I’m going to combine my post on the last two parts of Crisis into one super post, since both episodes aired back-to-back. As always, there will be spoilers ahead for the entire crossover and speculations on the future of some of the shows. Read at your own risk.
We start with Arrow, as we also take our beginning steps towards saying goodbye to the series that started it all. (More on that later). It begins with an introduction to the Monitor and how he caused the eventual crisis through his time travel experiments. We then show how our heroes at Vanishing Point are doing as well as Oliver, who is now Spectre and still in Purgatory. There’s a moment where the group says that Flash is missing, which briefly calls back to the headline and dread that it has still come true, but he has only been gone for moments (to him) looking for the Speed Force. To the rest of the group it has been months, and with that we know some time has passed since we last saw our heroes a month ago in real time. Spectre joins them at Vanishing Point and gives them instructions how to fix the universe.
At first I wasn’t sure how I felt about killing Oliver and turning him into Spectre as the end of his story, but the moment he asks the group, “Do you trust me?” before the big battle, and Barry responds, “With every cell in my body” I knew this was the only way to give him a proper ending. He has been saving his city for 8 seasons, and now he gets to go out by saving the whole universe. They even let him use the signature line one last time, but with a twist, “You have failed this universe”.
I’m glad Oliver’s last heroic act and final moments were actually on Arrow. I’m glad he gets to be with Barry and Sara when it happens. I’m sorry Felicity and the rest of his team don’t get a good final moment with him, but it’s a comic book show with two episodes left. I suspect they’ll find a way to close that open wound before they take their final bows. I’m going to try to keep up the blogging and give Arrow a final farewell on there. It started a whole universe of television programming that I have dedicated a lot of time towards watching, so I think it deserves it’s due.
Quick side note before moving on to part 5 – loved the Flash cameo we got from the DC movies. Always fun when Barry meets a new version of himself.
With that we come to the final chapter of this year’s crossover event – Legends of Tomorrow. Can I just say for starters how perfect this show is tone-wise to not only follow up the sad goodbye to Oliver in the previous hour, but also introduce us to our new universe in a fun and quirky way. Also, I love how self-referential and third-wall-breaking Legends is with the crossovers they’ve participated in.
We start with Supergirl waking up to a new world… one where Lex Luthor is getting the Nobel Peace Prize and is apparently one of the best humans ever. I look forward to seeing the progression of that story as Supergirl continues it’s season.
The rest of the episode is about the Anti-Monitor coming back to kill the Paragons and his eventual downfall (almost literally, as he shrinks into nothingness). The day is saved, and as I wonder what they could possibly set up as the next crossover, they give me the perfect finale I didn’t know I wanted until it happened.
- The eulogy for Oliver given by the president to the people of her country felt like it was really from the network to us, the viewers. From the moment she calls him “the first of our heroes” my heart stopped. That and the moment of silence was a nice note added at the end, as was letting Oliver do the voiceover telling the story of how the new universe was formed and created a new multiverse over time as we see flashes of many other heroes, including some from the DC Universe streaming service.
- As the group says their final goodbye and memorializes Green Arrow, with the lighting of the flame and reveal of the table, the moment of realization that this was the beginning of the formation of the Justice League gave me my answer as to what comes next. With that there are infinite stories they can tell, and they don’t even need to be earth shattering events now that it’s established it’s more common these heroes all work together. Every once in awhile something will be just big enough to ask a friend for help. They may even do some smaller crossover events, like just Flash and Supergirl working together. As a note, I’m assuming we’re doing Justice League but the shot of the cage at the end that says “Gleek” might mean Super Friends instead, as that’s the show he’s associated with. Does this mean we’re also getting the Wonder Twins in the next crossover? Guess we’ll have to wait to find out.
Thus concludes the giant CW crossover event for this season. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m pretty pleased with how everything went down. Barry survived, Oliver got a heroes death, and we have a Justice League/Super Friends team-up to look forward to. Plus I might finally have been inspired to give Black Lightning a try now that everyone is all part of one universe, and he’s probably going to be making future appearances. But that’s just one humble bloggers opinion. What were your likes and dislikes for this event? Did you guess all the twists and turns, or were there a few surprises as well? Leave a comment and keep the convo going.