Well, the first two parts of the Elseworld crossover have been, in my mind, just amazing. The humor is on point, the gimmick has been really well handled, and last night’s introduction to Batgirl (in the Flash/Arrow universe) was nothing short of perfection. The actress nailed it, imo, and the Gotham depicted in that episode (and the implications) were very cool. All of the Easter Eggs! So many!!
Special nod to the first episode, Sunday’s The Flash, where we got a Smallville title song reference as we cut to Kent Farms. Gave me chills.
OK, what other two or three shows do I have to watch to see the whole story arc? The Flash and…? From what I remember of last year’s crossover, Legends of Whatever It Is and Arrow were pretty dire.
The four “Arrowverse” shows are Flash, Green Arrow, Supergirl, and Legends of Tomorrow but only the first three had (mostly) anything to do with this cross over.
(Legend’s last night had a hilarious nod to the cross over event, but they were in the middle of their own crisis. The Legends get back from a mission at one point, and their ship AI says something like “You have missed calls from Barry, Oliver, and Cara Danvers” and one of them goes, “I guess we’re missing the annual cross over event”)
If you just watched Elseworlds Part 1, 2, and 3 (the latest episodes of Flash, Green Arrow, and Supergirl respectively) on the CWTV.com page or app you’d probably be fine, but you may miss some of the in-jokes and references here or there.
Wait, is it Green Arrow now? Wasn’t it just Arrow for a while (at least the show’s title-- I’m not a comics reader, particularly)? And why is it called the Arrowverse? Was that the first of these DC shows?
EDIT: Apparently the show is still called Arrow, and per the joke above, I don’t have to worry about Legends…? (for the purposes of the crossover)
FYI Crisis on Infinite Earths is 2019 crossover event. This is the biggest DC story aside from identify crisis in my mind. I hope we finally see GL in some fashion by then…
This is the one that triggers Barry to disappear from the timeline. I wonder how they will handle that.
OK, why does Tom Cavanagh’s character have a weird French Canadian accent now? Is he yet another guy now? Obviously I would need to have been watching the show all along, I suppose.
That guy apparently lives to be body-snatched (or however it’s supposed to work per the lore).
In other news, the Gotham City shown at the beginning of the Arrow episode doesn’t look nearly as run down as it needs to. It’s gotta be frozen in an Art Deco time dimension, dammit.
Elseworlds was a lot of fun, though it would have been nice if they had avoided the incredibly stupid “mortal danger” device for Barry and Kara. Slowing time by changing the rotation of the Earth, really? I get the reference to old Superman “fly around the world to mess with time” device, but there are a lot of other options in comic history to choose from. That aside, I really enjoyed the crossover.
Every time Flash and Arrow get together I’m reminded how well those two actors fill their roles. Gustin has the positive and quirky down, and Amell does dark and brooding to a T. Seeing them switch just emphasized how good they are at those roles. And of course no one needs reminding how great Benoist fits the Supergirl role.
Batwoman was great and I can only hope we get more. That entrance with the drop onto that van, damn. I got chills, I’m not ashamed to admit. I don’t have a good feel for whether Ruby Rose was a good cast choice or not, not enough time, but at the least it’s a workable casting.
I was a bit surprised back at the first crossover that they didn’t use Crisis on Infinite Earths, but they’re finally getting around to it next year. I suspect it will mark the end of at least one of the leads. Comics say it should be Barry but based on how Oliver was bargaining with the Monitor, I think he’s the frontrunner.
It can be SO dumb, but it gets me worked up without fail. The wholesome sisterly love and emotionally supportive friend network angles are just so refreshing and kind. They twisted one of those knives last season. Next looks to be all about twisting the other.
But mostly I just loved Season 4’s message with all my heart and soul. It was absurdly on the nose and pointedly Woke, but I’m here for that shit.
“Let’s explore how both sides might be right in the name of Good Journalism!”
“Oh fuck it turns out the evil racist side are literally evil and kidnapped our reporter and tried to blackmail him into murder when he went to tell their story because maybe both sides DON’T have fine people. Huh, whodda thunk!”
Allow me to reiterate that I love this show despite how gloriously dumb it is.
New dick owner of CatCo announced straight up she’s abandoning journalistic integrity on day one, literally saying their star reporter cost them subscriptions by winning a Pulitzer… And then tells everyone they have to suck it up and write clickbait no matter what because she gave them all new three year contracts with universal non-compete clauses.
…lady they gotta sign those contracts before you spring that reveal on them, ya know? That’s, like, how contracts work!
And then in very dumb, James Olsen just straight up quits journalism forever rather than even trying to fight the new boss to explore a new life entirely after approximately six hours of consideration, thanks to a pep talk from his sister that didn’t exist till the last quarter of last season.
But eh, maybe they’ll finally do something interesting there before losing that actor.
Also the main villain of the episode shooting beams that, and I quote, “destroy everything they touch!” and then do exactly zero damage to anyone or even anything in the scenery?
And woooof, the end makes it clear there’s gonna be some dumb manufactured drama between Lena and Kara for at least half the season…and yet that followed my literal favorite moment from Melissa Benoist’s acting in the entire series. Seriously, the way she sold her cry-heaving delivery while finally coming clean with Lena about her secret identity left me choked up so long I had to pause the show to recover.
Ugh, I love this stupid ass show so fucking much and hope it runs for a thousand seasons.
I’m pretty much a whole season behind on all Arrowverse shows. Binging through the first seven episodes of Arrow S7 reminded me they’re all dumb shows. But yeah, I still kinda like them all too.
Wow… I haven’t watched this show since they introduced the Guardian Persona, and decided to give the 5th season opener a shot. Unfortunately it didn’t enamour me like the rest of you. Seems like the effects budget has been trimmed by 90% and we’re almost at 90s Hercules levels. The scene with the black hole in the concert hall, where she flies in, vaguely lasers into it somewhere and they fall out again was staged terribly.
The dialogue and action scenes were very plodding and simple. Pity, as I still feel it has potential somewhere, but just never hits the mark for me.
I resemble this remark. In my case, it’s largely because I read so many cheesy comics featuring many of these characters in the 80s and 90s. The show scratches my nostalgia itch, both because of the characters and with just how dumb a lot of the plot and character interactions are. Dumb, but fun.
