With no way to track or kill Savage, Rip throws in the towel and drops the team off back in 2016. You'd think that they'd be excited to be home, but they're adamant that the mission isn't over. For some reason, trying to fight Savage in the present never occurs to them. Still, it is nice to see everyone (even Mick) volunteer to come back and see things through to the end.
The return isn't a complete plot cul-de-sac, however, as it allows Sara to learn the fate of her sister. Suffice it to say, she's not happy about it. It gives the episode some emotional poignancy as Sara grapples with her grief.
Seeing the whole team try to save Laurel would have been cool, but alas, it never comes to that. I'd cite Rip's experiences trying to save his family, but that was due to Time Masters interference. With oculus out of commission, they could have had a chance. From a storytelling perspective, though, I do get the need to establish that death can be permanent from time to time.
In any event, the group has bigger problems as Savage has a new scheme that sends them scattering throughout time (conveniently enough, to time periods they've already visited). As Savage no longer has backers, he decides to go back and redo things, exerting his influence in a more overt fashion so that he can claim power and rule the world.
You'd think that the easiest thing to do would be to go back to Ancient Egypt and work with his then-present self, but instead, he collects the meteors (that are revealed to be Thanagarian tech) and tries to "detonate" them across time, destroying the Earth in three time periods. This would create a paradox that will essentially hit the reset button. You'd think that the earliest explosion would render the other two moot, but time travel is wonky as hell and it seems like you just have to roll with it.
To wit, we get to see Savage get beaten down and killed three times. Not going to lie, that was pretty satisfying. I think the 2 on 1 fight between Savage and the Hawks won for episode's crowning fight. Sara's had some emotional backing, but 2 on 1 fights are just cool and, oddly enough, Savage held his own there better than he did against Mick or Sara.
When the fight is over, the question remains of where the characters will go. Rip takes it upon himself to "protect" time, but the others aren't so clear about where they go from here. This manifests itself most clearly in both Stein and Jax. Oddly, Jackson is now the one pushing for adventure and heroism, where Stein wants to settle down and be with his family.
Again, the idea of operating as heroes in the present never occurs to them. They can still be Firestorm, save the world, and spend time with their loved ones. It's not an either/or, despite the episode's attempt to paint it as such. In fact, they saw first hand that not going back to 2016 creates a lot of problems in the future. We also saw on "Flash" and "Arrow" that things got extremely dire without them to act as backup, so sticking around might not be such a bad idea.
Then again, this could tie into the episode's closing wham moment. I wouldn't say it's a cliffhanger, but it was still a jaw dropping way to close out the season. It's especially impressive as this is another one of those plot points that I came across on TvTropes. I'm really looking forward to seeing what the next season has in store.
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