DCTV SuperFlarrow “Elseworlds, Part 3” Recap: Twisted Sister

We did it! We made it through another crossover! And even though, as always, Supergirl felt sidelined, even in her own episode, I think this was my favorite crossover yet. So let’s dive into it, because there was a lot to unpack.

Previously on the SuperFlarrow Crossover Event called Elseworlds, Oliver and Barry switched bodies but no one else on Earth-1 could tell so they went to Earth-38 to get Supergirl’s help. An all-powerful being called The Monitor gave a not-so-powerful human named Deegan a book that could rewrite reality to test out to see if this universe was ready to face something bad that’s coming. Oliver, Barry, and Kara enlisted the help of Batwoman, but the Monitor just hit the reset button as soon as they reached the big boss level. Rude.

Just like Barry took over Oliver’s opening credits, Deegan took over Supergirl’s, telling his own origin story, about how he was working in Arkham until he was given the power to do whatever he wanted. And now he’s the Superman in all black Oliver and Barry ran into at the end of the last episode.

And so there we pick up, with Dark Superman facing off against the adorably named Trigger Twins in their cute little matching cravats. I kept wanting them to burst into Greased Lightning or something. I was a big fan of their outfits. ANYWAY, they figure out that Dark Superman is actually Deegan and tell him that he can dress like a hero but he can’t fake being a hero. Deegan is determined though, so Oliver gives him his chance by knocking over a tower, forcing Deegan to choose between saving the children or stopping Barry and Oliver. He decides to play the part so Oliver and Barry book it. (Barry adorably hates being bad; it gives him a tummy ache.)

Dark Superman goes back to Star Labs, which is now more like SuperLabs, and has Diggle and The Meta Formerly Known As Killer Frost in tactical gear, applauding their leader.

An agent comes in to tell them of a disturbance in the cells, and Frost says it’s Subject 1, who has been fussy all morning, but Dark Superman says he’ll handle it. Subject 1 turns out to be Kara, who can tell from the look on Deegan’s face it’s not her cousin, even though they technically have the same face.

Kara asks him why he’s playing Superman and he says that in the first go-round he wanted to be The Flash, but then he saw her in action and knew she was the superior hero. She challenges him then, wanting to know why he choose Superman’s face, not her own. “Too afraid to be a woman?” she asks him, and it’s a miracle it didn’t shatter his male ego and save the day right then and there.

He ignores her question though and points out that she technically doesn’t exist on this Earth. So there’s no one to stop him from being a hero. Kara gets fired up but all of a sudden her ears are ringing, and it’s because Agent Alex Danvers is there bringing the pain.

Alex threatens her and talks to her like she’s a stranger, or worse, an enemy, and Kara looks back at her like Alex just threatened to kill her pet bunny.

Deegan sees this exchange and realizes Kara must know Alex on her Earth; he didn’t even plan that one. But he uses it to his advantage, saying that Kara better behave or he’ll kill Alex.

Oliver and Barry decide they need to go find Cisco so he can breach them to Earth-38 so they can get the real Superman and sort all this out. But on their way to find Cisco, they get scooped up by The Monitor. Oliver demands he tell them what the heck is going on, and The Monitor reads him as willing (though not eager) to die. Which is intriguing to him. He says that survival will be found if they can know their true selves, which is exactly the kind of riddle-tastic bullshit I expected him to say.

So Barry and Oliver restart their mission to find Cisco, and since everything in this reality is flipped on its head, Cisco is probably one of the bad guys, too. So they head to a baddie bar and find Gary bartending. Because of course he is. And even though he’s technically a bad guy, he’s still Gary at his core, nerding out about seeing his favorite criminals. (Even calls them Legends. Ba dum kss.)

Gary leads the boys back to Cisco aka The Boss, who is counting money and looking more serious than our Cisco ever dares.

At SuperLabs, Kara calls out to Alex and tries to reason with her. Alex says she’s heard about horrible, evil things Kara has done, but Kara promises that isn’t true, that none of this is real. But Alex won’t listen.

At the Bad Bar, Oliver and Barry fight Cisco’s henchpeople, lead by James Olsen. Who I’m pretty sure called himself, “Superman’s Worst Pal” and honestly if I’m wrong don’t correct me because I got a good hearty chuckle out of it.

Before James can kill Barry and Oliver, Barry uses his knowledge of Cisco’s brother to get him to at least hear them out. They think he’ll like their plan: to get rid of Superman. But they need Cisco’s breaches (which he has thus far only been using to rob banks) to do it.

Back at SuperLabs, Frost tries to get Alex to go home early, kick back, relax, maybe go on a date. Frost asks her if she has any boyfriends, and an eavesdropping Kara is confused. Alex says she doesn’t have a boyfriend, just went on one bad date or two with a guy from another department. Frost tells Alex to let loose and is maybe almost sort of flirting with her? But also that’s sort of Frost’s whole ~thing.

