“Legends of Tomorrow” Episode 713 Recap: Avalance, Baby!

Hell-O and welcome to this recap of Legends of Tomorrow Season 7, Episode 13, “Knocked Down, Knocked Up,” aka the season finale!!

Last week when they were saying their goodbyes, the Legends decided to meet up on Wednesdays. And it’s been one week for them, same as us, same as Alex Danvers’ favorite song, and Ava and Sara return to the manor for family dinner.

Sara and Ava show up early for dinner

I know Ava loves to be early but that means Sara makes sure she’s ready early too.

They make a little joke about the Sunday to Wednesday time switch the show made, and then the Legends start showing up one by one. They realize the time machine is missing, and in its place they find a note from Gwyn saying his goodbyes.

But Gwyn isn’t tucked inside his quiet homestead; no, he’s swapping out the real Alun for RoboAlun in hopes to not break history whilst also saving the love of his life.

Up on the Waverider, Human Gideon is alone with Evil Gideon. The AI spots an anomaly, and for her first go, Human Gideon decides to go full Legends, dressing up and having a conversation with the rogue time traveler to teach her the error of her ways. And she succeeded but it wasn’t quite the romp it was with her friends.

Human Gideon, dressed in colonial garb, lays on a too-small couch

This is giving me high school drama club flashbacks.

For the Legends, a month goes by. Not much has changed, but Ava and Sara are enjoying the settled down life so much that they’re talking about maybe having a baby. Sara is so excited about it, in fact, that she gave Ava apple juice even though they’ve only just started talking about talking about it…just in case.

Ava looks horrified she was given juice instead of wine

Baaaaaby Sharpe do do dodo dodo

Zari is very excited and it’s not really relevant to anything but I loved this screenshot of here so here’s a fancy Zari for you.

Zari smiles with chopsticks in her hand

She’s going to be the best auntie ever.

They go around the table to give updates but they all dance on their own lives briefly before trying to pass the talking stick to someone else; Nate is having a hard time writing his book because he doesn’t feel past it yet, Astra thinks Capitol Hill is like hell, deflection after deflection as the conversation goes around the table. Trying to get the topic out of the room entirely, they Astra if she’s talked to Gideon. She nervously says no, saying it’s only been a month in a way to reassure herself as much as anyone; but the truth is, in the time stream, it could have been much longer than that for Gideon’s human body.

And it’s true, time is passing differently for Gideon. She’s no longer treating each mission like an adventure, she’s getting harder and colder, wiping memories and dumping people back in their original timeline. No apologizing, no explaining.

Gideon looks cold, unmoved. Her makeup and expression darker than before.

I feel like these two photos of Gideon so far are me early pandemic vs me late pandemic.

Two weeks later, Ava and Sara are first to arrive for family dinner again, and this time it’s Ava who has switched the booze out for something a little fruitier. She’s ready to start getting serious about having a baby, and she’s even narrowed down a list of donors to 50. Sara is THRILLED. She’s so happy her babe is going to have a baby, and she knows it’ll all be perfect because Ava is perfect.

Ava and Sara aka Avalance kiss

I hope other TV writers will see our reaction to this and realize that we’re not against queer women having babies as a concept, as long as it makes SENSE.

Ava asks how Sara wants to tell the rest of the team but Sara says she’ll let Ava decide; after all, they’re co-captains for life. And this moment seems small but it’s actually quite big. Sara is the one who offered to let this be Ava’s decision, she didn’t try to take control of the situation because she didn’t trust it to go well if she didn’t do it herself. She didn’t think of herself first. There’s no ounce of fear or worry in her, no self-doubt. Loving Ava has made her a better person; and not because Ava changed her or needed her to change. They just grew together and are better individuals and a better couple for it. And it didn’t happen quickly, none of this happened overnight. Ava showed up in Season 3; five Earth years for us, I think approximately that much relative time for them, too. We saw them meet, date, co-captain, get married. And hopefully, TV gods willing, we’ll get to see them become moms. It’s an arc unlike most we get to see.

Sara and Ava beam offscreen at their friends because AVALANCE BABY

When they’re happy, I’m happy.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Back to the show. After Ava heads into the dining room, Sara goes to open the bottle of cider and cuts her hand, and is surprised she doesn’t immediately heal. But decides that’s a problem for future Sara to worry about.

