Ground Control to Sara Lance

For the titular character, see Sara Lance.

"Ground Control to Sara Lance" is the first episode of the sixth season of DC's Legends of Tomorrow, and the eighty-third episode overall. It aired on May 2, 2021.

Synopsis[]

After a night of celebrating their beating the Fates, the Legends quickly discover that Sara is missing. Trying to keep it together, the Legends are shocked to discover that she was taken by Aliens. Ava sends Rory and Behrad to follow a lead on who can possibly help them find Sara, while Constantine tries to work his magic. Meanwhile, Sara does all she can to try to escape, which includes releasing Aliens into the timeline, but is shocked to learn who one of her kidnappers turns out to be.[src]

Plot[]

In 1977 London, Mick Rory boards a messy Waverider with several drunk punks sleeping on board. Mick finds Ava Sharpe passed out with her face in the toilet who wonders why no one came to bring her to bed. She asks Gideon where Sara Lance is, but Gideon informs her that Sara is not onboard. As she wonders where Sara is, Mick spots an address written on her hand.

At the location, there is no one but a half naked Zari Tarazi and John Constantine who spent the night with one another. As the two discuss their relationship, Mick and Ava enters. Ava asks if they have seen Sara and they suggests that she is at an address on a card that Zari has. The address is for a casino where Astra Logue is counting cards. As an unhappy gambler Astra swindled pulls a gun on her, the Legends arrive and Mick points his heat gun at the gambler, saving Astra. They leave to find Behrad Tarazi talking to a royal guard, as Constantine tells Astra that she should be careful now that she is mortal. Behrad suggests that Sara is with Nate Heywood back at the club, as they had met David Bowie the previous night, who is preparing for his own show. At the club, Nate confides in Bowie on how he is dealing with Zari Tomaz's departure. As the Legends arrive, Bowie begins to sing a song about a girl who disappeared. They clarify that the song is about Sara and he tells them that he filmed Sara being sucked into a spaceship and Ava uses a flasher to wipe away Bowie's memories and take his camera. On the Waverider, the film shows an excited Sara tell David Bowie that she plans to propose to Ava. The next video shows her being sucked into a spaceship which then flies away. Overwhelmed, Ava leaves the room as Mick tells them Sara was only abducted because the other Legends were too busy partying, and they have to find her before it is too late. Meanwhile, Sara manages to escape a cryochamber and stumbles onto the floor of a spaceship.

On the Waverider, Ava hands out binders for everyone in an attempt to organize the search for Sara. As the Legends leave one by one to follow their own leads, Nate observes that Ava had predicted their reactions perfectly, to the point of having listed them down on her clipboard and she reveals her real plan is to contact the Department of Extraterrestrial Operations. On the ship, Sara opens another cryochamber which contains Spartacus, who tells her to follow him as he wanders the ship. At Constantine's house, Constantine attempts to perform a spell but is unable to locate Sara. He tells them he gives up, as his area of expertise is magic, not aliens and leaves the room to Zari and Astra's chagrin. On the Waverider, Ava is unable to reach the D.E.O. as it has been destroyed by Rhama Khan. Gideon tells them that she believes that time travel is involved, as the original timeline did not have any reports of a spacecraft over London. Nate suggests that the Legends are the best response to a time travelling alien, as Behrad enters with a potential lead. He shows them an old tabloid that claims a little girl, Esperanza Cruz, was abducted by aliens and gained the ability to communicate with aliens when they implanted a device in her brain. While skeptical, Ava tells Behrad to bring Mick and meet Cruz in the present day. On the spaceship, Spartacus has only just realized there are other prisoners on board. He suggests they free everyone and lead them against their captors, and opens a cryochamber against Sara's objections. A dangerous looking alien emerges from the cryochamber.

