Title: DC’s Legends of Tomorrow Season 3 Episode 1: “Aruba-Con”
Genre: Action, Adventure, Drama, Science Fiction, Superhero
Platform: TV – CW
Director: Rob Seidenglanz
Writers: Phil Klemmer and Marc Guggenheim
Rating: TV-14
Release: October 10, 2017
Cast: Victor Garber, Brandon Routh, Caity Lotz, Franz Drameh, Dominic Purell, Maisie Richardson-Sellers
Feature image: Source
[Spoilers]
“I was supposed to save some of the bad guys for you.” Wally West – Legends of Tomorrow
Picking up where season two left off, dinosaurs are roaming the streets of 2017 Los Angeles. Rip Hunter (Arthur Darvill) with a new haircut and suit shows up with a new organization he created, the Time Bureau, to deal with the situation. Even though it has only been 15 minutes since the Legends have seen him, for the past five years he was creating the Time Bureau to deal with the anachronisms the Legends created when they broke time. Rip’s agents open time portals to send the dinosaurs back to their right time and uses a device to give the LA citizens amnesia so they don’t remember any of this. Since he has the Time Bureau now, he disbands the Legends.
Six months later, Sara Lance (Caity Lotz) is working retail at a Bed Bath & Beyond type store. Her manager is giving Sara a hard time and she fantasizes using her assassin skills on him. Ray Palmer (Brandon Routh) is in Silicon Valley working for a Tinder type-dating site. His manager isn’t showing Ray any respect since he allowed Felicity to run his company into the ground. Nate Heywood (Nick Zano) is fighting crime in Central City with an assist from Kid Flash (Keiynan Lonsdale). Nate: “Dammit, Wally, what’d I say?” Wally: “I was supposed to save some of the bad guys for you.” Outside Nate uses the dating site Ray works for; he has a date with a woman who isn’t Amaya Jiwe (Maisie Richardson-Sellers). In Aruba, Mick Rory (Dominic Purcell) is on a beach enjoying a tropical drink when Julius Caesar (Simon Merrells) rides up looking to conquer the beach. Mick ties him up and calls Sara. She flips a knife at her boss’s head and quits.
“Even vigilantes have to pay their bills.” Sara Lance – Legends of Tomorrow
Sara meets up with Nate and Ray to tell them about Julius Caesar being in Aruba. They ask why Sara is working retail. Sara: “Even vigilantes have to pay their bills.” Ray: “Where’s Amaya?” Nate: “We kinda broke up.” Sara tells her old crew that if they can solve this anachronism, maybe Rip will give them the Waverider back. They all agree that they are unhappy with their present lives and decide to go to Star City where the Time Bureau headquarter is located. Sara has a security badge she stole from a Time Bureau agent to get them into the building. Once they are in the agents surround them. Ray mentions that they are the Legends, a female agent, Ava Sharpe (Jes Macallan) tosses him to the ground and tells him “We know who you losers are.”
Rip walks in and orders his agents at ease. He gives the Legends a tour of the building. They run into King Arthur (Nils Hognestad) from “Camelot/3000”. Sara tells Rip that Julius Caesar is in Aruba with Mick. The Time Bureau hasn’t detected an anachronism in Aruba so they don’t believe her. Sara tells Rip they will take care of Julius Caesar if he will let them use the Waverider to take him back. Rip shows them the Waverider; it is a training ship now. The cadets are using old Legends missions as their training missions and scoff at how the Legends did them.
“Using your team to fix anything is like doing brain surgery with a chainsaw.” Rip Hunter – Legends of Tomorrow
Rip sends a team of his agents to Aruba to pick up Caesar. Earlier, Mick had gotten into a fight with Caesar and he escaped. The Time Bureau agents pick up a student who is dressed like Caesar. The beach is full of [I would guess] spring breakers in togas. When they get back to headquarters, the Time Bureau believes that Julius Caesar was never there. Mick tries to put an old Roman coin in a vending machine; the Legends know that Mick was telling the truth. Sara asks Rip to let them straighten out this mess but he denies her request. She asks him why. Rip: “Using your team to fix anything is like doing brain surgery with a chainsaw.” Sara decides to steal the Waverider. Gideon (voice of Amy Louise Pemberton) is glad to see them. They are able to get out before the Time Bureau can stop them.
