Previously on Legends of Tomorrow, two years ago in fact, in a town called Salvation, the Legend joined together to form a giant Beebo and defeat Mallus, killing Darhk in the process. Five hours later, Gary is picking up Beebo fluff when a shadow looms out of the darkness to make his Encore performance.

In the present day, Constantine is telling Charlie and Sara that he wants to use the Loom of Fate to change Astra’s fate, but Charlie is very against this plan.

Maybe we listen to the immortal being, eh?

Sara listens to both sides and ends up siding with Charlie; no one should have that much power over people’s fates. She understands the temptation to change the past to fix it, but she tells him it’s not right. Besides, they don’t have time to go around looking for pieces of the Loom, they have some Encores to kill with Khan’s hellsword.

My body was not prepared for Sara in a tank top with an ancient sword.

Ava’s prognosticator goes off and Gideon tells them there’s an Encore in Salvation, but when Sara turns around to rally the troops, she realizes that no one else is within quipping distance.

Confused never looked so cute.

And that’s because Nate, Behrad and Gary are at Constantine’s manor helping Ray prepare for an elaborate date night, because he plans to propose to Nora. When Nora shows up though, she is surprised; she thought they were just having a casual pizza night. Also, she still has Pippa with her, who is still grumpy because they haven’t figured out her heart’s desire yet.

Back on the Waverider, Nate tells Constantine an old story about a piece of the Loom of Fate being in the south pole, so Constantine rushes off to head there and Charlie reveals that it was actually her shifted into Nate to send Constantine on a wild Loom chase.

Meanwhile, Sara and Ava are suited up in Old West gear, ready to head back to Salvation, but when they go to get Mick, all they hear is angry grunting from inside his room.

Yee-haw indeed.

Zari appears and tells them that he’s been like that all day. He grumbles that someone has been leaving bad reviews for Rebecca Silver books online, and Zari thinks it’s cute that he has his first troll. Zari, like most of us whose work is on the internet, is an old pro at having trolls, so Ava and Sara are going to handle the Encore themselves while Zari helps Mick.

Self-care, but make it fashion.

Back at the mansion, Gary feels himself flickering out of existence, but Sara and Ava find him tied to the train tracks like an old cartoon damsel in distress and save him just in time. They realize he’s Past!Gary and demand to know what man did this.

We get the answer before they do though, when we flash back to the future and see Nora answer the door to the mansion to find her father standing there.

Heeeeeeeeeeeere’s daddy!

He hugs her and she is so happy to see him; it’s easy to forget Nora was ever an evil sorceress, but when she is so delighted to see this evil man, it all comes rushing back. She realizes this means he’s an Encore, and he does confirm that he’s part of a soul-collecting pyramid scheme, And so Nora realizes that even though she’s changed, probably her father hasn’t, so she starts to play the part of good little bad girl.

Nora rushes into the kitchen and tells her friends that her father is there and is definitely an Encore and she is rightly worried that Sara is going to kill him. So she tasks Ray with taking Pippa and keeping her company while she tries to enjoy her dad’s company and keep him in the house where he is safe from Sara and the world is safe from him.

Back on the ship, Zari is trying to comfort Mick and stop him from stooping to the troll’s level and writing something nasty back. They just want attention.

“Don’t feed the trolls.”

It’s an unlikely pairing but a perfect one and gosh do I love this show.

In an effort to keep Pippa entertained, Ray shows her Mister Parker’s Cul De Sac, which, as you could guess, is the Earth Prime version of Mister Roger’s Neighborhood. If you grew up watching this show, you probably were, like me, delighted to see all the spot-on nods and references, from the layout of the house to the shoe changing to the train that took you to a town of puppets. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Elsewhere on the Waverider, Ava and Sara are talking about how to get rid of Darhk before Nora finds out he’s back. Sara says they should do this mission just the two of them though. “No boys, you know how sentimental they can be.” Which is TRUE of these boys, and proof in point about how this show is constantly flipping the script.

Caw caw Yippee ki-yay, motherfuckers!

Gideon tells Sara she got a call from Wild Dog while she was out, and Sara says she’ll take care of it later, and brushes off Ava’s question about it. (I watched most of Arrow, so I knew Wild Dog was a character there, but it was hilarious watching my Legends-only friends on my Twitter timeline try to figure out what it meant that she got a call from a wild dog.)