She warns Alex about letting her heart turn to ice, but Alex would really rather work. Frost shrugs and leaves her to it, and Alex watches her leave in what could be a, “Wow she almost found out my secret,” way or a, “Damn I wish I had been brave enough to use that opening to ask her out” look. Either way, we have a very unhappy Alex on our hands.

Oliver, Barry, and Cisco breach to Earth-38 and find themselves in the Fortress of Solitude, where I guess Superman and Lois Lane hang out sometimes. Anyway, Lois knows Superman has got to go, so go he does.

Back in the SuperLab cell, Kara tries to talk to Alex but Alex zaps her again.

But this time she’s stopped when Kara starts speaking in another language. Kara tells her it’s a phrase Alex Danvers taught to her in her reality, a phrase that means “pinky swear” that Alex taught her the first night they went flying together.

Kara tells this Alex that her Alex is similar to her in some ways, drawn to service, for example. But that her Alex is in charge. She’s a leader. Kara says that her Alex won’t just follow orders if she knows they’re wrong, she’ll “give them hell” and do what she believes is right. Her Alex doesn’t have powers, but she’s a hero with a big-ass heart. She has a found family, and she doesn’t have to hide who she is.

Alex is quiet now, looking at this stranger who is telling her things about herself she wishes she could see, too. Kara looks Alex in the eyes and says confidently that her Alex wants a wife and kids, and is optimistic that she’ll find them. It’s not an if, but a when.

Alex is a little floored by this but tries not to look too shaken. But Chyler plays the subtlety so well. Her eyes never leave Kara but there’s this intake of breath and you can feel it knocking one of her walls clean over. Being able to talk about it in the third person helps too, this is some other Alex she’s talking about, she says that Kara’s Alex sounds pretty awesome, and I think we can all agree she is.

Kara says that she might not be Alex’s sister in this reality, but she can tell that there’s still all the best parts of Alex in her. And it’s true; Alex was always Alex. Kara didn’t change her, not at her core. But when Kara came into her life, she gave her a fierce maternal instinct and sense of responsibility that might have taken longer to develop otherwise. Watching Kara come into her own as Supergirl (and helping her do so) gave Alex stepping stones to do the same. Having Kara there to test coming out on, even if it didn’t go the way she hoped the first time, having Kara there to hold her when she got her heart broken for the first time, having Kara at the dinner table when she wanted to come out to her mother. These were all factors in Alex becoming the Alex we know and love today. Maybe she would have gotten there eventually on her own, but why risk it with a Kara-less existence?

Alex asks Kara if she’ll really stop Dark Superman if she lets her out, and Kara pinky swears. So Alex agrees.

They start to make their escape, but before they can get too far, they’re stopped by Dark Superman and his crew. Frost snarks at Alex in a way that sort of implies she thinks she broke Kara out of her cell to take her on a date? It’s a little unclear but it’s Frost snark so I’ll take it.

Kara starts to cover for her, saying she tricked her, that it was her idea, but Alex steps in and says, firmly, “She’s my sister.”

When the boys get back from Star Labs with Superman in tow, they’re just about finishing telling him that they have no idea where Kara is when who do they run into but Kara. And also Alex. And everyone they’re facing. Fighting ensues! The Supermen fly off together, Cisco breaches back to safety, Oliver draggs Diggle and Frost into an elevator to fight them, leaving Barry alone with Kara and Alex.

And hilariously, Alex immediately attacks Barry. Barry’s not even mad about it, calling her a “badass in every reality” before Kara calls her off. Once she’s convinced Barry is a good guy, Alex leads them to Dark Superman’s Fortress of Solitude which is what we know as the Time Vault. They find the book in there, and Kara tries to open it so she can fix reality.

But unfortunately, she can’t do it and it looks a little like it’s trying to suck her brain out. They think it might be because she’s still weak from the power dampeners in her cell.

Alex says they can’t stay or they’ll get caught, so Kara decides to take the book to her cousin for help. When Superman gets the book, he opens it, and at first it seems like he’s fixing reality, but then Dark Superman grabs Barry and threatens to kill him if Superman doesn’t stop. Oliver appears, equipped with his Green Arrow suit, a kryptonite arrow notched and ready.

But Barry doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want another death on Oliver’s conscience, not because of him. He calls to Oliver, telling him that he doesn’t have to channel his darkness, that he can be better. So Oliver puts the kryptonite arrow down.

Unfortunately, this means Dark Superman has an opening to grab the book and fly away.

Alex has more questions about this whole rewriting reality stuff, and Kara does her best to explain. But she reassures Alex that no matter what, deep down, she’s still Alex. Alex recognizes that it must be this open-hearted but strong, bold but kind woman who helped this other version of herself. She says, “Your sister is a very lucky woman,” and Kara responds that she’s a lucky sister. The Danvers sisters will save us all.

