Tis the season for giving and receiving gifts. This week, the CW does its part as it doles out goodies in the form of another epic two hour crossover event featuring Teams Flash and Arrow.
On THE FLASH, Barry and the group rally around one of their own. Kendra Saunders might be new to Central City but she quickly captured Cisco’s heart. Protecting the future Hawkgirl from the villainous Vandal Savage becomes the main mission that also draws in Oliver and company. Meanwhile, Caitlin helps Earth2’s Harrison Wells create a serum that could enable Barry to run faster than ever. Jay, of course, has something to say about this development.
Over on ARROW, the setup for DC’s LEGENDS OF TOMORROW continues as much of the action involves everyone working together to defeat someone seemingly invincible. The trick is for the teams to find the right plan and then hope and pray nothing goes spectacularly wrong. This is the episode where some of Kendra and Carter Hall’s (aka Hawkman) ancient backstory is given, so look for a brief hiatus on Oliver’s island flashbacks.
In a Q&A with press, Executive Producers Greg Berlanti, Geoff Johns, Andrew Kreisberg and Marc Guggenheim as well as actor Falk Hentschel, talked about these crucial episodes.
The crossover felt unified – was it always the goal to make it feel like one big movie?
ANDREW: With last year’s crossover, obviously it was the first time we’d ever done it, and we were very conscious of not everybody who was watching FLASH was watching ARROW, and vice versa, so we wanted to make sure that they both were self contained episodes that if you didn’t watch THE FLASH, you could enjoy the ARROW, and vice versa. I think this time around, given the success that we’ve had previously and how people are viewing this as much more of a collective, shared universe, we felt emboldened. And our partners at CW and Warner Bros. were more supportive so we were able to really have a two hour true event with one story and one villain and one storyline and not having to worry so much about the mechanics of how it would air.
GREG: And I also think storywise, it was appealing to us to try and do something different than we had done previously. They felt very episodic in their nature last year and a contained villain for the episode, and I think we wanted to challenge ourselves to see if we really had two hours’ worth of storytelling and could follow everybody all the way through, what would that look and feel like? So that was also just our goal, to try and do something different.
GEOFF: The Hawks and Vandal Savage kind of deserve a twohour introduction – they’re big characters.
What were some of the challenges inherent in wrangling this crossover?
GREG: To give you guys an idea of the picture of what was happening: We had already started to shoot the first couple of episodes of LEGENDS before we shot this episode, and we also knew that there were characters who had been on FLASH and ARROW that we were also shooting out of those respective shows before we went into then shooting LEGENDS, to then have to come back and do the introduction of some of the characters here. So it was about as out of order as you can imagine, and some of it—most of it—happening concurrently. Just as a production, there were a lot of conference sessions of everybody and logistical sessions of how do we actually, on a basic level, pull this off, let alone hopefully make it interesting and entertaining and coherent.
MARC: I don’t think that it’s possible to overstate the incredible amount of difficulty it was for just about everyone involved. Certainly for the actors, just being asked to shuttle from literally one set to two other sets, oftentimes in the course of a single day to the crews of the three different shows to the ADs (associate directors) — I really do have to give credit where credit is due to the ADs of LEGENDS, FLASH and ARROW. The ADs, among their many, many responsibilities, they have to handle scheduling. These guys put together schedules that were like higher mathematics. Literally in meetings where people were bleeding inside of their skulls in order to make this work.
ANDREW: And all three of our line producers, too. It is one universe and whatnot, but they really are three different shows with three different production teams and as much as we’re all friends, it was asking three different TV shows to coordinate.
MARC: Unlike anything that’s ever been asked, I don’t think, of three different productions before. This really was a new territory for everyone involved. The fact that it came off the way it came off I think is a testament to everyone who had a hand in it, and there were a lot of people.
ANDREW: You had actors who were not only, as Marc said, working on different things, but you had Falk and Ciara (Renée) and Casper (Crump) who had already been filming episodes of LEGENDS, who were then asked to go back and play the characters…they’d already established them on LEGENDS, and then had to go back and sort of introduce them. So I think it was…Falk can probably speak to that.
FALK: It was an acting marathon. No, it was great fun. Like you guys said, being carted from one set to another, it was a whirlwind, but it was really amazing to see it come together. When you guys all told me about this first, I was like, ‘How’s this going to happen?’ And the costumes have to be shipped here and there and then they have to be back and at some point, I have to say to you, like, ‘Alright, where do I stand? What do I say? Who am I?’ I was like, ‘Wait, was that this?’ ‘No, we’re on FLASH right now.’ But it was a blast and I have to say that it was very admirable to see it come together and everybody pulling it together. It was very creative.
Falk, this is the first time that we saw you in the outfit. I don’t know if it was your first time in the outfit, but how was it?
FALK: It’s a very simple answer. It was awesome! It wasn’t the first time. The first time was at my fitting and I was like 11 years old, standing there. It’s just like a dream come true. You get a costume that’s fit for you and you just feel really good about life. You’re like ‘This is cool!’ And then you get the helmet on. It was awesome.
Going into the crossover, what can we expect from Carter and Kendra?
FALK: They come as a team, Carter and Kendra and I think that’s what I enjoy most and I think is the most fun their dynamics. In my mind they’re like a bickering old couple. And he’s gone through 4000 years of loving her and having her love him back so there’s just fun… She doesn’t know about it yet, though, so there’s always this fun dynamic of him being like, ‘You’ll love me! It’ll be good! I’ve seen it.’ And I think underneath it, terrified always of losing her, because imagine you’ve seen everyone that you know die. It’s pretty lonely and here’s that one person that is always constant. So I just think that couple dynamic between the two of them…I hope everybody will enjoy it as much as I did.
ANDREW: I think what’s also interesting about Carter’s character is he remembers loving Kendra and he remembers all the adventures they had. Not just the bickering, but he remembers all the fun they had. And now he’s staring at this woman who’s looking at him like he’s crazy and it’s like…there was that Channing Tatum movie where his wife got knocked in the head and she didn’t remember their lives. That’s what it always sort of reminds me of. I think one of the things I love about watching Falk is he literally has the patience of that guy in that situation. That he has to… It’s gonna happen, it’s gonna come but there’s a sadness about the whole thing, because he knows how great it can be and how sad it is for him to look at her looking at him like he’s a stranger.
5 More Thoughts on “Legends of Today” and “Legends of Yesterday”
The ARROW hour is surprisingly emotional
Because this crossover centers around Kendra, Cisco’s a big part of both episodes. One of his interactions with Oliver is really great plus he gets to work through some of his own issues
Look for some quality Barry/Oliver banter, especially in a scene towards the end of ARROW. On THE FLASH, Felicity and Barry reconnecting is so very Felicity. It’s awesome.
It’s adorable how Thea reacts to finding out about Barry.
That will have to hold you until you can watch the crossover episodes for yourself. THE FLASH speeds your way tonight at 8:00 p.m. ARROW closes things out Wednesday, December 2 at 8:00 p.m. on the CW.
Credit : Tina Charles
SENIOR ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER | Tiffany covers events such as San Diego Comic-Con, WonderCon and press junkets, as well as covering events at the Paley Center in Beverly Hills. She has a great love for television and believes that entertainment is a world of wondrous adventures that deserves to be shared and explored. Tiffany is one of the newest members to the prestigious Television Critics Association and is happy to be able to share her passion for television shows with an even wider audience of fans and her fellow critics..
