Warning: spoilers ahead for Episode 3 of Legends of Tomorrow Season 3, "Zari."
Legends of Tomorrow is unique among the superhero shows on The CW for its ensemble nature. Major characters have come and gone over the seasons for far. "Zari" introduced a brand new character who will be joining the Legends on their adventures through time and space. Actress Tala Ashe officially made her Legends of Tomorrow debut as Zari Adrianna Tomaz. Ashe has this to say about how her character will handle time travel in Season 3:
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. How to improve things without changing major events. It's more micro than macro.
When Zari made her Legends of Tomorrow debut, she was being hunted through a dystopian future in which ARGUS has outlawed all metahumans. Her brother was killed by ARGUS as a meta, and so she tricked Sara and the other Legends into helping her break into the metahuman prison to steal back the totem that had been taken from her brother when ARGUS captured him. The Legends ultimately invited Zari to join the crew, and Amaya in particular was interested in her totem's seeming connection to Zari's. That said, judging by Tala Ashe's comments to EW, signing on with the Legends doesn't mean that Zari will be a time traveler like the Legends.
When Zari was first announced over the summer as joining Legends of Tomorrow in Season 3, she was described as a "grey hat hacktivist" and computer nerd with dormant powers. It sounds like Zari will be more subtle in her approach to traveling through time and changing things. Unlike Rip Hunter back in Season 1, Zari won't be blundering through historic events to try and stop one thing from happening, and unlike the Legends in Season 3, she won't just be trying to correct mistakes. Zari wants to fix time to help the greater good.
That's not to say Zari's end game won't be to prevent her brother's death from ever happening, a la Rip with his wife and son in Season 1. Still, it sounds like she'll be sneakier about changing time than any of the Legends to date, which should be refreshing. We'll have to wait and see how Legends of Tomorrow handles this new character. Given that we're going to lose at least half of Firestorm in the not-too-distant future, we may see Zari get plenty of time in the spotlight, especially now that her arc has been tied to Amaya. Who knows? Maybe Zari will meet Arrow's Felicity Smoak in the big crossover so they can talk hacking.
Next week's episode looks like it will be going in a decidedly non-mystical direction, however, as the trailer indicates we'll be getting an E.T.-esque adventure of Ray Palmer's childhood in the 80s. Hopefully it will be an ideal episode to air on Halloween. New episodes of Legends of Tomorrow air on Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET on The CW.
