On DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, the team gambled on a risky plan — and it failed. In order to vanquish Mallus, the group reluctantly teamed up with Damien Darhk to obtain all the totems. Together, those mystical artifacts were supposed to destroy him.
However, Damien betrayed the antiheroes and Mallus was let loose on Earth. In tonight’s season three finale, the Legends flee to the wild west to regroup and strategize — except Mallus isn’t far behind them.
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CBR recently spoke with Legends of Tomorrow executive producer and showrunner Phil Klemmer about the Legends hitting rock bottom, the return of Jax, Damien Darhk’s possible redemption and Constantine’s influence on Season 4, now that it’s been confirmed that Matt Ryan will join the show as a series regular.
Dominic Purcell as Mick Rory/Heat Wave.
CBR: What lands the Legends in the Wild Wild West for their last showdown against Mallus?
Phil Klemmer: As you can probably guess, their plan to summon Mallus, in order to dispatch him using the totems, is not going to go according to plan. We basically wanted to start the finale with the Legends at their lowest, and with the Legends on the lam. If you think back to Season 1, there were some throwaway line about salvation being in some temporal blind spot where you could hide out. That’s kind of what our finale is about. It’s their tails between their legs, the Legends’ way of sometimes you need the chainsaw approach to get things done.
The resolution to the series, that I started getting panic attacks about, was the one in which all of our guys would prove to be rightful totem bearers. You would have Mick Rory completely redeemed. We would use our powers magically. The one-to-one mechanics would be boring. It’s just not our show to have things go according to plan. The challenge is, “OK, if they don’t go according to plan, how can they still make sense and be dramatically satisfying?” It’s a hard thing to be true to our show. It has to dramatically make sense, but it also has to be funny and poignant at the same time. Finales are hard. You have to wrap things up and tease the next season. There’s a lot of heavy lifting to do.
In order to save his daughter Nora, Damien Darhk switched sides, but ultimately betrayed the Legends. Now that Mallus is running amok, where is his headspace?
Damien is a broken, broken man. He has lost the one thing that really matters to him anymore. Over the course of the season, he has been rehabilitated from this world domination-driven psychopath to a father who wants what’s best for his little girl. He’s a man who missed her entire childhood and is now trying to make up for it. He’s also trying to make up for the horrible mistakes of his past. Once Nora is transformed and Mallus takes her over, he has nothing to live for. He’s flip-flopped, but he only flip-flopped for Nora’s sake.
Ray stays behind to keep an eye on Damien. What’s interesting about that pairing?
When we did the Berlin episode, there’s this fun father-of-the-bride dynamic. The idea of Damien Darhk being an overprotective dad and the idea that Ray Palmer is probably the least objectionable suitor any father could imagine — he’s a clean cut, handsome billionaire. But, the idea that Damien still thinks of Nora as a little girl, I find it incredibly humanizing. This former Ra’s al Ghul, who has no mortal weakness, his secret pressure point would be that he’s constantly making sure Ray is not going to take his little girl away from him. Making him a paranoid father, who still imagines Nora is 16-years-old, is hilarious.
Where does Constantine fit into the equation?
He doesn’t figure hugely, but the way he figures sets the table for Season 4. His announcement will basically tell you the direction the show is headed. He is drawing us more into his world, rather than us drawing Constantine into ours.
Franz Drameh as Jax on DC’s Legends of Tomorrow season finale
One Legend returns. What brings Jax back into the fold?
Jax is part of a larger picture. As I said, we begin the finale with the Legends at the lowest ebb. Then, they gradually discover that just when they think they are alone, that they’ve secretly accumulated a large number of allies in their various mishaps throughout time. It’s going back to that notion of Zari putting Helen of Troy on Themiscyra when she should have returned her to Troy. It was not what was supposed to be done for the benefit of history. It was the Legends’ way.
All of those time hacks we’ve looked for, loopholes, ways of doing the job and making things better — to see all those sentimental good deeds come home to roost in the form of people who are willing to die with the Legends, people like Jax, people like Helen of Troy and Ava — that’s the really beautiful thing about how the Legends do their job. Yes, it’s silly and screwed-up, but there’s always at least a kernel of altruistic, big-hearted reasons.
There are currently plenty of totems in the mix. In what way will the finale restore or shake-up the status quo?
The totems, in a weird way, started to feel like a burden on the show. We didn’t want it to be too neat or tidy. Thematically, our show isn’t about people who are superheroes onto themselves. They are people who are half-formed, or somewhat broken, and, yet, together can triumph. Everyone fancies themselves a righteous totem bearer. We saw Mick Rory throw some fire, but, let’s be honest. He shouldn’t. There’s nothing righteous about him. What we wanted to do in the finale is have our guys realize what they are capable of achieving as a unit.
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Decisions are never clear cut on this show. What are some of the moral qualms they wrestle with in this episode?
It’s a question of when do you give up? When do you throw in the towel? When the season started, and the Time Bureau was a foil to our Legends, they did have this devil-may-care attitude of, “You know what? They [the Bureau] are just a bunch of squares. They do it by the book. We do it a little bit unorthodox, like half-assed, and it always works out because it’s episodic TV.”
With the finale, we really wanted to have that question loom large, of “What if it doesn’t work out? What if the Legends’ way is stupid? What if being unconventional and unorthodox is a bunch of bullshit? What if that is something you have come up with to free yourself from being responsible?” That is the dark night of the soul of the Legends in the finale. “Yes, we’ve had all these fun adventures, and everything has worked out. We screwed things up for the better. But, what if we don’t? What if we are a bunch of undisciplined, irresponsible people who should not be entrusted with a time machine, nor totems?”
These people aren’t even responsible for their own lives. How can they be responsible for history? I love the Legends when they are Bad News Bears, when they are screwing up so badly, but trying real hard.
The fourth season finale of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow airs at 8 tonight on The CW.