Alex, in her Alexy way, knows Kara will save the world, and Kara flies off to do just that.

Deegan is working hard to change reality again, and Barry says that if he and Supergirl go around the earth enough times they can slow down time. Superman says he saw in the book that they’ll burn up and die if they do this, but Barry and Kara have to try because of who they are as people. So they zip off together.

Oliver smashes his way back to The Monitor and yells at him to cut this shit out. The Monitor thinks it’s funny that Oliver is barking orders at a godlike being but Oliver is determined. He says the Monitor told them they had to know who they were, and he does. He’s full of darkness. But you know what else he knows? Barry and Kara aren’t. That’s right, Oliver “Oliver First” Queen is actually defending and complimenting other people. Calling them good, calling them better. It’s truly a groundbreaking achievement. He says Barry and Kara inspire hope, and that they’re the best of us and that they can’t die. The Monitor is impressed. But he demands balance.

Back in the chaos, Deegan is still holding the book when the real Superman comes to fight him. Things are looking bleak when all of a sudden, Lois Lane shows up to save the day. With a cosmic anvil hammer.

Also with Brainy and J’onn in tow.

Lois uses the hammer to get the book away from Deegan, and he retaliates, sending her flying through the air. Luckily, just then is when Kara and Barry successfully slow down time, despite the fact that their precious lil faces are burning up.

During this period of slowness, Oliver shoots the book with an arrow, and Superman catches Lois Lane, just like he always does.

Supergirl and Flash stop burning up, the book looks burnt to a crisp, and Deegan is starting to look like his comic book alter ego, Doctor Destiny, with a mummified looking face.

Kara and Barry return to their friends and Oliver is pleased. Goodness prevailed.

The team heads back to Star Labs and Kara and Barry mock Oliver for smiling, not knowing the sweet, gentle things he said about them. Cisco opens a breach and sends the folks from Earth-28 home, and Kara says, “Peace out,” which makes me laugh because usually aliens are saying “We come in peace.”

Back on Earth 38, Smallville, Kara is saying goodbye to Clark as she gets ready to head back to National City. Clark tells her that regardless of what happens with the DEO, she’s still a hero, and Alex will always, always have her back. He reminds her that she’s so much stronger than him, and not in an accusatory way. He’s proud of his little older cousin, and he knows that the world is in good hands as long as she’s in its skies looking out for it.

Which is why he feels okay with his decision, and finishes telling her that news he was going to tell her back in Part 1 of this crossover.

Lois and Clark are having a baby!

And since it’s going to be a half-Kryptonian baby, they decided it’s best to go to Argo so the yellow sun doesn’t cause the fetus to claw its own way out of Lois’s stomach like a whole different type of Alien. They’ll live on Argo indefinitely, but like he said, Earth-38 is in good hands.

In fact, Lois interjects, it might even be safer because women are statistically better in a crisis than men. Which I guess is a fact that the writers learned at the end of this crossover script.

Also, are we getting an Argo spinoff with this Superman and this Lois Lane? Because we spent a lot of time in the Fortress of Solitude with just the two of them and Clark proposed and it was all sweet and cute but they already established they were leaving, so unless they’re planning on a spinoff, I’m not sure what the point of this was exactly. But it’s cute! It’s cute. I like Lois Lane. And wouldn’t mind seeing her be an investigative reporter on another planet.

Back on Earth-1, Central City, Oliver and Barry bond about how much they’ve learned by stepping into each other’s costumes. Oliver calls Barry a good man, and that he’s inspired to be better, and honestly if this is a turning point in Arrow, it could really do that show a lot of favors.

Their bro sesh is interrupted by a phone call: it’s Batwoman! She’s mad.

Deegan is in Arkham but the guy in the gold mask has been whispering through the cell walls, and those two together will surely end in chaos. Which I guess we’ll see on her potential new series.

The very last shot of this crossover event is a title screen that says something (I imagine another crossover?) called Crisis on Infinite Earths, coming our way in Fall 2019.

Overall I thought this crossover was very fun. Introducing a new problem for the crossover and having it more evenly span all three shows felt more successful and seamless this time around. Of course I’ll always want more women than they feature, but as much as I could have gone without two Supermen, I do like this actor who plays Clark on Supergirl so it didn’t end up being as obnoxious as it could have been. I loved the alternate realities and the heartfelt Kara/Alex moments, and I’m continually proud of them for exceeding my low, low bar and talking about queer stuff even on these crossovers when people who only watch Arrow or The Flash might not be expecting it. And I liked Batwoman a helluvalot more than I thought I would.

So now we rest our weary heads for a little over a month, and we’ll return with what will hopefully be an Alex-filled back half of Supergirl Season Four.

