“Leviathan” is episode thirteen of season one of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow.
In the previous episode, “Last Refuge”, the Legends defeated the latest of the people sent after them by the Time Masters, the Pilgrim. Although the Pilgrim was able to freeze all their attacks, she hadn’t allowed for what the young Rip Hunter might do. Which was stab her. However, the Omega Protocol is still in force and the Legends’ younger selves are still out of the timeline. This cannot be done for too long or everyone will start to forget who they are. So, Rip tells them they have run out of time and need to head for the one place and time they know Savage will be. The future, 2166, as he is about to finish conquering the entire world.
The Waverider enters the skies above London, being fired upon and gets hit. Rip asks Gideon to find a safe place to set down. She doesn’t think there is one. Jax wants to know why London is shooting at them. It isn’t London, it is Savage’s forces. They have already conquered most of the globe. Rip says there is one place Savage is certain to be. And Rory buts in, commenting that it’s right before Savage wastes Rip’s family. Which gets Rory some looks and he replies with a ‘What?’
Rip agrees. In three days time, Savage will kill his family. They can save his family, and the world, by stopping Savage now. The last of the resistance is in London and Savage is out in the open. He requires the services of, and Rory describes them as the killer, the klepto and the pyro.
Savage is giving a speech and Rip and the other three are posing as soldiers in the crowd. When the others talk, Rory shushes. He’s trying to listen. Rory thinks Savage gives a hell of a speech. Which gets Rory another look, this time from Rip. Kendra communicates with them; Jax is in the jumpship ready to extract them. Which Snart considers good, as they will need Jax if, and by which Snart means when, this goes south. After the speech, a woman who was standing by Savage eyes them as she passes and Snart says they’ve been made. Rip suggests he has faith. Kendra wants Gideon to get a close-up on the woman, especially the bracelet. Which used to belong to Kendra in her first life. Which means it’s one of the things that can be used to permanently kill Savage.
In order to distract Savage’s guards, Rip gets tripped. Without his knowledge. Sara ends up fighting the woman, who is clearly no slouch, and Kendra asks Sara to get the woman’s bracelet. Sara thinks this is an odd time to go jewellery shopping. The attempt on Savage fails and Rip tells them to fall back and calls Jax. As they leave, Snart doesn’t shoot the woman Sara was fighting.
Back on the Waverider, Sara tells Rip it wasn’t a complete bust. They found out about Kendra’s bracelet. Rip asks what bracelet. Kendra explains to the others that she was wearing the bracelet on the night of her first death. Which Ray says is great. Not the dying bit, but that it can be used to kill Savage. And tells Kendra he does listen. Sara wants to know just how a bracelet can be used to kill Savage, something Rip thinks they can figure out when they actually have it. Gideon detects movement near the Waverider, which Rip says is all that remains of the resistance forces. Rip wants to go and speak to them and asks Sara to teach the others how to kill Savage. She wants to know how she can teach them to fight with a piece of jewellery. When Rip replies that’s a good question, Sara tells him it wasn’t a rhetorical one.
Rip, Ray, Stein and Jax head out and Stein wants to know what happens if they encounter Savage’s forces, not the resistance. This is why Rip has brought Firestorm and the Atom. They then get surrounded and the resistance leader (Sharon Taylor) wants one good reason why she doesn’t blow them all straight to hell. Stein suggests that Rip give her several good reasons. Pleasantries over, and the four are escorted to the resistance camp. Ray asks Rip why he doesn’t try to get his family to safety. It seems he has tried. Many times. They died every single time. Time wants things to happen and Rip considers it depressing to know that the universe itself doesn’t want him to save his family.
In the camp, the leader wants to know just who they are. Especially as Rip’s companions disappeared 150 years ago. Rip thinks it would take the same amount of time to tell the full story. He wants to get as close as possible to Savage. But no-one gets close to Savage. Especially now. It seems some idiots just tried to kill him. A call comes in at this point from Delta Camp, requesting air support as they are under heavy fire. With the fall of Tokyo, London is the last patch of free ground on the globe. Savage’s armies have cut down the most formidable militaries on the planet. When they get to Delta Camp, it’s been wiped out with no survivors.
