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Review/Recap: DC’s Legends of Tomorrow – Meet the Legends S501

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My TV show bae has returned and Legends kicked off season 5 in the same campy but classy fashion that made me fall in love with the show.  Meet the Legends picks up after the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths where our ragtag team of time-traveling badasses has become superstar A-list superheroes who are the subject of a documentary.  The doc crew follows the team as they celebrate the return of Sara, Rory and Atom from their triumphant multiverse saving return. The team is trying to revamp their image and keep their government funding by using the documentary as a way to be transparent because it was the only way that Ava could think of the save the team and the ship.

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This week’s mission has the Legends in Russia investigating a time quake that occurs at Rasputin’s funeral when he, yet again, comes back from the dead.  The team is two men down because Gary is now Constantine’s apprentice which should come in handy as they track down and return all of the baddies that were released during the season four finale because three mages are better than one and a fairy godmother. While they try to minimize the time damage, Ava wonders how to help Sara through the pain she’s dealing with following Oliver’s double death. While the rest of the team deal with the Rasputin problem, Gary and Constantine are in NYC dealing with a possessed by Masher boy who needs to have a chat with him about the hell that is breaking loose in hell. The new ship techie gives Sara a cutely drawn picture and in the process scares Sara away from giving her an awkward AF handwritten card which might have been for the best.

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While in Russia no one can figure out how best to fix the time shift and instead of working as a team, they go off on their own; Nate and Atom head off the stop Rasputin from killing Yusupov, Ava decides to get her guns up and kill Rasputin and everyone’s favorite werewolf decides to give Rasputin a love letter so she can use the drama to help Rory write another Rebecca Silver book. While Constantine catches up over drinks with Masher he inquires about Astra’s soul release party before sending Masher back to hell and then he summons Gary to hail the ship so he can warn the rest of the team. As Nate is being hypnotized to heal his lovelorn soul, Ava decides to shoot her shot but, Rasputin spits the bullet back out and orders his men to kill her.

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Back on the ship all of the rogue team members reconvene and get a royal tongue lashing from a fed-up Sara, who is upset that they went off and tried to solve things on their own, in an attempt to spare her having to deal with whatever happened in Crisis. Sara has a huge emotional breakdown and unloads on everyone for not asking her how she was doing after not only the death of Oliver or the world ending. The rest of the team unloads how they all feel helpless to aid Sara or fix Gideon to the doc crew but, their inflections are short-lived because they’re interrupted by Rasputin, thanks to the doc director they left behind and his ship video link access, who lets them in on his plan to kill the Romanov’s, which will make him an immortal czar.

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Sara decided to take their new techie and roll out to stop him, leaving the rest of the team on the ship without a heads up. Meanwhile back at the dinner Rasputin is about to get his poison plan up and running but, Sara isn’t letting anyone die on her watch and, as the rest of the team watches from the ship, unsure about if they should help Sara or let her fight alone as she wants. When all seems lost, the team comes through in the clutch and show up to help her and save the day. In one of the cutest things that I’ve ever seen on TV, besides Ray and Nate’s bromantical bromance, Ava lets out all of her feelings to Sara while they have a beautifully choreographed fight scene. With Rasputin still seemingly unkillable Atom shrinks, slides into him and then expands, blowing him up from the inside while wearing a camera, which hopefully insures that the team’s government funding doesn’t dry up. But, after they the team has a chance to think about it, they sit before an audience and decide to claim everything in the documentary was fake so that they can keep their anonymity which would have left the team in financial peril but, Rory did what Rory does and he stole a 50 million dollar Faberge egg, saving the team and the day. 

While Sara and Ava wrap their heads around the team’s new found financial freedom, Constantine returns and shares his decision to send himself to hell and do some recon. Sadly, Wolfie has left the ship, because Rory gave her his Rebecca Silver title and she’s off to have adventures and fall in love so that she can write the work that the fans deserve. And if all that wasn’t enough for you, Zari is the glitch in Gideon’s matrix and she left a message for Nate, telling her how she feels since she couldn’t do it during the Heyworld events.

