Legends of Tomorrow – Abominations

By: Michelle Lopez

After intercepting an SOS call and identifying a temporal beacon from a Time Pirate, The Legends head to Mississippi in 1893 during the height of the Civil War. The Legends can’t leave the Time Pirate to his own devices during the pinnacle of the Civil War since it’s bound to cause Aberration-palooza. Sara (Caity Lotz) benches Ray (Brandon Routh) since his Atom suit got blown up last week while Stein (Victor Garber) would like for Jax (Franz Drameh) to stay behind since 1893 didn’t believe in racial equality, but Jax isn’t having any of that.

In what seems to be the team’s quickest and easiest mission, the Legends finds the wrecked escape pod, which Mick (Dominic Purcell) incinerates effectively completing their job. As the team gets ready to leave Jax ruins the moment by declaring this mission their easiest yet. Moments after he finished that statement a man runs past screaming for help as he’s chased by a horde of Confederate soldiers. Amaya (Maisie Richardson-Sellers) makes to go help the man, but Jax reminds her they’re not supposed to mess with history and cause Aberrations themselves. Amaya takes off anyways and the team follows. They quickly take out all the attacking Confederates and check on the man they just saved, Henry Scott (Warren Belle). Nate (Nick Zano) pieces together that Henry is “dispatch,” a former slave providing intel to the Union. Before they can glean too much information from Henry they’re attacked again. It turns out these soldiers are zombies and Stein’s worst nightmare. The Legends take out the zombies, but Henry is fatally wounded and hands off his mission to Jax before succumbing to his wounds.

Back on the Waverider, the Legends discover that the Time Pirate had a bioweapon, TX-90, with him when he crashed resulting in the hordes of Confederate zombies. Mick passes out and is rushed to the Med Bay where they find out he’s been bitten by one of the infected. Ray and Stein are tasked with figuring out a cure for him. In the Library, Sara and Jax read into how history has changed because of the zombies. The Confederates won the war in large part because Henry Scott’s mission of infiltrating the Collins Plantation and stealing Confederate troop movement orders for General Ulysses S. Grant (John Churchill) was never completed. Jax takes it upon himself to complete Henry’s mission, but Sara isn’t too keen on the idea. After a little debate Jax and Amaya are on their way to complete Henry’s mission while Sara and Nate go warn General Grant about the zombies.

Plantation Infiltration 101

As Jax and Amaya approach the Collins Plantation they hear an argument between a female slave, Mary (Tintswalo Khumbuza) and a plantation hand (Joshua Hinkson). Mary accidentally burnt a table cloth while ironing and the plantation hand is set on lashing her as punishment. Once again, Amaya is ready to run in and help but Jax reminds her that they can’t blow their cover. They have to complete Henry’s missions in order to fix history.

Jax and Amaya discuss how they’re going to infiltrate the estate house. Henry’s plan was to disguise himself as the help during a party being held there that evening. Jax follows the plan and gets into the house without issue. He sneaks into the house’s study but doesn’t find the plans. Jax ventures into the party not paying much attention to the people around him as he scans for the plans. Unfortunately, he runs into a woman and takes her hand as he apologizes. Mr. Collins (Dean S. Jagger) sees this and goes off on Jax for having the audacity to take a woman’s hand and address her directly. Jax tries to defuse the situation by walking away, but that further enrages Mr. Collins and Jax ends up knocked out.

Jax wakes up chained in the barn out back with many of Collins’s slaves. He asks for their help in locating the Confederate troop movement orders, but Mary and Abraham (Alex Barima) explain to him that it’s impossible to escape. They tell him the story of a few men who tried, but were hunted down by Collins’s guard dogs. Mr. Collins had them maimed to make them unable to escape and to ward off any other escape attempts folks might have been planning. Jax asks how they endure such horrible treatment and they tell him that they refuse to give Collins what he wants. They refuse to break.