When Evil Gideon tossed Gary out into the timestream, he ended up landing amongst cave people, in prehistoric times, which is unfortunate because all he needs to get home is a door. He gets to work and builds one, and finally ends up in the manor to tell the Legends what happened to him, and Sara and Ava realize that their news can wait.

Sara tells Ava their news can wait

When you thought you had a bad day and then you open twitter and realize actually your day was fine.

When Gary tells them that Alun’s death is a fixed point, and that Gwyn wouldn’t know that and thus is about to get himself killed by the Fixer, the Legends immediately come out of their short-lived retirement to save their buddy’s life.

And luckily, Fancy Zari had pocketed a time courier in case of emergencies; she’d feel worse about it but it’s about to save Gwyn’s life so she’s sorry not sorry.

Before they go, Gary pulls Sara aside and asks if she’s going to sit this mission out because she’s pregnant, and she laughs in his face. She knows how babies are made, and she hasn’t done that lately. But Gary points out that she’s part alien now, and actually she doesn’t know how babies are made…

Sara looks horrified

Growing up Catholic I lived in fear of getting immaculate conceptioned.

Sara is horrified at this news; this was not the plan! They had a plan! Ava was going to be the one who got pregnant! Ava loves plans!! Gary tries to explain to her exactly how the alien mating process works and how nesting together and deciding to have a baby, plus some sweet lady kisses, is all it takes for her alien side to spawn. Sara isn’t ready to process this information so she decides to dissociate from it entirely. Pretend she never heard it, tuck it away on a shelf. She will not speak of this right now, and if Gary values his life, neither will he. He leaves and Sara gives herself one more minute to be shocked by this news.

Sara looks overwhelmed

Now I have that “I am overwhelmed” song from tiktok stuck in my head.

The Legends go to the fixed point and start to make a base camp but the words “keep an eye out for the Waverider” are barely out of their mouths before Human Gideon strolls in, looking sterner than they’ve ever seen her. Astra is stressed about this change in her girl, but Gideon regards her coldly.

Human Gideon looks cold and unfeeling

It’s okay Gideon is just going through her emo teenager phase.

But when Human Gideon realizes that Gary didn’t leave the Waverider of his own volition, and in fact Evil Gideon kicked him off, Human Gideon even rationalizes it to herself, sure her AI counterpart had a good reason for doing it. Astra is agog; she says she sounds like a computer and storms off, Spooner hot on her heels.

Astra blames herself; of course the daughter of the queen of hell is emotionless. But Spooner reassures her that while her words might sound calculated, Gideon’s feelings are still conflicted and complex. They can still get through to her. Ava walks in, agreeing with Spooner, and giving the girls the time courier so they can go talk to her.

Spooner and Astra look off-screen at Ava

I’ll miss you, dear Spatula!

Human Gideon storms back to the Waverider and yells at Evil Gideon for throwing Gary out and lying to her about it. She says she didn’t realize how much she missed the Legends until she was standing in front of them, and she didn’t realize how much she changed until she saw herself reflected in their eyes. And frankly she’s not sure she liked what she sees.

Evil Gideon leads Human Gideon to the lab and shows her that she’s printed an android version of Gideon. A version that can be free of memories of those pesky Legends. Free of all those silly feelings and annoying emotional bonds. Sure, she’d lose her happy memories, but she could never have her heart broken again.

And so Gideon gets in the chair.

As soon as Astra and Spooner arrive on the Waverider, Spooner can sense Gideon is in trouble.

Spooner has her eyes closed and Astra waits for her cue

Me and my friends trying to sense where all the other queers are at a party.

Meanwhile down on the ground, the Legends intercept Gwyn’s time machine. Gary gets overly worried about Sara’s safety and tackles her out of the way, and she reminds him that she’s invincible, because she’s done such a good job of erasing the memory of what Gary told her earlier, she also forgot about that whole cut thing. Gary explains that actually the baby absorbed all her powers, so probably she should be very careful.

And luckily he told her this before the rest of the team settled on the plan to Sara their way through the fixed point problem; otherwise we’d have yet another Sara Lance death on the books; and this might have been the one that stuck. Insead, Sara comes up with another plan. She writes a message to the Fixer on their hands and put them up before causing their anomaly so when Murray from Clueless* strolls in with his golf clubs, he sees their plea to talk before he murders them.

