Usually these CW crossovers only last a week. I guess that just wouldn’t do for a story as big as Crisis on Infinite Earths. While the first three parts aired on consecutive nights back in December, we had to wait a month, into a new year and decade, to see the conclusion. When last we left the heroes, the last Earth had winked out of existence. The paragons were sent to the Vanishing Point outside of time and space so they’d survive. Jon Cryer’s Lex Luthor used the Book of Destiny to become one of those paragons, taking the place of Brandon Routh’s Superman. Got all that? Oh, and Oliver Queen is dead. Sarah Lance and Mia Smoak tried to bring him back with Constantine’s help (and Lucifer’s), but… couldn’t. That makes this continuation especially complicated given that the first show of the night’s conclusion is…
LaMonica Garrett as The Anti-Monitor — Photo: Dean Buscher/The CW
Arrow:
The episode begins, as most episodes of Arrow have, with a flashback. This time to Planet Maltus 10,000 years ago. We finally get an origin story for The Monitor. It’s about time. He’s been a presence in a few CW-verse shows this season, and they never told us anything about them. We see him as a normal-ish person. Someone who just wanted to travel through time. His wife, also his monitor (hmmm), keeps tabs on him as he travels through the dawn of time. It doesn’t go well. He ends up at the dawn of time in an anti-universe, which creates the Anti-Monitor. And that’s how this entire mess was set in motion. I’m happy we’re finally getting some answers, but this sequence should have been the first thing we saw in the crossover. It would have given the fights and big moments in the first three parts the stakes they needed. Stakes they had a lot more trouble reaching than they should have.
Back at the Vanishing Point, things aren’t going so well. With no idea what to do, everyone’s preparing for a battle in their own way. The problem is none of them know how, when or if that battle is going to happen. And The Flash has disappeared. That’s only temporary though, as he suddenly reappears hurt and out of breath. He tried running into the Speedforce, but hit a wall. After the destruction of the multiverse, the Speedforce is currently inaccessible. Fortunately, Oliver, who became a Specter in Purgatory, shows up and gives them a way forward. Half the team has to go to planet Mallus to stop the Monitor from creating the Anti-Monitor in the first place. The other half needs to stop the existing Anti-Monitor from making his destruction permanent. Both of those can be done by going into the Speedforce. Specter-Oliver gives Barry the power to enter the Speedforce and bring the team with him.
Caity Lotz as Sara Lance/White Canary and Ruby Rose as Kate Kane/Batwoman — Photo: Dean Buscher/The CW
The first plan goes awry almost instantly. Lex Luthor disappears and when Supergirl finds him, he ambushes her with some new Kryptonian powers. Replacing Superman as a Paragon came with some perks, it looks like. He knocks her and Ryan Choi out, and finds The Monitor himself. He starts trying to enact his plan, to gain some of the Monitor’s powers in exchange for knowledge about the future. He gets pretty far into his spiel before Supergirl busts through the wall and we have a Luthor-Kara super fight. Having that go on in the background as Ryan Choi explain what will happen if the Monitor steps through his time portal adds some much-needed fun to a scene that’s basically two guys going over stuff we already know.
The other half of the plan didn’t go so well either. When The Flash tried to run into the Speedforce this time, the Anti-Monitor was waiting in attack. As a result, the Speedforce is coming apart and the team is separated. Specter-Arrow is using all his energy to hold it together while Barry runs through the infinite Speedforce to find his missing friends. This leads to the most surprising cameo of the entire crossover. I thought we were done with these back in December, but Crisis had one more up its sleeve. Barry Allen runs into Barry Allen, as played by Ezra Miller. Yep, the Justice League version of the hero showed up in the TV universe. It’s a huge get, considering this is the same show that had to stop using Deadshot and the Suicide Squad after Warner Bros. decided they wanted those characters for the movie. It’s also a hilarious scene that reminds us why, for all Justice League’s problems, Miller’s Flash was the best part. His movie may still be in development hell, but after this short performance, I really hope it doesn’t stay that way.