Following Zari’s advice, Mick had tried to send his troll a signed copy of his book, but the troll just burned it. So Mick decides to face this problem head on and marches right to the troll’s house. But what he finds there isn’t very troll-looking at all. It’s just an angry teenage girl.

Behind this teenage girl appears Ali, and we learn that the troll is his daughter. Dun dun dunnnnn.

Sara and Ava track Darhk to the manor and see that Nora and Darhk are already talking. They’re still planning to sneak attack, but Nora sees them and locks the door to thwart their plan.

So many gay jokes, so little time.

Nora distracts her father and angry-whispers to Sara and Ava and asks them not to kill her dad. She just wants one night. She wants to try to handle it their way. So she tells her father that Ava and Sara are her henchpeople now and takes Sara’s sword from her as proof.

“We’ve got S in the place who likes it in your face…”

They head to the kitchen to figure out a plan. Sara is chugging booze because having to stand in the same room as the man who killed her sister in cold blood without ripping his throat out with her bare hands is physically paining her. She really wants to kill him.

“Lemme at ‘im.”

Ava is of the same mind, of course, but is a little distracted when she notices Wild Dog is calling Sara’s cell phone. Nora, however, has a different idea: what if they just stripped him of his powers? There’s a potion they could make, the ingredients of which are probably all in this weird sorcerer’s den of a house they’re in, and then he would be only as dangerous as any other man, and Sara wouldn’t have to kill him, and Nora would have her dad back.

Gary bursts out of the cupboard he was hiding in and offers to help. Ava and Sara aren’t sure they like this plan, but Nora invokes the name of Book Club, a card that Ava says can only be played once, so Ava agrees.

Constantine is all geared up and ready to leave for the south pole when he sees Nate, who asks him where he’s going. When Nate doesn’t seem to be familiar with this trip, Constantine realizes Charlie tricked him, and he stomps off the Waverider in a huff.

Sara, Ava, and Nora start preparing Ray’s meal for Darhk to keep him busy while Gary makes the powerless potion. Sara is annoyed at Ray for planning six courses (and in fact says, out loud, with her mouth, “No one gets laid after six courses”) and storms out of the kitchen to serve the appetizers when her phone rings again. This time, Ava can’t resist, and she answers it.

“What are you wearing ‘Jake from State Farm’?!”

Just then, Constantine storms into the house looking for Gary when he finds himself face to face with Damian Darhk for the first time. They have a little “whose fireball is bigger” contest before Nora decides the best way to calm his father down is by pretending Constantine is her boyfriend and they live in this manor together. From over Darhk’s shoulder, Sara motions for Constantine to follow along, and for once in his gods-forsaken life, he listens.

Back on the Waverider, Pippa is starting to warm to Mister Parker, and even uses some of his advice on Ray, saying he shouldn’t be ashamed of who he loves, and he shouldn’t let Nora be hiding him from her father. To prove her point, she calls her fairy godmother, and when Ray asks Nora if she’s hiding him, she hilariously says it like it is: Of course she is! Ray wants her to tell the truth and Nora is like sure, yes, that is one option, OR we could try the other option which is me SAVING EVERYONE’S LIVES.

I got the sense this isn’t the first time Courtney has made this face at Brandon.

Down on Earth, Mick learns that his daughter is named Lita after the lead guitarist of The Runaways, and she hates him. Ali tries to tell Lia that Mick didn’t know he was her father but Lita is just angry. So Mick memory flashes them both (and almost flashes Zari too but she’s not having it) and storms out, sure they’re better off without him.

While Darhk and Constantine are having dinner and Ava and Sara are having to play henchpeople, Constantine decides to use this situation to his advantage and ask Darhk about the Loom. Sara tries to get him to stop without blowing her cover, and Ava helps by making it clear that she’s annoyed; you see, Wild Dog was calling Sara about a job offer.

“What job would you even do in Star City?! IS NYSSA STILL IN STAR CITY?!”

Sara admits she was considering it, and that she thought Ava would want to go with her.

“I want to grow old like you, the way we did in Purgatory Ikea that one time.”

And then Ava chokes on the ring that Ray forgot he had buried in the mousse. This next moment was so subtle but so perfect. Ava holds up the ring, confused, and silently asks Sara if it was her doing. There’s no fear or hope in her eyes, just surprise; job offer withstanding (and they would have gotten there eventually) they are good communicators, so Ava is pretty sure it wasn’t Sara, but just wants to make sure. And Sara, upon being silently asks, simply shakes her head no, implying she doesn’t know where the ring came from. A Sara from seasons ago might have panicked at the very notion, but there’s no fear in her eyes. Just a simple, “Nah, not me,” look.

