DJ Watches: The Flash Season Three: Episode Eight: Invasion!
Last time in Central City, Barry and Caitlin had a bit of a tiff, though ultimately both hashed out their issues for the moment, anyway. And now…Barry and Ollie are currently trying not to get horribly murdered by essentially everybody else in the warzone just outside STAR Labs. Well.
Earlier that day, Caitlin, Joe, and Iris are watching Wally test out his new speed powers, the former impressed and the latter a bit mortified, with the Wests clearly not wanting the younger West to start -ahem- running half-cocked with his new gifts. This is interrupted by HR, who calls them, along with Cisco and Barry into the main lab for his presentation. A presentation for what? Why, to turn STAR Labs into a museum, of course, with HR (in disguise) as its curator. Everyone is more than a little skeptical, but this meeting is also interrupted, by what seems to be a meteor falling towards Central City.
Flash runs for it, and it turns out, it’s not a meteor, but a spaceship. Aliens, as Barry exasperatedly puts it as dozens of aliens come swarming out of the ship. The next morning, Leila – Director of Argus and, yes, Dig’s wife – is on site being somewhat annoyed on her won, as the government insists that it’s just an experimental ship, which she and Barry huddle and realize they certainly are not. A bit later, she meets the rest of the crew at the lab and briefs them on the aliens, cheerfully called the Dominators. It basically boils down to they know about them, they’ve been on Earth before, and at the time they tried to experiment and learn about humans before disappearing. Also, Flash needs to stay away.
Barry, of course, has different ideas, and when questioned by the crew about how he can’t do it alone, and replies that of course he won’t.
So, in Star City, Arrow and Spartan are out searching for Vigilante with Felicity on comms, per usual. They in fact find the rogue vigilante and….Ollie would totally be dead (again) if not for Barry running in and literally grabbing both he and Diggle at the last second back to Felicity’s apartment. Dig is thankful albeit suffering from extreme speed motion sickness, though Ollie is a little aggravated that Barry pulled him away from seemingly almost nailing their mark. He, however, changes his tune when Barry explains that he needs his help to stop…aliens. John laments the continuing destruction of the concept of normalcy in his life and goes to speak to Leila about the issue at hand, while Thea, hearing about the aliens, rather eagerly leaps at the chance to give her older bro a hand. Felicity points out that even the four of them wouldn’t do much against invaders from space, to which Barry suggests calling in the time travelers, Ollie noting they’re called the Legends.
Meanwhile, at the Hall of Justi – I mean, the abandoned STAR Labs hanger, Barry awaits the arrival of said Legends from Tomorrow, and also makes preparations with Cisco to reach out for another helping hand from Earth-38. Cisco makes it abundantly clear again that he’s still pissed at Barry but for the sake of the planet he’ll help, and with that, he vibes open a portal and they jump in. At which point, they eventually enter a rather trendy well-furnished urban apartment, and in mere moments, in enters Kara Danvers, who immediately and excitedly recognizes Barry and asks what he needs.
And anyone who didn’t watch Supergirl before and watched the last episode just to see how it connected to the rest of the crossover just realized that was completely pointless because this was totally the exact same scene all over again. Though really, if you watch any of these shows, you might as well watch that one too.
Anyway, Barry brings Kara, in full costume, back with him to Earth One, where she energetically and happily meets with the Legends, Team Arrow, and the Star Labs crew, geeking and nerding out all the way like most of the audience probably is too.
The Dominators, however, are up to no good in an abandoned warehouse somewhere, doing something mysterious. Because of course they are.
Back at the Hall Hanger, various people are catching up, with Ray relaying to Barry how Snart sacrificed himself on their show, and Ollie being offered the leadership role for this team up, who oddly defers it to Barry instead. Ollie then proceeds to parrot what needs to be done to Barry because the latter isn’t quite sure how to be a leader. However, Dr. Stein and Jax carry their own plot thread from their show to Barry, and warn him (and Ollie) about the secret warning given to Rip Hunter about an upcoming war caused by the mistakes of the message bearer – the bearer being a much older Barry Allen himself. Barry admits to his mistakes from causing Flashpoint, and decides with the others to keep it quiet for now. Because that always turns out well in these shows. Dr. Stein has yet another odd flash of memory afterwards, and asks Caitlin to accompany him to his house to meet, hopefully, his wife.
As the rest of the team trains against Supergirl (and badly get their asses kicked all the while), the President is hearing out both Argus and the rest of the government on what to do against the aliens, and the Commander-in-Chief happily takes the advice of Leila in trying to be proactive… and immediately gets kidnapped by the Dominators.