The alien begins to attack Sara as Spartacus stands idly by to watch. Sara manages to lock the alien back into its cryochamber and confronts Spartacus on not helping her. Spartacus claims he was letting the alien tire itself out, and would have defeated the tired alien while he was well rested once it had killed Sara, and avenge her death. Sara angrily knock Spartacus onto the floor and tells him "avenging is stupid", their goal should be to prevent death and tells him to follow her directions instead and to stop opening cryochambers. Meanwhile, Behrad tells Mick he believes that the universe will help them find Sara. As they arrive on Esperanza Cruz's property, an impatient Mick decides to break past the gates as they are watched by an unseen figure via cameras. On the spaceship, Sara and Spartacus observe two aliens in the cockpit and Sara suggest they wait for the aliens to be alone and overpower them. Spartacus insists they have the element of surprise and they should attack now and scoffs at Sara using her assassin training. Spartacus charges by himself at the aliens and is easily defeated and consumed by one of the aliens. The alien then gives unknown orders to the other alien, who leaves the bridge while followed by Sara. At Constantine's house, Astra tells Constantine that she knew a denizen of hell named Aleister Crowley, who had a tome full of spells that were taught to him by aliens. Constantine scoffs at the idea, since he imprisoned Crowley on Earth and confiscated his tome. At Zari's urging, Constantine decides to look for the tome but finds it is missing, and he yells for Gary Green to stop touching his things. They head to Gary's room where they find the tome, but also an alien chrysalis above his bed. On the spaceship, Sara confronts one of the aliens, who reveals himself to actually be Gary. Meanwhile, Mick questions if Esperanza Cruz can really talk to aliens as they break into what appears to be an armory. Impressed by what he finds, he comments that Esperanza may not be a "dumb redneck" as she tranquilizes them from behind.

Esperanza Cruz ties the unconscious Behrad and Mick up, as Ava groans that they now have 3 legends missing. Constantine, Zari and Astra arrive on the Waverider and tell them Gary is an alien. To prove it, they demonstrate that Gary's glasses actually allow the wearer to assume Gary's normal human form as a holographic disguise. On the spaceship, Gary tells Sara that he was sent to Earth to kidnap the quintessential human. While she initially assumed he meant Spartacus, Gary reveals that she herself is considered the quintessential human, with Spartacus being kidnapped to serve as lunch for the other alien, who is his boss. Gary tells her he couldn't go through with the abduction after falling in love with Earth, but his boss Kayla found them and he pretended to go along with the abduction, secretly rigging Sara's cryochamber so she would escape. Behrad and Mick awaken to find Esperanza Cruz has tied them up. Mick calls her crazy, which prompts her to brandish a knife in anger and tell them to call her Spooner. Behrad tries to explain that they came for her help, and Spooner believes they meant to kidnap her. She realizes that they are communicating with someone and digs out Behrad's communicator. She patches into the signal to hear Ava order the Waverider to be brought to her location. Thinking the Waverider is an alien ship, she fires a powerful homemade weapon at the ship, piercing the hull and floor of the Waverider. Ava portals down to tell Spooner that they are time travelers and begs for her help in finding Sara. She still believes they are aliens and tries to shoot Ava, but is instead tranquilized by Mick who has escaped with Behrad.

On the spaceship, Sara and Gary come up with a plan to take control of the ship from Kayla, open a wormhole to Earth and fly the ship through it. Gary is concerned that the ship may not have enough fuel for that plan, but is convinced by Sara to carry it out. Gary tricks Kayla into checking Sara's empty pod, as Sara attempts to trap Kayla inside it but fails. The two begin to battle, with Kayla gaining the upper hand and imprisoning Sara inside another pod. On the Waverider, Spooner comes to and insists on fighting, but is convinced by Ava and Behrad that they are telling the truth. Ava makes a deal with Spooner to remove the antenna in her head once she helps Constantine locate Sara and she agrees. Constantine explains that he can use Spooner's alien connection to locate Gary and send an astral projection to the location to find Sara. The spell involves Spooner drinking a concoction that contains Gary's alien chrysalis, which she does so without a beat to the Legends disgust but impresses Constantine. Spooner is able to sense Gary, and tells them that Gary appears to be helping Sara return to Earth. Constantine attempts to astral project, but he is already expending his magic to maintain the connection. Ava astral projects in his place, and tells Sara that she agrees to marry her, before the connection is severed as Zari pulls Constantine away before the spell kills him. Using all of her strength, Sara uses the engagement ring she was carrying to escape her pod and finds Kayla waiting for her, and the two begin to battle again. Gary is able to open a wormhole, as Sara opens the airlock doors and knocks Kayla out of the ship. In her struggle to avoid being sucked out as well, Sara accidentally releases the other alien pods into the wormhole before closing the airlock doors.

Constantine awakens in his house, to find Zari waiting for him with a green smoothie to recover his strength before leaving. Constantine tells Astra that it is just a fling between him and Zari, but Astra believes that he is lying. Astra notes that it appears Crowley was right, but Constantine insists that Crowley cannot be trusted. Astra agrees and tells him she can't be a part of any more Legends missions, as she is now mortal and wants to build a normal life for herself on Earth. Proud, Constantine tells her that she has come a long way from her time in hell. Before leaving, Astra tells him that it is not just a fling between him and Zari, pointing out that he is on a juice cleanse for her. On the Waverider, Behrad asks if Spooner wants to join the Legends but she insists on having the alien device in her brain removed so that she can live a normal life. Gideon informs Behrad that a medical scan shows no anomalies in Spooner's brain, as Spooner sits up and tells Behrad she can hear something. They rush to the bridge, where numerous alien pods are seen falling throughout the temporal zone. Ava smiles, as although the Legends now have to retrieve the aliens, she notes that only Sara could create this much mayhem, taking it as a sign that Sara is alive and well. On the spaceship, Gary apologizes for not being as good of a pilot as Kayla, who was also his fiance. Gary attempts to pilot the ship through the wormhole, but it closes before the ship can enter as the ship begins to run out of fuel and crashes into the planet below.

