Here I Go Again

"I have spent so much time with you guys. You're my family now. You deserve to be happy and if I can be a small part of making that happen, then this will be worth it."

—Zari Tomaz to the Legends

"Here I Go Again"
Information
Season 3 » Episode 11
Episode number	44 of 110
Original airdate	February 19, 2018
Written by	Ray Utarnachitt Morgan Faust
Directed by	Ben Bray
Chronology
Preceded by	"Daddy Darhkest"
Followed by	"The Curse of the Earth Totem"

"Here I Go Again" is the eleventh episode of the third season of DC's Legends of Tomorrow, and the forty-fourth episode overall. It aired on February 19, 2018.

Synopsis

After the team returns from a mission, Zari finds herself trapped in a time loop that results in the Waverider blowing up over and over again. Zari soon begins to suspect that the answer to stop what is happening might lie hidden among her fellow shipmates’ secrets. But in investigating them she starts to understand her place on the team.[src]

Cast

Starring

• Brandon Routh as Ray Palmer/The Atom
• Caity Lotz as Captain Sara Lance
• Maisie Richardson-Sellers as Amaya Jiwe
• Amy Louise Pemberton as Gideon
• Tala Ashe as Zari Tomaz
• Nick Zano as Dr. Nate Heywood/Steel
• Dominic Purcell as Mick Rory

Guest starring

• Jes Macallan as Agent Ava Sharpe
• Adam Tsekhman as Agent Gary Green

Special appearance by

• Keiynan Lonsdale as Wally West

Special guest star

• Arthur Darvill as Rip Hunter

Plot

While the rest of the Legends are on a mission, Zari, who is supposed to performing routine maintenance to the Waverider, is attempting to update Gideon with a simulation program which will allow them to find loopholes in the timeline. Gideon is trying to convince Zari not to go through with it, fearing it will break her, and the team is not going to be happy about it. Just as Zari activates the program, the team returns, and lights flicker for a moment. Sara asks Zari what is going on, and if she has finished the maintenance. As Gideon is checking the timeline she vanishes. Sara demands to know what Zari has done but Z refuses. Ray suggests that she doesn't want to make Sara angry, but won't reveal why. Sara tells Zari that they are in the business of fixing anachronisms, not hacking time. Z objects to Sara bossing her around. Sara points out that it's part of her job as captain, and if Zari doesn't like it she is free to leave the team. Ray tries to intervene between the two but trips. In the engine room Zari is still complaining about Sara as she tries to fix the Waverider. As she tries to fix the circuits, she pulls out a hose, which squirts liquid in her face. Suddenly, the entire ship explodes.

Zari finds herself back on the bridge having the same argument with Sara as she did before. Confused, she goes to fix the ship like Sara ordered, and Ray falls over again. On her way to the engine room she tries to talk to Mick but he is hiding something in his quarters, and she overhears Nate and Amaya talking about how they slept together whilst on the last mission. Back in the engine room Zari pulls out the same hose as before but this time sidesteps the liquid as it squirts out. But the ship explodes again.

And Zari is back on the bridge yet again. As Sara tried to leave the bridge Z tries to stop her. Out of reflex Sara grabs her, hurting her shoulder. Sara tells Ray to take Zari to the medbay. She tries to tell Ray about what is happening, but he doesn't believe her, and sedates her instead.

And she wakes up back on the bridge again. She tries to tell the team about what is happening but they don't believe her, thinking she's going crazy, and sedate her in the medbay

This happens a few times until Zara develops a tolerance to the sedative and isn't knocked out. Still a little disoriented she leaves the medbay and runs into Nate. She tries to explain to him she is stuck in a time loop, living the same hour over and over, and Nate compares to the film Groundhog Day. As the ship begins to explode again, Nate tells her, if she finds herself in the loop again, to find him and tell him "Groundhog Day".

