It’s time to do their next mission, to stop a scientist from sharing nuclear secrets, and Gideon convinces the RoboCaptain she has to do this mission alone. And when Zari protests and offers to upgrade Gideon, she assures the hacker that Dr. Sharpe already did so, which is suspicious to the robots who have wandered too close to the mouth of the allegorical cave.
“Isn’t it nice to know a lot? And a little bit not.”
Before she leaves for this ill-advised solo mission, Zari finds Sara and expresses her concern, but Sara tells her to Act Normal, Bitch.
They rolled low on deception but luckily Dr. Sharpe rolled lower on perception.
So they play along as Dr. Sharpe comes in and says she’s going to keep an eye on Sara in a way that is less of a promise and more of a threat.
Everyone’s evil alter ego was cute and fun but Dr. Sharpe was so dry and overly calm and it made me miss our wacky high-strung co-captain so much.
While Sara is stalling on the mission, Zari convinces the rest of the RoboLegends to get off comms and researches both more details about their target and about the Sara chip from Dr. Sharpe’s lab. When Zari learns the truth, a realization dawns on her: THEY are the androids, not the Legends they’ve been hunting through time.
“It took me SIX tries to get the Wordle?!”
RoboZari tells RoboSara she was programmed to prioritize the timeline over human life, and Sara feels very, “not today, Satan” about that particular directive, so she quickly asks her target what exactly her nuclear secrets are, and turns out they are plans to reduce radiation damage, not increase it. Not wanting to be on the wrong side of history, but also not wanting to tip off Dr. Sharpe too soon, Sara uses a dead zone to fake the murder, though a miss with her throwing star has Dr. Sharpe feeling a little suspicious.
RoboSara promises to find the woman again to give her back the plans she has to steal to save her life, and heads back to her team, pretending she killed the target as planned. When they’re clear, Zari pulls Sara aside and shows her Gideon’s secret firewall, and the records of the real Sara Lance, the real Legends. They are definitely androids, and they are loosely modeled after real people, but with some cold-hearted tweaks. At first they think Dr. Sharpe is behind all this, until they find a video of an Ava with Bishop and they realize she’s an android too and that actually Gideon has been behind this the whole time.
“Wait, WHO is the Antler Queen?!”
Sara and Zari know they have to convince the other RoboLegends, so Sara holds Dr. Sharpe hostage and forces her to tell the rest of the team the truth, about the fact that they’re the real androids, and that Gideon has been pulling the strings.
Ooh, another entry for the knifeplay list.
The RoboLegends think this is all a hilarious joke at first, but when Dr. Sharpe, notoriously not a joker, insists, they start to believe it. RoboSara decides she doesn’t want to kill people anymore, especially not innocent people. She wants to be like the real Legends and follow her heart, not her CPU.
And I love that Sara was the one whose humanity pushed through the programming, for a lot of reasons, but mainly because it’s proof of Sara Lance’s epic character arc over the course of her existence in the Beeboverse. There was a period of time where Assassin Sara Lance, the Black Canary, the Totem of Death wielder, and even the White Canary saw herself as a killer, a monster, a bad person, not worthy of redemption, not worthy of being a hero let alone a Legend. Until time and time again she proved to everyone, including herself, that it wasn’t a question of worth; she IS a hero, no doubt about it. She’s a Legend, she’s the Paragon of Destiny…she’s Captain Sara Lance for fuck’s sake! And even a bit of tweaking from a rogue AI can’t keep the hero in her quiet for long.
Villains are the heroes of their own story and all that.
RoboZari wants to shut Gideon down, and she’s the only one who could do it, and even gives her a little, “Goodbye, Gidget,” proof Gideon put both of OUR Zaris into this shiny new tattooed Zari.
Listen I know they already stuck one Zari in a bottle to avoid having too many Zaris at once but I wouldn’t be mad at at least ONE scene with all three of them. Tala Ashe can handle it!!
But then Gideon whispers sweet nothings into RoboZari’s ear, offering to make her smarter, faster…better. RoboZari agrees and gets a bigger brain and a god complex, offering everyone else upgrades so they can be unstoppable like her.
Sara tries to convince the RoboLegends that they’re the bad guys, but no one else agrees. It’s much easier to feign ignorance than take responsibility for the harm you’ve caused.
Sara gets them to think for themselves, but Gideon chimes in and says that Sara has gone rogue, encouraging them to take her down so she can…fix her.
Once her pesky conscience is taken care of, RoboSara is sent back on her mission, and this time she kills the target dead without hesitation.
Now all she needs is a RoboNyssa…
Looks like RoboSara has had a factory reset back to her assassin roots.
And that’s all, folks! Next week…a reality show?? Whether it’s with the real Legends, the RoboLegends, or a whole new pack of time-traveling weirdos is anyone’s guess. In any case, it’s good to be back. See you next week!
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This is basically an AU, and you know what we do with AUs.
…open a Bed and Breakfast that often gets snowed in and only has rooms with one bed?
surprised Robo!Sara’s assassination of the science lady didn’t involve seducing her first.
RoboSpooner’s queer af haircut and bandana-around-the-neck!