Cast[]

Starring[]

• Caity Lotz as Sara Lance
• Tala Ashe as Zari Tarazi
• Jes Macallan as Captain Ava Sharpe
• Olivia Swann as Astra Logue
• Adam Tsekhman as Gary Green and Zari Tarazi
• Shayan Sobhian as Behrad Tarazi
• Lisseth Chavez as Esperanza "Spooner" Cruz
• Amy Louise Pemberton as Gideon (voice)
• Nick Zano as Dr. Nate Heywood
• Dominic Purcell as Mick Rory/Heat Wave

Special appearance by[]

• Matt Ryan as John Constantine

Guest starring[]

• Thomas Nicholson as David Bowie
• Shawn Roberts as Spartacus

Co-starring[]

• Ryan Egan as Player One
• Cainan Wiebe as Punk #1
• Arthur Lamaka as Queen's Guard

Gallery[]

Videos[]

Trivia[]

• This is the first episode of DC's Legends of Tomorrow to feature Adam Tsekhman (Gary Green), Shayan Sobhian (Behrad Tarazi), and Lisseth Chavez (Esperanza Cruz) as series regulars.
• This is the first Season Premiere to not feature Brandon Routh (Ray Palmer).
• The episode's title is a reference to the opening line of the David Bowie song "Space Oddity", "Ground control to Major Tom".
• A memorial dedication to Scott Carroll is shown at the conclusion of this episode.
• Gary mentions Sara is the "quintessential human". It's unknown why, but it likely does not have to do with her being a Paragon, otherwise Ryan Choi and Lex Luthor would have been candidates.
• Aleister Crowley is mentioned to be on Earth (having been pulled from Hell by Constantine years ago), with knowledge of aliens and their magic.
• Gideon shows unusual giddiness at the idea of dissecting Spooner's brain; likely a side-effect of her re purposing by Lachesis to give orders through the Fatewatch.
• Gary likely ensured Kayla kidnapped Spartacus after he served his place in time; being trained by the Time Bureau would make him very cautious.
• The following events (which occurred in earlier episodes within the shared multiverse) are mentioned:
  • Alex Danvers and Sara having had a one-night stand in "Crisis on Earth-X, Part 1".
  • Rama Khan having destroyed the headquarters of the D.E.O. in "The Missing Link".
• As Sara is fighting the alien, she gives a kick and touches a panel, which causes a a bay door to open, which is similar to the Alien movie franchise; in which Ripley uses a door to suck out the Queen Brood alien,
• A young David Bowie is shown in this episode. In real life, he passed away in 2016, the same year that DC's Legends of Tomorrow began airing.
• Gary's piloting skills are confirmed to be indeed poor. They were referenced as such in "I, Ava".
• Sara tells Spartacus that "being an Avenger is stupid", when they should be proactive, meta-physically discussing the Marvel Comics hero team.
• This is the 22nd episode in the Arrowverse, and the sixth episode of DC's Legends of Tomorrow, to be named after a character in a civilian sense, after "Sara", "The Secret Origin of Felicity Smoak", "Who is Harrison Wells?", "My Name Is Oliver Queen", "Alex", "Zari", "When Harry Met Harry...", "Run, Iris, Run", "I, Ava", "Schott Through the Heart", "Harry and the Harrisons", "Nora", "The Virgin Gary", "Tender is the Nate", "My Name is Emiko Queen", "All About Eve", "A Girl Named Sue", "Alex in Wonderland", "Zari, Not Zari", "Whatever Happened to Kate Kane?", and "All's Wells That Ends Wells"

References[]

DC's Legends of Tomorrow season 6
"Ground Control to Sara Lance" • "Meat: The Legends" • "The Ex-Factor" • "Bay of Squids" • "The Satanist's Apprentice" • "Bishop's Gambit" • "Back to the Finale: Part II" • "Stressed Western" • "This is Gus" • "Bad Blood" • "The Final Frame" • "Bored On Board Onboard" • "Silence of the Sonograms" • "There Will Be Brood" • "The Fungus Amongus"