DC’s Legends of Tomorrow – Invasion!

By: Michelle Lopez

In case you didn’t partake in the entire week long crossover event here a quick recap: Aliens called The Dominators have come to earth to wreak havoc for reasons unknown. Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) called the Legends back to 2016 while Barry (Grant Gustin) and Cisco (Carlos Valdes) traveled to Earth 38 to grab Kara (Melissa Benoist). The Dominators did some brainwashing of our heroes, but were thwarted so they kidnapped all our non-metahuman heroes onto their mothership and plugged them into a simulation. Our non-metahumans broke out of the simulation, escaped the in a pod and were snagged by the Waverider.

In the Star City hangar HQ, heroes Barry, Kara, Cisco, Sara (Caity Lotz), Stein (Victor Garber), Jax (Franz Drameh), Ray (Brandon Routh), Oliver (Stephen Amell), Nate (Nick Zano), Diggle (David Ramsey) and Felicity conclude that The Dominators kidnapped the non-metahumans to download as much information on the metahumans as they could. Metahumans are the main threat to the success of their invasion so it makes sense they’d want to eliminate them. They decide the best course of action is to kidnap a Dominator of their own to get intel on what they’re planning. Their best chance of grabbing a Dominator is back in 1951 when they first attacked earth. Nate, Amaya (Maisie Richardson-Sellers), Mick (Dominic Purcell), Felicity and Cisco jump on the Waverider to tackle that task while Barry, Sara, Ray and Oliver go to meet with the President who’s requested an audience with them. Oliver benches a very enthusiastic Kara because the idea that aliens exist has messed with his sense of normalcy and his sense of normalcy is significantly more important than the safety of the planet.

1951

The Waverider successfully lands in 1951 and Nate, Mick, and Amaya gear up to head out and capture an alien while Cisco cleans up after Felicity and her unfortunate side effects of time travel. Nate, Amaya and Mick find the site where the great humans vs. Dominator battle took place and see humans getting the snot beat out of them. Nate’s ready to rush in a grab an alien, but Mick’s decided they’ll wait for a straggler to minimize the number of Dominators they’ll have to fight.

Back on the Waverider, Felicity has had enough of Cisco’s moping around being pissed at Barry for creating Flashpoint. She calls him out on why he really jumped on a timeship and ran off to 1951 and it turns out he’s pissed at Barry and it’s time for him to get over it. Yes, Barry messed with time and caused Cisco’s brother to die, but it was an unintended consequence and Barry didn’t do it on purpose. Hating your best friend for an accident when the world is ending is dumb and Felicity’s calling Cisco out. Unfortunately, Cisco’s got ready forgive Barry yet.

Back at the battle field, The Dominators have won and are dragging the deceased humans to their ship. Mick spots a lone alien and they attack. Mick distracts him with some fire while Nate sneaks up and knocks him out with a blow to the head. Before the Legends can get him back to the Waverider, a group of government goons stroll up looking like the Men in Black. They take the Dominator and shoot Nate, Mick and Amaya with tranquilizer darts.

In some unknown government facility, Nate, Amaya and Mick are locked in a room with the restrained Dominator. They can’t escape because the tranquilizers have messed up their powers for the time being. They decide to take advantage of the time to interrogate the Dominator. The alien tells them that the recent emergence of metahumans has caused the Dominators to stop by to determine if humans are a threat to them. The men in black bust in and take the alien away for “further questioning,” leaving the Legends to ruminate over this new information. Before too long, Felicity and Cisco burst into the facility for a quick rescue. They all decide that they can’t leave the alien behind to be tortured and killed by the agents. They still have the Dominator escape pod the non-metahumans used back in 2016 on the Waverider so they’re going to rescue the alien and help fix the pod to send him back home. Nate and Amaya knock out Agent Smith (Donnelly Rhodes) and his colleague while Felicity fixes the pod. After the alien leaves, Cisco discloses that he kept a transponder from the pod so they can contact the Dominator ship when they get back to 2016.

