I don’t know about you guys, but this has been the moment I’ve been waiting for since the second episode of this season. The triumphant return of one of my favorite super teams in the DC Universe: the Justice Society of America.

...Okay, alright, maybe “triumphant” is a strong word, considering they’re currently time scattered all over the place and struggling to protect pieces of the Spear of Destiny, but you know what I mean.

The fate of the JSA has been in question since an aged Obsidian explained to Amaya that her former teammates went out on a mission and were mysteriously never seen again. Honestly, I’m kind of surprised that I didn’t put the clues together before tonight about that one. It’s pretty rare, after all, that a group of super heroes vanish without a trace and are actually, genuinely, gone for good.

Still, we learn that that vanishing act was courtesy of Rip, who activated the same sort of panic button protocol he used to save the Legends at the start of this season: scattering them across time and space with pieces of the Spear, hopefully out of the reach of the Legion of Doom. Of course, this plan worked really well until Rip himself joined up with the Legion, and well…

You know what they say about the best-laid plans of mice and time travelers.

So what we’re left with, in the end, is one more member of the JSA—Dr. Mid-Nite—dead, and another—Stargirl—fighting for her life (and love?!) in medieval England. A medieval England that is, thanks to Courtney, genuinely modeled after the fairy tales of King Arthur and his knights.

It’s a lot to take in, especially when you toss the Legion and their new, Dr. Mid-Nite designed mind control devices into the mix.

Also, a quick aside for a couple #DCTV Secrets! You may have caught Rip name dropping Dr. Mid-Nite’s civilian name, “Charles.” You know, before he uh...murders him. That means that the Dr. Mid-Nite we’ve been dealing with is none other than the original himself: Dr. Charles McNider. Charles came about in the pages of ALL AMERICAN COMICS back in 1941, and provided the groundwork for a whole string of Doctors Mid-Nite to follow in his footsteps. Both he, and the most recent Mid-Nite, Pieter Cross, were members of two different incarnations of the JSA, while their intermediary, Beth Chapel, is most known for her association with Infinity, Inc.

In addition, the title of this episode, “Camelot 3000,” is a reference to a 1983 DC miniseries that’s also called CAMELOT 3000. It was written by Mike Barr and drawn by Brian Bolland of BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE fame. This series gave the King Arthur legend a sci-fi spin, finding Arthur, his queen and the knights of the round table reincarnated in the future to battle with freaky aliens. Don’t look for Stargirl (she hadn’t been created yet) or members of the JSA in this series, but there is some amazing art drawn in the Heavy Metal vein.

But anyway, in the Legends version of Camelot 3000, we’ve got mind-controlled knights, Stargirl playing Merlin for King Arthur’s court and tensions between Rip and the Legion slowly starting to boil over.

That last part, I think, is definitely the most important here. The Legion, so far, doesn’t seem all that happy with Rip’s attitude—ironic, considering his current attitude was literally hand crafted by them. I’ve been talking for a couple weeks about all the potential ways for Rip to be rescued from the Legion, but I honestly never considered the fact that the Legion might just full on abandon him.

I guess that’s one way to stage a rescue effort.

And let’s take a second to appreciate Mick Rory, AGAIN. I know I do this pretty much every week, but man, where would we be without Heat Wave? Probably captured and killed by literal knights, it turns out. Mick’s unconventional heroism has been one of my favorite parts of this season, hands down, and I hope we get to see even more in the future.

So where does that leave us?

Well, we’ve got Rip back, but he’s still not Rip, we’ve got a fragment of the Spear, and we’ve got a vague outline of a plan for gathering the last lost part. Things are mostly looking up, right?

Something tells me that next week is going to be a pretty big deal as far as determining a future for the crew (and their former captain) is concerned.

Oh, right, and Sara’s totally continuing her tradition of macking on historical royalty with the queen of Camelot.

Get it, girl.

I’ll see you next week!
 

Meg Downey covers DC's Legends of Tomorrow as a part of the #DCTV Couch Club. Look for Meg on Twitter at @rustypolished. DC's Legends of Tomorrow airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. (7 p.m. CST) on The CW.