DC’s Invasion Finishes Off On a Positive Note

After three consecutive days of DC TV’s wonders crossing over to each other shows (Supergirl notwithstanding), it all comes down for the final fight on Legends of Tomorrow. Plus, resolution on Cisco and Barry’s fight and Dr. Stein decides to keep the aberration he created alive.

“See You Later, Dominator”

After their rescue, the gang that had been abducted reunites with the rest at the Discount Justice League Base of Operations (seriously, it even has the same architecture with Star Labs logo). They decide that the Dominators kidnapped the people so they could get information on metahumans so the brutal reprisal picked is to kidnap an alien and question him. Nate decides to go back in time to get one – for when the Doms first invaded in 1951 – and brings along Cisco and Felicity so they could up their ‘geek cred’ and Mick and Amaya.

Barry informs the remainders (sans Thea, because I guess they needed Willa Holland’s paycheck for VFX?) that the new president called – a SHE – and wanted to meet with them. Oliver sees this as an opportunity to cut down the budget of the episode/crossover so he spins the wheel of excuses and decides he wants Supergirl not to go because she is an alien and the Dominators are aliens and I could be any more obvious? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I’m obviously being sarcastic, but that’s what it felt like: the producers being “hey, so we need Supergirl in the third act against the Dominators which are all CGI so let’s bench her for the first fight scene against the humans!”. It was pathetic. Apparently, when Oliver goes against something new, he pushes back, wants a bit of space, and he has to draw a line somewhere *eyeroll*. This doesn’t beat yesterday’s “The building is odd; therefore, it is the exit” contrivance, but it’s right up there.

At Star Labs, Caitlin Snow and Dr. Stein are trying to come up with a weapon to beat the Dominators. They decide that instead of something big, they should aim for something small – really small. Stein’s daughter shows up and wants to help, but he’s all “oh, you know, it’s the government, it’s really top secret, I don’t know who the hell you are, this is really important, it’s fighting aliens, blah blah blah…”. She casually mentions her PhD in Nanotechnology which actually gives me the chills – seriously impressed – and just gets to work because her father is being nonsensical. Huge Yay for women in STEM not being shut down by old white men even if it’s their father!!

At the Waverider, Cisco and Felicity are over there still geeking out, quoting movies, puking, and blabbering when the actual Legends decide to leave them at the spaceship. Now dressed up as Discount Captain America, Nate, Amaya, and Mick leave to look for the Doms. Felicity and Cisco discuss Cisco’s anger against Barry.

Mick, Amaya, and Nate pick their candidate and go after him, managing to knock him out. Right after, a team of suits show up, commandeer the situation, and knock everyone down with tranq darts. Now locked away with the restrained Dominator, Nate attempts to converse and the Dom says there had been a resurgence of metahumans caused by the Justice Society of America and they wanted to know what was going on.

Ray, Oliver, Barry, and Sara go to meet with the president, but alas she is not there. Instead, it’s the old white man from the Flash part of Invasion who, coincidentally, is the man in charge dealing with the Doms and the Legends in 1951. Eventually, there’s some fighting and, obviously, the heroes win.

Cisco and Felicity break out Nate, Amaya, and Mick from their jail and, before leaving, decide to also break out the Dominator who is being tortured (morals: humans are bad). They send away the Dom on the pod and now they are off to 2016.

Old White Man tells Barry that the Dominators are indeed  there because of Flashpoint: his little venture through the past has influenced the universe. The man has struck some sort of deal with the Doms in which Barry has to turn himself in to them and they would leave.  If Barry doesn’t, they will release a bomb on Central City that will wipe out all the metahumans, but Cisco somehow figures there could be around 2 million non-meta casualties. In the meantime, Dominator ships are coming in worldwide.

Cisco vibes himself and Nate up in the Dominators’ spaceship and talks to the Dominator they saved. He argues that when bad people inherit metahuman abilities, – they have seen it happen several times – bad things can happen to the Doms, so as a prophylactic measure, they are going to wipe out the metahumans before the scourge of Planet Earth becomes the scourge of Planet Dominator.

Nate and Cisco realize that they messed up with time when they freed the Dominator, so Cisco has his catharsis about his own feelings towards Barry because he just messed up as well.

