It’s crossover week! Christmas came early and it has brought four hours of intense, thrilling, emotional, and amusing superhero-filled crossovers. The first two hours (the Supergirl and Arrow parts) aired on Monday night and the second two (The Flash and Legends Of Tomorrow) aired on Tuesday night. Unlike last year’s crossover in which each of the four episodes centered around one of the four shows, this year’s did a better job of centering it so it all flowed better. Here’s what happened in the Crisis On Earth-X Arrowverse crossover:
Supergirl 3×08 “Crisis On Earth-X Part 1”
Barry and Iris’ wedding is days away and apparently, all the other heroes took their sweet time sending back their RSVP. Everyone is down to attend except Kara and her plus one, Alex, as they are both mopey because of their relationship issues. But in the spirit of weddings and love and fun, they decide to show up. Cut to the girls (Iris, Kara, Caitlin, and Felicity) at a nail salon while Barry and Oliver try on tuxes. As this happens, the conversations turn from Westallen to Olicity, and everyone agrees that Oliver and Felicity should be the next to wed, though the couple in question aren’t so sure. But I guess all the excitement of Barry and Iris’ wedding stirs up something in Oliver because at the rehearsal dinner, he pulls Felicity aside and awkwardly asks her to marry him. This catches Felicity by surprise and in typical Felicity manner, she stutters her way to a no, and when questioned by a confused Oliver, she accidentally blurts a little too loudly that she doesn’t want to marry him. The good news is, up until that moment, the rehearsal dinner was going great. Everyone was mingling, Joe gave an adorable speech, and Alex met Sara (and then they proceeded to make out, which was perfect). Arriving a little late to the scene is Stein, who was busy in the lab. He pulls Jax aside and says that he’s been working on something for Jax. With Cisco helping out with the Firestorm breakup, they’re one step closer to splitsville, so he wanted to give Jax some new powers to make up for what he’ll lose. He’s come up with something that’ll give Jax what can best be described as Spidey-senses’ but Jax turns this offer down.
Finally it’s wedding day! We see a few of the characters waking up, but none of these scenes are as amusing as Alex’s, who wakes up in bed next to Sara, and then has to sneak out awkwardly before running into her outside of the church. We don’t have to wait very long for the wedding to start, but before it does, Barry has a rather odd conversation with some server at the church who offers him a glass of water. She seems really excited to see the wedding, and I’m only mentioning it in this recap as apparently, she’s more important than she appears to be and will probably return later. Iris then makes her way down the aisle in a lovely dress and the ceremony starts. But this is a TV wedding in a superhero world, so of course things can’t go right. Just before they get to the vows, the church is attacked. All the heroes immediately jump up to fight the intruders while everyone else in the church makes a run for it. They’re pretty evenly matched, though. There’s a Supergirl-like attacker and an archer that seems a lot like the Green Arrow, as well as a bunch of gunmen, all wearing dark colours and a Nazi symbol on their arm. It takes a lot, but eventually, they defeat them all, and even get to bring the knocked out dark archer Nazi back to a STAR Labs cell. As everyone wonders what happened and why Nazis attacked a wedding, Harry explains that there’s technically a 53rd Earth called Earth-X that no one talks about or visits as it’s one in which the Nazis won WWII and Hilter remained in power for decades more. Their best guess is that now these Nazis want control of more Earths.
The episode ends with the heroes all digesting this information. While I can’t say this was an amazing episode as it was kind of slow, I loved some aspects of it, and it did a decent job setting up the rest of the crossover. The fight scene in the church was really cool because we got to see the heroes working together in fun ways (Cisco vibing Oliver around, Sara and Alex tag-teaming…). The thing I adore about these crossovers is that we get to see characters that don’t interact too often do so, even if it’s a throwaway line between Mick Rory and Captain Singh!
Arrow 6×08 “Crisis On Earth-X Part 2”
So we wouldn’t have to wait two days for Arrow‘s episode, they moved this episode to after the Supergirl one, and I’m totally fine with that! We pick up right away with the unmasking of the celled archer. I’d ask you to guess his identity, but I don’t think you’d get it: Tommy Merlyn. Yes, Oliver’s old pal is an Earth-X Nazi. Oliver is pretty shaken and asks to speak to Tommy alone. In this conversation, it becomes clear that this guy isn’t anything like the wonderful Tommy we so dearly miss from Arrow. Oliver tries to appeal to his softer side, but this Tommy doesn’t have one. After revealing that he is loyal to his cause (Nazis), he chews a cyanide capsule, killing himself on the spot.
