The Legends of Tomorrow mid-season premiere, “Raiders of the Lost Art,” saw the return of wayward captain Rip Hunter… with a twist.
Rip Hunter lives! Or does he? While Arthur Darvill is back on the show after taking time off to film Broadchurch, he’s not exactly Rip Hunter. After following the newly-named Legion of Doom (thanks, Nate) to Los Angeles in the 1960s, the Legends discover Rip, alive and well.
Surprise!
The even bigger surprise, however, is the fact he has no idea who he really is. He thinks Rip Hunter is a figment of his imagination, but he’s actually channeled repressed memories into the script he’s directing. (There’s a hilarious scene lampshading season 1, particularly Vandal Savage.) It also turns out Rip’s assistant is the one and only George Lucas. And when George witnesses the Legion and Legends battling over Rip (who the Legion knows has part of the Spear of Destiny), he quits film school.
In not becoming a filmmaker, the world is bereft of Star Wars and Indiana Jones. This is a tragedy for the world but specifically for Ray and Nate, who were inspired by these films to become an inventor and historian respectively. They begin losing the skills they learned after being inspired by Lucas’s work, so they have to convince him to become a filmmaker again. (Spoiler alert: They succeed and in the process give Lucas all kinds of inspiration for his films.)
So, the team manages to bring Rip aboard The Waverider, and Gideon does a scan that reveals that his brain was affected by Rip touching the time drive at the core of the ship; his identity was completely rewritten as a result, so he really has no idea who he is.
This is not good for him, since he’s kidnapped by the Legion. Because Rip is a guardian of part of the Spear of Destiny, the Legion is going to torture him for the whereabouts of the other parts. But he doesn’t know he once had this information. It’s not clear whether he still does in the back of his mind; was his new identity written over his old one and his former self can return, or was his former self replaced? I’m guessing the former with the whole repressed memories in the script deal.
Sara takes the loss of Rip particularly hard. Although she recovered the amulet that shows where to find the Spear and Rip’s part of the Spear, she feels a personal debt to Rip. He recruited her when she was at her lowest (adrift after her resurrection and dealing with Lazarus Pit-induced bloodlust) and gave her purpose again. So losing him after finding him feels like betraying Rip.
I haven’t been shy about not loving Rip; I’ve found the dynamic of the current team, sans Rip, to be the best the team has been. Sara is a leader the team respects and believes in. Rip was embroiled in some sneakiness, initially recruiting the team because they wouldn’t be missed from history and in order to save his family under the guise of stopping a tyrant.
Despite being told over and over by the show that Rip is a good man worth following, I’ve never actually believed it. And the team didn’t seem particularly invested in following him either much of the time. On the other hand, the team is invested in following Sara.
With that in mind, I’ll be curious to see how the show goes about bringing Rip back into the fold. I assume he’ll eventually get his memories back and come back to the team. But will he become captain again? Sara’s been leading the team for the last six months. Where does he fit into the new team dynamic, which includes Nate and Amaya, who weren’t a part of the team before? If he doesn’t become captain again, what niche does he fill on the ship?
It will be interesting to see, for sure. But Jax more than promises Sara that they will get Rip back — he prophecies it.
This episode also explores the visions Mick has been having of Leonard Snart. Mick recruits Stein to help him out. At first, Stein thinks he’s just grieving Snart’s death, but after doing a brain scan, he discovers a chip in Mick’s head. It was planted while Mick was Chronos and it is meant to take in readings from the time stream. Stein thinks Mick might be communicating with Snart’s time ghost, trapped in and bonded to the time stream.
I was initially quite excited by this development. Could this mean there is a chance to recover the Snart who went through the entire hero’s journey that culminated in his death last season?
However, that hope was dashed after Mick forces Stein to remove the chip. Stein reveals the chip hasn’t been functioning for months, so Mick is seeing Snart as a form of dealing with his own conflicting feelings about still being on the team after his partner’s death.
It’s easy to forget that Mick has been through a lot; he has a simplistic facade, but there’s a lot more to him than we’d initially thought. His arc has been one of my favorites on Legends, and I’m glad to see them continuing to deal with the massive amount of trauma he’s dealt with.
Up next: Finding a way to rescue Rip from the Legion of Doom.
Watch a promo for the next episode
