Legends of Tomorrow season 1, episode 4, “White Knights,” sees the team in the Soviet Union during the Cold War. But will they defeat Vandal Savage?
Executive producer Marc Guggenheim tells EW the team won’t be facing down Vandal Savage in every episode, including “White Knights,” when the team sets their sights on Valentina Vostok, a Soviet scientist who is developing something for Vandal Savage.
“We recognize that it could very easily become this Sisyphean exercise and be really boring for the audience,” Guggenheim says of the show’s plot to kill the immortal Vandal Savage. “In [Thursday’s episode], you’ll see that their primary objective is not to capture or kill Vandal Savage. Similarly, 105, 106, 107, in none of those episodes is their primary objective to capture or kill Vandal.”
“White Knights,” Guggenheim says, “has three separate movements in the 1980s and they’re all very, very different. You really start the episode in one place and end it in a completely different place. Episodes 4 and 5 are basically a two-parter, but they’re very different kinds of episodes.”
Episode 4 features Ray and Leonard competing to seduce Valentina to get information on what she’s working on for Savage, giving the feeling of a spy thriller. As for episode 5, Guggenheim teases a prison break — which is appropriate since our Prison Break alums will be involved.
“And, as one would expect, a very terrific line regarding that,” Guggenheim says. “I said to the writers, ‘If we’re going to do a prison break episode, that’s perfectly fine, but we better come up with a goddamn funny line for either Dominic or Wentworth to say, or we’re all fired.’”
Additionally, “White Knights” will explore the relationship between the two halves of Firestorm. Stein and Jax have had a rocky road of their young partnership, and that conflict will continue in this episode.
“Jax is discovering, ‘Wait a second, Stein gets to backseat-drive the whole time and boss me around, but every time we take a punch, I’m the one who feels it.’ From Jax’s perspective, he’s the only one with skin in the game, really, and is tired of being bossed around,” Guggenheim explains.
“The arc really is Stein’s, because it’s Stein who has to recognize what it’s like to be on the other side of this equation. Stein develops a different and more empathetic understanding of what Jax’s side of the partnership is.”