The Curse of Flashpoint Strikes Again

In a Star City facility, Sara, Oliver, Barry and Ray wait for the president to arrive. Suddenly, they are surrounded by government vehicles and held at gunpoint as the leader of the men in black, Agent Smith, from 1951 walks up. Barry takes action before they all get shot and uses his superspeed to incapacitate the armed agents and the rest of the team jumps in to help take out the rest. Barry, Oliver, Sara and Ray ask Agent Smith why he’s attacking them when they just want to help. It turns out in 1951 the Dominators and humans made a treaty which Barry unknowingly violated when he created Flashpoint. If one metahuman can change the history of time it proves that metahumans pose a threat to the Dominators causing them to take action once again. Agent Smith has worked out a new arrangement to ensure the safety of humanity, Barry has to turn himself over to the Dominators and they’ve agreed to leave Earth alone.

A Good Aberration

At Star Labs, Stein and Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker) are working on developing a weapon to defend earth against the Dominators when Stein’s new to him daughter, Lily (Christian Brucato), walks in ready to help. Stein attempts to belittle her and blow her off, but it turns out his daughter is just as if not more brilliant than him with a PhD in nanotechnology.

As they work, Lily tries desperately to get her father to stop acting like he wishes she weren’t around. Stein abruptly excuses himself and Caitlin follows to scold him for being a jerk. He admits that Lily is an aberration he caused when he interacted with himself in the past and makes it clear that he plans on going back in time to erase Lily.

Lily is struggling with finding a way to create a weapon against the Dominators, has a momentary meltdown and storms out. Caitlin scolds Stein because Lily can’t focus since her father is acting like she’s means nothing. Stein doesn’t think it matters, but Lily is the world’s best chance at developing a weapon so it does. Stein goes after Lily to apologize for acting so horribly toward her. His explanation causes Lily to have an epiphany and causes Stein to realize Lily isn’t an aberration but rather a gift.

Back Together at Last

As the Waverider returns to 2016, Cisco gets a call on the stolen transponder. The alien they rescued wants to return the favor and save their lives by explaining that if Barry doesn’t turn himself in they’ll have no choice, but to deploy a bomb they’ve created that will kill all metahumans.

Back in the warehouse HQ, Oliver tries to talk Barry out of turning himself in while Cisco, Nate, Sara and Ray discuss what’ll happen if The Dominators drop their metabomb on earth. The bomb will wipe out all metahumans and around two million non-metahumans, which isn’t something a group of heroes can let happen. Diggle and Jax walk in to let them know that Dominator ships are arriving all over the planet in preparation for their final attack. Sara sees through their power play and has Cisco and Nate go make contact with the aliens again. The transponder is not working, but Cisco vibes himself and Nate onto the Dominator ship with their rescued alien aboard. The alien isn’t in a merciful mood for a good reason, what happens when sadistic humans like Agent Smith inherit metahuman powers? That is a threat to the entire galaxy and The Dominators are trying to prevent it. Nate and Cisco return to earth and finally Cisco has gained some perspective. When he and the others went back to 1951 they created their own aberration by freeing the Dominator much like the mess Barry created in Flashpoint. Cisco finally sees that Barry was trying to make things better, but inadvertently made things worse and he gets over his grudge.

Barry has decided to turn himself in because what’s his life over the lives of millions of people. As he says his goodbyes and turns to leave, he finds himself up against an army of his friends. They’re not going to let him go, they’re going to fight. Stein and Lily have cooked up a device that’ll cause horrible agony to The Dominators so Sara and Cisco take off in the Waverider to stop the metabomb while everyone else dukes it out with The Dominators and plants the devices. The Waverider catches the metabomb, but struggles to hold on. Jax and Stein, as Firestorm, fly up and absorb the bombs energy to defuse it as Kara and Barry plant Stein’s devices on The Dominators. With the bomb defused and the Dominators all bugged, Felicity activates the devices and sends the aliens fleeing back to their ships and far away from Earth.

With the Earth saved, our heroes get a thanks from the president and head off to have a little party to celebrate. Kara, high off saving the earth once again, tells Barry and Oliver that it doesn’t matter if they have superpowers or are metahumans or are plain old humans. They are heroes because they do what it takes to ensure the safety of the planet. This prompts Oliver to apologize for being rude to her earlier, but Kara being her amazingly sweet self doesn’t hold it against him. Cisco ensures that we can have as many crossover events by gifting Kara with an inter-dimensional extrapolator so she can visit their earth whenever she wants. Agent Smith drops by to cover this mess up, but Kara has different plans. She’s pitched a DEO to the president and also suggested sending Agent Smith to Antarctica. The lesson? Don’t mess with the most adorable alien in every universe. Oh and Stein makes Jax promise to keep his daughter a secret.