“Camelot/3000” is episode twelve of season two of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow.
The episode opens in Detroit in the year 3000 and a man is working somewhere. Rip appears and greets him as Charles, saying that Charles has found a way to cure his blindness. According to Charles, the future is full of marvels. He is currently working on a biomorphic implant that modifies the host’s neural processes. Which could end violence as they know it. Or, Rip mutters to himself, amplify it. Charles thought that none of them were supposed to contact the others again. Rip explains that there is a new threat, a cabal is after the Spear and Rip is rounding up the fragments. Charles believes the fragments are safer apart. Rip is going to take them to the Vanishing Point where they will be safe. Unfortunately, he previously said that the Time Masters can’t be trusted. Rip, realising he isn’t getting anywhere, shoots Charles – not fatally. Charles tells Rip he will never find the fragment. Rip, given that Charles is posing as a researcher of cybernetic implants, thinks he will have hidden it inside himself. And plans to cut it out.
On the Waverider, Sara informs them that Lily’s algorithm has located another piece of the spear. Detroit, 3000. Professor Stein thinks a trip to the distant future is exciting. Nate does not. He likes history. Sure, it’s filled with terror and violence. But the uncertainty of the future freaks him out. When they arrive, Gideon is no longer detecting the fragment. So, Sara asks for the last known position.
In Charles’s lab, Sara has found his body and calls Amaya over. Who recognises him – Charles is Dr. Mid-Nite, one of the Justice Society of America. From her time. Mick says rest in peace; he wasn’t being sweet, it’s what it says beside the body. What it actually says is ‘RIP’ – as in Rip.
Back on the ship, Nate says that he doesn’t get it. The professor would like that narrowing down, otherwise it’s a long list. What Nate doesn’t get is how the Legion found the Spear fragment without the medallion. Sara replies that Rip must have told them. Somehow, he knows where the pieces are. Amaya replies that it’s a good job Sara let Rip live then, referencing the fact that Sara told Jax to not kill Rip in the previous episode, “Turncoat”, after getting the spear fragment and killing Sara (she got better). Sara replies that they aren’t killers. The professor jumps in, expecting Sara, or Mick… then says he will stop helping. Sara believes the team comes before tactics. Amaya believes that’s why they lose so often. Gideon then apologises for interrupting – Stein thinks it’s excellent timing – but she’s discovered another location. A small island known as Britannia in the year 507 AD.
Nate is looking forward to going to medieval England, a well-documented piece of history (actually, that time is a little dubious). Ray is getting prepared by fabricating armour – which looks very wrong for the period. He also is looking forward to jousting. Nate tells him they didn’t come until 1300 AD.
Mick confronts Professor Stein – he wants to know what the professor did. Mick can smell thieves, so what did Stein steal. A piece of future tech; Dr. Mid-Nite didn’t need it. And the professor prefers the term ‘borrow.’ Mick thinks there’s hope for Stein after all. It’s a bit of a worry when the most morally dubious member of your team approves of your actions.
Nate is telling the others he is wearing appropriate costume as they walk through the woods; they look as if they came from a Renaissance Faire. And he looks way less obvious than a bunch of knights in shining armour. A bunch of which promptly emerge from the shrubbery. They request of their leader passage to Camelot to see King Arthur. The leader, a horse-mounted knight, removes her helm and says that her name is Guinevere.
At Camelot, there are knights sat around a round table. Nate says the place shouldn’t exist. Indeed, it shouldn’t. According to King Arthur, a great evil haunts the land, kidnapping knights of the Round Table. He wants his wisest advisor to tell the truth of their words, calling for Merlin. Who is both a woman, and someone they know – Stargirl, another member of the JSA.
Stargirl, on the Waverider, asks what Amaya knows about the final mission of the JSA. Only what Obsidian told her in “Compromised”; that the JSA disappeared during a mission to Leipzig in 1956. The mission was to recover the Spear, and they were joined on the mission by someone who said he was a Time Master. Rip. The Spear was broken into four pieces and the JSA scattered through time. Stargirl fashioned the legendary court of the Knights of the Round Table to protect the Spear.
The evil haunting the lands is Damien Darhk, who captures King Arthur. Rip also took some of Dr. Mid-Nite’s future technology, and is using it to control the captured Arthur. If the Spear fragment isn’t handed over, Darhk will attack the castle and take it by force.
Amaya decides to steal the Spear piece in order to protect the mission. Sara takes a fancy to Guinevere by the looks of it. Ray gets a bit carried away with the whole knight thing, and combines a sword with some of his Atom-tech. Making a saber of light. Don’t call it a lightsaber, he warns one of the locals; trademark issues.
Needless to say, there are a whole host of inaccuracies in the episode. This, however, isn’t a surprise; Camelot, as portrayed, is based on Stargirl’s knowledge of stories about the place – so it wouldn’t be historically accurate, being entirely manufactured. It’s a bit odd that it doesn’t cause a temporal aberration though.