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As usual, Legends did not disappoint, it perfectly used its minimal callbacks to previous episodes and themes, gave us a clear outline of the story lines that this season will explore and kept us entertained the whole time. The directing and acting were so solid that if you didn’t get caught in your feels when Sara lets it all out on the ship and wants to give her a hug, at risk to your life, then you have no soul. The writing was realistic and the characters stayed consistent and above reproach in their style and demeanor. This whole episode was a win and just like every time before, I can’t wait to see what happens next week (no, really I can’t . Hell is open and all of the biggest baddies are riding through time, immortal and serving up evil!).

Overall: 9.5

Recap/Review: Arrow- Green Arrow & the Canaries S8E9

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“Crisis on Infinite Earths” has come and gone, Oliver Queen is dead, the year is 2040, and we find ourselves in Star City. Oliver is dead, has been for twenty years, and Mia is living her best heiress life. She’s about to graduate, and wakes up to a proposal from a man that she loves, JJ, and a pretty sick bohemian apartment and everything seems to be going just fine.

Black Canary is singing and playing piano in a bar that she owns and we learn about another Crisis ramification, when Dinah left Oliver’s funeral she realized that the Black Canary doesn’t exist on Earth Prime, so she could live a life free from loss or old mistakes. Laurel is still doing her Canary rounds and she time jumped to do it in 2040 to keep the city safe because socialite Bianca Bertinelli is kidnapped and found dead in three days. If she doesn’t save her then in a year Star City will fall into chaos. Laurel turning up in 2040 means that Mia’s peaceful existence is about to shatter because with her father gone and Dinah living the lounge life, Mia is going to have to become the Green Arrow that the city needs and help the Canaries to save her friend.

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Laurel uses a special ring to do the equivalent of what J’onn J’onzz did to all of the other superfriends, thanks to Cisco replicating J’onn’s power using tech. Mia gives her back all of her memories of her father and of the multiverse shrinking that occurred during Crisis. All of Mia’s memories hit her like a ton of bricks, filled with the pain , sadness, mistakes and deaths causing her to leave her graduation/engagement party and rethink the latter because her fiance killed people she loved in her other life. Back at Mia’s the Canary squad convince her to get back into the Arrow game and get some intel from Bianca’s family by serving as a distraction so the Canaries can plant some bugs around the house. The intel they gather has the Canaries and Arrow stop a late-night shipment that they suspect IS Bianca but, it turns out that the shipment is just a bunch of green vials. A literal bomb gets dropped revealing who viewers are led to believe is JJ because he is rocking the Deathstroke mask in his villainous best.

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Mia, sure that JJ isn’t Earth Prime’s Deathstroke, heads to his job to prove it or be proven wrong while Lauren is hell-bent on being as destructive a force as possible in Mia’s life. Mia confronts JJ and accuses him of kidnapping Bianca. She asks him to open his files since she couldn’t get into his computer if he wants to prove that he’s not lying to her. Because he loves her JJ obliges and shows her the hidden files which are nothing more than pictures and plans for a surprise honeymoon to Fiji and when a new post from the believed kidnapped Bianca shows up on JJ’s phone we find ourselves wondering if he’s being honest and if Earth Prime Deathstroke is someone else or JJ’s gaslighting her and us and is about to pull off the Kaiser Soze of all Kaiser Soze’s.

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While Mia tries with no avail to salvage her relationship Dinah and Laurel discover that the video of Bianca sharing her namaste moment online was a deep fake and she is in fact still in danger. Laurel shows up post dumping to explain to Mia what she needs to do and talk her through her emotional hard spot as she grapples with the competing realities going rogue in her brain. In the end, Bianca is rescued and her boyfriend Trevor turns out to be Earth Primes OG Deathstroke, Mia decides to put on the suit and work towards being the savior of Star City like she was in her original life, Dinah links up with Laurel to start a Canary network,  JJ gets kidnapped and woken up in the same way that Mia was , which could mean his return to Deathstroke, Mia’s brother William gets taken as they check out their dads statue and, Laurel confides in Dinah that Mia may have been behind the fall of Star City and she blew up her world by awakening her in the hope that if she becomes the Green Arrow the future won’t fall.