Unable to get ahold of Jax on comms, Amaya heads into the party and is instantly accosted by the plantation hand who punished Mary earlier in the day. She refuses to play the role of an obedient slave, which amuses and annoys the plantation hand. He decides that Amaya needs to be taught how to talk to her betters by taking her out to the barn so Mr. Collins can “have fun” with her later. Amaya, upon seeing Jax, knocks out the perverted plantation hand and sets Jax free. She gets ready to head out, but Jax wants to free all the slaves being held in the barn. Amaya points out that this is would be breaking the rules and potentially creating more Aberrations in time. Jax doesn’t care anymore because the way Collins is treating them is the true Aberration and anything they do can only improve it. Abraham and Mary are not keen on the idea of running away, but once Mary sees Amaya’s Zambezi warrior amulet they follow the Legends.

As zombies attack the plantation, Amaya takes the group to the Union camp while Jax and Abraham head into the house to steal the plans. On their way out of the house the zombie horde breaks in and despite the dire circumstances Mr. Collins would rather, and does, get killed by the zombies than arm any of the slaves. Jax throws a lit oil lantern on the zombies to eliminate the horde and destroy the Collins Plantation.

General Grant vs The Undead

Sara and Nate head out in search of the Union Army. Nate suggests that he take the lead in explaining the zombie situation to General Grant since he’s a man and gender equality is a couple hundred years away. Union soldiers emerge out of the woods surrounding them and take them captive. At the Union camp, Sara and Nate are brought before General Grant to explain their presence. Nate takes the lead, attempting to trick Grant into believing he is Colonel Sanders of the 31st Pennsylvania Infantry. Nobody buys it. Sara steps in to explain that they are not part of the Union or Confederate armies, but rather two folks sent to deliver a warning. Sara tells Grant a horde of zombies is headed toward his company. Unfortunately, the term “zombie” won’t be coined for another 70 years so Sara opts to leave Nate behind as a hostage and go get some proof.

A while later, Sara returns as Nate continues to try and explain what the definition of a zombie. She drops the very aggressive head of one such zombie on the table which finally gets General Grant’s attention. Sara spotted fifty other zombies within a mile of the Union Camp so Grant mobilizes his troops and they begin to battle the Confederate zombies. Grant’s troops manage to hold off the zombies, but are quickly running out of ammunition. With the rest of the team busy, Sara pulls Nate aside to come up with a plan to defeat the zombie horde.

General Grant’s men finally run out of ammunition forcing Nate to execute Sara’s plan. With a quick pep talk of “run fast, run hard, don’t die,” Sara sends Nate out of camp. Once Nate’s out of sight, Sara has every light in the camp shut off as Nate lights a flair attracting the attention of the zombies. He, along with the horde, run away from camp toward a pile in a field nearby. Nate activates his Steel powers as the last of the zombies meet him in the field and uses his flair to ignite the pile, which happens to be made of explosives. The explosion takes care of the zombie horde and after a few minutes Nate crawls out of the field complaining about being covered in zombie guts.

Before the Legends leave, General Grant stops Sara to thank her for her help and provide some much needed guidance about leadership. Nate told him of her discomfort in sending Jax out on a solo mission and Grant relates. He tells her that as long as she believes in her mission she shouldn’t regret making the decisions necessary to fulfill it.

Operation Zombie Cure

In the Med Bay, Ray has developed what he believes to be a cure to the TX-90 infection. Mick is more than ready to get cured because the last thing he wants is to be a zombie. Unfortunately, the cure doesn’t work and accelerates the infection turning Mick into a full on zombie. Ray and Stein retreat to the deck and have Gideon seal them in for protection.

Trapped on the deck, Ray and Stein aerosolize the cure and Ray heads out to find Mick. After about five steps Ray gets knocked out from behind by Mick, leaving Stein to save the day. Stein faces his fear of zombies and slowly ventures out into the ship’s corridors. After a few minutes he comes face to face with Mick who tackles him to the ground. Stein administers the cure seconds before being bit and Mick wakes up with no recollection of what had happened.

Ray visits Mick as he’s recovering in the Med Bay. They discuss Ray’s loss of identity without the Atom suit. Mick explains that Ray feeling like an outsider is a good thing because outsiders don’t have to worry about pleasing everyone. They only have to take care of themselves. In a surprising act of kindness, Mick hands over Snart’s freeze gun to Ray asking him to be his new partner.