DCTV SuperFlarrow “Elseworlds, Part 2” Recap: Batwoman Returns

Previously on the Elseworlds crossover, a mysterious man with a very large tome gave an unhinged man the power to recreate the universe, and therefore Oliver and Barry seem to have switched existences. They recruited Supergirl to help them, and together the three of them learned their next clue to this mystery is in Gotham City.

One clever touch they had in this episode is that the whole opening sequence? The bit that’s in front of every episode that sort of recaps the prior seasons? Well Arrow‘s was re-shot with Grant Gustin as the Green Arrow, so it was Barry’s voice and face doing the things we know Oliver Queen to have done. It’s pretty cool, not gonna lie.

Before we get to Gotham City, we check in on Team Arrow in Star City. Curtis is talking about the weird lightning while Diggle gets attacked by… Deathstroke’s son? I’m going to be 100% honest with you up front: I’m totally caught up on Arrow, but the show has lost my interest aside from my growing investment in Felicity’s relationship with Laurel Ex-X, so I’m not entirely sure what this kid is up to, or if he’s only here because reality is fractured. He’s not relevant to this crossover though, not really, because before he can cause too much harm, our fearless trio drops in to save the day.

Once they handle that business, they head back to what serves as Arrow HQ now and when Felicity comes in, Barry-Arrow plays the part and they don’t let Felicity in on the switcheroo.

They just ask her to help find a pattern to the weird lightning and off she goes; her and Oliver are technically fighting but she’ll still do anything to help.

When she leaves, Diggle asks why they didn’t let her in, and they explain that it took too long to get everyone at Star Labs to believe them, and they just don’t have that kind of time.

Oliver-Flash tries to get Barry-Arrow to stay behind on their trip to Gotham, to protect Oliver’s reputation, but Barry isn’t having it. He wants to meet the Batman (who Oliver thinks is a myth). And speaking of reputations, he would appreciate it if Oliver put his Flash mask on when they’re in public.

Kara is over the boys and their squabbling so she scoops up Barry and heads to Gotham City, which seems to be made up entirely of alleys and rooftops. As they discuss how they’re going to find two specific people in this extra-dark city, Oliver says they can talk to his contact, Vesper, who he may or may not have slept with while he was a spoiled little rich boy. Kara is having a hard time imagining this old Oliver, so Barry helps by letting her know that once Oliver cheated on his girlfriend with her sister. (What he DOESN’T tell her is that the sister in question would later go on to sleep with Kara’s own sister.)

Kara says they should prep Plan B in case (not a sex joke) and before they leave the roof, they find a giant Bat-Signal. Barry is stoked, Oliver remains unconvinced. But as the camera pans back, we see a bat-like figure looming once again on a rooftop, watching.

While the trio of heroes looks for the radio station where Vesper works, they see armored cars escorting the rich, and are “welcomed” by some locals, who demand their wallets and phones, having no idea how outmatched they are. The man doesn’t take long before he takes to shooting at the newcomers, but Kara catches the bullet easily.

They fight and by the time the Gotham City Police arrive, the bad guys are all taken down and Barry-Arrow has his foot on someone’s throat. The police recognize him as Oliver Queen, recently released felon, and immediately take the trio into custody.

Back at Arrow HQ, Felicity is having a hard time finding a lightning pattern, but she says she has noticed that it kind of looks like a breach, which means she thinks they need Team Flash’s help. And lo and behold, great minds think alike, because Cisco and Caitlin are here to help. You see, they noticed that the weird lightning left as soon as Barry and Oliver did, so it’s clearly following them for a reason.

Caitlin mentions the body swap because no one told her they were keeping it from Felicity, and Felicity is like, “The what-now??”

In Gotham City, the newly imprisoned call DA Laurel for help, but she’s still got a little X left in her, so she leaves them there for a night. Frustrated, Oliver-Flash and Barry-Arrow yell at each other about how they handled the situation until Kara yells at them. She says that they were both wrong, and have teetered TOO far into the whole trying-to-be-each-other thing. They are like, “Oh would you have had a better plan,” all sassy and she says yes she would have swooshed them all away so there was no one left to fight and they huff because she’s right about that being a better plan.

But they’re in luck, because someone posted their bail for them. When they get outside to find out who their benefactor is, a man in a big black car is waiting for them. He takes them to a run-down Wayne building that appears to be long-abandoned. They wonder aloud if their mystery donor is Bruce Wayne, but Oliver says he left town three years ago, so if it’s him it would be one hell of a shock.

But then they look up and it’s sure as hell no Bruce Wayne standing at the balcony waiting for them.

They ask who she is and she says she’s about to rain on their parade. The reason she bailed him out is because she doesn’t want the Green Arrow in her city.

