Troped: Time Loops – Legends of Tomorrow – “Here I Go Again” (S03.E11)
Ever want a way to kill off some, or all, the main characters of your show, only to have them be totally fine by the end of the episode? Maybe you’re looking to get the most bang for your buck reusing a gag without its repetition being without purpose? Or how about wanting a character to grow and have an entire arc with little to no in-universe time passing at all? We’ll I’ve got the trope for you!
Time loops.
Time loops crop up all over the place in sci-fi and fantasy series, usually as single episodes. Though, sometimes as the premise of an entire series in cases such as Day Break (2006) and Russian Doll (2019). Rather than look at the trope as a whole, I’m going to talk about how one particular instance of its use. For this I’m looking at the Legends of Tomorrow episode “Here I Go Again” (S03.E11).
The Setup
The episode gives very little setup before getting to the time looping fun. Within the span of the teaser we learn that Zari has created a program to make simulations to help her find loopholes in history, times she is able to change things without destroying reality. We take a moment to meet with the rest of the Waverider’s crew, learning Sara is getting pissed at Zari, Ray is concerned about Sara’s anger getting out of control, that Amaya and Nate got up to something on the last mission, and that Rory hates Abba’s “Waterloo”. Zari doesn’t want to be a part of the team and sees her time with them only as a means to an end. Even still, she listens to Sara’s orders to work on the Waverider. While hard at work, she gets shot in the face with some time sludge, and the ship explodes. Zari is sent back to an hour ago when Sara is getting angry with her.
This setup is so short and to the point, for the most part it skips over a common early sign a time loop is about to happen: seemingly random things being given more attention than they normally would in the shot (ex: an background character getting a drink thrown at them) or sound mixing (ex: a firetruck’s siren wailing as it drives by). This will usually occur as a way to make it obvious to both the audience and the character that time is repeating itself. The episode downplays this aspect but doesn’t do away with them entirely. It limits these moments to Sara’s angry speech about being the captain, and Ray’s tripping on his own platform shoes. The time sludge arguable can fit into this as well, but to a lesser degree as it doesn’t get much play.
Beat – The First Reset
More often than not, the first time a character lives through repeated moments, they don’t believe it. They think they’re just imagining things; sometimes even go as far to believe they’re going crazy as evidence starts to build up. Zari is no exception. To her it isn’t real, it just kind of feels off. She listens to Sara yelling about being her captain, and sees Ray trip, all in the same ways they happened before, but she writes it off as just a weird coincidence.
She spends the next while going around asking if any of the others have experienced déjà vu, or if they have noticed anything weird happening. None of them have a clue what she is talking about.
So, she goes about her day and once again gets back to repairing the Waverider. Luckily, she remembers the sludge and manages to dodge it this time. Weird, but still not enough to convince her. No, Zari needs something far worse to make her believe what it is happening. It isn’t until she is about to relive the moment that reset time in the first place that she is fully on board with what is going on. She hears the ship beginning to explode, and because the episode was in dire need of more Abba, in her moment of realization she says “Mamma mia, here I go again.”
Beat – Looking Insane
Now that Zari actually believes what is going on, she tries to tell people something is happening to her. Sara sends her away to the medbay with Ray where she is given a sedative that knocks her out for the rest of her hour. Just like that she’s back where she started, time reset while she was knocked out.
Here we get an example of kind of a micro-beat that comes free with the whole time loop set: the ability to montage together different lines readings as we jump through various times she’s gone through the loop. Zari is repeatedly drugged, and Ray diagnoses her with various illnesses, such as cabin fever, space madness, acute entropic dementia, or eating too many doughnuts. This goes on until she eventually wakes up in one loop, realizing all the past loops caused her to develop a tolerance to sedative.
Beat – Investigation
Whenever a time loop is going on, the protagonist eventually decides that stopping whatever triggers it is the way to stop the loops. This doesn’t always do the trick, but it is a next logical step once they’ve come to terms with their situation.
As Zari walks the ship, half out of it from the drugs, she happens across Nate. She tells him that nothing she does matters because she is stuck in a time loop. He knowingly compares her situation to Groundhog Day. As they hear the ship begin to explode, he tells her to find him when the loop resets and just mention the movie. She does exactly that, only to be surprised when Nate so quickly believes her and is willing to help. He tells her it is what friends do, but that he considers her a friend surprises her even more.
Zari spends her next bunch of loops rushing to Nate, catching him up with what’s happened so far, and continuing the hunt for who could be causing the explosion. Eventually she gets away with simply saying “Groundhog Day. One house, ship explodes”, and it’s enough to get him ready to help.
Similar to montage of different lines readings, here we get to see a montage of Zari learning from past mistakes to get further through a situation with each loop. The two sneak into Rory’s room, only to have their first attempt end when Nate steps on a bear trap. And so, their next attempt has Zari triggering the trap with a broomstick. Nate dies of electrocution; Zari figures out how to turn it off her next time around. With each reset, Zari continues to learn more and more about every aspect of her environment, including what every person on the ship is up to, and the precise second they do it. She learns more about each of her crewmates, including many secrets. It is through the latter that she begins to feel closer to them.
