In many ways Arrow’s “Legends of Yesterday” has it much better off than its Flash predecessor, “Legends of Today.” Billed as the build-up to the CW’s latest entry into their DC shared universe, Legends of Tomorrow, the two-part crossover primarily centers on introducing the apparent Big Bad of that series, Vandal Savage, in addition to looping in future Legends team member Carter Hall (aka Hawkman) to the fold. This unavoidable amount of world building and backstory, however, ended up massively bogging down the crossover’s first installment. With all the pieces now in place, “Legends of Yesterday” (yep, this is a lot of “Legends” in one graf) has the freedom to play around with its toys a bit more. What it chooses to do with that freedom is the bigger question.
First, credit where credit’s due. There’s much more of a sense of ease to the proceedings this time around. In one of the episode’s earliest and most notable scenes, both Team Arrow and Team Flash move into a remote cabin with both Kendra and Carter while they figure out next steps. Here, the camera bounces back and forth between each character, capturing more than half a dozen small interactions and little bouts of banter. It’s a seemingly insignificant scene in terms of the overarching plot but an essential one in terms of creating an atmosphere of camaraderie (“when it rains I can still feel where you shot me with those arrows,” Barry comments to Oliver at one point). When you’re building a shared universe of this magnitude, chemistry between the characters is key and the actors manage to pull this off in spades here. “Welcome to the new normal,” Thea proclaims to herself at one point. It’s a valid response given that Arrow began its existence as a grounded, gritty take on a superhero story, and has now grown its world to include evil, immortal priests from Ancient Egypt and a pair of star-crossed lovers with bird wings who are reincarnated throughout the ages.
Now in position of the Staff of Horace, Savage offers our heroes an ultimatum—deliver Kendra and Carter to him for sacrifice, or he burns their respective cities to the ground. As the group puts their collective heads together to figure out a way out of this no-win situation, personal issues threaten to undermine their teamwork. Feeling threatened by Carter’s off-and-on centuries-long relationship with Kendra, Cisco backs away from the two’s relationship. Oliver, meanwhile, dives headfirst into the case of Samantha and William (not Connor), the two’s potential lovechild. A DNA test shows that, yes, Oliver is indeed the biological father. When he goes to confront her, however, Samantha refuses to involve her son in Oliver’s chaotic life unless he keeps this knowledge a secret, even from Felicity.
While it’s all well and good that the episode boasts a highly personal narrative in the midst of what could easily have served as a bloated backdoor pilot, Samantha’s demands can’t help but feel like little more than a blatantly contrived means of throwing further bumps into Oliver and Felicity’s relationship. And, indeed, that’s exactly what it does. After learning about William, Felicity is enraged—not because Oliver has an illegitimate child but because he didn’t feel as though she could be trusted with that info. This appears to be the last straw, and the two break up.
Needless to say, Oliver is nowhere near the right headspace when he, Barry, Kendra and Carter confront Savage. In what amounts to the superhero version of Murphy’s Law, everything that can go wrong does go wrong—Kendra is unable to tap into her powers and she and Carter are quickly dispatched, the gauntlets designed to defeat Savage are a bust and Oliver is too emotional beaten to be an effective fighter. And so, Savage swiftly releases a blaze that destroys the entire city, killing every single main character.