Ezra Miller, Grant Gustin (Photo via The CW)
Oddly enough, this episode is turns into something of a clip show. Everyone is trapped in memories from past crossovers and big Arrow episodes. Kate watches Ray and Oliver argue about how best to save the city. Sara is lying dead on a table while Diggle convinces Laurel to become the Black Canary. J’onn is watching Kara and Oliver argue about the Dominator invasion. It’s a cool way to celebrate Arrow’s legacy that doesn’t feel shoehorned in like most clip show’s do. Barry collects everyone from the memories they’re witnessing, including the real Oliver from the end of Elseworlds. He collects Kara and Ryan just after they convince The Monitor not to go though with his plan, and they all end up at the beginning of the anti-matter universe. They can stop The Monitor from creating him in one Universe, but his creation, he says, is inevitable.
For the fourth part of a five-part event, this one sure ends with a climactic fight. I think it’s because this is the real series finale of Arrow. The show has a series finale next week, but it’s really more of a pilot for the next spinoff, Green Arrow and the Canaries. This is Oliver Queen’s last adventure, and it feels like it. The paragons hold the line against the time wraiths while Oliver faces the Anti-Monitor one-on-one. It’s the final fight scene Arrow deserved, with Oliver using everything he’s ever learned over eight seasons to beat this guy. In the end, he knocks Anti-Monitor back, and focuses on re-creating everything that was destroyed. The Paragons help him out, by focusing everything they know about Hope, Courage, Destiny, Humanity, Honor, Love, and Truth. We already know Lex Luthor focusing on Truth is bound to have some side effects. For now though, it doesn’t matter. The Paragons undo the damage caused by the antimatter and the dawn of time disappears around them. Which leads us right into…
Jon Cryer as Lex Luthor, Melissa Benoist as Kara/Supergirl, Osric Chau as Ryan Choi, Ruby Rose as Kate Kane/Batwoman, Grant Gustin as The Flash, David Harewood as Hank Henshaw/J’onn J’onzz and Caity Lotz as Sara Lance/White Canary — Photo: Dean Buscher/The CW
Legends of Tomorrow:
After the creation of a new universe, everyone wakes up back in their homes. Supergirl is back in her apartment, having apparently just defeated a white martian and is about to miss the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony. She makes it there just in time to see the prize go to Lex Luthor. This was the “truth” he was focusing on, I guess. The Nobel prize isn’t the only thing he made happen, Lex Luthor is now her new boss and Supergirl’s biggest supporter. Things get weirder when Weather Witch shows up downtown. If you’ve been watching The Flash this season, you’ll remember her from that show. Not Legends or Supergirl. In any case, she’s about to fight the villain when The Flash shows up and does it for her. For a moment, they each think the other is on their Earth. It soon becomes obvious. There is no more multiverse. The new world Oliver created at the end of Arrow is one with only one Earth.
Sara ends up in Star City where she meets back up with Ray. He doesn’t realize anything’s different. To him, there has always been only one Earth. J’onn shows up and restores his memories of the way the Earth used to be. He’s been going from city to city making sure everyone important knows the whole story. Only the Paragons have true memories of the way things used to be. That includes Caitlin Snow and Nash Wells, who feels terrible about the destruction he helped cause. Meanwhile, Sara searches for Oliver only to find out that he didn’t bring himself back when creating this new universe. He’s still dead. She and Team Arrow cry and commiserate, but the somber moment is interrupted by news of an attack: A giant Beebo is rampaging through downtown Star City. Oh yeah, this is why Legends is my favorite CW-verse show.
Dominic Purcell as Mick Rory/Heatwave and Grant Gustin as The Flash — Photo: Colin Bentley/The CW
The best part of these crossovers continues to be how each show retains its core personality while telling its part of the big story. Just like Arrow was the serious epic climactic fight, Legends of Tomorrow is all about exploring the new world everyone finds themselves in and having heaps of fun doing it. The superheroes team up to fight the giant Beebo, including Mick Rory who was at a book signing after publishing his erotic novels. Perfect. They soon find that none of their attacks work. Beebo is an illusion. Rory points out that such a distraction would be perfect cover to rob a bank and wouldn’t you know, Sara stops a special-effects-using bank robber in the act.