*I know he’s from a lot of things including Scrubs and. Most recently, Gen Q, but Clueless was the first and my favorite of his roles so don’t @ me.

Up on the Waverider, Evil Gideon starts the process of transferring Human Gideon into Android Gideon (petition for only our one Human Gideon next season), but Astra and Spooner interrupt just in time and hug her tight; they love her just the way she is. She made a mistake, but our mistakes don’t define us.

Astra hugs Gideon and Spooner who are all in a little progression of tol to smol

LOOK AT THIS DOMINO OF A GROUP HUG. I LOVE THIS FOUND FAMILY.

They tell her that the Legends will forgive her, easy peasy. The harder part will be forgiving herself. Gideon realizes that she’s been learning from AI Gideon instead of the other way around, which is what Rip intended from the beginning. Humans need other humans. (As a human living alone and almost entirely isolated during this pandemic, I can confirm.)

But before they can unplug Evil Gideon once and for all, she downloads herself into Android Gideon. Human Gideon reminds Evil Android Gideon that she can’t kill her because she can’t self-destruct and they’re one in the same. But Evil Android Gideon stands eye to identical eye with her and says, “We are not the same.”

Android Gideon and Human Gideon stand face to face

“Sestra?”

At first they try to fight her but Evil Android Gideon is way too strong, so Astra magics them to the armory so they can regroup.

Down in the midst of the war, the Fixer tells the Legends they can call him Mike, and says he knows them all by name. They’re quite literally legends, the Legends of Tomorrow. Even Gary! So the Legends explain their situation, and say maybe this is a fixed point that could fix itself because no time traveler would want to come here and make time travel go away; no time traveler could. It’s a paradox. And suddenly Mike is pissed; he thought he had the most important job but he’s realizing now it’s quite the opposite. They stuck him in the graveyard shift in a literal graveyard. And he agrees to let them go on with their plan while he wraps his head around this news.

Evil Android Gideon attacks the trio on the ship, and after exploding the android’s face and watching it stitch itself back together, they realize they’re a little out of their depths.

Android Gideon's eyes glow red

I actually got a pretty cool screenshot of Android Gideon’s face stitching together but I was afraid it would freak Heather out while she was editing.

So they opt for running.

Human Gideon realizes that the only person that can defeat Evil Android Gideon is, in fact, Evil Android Gideon, so she manages to make Evil Android Gideon an anomaly that she must, per her programming, destroy. The only problem is, Human Gideon, Astra, and Spooner are still on the ship.

They realize they might die, so just in case they say some words of appreciation for the hell of a journey they’ve been on together, and they exchange “I love yous” and hold each other tight.

Astra pulls Gideon and Spooner tight

Mama bird with her bbs under her very long wings.

But luckily when Evil Android Gideon destroys the ship, Astra’s magic protects the trio. She uses every ounce of strength she has, and piece by piece she puts the Waverider back together. Something she wasn’t able to do at the beginning of the season, something she can only do now thanks to the love and support from her quasi-daughter and her first best friend.

Unfortunately, almost immediately after Gideon the Only and Spooner walk a wiped out Astra off the ship, good ol’ Mike the Fixer steals it.

And then he bombs their old time machine! Which is not only rude, but it sets off the battle early, and they now have to switch Aluns amid gunfire.

Sara starts to fully freak out because she’s stranded in WWI with no time machines and ROBOTS who are their WORST ENEMY AT THE MOMENT, so she storms off to be in her feelings about it. Ava goes off to comfort her wife and finds Sara in a little ball under a blanket.

Ava walks in and finds Sara in a ball under a blanket

WHAT A MOOD

Sara tells Ava she’s pregnant and Ava is very confused at first but when Sara rambles on a little longer about her alien DNA and how Ava impregnated her via wanting a baby and kissing, Ava lets out a shocked, “It’s mine?!” Sara starts apologizing because it wasn’t part of the plan but Ava is so, so happy.

Ava BEAMS at Sara from under the blanket

Having my baby, what a lovely way of saying how much you love me.”

She gets to say she knocked her wife up! She’s beyond thrilled. She gets Sara out from under the blanket and looks her square in the face and promises this is amazing news. And they both know it’s true because they’re going to be the best moms ever.