I love a good silent conversation between girlfriends.

It’s perfect. I love seeing a healthy adult relationship on my teevee.

When Nora notices that Ray has burst into the hallway behind Darhk, Nora realizes it was Ray. So when Constantine makes a move to try to keep up the charade and propose to Nora, she says no. She comes out to her father as a Fairy Godmother, and as Ray’s girlfriend, and admits that Sara and Ava aren’t her henchpeople, and she calls them her friends. Her friends! It made me more emotional than it had any right to. Darhk is furious and starts to go a little bananas, pinning everyone to walls with magic. Nora opens a wee window into her childhood and pleads with him saying, “You can’t just kill my friends anymore,” but Darhk wrests the hellsword from Sara and threatens all their lives.

When the Encore alarm starts going off on the Waverider, Pippa wishes that they could all go help her friends, so they all show up. When she sees everyone fighting, she wishes them all into Mister Parker’s Cul De Sac so they can solve their problems.

But it’s now Mister Palmer’s neighborhood, and after singing his welcoming song, Ray tries to get the Darhk’s to talk about their problems.

This would be me in therapy with my mother. Lots of pointing.

To help, Ray invokes help from his friend Gary the Train, who leads us to a room where Charlie and Constantine work out their problems by following the example of Puppet Sara and Puppet Ava communicating their feelings honestly and clearly about how Sara thought Ava wanted to settle down, but Ava is actually having fun being a Legend.

:Avenue Q voice: “You can be as loud as the hell you want…”

Constantine promises Charlie that if she helps him find the Loom pieces, he’ll JUST use it to change Astra’s life, but then he’ll help Charlie destroy the Loom again, for good this time.

I can’t wait to meet Charlie’s sisters.

After seeing those pairs work things out, Darhk admits that he’s upset to see his daughter isn’t the all-powerful sorceress he’d hoped she’d be, and he blames Ray. But Nora says Ray didn’t make her who she was or choose her job. She likes helping kids. She likes who she is. Ray is just a small part of all that. Darhk realizes that his daughter is happy, and that in the end that’s all he really wanted, so he hugs his Nora Doll.

Seeing this broken mess of a family making it work, Pippa learns to appreciate her own family, and releases her Fairy Godmother, freeing them all from Mister Palmer’s Neighborhood and inspiring Nora to say yes to Ray’s proposal. She can’t wait to marry him, and frankly they’re running out of episodes, so they decide to get married on this very evening.

The wedding is beautiful. Nate walks Ray down the aisle, Ava is Nora’s maid of honor, Gary is living his flower boy dreams, Nora’s father gives her away, and Sara officiates.

I love that at any given fancy occasion, either one of them could be wearing a dress or a suit and it works.

And it seems like Nora and Ray are going to get their happily ever after.

:sobs: Can we keep you?

Darhk pulls Ray aside and thanks him for making his daughter happy. But asks him to help support her by taking her off the Waverider, a task Ray seems to be seriously considering.

Back on the Waverider, Zari tries to convince Mick to try again with his daughter, saying that sure her methods were…well, Mick-like, but Lita reached out for a reason. But Mick is sure her and Ali are better off without him in their lives.

I can’t get over the way Tala even holds herself differently as Zari 2.0 like some kind of Tatiana Maslany.

As the wedding reception is dying down, Darhk tells Nora that he’ll stop being evil, for her, and promises her he’ll never be far, and cries as he starts to leave.

Sara stops him at the door and he says he’s supposed to get more souls for Astra, and that since he won’t be doing that, he’ll have to go back to hell soon, but didn’t want Nora to know that. He tries to shake Sara’s hand, but one night doesn’t change all the horrible things he did, so while she’s not about to kill him where he stands, she’s not ready to make nice.

“I’m still mad as hell, and I don’t have time to go ’round and ’round and ’round.”

He leaves, and Sara notices the hellsword is missing, so she rushes outside after him. But as she opens the door, she sees a swoosh of green and the sword falls to the ground; it seems he did her job for her. And finally, finally, Damian Darhk is gone.

“So the battle’s done, and we kinda won?”

Next week, we’re shaking up some Shakespeare, and I for one can’t wait.

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