Legends of Tomorrow - 'Star City 2046'

"I don't deserve my father's name. I'm Connor Hawke." Seriously? As a mark
of shame you're opting for a self-consciously badass name?

We begin where last week ended, and the team are forced to retreat when a bunch of thugs turn up to attack the Green Arrow. Rip tells Sara that they mustn't concern themselves with things in this timeline; this future is only a potential one (because wibbly wobbly, timey wimey, that's why) and should be erased once they get home. They do however need to go and look for a prototype doohickey that Smoak Technologies should have made by now.

The B plot has Stein, Jax, Ray and Kendra fixing the ship - Stein and Ray are scientists, Jax a mechanic and Kendra it turns out was a welder in World War II - amidst some soap opera shenanigans involving Jax and Ray having crushes on Kendra. There's some nice bits of this with the Firestorm psychic link and Stein getting Jax to not see himself as the poor choice, but basically it's filler; and not very interesting filler at that.

While Sara runs off to talk to Green Arrow, pursued by Rip, Snart and Roary sneak off to loot a bank and Roary ends up taking over a gang after incinerating its former leader. Green Arrow tells them that Oliver was killed in the Uprising, and the leader of said Uprising appears on cue - Grant Wilson, son of Slade. Our heroes retreat to the old Arrowcave to look for Felicity's stuff. They find ancient, bearded, one-armed Oliver Queen, who reveals that the new Green Arrow is John Diggle Jr. - aka Connor Hawke - and that pat of the reason things went so bad is that Sara and Ray never returned from the mission. He won't join the fight, but sends them to a warehouse where they locate the doohickey.

It's Santa Arrow!

Roary is in hog heaven, even when Wilson shows up and gives orders to the gang, but Snart persuades him to help out Rip and Sara before discussing whether to stay and be kings of Star City 2046. It's a pretty big step when Snart starts referring to the rest of the team as 'our friends'. They save Rip and Sara from an ambush, but Hawke is captured and Snart punches Roary out to keep him from leaving. Sara insists on going after him and goes to Oliver for help, while Stein persuades Rip that they need to be involved in the times that they visit or risk becoming as driven and amoral as Savage. Cue the epic smackdown.

Legends of Tomorrow continues to struggle with its ensemble, at its strongest when it involves lots of characters in something other than a straight-up fight, but too often falling back on B plots and digressions to limit the active team numbers. This episode did a good job of establishing Star City 2046 quickly and concisely, but the B plot was weak, especially since it's only pay off was 'yes, it is too soon to hit on the woman whose eternal soul mate just got murdered by her immortal nemesis and fed to a cult.'