Katie Yu/ The CWOld Macdonald had a farm (E-I-E-I-O), and on that farm he had a bunch of superheroes gathering together to try and stop an immortal knife-thrower from killing two ancient bird people by first dying and then going back in time while one of them also learned he was secretly the father of a nine year old boy…twice…E-I-E-I-O.
OK, that didn't quite work, but we still enjoyed singing it. We also enjoyed watching it happen as this year's gigantic spectacle of an Arrow/Flash/Legends of Tomorrow crossover came to an end.
If the goal was to present to us a cohesive, two-hour movie—which it was, based on the fact that when asked "was it always the goal to make this feel like one big movie," exec producer Andrew Kreisberg said, "Yeah."—then mission accomplished. It was like [name of recent non-DC superhero movie redacted] meets Indiana Jones, and it was both extremely fun and very eventful.
We've got all the scoop on all the fun, thanks to a Q & A with some of the people behind and in front of the camera of both The Flash and Arrow.
You Are the Father
First, let's deal with the Oliver's big discovery: his son, William!
While we immediately started to wonder when we might get to see Oliver break out the dad jokes, many other people were more focused on whether Oliver's son might be someone we know and love from the comics.
When that storyline was first introduced back in season two, there was a lot of speculation that the storyline would follow that of the comic books, and that Oliver's son would be named Connor and would grow up to follow in his father's footsteps as the Green Arrow.
Of course, now we know that not to be true.
"I think when we came up with the whole idea of it, part of it was we didn't want to be tied in necessarily to a character like Connor not being able to be part of the show if we made him so young, to give us the leeway to still have Connor Hawke be a part of the universe," Kreisberg explained.
He also revealed that William's presence is all a part of keeping Oliver's mother a part of the show.
"Susanna hasn't been with the show for a while now, and yet her presence is still felt all throughout this story."
While Oliver did look fairly shell-shocked to discover that he actually had a nine year-old son, he actually took the news pretty well (or at least better than we would). Unfortunately, he didn't handle the situation very well with Felicity in at least one of the timelines.
That break-up scene was brutal, particularly because both sides of the argument made sense. Of course, Oliver hadn't had time to consider how he was going to tell Felicity about his newly discovered kid, and of course Felicity would be hurt that he wouldn't immediately tell her. We felt hurt for both of them, and it sounds like that hurt might just get worse.
"True to what we've done on this show, if there's a secret somewhere, it's going to come out and it's going to have some serious consequences," Arrow executive producer Wendy Mericle told reporters. "We're really excited about how that's going to change things and it's really going to raise the stakes and throw some wrenches into the works of their relationship, which so far this season has been pretty smooth sailing. True to form, we're going to really mine that. There'll be some fallout for both of them."
The Problem with Time Travel
Speaking of fallout, Barry's little jaunt through time is going to have a whole lot of it, but the form of those consequences it not yet clear.
"Time wants to go in one direction," said Kreisberg. "When people die, the universe wants them to stay dead. Anything you do to change that is going to have a cost."
Even though we immediately saw Barry's time travel trip coming after we watched Oliver literally burn up thanks to Vandal Savage's evil staff, it was still a chilling image, and just because Oliver's alive now and he and Felicity are still together, that doesn't mean everything's all hunky dory. Something's gotta give for the number of lives that Barry saved, and it sounds like we're going to see that play out this season.
Legends of Tomorrow
Aside from giving Ollie a sudden secret family, the main thing that this crossover achieved was a solid introduction to two of Legends of Tomorrow's biggest characters, Kendra (Ciara Renee) and Carter (Falk Hentschel), better known as Hawkgirl and Hawkman, and its main villain, the immortal Vandal Savage.
If you've been feeling the Legends overload, here's the good news: the crossing over will soon be over.
"Once Legends is born in January, there's really no intersection on the other shows," said super producer Greg Berlanti. "Legends is kind of its own wacky, crazy kind of thing that allows for some fun surprises in terms of who may visit and how because they're flying through the timeline, and you'll start to see more of that. But not on Arrow or Flash."
As excited as we are for Legends of Tomorrow, we've been feeling a bit like it's been overshadowing the original shows, at least until this crossover.
Kendra and Carter's story served as the perfect way to bring all three shows together for one epic outing, and we are officially scared of Vandal Savage (Casper Crump), who is definitely not gone even though he was a literal pile of dust by the end of tonight's episode.
While Kreisberg joked that Vandal's main motivation is "his own show," Arrow EP Marc Guggenheim gave us a little more insight into the knife-wielding mad man.
"He has a very clear plan and trajectory," Guggenheim explained. "The thing about Vandal is that for him, a lifetime is an eye blink. He thinks in thousand year-old terms. He's very much a master of the long con. Yes, he does have his own personal agenda vis a vis the Hawks, but he's got much bigger plans for the world, which you'll have to watch Legends to find out.
Everything we've witnessed over the past two nights has only made us more excited for the upcoming spin-off, on which it sounds like absolutely anything might happen. Future versions of Barry? Oliver? Cisco? All possible!
"There really is opportunity for all sorts of insane things, which is one of the challenges that we put forth to ourselves, which is what makes this show different in its own way," Berlanti said.
Velocity-6
The speed serum Jay took in order to snatch the bullet from Earth-2 Wells' chest will come back into play eventually, despite the fact that Jay warned Wells and Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker) to keep it away from Barry.
"If you're a fan of the comics, you know that a big part of the comics is Velocity-9. And today you guys met Velocity-6," Kreisberg teased. "So it's safe to say that there'll be a few more iterations of that formula. … How it plays out and how it works and who uses it and the effects that that have—that's something that you'll have to watch."
Poor, Lonely Cisco
Cisco might not have gotten the girl this time, but his return to singledom will mean two developments for your favorite wise-cracking STAR Labs tech. "The two interesting things that are happening for Cisco is, one, a further exploration of his abilities as Vibe, and what he can do and what he's capable of. The other thing, which you got a little bit of a glimpse of in episode 7, is his relationship with new Wells," Kreisberg dished.
While the Wells Cisco knew in season one worked well with others, Earth-2 Wells prefers to fly solo. "This Wells thinks everyone else besides him is an idiot, and thinks everyone is a jerk, and is kind of horrible. And like Cisco said, he's a dick; he doesn't make any apologies for that," he continued.
That relationship will play out over the next few episodes, culminating with the best Cisco scene ever. "There's a two-part episode, 13 and 14 this year, which I think is definitely the most fun pair of episodes that we've ever done, and has my favorite Cisco moment in the history of the series so far," Kreisberg said.
Given the fact that Cisco is second only to Felicity in terms of being hilarious, that's saying quite a lot.
The Flash airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m., Arrow airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m., and Legends of Tomorrow will debut Thursday, January 21 at 8 p.m. all on the CW.
What was your favorite moment in the crossover? Sound off in the comments or find us on Twitter @eonlinetv.