The Legends of Tomorrow returned to TV screens tonight – and they gave us a new twist on a pretty iconic plotline.
Spoilers for tonight’s season premiere of Legends of Tomorrow, ‘Aruba-Con’ below!
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Tonight’s episode saw the show’s ragtag group of misfits reuniting, after Rip Hunter (Arthur Darvill) initially disbanded the team. So what brought them back together? The appearance of Julius Caesar (Simon Merrells) in modern-day Aruba, and the quest to return him to his proper timeline.
The Legends did exactly that, with Nate Heywood/Steel (Nick Zano) using his book of Roman history to make sure history was course-correcting. The Legends left Caesar in his time period – and unintentionally left Nate’s book along with him.
What unfolded might be a little familiar to 80s movie fans, as it somewhat resembles the plotline of Back to the Future Part II. In the film, Marty grabs a future issue of Grey’s Sports Almanac, which he can use to bet on – and win – games. However, the Almanac falls into the hands of Biff Tannen, who ends up creating a hellish future in the process. Plotlines of this kind have turned into their own trope, known as the Timeline-Altering MacGuffin.
Legends gets a brief version of this future, with them coming back to the present day to see that Caesar conquered the entire world. And the team eventually gets the book back from Caesar – but not without causing a bit of trouble in the process.
Given the show’s time-traveling nature, this certainly isn’t the first time that Legends of Tomorrow has homaged Back to the Future. If anything, the season two finale served as a similar kind of reference, with the heroes’ past selves disappearing in a certain Polaroid-like fashion.
Legends of Tomorrow airs on The CW on October 10th, at 9/8c, following new episodes of The Flash.