Ray and Professor Stein want to figure out how Savage’s forces destroyed the camp, so the resistance will be able to fight back. On the Waverider, regarding the plan to steal the bracelet, Rory says that they are on it. Sara asks them to please not tell her the plan is to walk into Savage’s citadel and steal it off the woman’s wrist. Snart agrees he won’t tell her that. Sara has still not figured out how to make the bracelet into a weapon and Rip suggests that Kendra check her son’s notebook again.
Kendra tells Sara that nothing was written about it; she has read every page of the notebook. However, in the same place is Carter’s mace, and that triggers a flashback to Iowa City, 1941. Carter is practicing with the mace when Kendra arrives dressed up. She gives him one guess to remember why – he guesses, correctly, that it’s their anniversary. He says that in his defence there have been quite a few to remember. Kendra points out that that have only been married in eight lifetimes. Carter still thinks that’s a lot. He also wants Kendra to learn how to use his mace. Which, in the present, gives Kendra an idea about how to weaponise the bracelet.
In the citadel, the woman fights three men and easily defeats them easily. Well, she was holding her own against Sara. Snart and Rory arrive and she knows Snart’s name. Then an alarm goes off. So they take her back to the ship. In the brig, Rip says he thought they could go for a whole week without kidnapping anyone. She tells him that it would have been better to simply kill her. Rory agrees. Snart brought her back because she knew his name. She says that she knows all of their names, addressing Rip as ‘Gareeb.’ And corrects Rip; she isn’t Savage’s lieutenant. She’s his daughter.
Ray enters the room on the Waverider where the others are gathered, asking if it’s true, that Savage has a daughter. Stein tells him that every lid has its pot. Jax comments that this lid will be very upset when he find out they have taken his pot. And, on getting looks, tells the others they know what he means. Kendra says she has figured out how to weaponise the bracelet, but needs Rory to burn something for her. Rory can do that. On what to do with their new guest, the suggestion is to make her an advantage. Rory’s way is to send a finger to Savage and keep sending them. Sara points out that Savage’s daughter will know details of her father’s defences. Snart will deal with getting the information out of her.
The daughter, Cassandra, tells Snart that her father taught her about resisting extreme pain. Snart thinks Savage sound like his father. Cassandra does not believe their fathers are alike. For 14 years ago, the world was ruled by a madman, Per Degaton, who unleashed the Armageddon Virus, killing millions. Including her mother. Cassandra’s father was the only one who dared standing up to Per Degaton. Looks like Savage has been a little economical with the truth regarding what happened. Cassandra knows her father is not a kind man, but believes that he is the only one capable of putting the world back together. They can torture her all they want. Snart was not planning on using torture.
Weaponising the bracelet is done by melting it down and coating the mace with it. Logical really. Rory wants to know if Kendra is ready to do this, as he believes she has killed a grand total of nobody to date. Kendra replies she is; she better be, according to Rory, or Kendra will end up like the last guy to swing the mace.
Ray and Stein have both independently determined that what destroyed Delta Camp was not explosives. Ray got Gideon to use an old spy satellite, and suggest the professor look at the impact craters. Which do not look like impact craters. But footprints. Then the liquid in a decanter starts rippling with footfalls, similar to how the T. rex made drinks ripple in Jurassic Park. Savage is told by an operator that Leviathan is two clicks out. Professor Stein gets all the refugees onto the ship. When Rip asks what he’s doing, Stein replies that they were recruited to save the world. Which includes everyone here. The Waverider takes off and sees a really, really big robot.
Going up against the robot requires something that seems totally obvious. To anyone whose seen Ant-Man in action. It sounds as if Ray is going to channel the Third Doctor, but he says ‘reverse the polarity of the dwarf star matter’ not ‘of the neutron flow.’ Snart’s way of getting Cassandra around is not to torture her – but to show where her father has lied to her. Even though Kendra now has a weapon, things do not go smoothly. Because Savage has a surprise.