The boys are a little put off by her immediately telling them to leave but Kara just wants to know her name. (“Rain?” she asks, in a way that would get anyone except Kara Danvers punched. “Ms. Parade?”)

But her name is Kane. Kate Kane.

And she’s here to fuck us up.

Back at Arrow HQ, everyone is fighting about why they didn’t tell Felicity about the switch, but mostly she’s just bummed that it seems like Iris figured it out on her own but she couldn’t tell anything was wrong with her own husband.

But she doesn’t have time to dwell on that right now, there’s Science to do.

Kate Kane takes the trio to her favorite place: the roof. They ask about Bruce Wayne, and Kara thinks it’s suspicious that he and Batman left at the same time, but Kate claims to not know why he left. Vesper was a dead-end lead (because Oliver did screw her over… literally) so Kate says they can work in her building to work on their mission if it will help them leave faster. (Fun fact: the wifi password is Alfred. A detail that will surely delight my father.)

So they do indeed get to work, using the USB of data Oliver-Flash stole from the precinct to run some facial recognition on the man from Oliver’s sketch of Cisco’s vibe.

Back at Arrow HQ, Felicity and Caitlin get a rare moment of female bonding, so of course all they do is talk about boys. Caitlin explains that her and Iris have a lot more experience with alternate realities and identity stealing than Felicity does, so they’re more apt to pick up on subtle things like body swaps. She tries to reassure Felicity that she shouldn’t take this as a death sentence for their marriage.

Caitlin also explains that when Barry and Oliver explained the situation to the Star Labs crew the first time, they kind of sort of drugged them and locked them up. So it could have also just been a time crunch thing!

Felicity is starting to feel a little better, but she also thinks her issues with Oliver run deeper than this. She knows Oliver loves her, but she doesn’t feel like he respects or trusts her. Which is valid and true. Caitlin says that as long as there’s love, there’s something worth fighting for. But Felicity is left wondering if love is enough.

Anyway, back to more exciting news, Felicity thinks that she designed a machine that would help someone breach if that is indeed what the lightning is all about.

Back in Gotham City (Am I allowed to call it Gotham? The TV show by that name has me all mixed up.), Oliver finds out that they’re looking for a man named John Deegan, but he’s been MIA for about five years.

Kara tells the boys she’s going to suit up and give the city a fly-over, but in reality she wanders back down through the building to find Kate in her office.

Kate explains that Bruce is her cousin, so she’s taking this old building of his and turning it into a real estate development firm. Which seems random but I assume will be relevant when the Batwoman CW series is born. Kara tells Kate that her cousin is sort of frienemies with Bruce, which I guess is what you call it when you would totally kill a person if their mom’s name wasn’t the same as your mom’s name.

Kara asks if Bruce broke because he was carrying around a secret, but Kate says that watching this city rot beneath him made him have to be strong, so something like that wouldn’t have broken him. No, he left for a different reason.

Kara is curious about this Kate Kane character, asking why a billionaire isn’t dressed in blocky, solid business suits like a certain other heiress she knows. She also points out that Kate has more tattoos than she would have expected. In a way to either distract from the questions and/or disarm her guest, Kate gets just close enough to Kara and implies she has even more tattoos she can’t see.

Kara immediately recognizes this as flirting and immediately gets shy and awkward and giggly and tries to change the subject. (I bet she can’t wait to tell Alex about this.)

Before doing a fly-over her own self, she decides to ask Kate Kane if she knows Deegan, and sure enough she does. He’s a doctor at the Arkham Asylum. So off Kara goes in one direction, smiling and bubbly, and off Kate goes in another, dark and brooding. She heads downstairs to a Batcave of her own and comes face to face with her suit.

And the dramatic music/camerawork in this shot reminded me that it’s feasible that there are people out there who wouldn’t have put it together quite yet that Kate Kane was Batwoman and that was probably a pretty cool reveal.

Back at Argus, Felicity is sciencing around like the sexy scientist she is, and her breach-assist machine is working. And then all of a sudden, Jay-the-Flash is there shouting a message at them, saying that if they get the book they can fix this.

Caitlin, Cisco, and Diggle take this message to Barry, Oliver, and Kara, who have just showed up at the asylum.

They put it together that they have to find the Tome from the vibe, and Kara has an idea of how they can break into the asylum. She puts Caitlin in a wheelchair, name-drops her Earth mom, and says her patient needs a… special kind of treatment. Killer Frost flashes her eyes at the intake nurse and she lets them in.

While they’re doing that, the boys are sneaking around the creepy hallways to find Deegan there, looking all Dr. Horrible, no sing-along blog. Deegan is excited to meet Oliver Queen, meaning he recognizes the same face we do to be Oliver. I think what his excited rambling meant was that he was trying to become The Flash himself but messed it up a bit. But he’s enjoying this new reality, so he doesn’t want to change it back, thank you very much.

