Sometimes, saving the world requires making hard choices. For example, in order to permanently take down the Reverse-Flash and stop the Legion of Doom from controlling all of reality, DC's Legends of Tomorrow used the Spear of Destiny to rewrite history -- something that they've been warned time and time again to never do. Though they won their battle, the war has been changed; the Legends' actions caused a time storm that has damaged the entire time stream. Dinosaurs are running rampant across Los Angeles, and futuristic buildings popped up in the skyline.

Someone's gonna have to fix this mess -- might as well be the heroes who screwed it up in the first place.

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Ahead of tonight's Season 3 premiere, DC's Legends of Tomorrow showrunner Phil Klemmer spoke with CBR about the team’s time-bending blunder, and what's going on with Rip Hunter’s Time Bureau. We also delve into what's happened to result in a tormented Mick Rory, and why the first response from the Legends' new recruit, Zari Tomaz, is to tell the team to "fuck off."

CBR: At the end of last season, Sara stated, “Guys, I think we broke time.” What exactly does that mean? how large is the mess the Legends made?

Phil Klemmer: There are a lot of words to describe the ways that time can be screwed up. This year, we’ve gone with "anachronism." The fun of anachronism is, it’s not just somebody who has gone back in time and made a change to the timeline. If all time was a jigsaw puzzle and you shook up the box, and the pieces landed in the wrong place… You can tell by our teaser that you have Julius Caesar showing up in Aruba, or P.T. Barnum finding a saber-tooth tiger in 1870s Wisconsin.

Breaking time is something our team is responsible for. Going into Season 3, they are not dealing with a Vandal Savage -- they are dealing with the consequences of their own mistake. Obviously, it was a mistake [made] to save the world, but that doesn’t get them off the hook with Rip and the Time Bureau.

Rip has gone back in time and formed a proper organization to deal with all of theses tears in the timeline. He’s telling our guys to retire. “Cool. Thanks Legends, but we don’t need you anymore.” In every finale, we have our guys triumph and save the world. The Legends are always at their best when they are underdogs. For us, it’s always a question of coming up with new ways of humiliating them for the next season.

So, how does one repair the timeline? There can’t be a handbook.

No, it’s pretty improvisational. Rip and his “Men in Black” have a way of being able to get in and get out. They can get the dinosaurs off the streets of 2017, Los Angeles, without any mess. Our Legends are the chainsaw. They do not do anything subtly. When they go into a time period, they tend to rub up against the people and the times. Rory is going to take some souvenirs. Sara is going to have sex. What’s the fun of traveling through time unless you get to enjoy it?

This season begins with the Legends disbanded and scattered across the globe. What brings the gang back together?

They all realise – although they wouldn’t admit it – they actually miss each other, and they miss doing what they do. We do have everybody trying to return to a normal life and it’s painfully boring or unfulfilling. After you’ve gone on these adventures, regular life is a little bit boring. They are looking for an excuse to get back in the game and get the gang back together. Although they wouldn’t admit it, they are also looking for a chance to be with one another.

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Sara is now the Legends' leader. How responsible does she feel for the current time crisis?

I don’t think she had much of a choice. It was either let Doomworld continue, or breaking the cardinal rule of time travel. She chose the lesser of two evils. As we get into Season 3, we find out Damien Darhk didn’t continue on with the timeline as he was supposed to when Sara dropped him off in his linen suit in the '80s. He’s breaking the rules again, and for Sara, that’s when it becomes painful. That’s when she starts to feel responsible, knowing that the man who killer her sister is still wreaking havoc in the world.

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Mick Rory has been conflicted about what side he stands on. Is that still a still concern?

Mick is really trying to deal with some of his demons in Season 3. We can certainly trust him, but he’s a very damaged dude. One of the things we’re having him do in Season 3 is go back to his childhood. We even have an episode where he has a chance to reconcile with his father, the guy who is responsible for molding Mick into the monster that he was. It’s also a chance for Mick to atone for having burned this guy up in a house fire. Mick Rory is a horrible man, but they key for us is to always justify everything he’s done. His life hasn’t been easy.

Amaya’s granddaughter, Kuasa, is evil, and will weigh into the season's over-arching storyline. How much does Amaya weigh family versus duty, and the right thing to do?

At the end of last season, we had Nate and Maya very much in love, with Amaya knowing her destiny required her to go back to 1942, so that she could have a daughter, who would have a daughter, who would then become Vixen. Then, at the end of the season, she and Nate said, “Screw it. We want to be together. We don’t care where or when that is. Let’s change our destiny.”

This season, we’ve learned it’s not quite so simple. Amaya might think, “Yeah, I have to grow up to be this great person.” Anyone who can google Kuasa will find out that Amaya’s other granddaughter ain’t so great. Amaya’s legacy, her destiny, is a little bit of a mixed bag. Everybody’s is. This year, Amaya realizes there is no good without the bad. The big theme of Season 3 is, “Do we simply repair these mistakes in history? What if we could make things better?” The truth is, lots of history was screwed up to begin with. What Amaya realises is that her future, her descendants, are messed up as well. They are going to be tempted to not just make the world a better place, but to make their own futures a better place, which obviously puts them into direct conflict with Rip and the Time Bureau.

These guys do things by the book. They do not have to try to engineer history. They simply restore it to the way it was. Our guys gradually start to feel like, “What are we? Time janitors? We just fix things?” Looking back at Season 2, with zombies in the Civil War, you can fix that problem of war and slavery, but should you? There’s all manner of horrible facts that are part of the history books. Our team will start to wonder, “What if we could make history better?”

The Legends will introduce a new member this year. Who is Zari Tomaz, and what does she add to the team?

Most of all, she’s a woman. We were getting very dude-heavy. She’s from the future, which is also interesting in that she’s pretty much a contemporary compared to the rest of our team. She comes in and looks at the people from 2017 as a bunch of stodgy old fools. She’s from a really screwed up 2042 world, in which Metas are persecuted, religion is banned. As a Muslim, and someone who has a Meta-family member, her life has been rough. Her brother was killed. Her family has effectively been turned into refugees. She’s sort of a computer hacker who lives on the fringes of society, trying to survive.

When our guys come into her world and say, “Hey, we’re time travelers and we fix history,” she’s like, “Fuck off. My world is terrible. How can you pat yourselves on your backs and think you are making things better when the world I’m from is horrible?” She’s like, “You guys are the age of my grandparents. I blame you for making the world the way it is.” And she’s got a good point.