Legends in Limbo

1

March 27, 2022 by Meghan J

Actual footage of the Legends fandom right now
 

So if you weren’t already aware, there is a nonzero possibility that “Knocked Down, Knocked Up” may have been the last-ever episode of Legends of Tomorrow—the show hasn’t been renewed for an eighth season yet. This is the first time ever that a Legends season finale has aired without a next season being a sure thing. And according to what I’ve seen online, there’s a chance we might not get news till May.

Of course, it’s not like Legends is alone; several other scripted CW shows have yet to get renewal or cancellation news, so that’s some comfort (although it wasn’t in the first batch of renewals…). But I think the series-finale-ish-ness of the penultimate episode has people a little freaked, even if it clearly wasn’t intended
to serve as a finale.

As for me? I feel…maybe 62% confident for a renewal? If only because of Booster Gold. They’ve just snagged a pretty big name—both the actor and the character—and I have to think they wouldn’t pull the plug now.

And, of course, I hope we get a renewal—in part because I’d be super sad if this show ended so unceremoniously, but also because of the many unanswered questions and threads that could be explored in a Season 8.

Most plot-heavily, who arrested the Legends and Booster?! I assume they’re whatever people assigned Booster to the fixed point in the first place, but…who are they? Without the Time Masters and the Time Bureau, what super-structured time authority is there? And why haven’t we seen them or heard of them until now?

In terms of individual characters, if they shortchanged the thread of Behrad potentially going sober to get him and Astra together before the end of the season, the least they can do is give us more of that relationship with Season 8! And I want them to explore Spooner’s asexuality too; ending the show now would leave that to never go beyond a C-plot in a single episode.

And did we get a very understated new Legend introduction? Is Alun going to be a major character going forward? Is he now a Legend by default? What will he bring to the team if so? He’s been thrown straight into a classic Legends bungle; how will he react?

And finally…it seems unlikely that this would be addressed even in a Season 8, but is it canon that J. Edgar Hoover and (old) Thomas Edison in the Arrowverse are androids now?! Are the Legends ever going to try to fix that, or just leave it be and never revisit that? To be fair, that probably wouldn’t be the most interesting use of screen time, but I think it should be noted that it is canon that those major historical figures are androids.

On a more bummery note, I do think that if Legends does get renewed, it’ll be for an eighth *and final* season, as in it’ll be announced in the renewal, before any work on the season begins, that it’ll be the final season and they’ll be able to write it as such. Though it was presented with some ambiguity, it does seem like they’ve planted the seeds for the Legends to retire.

Obviously whatever the Legends were planning on doing at the end of Season 7 has been waylaid by them being arrested, but when they returned to the Booster-controlled Wave Rider, were they planning on continuing to Legend, or going back to their respective retirements? When they still thought they were stuck in the past, Spooner invited them to stay with her and her mom in Texas, and Zari gave up the totem…

Again, seeds.

And the biggest thing pointing towards this is the fact that Sara and Ava are expecting. I assume they’ll be settling down once the baby arrives (or at least taking maternity leave!), and without its two captains, I don’t foresee this show going on. (Though to be fair, I also said that about Rip.)

BELATED SEASON 7 TAKE!

Dare I say that my Best Character Arc of This Season Award goes to Bishop?! Such a bizarre delight, and then a character death that, well, stuck! I guess it could be argued that they came up empty for new villains and used not only a repeat villain but the villain just from last season. But I felt underwhelmed by their encounter with younger Bishop last season, and it left me wanting more—and we got more, and it went in toilet-related directions I never could’ve expected. While his decidedly villainous actions set up the course of the whole season in motion, he did not end up being the villain at all! I wish the final arc of the season, particularly the finale, brought a helping of the creative unpredictability that Bishop’s arc got. Not to mention past Legends finales have delivered it in spades.

KARAOKE SCENE, SOLVED (AGAIN):

After establishing my personal headcanon about when the 100th episode’s perplexing karaoke scene was supposed to be, I figured out a better way to determine when it was—or, at least, when it wasn’t. I at first was wondering whether it was the end of Season 3 (before placing it in mid–Season 4, between “The Eggplant…” and “Egg MacGuffin” (back-to-back episodes with “egg” in the title, never noticed that…! Huh!)). But I just recently realized a way to concretely rule out Season 3.

Zari wore the Air Totem around her neck at first, before the necklace got melted in the Salem kerfuffle—which was in Episode 4.02. At the beginning of the next episode, Ray fashioned her her bracelet version of the Totem. So if Zari was wearing bracelet-totem, and not necklace-totem, in that scene, that would mean it couldn’t be before the beginning of Season 4. And, sure enough, she is. So my placement of that scene is that much more confirmed! Yuss.