In an interesting shift of perspective, we see an evil Oliver with an evil Kara and Eobard Thawn (who’s always evil, right?) as Harrison Wells. They find out that evil Tommy is dead, sparking a fight between evil Oliver and Thawn that evil Kara has to stop (hmm, could these differences lead to their eventual downfall?). The biggest thing we learn from this scene, though, is that on Earth-X, evil Oliver and evil Kara are a couple, and we get to watch them kiss, which is weird and wrong and nope.
Back at STAR Labs, a few pairs have some deep talks. First is Oliver and Felicity, who finally have a conversation regarding their little marriage chat the day before. Felicity says that though she loves Oliver, she likes the way their life is now and doesn’t want to get married at all (despite agreeing to his first proposal a few years ago). My issue with this is that it’s very out of character for Felicity. We’ve had no indication thus far that she’s not wanting to get married. She’s never even shown any signs of reservation. She even later tells Iris that since she was paralyzed shortly after the first proposal, she’s scared that more issues could arise if they get engaged again, and not only is that baloney, but again, she’s never hinted at these feelings before, so I’m not loving this arc, especially not in the midst of Nazi attacks. The second duo to have a chat at the lab is Stein and Jax. From their psychic connection, Stein can tell Jax is upset, and after some questions, Jax reveals that he’s not upset about losing his powers, he’s upset about losing Stein, who’s like a father to him (don’t mind me, just crying a little). I am going to miss Stein so much. The last pair to chat is Alex and Kara. Alex is very upset at herself for sleeping with Sara and even begins second-guessing her breakup with Maggie, but Kara assures her sister that a one night stand is totally fine, and she was right to end it with Maggie.
Suddenly, the lab gets alerts of an attack nearby, so Kara, Barry, and Oliver head over. They come face to face (literally!) with evil Kara, evil Oliver, and Thawn, and are very disgusted when they learn that evil Kara and evil Oliver aren’t just a couple, they’re married. The evil trio have also stolen what they’re calling a prism, and they tell our heroes that they think this world to be weak. They begin to fight, and Oliver even uses a Kryptonite arrow on evil Kara, but they retaliate by attacking civilians, forcing Barry, Oliver, and Kara to go save them instead. This interaction wasn’t a total loss, though. Using the blood on the Kryptonite arrow, they try to track the evil Nazis, and it works, so Barry, Kara, Oliver, Sara, Alex, Jax, and Stein head over to where they are, thus beginning a really cool fight scene. Unfortunately, while the team can hold their own against the Nazis, they can’t quite handle the huge robot Metallo, who joins the fight. Meanwhile, at STAR Labs, evil Oliver attacks, forcing Mick and Caitlin-as-Killer-Frost into action. They’re defeated, as is the rest of Team Arrow who show up to help (minus Diggle, who is still hurt). Felicity and Iris manage to hide and remain unseen, but as we saw from the bachelorette party, they’re kind of helpless without powers.
Evil Oliver arrives back at the big fight just as the heroes wake up from being knocked unconscious. They’re all cuffed with a metal collar and are forced to listen as the evil Kara and evil Oliver explain their real intentions: to use the prism to create a red sun that’ll weaken Kara so they can take her heart and transplant it into evil Kara, who is slowly dying from solar radiation. The Metallo knocks them out again and they wake up on Earth-X in a concentration camp, but Kara is not with them.
And with that, we’re halfway through the crossover event. So, to recap, Barry, Kara, Oliver, Jax, Stein, Alex, and Sara are on Earth-X. Harry, Mick, Caitlin, Dinah, Curtis, and Rene are unconscious in STAR Labs holding cells, and Felicity and Iris are hiding in the lab without any protection. As for Wally, he was sent to protect Joe and Cecile, who are staying far away from the fights. And Ralph is nowhere to be seen; he probably skipped town. Either way, the good guys seem to be in a losing situation here. And all in all, this episode was okay. As I said, the drama with Felicity seemed odd to me, and the evil Kara plan for killing Kara is kind of weird. How did they know Kara would be at the wedding? And why attack during the ceremony, and not later? Why use Nazis, when clearly just one Metallo could do the trick? Hopefully the next two episodes answer these questions.
