Legends of Tomorrow: What [SPOILER]’s Death Means For The Arrowverse

Warning: Major SPOILERS ahead for ‘Doomworld’

–

Legends of Tomorrow wraps up its second season next week, with the season finale ‘Aruba’. It’s an episode that is going to have to pack in a huge amount, as the team is currently stuck in an alternate reality created by the Legion of Doom, without their ship, the Spear of Destiny, or even all of their team members! They’ll have one last shot at re-writing Doomworld into the Arrowverse we know and love, and after the shocking death scene in ‘Doomworld’, fans are left wondering if they are going to be able to re-write their lost team member, too.

Captain Cold Kills Amaya

The team member written out this week was, of course, Amaya (Maisie Richardson-Sellers). When the episode began, Amaya and Sara (Caity Lotz) were working as a superhero-killing hit squad for the Legion of Doom, but eventually had their memories restored to them with a little help from Mick (Dominic Purcell) and the rest of the team. Once the team was (almost) back together, it was time for a show-down between the Legends and the Legion, with the Spear of Destiny at its core. For a moment there, it even looked like the Legends were going to win. Mick gave the Spear to Amaya, who was about to use it to undo the Legion’s work and save the day… until Captain Cold (Wentworth Miller) shot her with his cold gun, turning her to ice. As the team stared on in shock, Snart flicked the frozen Amaya, shattering her, and killing her instantly.

Several other major characters are dead in Doomworld (including pretty much all of the Arrowverse heroes) and we also saw a costumed Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) killed at the beginning of the episode, but we know that when the Legends save the day those deaths will be re-written. Amaya, however, has much more of a question mark over her head. How could she be restored to the team, and what will it mean for the Legends if she is really gone?

Amaya’s Loss To The Legends

Amaya’s loss is going to have a major impact on the entire team, but it is Mick and Nate (Nick Zano) who are bound to feel her loss the most.

Mick, of course, is not just dealing with the loss of a friend, but also the only team member who actually trusted him entirely, and believed in him through to the end. Amaya and Mick had a particularly close friendship, and in a team that often treats Mick like an idiot, Amaya was someone who saw him as an equal. Her loss is going to be devastating to him, and that’s without considering the manner of her death. The Legends already blame Mick for betraying them to the Legion, and this is just going to make that situation worse as he is blamed for her death as well. To compound his guilt, it was his old partner that killed her – an old partner that Mick refused to shoot earlier in the series. No matter how you look at it, this one seems to rest squarely on Mick’s broad shoulders, and we are definitely going to see that affect both him and his place on the team.

Meanwhile, Nate and Amaya were romantically involved, and although he had tried to tell her that they couldn’t be together, he is clearly in love with his teammate. Her loss is going to be a devastating blow to Nate, and will undoubtedly cause some serious issues between Nate and Mick in the season finale.

The Vixen Legacy

The reason that Nate was distancing himself from Amaya, of course, is that she has a place in the timeline – and it’s an important one. The original Legends were chosen by Rip Hunter (Arthur Darvill) because they weren’t vastly important to history, so they could be removed from it to travel through time without causing major damage to the timeline. Amaya, however, came to the team separately, after her teammate in the JSA was killed by the Legion. Amaya cannot stay with the Legends long-term, because she has to return to her original time and take her rightful place in history. This place involves having a daughter, who in turn has two more daughters – one of whom is Mari McCabe, the Vixen from the Legends’ time period.

Much has been made of this in the latter half of the season, and not just as a reason that Amaya cannot stay with Nate. When Amaya learned that she would have a descendant who becomes a superhero as well, she asked Gideon about her future, and learned that her daughter and granddaughters would live through war and tragedy. On learning this, she wanted to use the Spear of Destiny herself, to change the world so that this would never happen to her future children. If Amaya is truly dead now, this is going to have a huge impact on the rest of the Arrowverse – without the younger Vixen (Megalyn Echikunwoke), Team Arrow would not have defeated Damien Darkh, or saved Oliver’s (Stephen Amell) son, William.

Can Amaya Be Saved?

At the end of this week’s episode, we heard the Legends’ new plan: to go back in time to the moment that they lost the Spear and the Blood of Christ needed to destroy it, and try again. This means that the finale is going to involve two sets of Legends (which we see in the trailer), including one living Amaya. As well as destroying Doomworld and setting everything to rights, this plan also opens up a couple of options for saving Amaya.

The simplest way to save her, of course, is simply to take the Amaya from the earlier Legends back on board the ship with them. This would involve her not having the same memories of Doomworld that the others do, but otherwise, she is the same woman, and would be able to return to her time, find a husband, and start the Vixen dynasty.

The other option is to do what Amaya wanted to in the first place, and use the Spear of Destiny. The Legends could theoretically go back to the point that they had the Spear, convince their earlier counterparts to hand it over, and then use it to resurrect Amaya (and potentially return the memories of Professor Stein (Victor Garber) who remains unaware of his past as a hero).

The Legends Finale And Time Travel Paradoxes

Given how complicated it would be to re-set the entire Arrowverse if Amaya should die, it’s highly likely that the Legends will find a way to resurrect her, whether that is through time travel or with the Spear of Destiny. Of course, it’s not guaranteed to happen, as the show has already dealt with the universe-altering effects of Flashpoint. Using the Spear is the more probable option, because giving the Legends the ability to pluck people from an earlier point in time if they die would mean that any character death in the show would be pointless. It would also be a major alteration of the timeline, and the show is already playing fast and loose with time paradoxes. Re-writing reality is a much cleaner way to solve this particular problem and keep the integrity of the show’s concept moving forward.

Of course, the finale as a whole is going to be all about time paradoxes, so viewers should be ready to deal with a bit of confusion next week. We already know that the Legends are not supposed to return to a moment that they have already been in, so we are probably going to end up seeing some fairly major consequences as a result of their plan – and while there is little doubt that the Legends will find a way to save the day, it’s highly unlikely that they will come through entirely unscathed. We’ll definitely be seeing Amaya in some capacity in the finale, but only time will tell if she is able to return from the dead in the long run.

Legends of Tomorrow season 2 concludes Tuesday, April 4 with ‘Aruba’ at 8pm on The CW.

Next: Legends of Tomorrow: Doomworld Review & Discussion