Legends of Tomorrow had maybe the most to do of each show involved in this crossover. It had to introduce the new status quo of all former Earths existing as one. It had to give us a fitting conclusion to the CW’s most ambitious crossover. And it had to say goodbye to Oliver. Since his death, the characters haven’t had the chance to really deal with it. Now, they have some downtime, and it leads to some genuinely sad and heartfelt scenes. Barry and Sara commiserate over his loss. For her, she’s lost her only remaining connection to this city, and even this world. The somber moments don’t always land on these shows, but this one has all the right weight behind it. It’s incredibly well-executed.
Melissa Benoist as Kara/Supergirl, Brandon Routh as Ray Palmer/Atom and Grant Gustin as The Flash — Photo: Colin Bentley/The CW
Eventually though, the main plot of the crossover catches up with everyone. Nash Wells detects a surge of anti-matter underneath the city. The Anti-Monitor is still alive. Being made of anti-matter, he can neither be created nor destroyed. Now, he wants to undo the world the Paragons created, so he sends his army of time wraiths after them. Arrow gave us the personal showdown, Legends gives us the epic whole-team vs. giant bad guy version. It’s fantastic. Not only do we get Heatwave teaming up with Killer Frost, Black Lightning shows up too. He’s a full-fledged member of the team now. The only awkward bit is that Freeland is still occupied by the ASA in his series. Presumably that’s still happening on this Earth. Did he get things to a point where he could tear himself away from that and help out in Star City? Eh, this is a big enough event that I guess the quarantined police state can wait. I’m just glad he’s here. Seeing every CW DC hero fight off a hoard of time-zombies and a giant Anti-Monitor is so cool, I didn’t want it to end.
While Superman and Supergirl take shots at Anti-Monitor from the air, Ray and Ryan are in the lab putting together their plan. They can’t completely destroy the Anti-Monitor, so they build a bomb that will shrink him infinitely. It will send him irrevocably to the universe below the atomic level. The atom-verse as Ray calls it. Ryan suggests Microverse, but Ray mentions that might be taken. This show is the best. Ray shows up just as Kara is about to fly into the Anti-Monitor, possibly sacrificing herself to save Superman. Ray shows up and shrinks Superman down enough so he falls out of the Anti-Monitor’s hands, then hits the Anti-Monitor with a bomb. It’s a thrilling ending to CW-verse’s biggest fight yet.
Tyler Hoechlin, Cress Williams (Photo: Screenshot via The CW)
The rest of the episode is a celebration of everything they’ve built over the last eight years. This franchise has earned it. We get one final tearful goodbye to Oliver, which includes an address from the president and a small memorial Barry builds in a warehouse. He also reveals the warehouse is actually a new headquarters for what looks a lot like a proto-Justice League. Barry reveals a table with a chair for everyone, including an empty one for Oliver, for the next time they all have to team up to stave off the end of the world. As Black Lightning learns, that happens more often than you’d think. It’s a fitting final scene for Oliver Queen’s story, and it got me hyped to keep watching these DC superhero shows as long as they keep making them. I’m excited to see what they do from here on out, especially with all the Earths we’ve known being combined into one. We even saw appearances from the upcoming Stargirl series as well as Titans, Doom Patrol and the sadly cancelled Swamp Thing. We even saw a glimpse of Green Lantern. Oh god, please tell me that’s next.
The first three parts of the crossover were lots of fun, but were hindered by the fact that we didn’t know anything about the Anti-Monitor yet. The battles felt like they were there for the sake of having battles. The shows threw terms like Harbinger, Paraiah and Paragon without any explanation for what they mean or why we should care. These last two parts fixed pretty much all of that. It focused all that chaos into an exciting, touching and hilarious conclusion. After this, I can’t wait to see what they do with Stargirl and future seasons of The Flash, Supergirl, and Legends of Tomorrow. Especially after that final shot. As the heroes gather round a table, they hear something in escape. It sounds like a monkey. The camera lingers on an open cage and a sign that reads “Gleek.” Oh my god, is one of these shows going to introduce the Wonder Twins?
Legends of Tomorrow will air Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on The CW
Previously on Crisis on Infinite Earths:
from Geek.com https://ift.tt/30liDmX
via IFTTT
0 comments:
Post a Comment