The Waverider needs repairs so they stop off in Central City to pick up Jefferson “Jax” Jefferson (Franz Drameh). Jax is visiting Dr. Martin Stein (Victor Garber). Jax dropped out of engineering graduate school because he’d rather be working on a time ship than studying engineering. Martin is happy because his daughter is pregnant and he’ll be a granddad. The Waverider appears. Even though Martin is hesitant, Sara convinces them to go to Aruba with them. When they get to Aruba, Caesar is convincing toga wearing frat boys to join him to conquer the world. Ray uses his dating site to trick the frat boys into thinking an ‘easy’ woman is waiting for them. Sara orders Caesar to come with them, Caesar won’t follow a woman’s commands, so he and Sara fight and she handily defeats him. They carry him on board the ship.
A hologram of Rip tells them to bring Caesar back to the Time Bureau. The crew discusses what to do and Sara decides to take Caesar to the Time Bureau instead of them taking him back to ancient Rome. Sara talks to Caesar who is in the brig, he convinces Sara to follow her own path instead of the safe one. Sara tells a happy Jax that they are going to ancient Rome. Sara and Nate take Caesar to his camp. They wipe his memory but stupid Nate lets Caesar steal the history book he was carrying with him. When he and Sara get back aboard the Waverider, they find out that Caesar captured the entire known and unknown world. Caesar changed history and they can’t go back home.
Sara wants to fix this before Rip finds out but he and some of his agents appear through their time portal. He sends his agents to retrieve Caesar but Caesar has set a trap for them. The Legends go out, defeat Caesar’s legions, and rescue Agent Sharpe. Sara and Sharpe make a great fighting team. After seeing the Legends in action, Agent Sharpe still thinks they are the worse. To her horror, Rip lets the Legends keep the Waverider. Rip explains to her that they might need the Legends to defeat Mallus because sometimes you need a chainsaw.
“Sometimes we screw things up for the better.” Nate Heywood – Legends of Tomorrow
Martin decides to stay on board so that Jax can, he will go home when his daughter has her baby. Nate: “Sometimes we screw things up for the better.” Sara: “That’s a good motto. We should use that.” The Legends are happy to be back together but Nate is pining over Amaya. She is back in Zambesi in 1942. Some Belgian troops come to her village to take it over. She advises them not to try. When they don’t listen, she uses her vixen powers and tears these soldiers apart.
The Legends broke time and daddy [Rip Hunter] took the T-Bird [Waverider] away. Aside from Martin and Mick, the other Legends found civilian life to be miserable. As the old World War I ditty went, “How Ya Gonna Keep’em Down on the Farm (After They’ve Seen Paree)?” After travelling through time, how can they adjust to regular life again. The Legends are misfits to begin with, so regular life isn’t for them anyway. They couldn’t, so they wanted back in the time travel business, for not only the fun and adventure; but also to correct their mistakes. Rip shows up with a new family, the Time Bureau and treats the Legends like yesterday’s news. The Time Bureau is better trained and more efficient than the Legends. They can do the standard job, but if things go bat-shit crazy, you’d rather have the Legends handling it. Rip knows that, so he gave them the Waverider back.
It was a very nice season premiere. The writers did a good job of setting up the conflict for the new season. The Legends will compete against the Time Bureau, just as they did against the Time Masters, except the Time Bureau isn’t evil, just snotty. It looks like their main nemesis from the Time Bureau will be Agent Sharpe. She doesn’t have a high opinion of the Legends and seems to get under Sara’s craw. When the two women were fighting against the Roman Legion together, they made a great team. Early prediction, I could see this early hostility between the two becoming romantic. The big bad this season will be Mallus, but I know nothing about this character. Amaya wasn’t with the crew, but I don’t think her story will remain separate from theirs. When she attacked the Belgian soldiers, she seemed vicious, something Amaya isn’t. We should find out what is up with her. The action was good, I especially enjoyed Sara’s beat down of Caesar and the Legends taking on the Roman Legion. Nothing great happened but it was a solid episode.
Grade: B
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