The Flash 4×08 “Crisis On Earth-X Part 3”
Once again we jump right back in where we left off. The team in the concentration camp only get a few moments to look around before armed Nazis come in with their leader, evil Quentin Lance. He brings them out to a field to be executed but just before the triggers are pulled, they’re saved by none other than Earth-X Leonard Snart! And Earth-X Leonard Snart is just as snarky and slick as Earth-1’s. Snart (or Leo, as he introduces himself as) ushers them all into a trench where they meet with new character Ray (not to be confused with Ray Palmer of from the Legends). He and Leo are in a relationship and Ray has powers in which he glows brightly and can fly. He’s known as The Ray, and he uses his powers right then to get Leo and the gang to Earth-X’s STAR Labs. At the lab, they’re informed of a cross-world gateway, but with evil Oliver on Earth-1, the resistance wants to blow up the gateway to keep him away. The leader of this resistance is Earth-X Winn Schott, sporting some very nice light facial hair. Alex, the only one of the group who knows the other Winn, tries to convince him to let them through the gateway before they blow it up, but he’s refusing to change their plans. Eventually Leo manages to convince him, though Leo does it more for Ray, who’s actually from Earth-1 as well. General Schott gives them an hour to break into the Nazi lab and get to the gateway.
Meanwhile, over at Earth-1’s STAR Labs, it’s up to Iris and Felicity to not only get their friends out of the cells, but save Kara, who is scheduled for surgery. Though they manage to get to the cells and even knock out a few Nazis, the doors are broken, so they can’t do anything more. They decide to focus on Kara then, and they find her under the prism, weakening. The girls shut off the power and get Kara away, but they don’t get too far, and Metallo sends all three of them back to evil Oliver and Thawn. Thawn threatens to kill Felicity unless she gives over the power code, and at Kara’s insistence, she does.
Back on Earth-X, their plan involves Oliver pretending to be his evil doppelganger, and it works enough to get him inside and to find out about an Earth-X Waverider, but evil Lance is suspicious, and when Oliver refuses to kill Earth-X Felicity (imprisoned for being Jewish), a fight breaks out. But he handles it and manages to shut down the power-dampening collars they’re all still wearing. This allows the rest of the group to break into the gateway lab, but they have to rush as General Schott has sent his weapon: The Red Tornado (which you may remember from season 1 of Supergirl). Barry and Ray go stop the Red Tornado while everyone else attacks the Nazi guarding the gateway. In the mess of the fight, Stein and Jax separate so they can do different tasks, and as Stein runs toward the power lever, he’s shot down. I may or may not have screamed. In this episode, Stein does also take a moment to tell Jax that he saw Jax as a son and loves him, so they are on good terms, but I still am not ready to say goodbye.
And that’s the end of the third crossover episode. I’m so glad we get some Snart back, and his relationship with Ray is interesting, especially since Ray wasn’t introduced too well. What exactly are his powers? I don’t know. Either way, they’re the good guys, and they’re helping our heroes get back to Earth-1. With Kara still about to lose a heart and with the heroes still not quite through the gateway (and with Stein shot!), things haven’t improved since part 2, but everyone is at least still kind of alive and we’re are very ready for the final part.
Legends Of Tomorrow 3×08 “Crisis On Earth-X Part 4”
So though Stein was shot, she still manages to crawl over to the lever and pull it, activating the gateway. He gets shot a few more times and is bleeding out when others get to him, so Jax merges with him so they can get him to Gideon. Beating them to Earth-1 STAR Labs is the Legends, though. Felicity sent out an SOS and they arrive just in time. Ray (Palmer) stops Thawn from cutting open Kara and Nate breaks everyone out of the cells, so they can all reclaim the Lab from the Nazis. They all team up to destroy Metallo, but evil Oliver still finds Kara and is about to kill Felicity to get to her (causing Felicity to give a quick speech about how her grandparents survived the holocaust so she’s not backing down. I’m glad that with this Nazi plot going on here, the show is giving time for Jewish characters like Felicity and Stein and minority characters like Sara, Ray (The Ray), and Alex to express their particular disgust for Nazis) but the others arrive from Earth-X and Oliver threatens evil Kara to counter this. Luckily Thawn speeds in and takes evil Oliver and evil Kara out of the room, allowing Oliver and Felicity to embrace.