When it becomes clear that Oliver and Diggle aren’t going to take no for an answer, he presses a red button to release all the inmates and uses it as a distraction to run away. Kara and Caitlin use this chaos to their advantage too, and set out to find the tome themselves.

A fight ensues, and Oliver-Flash is speeding as many prisoners as he can back into their cells, but it’s a big place and he’s only one newly powered speedster. Supergirl flies around looking for Deegan with no luck. Caitlin finds an inmate frantically looking for something, and gets hit by a blast that causes her to go full Killer Frost.

One of the inmates, who wore a gold mask and had enough camera time for me to suspect he’s a DC villain I’m not familiar with, runs outside and is picked up by a man with a van who runs over Cisco. But before they can get away, Batwoman lands atop their van and stops them dead in their tracks. She grapple-hooks a bunch of men at once, throws a Batarang, does a superhero three-point landing. It. is. GLORIOUS.

Cisco and Barry-Arrow are pretty impressed. But Batwoman isn’t here to make friends. She says that they should have listened to Kate Kane when they had the chance. They should have left Gotham City.

Inside, Supergirl isn’t having any luck finding Deegan, and Killer Frost is having a hard time with this particular inmate, who has a gun labeled “FRIES” and I imagine will come back into play on the Batwoman series at some point.

Deegan goes to fetch his Tome and is about to wreak more havoc, but Supergirl stops him just in time, and swipes the book, but loses Deegan.

When Barry and Oliver show up to help Killer Frost, Fries knocks over a shelf with little glass vials on it, which break and release a gas into their air right around Barry and Oliver. Then all of a sudden, they’re hallucinating. Barry-Arrow sees Malcolm Merlyn (a nightmare to be sure) and Oliver-Flash sees Eobard Thawne (seriously though don’t we see enough of this guy) aka the Reverse Flash. While at first I thought this would backfire since they were seeing each other’s enemies, the boys got right to fighting anyway.

The thing is, to Caitlin, it looks like Oliver and Barry are fighting each other.

Caitlin sees a sexy stranger appear to help, and Batwoman easily takes down both men and helps them snap out of the hallucination.

The Team has the book now and are ready to leave, but they want to know if they can help Batwoman at all. She grumbles that they should just leave, and it’s noted she’s not all that different from Batman after all.

The boys and Caitlin head out, but Supergirl stays behind to chat with her.

Batwoman doesn’t want a tearful goodbye, but Supergirl doesn’t want that either. Supergirl mostly just wanted Batwoman to know that she knows she’s Kate Kane. You see, she has x-ray vision, which she used to see behind the mask, but APPARENTLY also through other things because she notes that Kate wasn’t lying about having a lot of tattoos.

Batwoman lets Supergirl know she knows she’s Kara too (oof these sentences) by saying she doesn’t think Kara has a single tattoo. Supergirl is sad to go; she thinks they would have made a great team. And Batwoman retorts, “World’s Finest,” which I imagine is a nod to the original Superman/Batman comics.

The team leaves Gotham City and heads back to Star City to give Felicity the tome so she can crack the coded lock. While she does that, Oliver and Barry have a heart-to-heart about what it was like to face each other’s enemies; they have a new appreciation for each other now. And maybe Oliver will learn to lighten up a little after all this, after seeing he isn’t the only one in pain, he’s just the only one (of the two of them) causing others pain because of it.

Oliver-Flash, despite knowing his face isn’t the one she’s most familiar with at this point, goes to Felicity to tell her to have hope; he thinks their relationship is going to be okay.

And then Jay-the-Flash shows up, though he says he’s not actually Jay in his multi-verse, nor is he Barry’s dad. He’s Barry Allen himself, from Earth-90, and he’s here to warn them about The Monitor, aka the Tome Guy, who has been testing different Elseworlds for some reason. As luck would have it, said Monitor is here on this very Earth right now, so the trio goes to talk to him. Well, all four of them do, but Monitor flickers Old Flash out of existence right quick.

The Monitor says something is coming, someone powerful, who will cause crisis across the multiverse and he’s looking for a universe that’s strong enough to fight it. He needs champions, and it just so happens this particular trio is the first to figure things out well enough to find the tome. Oliver asks for Kara’s help and Kara moves to attack him, but Kara finds she can’t.

Unfortunately, Monitor isn’t done testing them yet, so he gives the tome back to Deegan and tells him to try again. To think bigger.

Then reality resets and Barry and Oliver find themselves in VERY ADORABLE matching outfits, a newspaper with their photos on it blaring a headline calling them Trigger Twins. Neither of them have the Flash powers, and all of Oliver’s past enemies show up as cops to arrest them.

Faced with no other obvious choice, they take the cops down, but then find themselves face to face with Superman… dressed all in black.

