Legends of Tomorrow‘s fifth season is currently in full swing, and it’s bringing about some epic – and bittersweet – changes for the series. One development in the latter category is definitely the impending exit of Ray Palmer (Brandon Routh) and Nora Darhk (Courtney Ford), which is expected to happen sometime soon. Fans have gotten to see “DarhkAtom” flourish as a couple throughout this season, and now the series’ latest episode might have laid the groundwork for their inevitable departure. Spoilers for this week’s episode of Legends of Tomorrow, “Mortal Khanbat”, below! Only look if you want to know!
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Part of the episode revolved around a dying John Constantine (Matt Ryan), whose doom had been sped up by Astra Logue (Olivia Swann) in Hell. Ray and Gary Green (Adam Tsekhman) quickly tried to come to Constantine’s aid, and Ray even brought Nora into the fray. Nora – who has been doomed to moonlight as a fairy godmother since last season – brought her latest ward along with her, and tried (and failed) to get her to wish for Constantine’s health. As Nora and the little girl left, Nora shared a solemn look with Ray.
Towards the end of the episode, Ray revealed to Gary and Constantine that he’s been struggling with one major decision — wanting to ask Nora to marry him. Gary and Constantine responded to the news well, arguing that Ray should go for it.
“We’ve always imagined that time on the Waverider was meant to be finite, you know? It was always meant to be halfway home and not a permanent home and that once you’ve repaired whatever damage you had when you boarded the ship that you probably should make room for another damaged soul,” co-showrunner Phil Klemmer recently explained. “It’s like real life, as well. You know, you have your single friends but when you get into relationships–sorry to break the news to all the people in young relationships who think that life is never gonna change, but it does. There’s no way of going through a threshold in life and carrying everything that you had before. You have to forfeit something. And that’s the pain and beauty of life.”
“We like to tell what are more realistic stories, which is that people come together for a time when they need each other and then when they don’t need each other anymore, they kind of grow apart,” co-showrunner Keto Shimizu echoed. “And that is definitely the story we’re trying to tell with Ray and Nora. And we think it’s the way that we build up to their departure. I think it’s very loving. It comes from our love of these characters. And it comes from us wanting that story to come to the most satisfying close that we can, both for us as writers, for the actors, and for we hope the audience.”
Legends of Tomorrow airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on The CW.