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On the surface Green Arrow & the Canaries is a formulaic winner, it hits all the right notes, the action to story ratio is solid, the acting is well done, the direction is stellar and the evil under plot is believable. But, Laurel’s character isn’t well written and it goes beyond them not being likable, I could understand not being likable because I love a good female antihero but, she has no direction for someone on a mission. She also cut off Mia’s agency at the knees in a way that made no sense, added nothing to the story and then she switched on her emotional and mission position, seemingly out of nowhere and became nice and compassionate. Laurel’s arc made no sense, there was no awakening, no build-up, nothing that gave us a way to connect to her or even care about her. I find that most writers have a tendency to no not be able to create a  female anti-hero in a way that where they don’t seem underdeveloped and lack consistency, they seem to make them one dimensional, all “bitch” or all “angel” with no layers in between. When it came to Laurel, who was supposed to be the catalyst to whatever is coming next, I didn’t hate her or love her, I just didn’t understand her because she was written in a way where she had a purpose but, not any real agency or ideology that would make us see her way as right or wrong. Her character was chaotic problematic and didn’t come off as neutral, good or evil which made it hard to get to know her and I felt that the character deserved better.

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If you can get past the Laurel problem, the episode itself wasn’t that bad it was a nice time jump with a good introduction to Mia and her world in Earth Prime. Katherine McNamara shines as the unsure heroine and if there’s a spin-off brewing when this final season of Arrow comes to a close, I would watch it in a heart beat. She managed to give such an amazing performance that even with that hair, I forgot she was in Shadowhunters. The rest of the cast held their own, honestly Katie Cassidy held her own to the best of her ability as Laurel given what they chose to give her to work with, and it was a pretty fun watch. As an Arrow newby, I have up until this point only watched cross overs and if not for Crisis hitting the reset and causing me to be invested in the lives of all of the characters in the Arrowverse, I never would have watched another episode but, if this is an indication of how the rest of the final season will go, I’m all in.

Overall: 8.2

Review/Recap: Batwoman – How Queer Everything Is Today S1E10

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When Kate was pulled out of Gotham to help save the multiverse for Crisis on Infinite Earths, much like Black Lightning, she was dealing with some pretty heavy stuff. Her twin sister, the villainess currently known as Alice, was on a mission to destroy everyone in her life, and to an extent in Gotham,  but her. Her stepmother was dead, her stepsister was forcing her to choose a side, her dad was in handcuffs after a stellar frame job and,  the city going to the Arkham ready psychos. While the biggest thing that Kara had to worry about was working for Lex Luthor in a world where people thought he was a good guy, Batwoman had to return to her world and it was literally falling apart to such a degree that Crisis felt like a vacation.

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Queer picks up with Kate riding a badass BatHarley to save a train full of passengers, some of whom are just trying to see Jagged Little Pill after the breaks were cut. After the rescue is complete a cop “saves” her and now she can’t get rid of him or the shipping that the press keeps doing. Alice is having a tea party at the cemetery and semi-vandalizing her dead stepmother’s gravestone while her boyfriend tries to bring her back to reality because he knows something she won’t see, that the twins are never, ever, ever getting back together.

