Legends of Tomorrow: How Charlie is Just Like The Flash and Green Arrow

Tonight on DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, Charlie/Clotho (Maisie Richardson-Sellers) has cast her fellow Legends into the television, where they remain alive and get what she believes they want — but at the expense of their self-awareness, free will, and even their heroism, as they are being used to indoctrinate the masses to remain loyal to Clotho and her sisters, the Greek Fates. She is only doing it, she explains, because she wants them to be safe and happy, but her fellow Legends aren’t hearing it. If all of that sounds familiar? Well, it’s a variation on a theme that characters like The Flash and Green Arrow have struggled with on their own shows for years.

Whether it’s traveling through time and rewriting reality, or just making decisions without consulting their teams, the heroes of the Arrowverse fairly regularly have to argue their case with the supporting cast. And with Charlie, as with the other heroes, it’s the well-intentioned egoist who is almost always wrong.

“In all the shows, the characters will do something for the greater good, but there’s an element of playing God as well,” Guggenheim told ComicBook.com. “I think to me, that’s the best part of superhero, or writing superheroes, is wrestling with all the moral dilemmas. I’m very attracted to that. That sort of not just ‘with great power comes great responsibility,’ but how do you wield that power? I’m a sucker for that.”

The episode may give us a third (or maybe fourth?) major shift for Maisie Richardson-Seller since she joined the series in the second season, but Guggenheim said it was easy to put trust in her to do the heavy lifting needed to sell the beloved character taking a quasi-evil turn.

“I love how Maisie is; she’s always game,” Guggenheim said. “She always gives a thousand percent. She never complained. You never feel as if the character has gone in a direction that she didn’t want to play. She’s up for anything. I think probably the most rewarding part of working on the episode was the ability to work with all the actors, and to work on shaping the performance. That was something that I knew I would enjoy, but it wasn’t until I was actually doing it that I just realized exactly how much I enjoyed it. There’s nothing more gratifying than having a conversation with an actor about a certain take, or a certain moment, and then watching them go and execute on it. there’s no better feeling.”

DC’s Legends of Tomorrow airs on Tuesday nights at 9 p.m. ET/PT, following episodes of Stargirl on The CW. The season five finale will debut next week.