Jessie Robertson reviews the eighth episode of Arrow season 6…
Part 2 of our yearly crossover is where the action begins! Part 1 (Supergirl) was a nice setup, but there wasn’t a lot of meat to the episode to get you excited except maybe that opening and the dinner party interactions (very reminiscent of Avengers: Age of Ultron party).
Part 2 is where our heroes find out who they are up against in a hilarious scene where Barry & Kara arrive in super speed at a tech company and Oliver shows up moments later on his bike, grumpy. Our Earth-X villains are Oliver’s doppelgänger (who is apparently the Fuhrer of the Nazi regime), Over-girl (Kara’s doppelgänger and General of the Nazi army) and Eobard Thawne, yes, one and the same. He’s back, folks but more on that later. Their plan: to first steal a prism thing that gives off the power of the red sun. Well, they get it. Our heroes are a little displaced that their exact doppelgängers are behind this plot and everyone’s rattled that a Nazi battalion disrupted the Allen-West wedding. Sadly, after Joe’s intriguing vows, we never see him or Wally and his ever-changing haircut again in this crossover.
Part 2 is where the heroes fail, and fail big. Instead of stopping them from taking Kara for their evil plans, they are defeated by Metallo (who’s a great callback to last season on Supergirl) in a crazy warehouse battle scene. This is one of the better action sequences in the crossover because it’s contained and it’s not so staged and poster-looking. Our heroes find themselves enslaved in a concentration camp on Earth-X and Kara is under a red sun light, about to be operated on. The only heroes left not captured are Iris and Felicity. Girl power!
Ok, let’s get into this. The over prevailing message of this show is love, strangely enough. With Barry & Iris’ nuptials ruined, there has been an ongoing string of Oliver ready to take the plunge again but Felicity not ready to commit, after all that ensued after last time. There are way too many speeches throughout this crossover about love and sacrifice and true love that it gets a bit much after a while. It’s obvious Oliver is hurt that Felicity isn’t ready to commit again (btw, Oliver just is the Green Arrow again and can go to an off-world adventure without William knowing?) but that last breakup wasn’t so easy and simple for her. She’s simply scared of the implications; their love isn’t as easy as Barry & Iris’ in her eyes; they have more pitfalls to navigate.
Part 2 of the crossover features one really strong moment; after they capture the Nazi Prometheus, he unmasks and shows himself as Tommy Merlyn. Oliver clears the room and tries to get through to him and seems to; but it’s just propaganda from Tommy who ridicules Oliver before killing himself. It’s a strong scene not only because we haven’t seen Colin Donnell in quite a while but also because it truly raises the stakes of who they are facing in an intense scene. Part 2 is the exact definition of middle of the story.
Rating: 8/10
Jessie Robertson