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A new threat is looming and it’s an animated puppy avatar cyber-terrorist who’s holding the city’s digital secrets hostage unless his crowdfunding drive to the tune of five million dollars is received by Friday at midnight. Kate spends a lot of the episode trying to come to terms with all of the parts of her that she is hiding to save not only her secret identity but, the city. While Kate is all about hunting the hacker, who is hiding out at her old prep school, Mary is trying to save the only parent that she has left from being wrongfully convicted of killing her mother. Both of the girls have a very valid mission in the episode but, with all of the secrets keeping them apart it’s quite possible that all the work Kate has been doing to keep Mary safe might be for nothing. Batwoman finds the hacker and discovers that she’s just a scared school girl, Parker, who was upset after her ex outed her to her super religious parents and she just wanted the money to escape. Kate finds herself mask on staring into a mirror, realizing that hiding who she is might be bad, not just for her but, for everyone.  Alice kidnaps Parker and of course, Batwoman comes to the rescue and to save Parker, she takes off her mask. Finding out that Batwoman is the “super gay” Kate, makes Parker feel a sense of loyalty, not just to The Bat but, she doesn’t want to be responsible for outing everyone after what happened to her when she was outed. But, Kate tells her that it is OK and so Parker sends a mass text out to everyone and turns the tables on Alice, handcuffing her and trying to get her to tell her how to diffuse the bomb she planted at the school. Kate lets her know that she is dead to her and with sirens blazing in the background, Alice discovers that Parker didn’t do what she asked, she sent one text to Alice and another one to everyone else in the building, warning them that there was a bomb in the building, giving them time to escape. When everything is said and done and Alice ends up in an interrogation room in Sophie’s care, Batwoman comes out as a lesbian because she knows that there is more than one Parker out there and, and she goes to hug Mary because she didn’t know how else to be there for her and, she wants to be there for everyone in Gotham in every way that she can. The episode ends with a twist that I can’t wait to see unravel next week, Beth is back, just in time for her and Kate’s birthday and she has no clue who Alice is and since we know all about Crisis, we know that this can all unfold in a lot of different ways.

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Batwoman and Supergirl play on Sunday night and they run back to back, with Supergirl raising the darkness meter and Batwoman holding steady, they go together like PB & J which is a good thing. Batwoman sticks to her paragons ethos and is still a crusader of courage and she’s willing to go against anyone who is against the greater, common good.  Kate’s character remains consistent and the writing remains pop-culture heavy (even crossing brands) and well written, showing every side of the human condition. Out of all of the episodes that I have seen since the pilot, this one is my favorite. It showed how dark people can get when they are afraid of being exposed, how rational people can act irrationally when they’re afraid of their life being upturned. Queer was an emotional and realistic take on things, the lighting kept you uneasy and the directing and camera work made you feel like you were a fly on the wall stuck in voyeur position which made this an interesting experience and an entertaining watch. I also loved how they slid a pretty realistic “Representation Matters” monologue into the script, it was just honest enough to avoid being too cliched and it didn’t come off as pandering or out of place. I really hope that we see more of Parker, she’s a talented young woman and when Batwoman gives her to offer to come see her if she needs to talk, I hope she takes her up on it because statistically speaking, having even one supportive adult in an LGBTQ+ kids life ups their chances of surviving and staying alive. I also loved how Parker’s face lit up when she discovered that the Gotham’s hero was just like her, it gave her hope and that’s what everyone in Gotham and, in the world out here needs.

Overall Rating: 9.3

Review/Recap: Supergirl – The Bottle Episode S5E10

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The official midseason premiere of Supergirl picks up after the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths. Kara is disgusted with Lex and her being known worldwide as collaborators and she wants to come clean with Lena upfront this time so that their friendship can be open and honest but, she doesn’t know that Lena escaped the Crisis with her memory untouched. While Lex tries to bring Lena into the fold she and her unwiped mind let him in on the fact that no one seems to remember the Leviathan is still out there. Brainiac 5 meets another Brainiac 5 in what appears to be an side effect of the Crisis and in attempting to bring the alterna Brainiac to Alex at the DEO, he finds himself in a room full of Brainiac 5’s including a female one who is head of the DEO.

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Kara’s attempt to come clean to Lena is met with exactly the opposition you’d expect but, ever the Paragon of Hope, Supergirl still believes that she can get their friendship back and they can work together to save the world. Back at the DEO someone is wiping out the Brainiacs with a biosynthetic virus and the Brainiacs have all converged on Earth-Prime and Brainiac Prime lets them all know that all the multiverses are dead. Lex summons Supergirl and Alex to his office to make his version of a peace pact and give each other an update on where all of Earth Prime’s threats stand.