Barry decides to be the patsy and sacrifice himself – very noble -, but the rest of them make their own speeches and change his mind. Cisco and Barry are making up when Jax says the mothership has just opened up and is dropping the bomb. Sara and Cisco are aboard the Waverider ready to stop it, however. Dr. Stein shows up and gives them the device he was working on (oh, almost forgot: he and his daughter had their own emotional journey and everything’s cool now) – a little button that has to be attached to the Doms and will cause mass agony for them, but all of the devices have to implanted before activating.

So here we arrive: the third act. The battle begins and the initial shot is very Captain America: Civil War like. It’s all very pretty, there’s CGI everywhere, and everyone is suddenly the “One Punch Man”. Barry is implanting the devices in the meantime. Supergirl saves Oliver from death and Everything is Okay Now ™. Felicity says there are Dominators all over the country and drops a “This is a job for Supergirl”, which is offensive to Barry.

Firestorm is called in to help Sara – apparently, he can transmute objects now. Felicity activated Dr. Stein devices and the Dominators fall down in pain. Dr. Stein himself pep talks Jax into turning the bomb into water and yeah!-they-saved-the-day. All Dominators are retreating!

Now back at the Warehouse-turned-Justice-League-Headquarters, the president (A! BLACK! WOMAN!) is giving a speech congratulating the heroes. Sara and Mick call the president “hot” and the party starts just in time for two subsequent meta jokes: Ray says that Kara looks like his cousin and Kara says they are the “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” (is Marvel going to sue?!).

Cisco comes up with a little convenient device for Kara that opens portals and communicates with the team solving all potential crossover problems. Mick takes the opportunity to call Supergirl “Skirt” again and I’m glad she is on a different earth also again.

Dr. Stein talks to Jax about deciding to not go back and erase his daughter from existence which is fundamentally against his own quest as a Legend.

Supergirl goes home while Oliver and Sara have a little heart to heart about their time in the shared hallucination – very, very cathartic. John Diggle says he forgives Barry for changing the gender of his kid and encourages him to forgive himself.

Closing up the crossover, Barry and Oliver go out for a beer while talking about how both of them got a glimpse into what life could have been had they not gotten involved in any superhero antics and it’s a nice moment.

In Conclusion

Overall, I liked the crossover. Yes, this was far more a “three-parter” than a “four-parter” and part of me wishes that Supergirl had come on board earlier in her own episode, but the other part also loves that the episode “Medusa” was amazing on its own.

Supergirl, by the way, totally got the bitter end of this because of VFX’s constraints, only really shining while on the Flash because it was more action packed. On Arrow, she was reassigned to the B-story and benched for some part of the Legends of Tomorrow episode. She suffered through some casual sexism and discrimination – three/four times, by the three different male characters, in across three different shows, and three days. I get that she was the newbie there, but holy fuck, she was trying to help out and yet it wasn’t enough? Go figure. Earth-1 is a weird place.

Oh, and by the way, there was a scripted line where Sara tried to make a move on Kara and she replied “You should meet my sister”.

I would definitely say that my favorite hour of the three (I’m counting Supergirl out) was the second one. I particularly loved how emotional the Arrow episode was. Somehow, I don’t think that would have happened had the episode not been the 100^th episode of the show, but it definitely happened.

Flash comes second because of the action – this is a superhero crossover so I will not object towards superhero representation. It had some great moments overall despite having to do all of the setup.

Legends comes third because it was mostly about resolution. It didn’t have either of the above in an excellent quantity – there was some emotional impact and some action. It was balanced, but in the end, it didn’t feel “as epic” as it could have been. I want to say “lukewarm”, but that’s being a little too mean.

I’m glad the CW got to do this, but I’m a little disappointed on some little things that are mostly related to some characters not appearing as much as they should. I strongly think that J’onn J’onnz should have come with Kara and maybe even Alex (not sure about Winn as perhaps that would have been way too much with Felicity and Cisco already there, but maybe not). Thea and Wally also should have been featured in this last installment – the other side characters maybe not, but it would also have helped the final set piece with the fight against the Dominators.

In the end, I’m just glad that they did this. It’s nice to see how connected this shared universe is and we can be sure (like 99.99%) that we will get another next year because the ratings for the episodes have all increased. Let’s just hope the budget also gets elevated so more people can come in and fight!

Images courtesy of the CW.