Legacies just connected itself to fellow The CW show The Flash. The November 15 episode also tied-in Scream's Ghostface. Both Legacies references came through MG's (Quincy Fouse) nightmares, but really through Executive Producer Julie Plec's behind-the-scenes efforts. She first explained how The Flash's Gorilla Grodd appeared on the vampire spinoff:
Some morning after Legacies comments: 1) We wanted MG to have a nightmare about a monster from the comic books he was reading, so we asked [Greg Berlanti] and [the DC universe] if we could 'borrow' Grodd. They were VERY gracious. The first TVDU-DCU crossover!
Yes, as Julie Plec tweeted, since Legacies is part of The Vampire Diaries Universe, and The Flash is in the DC universe, this is technically the first "TVDU-DCU crossover." Is it too soon to ask for more?
Gorilla Grodd first showed up to terrorize Team Flash in The Flash Season 1, and he got his own two-parter in The Flash Season 3. And last night he returned to scare Legacies character MG.
But that wasn't enough for Legacies Season 1, Episode 4. "Hope Is Not the Goal" also added a Scream connection, and Julie Plec explained how that one came about:
When I pitched it to [Arrow-verse producer Sarah Schechter] she said "I hope you're doing a nightmare within a nightmare." --- and so we did. Enter, Ghostface from SCREAM. Thanks to Fun World for letting us use him.As many of you know, I was Wes Craven's assistant on SCREAM. I remember the day that his producer found the mask in the kid's bedroom of a house they were scouting. The studio tried to have a different version of the mask designed so that they could own it for merchandising. Alas, every different version sucked. Wes stuck with the store-bought mask and Fun World held on to ownership. Making SCREAM was one of the highlights of my life. It was the very first movie I worked on and it's where [Scream writer and TVD co-creator Kevin Williamson] and I fell in love. And years later, [TVD producer Brett Matthews] was hired to be the show-runner of Scream Season 3. We were both excited to give Ghostface a shout-out.
As Julie Plec noted, Scream was her first film experience, and where she started developing her horror cred. She's credited as a co-producer on both Scream 2 and Scream 3, as well as Wes Craven's Cursed.
Now Julie Plec is the queen of The Vampire Diaries Universe. The Vampire Diaries and its first spinoff The Originals are both off the air, but they gave birth to the joint baby Legacies. So far, Legacies has brought back several TVD characters -- except for one major character we're all waiting on. Since the new series is embracing a monster-of-the-week format, there's always room for more horror-crossover nightmares. (Maybe Swamp Thing? That's what the dude at the end looked like.)
Legacies Season 1 airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. on The CW. Check out what else is on in our fall TV premiere guide.
