he was at, Cisco could have clearly seen Kendra's fancy dinner set out, but he doesn't notice it until the camera shows the audience.
• Been There, Shaped History: Vandal Savage offhandedly mentions having trained Houdini, and Malcolm brings up legends of him having advised Genghis Khan and guided Julius Caesar on one of his campaigns.
• Big Damn Heroes: Flash swoops in and rescues Team Arrow just before Oliver succumbs to Darhk's Touch of Death.
• Big Entrance:
  • Vandal Savage introduces himself to the heroes this way. Twice.
  • Malcolm just has to introduce himself by suddenly appearing in the Arrowcave after a Big Blackout with a retinue of black-clad Assassins.
• Blade Enthusiast: Savage apparently keeps 32 knives on his person.
• Bloodstained Glass Windows: Oliver and Barry fight Vandal Savage in the church in which the Staff of Horus was.
• Call-Back: Barry reminds Oliver of his comment in the last crossover event episode that guys like them will never get the girl, only for Oliver to say that he was wrong.
• The Cameo: Damien Darhk literally appears as a One-Scene Wonder.
• Celebrity Paradox: Cisco mockingly calls Savage "Highlander". Clancy Brown's (Wade Eilling) Star-Making Role was the film that started the franchise. Adam Copeland (Al Rothstein/Atom Smasher) also played a Mook in Highlander: Endgame.
• Combat Pragmatist: Savage catches on quickly that Barry is fast enough to catch his knives, especially when thrown at others. So, after throwing knives at everyone else, he throws one where Barry will stop while he has his back turned, taking advantage of the distraction his initial volley of knives causes.
• Continuity Lockout: If you haven't watched Arrow since last year's crossover, you may get lost trying to catch up since no effort is made to catch up the viewer on Team Arrow's various changes in status quo since that point.
• Continuity Nod: Barry lists the amount of craziness that he's had to deal with in the past few weeks such as fighting against a telepathic gorilla last episode.
• Crossover: The second annual with Arrow.
• Cross-Referenced Titles: With the Arrow episode "Legends of Yesterday" that's part two of this crossover, and with Legends of Tomorrow, which both episodes are a backdoor pilot to.
• Debut Queue: The episode marks the debut of Vandal Savage, Hawkman and Oliver's son.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Carter began helping Teams Arrow and Flash after Oliver and Barry kicked his ass.
• Denser and Wackier: A very dark play on the trope. In his screen time, Darhk is noticeably snippier and a lot less collected than usual, as demonstrated by his childish mockery of an ARGUS guard struggling to breathe as Darhk kills him and his genuine shock at the Flash's appearance. There's some implication that it's a side effect of whatever happened when he tried to kill Thea.
• Die or Fly: A classic example is how Carter Hall tries to get Kendra to "emerge". It's a little more complicated than he expected.
• Distinction Without a Difference: Barry and Patty aren't "avoiding showing affection in front of Joe"; they're "maintaining professionalism".
• Dramatic Irony: Felicity wonders what the Earth-2 Oliver Queen is like, when the audience knows full well that he died a few years ago.
• Fantastic Drug: Velocity-6, a drug Earth-2 Wells invented to give a temporary boost to speedsters.
• Fights Like a Normal: Savage relies little on his magical abilities in combat, instead choosing knife-throwing, LOA-level close-quarters-combat, and being a Combat Pragmatist.
• Foreshadowing: When Jay Garrick mention the Speed Force as if there is more to it than just science and its a gift, we learn more about it near the end of the season as Barry gets trapped inside it.
• Gilligan Cut: When Barry comments "how busy can they be?" in regards to Team Arrow and Cisco's concern that they might be unable to help, the scene immediately cuts to another fight in their ongoing battle with HIVE.
• Godzilla Threshold: After vehemently refusing to be associated with the thing, Jay had to take the Velocity formula to briefly restore his powers and save Harry's life.
• Hero of Another Story: Team Arrow and Damien Darhk are in the middle of yet another fight in their ongoing struggle when Barry shows up in Star City.
• Hollywood Tactics: When Team Arrow (minus Black Canary) ambushed H.I.V.E. Oliver opened a battle with magnet arrow and disarmed all ghosts at once. That in itself is perfectly understandable. What is not understandable is that Team Arrow after this jumped down from the container they were standing on and engaged in fist-fight instead of using high ground advantage and bowing down ghosts from above. This wouldn't have worked on Darhk, since he can stop arrows, but would have worked on ghosts. Especially glaring since it's Green Arrow we're talking about.
• Internal Reveal: One that's actually played for laughs; after Thea managed to never find out about the team's connection to the Flash last season, she's pretty flustered to suddenly have him show up to save them.
• Is This Thing Still On?: Felicity is running Mission Control while Team Arrow are engaging the villains, starting by removing their guns with a magnetic arrow and following up with Good Old Fisticuffs.

  Felicity: (imitating Oliver) Felicity, the magnetic arrow gag will never work. (as herself) Yes, it will my love, because I am really smart! And guess what Oliver—it did work!

  Oliver: (on radio) Felicity honey, it's a little hard to fight with you doing that in my ear!

  Felicity: Oh, I totally forgot this was an open line.

