It should go without saying, but there continue to be spoilers for the CW crossover event in this and all my Crisis posts. Read at your own risk!
Part 2 of Crisis jumps between finding the versions of Superman and Batman who are supposed to be Paragons to aid in the Crisis, while Flash, Mia, Sara, and Constantine try to bring Ollie back and Lex tries to kill every Superman in the multiverse. That’s a lot to pack into an hour of television! We also got a couple more fun guest appearances peppered in.
We start the adventure introducing the idea of the Paragons. My favorite line in the episode happens here, when Kate Kane asks everyone, “Who wants to meet Batman?” I promptly shouted at my tv, “I do! I do!”
A lot of this episode held the theme “things aren’t what they seem”. For one, the Batman reveal was not what I expected in a lot of ways. Broken in body and spirit, this version of Bruce has become the opposite of what Batman stood for when he started his journey. I’m also kinda disappointed that he was just a means of helping Kate on her journey to being a Paragon, as it would’ve been cool to see them fight together at least once. Even still, it was nice getting to see Kevin Conroy play Batman in a live action thing, after years of voicing the character in cartoons and video games.
The other thing that didn’t go as I expected was Lex Luthor’s role in everything. I was very surprised to see the Monitor bring him back for the Crisis, but assumed we needed him for his superior intellect. There was always a part of me, however, that wondered why Lena couldn’t fill that role. Now we see that Lex’s job was to be his usual, evil self. In his mission to kill every Superman in existence, he inadvertently helps our Superman and Louis find the version of Superman they need to be the Paragon of Truth. It also gave us a cool Superman vs Superman fight. (Side note: I love that they actual make jokes about how this version of Superman looks just like Ray Palmer, since they are played by the same actor.)
Some other fun surprises in this episode were the guest appearances. We knew Tom Welling would be appearing at some point, but I was surprised to see that he was living a quiet life on a farm with his Louis and had given up his powers to have a family with her. Again, disappointed we didn’t use his and Kevin Conroy’s guest appearances for more than the one episode, but it’s still cool to see them at all.
The other guest appearance which I don’t think we saw coming was Jonah Hex. It only lasted a few moments, but it was a fun surprise. Always good to see him and Sara on screen together, even for a short time.
We end the episode with Harbinger getting transported to Anti-Monitor’s location. It looks like he has plans for her, similar to the comics. We’ll have to wait till the next chapter to see that part of the story unfold.
With everything that has happened so far, I’m wondering if Ollie’s storyline changing means Flash doesn’t have to die after all. The Monitor has said multiple times that things are not unfolding as predicted. I feel like sacrifices have to be made, but maybe we’ve been totally mislead as to who that will be. Guess we’ll just have to keep watching to find out…