All Your Burning CW Crossover Questions, Answered

[Warning: The following contains spoilers for the most recent episode of Legends of Tomorrow.]

The CW's epic four-show DC crossover came to its dramatic conclusion on Legends of Tomorrow.

After figuring out when the Dominators first invaded, Nate (Nick Zano) makes a plan to go back to 1951 Oregon to abduct one of the aliens in order to figure out their intentions in 2016. Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) and Cisco (Carlos Valdes) tag along for the ride, but wind up being sequestered on the Waverider while the Legends go out on the mission. But this turns out to be a godsend, since a mysterious government figure, who we'll call Glasses, kidnaps the Legends and one of the Dominators.

Felicity and Cisco realize it's up to the coolest tech support ever to rescue their friends and the imprisoned Dominator, who they send back to his mothership unharmed. But before their new frenemy goes, he reveals that the Dominators were visiting Earth to determine whether the metahumans would be a threat to their race.

And for sixty years, the Dominators didn't believe metahumans were a threat - that is until Barry (Grant Gustin) created Flashpoint. After this brash use of power, the Dominators decided it was time to kill all the metahumans with a giant bomb before the metas could turn against them in the future.

Not about to sit back and watch all the metas get murdered, our heroes made a plan. Together, they transfigured the bomb into water and temporarily stopped the Dominators with a fancy new piece of nanotechnology that Stein and his daughter invented.

To celebrate their victory, our heroes sipped champagne, enjoyed a secret presidential honor and secured their inter-earth union by giving Kara (Melissa Benoist) a device that enables her to communicate with and visit Earth-1 whenever she pleases.

While the conclusion to the crossover was a whole lot of fun, that doesn't mean it didn't leave us with tons of questions. Fortunately, executive producers Marc Guggenheim and Andrew Kreisberg spoke with reporters about what the crossover means for the Arrowverse going forward and whether we'll ever see the Dominators again.

Did you consider making Lynda Carter the new president in the Arrowverse?
Marc Guggenheim: We did. Actually in the original draft of the Legends episode, she was the vice president who became the president. And the studio had what we all considered to be a very fair note, which is it was a bit too confusing. You get into the parallel earths of it all, but she's not the president on our earth; she's the vice president. And in the midst time travel and aliens, it just was one, as Oliver (Stephen Amell) would put it, one sci-fi problem too much. And we thought OK, if the studio is getting thrown by it and confused, the audience might be too, so we took her out. Believe me, it was not for lack of wanting to. I was planning on being on set that day.

Are they going to manage a cover-up, or does everyone in Earth-1 know aliens exists
Guggenheim: You know, we had a line that we cut for time and just re-watching it, I was like, "Oh, I really wished we'd found the time another way." There was a line where the character Glasses - we call him Glasses because we're so original - he basically says, "Cover up what? A dozen weather satellites falling out of orbit?" Because people see the ships, but no one ever really saw the Dominators. The way we're sort of playing it going forward is that Glasses is good at his job, and when he says he's going to cover it up, he's going to cover it up.
Andrew Kreisberg: There's a mention of it in The Flash, that the threat of aliens brought out all the crazies, but we're sort of Doctor Who-ing it.

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Thanks to the Dominators, at least some portion of the government know that Barry Allen is the Flash? Will we see that playing into the story going forward?
Kreisberg: I don't know. We hadn't really thought about that so we don't have any specific plans for that. As you know, heroes having secret identities is probably the least interesting aspect of these shows as far as Marc, [Greg Berlanti] and I are concerned. I'm not sure we have any specific plans.

What can you say about the repercussions on each of the upcoming episodes?
Kreisberg: As far as Flash is concerned, obviously based on Episode 7 of Flash, Cisco and Barry were probably at their lowest point because Cisco learned that Dante died in the Flashpoint conundrum... But their friendship has been renewed through the course of these episodes. So when we come back in Episode 9, Team Flash is in a really good place and strong again, which they need to be because they're going to confront Savitar in Episode 9.

And as far as Supergirl is concerned, it doesn't really have, I think, that big an impact because she's the one who brought the light. It was really Barry and Oliver who had to go on a journey, and she sort of brought the charm and the fun and the kickass-ness. So she just continues on her way.
Guggenheim: With respect to Arrow, going into [Episode 9], which is the Arrow midseason finale, you'll see that Oliver sort of has a new sense of purpose. The events of [Episode 8] essentially forced him to emotionally double down on his mission. So he goes into [Episode 9] with a new sense of purpose, and, I would say, also a reaffirmation of his bond with Thea (Willa Holland), because they basically chose each other in [Episode 8]. That carries through the midseason finale and obviously, sets up things beyond it.

In terms of Legends, I think the two big takeaways are obviously Stein's (Victor Garber) daughter - we haven't seen the last of her. You'll see her again in a few episodes - as well as Ray's (Brandon Routh) got his suit back. And he's, I think, very, very happy to be a superhero again.

With Stein and Jax (Franz Drameh) keeping the secret about the daughter, is that going to cause strife within the group?
Guggenheim: It's funny. Obviously, Legends works differently than Arrow, where Arrow is all about people keeping secrets and secrets coming out and causing strife. I will say we're setting up Legends' mid-season finale where the ramifications of that secret do come into play. I think they'll come into play in a way that's a little different than your question presumes.

Now that Supergirl has this breach device, what does this mean for potential future crossovers?
Kreisberg: It's easier! They've gotten to the point where we wanted to make that a little bit easier. And 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. Again, we don't have anything planned. We just barely survived this one, so we're not too concerned with what we're going to try to do next year, but it just gives, us, as storyteller's, another way to come at a story.

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There's been the lingering question of if Kara has a doppelganger on Earth-1, and who she is. Is that Ray comment just a joke or is there a chance that we might meet Ray's cousin in the future?
Kreisberg: That was a Marc Guggenheim special.
Guggenheim: Just with respect to the cousin line, basically it's sort of like last year on Legends, we did the Prison Break [joke]. I said to the writers, "If we don't make a Prison Break joke here with [Wentworth Miller], we're not doing our jobs." I was like, "If we have Brandon and Melissa share the screen and we don't make some sort of joke like that, we're not doing our jobs." The truth is, that joke existed on Arrow originally and then a certain scene got cut, so then I moved it over to Legends. I just kept moving it back and forth. I'm like, "I'm getting it in one of these episodes."

Is it just a throwaway?
Guggenheim: It was a throwaway. It was a total throwaway.

The Dominators weren't defeated at the end of the crossover. Will they be return to the Arrowverse?
Guggenheim: We've certainly talked about it. We don't want to do it immediately because we just told that story. I think it's more of a Flash and Legends question than an Arrow question, because that's not really what Arrow traffics in. But at some point, for sure.

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