‘Legends of Tomorrow’ Boss Breaks Down the Finale & Tees Up Season 6 Baddies

Damian Holbrook June 3, 2020, 10:58 am

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[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Season 5 finale of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, “Swan Thong.” If you haven’t seen it yet, go put on some Sisqo and come back when you’re ready.]

As one of the few CW shows that successfully completed production before the pandemic shutdown, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow was able to end its fifth season last night with all the things we love about a Legends finale: Big battles, bigger surprises, plenty of laughs, a goodbye or two and a solid tease about what’s to come in Season 6. But because we are a needy people, we still had to ask showrunner Phil Klemmer for more info. And because he is wonderful, he gave it to us!

Here are some of the goodies Klemmer shared about bringing this year’s Fate-ful tale to an end.

Although the show got to wrap its season, an unplanned “finale” could have worked.

“I’d be happy if we had ended with the zombie episode,” admits Klemmer, referring to “I Am Legends,” the season’s 13th episode. “Everybody died and that would have been a pretty good grip hanger. But I would have been super bummed if Marc Guggenheim’s directorial debut [the week earlier] hadn’t aired.”

Legends of Tomorrow — “I Am Legends” — Image Number: LGN513b_0462b.jpg — Pictured (L-R): Dominic Purcell as Mick Rory/Heatwave and Matt Ryan as Constantine — Photo: Jeff Weddell/The CW — © 2020 The CW Network, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

**Turns out truly bad people just aren’t Legends-worthy.**

When the season began, it was supposed to be all about the horrific historical figures Astra had freed from hell. But soon the writers realized that “it was hard for us to come up with fun Encores at a certain point,” explains Klemmer. “Like some of these guys are just so ruthless and awful, you know? So once we’d gotten through the handful of fun ones like Marie Antoinette and Rasputin, we were just like, “Oh God, are we really getting into the world of Pol-Pot and Charlie Manson?”

Thankfully, the Fates stepped in.

By revealing that Maisie Richardson-Sellers‘s Charlie was actually one of the three Fates sisters who controlled the Loom of Fate, Klemmer and company found a way to redirect the season’s story and craft the actress’s exit. “We knew that Maisie was looking to leave the show and so we really just wanted to focus on giving her like a proper conclusion.” And proper it was: After helping the Legends defeat her sisters, Charlie time-traveled back to 1970s London to rejoin her punk band, The Smell.

Loom World wasn’t just an Orwellian nightmare.

The dystopian timeline in which the Fates dictated humanity’s every thought and action definitely smacked of George Orwell’s “1984,” but Klemmer also snuck in some nods to Terry Gilliam‘s 1985 cult fave, Brazil. “The real challenge was coming up with like the fun of it all because seeing people cowed with their free will abolished can be pretty dreary.”

DC’s Legends of Tomorrow — “Beebo the God of War” — Image Number: LGN309b_0322.jpg — Pictured: Katia Winter as Freydis Eriksdottir — Photo: Dean Buscher/The CW — ÃÂ© 2017 The CW Network, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Blue Mush is NOT Beebo!

When asked if the food of choice in Loom World—a slurry of god knows what—was repurposed remnants of our favorite furry God of War, Klemmer declared “Oh no, Soylent Green!” citing the sci-fi flick in which people are basically churned into protein bars. “Although if you had pitched that, I probably would have done it.”

Who’s Zari Now?

With the original version returning to the totem so brother Behrad (Shayan Sobhian) can live, it sounds like Tala Ashe’s hilariously vapid second take on the character, affectionately known as Zari 2.0, is here to stay. “I think it does. I think it does,” states Klemmer, explaining that maintaining both characters would have been cruel and unusual for both the actress and the crew. “They would just murder and Tala wouldn’t murder me,” he jokes before assuring us that “we’ll find ways to bring Zari 1.0” for some visits.

Is Tala Ashe's Zari Headed for a New 'Legends of Tomorrow' Twosome? (VIDEO)

Charlie’s empty seat on the Waverider will be filled by an unlikely Legend.

Thanks to the finale’s closing shot of Sara (Caity Lotz) being zapped by a ray of light and drawn up into the sky, “you know, we’re going into the world of aliens,” Klemmer says. “So we are looking for an expert.” No casting has happened yet, but the showrunner reveals that the idea is to bring on somebody, most likely a woman, who’s a little bit more working class and self-taught. “We’ve had a lot of professors and PhDs and eggheads,” he continues. “We want somebody who will be sort of freaked out by coming onto the ship.”

Oh, and those aliens? Think less Kryptonian and more Xenomorph.

“As far as the aesthetic, I would like to lean into the B-movies of the ’70s and ’80s like They Live and Mars Attacks,” hints Klemmer of the species we’ll first learn about in the Season 6 opener. “I want to do trashy genre in a classy way.” And they will be mean. “They will be pretty gnarly…it would be nice if our space aliens could be, by and large, irredeemable.”

Legends of Tomorrow — “Swan Thong” — Image Number: LGN515c_0059b.jpg — Pictured: Caity Lotz as Sara Lance/White Canary — Photo: Bettina Strauss/The CW — © 2020 The CW Network, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Good thing we can count on Captain Sara Lance!

Klemmer is coy about how long the gang’s leader will be in alien custody—”Obviously [we] don’t want Sara to be returned [immediately], we want to live with the consequences of this and follow her independently of the team for awhile,” he says—but does promise that there are big plans for La Lotz, including getting her back into her iconic White Canary costume more often. “We want to return Caity to her full-fledged super heroine action hero status next season.”