Dominic Purcell Defends ‘Legends of Tomorrow’ as Not Being the Joke of the Arrowverse

As The CW’s Arrowverse shows go, the unabashedly lighthearted Legends of Tomorrow often ends up the joke of the group and series star Dominic Purcellis tired of it.

Purcell, who plays Mick Rory/Heatwave on the series which will debut its fourth season next month, took to Instagram on Saturday, sharing why he’s proud to be part of Legends as well as why he’s no longer accepting the show being treated like a “joke”.

“First season of @cw_legendsoftomorrow sucked,” Purcell wrote. “We had to change it drastically. The writers, the creative team changed its course with a genius master stroke. Let’s have fun with it!!!! ….Now we have a show that embraces the absurdity of the farce and the brilliant nature of its theme.”

As fans of the series will recall, Season 1 is very different from those following it. The season saw the team initially come together to hunt down the immortal Vandal Savage, a villain who in the future conquered the entire planet. Despite some of the more entertainingly ridiculous elements, the season had a very serious feel. That disconnect is one that Purcell went on to say that, while he’s proud now, made him want to leave the series at first. However, the show’s second season abandoned the serious tone, allowing the characters to own their absurdity and even take it to the next level — Beebo, anyone?

It’s that absurdity that sets Legends apart, but also gets it some criticism from Arrowverse fans, and Purcell ended his post saying that he’s no longer accepting that — and says that no one within DC or Warner Bros. sees Legends as anything else than good.

“No longer will I accept this [slight] utterance that Legends is the in house joke that we are the ugly step sister in the @dccomics @warnerbrostv #arrowverse tv sh*t,” Purcell wrote. “I know for a fact we are not seen as that within the cooperate structure. So shut the f*ck up. We good. We handling our sh*t, we good. We family. We delivering.”

And when the show returns next month, it sounds like it plans to keep on delivering. The fourth season will find the Legends trying to deal with a crop of magical threats that they accidentally let loose into the world in their efforts to defeat Mallus last season.

“In typical Legends fashion, having saved the world and solving one big problem, they have actually launched a whole other set of problems — and this one being magical fugitives, as we’re calling them. Creatures from myth, legend, fairy tales have now been spat out all over the timeline,” co-showrunner Keto Shimizu said. “The timeline has now been infected, essentially, with these magical creatures and it’s now the Legends’ job to clean up their mess.”

What do you think about Purcell’s defense of Legends of Tomorrow? Let us know in the comments below.

The season four premiere of Legends of Tomorrow, which is titled “The Virgin Gary”, will debut on Monday, October 22nd, at 9/8c on The CW.