It's the Arrowverse annual crossover week! And after a first episode which aired Sunday night, this year's crossover event titled 'ElseWorlds' continued last night on the episode of Arrow. Here's my quick review, comprising mainly of what I liked the most, and what I hated. I'll be dropping a more complete review at the end of the crossover.
So let's go!
This episode got me cracking up from the very first second. The writers included the usual Arrow starting statement 'My name is Oliver Queen', except Oliver was played and voiced by Grant Gustin who usually plays the Flash. The entire opening montage, with scenes we'd already seen Stephen Amell in were included with Grant instead. This is made more hilarious by the fact that this is Oliver's first montage since he got out of prison and began working with the SCPD.
Perhaps this set the tone for the entire episode because I loved it much better than the first. The stakes were really focused on and they were on track with the mission throughout, mostly steered by John, who pays good homage to the previous crossovers when he says 'An immortal Egyptian, Aliens, Nazis from another dimension... I don't know why I'm surprised'. And he's absolutely right when he mentions the fact that no one sees the Green Arrow, the Flash and Supergirl together unless there's serious trouble. Nice call out, guys!
Anyway, the introduction of Kate Kane was another thing I really liked. This was not a backdoor pilot for the Batwoman show... just a way of telling us that she does exist in that city Gotham that no one goes to and no one talks about. Plus she's just beginning to rebuild Wayne Enterprises, so she hasn't really been on scene that long. When Kara talks to Kate, you can almost get that she knows Bruce is actually Batman which is what you'd expect, but she doesn't know if Kate knows or not. In true superhero-code fashion, she doesn't reveal this to the others, and neither does she call out Batwoman as Kate when she arrives to help out. Or at least not publicly.
I'd begun to ask why the Doctor had made such small, silly changes to reality but this episode answers that as well. Turns out there's a bit of a learning curve, and the Doctor doesn't think that big.
And the arrival of the Flash from Earth-90 was awesome! The episode didn't really explain why it was so difficult for him to get here but I'm just going with the assumption that it has to do with the idea that Earth-90 is really far from Earth-1 and has been erased anyway. However, I was pretty surprised when none of the characters, especially the geek ones, reacted when he mentioned that he was from Earth-90. I mean, there were supposed to be only 53 Earths, right?
Finally, it was good of them not to linger long on that Barry Allen, just long enough to give speculating fans that long awaited satisfaction that somewhere in the multiverse, John Diggle is indeed a Green Lantern, pay homage to the 90s Flash series, and show us just how powerful the Monitor really is. Oh, and he tells us his plan too, which makes a lot of sense.
The episode ended on a true note of anticipation... I can't wait for the final part to drop later tonight on the Supergirl episode!
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