Time is nothing to mess around with

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The CW superhero crossover event that sort of began with the Supergirl episode “Medusa” and continued with The Flash and Arrow, concludes with a “Heroes vs Aliens” smackdown on Legends of Tomorrow.

When we last left our heroes, five had been abducted by the aliens known as The Dominators. But the mystery was why did they abduct just Oliver, Thea, Diggle, Ray and Sara? With the help of Nate Heywood, the team came to the conclusion that the abductees were the non-metahumans (and non-alien) of the group which allowed the Dominators to more easily probe their minds. But what were the looking for by constructing a world in which the Queen family was whole?

The episode pulled together elements we first witnessed in The Flash, including the invasion of 1951 and the mysterious Man in Black, which gave the Legends team a chance to go back to 1951 and abduct their own Dominator to get some answers (with Dr. Stein and Jefferson staying behind). With Heywood, Sara, Mick, Amaya, Felicty and Cisco back in 1951, the opportunity to get a Dominator presented itself until a whole team of MIBs showed up, led by the younger version of the older man we’ve seen in the present. Unfortunately, the team and the alien are taken in for interrogation, but with the help of Felicity and Cisco — who had been told to stay on the ship — they managed to escape but felt bad for what sounded like torture taking place in another room with the alien. The team was split on whether to help or not, but Cisco prevailed and they set the alien free. But, as this is the past, no one thought of what consequences this could entail.

This episode really delved into those consequences of messing with the past. Ever since Barry screwed with his own timeline by creating Flashpoint, Cisco has been dealing with this event the hardest, always blaming Barry for his brother’s death. Diggle has also been dealing with knowing his son was a daughter, but he hasn’t let this knowledge cloud his feelings as much as Cisco has. In fact, Cisco specifically went on the trip to 1951 just to get away from Barry … and then set in motion the alien invasion without knowing it.

One small gesture of kindness, saving the alien, resulted in the invasion in the present and it was all on Cisco’s shoulders. Since 1951, the aliens had been watching Earth and its growing population of metahumans. Having seen this phenomenon occur on other planets, and witnessing the destruction that followed, the Dominators wanted to eradicate all metahumans from the planet before something similar happened. Professor Stein came up with a gizmo that would cause the aliens great pain but a device had to be placed on each alien and activated at the same time so they would not know what was happening in advance. The only people capable of getting around the globe to do this were Flash and Supergirl, and their teamwork paid off, sending the aliens packing much to the ire of the old Man in Black. Sara and Firestorm were also instrumental in preventing the alien’s metahuman killing bomb from detonating, turning it into a harmless ball of water. But the lingering question remains: are the metahumans helping or harming the planet?

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There was also another surprising development as a result of screwing with the past. As we saw at the end of the Arrow episode, Stein went to his house and was greeted by a young woman who turned out to be his daughter. But Stein doesn’t have a daughter, or didn’t until he told his 1987 self to stop neglecting his wife. Stein dealt with the news rather badly, telling Caitlin that once they were done with this invasion he was going to go back and right his wrong. Caitlin was shocked that he would be so cavalier about erasing a human being from existence, and even more shocked when he insisted the daughter was not real. But a good talking to about his behavior, and the invaluable assistance his daughter offered in creating the device, gave Stein second thoughts. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Will he go back and fix the past, or will he accept his new daughter … and then explain the truth to her?

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While an alien invasion was bad, some good did come of it. Oliver and company have some happy memories of seeing their loved ones again, even if those memories aren’t real. Oliver, who had been leary of allowing Supergirl to join the group, finally admitted to her that the problem of letting someone new in was his not hers (which resulted in a humorously uncomfortable group hug with the two of them and Barry), but most of all Cisco, seeing how his own actions led to the alien invasion and how Barry was willing to sacrifice himself to the Dominators in exchange for saving the world, finally made peace with his friend. He also gave Kara a device that will allow her to cross over to their Earth whenever she wants, so we can certainly expect another crossover event at some point (like the musical Supergirl/The Flash episode in the works). It seemed like the team was able to vanquish the aliens pretty quickly, but overall it was a satisfying conclusion. And it was still pretty cool seeing everyone together.

Best line of the whole event — Ray Palmer, after talking to Kara, mentioning that she kind of looks like his cousin, a sly reference to Routh’s one shot at playing Superman. Good one! Of course Mick’s “Hey Skirt, call me” line to Kara was a close second.