Who Will Die in the Legends of Tomorrow Season 2 Finale?

SARA LANCE

This is the least likely series regular to go. Sara has been the center of a lot of this season's action...but in such a way that seems to be building her up for something greater, not setting her up for a fall.

We might be jinxing it, but it seems like Captain White Canary is pretty much safe...for the moment.

(Besides, how many times can you kill the same person in the same universe and not eventually get diminishing returns? If Sara goes out at this point, it's going to be both permanent...and in a blaze of glory, possibly along with the Waverider.)

RAY PALMER

Ray has already kind of had his character arc for the season, and it feels like he's probably safe.

Honestly, if we were going to lose one of the "science guys" on the show, we would wager it to be Professor Stein, who could end up either dying as part of Firestorm or (arguably more likely) taking a break from adventuring to go spend time with his newly-discovered/created daughter.

That being the case, we're going to mark Ray as tentatively safe.

FIRESTORM

On the one hand, everyone has already seen Firestorm heroically sacrifice himself when Ronnie Raymond and Professor Stein did so in the season 2 premiere of The Flash.

On the other hand, this Firestorm has the most versatile and visually-interesting power set on the show...which also happens to cost a boatload of money.

Could that shot of Firestorm transmuting part of the Vanishing Point into jelly beans have been one final gift to comic book fans, who have been waiting to see the character use his powers that way since he was first introduced? Don't put it past them...but this is the last of the really unlikely candidates, in our opinion.

MALCOLM MERLYN

While this is a character who seems to have run his course on Arrow -- we were a little hesitant about the idea of his being a member of the Legion fo Doom since, at this point, he's been so ever-present in the Arrowverse already -- he's unlikely to be on his way out because he is, after all, Oliver Queen's arch-nemesis.

A little futher down this list, we have a different view of the Reverse-Flash...but he's got time travel on his side, so if anybody really wanted to use him again they could. Merlyn, in the increasingly grounded world of Arrow's non-crossover episodes this season, seems more like a "dead means dead" kind of situation.

And while that's distinctly possible -- after all, he's a bad guy and has no powers to protect him -- it doesn't feel like a character with as much history (no pun intended) as Merlyn has could die at the hands of anyone other than Oliver or Thea.

RIP HUNTER

Rip being the man who wasn't there for most of this season certainly makes an argument both for and against his being the one who dies.

If he died, for instance, we know the team can carry on without him -- and it would open up some truly fascinating possibilities in terms of the team and Gideon trying to suss out his next big, cosmic puzzle without Rip being able to help them.

Still, losing him would simply return the team to the status quo they had for most of the season, which wouldn't be all that much of a gut-punch for the season finale.

NATE HEYWOOD

We don't want to see anything bad happen to Nate Heywood -- he's been a highlight of the season, and frankly the chemistry that Nick Zano and Brandon Routh have together has given Legends of Tomorrow fans the closest thing we'll probably ever have to a live-action Blue Beetle and Booster Gold on TV.

That said, his love story with Amaya came to a tragic end last week -- and he's a historian who knows just how important she is to the grand scheme of history. As someone who literally watched his grandfather sacrifice himself for the greater good just a few weeks ago, Nate seems like an optimal candidate to give himself up to save Amaya (and, by extension, the timeline).

DAMIEN DARHK

On the one hand, he's already finished on Arrow and so it's possible that we could see him get "killed for good" on Legends of Tomorrow.

On the other hand, losing him would be probably the least impactful of any character on the show.

On yet another hand -- let's say he borrowed one from Merlyn, since there's precedent there -- it would give Sara a nice full-circle moment when she kills the man she tried and failed to kill in the season premiere.

MICK RORY

A character with no real super-powers, who is a villain in the comics and spent his first handful of TV appearances as one, too, just happens to be the de facto main character on Legends this year.

Heat Wave has had more one-on-one time than almost any other character on the show and the psychological journey he's gone on trying to come to terms with the loss of his longtime best friend and partner was a big part of that.

Now, not only has he come to terms with it...but honestly, he's realized that maybe things with Captain Cold were never quite as good as he thought. That realization, and his turn back to the side of the angels, in the penultimate episode of the season seems likely to be setting him up for the same kind of heroic sacrifice Cold made last season.

If there's anything to argue against it, it's the fact that it might almost be too similar.

EOBARD THAWNE

This guy is the most likely almost by default. Even before coming to DC's Legends of Tomorrow, he was a time-traveler...so much so that after his death on The Flash and before he returned for Legends this season, he appeared last year on The Flash...as a younger version of himself who didn't yet know how The Flash's first season had panned out for him.

The fact that he's the baddest bad guy of the season -- despised even by his own partners, and responsible for the death of Hourman in the '40s at the start of the year -- means it would be really, really satisfying to see him finally caught and consumed by the Black Flash.

Will it happen? It feels like a guarantee -- as long as nobody at The Flash objects too much that his "final fate" happened somewhere else.