Beat – Fun Montage
Time loops are practically made for montaging. There have already been a couple small examples of them in the episode, but then we get to a big one. There will usually hit a point where the character realizes that time resetting means nothing they do has consequences. After Zari looks into everyone on the ship with no results, Nate brings up this fact exactly. As she fills in Nate once again, her tone makes it sound like a boring chore, emphasized more when she calls the situation her personal hell. Nate can see how down she is and calls out this beat explicitly. It is time to have some fun.
And so, Zari does just that. She spends a good chunk of time doing anything she wants. She binges on whipped cream, messes with some weapons and the costumes of other Legends, throws snowballs at Rory, even uses the time to learn to expertly play a violin and read Rory’s full novel.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a time loop without showing off her reaching near omnipotence. Zari hangs in the background while Rory and Ray have an argument, holding up large cards with each of their dialogue written on them, dropping one card to reveal the next just before the words are spoken. But, her enjoyment can only last so long.
Beat – Can’t Take It Anymore
There tends to reach a point where the monotony of an unchanging world really gets to the character. It’s the opposite beat from the fun montage, and where this trope tends to get its darkest.
Zari returns to Nate at the beginning of another loop, looking more beaten down and worn out than ever. She says she can’t do it anymore; she’s losing her mind. He asks if she did the fun montage yet, she tells him she did, and thanks him for the idea, going on to call him a good friend. Like many other characters before her, Zari sees suicide as a possible way out. As she sees it, it’s the only thing she hasn’t tried.
At her bleakest moment, Zari holds a gun held to her own head, and Sara tries to stop her. Zari pulls the trigger, but it doesn’t work. She’s nearly in tears as she explains the situation to Sara, convinced her words won’t be believed. “I’m totally alone in it, because for some reason, I’m the only one that’s even aware that it’s happening. And I try so hard, but… I can never save any of you.” Sara sees the sincerity in what Zari is saying, and everything changes. Sara calls the others all to a meeting, and for the first time in any loop, Zari has the help of all the Legends. Now that the whole team is together, they quickly they discover a place that Zari has never checked: the trash compactor.
Beat – Upping the Stakes
The final chance at a loop doesn’t always occur, but it is something that can happen to ramp up the tension. Without this, it really comes down the character dealing with the mental or emotional weight of the situation but trapped in a kind of purgatory that will never get better or worse until it is figured out. Creating the idea of a final loop ups the stakes for everyone involved, especially when the reset is triggered by death.
Zari, Sara, and Mick head to the trash compactor to check it out, only to find Gary inside. He tries to explain why he was in there, but Mick isn’t hearing it. He finds a device in Gary’s pocket and smashes it, assuming it is the bomb. Nope. It was the device that created the time loops to begin with, a method Gary was using in hopes that it could eventually prevent the explosion. The team has no choice, they stop this explosion, or they all die for real.
Beat – Ending the Loop
With the stakes as high as they can get, it’s time to end the loop. But simply stopping the cause is never enough for this, it always comes down to the character having learned something that gets them out of it.
Five minutes left before the bomb goes off one last time. Gary gives the team everything they need to solve the mystery. Sara rushes to a cassette they grabbed on their last mission and finds the bomb inside. With no other obvious options, Zari takes the bomb and gets herself behind a forcefield. She plans to use her powers and the forcefield to contain the explosion, sacrificing herself to save everyone else. Of course, this can’t happen before a big speech about how much she has grown to care about them all, and that she considers them all family after everything she has gone through.
But the bomb doesn’t go off at all. Zari finds herself alone, everyone else suddenly gone. A woman comes out, revealing herself to be the Waverider’s AI, Gideon. Gideon tells her that none of what Zari experienced really happened at all, that she was knocked out when the time sludge shot in her face.
When Gideon originally ran the simulation Zari created, she discovered that Zari’s only hope of saving her brother was to stick with the Legends. When Zari was knocked out, Gideon used the opportunity to download Zari’s mind, and used Zari’s own program to create a simulation that would make her grow closer to them. Though none of it actually happened, it was based on Gideon’s extensive knowledge of the crew, along with her calling out the bomb as a “plot device” and Gary in the trash compactor being thrown in because she thought it would be funny.
Finally, Zari wakes up. Though everything that happened wasn’t real, it is quickly proven that Gideon’s simulation was extremely accurate. This explanation for the loop could have resulted in a standalone episode with no consequences but is proven to have an effect on the entire crew. Zari uses the knowledge she gained from the loop to help each of her crewmates in some way, ending with her picking up the violin again to discover she still has all the ability she gained while stuck in the loop.
Results of the Trope
“Here I Go Again” covers most of the common beats of the trope, though in other stories they can be extended, contracted, or even shuffled around from what is seen here. In the end, the trope is used to have a character go through a long arc in a short period of time. In the case of this episode, it is used so that Zari can move passed her self-isolating viewpoint and grow closer to the people she is traveling with.
A possible set back to this trope is that it narrows the focus to only those who know they are in the loop, which tends to be only a single character. There will usaully be other people in the episode, but they don’t really get any chance to grow as the story progresses. Though, this example does do some mild work to alleviate this problem by having Zari use her newfound insights to get her crewmates to come clean about some secrets they have been keeping, but it can only go so far.
There are many other great uses of the time loop trope. I was super tempted to talk about Doctor Who’s “Heaven Sent” (S09.E12), but as much as I love it, I wanted to start off with a more typical use. Tell me about your favourite time loops, or even tropes in general.