Ever since the Supergirl TV show was confirmed as the next DC show from Greg Berlanti’s production company, there was one question on the minds of all fans: Would the show crossover with the existing worlds of Flash and Arrow? Initially, the outlook wasn’t good as the CW was outbid by CBS to air the show, placing it on a different network and requiring both parties to agree on any such joint venture -- no easy task. Then those involved in the new show were immediately very dismissive of such crossovers.... at least for the time being. They wanted to give Kara Zor-El the chance to stand on her own feet over her first season before considering visitation rights in subsequent seasons. Yet by the time Christmas came around, and following a strong debut run of episodes, there was already rumours and rumblings that something was in the works for the latter half of the season. This continued into the New Year before being officially announced in early February that Grant Gustin’s Flash would be coming on Supergirl.... then mere days later there was a script and filming soon began implying that this secretly in the works for some time. Oh, Berlanti, you tease! Now finally that moment has arrived, and in a week where one notable DC team up has underwhelmed could this small screen offering take the spotlight? Absolutely! This everything we could have wanted from such a crossover and more.
Worlds Finest – As Siobhan embraces her new screaming powers, she teams up with Livewire out of mutual Cat Grant hatred. Just when Kara seems outnumbered Barry Allen, aka The Flash, accidentally blasts through a multiverse portal into town, and helps even the odds in Supergirl’s favour.
“All four of you standing there doing nothing.... you look like the attractive yet non-threatening racially diverse cast of a CW show”. If the successful Flarrow ventures have taught us anything, it’s that if you’re going to do a crossover for God’s sake have some fun with it, and that’s approach taken here. There is so much fun to had from the adorkable chemistry of chemistry of Barry and Kara (her face when Barry brings ice cream says it all). Then sprinkle with in-jokes aplenty of Cat’s naming issues (“The Flash... sounds like someone whose only superpower is jumping out of an ally in a trench coat”) to the differences between their two multi-verse worlds, big and small.
We see Barry going full fanboy over the idea of aliens being so abundant (his photo request instantly takes you two Barry & Cisco’s Earth 2 selfies) while Kara and the team are blown away with the notion of time travel. In fact, the whole multi-verse idea is covered very well as Barry takes to white board with a clued in Winn as his pseudo- Cisco wingman. It sees this show getting a lot more science-heavy than usual but to good effect as any Supergirl only viewers will be quickly up to speed. There are good feelings of Kara’s world and National City benefitting from Barry’s arrival as an Infinite Earth’s exchange student when he sets up the police with Metahuman holding cell capabilities (so not everyone has to be held at the DEO now), and pulls from his own experiences of fighting electricity and sound based enemies: Blackout and Pied Piper, respectively. The episode title refers to the many race based meetings of The Flash and Superman in the comics. There are some great jokes throughout the episode, about just whose the fastest before delivering full blown fan fulfilment foot race (check out the comic cover style promo poster, similar to Flash’s two worlds homage).
Yet this is not just an outstanding episode because it’s a crossover, but because it is a well structured culmination of many different plotlines across recent weeks. The story of Siobhan’s villain transformation comes together well as it builds up her motives for going all out and teaming up to take down Cat Grant and Supergirl. They take a detour from Silver Banshee’s comic origins but the idea a Smythe family curse plays well to the characters Irish/Gaelic origins, “And you seriously never considered why all the women in our family are... shall we say unlikeable?”. Her prior relationship with Winn adds some good empathy towards her, both pre and post transformation. Livewire also makes the ideal choice of teammate for their “Evil Taylor Swift squad” as a similarly big personality but more importantly, a great villain character whose reprisal is welcomed with open arms.
Next, there’s Kara’s battle to restore her public reputation following her red kryptonite brainwashing. Of course, a turning point had to be coming eventually, but drawing that from the advice of a fellow superhero that’s gone through PR problems feels such a natural way to accomplish that objective. Then, combine that with the pubic rallying moment itself being powerful and genuinely moving. It conjures images of similar moments executed well in Sam Rami’s Spiderman trilogy (especially in no. 2) as we see people not only accepting Kara as a hero again but being inspired by her again, that a hero’s true strength comes from making people believe in themselves. There are odd moments in the crowd scene when things get overplayed, but overall the results are very effective. Even the Kara/James romantic arc plays into things well as Barry unknowingly becomes Kara’s advised “power play” with common ground to Kara that James has no hope of competing with. Cat’s cupcake metaphor is a fun summation of Kara’s love life and events of the episode give James and Kara that push towards each they’ve been needing all season.
The action is fantastic as the four characters “settle this like women” and hearing Barry’s Flash theme music on the show just energizes everything to the next level. It’s an insanely fun episode with baskets full off Easter in an oddly calendar relevant fashion. The showrunners have said of this episode is a “ratings success” they’ll totally do it again next seaso,n and if there’s any justice that will happen (imagine Barry meeting Martian Manhunter). The conclusion also nicely builds into the final pair of episodes with Myriad coming online in a very big way. The show is on break next week but at least if left us with an awesome episode.