DC's Legends of Tomorrow's season 4 finale, "Hey World!", featured monsters, a heartwarming musical number, and a shocking change to the status quo as the heroes saved the world from the demon Neron. After possessing the body of Ray Palmer and taking over the Time Bureau, Neron and his evil love Tabitha (formerly the Fairy Godmother), set out to literally create Hell on Earth. The Legends were able to stop them by fighting fear with a message of hope and understanding, but Zari Tomaz sacrificed herself in the process.
In Legends of Tomorrow season 4, our time-traveling misfits, Sara Lance, Nate Heywood, Mick Rory, Ray, and Zari were joined by John Constantine as they chased magical creatures throughout history - including Nora Darhk, who fell in love with Ray and joined the Time Bureau. At first, the Legends were simply banishing these 'fugitives' to Hell, but with the help of their new members Mona Wu and Charlie, a shapeshifter who took the form of Amaya Jiwe, they quickly learned that most of the fugitives were actually frightened beings who deserved understanding and even friendship. Meanwhile, Nate and his father Hank Heywood, who was the Time Bureau's Pentagon liaison, tried to heal their broken relationship before Nate learned his father was in cahoots with Neron's Project Hades plan. The demon killed Hank when he learned Hank intended to create a magical theme park called HeyWorld with the fugitives rather than let Neron use them to destroy the world.
Neron gained the upper hand when he brought Tabitha back from Hell and then banished John Constantine to the nether realm, where he also sent the soul of Ray Palmer. While all of that was going on, Nate and Zari fell in love and became parents to a dragon egg they named Wickstable, which Zari accidentally left with her nine-year-old self in 2019; Wickstable hatched and became little Zari's pet. All of this came to a head in Legends of Tomorrow's delightfully bizarre season 4 finale, "Hey World!", and here's how the Legends saved the world:
Neron And Tabitha's Plan Was Use Fear To Make Earth Hell Again
Neron led John Constantine to believe his plan was to collect enough human souls to gain the power to overthrow the Triumvirate of Hell but, typically, the demon was lying and that wasn't his plan at all. Neron and Tabitha's true plan was to "Make Earth Hell Again". The first stage was for Neron, posing as Ray Palmer, to introduce the Eyes app, which allowed people to report sightings of magical creatures to the Time Bureau. But, since most people don't read the terms of service, each person who uses their app actually sells his soul to Neron, increasing his power.
The second part of Neron's plan was to unleash the fugitives imprisoned by the Time Bureau to attack Washington, D.C. to create a wave of fear and panic. However, Zari and Charlie staged a prison break and sent the fugitives to the safety of the Waverider. Instead, Neron and Tabitha captured Charlie; since she's a shapeshifter, they used her to substitute for the fugitives and forced her to publicly transform into Tagumo, the octopus kaiju the Legends faced in "Tagumo Attacks!!!" Sara and Mick rescued Charlie but the damage was done and the wave of fear and panic gripped Washington D.C. and began to spread around the world. From there, Neron began harnessing enough fear for the third stage of his plan: to open a portal to Hell and summon all of the demons to Earth for a full takeover, with Neron and Tabitha as the new King and Queen of Hell on Earth.
Constantine And Nora Darhk Saved Ray Palmer From Hell
Last week, Tabitha tricked Nora Darhk into becoming the Fairy Godmother, which magically bound her to Gary as her human host. Gary then unwittingly sent Fairy God Nora to Hell, but that turned out to be a fortunate turn of events since Nora was able to save John Constantine from infernal torture. Together, they sent off to find Ray's soul, which meant finding Astra Logue, who is enough of a player in Hell to get them into Neron's vault. In the vault is the currency of Hell: hundreds of coins, which contain the souls Neron collected that he intends to torture.
Nora was able to use the Fairy Godmother's wand to find Ray's and that led them to where Ray was being tortured... by Vandal Savage. However, Ray and Vandal, who used to be arch enemies, had started talking and let bygones be bygones so they're now best friends. Fairy God Nora, John, and Ray all left Hell but when they rematerialized on the Waverider, they found that Ray's soul was still trapped in his coin because Neron was still inhabiting Ray's mortal body.
The Legends Used HeyWorld To Save The World
Faced with a global pandemic of fear and paranoia about magical creatures, the Legends had to find a way to teach the world the lesson they learned all season: that once you get to know and understand monsters, they're no longer scary. This was reinforced by a YouTube video that went viral of nine-year-old Zari teaching a baby Wickstable the dragon how to dance. Nate realized the answer was HeyWorld, his late father Hank's dream based on Nate's childhood idea of a magic theme park where people could interact with the wonder of magical creatures. The park was still under construction but Nate used the wish-granting Book of Brigid from "Tagumo Attacks!!!" (which Rory had been using for his own... pleasures...) to magically complete construction of HeyWorld.
Next, the Legends had to devise a marketing strategy to get people to visit HeyWorld so they shot a commercial with Sara, Nate, and Gary dressed as Supergirl, Green Arrow, and the Flash, believing that they need "franchise superheroes" to entice people because the public doesn't know who the Legends are. (They also ruefully agreed they "should have done the crossover" because the real Trinity said, "hard pass" when the Legends asked for their help.) Meanwhile, Nora, Gary, and Charlie had to convince the fugitives to participate in the HeyWorld Musical Revue. Though many of them, like the Minotaur and the Ogre, have musical talent, they were afraid of humans fearing and hating them.
