Oof. I almost forgot I had this one to do.
My bad. Okay, this will be quickish then (although not so quickish as to not
add a second episode to each series before publishing.
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| Resistance HQ is a coffee shop entirely distinct from CC Jitters. |
The DEO faces a series of seeming random
attacks by alien psychics, which turn out to be triggered by the matter
transmission tech that Lena is developing in partnership with Rhea, who claims
to be seeking a way home and is clearly working Lena's mummy issues like a
goddamn boss. Mon-el sees Rhea in the street and thinks he's going mad. James
has a wibble when he realises that people are scared of the steel-clad colossus
in gun-metal grey (no shit), but gets his mojo back when he is able to connect
with a telepathic child when no-one else can, which leads him to rediscover his
reasons for being a hero. Lena completes her work and Rhea brings in a Daxamite
fleet to create 'New Daxam'. Mon-el isn't able to plug his own mother, so she
nicks off with him and Lena, having told him that his father died of grief rather
than of wife-related stabbing.
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| Because of course Daxamite wedding dresses are red and plungy. |
In 'Resist', Supergirl joins up with the
rest of the DEO to form a Resistance against the Daxamite invasion, and Lillian
Luthor shows up to offer her help. She and Henshaw have a means to board the
mothership and blind its sensors, while Supergirl can fight past their defences.
Meanwhile, Rhea wants to cement power on Earth by marrying Mon-el to Lena, on
pain of orphanage incineration(1). After much umming and ahing, and Cat Grant(2)
and the President getting shot down in Air Force 1, Kara agrees to the deal in
order to rescue Lena and Mon-el before Alex can gain control of a supergun on
the DEO's roof and shoot down the mothership. Winn and Cat broadcast a message
of resistance as a diversion and Guardian saves them from goons, using lead
dust to strip the Daxamites of their powers while he punches them. Lena and
Mon-el are rescued and Kara pulls off a switcheroo by having Winnset up a
counter to Lillian and Henshaw's sudden yet inevitable betrayal. Alas,
Supergirl has to give Rhea one last chance to surrender, and the cannon is unfired
long enough for it to be destroyed by… Superman!
What!?
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| "Science, bitches." |
Barry realises that Savitar is actually one
of the time remnants that he will one day make to fight against the past
version of Savitar in the future(3), who got monumentally pissed off at being
treated like a shabby copy after he wasn't killed in the battle. Barry tries to
smack him down while he's unarmoured, but the Savitar suit turns out to do its
own fighting and is much easier to put on than to take off. To try to eliminate
Savitar's future memory advantage, Cisco and Julian suggest knocking out the
connection between Barry's short and long-term memories, so that he can't make
new memories for Savitar to recall. Unfortunately, they end up frying all of his non-procedural memories in
time for a vital trial presentation, although on the upside he is happier for
not knowing his own history and Savitar also loses his memory, pushing Killer
Frost to team up with Team Flash to restore them both.
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| Zap! |
Elsewhere, HR and Tracy flirt awkwardly and
create the Speedforce bazooka, thanks to her smarts and his naming skills and
Dadaist pep talk talents.
In 'Infantino Street', with the very literal
deadline approaching, Barry tries desperately to find a way to save Iris. In
order to power the Speedforce bazooka, he recruits Legends Season 1-era Leonard
Snart to help him steal a Dominator power source from ARGUS, leading to a clash
with King Shark and a couple of tough conversations with Lyla about
responsibility. This enables the team – less Cisco, who is drawn into his
woodland confrontation with Killer Frost - to confront Savitar at Infantino
Street, only to discover that the Philosopher's Stone makes him immune to the
bazooka.
And Savitar kills Iris, thus setting in
motion the chain of events which will result in his own creation and apotheosis.
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| "Well, balls." |
Finally, in Arrow, Felicity does some mad pep talking herself and gets Oliver
back in the suit. The team comes together to thwart Chase's attempt to gas most
of the city. Oliver is unable to take Chase in a fight, but thanks to the
family lawyer is able to hit him with the revelation that his dad was planning
to completely disown him as a freewheeling nutjob, causing him to surrender.
Thea comes back to Star City, Rene blows his court appearance for fear of
failing, and Chase is all happy about being in company, presumably because he
has Oliver's son and an evil endgame in mind. Oh, and in flashback Oliver
returns to the island, pins up Deathstroke's original mask and gets captured by
Kovar. SURPRISE!
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| Lance takes the fact that they hid Black Siren's existence from him surprisingly well, considering. |
In 'Missing', nuTA assemble for Oliver's
birthday, but first Rene and Dinah, then Curtis, Thea and Lance, and finally Diggle
and Felicity are kidnapped by Artemis – who clearly just wanted to work for a
plain-dealing villain, because Prometheus is no better than Olly at his worst –
Black Siren – who has some wobbles of conscience over abducting her father's
doppelganger – and Talia al Gul – who kills Diggle's SUV with a sword. Oliver refuses to release Chase, but then he gets
sent video of his son and so he has to team up with Malcolm Merlyn to save his
friends and his former arch enemy's daughter. Realising that they are all being
taken to Lian Yu, Olly also recruits Nyssa al Gul and, on arriving at the
island, opts to bring in a real wildcard by springing Slade Wilson from the
ARGUS blacksite.
In what may prove to be the penultimate Arrow flashback, Kovar spiked him with a Chinese torture drug that brings all of his pain back into the present. Given a gun with one bullet, Yao Fei appeared and urged him to kill himself, but Laurel Lance told him not too and instead he shot out the lock on the door, symbolically choosing a path into the future instead of letting the past define him, a lesson which - in true Arrow style - would not truly be realised for five years.
We're in the downhill stretch now, with just
the finales to go, and so of course everything is fear, pain and confusion
(albeit a little lighter in The Flash.)
Arrow is all child endanger-y again
(never like that,) and that never makes me happy. Supergirl is setting Lena up to go full villain when she learns that Kara has been lying to her about being Supergirl. I hope that she will be revealed to have worked it out on her own, but I'm not sure. I'm glad we're catching up to
season 1 of Arrow in the flashbacks, however, because I for one am heartily sick of the things. We're also getting a shit-tonne of returning characters for this wrap up, of which my favourite is Snart. This version of Captain Cold has a way of messing with Barry's self-image that is always prime value for money. Olly's own version of the Suicide Squad is interesting - especially Manu Bennett's Deathstroke - but not quite as cool(4). Cat Grant... Much as I liked her in season 1, and felt her spiky presence was missed in this season, she felt somewhat extraneous (although her effortless piercing of Guardian's identity was, fair play, hilarious.)
(1) And I thought Arrow would be heavy on child endangerment.
(2) Contract fulfilled.
(3) I know, right.
(4) If you will.
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