None of which stops Nate from kicking butt in tonight’s episode, where he gets to hit a history nerd’s dream by hanging out in JFK’s Oval Office. (A custom set designed by the show’s crew, who Zano called “unbelievable” in their ability to function amidst COVID-19 restrictions. Among other things, they had to rig the Office up with safety harnesses, because Legends is the sort of show where you can get full-scale football tackled in the Kennedy White House.) The episode also paired Zano up with Tala Ashe, who’s currently playing a character typically referred to as Zari 2.0, an alternate universe version of Nate’s love interest Zari 1.0, who now lives in a magical bracelet worn by her alt-universe self, because that is how Legends Of Tomorrow rolls. Zano touched on what it’s like to be one of the longest serving members of a crew that has an incredibly high turnover rate for network TV (including the departure of his regular comedy partner Brandon Routh, who left the show in season 5):

Come next season, I think it’s just Caity [as an original crew member]. [Dominic Purcell has announced that he’ll be departing Legends as a regular at the end of this season.] That’s wild, because I still see people using promotional photos of the first season, and I don’t even think it’s our show! It’s very unique for television to have high turnover like this. Usually, you kind of get anchored in. It has its pros and it has its cons, but this particular dynamic, it works for us. There’s a few times you’re like, man, “So-and-so would be really good in this episode,” or “So-and-so would do this in this scene.” Of course you miss the people you work with, because it’s very specific. But I do think it helps.

With Brandon, that [relationship] was a serendipitous moment between two performers, and it just worked out that way. We didn’t plan it, we didn’t go over it, it was just organic. That was something we nurtured. And I think, the crescendo of it, the goodbye, was intense for us, because we knew how nice it worked, and how special it was. And that goodbye was a sincere goodbye.

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Legends Of Tomorrow airs its latest episode, “Bay Of Squids,” tonight, at 7 p.m. Central on The CW.

[This interview has been edited for clarity and length.]