Nevertheless, the show must go on; with Ava and Zari recording and broadcasting HeyWorld to 3-billion cell phones, White Canary and Steel led a charmingly goofy production about friendship and understanding the fugitives but the audience, expecting a superhero action show, were underwhelmed. Tabitha then attacked HeyWorld with a fully-grown Wickstable. As panic ensued (and Gary fainted, leaving Fairy God Nora powerless), the Legends were outmatched by the fire-breathing dragon but nine-year-old Zari, who was in the audience, saved Sara and commanded the dragon to dance. Wicksty started dancing, knocking Tabitha off balance with his tail, and when the evil witch tried to attack, the dragon ate her and then transformed back into a baby dragon. All that was left was defeating Neron ,and that was up to Nate and John Constantine's risky "Plan B".
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Nate And Zari Both Make Huge Sacrifices
After Tabitha died, Neron took her magical staff, opened the portal to Hell, and summoned the damned to Earth. The only way to stop him was to separate the demon from Ray's body, which would leave him vulnerable to Constantine's magic. According to Ray's infernal deal with Neron, Ray traded his body and soul to Neron to save Nate's life. But, if Neron were to kill Nate, he would be going back on their deal and it would be rendered null-and-void. Despite Sara's orders not to use Plan B, Nate sacrificed his life to save Ray. Constantine used glamour magic to turn Nate into Constantine and, believing he was killing his arch enemy, Neron strangled "Constantine" only to discover he killed Nate. With the contract for Ray's soul voided, Neron was let loose from Ray's body, Constantine destroyed the demon, and Ray's soul returned to his body, restoring him to normal.
However, Nate was dead, and his soul was joined by the soul of his father Hank as they both watched the tragedy from above HeyWorld. Legends of Tomorrow season 4 was largely about Nate reconciling his feelings towards his father and he realized how much Hank loves him when Hank gave his son a final gift of song: Hank magically coerced Mick, Zari, and soon, the entire audience at HeyWorld to sing James Taylor's "Sweet Baby James", which Hank originally sang to soothe the Minotaur in "Tender is the Nate" (the Minotaur provided the guitar accompaniment at HeyWorld). As everyone sang along, Hank pushed his son's soul back into his body, resurrecting Steel. It was a happy ending - except for what happened next to Zari.
As the Legends made their HeyWorld plans, Zari learned that if they did save the world, it would alter the timeline so that the dark future of 2042 that Zari comes from would never happen. This means Zari would never have met the Legends and she would be giving up her friends and her newfound relationship with Nate. Sara ordered Zari to stay aboard the Waverider in the Temporal Zone so that she wouldn't be affected by any timeline changes but, when Nate died, Zari rushed to HeyWorld to be at his side. When Nate was resurrected, he and Zari kissed one last time before Zari suddenly vanished and was replaced by her brother Behrad, who now has the Wind Totem. In this instantly altered reality, Behrad, not Zari, joined the Legends and no one has any memory of Zari being part of the team. Not realizing who they lost, the Legends celebrated a happy ending where they saved the world
Zari's sudden disappearance is especially heartbreaking since she had just accepted that she should pursue her romantic feelings for Nate in the Bollywood musical episode, and they made a great couple. What's more, Zari struggled throughout season 3 to feel like she was a Legend and she became an invaluable member of the team in season 4. Worse, Zari was erased from the Legends' memories, just when they've publicly emerged to take their place among the world's greatest superheroes. Nate, who ended his love affair with Amaya last season, is now especially unlucky in love, considering Sara and Ava Sharpe and Ray and Nora have successfully found romance.
Legends of Tomorrow's Set Up For Crisis On Infinite Earths
Just like he did in the Arrow, The Flash, and Supergirl finales, the Monitor appeared in "Hey World!", confirming that Legends of Tomorrow will take part in the upcoming Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover. However, the Legends never even saw the Monitor in his brief cameo: during the HeyWorld Musical Revue, the Monitor was in the audience. At first, he was displeased with the quality of the production but, after Tabitha attacked with a giant dragon, the Monitor started munching popcorn and enjoying himself. It was an uncharacteristically bizarre but hilarious appearance by the Monitor that totally fit with Legends of Tomorrow's irreverent tone.
Legends of Tomorrow Will Fight Evil Historical Figures In Season 5
Legends of Tomorrow season 4's focus on magical threats looks to take a backseat as season 5 will return to the history-based threats of past seasons. In the epilogue, Astra arrives at the Bank of Hell to cash in the coins she stole from Neron's vault: these are the souls of "history's worst sinners" that she then released back to Earth and into the timeline - including Charles Manson, Mary Tudor, Caligula, Joseph Stalin, John Wayne Gacy, and Lizzie Borden. This guarantees the Legends will be back to gallivanting around time and taking on history's most nefarious villains in Legends of Tomorrow season 5.
DC's Legends of Tomorrow season 5 returns midseason 2020 on The CW.