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Meanwhile, at Al’s Bar the Brainiac’s learn that all of Al’s Bar was a wormhole site and when the universes merged all of the people in Al’s Bar’s across the multiverse were transported to Earth-Prime. We also find out that Lex’s mom is back too and since Lena is on the loose looking for a partner so she goes to mommy dearest who tells her to chose Lex over Kara because she will never trust Lex, so he can never hurt her. Alex is having a big problem, understandably, about working for Lex and goes to J’onn J’onzz for help who tells her to follow her heart and do what she thinks is right even if it’s “wrong”. The female Braniac 5 is up to something and at first glance appears to be working for the Leviathan, or at least very interested in what is going on with them. She finds Brainiac 5  to find out what’s going on with him and learns about his personality inhibitors and attempts to change him. Lady Brainiac (Kor-El) attempts to get him to reconnect to the big brain while one of the other Brainiac’s is visited by Nia who catches him holding on to a bottle that contains the 7 billion souls that he has contained to save them and wants to open his universe in Prime. Nia alerts Brainiac Prime, and Supergirl about what is going on and they come to her aid but Earth Bottling Brainiac is already on the move, and he’s the one who is killing the Brainiac’s who try and stop him.

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The bottling Brainy wants to open his world but, doing so would destroy both worlds and while the Brainy collective, Supergirl and Alex think that they have more time because the only saber using Argonium 44 that he can use to open it has been destroyed. Andrea Roja’s mentor is trying to convince her to extend her Obsidian tech idea to basically, turn everyone into the people sent off-world in Wall-E. Brainiac Prime is reliving some painful childhood memories that explain how he came to possess his three-dot inhibitors and how he is unable to take them off because he fears that he may have evil within him. While having their heart to heart with Supergirl they realize that the witches who released reign in “our” world but, who are benign in ours after the Big Al’s Wormhole Merge Bar Party are capable of opening the bottle and that’s Bottle Brainiacs only play.

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Nia, Supergirl and Brainiac Prime show up at the bar in time to catch the Bottle Brainy and his new collection of helpful witches about to open the bottle. During what can only be described as the a campily beautiful bar fight to N’Sync’s “It’s Gonna Be Me,” Brainiac Prime finds himself unable to win against Bottle Brainy with Nia’s encouragement and love he decides to take off the inhibitors, allowing him to connect with Bottle Brainy and together they stop him from opening the bottle. One of the witches comes to her senses and decides that it is better for them all to wait for a solution to everyone’s new world problems and trust Brainiac Prime and his friends. Prime then encases the witches and Bottle Brainy in his universe bottle in an act of mercy and compassion until they can safely release them home.

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The remaining two Brainiacs decide to go back into the Big Brain since they aren’t needed on this planet. Lady Kor-El stays behind a bit to warn Brainiac Prime that he needs to abandon his friends and Nia and work with Lex Luthor if he is to save the last remaining world. She knows this because fighting Lex is what took her world down the road to ruin and Brainiac prime is now stuck with secret information that will undoubtedly have effects that ripple throughout the remainder of this season. Lex and Lena agree to join forces after they state their terms while Lex is bound with truth manacles which are bound to make things awkward for Supergirl and the rest of the DOE team. Brainiac breaks up with Nia and all of our hearts break because while we know why he’s doing it, it doesn’t make it sting less, especially when we’re sure that there has to be another way. While the rest of the team prepares to stand against Lex, Brainiac Prime offers Lex his services and they head off to collect The Toymaker (our boy Wynn is back) who came through the wormhole and was arrested ( a nice callback to the toy monkey they found in the lost & found box at Al’s).

Overall, Episode 10 was the only logical way to show the ripples of the merge and the overreaching effects that the events of Crisis caused. While our heroes remain mostly OK, even Lex got to keep the people that he “loved”, other planets and people were not so lucky and while they may not know what they are missing there is still a hole. As a stand-alone episode in what I’m sure will be a multi-layered storyline with a lot of intricate moving pieces, this was a nice part of the puzzle. I am a huge fan of this new, all-inclusive, dark direction that Supergirl (and the DC shows on the CW) have taken and if this is what a post-Crisis Prime looks like, I’m here for it.

Overall: 8.7

Recap/Review: Crisis on Infinite Earths Part 5 – DC’s Legends of Tomorrow

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Just when you think you’re out, DC on the CW pulls you back in. In the Crisis Crossover finale it’s the fall out from the repercussions of what has happened.

