This week’s mini-recaps of The Flash, Arrow, and Legends of Tomorrow.
THE FLASH: “Welcome To Earth-2”
Well, that was fun.
Picking up where last week ended, we find Barry and Team Flash closing off all the breaches in Central City save the one in STAR Labs in preparation for their trek across worlds. Barry, Cisco and Wells make it (seeing some fun Easter Eggs along the way), but the Speed Cannon is damaged, stranding them unless Joe, Caitlin and Jay can fix it in time. And so, our two plots are set in motion.
We’ll start things off with the main story, where after meeting with Earth-2 Henry Hewitt (who is a nice guy!), Cisco finds that he cannot vibe on this Earth. Thankfully, Barry’s Earth-2 self is also a CSI at the CCPD, so Barry just zips over there and kidnaps him so he can take his place, where he meets Detectives Lawton (Deadshot!) and his wife, Detective Iris West. Also, Barry’s mother is still alive. Which is sad. Anyway, on the villain front, we meet Earth-2’s versions of Caitlin and Ronnie, who are Killer Frost and Deathstorm, Zoom’s minions tasked with robbing banks and killing breachers.
They arrive to confront Barry, with Joe dead and Killer Frost out of commission. Wells berates Barry for getting involved with people “he doesn’t know”, and Barry decides that Joe and Iris are his family, not matter what Earth they live in. Iris, Lawton and Earth-1 Cisco load for bear and head out to stop Killer Frost and Deathstorm. They are quickly apprehended, but not before meeting their boss and Zoom’s middle man, Earth-2 Cisco (aka Reverb). Flash shows up to save them, Frost gets shot by Iris, Reverb kills Lawton, Reverb and Ronnie manage to subdue and nearly kill Barry, but not before Zoom arrives, kills them both, and takes Barry to his lair.
Meanwhile, on Earth-1, a meta named Geomancer is demanding to see the Flash. Joe suggests Jay take more Velocity-6 to regain his speed, and Jay reveals that he’s the one who created the formula in the first place, and that it’s what is killing him, not Zoom. The police successfully cordon off the villain, who thinks the Flash is gone and the city is his. Unfortunately for him, Jay and Caitlin have developed Velocity-7, and unfortunately for Jay and Caitlin, it wears off before they can stop Geomancer. Jay licks his proverbial wounds back at STAR Labs and decides to double down on fixing the Speed Cannon.
- Mayor Snart. Heh.
- Detective Deadshot being such a bad shot is such a fun and stupid thing. I love it.
- Earth-2 Joe is quite the crooner. Also quite the dick, though for understandable reasons I guess.
- I really dig Earth-2’s aesthetic. It’s simultaneously art deco and Silver Age comic.
- Danielle Panabaker as Killer Frost did it for me. I have nothing else to add.
- Earth-2 Cisco ate all of the scenery. I’m a little sad to see him die (in the same way Earth-1 Cisco was originally killed by Thawne)
- No idea who the Man in the Iron Mask in Zoom’s prison was, but if it’s Leonardo DiCaprio I’m going to lose my shit.
Episode Grade: A
ARROW: “Sins of the Father”
We pick up immediately where we left off last week, with Oliver Queen proving once and for all that he’s kind of idiot. With a chance to save Thea, he almost immediately decides that he can convince Nyssa and Malcolm, the two most headstrong people on the show, to work together. Of course they don’t, and a League of Assassins war breaks out across Star City. The two wage war across the City (prompting a light, fatherly scolding from Quentin; he’s been very strange this season), and Team Arrow moves to intercept both parties. They succeed with Nyssa, but Malcolm eludes them, only to show up at Thea’s bedside to recount stories of her as an infant as she dies.
The secondary plot tonight is a simple one: Felicity’s father, the Calculator, rather brazenly reveals his identity to his daughter, and she is unsure whether to believe him when he says he’s just a mercenary and that they aren’t so different. Her mother tells her not to trust him, but she invites him to PalmerTech, where they bond a bit over her tech. Turns out he left a souvenir behind in an attempt to steal from her, but she knew that, and set up a test for him, which he failed. So when he shows back up, gifts in arm, Felicity shuts him down and has Quentin arrested, which is cold but admirably foresighted, unlike a certain fiance of hers.
Back in Oliver-is-Crazy-Town, he manages to set up a Trial by Combat between Nyssa and Malcolm (“in the interest of good taste, let us forgo the removal of shirts”, Malcolm says). Rather predictably, Oliver offers to fight on “his wife’s” behalf. This isn’t a particularly great episode, but the fight scene that follows is one of the best the show has ever done. Quick and brutal, Oliver completely dominates Malcolm, who begs for death. Oliver does not grant it, instead severing Malcolm’s hand, knocking him out, and giving his ring to Nyssa in exchange for the Lotus that will save Thea. Nyssa holds a meeting with Oliver and Laurel, only for Malcolm to show up to pay his respects. Surprisingly, Nyssa throws her father’s ring into the fire, saying that she has disbanded the League and rejecting her father’s legacy. For as cool as they looked, it’s great to be done with the League and all of their arch plotlines and frustratingly ineffective fighting.
Episode Grade: B
LEGENDS OF TOMORROW: “White Knights”
We pick up in the mid 80s as the team prepares to break into the Pentagon to find information on Vandal Savage. Ray and Snart (quickly becoming one of the best pairings on the show) pose as janitors, and the latter steals credentials (and a wallet) from a passing officer. Sara and Kendra use these credentials while breaking into the records room. Mick distracts the guards with some old-fashioned arm wrestling, and Firestorm tries to short circuit the alarms. Of course, things go wrong, and Kendra nearly kills a guard on the way out.
Thankfully, the plans lead them to the USSR (and a brief encounter with Chronos) where Ray and Snart again pair up in an attempt to go undercover to seduce Savage’s ballet-loving chief scientist. She shuts Ray down more than once, but quickly falls for Snart’s cool. Of course, he swipes her credentials (and wallet) as well. Wentworth Miller is the best thing about this show, and he’s playing off of Brandon Routh’s naive self-consciousness without seeming mean.
As for the rest of the crew, Rip, Mick and both halves of Firestorm first meet with then engage Chronos and Rip’s mentor, Time Master Druce. Druce plays nice at first, promising Rip the chance to atone for his crimes, but Mick isn’t having it, (rightfully) convinced that Druce is going to kill them to put an end to their meddling. They fight, and Jefferson is wounded after refusing to listen to Stein’s directives anymore. They fight back on the ship, and while it’s a little boring, it’s at least something for Franz Drameh to sink his teeth into, and we all know Victor Garber can handle just about anything this show might throw at him.
Anyways, while Jefferson recovers, Stein goes undercover in the lab where Dr. Vostok (Savage’s scientist and, in the comics, the Negative Woman) works, discovering that his secret project is an attempt to recreate Firestorm, in effect “leveling the arms race against our team,” as Stein puts it. He finds their thermonuclear core, and being impervious to radiation, decides to take and neutralize it, despite the best efforts of Dr. Vostok and Jefferson, the former taking Snart hostage and the latter worried that Stein can’t handle that much radiation on his own. He succeeds, of course (because this show without Victor Garber would be a crime), but isn’t strong enough to escape. Stein, Ray and Rory (who arrived as Snart’s backup) are captured, but Snart escapes with the inert core.
Snart is furious with Rip for not sending in the rest of the crew, and we’ll have to see how Sara, Jax, Snart, Rip and Kendra plan to break them out of a Cold War Soviet Gulag next week.
Episode Grade: B+