And that’s it for Part 2! What did you think of Batwoman’s first episode? I was pleasantly surprised. I still can’t say for sure if Ruby Rose can carry a full show, but they didn’t have to mysteriously make Kate Kane have an Australian accent, and she had swagger for days. And there’s no denying they have her Bat-gadgets and Bat-suit sorted out. I’m officially more excited than I ever thought I would be for the standalone series; not a half-bad half-backdoor-pilot episode if I do say so myself.

See you tomorrow for the Supergirl episode and final installment of the Elseworlds crossover!

DCTV SuperFlarrow “Elseworlds, Part 1” Recap: Batwoman Begins

Hello and welcome to our annual CW DC TV Crossover Event! This year Legends of Tomorrow is off doing its own thing, so it’s just a SuperFlarrow crossover, which is fine by me; I think they realized they have too many big personalities to do a four-way crossover, and inevitably someone is uncharacteristically sidelined if they’re all around, so leaving our time traveling misfits to their mayhem feels right. (Especially after what happened last week…)

So this week things are a little shook up, and instead of a Supergirl Sunday, we’re starting this three-night event with The Flash. And for reasons I will never understand, this episode opens with the same exact scene that ended ALL THREE SHOWS last week. And once again it’s out of context. Old Flash in the ruins of an earth, dude with a big ol’ tome being rude about it.

Then we finally move on to something new, on Earth-1 (aka Barry and Oliver’s world) a professor with murder-hair is ranting to a half-empty classroom about humanity’s imperfections, scaring away students one by one and shouting about how no one is listening to him.

He goes outside to the parking lot and hears a voice calling his name, John Deegan, and Tome Guy shows up and gives him the book, telling him to dream big and play god, because sure why not.

The sky turns a weird color and strange lightning cracks across the it, and Oliver Queen wakes up in a room he doesn’t recognize. He hears Iris West calling him “honey” and goes into the kitchen to find her making him breakfast and kissing him, much to his confusion. He asks her where Barry is, and she looks at him like he started speaking a different language.

She calls HIM Barry and Oliver knows something is horribly wrong. She’s looking at him with heart-eyes that aren’t usually meant for him and while it’s very charming he’s very, very confused.

He makes an excuse to go to Star Labs, but she gets an alert first and says she’ll meet him there. As soon as she’s gone he tests out his speed and it’s kind of cute watching him stumble around. Iris comes back and gives him his suit-ring and I’m just going to say this now: I never appreciated how cute Barry looks in that suit until I saw someone else in the suit.

Oliver-Flash wonders aloud what Barry did to fuck up the timeline, and honestly it’s a dig I make at Barry about once a week so I would deem it well-earned.

Oliver-Flash tries to embrace his new powers and take out some baddies, and stumbles through it at first but eventually does good enough that Cisco thinks the police can take over from there. What they don’t notice, in all the confusion, is the huge mindless-Iron-Man looking thing that seemed to come to life in their wake.

When he gets back to the lab and the team checks him out and deems him fully functional, Oliver-Flash decides he needs help, so he says he’s going to pop into Star City for a bit and wooshes away.

Meanwhile, in Star City, Barry comes to mid-fight with Diggle. He realizes he has superior fighting skills, and quickly realizes he’s Oliver Queen. His first instinct is to be delighted, because he’s Barry Allen, but after a beat he realizes that actually this is pretty weird.

Barry thinks probably he should call Star Labs, but Diggle says there’s no time because they have to answer a call. Barry puts on the Green Arrow suit and looks very smol but much better than Oliver looked in his suit. He has a hard time distinguishing one type of arrow from another, but the bad guys end up in a pile anyway.

Oliver-Flash shows up and him and Barry-Arrow head back to Team Arrow’s HQ. Barry is loving his new skills, doing the salmon ladder just for funsies, but Oliver implores him to take it more seriously, so they head back to Star Labs for help.

After one more dig at Barry’s proclivity for fucking up timelines, they scan the boys and still find no trace that something is wrong.

And honestly this is a literal nightmare. To try to convince someone that your reality is real and having them tell you it’s not? No thank you! Oliver-Flash tries to talk to Iris but she drugs him because something is clearly going on here and she feels weird about it. At the same time, Stretch Armstrong (he has a different name like Mr. Bendyface but I literally do not care about him so here we are) knocks Barry-Arrow out. The two of them wake up in a Star Labs holding cell together and realize they’re in over their heads. Barry suggests they find a way to get in touch with Kara on Earth-38 to see if this is an Earth-1 or a multiverse problem.

They coach each other on how to best use their skills and make their way out of the cell, but find themselves face to face with Iris. Barry-Arrow uses his heart-words to get through to her, and even though she doesn’t recognize his face, she recognizes a Barry speech when she hears one, so she gives them the inter-dimensional extrapolator they need to jump worlds.

