The Legends have been through a lot, and their leader, Sara Lance, even more. She had a rough life before she signed on with, and eventually became the leader of, this band of time-traveling misfits. Now, on a still-unnamed planet, Sara has learned the shocking truth that her original body has died, and she’s a clone of herself. She has a lot to process, while the others try various ways to rescue her, as they go “Back To The Finale, Part II.”

Picking up where we left off, Sara stares at her own dead body while Bishop babbles on, clearly well into sociopath territory. She’s stunned while he’s completely uncaring, sounding excited about his plan that he keeps hinting at. On the Waverider, a shattered Ava, having been told Sara is dead, watches the video that David Bowie (of all people) shot, of Sara announcing her intention to propose to Ava. The current captain of the Legends is clearly a mess, and a very worried Nate comes to check on her. Ava, to her credit, does ask about the others, and Nate says they are grieving in their own way. Which apparently involves a bottle of tequila being passed around. Nate answers their questions the best he can, mentions he’s reluctantly temporarily captain, and no one disputes it, which is both a mark of how upset people are and that they do have some respect for him.

Noticing that he’s missing, Nate, followed by Zari, goes to look for Behrad. I’d say it’s odd Behrad is taking Sara’s loss so hard, but then, with the timeline shifting, we never actually saw most of their relationship, so there’s no telling how close they were. A passing comment from Spooner and John Constantine serve as the excuse to shift scenes, and we catch up with Mick and Kayla. They’ve clearly been enjoying each other’s company, but now have differing agendas. Mick wants help to rescue Sara, while Kayla is all about getting the ship running and taking off. Finally, she offers the best deal he’s going to get: she’ll wait for a bit to take off, giving him a time limit to make his rescue of his lost captain.

In Bishop’s headquarters, more Ava troopers flood into the room, and Bishop takes sudden action which shocks Sara, and shows how blasé he is about some things. He rambles on about his plan as he attends to a wardrobe change, and Sara is progressively more and more disgusted. After they argue for a while, Bishop decides to proceed with a contingency plan. Mick, still bound and determined to save Sara, runs across some unexpected allies. Nate and Zari don’t find Behrad, but figure out what he’s up to, and the ramifications of that. On the heels of this discovery, the team goes someplace familiar and delivers a surprising message.

Strategizing, the team realizes they have more or less a shared blind spot which is hampering their planning. They realize they might have a way to move forward thanks to one of the team’s persistent habit. One of them works out a potential change if they manage to alter the timeline, and is actually ok with it. Their initial attempt at changing things up comes up short, raising the stakes and making someone from their past suspicious. Off on purple world (it’d be nice if they named it, and DC has a lot of planets in their history), Sara decides she has nothing to lose and goes on the offensive. She gets a surprise reunion with Mick, Gary, and some Avas, and she and Mick share a rare sweet moment.

Getting increasingly desperate, the Legends find one more loophole to allow for their shenanigans, and give it a whirl. Once again, things don’t line up for them, and some suspicions increase. After a weird meeting with someone they’re looking for, Zari confronts John about one of the secrets he’s been keeping, and he comes clean. The team then gets another major complication as someone proves far too smart for their own good, finds them, and reads them the riot act about what they’re trying to do. This also, retroactively, explains the out of character condition of one of them back at the season premier. Going about the plan to stop Bishop, Sara makes a surprising discovery and shuffles her priorities.

This leads to another confrontation with the insufferable Bishop, and he and Sara go back and forth about their very, very different outlooks. Sara is enraged, Bishop is smug, and more and more complications develop for what Sara wants to do. The bulk of the team tries to find a way ahead with their own scheme, and Behrad comes up with something truly desperate. Back at Bishop’s place, Sara appeals to one of the Avas for help, but the clone has been trained to be full of self-doubt. Finally, Sara launches into another version of her plan, mind still reeling from all she’s learned.

Behrad sounds ridiculously optimistic, possibly with some denial mixed in, as the Legends move ahead with their newest plan despite some good advice. They take advantage of one last loophole to keep an eye on their past selves, and Spooner (who looks good in her period costume) gets sent on a mission she’s not necessarily the best choice for and runs into a complication that isn’t her fault as soon as she gets in place. Among the unexpected things that take place over the next few minutes are the usually tough and/or indifferent Spooner expressing some doubt about her place on the team and then Sara revealing some of why she keeps putting off her proposal. This then loops back to the familiar scene of Sara talking about her plans to David Bowie and his camera.

Nate develops a problem and leaves the room where they’ve been doing their planning, and then things get even weirder. They get a visitor from the future who looks odd and brings dire tidings, but Behrad uses the distraction to sneak off, still certain he can make things work. The strange visitation comes to an end, Behrad pushes forward with his own crazy idea, and then, as we see a few things we’ve seen before, we learn more about what happened when Sara was abducted in the first place. The Sara who has been fighting Bishop this entire episode senses some of what the team is trying to do, and worries about what the consequences will be. Her situation gets complicated when Mick arrives, takes some simple direct action as he tends to do, and it kicks off the next phase of Bishop’s plan. In Mick’s defense, not only did he not know about this, I’m not entirely sure we did. The stakes get higher and Sara realizes she may have to give up on some changes she hoped to force happen. As Biship mocks Sara’s tough choices, Mick learns something Sara didn’t want him to know, although he seems fairly unphased by it. Then again, not a lot phases Mick. Finally, Sara makes her choice to halt the latest iteration of Bishop’s scheme, and the good guys run for Kayla’s ship.

Even that can’t go smoothly as the locals start attacking, and there’s a major battle. Sara, Mick, and Gary get a nasty surprise, then a good one, as the fight rages on. Then it’s Mick’s turn for a tough choice, and what they end up having to do is going to trouble their resident pyro, and probably have some other consequences down the road. Astra and Behrad have a nice scene in the wake of the most recent setback, and it’s one of the kindest things I think we’ve seen Astra do, and it makes me wonder about some future developments. Then, after there’s time for some grief and Ava’s video binge to get interrupted, Sara and Mick make their surprise return, to a lot of rejoicing and a long-delayed question.

The few wrap up scenes are, for a change, all good ones. Sara and Ava celebrate, after Sara goes out of her way to earn Gary some forgiveness from the Legends. Zari and John have a quick conversation about his circumstances and their relationship gets a bit more serious. There are even actual fireworks, as hinted at early in the show, and no ominous hints about new dangers. I’m sure they have more problems and shifting dynamics to come, but for now, almost everyone seems happy.

What I liked: It often seems the writers aren’t quite sure how to play Nate, and usually use him for comic relief. While there was some of that, certainly, he also really stepped up and did some good things. Sara had some hard choices to make and, for a frequently silly show, she really had to question her own identity in a very fundamental way, not that she hasn’t had to do this several times under different circumstances. It was a silly, throwaway moment, but their brief visit from the future was entertaining. Ava stayed true to herself even not knowing what was happening, and it explained something that hadn’t sat right with me from the season premier. I really hope that’s the last we see or hear of Bishop. I’m thrilled for Sara and Ava.

What I didn’t: It was a good episode, but somehow seemed long, maybe because so much happened with so many repeats due to time travel. I felt really bad for Mick who worked so hard to do the right thing and paid an ugly price for it. I’m afraid I know what’s going to happen with that one, but I’d like to be wrong.

It was a good episode with some really interesting twists, and some things that should change the show going forward. I’ll give this a 3.5 out of 5. The follow up to all this should be interesting.