‘Legends of Tomorrow’ EP Teases What’s In Store For Each Team Member In Season 3

In less than a week, Legends of Tomorrow will be returning to television screens. While the show’s upcoming season teases a menagerie of new time-traveling antics – involving Julius Caesar, P.T. Barnum, and more – many fans are wondering what to expect about the show’s titular team.

Legends executive producer Marc Guggenheim recently previewed the show’s season premiere, titled ‘Arubacon’, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. Along the way, he hinted at what’s in store for the show’s ragtag team of heroes, as well as the series’ newest addition. Click through to the next slide to check out what he had to say.

Sara Lance/White Canary

The beginning of Season 3 will find the Waverider’s current captain (played by Caity Lotz) in a unique situation, as she is working a job in retail. But once she returns to the team’s time-traveling antics, she will apparently be much more comfortable in her current role.

“Sara’s really come into her own.” Guggenheim revealed. “And in many ways, I think Sara probably best dramatizes the overall arc that the Legends have gone on, which is she’s found her place as the captain of the Wave Rider. So unlike last season where it was a little bit of a learning curve, she’s happy to be the captain.”

That being said, everything might not be hunky-dorky for her, as she will feel a sense of guilt over the events of Legends‘ season two finale.

“At the same time, it was really fundamentally her idea and her decision to violate the prime directive of the show and have the Legends travel back to a time that they had already participated in, thereby breaking time.” Guggenheim added. “So one of the things that hangs over the whole year, not as a pall, but just as another layer to Sara’s already complicated character, is the fact that she has some measure of responsibility for all the anachronisms that they are dealing with.”

Ray Palmer/The Atom

Like Sara, Ray Palmer (Brandon Routh) will apparently be feeling an added sense of optimism in the newest season of Legends. But the show will dive into his backstory, with ‘Phone Home’, an episode devoted to his childhood in the 1980s.

“We feel like Ray functions best when he’s the beacon of light of the show.” Guggenheim explained. “We’ve done dark stuff with Ray before — we did it on Arrow, done it occasionally on Legends, particularly in season 1. Ray’s a lot like the show itself, which is you can occasionally go a little dark, but the show really lives in the light and it lives in the fun.”

Even with that return to his past, as well as his mom, Susan (played by Jessica Jones‘ Susie Abromeit), Guggenheim says that Ray will still have as positive of an outlook as possible.

“The thing about Ray is that he really does find the bright side in everything and I think that’s why he’s so lovable.”

Martin Stein & Jax Jackson/Firestorm

When it comes to both halves of Firestorm, Guggenheim says the duo will go through a bit of a rough patch, fueled by the arrival of Stein’s (Victor Garber) daughter Lily last season.

“We’re really continuing Stein’s story this year from last year, which is last year he discovered he had a daughter and this year he’s really feeling the tension of what does it mean to be away from his family on this time ship?” Guggenheim revealed. “It’s something we actually talked about in the very first episode when Stein decided to leave and go aboard the Wave Rider with Rip. I describe Stein’s storyline this year as something we’ve always flirted with and made little nods to here and there, but never truly, truly dealt with, and never really dramatized in a significant way. We’re doing that this year given the fact that he now has this daughter, and how that is a pull back for him to 2017.”

This decision will also weight heavily on Stein’s partner, Jax Jackson (Franz Drameh), and make him almost rethink their arrangement.

“It’s very hard to talk about Stein without talking about Jackson, vice versa, because they are tied together.” Guggenheim added. “So one of the things that’s really interesting to us is they’re like Siamese twins, and what happens when one wants to go left and the other wants to go right? And if you watch the trailer, you’ll see that Ray and Jax are paired up as Siamese twins in P.T. Barnum’s circus. That’s not random. That’s part of Jax coming to realize that, wow, this decision to be time-traveling superheroes, it’s not just the decision that Jax is making for himself, it’s a decision he’s making for Stein.”

Amaya Jiwe/Vixen

Another plotline that will carry over into the new season, according to Guggenheim, is Amaya (Maisie Richardson-Sellers) discovering her legacy. 

“Clearly the elephant in the room, no pun intended, with Amaya is this destiny that she learned about at the end of season 2.” Guggenheim revealed. “We really didn’t have the screen time to tell the story of what does it mean to discover that you’ve got this destiny and if you don’t fulfill this destiny that your village will be lost and the world will be short one superhero?”

The plotline is already planning on manifesting in a few ways, particularly with the arrival of Kuasa (Tracy Ifeachor), Amaya’s villainous granddaughter. But as Guggenheim explained, Amaya’s budding relationship with Nate (Nick Zano) will be effected by it as well.

“We’re really exploring that this year in a fun way.” Guggenheim added. “And we’re certainly exploring it from the vantage point of how does that affect her relationship with Nate?”

Nate Heywood/Citizen Steel

Speaking of Amaya’s romantic beau, Guggenheim teased that the newest season will see him embracing a bit more of his fun side.

“Nate’s just a blast.” Guggenheim explained. “This year really sees Nate embracing the superhero side of his life. Last year, he functioned very much as the historian, he was always providing the historical exposition, and there’s certainly an element of that in his character this year, but we’re really leaning into the Citizen Steel superhero side of him.”

While Amaya and Nate’s relationship will come to the forefront, Gugghenheim hinted that another fan-favorite dynamic will too.

“We are also having a lot of run with his relationship with Ray. There’s this budding bromance that’s a lot of fun to play between those two guys.”

Mick Rory/Heatwave

According to Guggenheim, the Waverider’s resident curmudgeon (played by Dominic Purcell) will also be much more comfortable in his place within the Legends.

“Mick’s a lot of fun to write this year because of the story we told with him last year.” Guggenheim explained. “Last year, by the end of the season, we pretty much had him come to terms with the fact that he thinks they’re lame, he thinks being a hero is lame, but gosh darn it, these people are his team and they’re his crew and he’s going to back them up.”

As Guggenheim went on to say, this new outlook will lead to much more storytelling power for Mick.

“So what I think is a lot of fun about Rory is he’s sort of the most unadulterated version of Rory that we’ve seen on the show thus far, because he’s not conflicted by any questions of loyalty. He’s still Mick, and he’s still a criminal, and he’s still all the things you love about him, but we’re not playing this — like we said in the season premiere last year — ‘What am I doing on the show?’ He knows the answer to that question. He may not be happy with the answer, but he’s at least moved on from it. It takes a character who’s already, I think, one of the funniest aspects of the show and makes him even funnier.”

Zari Adrianna

And finally, Legends‘ third season will see the arrival of Zari Adrianna (Tala Ashe), a Muslim hacktivist from the future. Guggenheim teased a bit of what to expect with Zari’s story, particularly with regards to her family.

“When we meet Zari, her brother will have been killed and the rest of her family is presumed missing.” Guggenheim revealed. “However, when she joins the Legends, she is surprised to learn that their rules prevent her from using time travel to save her brother.”

Guggenheim went on to tease how her mindset will affect the team, and their journey throughout time.

“A computer hacker by training, Zari then sets out to see if she can find a loophole to these rules and, essentially, hack time.”

Before You Go

Legends of Tomorrow returns to Tuesday nights at 9 p.m., following new episodes of The Flash, on October 10th.