Legends of Tomorrow cast on team's new outlaw status

Warning: This story contains major spoilers from Tuesday’s episode of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow. Read at your own risk!

The Legends of Tomorrow have a new team member — but in taking her on, the Legends also cemented their status as outlaws!

During Tuesday’s episode, the Legends tracked the resurrected Kuasa (Tracy Ifeachor) to a dystopian future, where both metahumans and religion are outlawed. Hence, it’s not a great place for Zari Tomaz (Tala Ashe), a Muslim hacker who has taken up her brother’s mantle in wearing the Air Totem — much like Amaya (Maisie Richardson-Sellers) wears the Anansi Totem and Kuasa wears the Water Totem. They’re all connected, which is why Kuasa is trying to kill Zari.

But when the Time Bureau steps in, Sara (Caity Lotz) decides not to turn Zari over, knowing she’d just be sent back to a miserable existence living under martial law with a corrupt A.R.G.U.S. prepared to lock her away and experiment on her. Thus, the Time Bureau is once again hunting the Legends.

“It plays a role in episode 304, but probably not in the way you’re expecting,” executive producer Marc Guggenheim says. “Without spoiling too much, Rory [Dominic Purcell] has very specific ideas about what it means to be on the run from the law, and that meets some humorous effect in real form. We’re not doing a whole big subplot about them being fugitives. That steps on the fun of the show, but there are little complications.”

Those types of complications are exactly what Zari has been dealing with in her future, so she thrives in this situation. “That’s right up her alley,” Ashe says. “Zari has had to live a very scrappy existence and steal when she has to, so I think she’s very, very comfortable. Actually, I think she aligns with Rory in terms of, ‘Let’s break the rules.'”

If you suspected chemistry between Zari and Mick during Tuesday’s episode, it’s for good reason: The two are more alike than anyone else on the Waverider. “Rory senses that she’s kind of like the new Rory,” Purcell says. “That’s the way he would look at it. She likes to eat, she’s very cynical, sarcastic. Rory is very much like that as well. So, yeah, he recognizes himself in her definitely.” But don’t necessarily expect the two to be romantically involved. “There’s a mutual respect there,” Ashe says. (Both Guggenheim and EP Phil Klemmer note that Zari has great chemistry with basically everyone on the team.)

For his part, Purcell thinks a love interest probably isn’t in Mick’s future, though it would provide a lot of comedy. “Part of Rory’s mystique is that you can’t track him,” he says. “You can’t tame him. So it would be funny to bring in a woman with just as much fire and balls as Mick and to see what happens there. I don’t know. I think it would be funny, for sure. We’ll see.”

The fun of being outlaws will be somewhat short-lived, as the Legends must go back in time to save a young Ray Palmer’s (Brandon Routh) life, who at the end of the hour is seen befriending a time-displaced baby Dominator — the episode is an ’80s-themed send-up to Amblin films like E.T. (More on that next week!)

But Rip (Arthur Darvill) returns the following week as an unlikely ally, actually enlisting the team’s help. “He can’t resist it,” Klemmer says. “Yes, he knows the Time Bureau would probably be better off dealing with all these anachronisms, but by the time we get to [episode] 305, he’s champing at the bit for a little fun. He’s feeling nostalgic for some of the old chaos.” Adds Darvill: “He’s really torn between the two things. They’re two groups that he’s set up. One is a well-oiled machine and works very well. But in a similar way to Time Masters, it’s very official and I think Rip’s got some really big trust issues.”

Speaking of trust issues, Zari isn’t necessarily happy that the team is just fixing anachronisms, and instead wants them to actually fix time for the better. She’ll attempt to hack time, particularly when it comes to saving her brother’s life — he was killed by A.R.G.U.S. for being a metahuman. “In order to hack time, as I understand it, you cannot change the outcome of historical events, so the hacking of it for Zari is about finding loopholes essentially,” Ashe says. “How to improve things without changing major events. It’s more micro than macro.” The Legends bosses tease that episode 306 will provide a good example of her efforts to hack time, while also revealing that we’ll hear from her dead brother in an upcoming hour.

DC’s Legends of Tomorrow airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET on The CW.