Over on Reddit, it was pointed out that this episode had some more meta-commentary. A broken, drunken Malcolm Merlyn was watching the death of Damien Darhk - in other words, the finale of the abominable Season 4 of Arrow - when Reverse Flash and very much still alive Damien Darhk suddenly appear and say, “Come join this new show. It’s way better!” 
It’s also a riff on the opening of The Flash.
Speaking of the Flash, Dahrk and Merlyn said they’d had experience fighting speedsters before. Did I miss something on Arrow? Barry yanked Oliver away from the former once, and he rescued Merlyn (among others) from a cell, but did that count, or was there someone else?
I’m assuming we’re going to see the Black Flash on The Flash at some point. Interesting that we saw it here first.
Mick finally did an opening narration. It’s about as irreverent as you’d expect:
Plus Mick gets a statue in the capitol.
I thought it fitting that, with the show jumping around time so much, we’d get the Christmas episode a month and a half after Christmas.
I loved Ray actually getting to be the Atom, i.e.shrinking down to miniature size. I know the budget doesn’t allow for that kind of SFX on a consistent basis, but it’s been too long since the last time.
Also, George Washington:
“I learned a new word from my private - KABOOM!”
It’s getting pretty ridiculous how the show is going out of its way to sideline Firestorm. Why even have him as a character if you’re never going to utilize him?
Firestorm is probably too expensive. My wild-ass guess is that they are holding off until a Firestorm-centric show.
If you want an in-universe explanation for constantly sidelining Firestorm: After relying on Firestorm pretty heavily earlier in the season (e.g., Louis XIV’s France, Ronald Reagan’s White House), they’ve finally figured out that his powers are entirely too flashy and possibly cause more problems than they solve. Hence, they keep his use to a minimum.
I was so happy to finally hear Sara tell them to stick together and Firestorm up if things go wrong. I should’ve known it was for naught.
They never explained how they un-EMP’d did they?
My favorite line: “Watch it, Haircut. I’m a forefather now.”
It took a large organization of Time Masters to protect the time line from random bad events and malign time pirates (etc.); now that the Time Masters have been destroyed (for good reason), the Legends need to start thinking long term - they can keep putting out fires here and there (and now and then), but sooner or later, they had better start recruiting some more people to help them out.
Sarah Lance is Commander Shepard: “I should go.”
I found this episode to be less fun than the previous episodes this season. The premise certainly sounded entertaining enough, but it didn’t quite come together for me. Maybe Ray’s sheer earnestness was too grating. Maybe it was the lack of Reverse Flash. Maybe because Stargirl turned out to be a horrible actress. Heck, King Arthur himself was a horrible actor.
On the other hand, evil Rip Hunter is much more interesting than the mediocre Time Master of Season 1. And it looks like someone (probably Jax) forgot to disable his root access to Gideon.
As soon as they captured him, I saw that coming. How f’n stupid. Of course he has backdoor access. Even Rory should be able to figure that out. So unless it turns out they planned for that, such stupidity is going to have me rooting for the Legion of Doom and a whole new team of Legends. Except for Rory.
Apparently I was wrong and they did revoke Rip’s root access to Gideon but he had installed a proper backdoor. I wonder if they could have asked Gideon herself whether she had any backdoors, though Rip probably would have had blocks against that.
I was pleasantly surprised that we finally got to see the face behind that sexy British voice. Maybe they can install an Andromeda-style hologram so we get to see Gideon’s avatar again. Though how was actual Gideon aware of what was going on in Rip’s head?
All in all, a great romp through Rip’s head.
Which is why, if he has to be held on the ship, that there should be a room with absolutely no access to Gideon. No speakers, hell, no power at all. At the very least, gag Rip. Nope, gotta make things hard by being excessively stupid. Again.
But I keep watching…better give me some more LSH cameos/easter eggs soon to make up for rotting away my brain.
When Ray electrified his sword, one of the other Camelot soldiers said:
No, you goddamn idiot, it’s nothing at ALL like a saber!
SABERS HAVE CURVED BLADES!!
Sheesh, you’d think someone living in the Dark Ages would know this!
Rip is against doing butt stuff?
That bothered me too, especially since it could have been a funny lampshade if someone said, “It’s like a sword made of light!” Or if they’d called it a “lightsword”.
Oh come on, lighten up. It was funny. The audience knows Ray’s love for Star Wars. George Lucas didn’t name Luke’s weapon a lightsword. “It’s like a saber…made of light” may not have been technically accurate, but it works with the canon to make it funny. Everybody has heard of a lightsaber.
OK, had science in this one. The LM had independent fuel systems in the ascent and decent stages. The descent stage had four fuel tanks and the ascent stage, two. If Ray ran out of fuel landing the LM , there were still two full tanks in the ascent stage with all the fuel he needed to launch. In fact this just about happened with Apollo 11. The Eagle nearly exhausted its descent fuel, but was able to blast off and rendezvous with the C/SM almost uneventfully.
Also, what became of “Jack Swigert”? Thawne abandoned Lovell and Haise in the command module. Did it land with only the two of them, or did Thawne return to it after escaping from the Waverider to take his place as “Swigert” again?
I think the seats in the LM should have clued you in that they weren’t exactly going for historical accuracy in this one. They also glossed over what the cover story for Apollo 13 was, since the oxygen tank was supposed to have exploded before they rounded the Moon.
This episode highlighted how far the Legends have come since Rip went away. While Rip was still bumbling around trying to figure out where Henry had gone, Sara & Co had already whipped up a plan to recover him. I though there’d be some friction between Rip and Sara about who was really in command, but it seems that even he had to admit that she’s a far better captain than he ever was. Speaking of Sara, while she looks good in any time period, there’s something about 70’s fashion that really suits her.
“Daylight come and me wanna go home”