Kara wakes up in her own bed feeling relaxed at least until Dazzler tells her to get to work. Kara rushes down just in time to see Lex Luthor getting a Nobel Peace Prize and unfortunately she’s the only person who remembers, at least until she bumps into J’onn at work. It seems like only the Paragons remember what happened and know that all of the Earth’s have been merged thanks to Oliver’s ultimate sacrifice.

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In Central City a couple of utility workers discover a passed out Nash (a Pariah depending on how things went down) and in Star City, Sara is having a bunch of meshed memories, on her way to meet Roy. J’onn J’onzz shows up to fill Sara in and mind-meld with Ray to catch him up as he has done with every other DC superhero and their teams in this combined Prime Earth. Once everyone is gathered and celebrating being in the same universe as all of their super friends, old and new, they discover that Oliver didn’t survive the battle with the Anti-Monitor and they all have to grieve his loss a second time.

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After fighting off some rogue Shadow Monsters the not dead Anti-Monitor is forced into a perpetually shrinking state of existence ending that threat, for now. The episode ends with a memorial funeral for Oliver in the Hall of Justice with Batwoman, Flash, Sara, Black Lightning, Atom, Supergirl, and Superman and now that they have a cohesive universe in Prime Earth the beginning of the Super Friends with a seat reserved for their fallen savior and friend, the Green Arrow. We also see an empty cage and a banana, which means we might get to see the Wonder Twins and him at some point on any of the shows. We also see that there still might be other Earths that include Stargirl, a nice tie in for her upcoming CW/DC Universe show.

Overall this episode was pure fire, it’s a fun romp through memory lane and filled us with hope for the DC Universe on the CW as well as one cohesive universe where all of our faves can join forces at any time. I binge-watched all five episodes in order and, in my honest opinion, I felt like it was more of a movie. More so than anything that DC has put on the big screen. It was beautifully acted, wonderfully acted, and directed with such a cohesive, brilliant eye that I forgot to make dinner or use the bathroom because I couldn’t take my eyes off of the screen. The episode left an open door for some amazing one-off crossovers and made me genuinely excited for shows like Arrow and Flash, that I haven’t watched them since the first season.

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The five arc crossover was the hard reset that the CW and DC needed to bring back old fans into the fold, engage new fans and possibly up the numbers on some of the shows that may have had some ratings issues.

The arc gave those of us who only watch one or two of the CW’s offerings a chance to get to know what else the CW offers and get us invested in all of the shows. As someone who checked out on a few of the CW shows, I have a newfound interest in some of the characters and a desire to hit the CW app on my Apple TV to play catch up so I can become a regular viewer of all of their DC shows across the board.

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This season premiere was a fitting return for my DC/CW Bae, Legends of Tomorrow and was so well written that I forgot about all of the things that I was excited about while I awaited their return. It tied up all the loose ends that the previous Crisis episodes left open and established a new world full of exciting possibilities. Crisis was an emotional roller coaster filled with love and loss, hope, and passion and it’s worth a five-hour binge watch on the CW app because, in my opinion, that enhances the amazing experience. The “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover made a true believer in the DC/CW franchise and I can’t wait to see more.

Overall Rating: 9.7

Recap: Crisis on Infinite Earths 4 – Arrow

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After a long hiatus for the holidays, “Crisis on Infinite Earths” picks up on Planet Maltus Ten Thousand Years Ago where we meet the Monitor and his wife as he prepares for a temporal jump trial. We learn a bit of backstory about how he’s just a time traveler and she is the Monitor. He lands in the temporal zone at the dawn of time but his presence releases radiation and corrupts the zone. His time jump breached the wall and he ends up in the Anti-Universe and discovers the Anti-him, realizing his mistake he recognizes humanity’s doom.

In the “present” a bearded Ryan, Sara the Paragon of Destiny, J’onn J’onzz the Paragon of Honor, and the rest of the paragons along with the never supposed to be there Lex try to stay alive and save the multiverse while Barry, the paragon of love is MIA. Everyone has lost the virtue they were supposed to bring back and it seems like all hope is lost. The machine Lex and Ryan have been working on doesn’t seem to work and Barry returns after trying to find a way out. Even the Speed Force was useless and there is no way out.

