‘Legends of Tomorrow’ Season 3 Confirms Rip Hunter’s Return

DC’s Legends of Tomorrow managed to close out Season 2 of its history-spanning shenanigans without any impact on the Arrow-verse, but will Season 3 be so lucky? Producers promise not only a time-splitting character’s return for Season 3, but also an explanation why neither Arrow nor The Flash weigh in.

You’re warned of full spoilers for Legends of Tomorrow Season 2, but where Rip Hunter spent most of the DC drama’s second year returning to his place among the Waverider crew, Season 2’s “Aruba” finale saw Arthur Darvill’s character abdicating his role to Sara Lance. One might suspect Darvill of leaving the series altogether, though executive producer Marc Guggenheim tells Entertainment Weekly the Time Master has a place in Season 3:

We’ve got plans for Rip for next year. It’s just in a different capacity than him being a member of the team.

That said, Season 2’s finale also left the Legends in the aftermath of a “Time Storm,” which saw everything from dinosaurs to London landmarks populating the Waverider’s point of impact. It’s difficult to say where Rip might reenter that mess, as well what other DC characters might factor in, but Guggenheim at least answered a longstanding question about the spinoff’s interaction with Arrow and The Flash:

Our metaphor in the writers’ room is that we’re approaching time as a jigsaw puzzle. What the Legends did in the finale was take the jigsaw puzzle box and shake it up… The fact that we broke time, part of that was a desire on our part to go even crazier in season 3. By breaking time, we created a lot more opportunities for zaniness. […]

There will be an explanation in season 3 about why you’re not seeing dinosaurs running through Central City. We’d rather keep the shows separate in that regard.

Legends will once again join its predecessors with a fall premiere, but how else might Season 3 differentiate itself?

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