Welcome back, Legends fans! Long time, no see...Though I guess that’s probably a pretty subjective thing to say, considering the show we’re about to jump back into, huh? If there’s one thing you can’t count on in Legends of Tomorrow, it’s time working the way it’s supposed to.

And speaking of time not working the way it’s supposed to—how about those dinosaurs, huh?

In case you need a little refresher on just what, exactly, went down at the end of last season, I’ll give you the cliff notes. The team was forced to manipulate the same point in time twice in order to keep Thawne and the Legion of Doom from getting control of the Spear of Destiny, an ancient artifact with the power to literally rewrite history. Now, if you’re just joining us here in the Legends world, you might not know this, but altering the same point in time more than once? That’s like the worst possible thing anyone could ever do to the timeline.

Which, is...well, how we get dinosaurs running around the city.

Luckily, however, Rip Hunter is on the case.

Okay, I know. Hang on. Let’s back up a little on that one too. At the end of last season, Rip turned command of the Waverider over to Sara before supposedly taking his leave of the team and doing the solo thing for a little bit. But remember how I said time doesn’t always really work the way you’d expect it to?

Turns out, in the fifteen minutes between Rip turning the Waverider over to Sara and the Legends arriving back home to find, well, dinosaurs, Rip had taken five years to form a new governing body for the protection of the timeline.

Enter Rip Hunter and the Time Bureau. That’s right, our cavalier, rule bending, duster wearing ex-captain is now a suit-and-tie clad bureaucrat. Funny how people can change in the (literal) blink of an eye, isn’t it?

So the Time Bureau has some pretty strict ideas of just how fix the anachronisms—the displaced people and things scattered through the timeline thanks to the Legends violation of Rule #1—and they most definitely do not include the Legends taking the Waverider out to go clean up after themselves. All of which is just a more polite way to say that the Legends are out of a job, whether they want to be or not. No more super heroics are allowed under the Time Bureau’s watchful eye.

I think it’s pretty safe to say that things are not going well for the team as we kick off this season.

Let’s do a quick role call on what happened after that. Sara wound up working at a big box store, Ray landed a job as an underappreciated techie for a dating app, Nate’s still valiantly trying to do the super hero thing, but is decidedly playing second fiddle to Central City’s current protector (hey, Wally!) and Jax and Stein are...well, doing what Jax and Stein do best. They’re avoiding their problems and each other, except for on their scheduled Firestorm maintenance check-ins.

At least Mick seems to be doing pretty okay! He’s been enjoying himself in Aruba, like he wanted to before time came unglued. So, hey, always a bright side!

And Amaya? Remember how she and Nate had a heartfelt moment last season where she decided not to return to 1942 for a little while? Well, apparently she changed her mind...and Nate isn’t really taking her decision to leave all that well.

But of course, things can’t stay normal for very long. What show did you think you were watching?

Long story short: Julius Caesar shows up on Mick’s beach and the Legends decide it’s high time to get the band back together and show the Time Bureau (or, really, show Rip specifically) that they’re still fit for their job. So they steal the Waverider from the Bureau where it was being used as a training simulator, hop on down to Aruba to get Mick and Caesar, and fix everything.

...Except they don’t fix everything. They kind of just make it worse. At least for a second, and then they fix everything. You know how these things go. The Legends are a lot of things, but a finely tuned, well oiled machine isn’t really one of them. But like Rip said: sometimes you need a chainsaw instead of a scalpel.  

Anyway, the point is, despite the mistakes the Legends have made, Rip and the Bureau end up acquiescing and allowing the team to stay in operation.

So, welcome to season three! It’s probably going to be a pretty bumpy ride, but I’m sure it’s nothing the Legends can’t handle, right? …Right?

Let’s break down some things we really ought to keep an eye on this year:

• Apparently, the Legends themselves are the reason something is even a threat in the first place, so that’s definitely not good. Worse yet, Rip apparently knows this and has decided to keep the team out of the loop.
• Lily Stein is...pregnant?! How is that going to work out? Who’s the father? Is that just going to damage the timeline even more?
• Amaya’s back in Zambezi but...something is definitely different about her and her powers. Is that good or bad?
• What caused the Time Bureau’s technology to miss Julius Caesar in the first place? That seems like an awfully big anachronism to let slip through the cracks. Is it possible they’re not as well organized and well trained as Rip is insisting?

Did I miss anything? Let’s theorize in the comments below! 
 

Meg Downey covers DC's Legends of Tomorrow as a part of the #DCTV Couch Club. Look for Meg on Twitter at @rustypolished. DC's Legends of Tomorrow airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. (8 p.m. CST) on The CW.