We jump worlds first though, and head to the Kent Farm on Earth-38 and finally get to meet the one and only Lois Lane.

Kara is on the farm helping them out and Lois talks about wanting to write about her adventures with Superman on Argo. Lois goes inside the barn for a bit, leaving the cousins to bond, and Kara does something I can imagine a younger Alex getting her to try: she opens two beer bottles with her thumbs.

Kara tells Clark how annoying it was when the president was demanding to know her secret identity, that he was almost as intimidating as Cat Grant. She feels bad for leaving Alex alone at the DEO, but it’s where she’s at for now. Clark tells Kara about how fun it was taking Lois to Argo and he feels selfish for leaving her alone to defend the planet, but she was fine and also he’s in love, and she can’t begrudge him that.

Clark tells Kara that he has something important to talk to her about, but they’re interrupted by Lois crying out inside the barn. When they get inside, they see Lois almost murdering Barry and Oliver until Kara reassures them that they’re friends not foes.

Oliver and Barry are delighted to see that Kara calls them by their correct names, so Oliver shows her that he has Flash speed now and she knows she has to help him. She introduces the boys to her cousin, Clark, and they clearly know who he is, because Barry starts to stutter and Oliver puffs out his chest a little.

Before they head back to Earth-1, though, Oliver-Flash teaches Barry-Arrow how to shoot, and Barry-Arrow gets back at Oliver-Flash for their first training session by hitting him with some hidden crossbows. Oliver does his usual grumble-growl at Barry, causing Lois to shout, “DECK HIM, BARRY!” from the porch.

It’s A Mood to be sure.

While they’re grumping around on the wrong Earth, Killer Frost and Gumby are fighting the big robot thing. After knocking them down, it suddenly uses a cool ice luge skill much like Killer Frost’s own to fly away. Back at Star Labs, they learn it’s called AMAZO and can basically learn any power if it gets the chance to scan the metahuman or alien in question.

When the team realizes the boys are gone, Iris tells them that she believes them now, and the team trusts her enough to go along with it. Also, Cisco got a really weird vibe where he saw the Tome Guy, so he knows something is fishy.

At the Kent farm, Barry and Oliver talk it out, and Oliver explains that as the Arrow, he draws on his pain to shoot his shots, and Barry says he does the opposite; he runs towards/for what makes him happiest. They decide they have to try to be a little more like each other (even though I’d argue they should both try to be more like Barry) and Kara comes out all happy that they finally kissed and made up.

She even mocks Oliver’s grumpiness and it is very cute. It reminds me of the good old days when her and Barry where Superfriends. Anyway, she agrees that they have to at least lean into the new skillsets they have if they want go get through this.

Cisco breaches in and apologizes for not believing them at first, but assuring them he’s on board now, that the whole team is. So he takes his vigilante, metahuman, and alien buddies (Leaving Lois Lane in the lurch) and heads back to Earth-1 to sort things out.

Back on Earth-1, AMAZO is destroying things, so the team works together to take him down, Barry and Oliver leaning into their new outlooks and powers to succeed, and taking a very necessary assist from the SuperCousins.

During the fight, Barry-Arrow even says Oliver’s classic line, “You have failed this city,” before hitting AMAZO square in the eye, causing him to explode.

They all go back to the lab and while everyone is excited that they beat the big bad, their original problem still exists. Figuring they’re not in immediate need of him anymore, Clark heads back to Earth-38, but Kara stays to help out.

Iris pulls Barry-Arrow aside and says that even though she could tell he was her Barry because of the way he talked to her, she saw him go all broody out there, and wants him to promise that when this is all over, he’ll come back to her. Not physically run home, the way he’s always promised he would, but also still be her fun-loving, mostly-optimistic husband. She doesn’t want him to become Oliver Queen. And frankly, neither do I.

Back in the lab, Cisco tells everyone about his bad vibe, so Barry and Oliver ask to see it. But when Cisco is showing them, Tome Guy breaks through the fourth wall (fifth wall? vibe wall) and looks right at them. He is surprised by their powers but not deterred in his plan; he says “none of you” can stop what’s coming, but he also said something about “men on this Earth” so I’m hoping it’ll end up being him not only underestimating the beings on this planet, but also women, and that Kara, Alex, Lena and Nia will be the ones to save them all.

Anyway, that vibe was a VERY bad vibe, and it gave Cisco a bloody nose. Oliver-Flash speed-draws what he saw, but Kara doesn’t recognize Tome Guy or John Deegan. Oliver doesn’t either, but he does recognize one building in the back, the name “Wayne” emblazoned across it, so he knows where they need to go: Gotham City.

And this is when we see our first official in-show look at Ruby Rose as Batwoman, standing on a rooftop, cape flapping in the wind, red hair gleaming in the dark night.

See you tomorrow night for Part Two of Elseworlds, and our first full episode with Kate Kane!