Legends Of Tomorrow Season 1, Episode 12 Recap And Review: “Last Refuge”

On this week’s Legends of Tomorrow, the Time Masters initiate the Omega Protocol and send the Pilgrim to erase the Legends from the timeline. In order to save themselves, the team abducts their own younger counterparts.

“Last Refuge” — the twelfth episode of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow has the team kidnapping their younger selves so as not to be erased from the timeline.  The episode also sees Rip reveal some hidden secrets about his childhood.

Legendary Recap: The Time Masters sentence a man to death. The Pilgrim, in the past, kills the man’s younger self. He promptly disappears from existence. The Pilgrim is given her next mission: hunt down the Legends.

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The Legends arrive in 1990 Central City. Ray, in his ATOM suit, rescues a young Mick right before he’s about to be executed by The Pilgrim, and brings him on board the Waverider.

While training and sparring, Sara and Kendra talk about Kendra’s current situation with Ray.

Rip tells the team that due to the nature of time, the Pilgrim only has one chance to kill their younger selves. The Pilgrim’s next stop: a 2007 Sara Lance.

The Pilgrim bursts into the police station where she finds Quentin Lance and a younger Sara. Quentin tries his best to fight off the Pilgrim, but is overpowered. As the Pilgrim pursues the younger Sara into a corner, Sara’s current self comes in for the rescue. The Legends temporarily ward off the Pilgrim and bring the younger Sara on board the Waverider.

Rip runs into another snafu: the Pilgrim is now untraceable. She could be anywhere in the timeline. There are only two people she won’t hunt: Kendra, because she can reincarnate; and Rip, because he’s time-traveled so much that killing him would be dangerous to the timeline.

As Ray and Kendra talk about their feelings, Ray collapses to the ground in excruciating pain. Large bruises start to appear on his body. The Pilgrim is attacking Ray in 2014.

Just as Ray is about to be killed in 2014, Firestorm flies in for the save. Rip spots the unfinished gauntlet of the ATOM suit and uses it to blast the Pilgrim out the window. The current Ray, the one on the Waverider, stabilizes. Ray quickly asks Kendra to marry him, and she accepts.

Rip reveals that the Pilgrim is able to perform temporal micro-manipulations — the ability to freeze time in her immediate surroundings. To get ahead of the situation, Rip will have the team abduct the rest of the team’s own infant selves.

Kendra tells Sara that she really doesn’t want to marry Ray. During the moment of Ray’s impending death, she felt it necessary to give him hope. As the two leave, Ray is shown to have overheard everything.

Sara and Kendra arrive in 1972 Central City and take a newborn Leonard out of the hospital. Bringing the infant Leonard back to the Waverider, the team has the younger Mick and younger Sara babysit him. Before leaving, Mick gives his younger a self a warning to behave.

Martin learns that Jax’s father died right after he was born.

The team go to 1950 Ivy Town next where Rip and Mick pose as a police officer and doctor, respectively. They promptly take the newborn Martin after seeing his mother give birth to him in a car.

In 1993 Central City, Martin and Ray see Jax’s father. Martin quickly leaves and brings Jax back. He tells Jax to go speak to his father. In a heartfelt moment, Jax learns that his father had hopes and dreams for him. Jax leaves without revealing the future or his true identity. The Pilgrim arrives, but she’s too late, as the team has already rescued Baby Jax from her.

The Waverider lands at an unknown location — it’s the orphanage where Rip grew up. He’s quickly greeted by an elderly woman who’s his adoptive mother. The orphanage is a safe haven for the babies because its location is unknown to the Time Masters. The Time Masters may pull their ranks from this place, but the woman certainly doesn’t work for them.

On the Waverider, Martin’s psychic connection leads him to a crying Jax who’s regretful that he didn’t tell his father about his impending death.

Ray speaks to Kendra and tells her that she needs to make up her own mind and not what her 1871 self has told her.

The team receives a message from the Pilgrim: if they don’t give themselves up, she will go after their families. She proves that she’s not bluffing by showing Jax’s father as her hostage.

After thinking it over, Rip contacts the Pilgrim and gives her a counter-offer: he will surrender himself if she spares the team’s younger selves and their families. He will offer his younger self from the past. If his younger self is killed, the Legends would never come together in the first place.

The team arrives at an abandoned Time Master outpost. Rip’s mother brings his younger self and meets the team. The Pilgrim arrives, ready to carry out the deal. Because Rip doesn’t believe the Pilgrim will follow through, she proposes making an initial trade with Jax’s father as a sign of good faith. Rip agrees. As young Rip moves toward the Pilgrim, a shrunken down Ray resizes and attacks. She quickly freezes him.

Soon, the whole team, attempting their ambush, is frozen in a state of temporal micro-manipulation. Distracted, the Pilgrim is stabbed multiple times by a young Rip. When the Pilgrim loses focus, all the Legends unfreeze and hit her with their combined firepower, incinerating her.

The team is surprised by what young Rip has done. Rip reveals that he had fierce survival skills as a child. He was fully aware of what his past self would do if anyone were to attempt to hurt him.

The Legends try to wrap things up with their younger selves and family from the past:

• Mick speaks to his younger self and inspires him to be better.
• Sara gives Quentin an amnesia pill.
• Jax reveals to his father the date he’ll be killed in battle.
• Martin tells Rip that he’s concerned because his wife doesn’t remember wife.

Kendra talks to Ray and tells him that she doesn’t want to wait for the right time. She wants to go forward and marry Ray.

Jax tells Rip that he revealed future events to his father. Rip reminds Jax that time will want things to happen. So if Jax and his father were meant to be together, time will see it come to fruition.

Rip tells the team that the effects of removing themselves from the past has already begun to set. Because they’ve run out of time, they’ll strike at Vandal Savage in the one place he’s guaranteed to be — 2166, the height of his power.

Next: Catch up on Legends of Tomorrow with a recap of 'The Magnificent Eight'

Legendary Moment(s): The Pilgrim freezing the Legends in a temporal micro-manipulation, which allowed a young Rip to show his true colors to the enemy.

Thoughts for Tomorrow: The nuances of time travel are starting to hurt my head now. And I’m willing to bet that the show’s creatives are also having a hard time keeping things consistent. If it was dangerous to take Rip out of the timeline, why is it that the Pilgrim had no problem doing it when Rip willingly offered himself? How does that make it different? If the team was removed from the past, then wouldn’t their placement back into the timeline have already occurred? And if it hasn’t because it takes time to “solidify,” does that mean that time takes time to set? I’m going to go and take an aspirin.