• Lampshade Hanging:
  • When he's about to kill Oliver, Darhk says he's surprised as he had assumed his conflict with Oliver would last for a while.
  • Upon realising that Oliver no longer has sleeves on his costume, Barry questions if he doesn't get cold - Oliver retorts that the cold doesn't bother him after several years living in wilderness on Lian Yu.
  • Barry questions if the only way Malcolm enters rooms is by pulling a Stealth Hi/Bye after he does so for a second time in the episode.
  • When the two walk into the church to find the Staff of Horus, Barry points out to Oliver that he's used more to speeding into a room instead.
• Let's You and Him Fight: Hawkman does it with Flash and Arrow, largely because he chooses to introduce himself by abducting Kendra.
• Locked Out of the Loop:
  • Thea wasn't aware that the rest of Team Arrow knew the Flash.
  • Cisco is the only member of the combined teams present who doesn't know Malcolm when he shows up.
  • Patty is unaware of the multiple-earths situation, and consequently reacts badly on seeing Wells.
• Meaningful Echo: "Now you listen to me?" "It's your city!"
• Mundane Utility: Barry draws Vandal Savage's face with super speed.
• Mythology Gag:
  • In the comics, Velocity Nine is the formula that gives several speedster villains such as The Rival, Johnny Quick, and Inertia their powers. Word of God hints that Velocity Six is not that last iteration we'll see, hinting that one of these characters may appear later on.
  • The alternate universe versions of Oliver that Barry and Felicity speculate on ("bald", "beer belly") are versions of Oliver that have been depicted in Elseworlds titles.
  • Jay has a special enmity towards the Velocity formula. In the comics, the creator of the formula is Edward Clariss, Jay's own personal Reverse Flash (a.k.a. The Rival).
• Near-Villain Victory: Damien Darhk nearly kills Oliver with his Touch of Death but was foiled by Barry's intervention.
• Never Found the Body: Literally with Savage, as Oliver and Barry doesn't see his corpse after Thea supposedly sends him to his Disney Death.
• Not What It Looks Like: Carter Hall is aware that he'll look like Kendra's Stalker with a Crush when he just grabbed her away and repeatedly tells her that he's the only one who could save her from Savage.
• Out of Focus: Iris appears only briefly near the beginning of the episode, and isn't mentioned by anyone else.
• Outside-Context Problem: Vandal Savage is an immortal being with no clear ties to any of the characters or organizations seen on either show thus far.
• Play-Along Prisoner: Vandal Savage stowed away on a freighter ship but was discovered by the crew who handcuffed him and locked him up. When he is escorted off the ship he easily gets out of the handcuffs and kills everyone around. It is clear that he could have escaped and killed the entire crew any time he wanted but he chose to remain a prisoner since doing so might have delayed his trip.
• Poor Communication Kills: Harry Wells nearly dies because Patty has been kept out of the loop.
• Poorly Disguised Pilot: The episode is a blatant introduction to Hawkgirl, Hawkman and Savage. If anything, the title highlights it as a prologue to Legends of Tomorrow.
• Shoot Him, He Has a Wallet!: Patty mistakes Wells' speed-serum syringe for a gun and pumps a bullet into him.
• Shoot the Dog: Oliver watches in horror as little sis puts a killshot into Savage's chest.
  Oliver: Thea, no! (Savage falls over the railing to his apparent death) What did you do?
  Thea: I ended it.
• Sleeves Are for Wimps: Lampshaded with the Green Arrow outfit.
  Barry: I just realized, no sleeves. Don't you get cold?
  Oliver: I spent five years on an island in the North China Sea. I don't get cold.
• Special Edition Title: Returning from "Flash vs. Arrow," the lightning bolt running through the title is replaced by an arrow, and the one behind it is green instead of yellow.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: Both Vandal Savage and Malcolm Merlyn's main method of transportation. Lampshaded by Barry about the latter.
  Barry: Is that the only way this guy knows how to enter a room?
• Spoiler Opening: The Previously on… recap ruins the surprising appearance of Oliver's ex at the end.
• Swiss-Cheese Security: After spotting Harry, Patty apparently just follows him into STAR Labs with no trouble. No wonder Oliver doesn't want to work out of the lab in the second part of the crossover.
• That Came Out Wrong: Cisco explains to Barry how he got a vibe when he kissed Kendra.
• Too Dumb to Live: Patty warns Wells that she'll shoot him if he moves any closer to her. Wells moves closer to her the very next second.
• Trash the Set: Savage destroys the church where he's battling Oliver and Barry.
• Two Lines, No Waiting: While the Vandal Savage subplot is going on between both episodes of the crossover, the rest of the cast are working on solutions to defeat Zoom, making progress on this year's Story Arc. The point of Oliver's son doesn't become its own subplot until the Arrow portion of the crossover.
• Visual Pun: The Velocity-6 flashes bright blue when inside the bottle in the injector. Literal lightning in a bottle.
• We Have to Get the Bullet Out!: Justified, since it presses against a major blood vessel.
• Wham Episode: Oliver sees his unnamed ex-girlfriend that he impregnated in the past once again, this time with his son that he never knew.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: When we first see Team Arrow, they're in the midst of trying to stop Damien Darhk from getting his hands on a chemical weapon. Then Barry turns up & pulls them out of the battle before Darhk can use his Touch of Death on Oliver, and explains that he needs their help. As the episode then jumps straight into Barry & the team at their base, the plot point of the chemical weapon goes unresolved.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Barry was obviously pissed when Cisco blurted his Secret Identity to Kendra.
• You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: Wells calls Jay by his first name in a sincere thank you for saving his life.