Another cycle begins, and Zari goes to find Nate in the library. She finds both Nate and Amaya in the library, trying to figure out their relationship. After Amaya leaves, Zari walks in, and says "Hedgehog Day", leaving Nate at first confused, but then realizes she means Groundhog Day. Zari suspects someone in the ship is responsible for the ship exploding, and with Nate's help, they start checking everybody. First, they check on Mick, who is doing his laundry, alone, which is suspicious. They follow him to the canteen, where he uses the memory eraser to get the song Waterloo, out of his head. Amaya takes it and Nate follows her. But it ends with Nate having sex with her, and the ship goes up in flames again.

Trying again, Zari and Nate check out Mick's quarters, and notice there is a suspicious looking box in it. However, their first attempt is stopped as Nate gets stuck in a bear trap. They go again, disabling the trap, but as Nate tries to open the container, it releases an electric shock, which kills Nate. Third time around, Zari uses a code breaker to open the lock. The container opens, and it squirts ink on them both. The container holds a typewriter, and they learn Mick is writing a sci-fi romance novel. With Amaya and Mick clear, Zari suggests checking out Ray next as he has been acting all twitchy.

Zari and Nate find Ray in the laboratory. Ray reveals that Constantine told him that to kill Sara if she gets taken over by Mallus again. Zari wonders if Mallus being released is the cause of the explosion. Ray asks "what explosion?" and Nate explains about the time loop (which Ray compares to a Star Trek episode). Zari and Ray follow Sara to the jump ship. Using the Atom suit, Ray shrinks Zari and himself, and they go follow Sara inside the ship. It turns out that Sara isn't using the jump ship for anything bad - she is doing crossword puzzles and privately calling Ava Sharpe. They overhear Sara telling Ava that Zari is important to the team, but that she can't allow Z to find loopholes in time, because otherwise Sara will start trying to find ways to save her sister. Sara hears Zari and Ray talking, and thinks there's a fly inside the jump ship. Ava tells her to kill it (in case it's carrying some historical disease), and Sara uses the crossword magazine to unknowingly swats Zari and Ray.

And the time loop starts again. Zari goes to Nate, tired and frustrated as she still can't figure out how to break the loop and stop the ship from exploding. Nate suggests she has some fun – after all if she blows up every hour there are no consequences. She does a lot of things over several cycles, such as dressing up, learning to play the violin, reading Mick's novel, and catching Ray when he trips over. But when she finally has had enough, she goes to Nate again. They go to the bridge, where Zari tries to kill herself to see if it will end the loop, but the gun isn't loaded. Zari starts to cry, and Sara asks what's wrong. Zari claims she wouldn't believe it, but Sara says to try her. She tells her about the time loop, and that the ship will explode within the hour. Sara believes her, and the team starts checking the ship for a bomb.

In the kitchen Zari explains that she has checked the entire ship. As they are talking, Mick throws his beer bottle into the trash compactor, but the bottle is thrown back out. Realising Zari didn't check that, they go to check it out. Inside, they find Gary who has a device that Mick believes is a bomb, and destroys it. Gary says the device caused the time loop, and that now that it's gone, no more loops. He learned that there's a bomb in the ship, but when he tried to transport inside, he got stuck inside the compactor, and couldn't warn the team. And with the loop device destroyed, the next explosion is going to be permanent. The team has five minutes to find the bomb.

Gary tells the team that he tracked the signature of the bomb to 1975, which means it was brought on board during the Legends' last mission. They check the tape that Mick broke when they got back and find the explosive. Zari thinks that Damien Darhk must have planted it. Zari takes the bomb, but instead of trying to disarm it, she locks herself into the captain's cabin. As the team tries to dissuade her, she uses the remaining time to tell each member of the team about her feelings toward them – she tells Mick to keep writing, Nate and Amaya that they should be together, tells Ray that the world would be a better place if everyone was more like him, but that he needs to tell Sara why he is afraid of her, and tells Sarah that whilst she is infuriating, she is also the soul of the ship – and that she needs to ask Ava out already. Then she activates her totem, and prepares for the detonation.

