(Spoiler alert: Please do not read on if you haven’t watched Thursday’s episode of “Legends of Tomorrow”)
The Dominators have been defeated, and the first four-way crossover on The CW has left a mark on all four shows, “Supergirl,” “Arrow,” “The Flash” and “Legends of Tomorrow.”
Showrunners Andrew Kreisberg and Marc Guggenheim discussed how each show moves forward in the wake of all the revelations and events that unfolded this week.
“SUPERGIRL”
“Supergirl” was mostly disconnected from the crossover, so it will continue to play out its own storylines, but the team-up did conveniently give Kara (Melissa Benoist) — courtesy of Cisco (Carlos Valdes) — a device that will make inter-universe travel between her Earth and the Earth of the rest of The CW shows as easy as pushing a button.
“We’ve gotten to the point where we wanted to make that a little easier,” Kreisberg said. “The next time we do it, it means it doesn’t necessarily have to be because Oliver and Barry need Kara, it could be because Kara needs them. We don’t have anything [planned], we just barely survived this [crossover], we’re not concerned with what we’re going to do next year, but it just gives us, as storytellers, another way to come out of a story.”
Bonus: the Dominators will return to “Supergirl” later this season, so the rest of the cast may get their chance to meet them after missing out this time around.
“THE FLASH”
The birth of a new speedster mentorship was the big development on “The Flash,” and Wally (Keiynan Lonsdale) will continue to grow into his future as Kid Flash under this 3rd version of Harrison Wells (Tom Cavanagh).
“A version of Wells was so important to Barry in Season 1, and a version of Wells was so important to Cisco in Season 2,” Kreisberg said. “Then this year, it’s Wally who gets this version of Wells that, on the face of it, may not be the world’s greatest teacher, and yet every episode, we find that moment for him to drop this wisdom bomb on everybody else that shocks them.”
“ARROW”
While the original DC show on The CW took a break from its ongoing story to pay tribute to its 100th episode milestone, the showrunners promised a return to the revelation of how Artemis (Madison McLaughlin) is connected to new villain Prometheus in the next episode. That cliffhanger from the episode before the crossover is the reason the newest member of Team Arrow wasn’t present for the invasion of the Dominators.
“It felt like it was the elephant in the room,” Guggenheim said. “We didn’t want it distracting, so we don’t reference it. I’m not a fan of [going], ‘Oh, it’s too bad that Evelyn’s mom is sick this week.’ I would prefer to just whistle past the graveyard. I will say, you will get a payoff to [Episode] 507’s cliffhanger with respect to Evelyn, big time in 509.”
“LEGENDS OF TOMORROW”
Lily Stein is sticking around, as of the end of the crossover, as Stein (Victor Garber) made the decision to not go back in time to “fix” the alternate history that gave him a grown up daughter. Now, he and his Firestorm partner Jax (Franz Drameh) are keeping the altered timeline a secret from the rest of the team.
So will that secret cause strife within team dynamics going forward?
“‘Legends’ obviously operates differently than ‘Arrow,’ where ‘Arrow’ is all about people keeping secrets and those secrets coming out and causing strife. I will say, we’re setting up ‘Legends’ midseason finale [in this episode], where the ramifications of that secret do sort of come into play,” Guggenheim teased. “But I think they will come into play in a way that’s a little different than that question presumes.”