Back at the lab, Wally is upset at Joe and Iris, since all the tests are showing that he’s doing perfectly fine with his new speed powers, and they still refuse to allow him to do so. Even HR, who had already been encouraging him, after his talking to with Joe last week surprisingly declines. Professor Stein receives a surprise himself as he returns home and finds his daughter there, who exclaims that “Mom” was out for the day. All well and good, except before leaving, Stein didn’t have a daughter. Getting tired of seeing everyone getting annihilated by Kara, Cisco stumbles onto the coded message form the future and confronts Barry about it, momentarily actually being more shocked then upset. However, this dissipates as Barry sheepishly comments that he was “eventually” going to. Cisco naturally freaks out about it and yells at Barry, causing a commotion which forces the Flash to reveal exactly what has happened. As one might assume, people don’t take it well, especially Dig finding out his son used to be a daughter, and Sara who’s been spending this whole season trying not to change time to keep her sister alive. The awkward scene is broken somewhat at Felicity exclaims that the President was kidnapped, causing the team to take off…but leaving Barry alone. Oliver tries to stand up for Barry, but all that leads to is Dig explaining that if there’s no Green Arrow without Flash, then it just means Olli will also be staying put in the hanger.
As a result, Supergirl, the Legends, Spartan and Speedy arrive at the warehouse, and after some awkward but charming banter between the goody two shoes Supergirl and decidedly less so Heatwave, they enter. They find the President, but something doesn’t feel quite right, as one of the Dominators makes itself known. Kara tries to negotiate, which leads to…the President dying horribly, and the Dominator activating a machine that makes everyone suddenly cry in pain.
Back at the lab, Ollie tries to console Barry in the secret future room, though he doesn’t quite understand the details. He points out that anyone would’ve does what Barry did, explaining in rather detailed terms how his parents died and that he would also do anything to have them still be around. Huh, weird. They are, again, interrupted, by the lab being attacked by the now brainwashed other members of this crossover, and here we are, back at the beginning of the episode. We get a decently done made-for-TV fight scene, with Flash handling Firestorm, Supergirl, and ATOM, and Ollie dealing with Spartan, White Canary, and Speedy. And Heatwave…I don’t know. Wally makes up his mind and comes to help despite the wishes of Joe and Iris, and while he does save Barry for the moment, Supergirl makes that moment of hope blow up in his face by sucker punching him from the sky. Regrouping, Felicity and Cisco figure out where the abandoned warehouse is and Barry finally acts like a leader and formulates a plan. As Ollie grabs Wally’s prone body and fights his way into the lab to safety, Barry baits Kara back to the warehouse and the machine. With his back to the wall and a quiver empty of arrows, Oliver has no choice but to face off and fight his pursuers, though fortunately Barry manages to trick an enraged Kara into destroying the mind control machine just in time.
Wally reunites with Iris and Joe and apologizes for his brashness, and while they’re upset, they’re still happy to see him. Wally, however, is happy to hear HR finally agree to train him properly. Outside, as Supergirl is scouting the area, the heroes reunite…just in time to start being picked of and kidnapped by the Dominators. Despite Barry’s best efforts, Ray, Sara, Thea, Diggle, and even Ollie are taken, leaving the rest of the team unsure of what to do.
Well, that was something. While a little uneven and weird, it’s a good true first episode to the now yearly DCW crossover. The effects and action are both well done, and it does a surprisingly good job of mostly tying every show’s individual plot threads together, even if it’s not the main story arc. While this being an episode of the Flash probably has something to do with it, the ramifications of Flashpoint are becoming even more clear now, as the rest of the different teams find out about it, and it seems that more than a few of the aberrations the Legends team had been dealing with are a result of Barry and not just whatever mysterious villain team is being formed on that show. We finally get to see John’s understandably taken aback reaction to learning how his own child was changed by Barry actions, and Barry takes the chewing out in stride. Still, some of the impact is lost because we’ve seen Barry get the riot act read to him multiple times at this point in this season alone about his actions, and while Cisco has a point about how all the sorry’s in the world won’t take that away, still, there’s beating a dead horse, and there’s this.
It’s a little disappointing that so far Kara comes across as an afterthought, though honestly that may well be closer to the truth then they’ll admit since her show did come along later and maybe this was the best they could do with availability and shooting schedules. Still, she does come across better than the other guest stars – while Team Arrow is exactly who they are having been at this for a while now, the Legends cast just seems really cardboard and flat, more than they’ve already been simplified to on that show. Yes, most people who watch one of these shows watch all of them anyway, but that’s a sad excuse for why they don’t stand out at all unless you knew them from previous seasons of Arrow or The Flash. Also interested to see where Professor Stein’s story with his brand new adult daughter is going.
Also, people are way, way too casual about the fact that the President of the United States was just vaporized before their eyes. Yes, an alien invasion is a big deal, but…seriously? Nothing else about that? Maybe in one of the other shows, but…really now? Also, this is the second one of these where Oliver would be dead if not for Barry needing his help for a crossover, this year it was Vigilante having him dead to rights, and last year it was with Damien Dahrk having him literally in his grasp. It’s maybe a funny running gag if they’re doing it on purpose, but it also undermines Green Arrow’s competence, and while I have plenty to complain about how his own show treated him on and off, the way he’s treated and almost revered in the rest of this crossover by the others is at odds with that little scene.
Still, we leave the united team in a precarious position, and with how strong Arrow has been this year, I for one am curious to see how this goes.