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In Purgatory on Earth 666, Oliver is getting some guru training to prepare him for the ultimate fight against the Anti-Monitor and he’s finally ready to join his friends, which might be perfect timing because the rest of the team is getting ready to rip each other apart when he shows up and announces that the Speed Force is the only way out. But, since Oliver is dead and his soul didn’t join his body in the Lazarus Pit, it’s more of a Spectre Oliver. Since the multiverse is gone, and only the anti-multiverse remains, Barry lets SO unlock his full potential to use the Speed Force to run the Paragons (Kara, Lex and Ryan) to the point where the Novu and Mar created the Anti-Monitor.

While Flash runs through the Speed Force, Anti-Monitor attacks and SO pieces himself together with memories and tells Barry that he has to catch the remaining Paragons and SO like Pokemon and bring them together or else they will fall into the anti-matter universe and be no more. While Barry runs he bumps into the DC Movie version of The Flash (aka my favorite Flash)  and their conversation leads to movie Flash disappearing into the Speed Force. Back in the forest, Lex returns and knocks outs, Kara and Ryan, with the upgrades he got when he rewrote parts of the Book of Destiny.

Back in the Speed Force loop, Kate watches while Atom gives SO a speech about what Star City is up against and J’onn shows up as Kara and Oliver talk about keeping normalcy in their lives. Ryan and Supergirl awaken and Ryan questions his place in the whole Paragon community and Supergirl reminds him that he left humanity because he was needed. Barry finds himself in OG Oliver and Earth 38 Superman and the previous Crisis but, SO remembers and tells him that he chose to die to save him and Kara during the last Crisis and go-round with the Book of Destiny.  Flash then finds John and Sara’s sister after Sara died while Lex interrupts Nuva before he engages the quantum portal.

Lex tells the Monitor what will happen if he goes through with his plans and tries to convince him to join him, in exchange for the powers that Monitor will have so that he can use them to take down the supers. J’onn tells SO and Kara that they will become the best of friends as Kate tells SO and Atom that they will eventually trust each other which hopefully keeps them all connected enough for Barry to capture all of his Paragon-mons. Ryan and Kara show up before Monitor (Novu) and Lex make a devil’s bargain and Ryan leads Monitor away taking him to his wife where he explains to him the cost of what happens if he goes through with his plan.

Lex and Supergirl fight it out with Lex’s upgrades making him an almost even match and Ryan comes in to tell them that he got through to Novu, which would be good news, except when Flash arrives to bring them back to the rest of the Paragons, they discover that while they succeeded in one universe the other multiverses Novu’s chose to become ambition over what is right. While they settle into their inevitable defeat, SO informs them that their true mission was to hold the line while the universe is reborn at the dawn of time and that he is to be the spark that lights the flame. While the Paragon kick some Shadow Monster a** , SO has a little talk with Anti-Monitor who is serving up his best dark Thanos energy but, SO who’s enlightened and about that life, pulls the hood off of his head like Eminem in 8 mile right before his final rap and prepares to does to Anti-Monitor exactly what you’d expect a hero to do. With the Anti-Monitor and his shadow army erased, the Paragons then come together and focus on their virtues while using the last page of the book of destiny and as Sara and the Flash stand over a dying, again, Oliver they watch the start of a new beginning of the multiverse.

Recap: Crisis on Infinite Earths 3 – The Flash

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Do you remember the old Birds of Prey TV show? Because I do and Crisis Part 3 starts off with Huntress running towards the tower on Earth 203 in New Gotham before taking us back to the ship of heroes on Earth 1. There we see a pretty exasperated team licking its wounds and trying to figure out what’s coming next. Monitor is not really good at pep talks but, he is really good at leaving out huge pieces of the puzzle for his version of the greater good.

Oliver’s bodyguard and friend John, is in a meeting with Sara to determine how to best bring back Oliver and rescue his wife Lila from the Anti-Monitor. He lets the assembled team of heroes in on the Anti-Monitor’s plan to replace all of the universes with one that he can control. He sends Cisco off to serve his higher purpose with his powers returned and Barry sets off with him and Killer Frost to find Choi but, they end up meeting Pariah aka Not Nash who is there to bear witness, which is never a good thing.