The entire group decides to camp out on the Waverider to avoid Nazis while they come up with a plan (twenty-ish people, one bathroom….sounds fun) and this allows for everyone to reunite and for Stein to get help from Gideon. The problem, as Caitlin soon reveals to Ray (Palmer), is that he’s close to dying, and it’s only his link with Jax that’s keeping him temporarily alive. Jax may not know this, but Stein does, and with the little strength he has left, he calls Jax over to him. He asks Jax for Cisco’s serum to split Firestorm, and though at first Jax refuses to give it to him as he knows it’s suicide, Stein explains that he’s lived a full life and Jax has to live his as well. Unable to deny this dying man’s request, Jax hands him the serum, and before he drinks it, Stein thanks him for the adventure and asks him to tell Clarissa and Lily that they’re loved. Then Stein slowly drinks the serum as Jax cries at his side. You know who else is crying? Me. Straight up sobbing through this whole scene. I mean, I know Victor Garber had to leave, but we’ve spent this whole season of Legends assuming he’d just retire and get to live the rest of his life happily with his wife and daughter and grandson. So to have him die here and now is really rude, honestly. Plus, none of the Legends got to say goodbye, and that’s sad too. We then see everyone finding out and grieving, but that’s not as heartbreaking as having to watch Jax knock on Clarissa’s door and see her and Lily also just break down with him.
But they don’t have time to fully grieve, as Nazis are still around. As they prep for their fight, evil Oliver contacts them from their Waverider with a proposal. He won’t unleash his evil wife (who has enough radiation in her to be a huge bomb) on Earth-1 if they hand over Kara. Of course that doesn’t fly with Oliver, and the battle begins. Most of them are on the ground fighting, but Cisco, Harry, Felicity, Iris, Amaya, Caitlin-as-Killer-Frost, and Zari take over the task of turning off the shields on the other Waverider. While Barry fights with Thawn and Oliver fights with evil Oliver, Kara takes on evil Kara, and with her out in the air, the radiation intensifies. Kara grabs evil Kara and brings her up into space where she explodes, and then Nate manages to catch Kara who then fell from the sky. Evil Kara’s death distracts evil Oliver for a second and our Oliver kills him, unlike Barry, who lets Thawn get away. It doesn’t matter, though, because they’ve won. Earth-1 is free from Earth-X Nazis. Back at STAR Labs, Barry bids goodbye to Ray (The Ray) and Leo, but before Cisco vibes them back, Leo tells Ray that he’s going to stick around Earth-1 for a bit, but promises to return eventually. If this means we can keep Snart around for a little longer, I am all for it!
And though by now I had stopped crying over Stein, we are next treated to a funeral, and the tears come again. In a casket marked nicely with a Star of David, a few of the heroes toss in some soil as they pay their respects. Jax gives a powerful and heartfelt speech and everyone (even Mick) cries. It’s a really sweet scene and I’m glad all the heroes and Stein’s family is present.
And then more goodbyes. The Legends fly off, and the Danvers sisters return to their Earth, and soon it’s just Iris, Barry, Felicity, and Oliver left. When asked about their marriage, Iris and Barry say they’re just going to quietly elope. They ask Oliver as the mayor to officiate, but since they’re not in Star City, it wouldn’t be legal, so Barry flashes over to Star City to grab Diggle (who was ordained years ago) and their mini ceremony begins. Though just before the vows, Felicity interrupts and decides that recent events have changed her mind and she does, in fact, want to get married. So Diggle officiates them too, and the episode ends with Westallen and Olicity finally getting married, which is super cute, but I feel bad for Joe and William and Wally and everyone else who probably wanted to see these nuptials, but didn’t.
And that is the end of the Crisis On Earth-X Arrowverse crossover! All in all, really good. Lots of heart and action and humor and emotion and fun, which is exactly what we want in a crossover. Overall, I am impressed that they pulled it off so well and really gave fans a lot of what we wanted (though NO ONE wanted Stein to die and I will cry about that for a while!). However, my biggest issue with this whole crossover is the why. Why did evil Oliver and evil Kara send all those Nazis to attack a wedding just to get to Kara, and why bother with all those men when Metallo was clearly qualified enough. And why did they target this Kara, and not a Kara from a different Earth? And why was Thawn working with them? It just felt half-baked. Luckily everything else made up for this. My favourite parts were the last (The Legends Of Tomorrow episode and the first (the Supergirl episode). What did you think of the crossover?
