'Legends of Tomorrow' Recap: One Team Member Makes the Ultimate Sacrifice

Warning: This recap for the “Destiny” episode of Legends of Tomorrow contains spoilers.

He can’t be dead, right? Not really, anyway. After discovering that the team had been pawns of the Time Masters since the beginning and tha everything they did was part of a plan to help Vandal Savage, Captain Cold sacrificed himself to destroy their ability to manipulate history. Will his death stick? Or will he prove to be as hard to kill as Savage himself?

The Plot
Time Master Druce (Martin Donovan) tells Rip that everything — even the death of his family — was all planned so that Vandal Savage could take over the world in 2166, thus preventing an alien invasion in 2175. The lives of all the Legends were manipulated by the Oculus, a device that can see all of time and gives the Time Masters the power to create destiny. It can’t see in the Vanishing Point, though, so Snart and Sarah are able to return and break out Rip, Stein, and Ray. The Time Masters attempt to turn Mick back into Chronos, but that fails too. The Legends head to the Oculus Wellspring but are ambushed by Druce. Jefferson — who ends up back in 2016 and gets help from a pre-Legend Dr. Stein to return to the Vanishing Point — gets back and blasts them a hole into the Wellspring. Someone has to stay behind to release the supernova powering the Oculus: Rip saw a future where Ray dies, but Mick knocks him out and takes his place. Snart knocks him out and he dies destroying the Wellspring, making the Time Masters unable to see time.

Captain ColdIt’s safe to say that he’ll be back…

And why wouldn’t he? He’s the king of snark; he’s the hater with a heart of gold; he’s Dorothy Parker in a parka. Besides, time travel makes it easy to figure out an excuse for bringing him back. Even so, it’s hard not to get teary-eyed when Ray says, “He was a hero. Which I’m pretty sure was the last thing he wanted to be remembered as,” and Sara says, “But that’s what he was.”

Vandal Savage
Savage returns — with Kendra — to 2166 to kill Rip’s family. With the Time Masters no longer able to help him conquer the world, he chooses to leave with his timeship to alter history instead. It’s an interesting turnabout. Throughout the show, the team has been forced to attack him where they can find him in the time stream; now, they will be chasing him down as he runs. That’s assuming they don’t kill him next week. What do you think? Do you hope he dies next week or would you rather see him being chased through history in Season 2?

Our Little Legends Are All Grown Up
One of the best things about this episode is seeing how much the Legends have grown as time travelers. Sara is, apparently, the new pilot of the Waverider, and Jax has gone from auto mechanic to temporal mechanic. Would you have expected him to be looking over Martin’s shoulder, correcting him on the workings of a Sequestrian Manifold?

Inside Comics Moment
It makes sense that the Earth would be invaded in the future by forces from Thanagar; in the comics, they have tried to do so multiple times. In fact, the Nth-metal meteorites that gave Kendra, Carter, and Savage their powers may have presaged the event, since Nth metal is native to Thanagar. Some of the planet’s history has already been reworked by Legends, though. Manhawks have already appeared on the show as a creation of Savage, and the original Hawkman and Hawkwoman were the Thanagarians Sheyara (Chay-Ara) and Katar Hol (Carter Hall).

Legendary Thoughts
Line of the night: “I made it my business to case every square inch of this tub in the event there was something worth stealing; there wasn’t; let’s get out of here.” An elementary school teacher would have a field day scolding Snart for his run-on sentences; he, in turn, would probably freeze the teacher and chuck him off a cliff.

Curb Stomp of the night: Mick finishing off the Time Master who induced him into Chronos. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

Legends of Tomorrow airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. on The CW.