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Pariah tries to help his former friends but, he laments that he is now Anti-Monitor’s puppet but, Cisco is able to vibe with him to find a way in. Kara and Kate give Lex a beat down to get the instructions on using the Book of Destiny. On Earth 666 in LA, Mia, Constantine, and John go meet an old friend and we get treated to another kick-ass cameo from Lucifer himself as Lucifer to get a ticket to Purgatory to grab Oliver’s soul and with a flick of the wrist, away they go. While Mia, John, and Constantine try and work their way through Purgatory to find Oliver’s soul, Pariah, Frost, and Cisco gain access to the source of the wave and discover that the source of the wave is the Flash from Earth 90  (aka the OG OG pre-CW Flash) who is being kept on a treadmill and being used to power the anti-matter canon.

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Cisco uses his powers to get Earth 90 Flash off of the treadmill but, that is a huge mistake because Anti-Monitor built in a fail-safe where if he gets off the treadmill it’ll destroy all remaining Earths at once. While they try and find a way out of this universe ending catch 22, Pariah shows up with Black Lightning and informs him that his family is gone because his earth has been destroyed. He agrees to help by trying to contain the cannon’s energy to save the remaining Earths. After a heart to heart with Earth 90’s Flash, he realizes what the Monitor meant about him vanishing in Crisis. The two Flashes agree to run for their lives and reverse the cannons pull.

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On Earth 1 in Ivy Town Elongated Man, Atom, Iris and meet another paragon, of humanity, played by Ryan Choi (Kevin Tran from Supernatural). Back on the ship Monitor has a heart to heart with Lois that is makes him more human but, that moment is short-lived as Atom/Clark shows up distraught after a failed mission, before heading back out to try again. Kara and Batwoman almost come to blows when Kara won’t give up on trying to use the Book to fix things and Kara agrees to stand down, for now, not knowing that Batwoman is holding a kryptonite trump card in case she gets out of line.

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Back in purgatory Oliver is running around like a feral assassin and attacks Constantine until John talks him down and they bro-hug it out. In Ivy Town, Iris gets through to Ryan by talking it out parent to parent (relaying the message her Flash gave to her before he went to the alternate Earth) and he agrees to come along. With six Earths gone and only one in the present time remaining things are looking even more grim than when the Crisis began. Meanwhile, as our Barry says goodbye to his friends, prepared for the end Flash 90 steals his speed and tells him that Monitor said Flash had to die but, he never said which one. Despite Barry’s objections, Cisco lets Flash 90 do what he needs to do in order to save the world.

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In Earth 666 Corrigan shows up and tells Oliver he needs to come with him to save all worlds, much to Mia and John’s heartbreak and they return to the ship on Earth 1 and share their war stories of lost worlds, lost loves and almost all hope. Black Lightning and the Flash have a heart to heart about losing a father and having to do better for their children while quoting Dylan Thomas and telling each other their non-superhero monikers. Batwoman tracks down Kara and decides to give the Kryptonite back to Kara but, she tells her to keep it because she has the courage to believe she won’t need to use it. Iris and Flash are reunited when they bring Choi back to the ship and they somehow bring Harbinger back to the ship but, she has no memory of what happened.

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We all know how this kind of thing goes, Barry and Atom Superman put together that if Pariah was allowed to return to the ship with them then something bad is going to happen and of course it does, Harbinger proceeds to give John a beat down during their tender embrace and with glowy white eyes she announces in Anti-Monitor’s voice that it is time for the Age of Heroes to end. Monitor goes to battle with Anti-Monitor in Harbinger’s body and steals his soul giving him the power to take Earth 1 with the ship being all that remains of humanity. With 29 seconds before the anti-matter wave hits the ship Pariah sends the paragons away from the ship to the Vanishing Point and everyone else accepts their fate with a boom, knowing their fate is in good hands. Superman goes down in a fiery blast being replaced with Lex Luthor who wrote himself into the Book of Destiny.

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