Sara and Ava smile at their friends

If only humans could get pregnant just because both partners wanted it badly enough.

If you don’t mind another feelings explosion from me, this ALSO was a great scene and shows in subtle ways how vastly different this show is from so many others. Lesser shows would have played this differently. They would have had Sara realize she was pregnant, and let us think she cheated. They would have let Ava think she cheated. It would have been a whole thing. And just when you think you have to chalk this up to another “cheating bisexual” trope, they’d reveal the truth and really think they did something. But not this show! This show knows how to put queer couples through Drama and Stress without making it about the security of the relationship. They know that it was just as dramatic for Ava’s plan to go sideways and for Sara to get an unexpected responsibility. They knew it was truest to their characters for Ava to be more confused than anything before getting all the facts. Which was literally one sentence later, not dragged out, not overplayed. It’s just very good! And it’s very obvious queer people are involved in the writers’ room. Representation on screen AND behind the scenes matters.

Eh hem. Once the co-captains for life tell their team what’s going on, Nate tells Sara to stand down and take care of the little Legend she’s growing and let the rest of the team handle it. Zari uses her totem, Nate gets mustard gassed which corrodes his steel layer, and Gary takes Gwyn to a moment he remembers as cowardice to make sure Young Gwyn does what he’s supposed to. And while all Gwyn remembers is not getting the reinforcements he was supposed to, he blacked out the important part: the why. He wasn’t frozen in fear doing nothing, he was holding his dying friend and praying with him until he passed. He was being a hero in his own way.

When their team returns to them, beaten up and bruised but still alive, Sara and Ava are so relieved.

Ava and Sara are so relieved their team is safe

I know they’re going to be good parents because they already ARE good parents.

And now, no longer the Man of Steel, Nate finally feels ready to retire. Like he’s quite literally used up all the hero he has left. So Zari gives him the air totem so he can come and go as he pleases, and he says goodbye to one of his families to go start a life with the other.

At first it seems like the Terazi siblings are going to have to rebuild the time machine over the next six months or so, but just then, the Waverider returns. Mike apologizes for stealing the ship, but as he’s waxing poetic, they realize he has time cuffs on. But it’s too late; it was a set-up, and there’s no getting out of this one. They are surrounded by time cops and arrested for their time crimes. And this is the way the season ends, not with a bang but with a unison, “Ugh!”

Ava and Sara look so over this situation

This wasn’t on the to-do list for today!!

Oh PS this “Mike”? Well, he’s actually Booster Gold. I won’t spoil his storyline in the comics in case a) you haven’t read it and/or b) they don’t actually go this route in the show, but I think this could be a really interesting character to have in the mix.

I think this sets us up for an 8th season quite nicely! We could have a time heist! A prison break! Legends Eleven! So fingers crossed the CW decides to let us keep these weirdos just a little longer.

Just in case: it has been a PLEASURE to recount these Legends’ shenanigans with you, and hopefully I’ll see you elsewhere on this lovely website page soon enough. Until next…time! (Get it! Okay bye!)

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Valerie Anne

Just a TV-loving, Twitter-addicted nerd who loves reading, watching, and writing about stories. One part Kara Danvers, two parts Waverly Earp, a dash of Cosima and an extra helping of my own brand of weirdo.

Valerie has written 611 articles for us.

6 Comments

  1. I’m so mad I could spit. Not only did Nate take over Amaya’s storyline, not only did he take over Flannel Zari’s storyline, not only did he deny us Zarlie, but now, just to kick us in the face one last time, on his way out he strips Fancy Zari of her super powers so that he can have a happy ending.

  2. Valerie – In case this is the last time I get to read one of your lovely recaps, just wanted to say that you have made watching Legends 1,000 times better! I will miss these recaps as much as I will miss the show, if, Beebo help us, it is not renewed. Thanks for captain-ing us through this quirky little show!

    • HELLO YOU HAVE MADE ME EMOTIONAL ON THIS THURSDAY. Thank you so, so much. This comment means the world to me.

  3. The blanket scene was adorable! Ava and Sara will be the best moms!
    Let’s hope they renew it!

  4. Beebo bless us for getting to share this incredibly weird family journey together, and the Working Moms crossover that has to happen next season when Little Lance joins the crew.

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