As the detonator counts to zero, Zari finds herself in the bridge alone and safe. Wondering what is going on, she encounters Gideon in human form. Gideon reveals Zari is actually in the medbay. The fluid she was hit with when fixing the engines first time round is dangerous and she is lucky to be alive. Whilst Zari was unconscious, Gideon uploaded her subconscious into her matrix. Zari's simulation program showed that the only way for Zari to save 2042 and her family is to work with the Legends, but that her fight with Sara would have made her leave the ship. So Gideon put Zari in her own simulation where the only way to survive was to get to know the team and develop a bond. In order to defeat Mallus and save the future they will need Zari and her totem to stay on the ship. As for why Gary ended up in the trash compactor – Gideon thought it would be funny.

Zari wakes up, with Sara and Ray watching over her. As Zari tries to explain what happened, Gideon claims she has no idea what she is talking about. Zari nonetheless manages to prove her claim by making Sara ask Ray what Constantine told him about her. Ray confesses that he said in the event that Mallus possesses Sara, Ray should kill her. Sara agrees. Zari tells Sara she knows she wants to save her sister, and that she only made to program to try and find a way of saving her brother. Sara says that as, technically, Z's brother's death is in her future, that she is open to finding a way of stopping it. Zari encourages Sara to ask Ava out.

Afterwards, Zari goes to visit everyone on the ship. She tells Nate and Amaya not use the memory eraser to forget the slept together but talk about their feelings, tells Mick his novel is really good but the ending needs a rewrite, and then goes to the cargo bay to see if she can still play the violin. She can.

Meanwhile, in Yunnan province 2018, Rip Hunter arrives at a Chinese monastery, where Wally West is meditating. He introduces himself, and tells Wally he is trying to save the universe, and needs his help.

Trivia

• This episode is tied with "Crisis on Earth-X, Part 4" as the highest rated episode of Season 3 with a rating of 8.9 on IMDb.
• This episode's title is a reference to the eponymous line "Mamma mia, here I go again" from the ABBA song "Mamma Mia", which is spoken by Zari Tomaz before the second Waverider explosion during the time loop.
  • "Waterloo", another song by ABBA, is referenced in the episode as the song stuck in Mick Rory's head and the eighth track of Waterloo contains the bomb in Gideon's simulation.
  • The Legends are dressed like members of ABBA upon returning from a mission in this episode. This is later mentioned in "Swan Thong", which reveals the mission involved Napoleon attempting to kill the Legends for some reason involving ABBA.
• Nate has Zari reference the 1993 film Groundhog Day in order to explain her time loop predicament to him.
  • The scene where Zari stuffs a donut into her mouth could be a reference to a similar scene in Groundhog Day where Bill Murray's character stuffs cake into his mouth.
• Ray likens Zari's situation to the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Cause and Effect", in which the characters experience a similar time loop leading to the repeated destruction of the USS Enterprise.
• Hawkgirl's helmet is seen in Zari's "fun montage" scene, though Zari adopts a Catwoman-esque pose while wearing it.
  • With the helmet being on the ship, it can be assumed that the Legends met up with Scythian Torvil and Kendra Saunders at some point after they left the team in the Season 1 finale, "Legendary", as the duo took their suits with them.
• Gary Green talked about the bomb going off at 4:20, then laughed at the number, in reference to 420, the cannabis culture slang for marijuana and hashish consumption.
• Amy Pemberton makes an appearance as Gideon in human form. This is the second time she has appeared in person after the Season 2 episode "Land of the Lost", although she made a pseudo-appearance in a photograph in the Season 3 premiere, "Aruba-Con".
• Zari is shown playing the song Vivaldi's Concerto No. 4 in F minor, Op. 8, RV 297, "Winter": Largo, referencing actress Tala Ashe's real-life experience in playing the violin.