Hey Folks,
After almost a month-long hiatus, our core DC CW shows have returned. Sure, we had the season finale of Legends of Tomorrow last week, but this week Supergirl, The Flash, and Arrow have returned. On Supergirl, Kara uses her (recently unemployed) reporting skills to uncover a conspiracy involving Lena Luthor’s ex-boyfriend as he unrolls a new medical product. On The Flash, Barry travels to the future to try and discover how Iris died and who Savitar is. On Arrow, Felicity gets in too deep with her hacker group Helix, and has to go against Oliver and her own team in order to try and figure out how to stop Adrian Chase.
So how did everything in the Arrowverse go this week? Let’s take a look at this week’s episodes:
Supergirl: “Ace Reporter”
When we last saw Supergirl, we were dealing with an alien crisis as the Daxamites were threatening Earth (and Supergirl) for Mon-El to return back to his home planet. But oh the power of love. Mon-El opts not to return to his home planet and remain on Earth. His father Lar-Gand (Kevin Sorbo) was at least a little understanding and agreed to cease the hostilities. However, his mother Rhea (Teri Hatcher) was a little less understanding, she even killed her husband and is planning on enacting some wrongs on Kara as a revenge.
This week on Supergirl, it’s pretty boring in National City. Turns out, there’s nothing for Supergirl to do. All is quiet at the DEO on the alien front. There’s not so much as a kitten stuck in a tree. With Hank doing paperwork and Alex simply doing fight training, Kara goes home. Being unemployed, she has even nothing to do at home and opts to “stress bake.” The problem is, she’s much better at being Supergirl than cooking. Lucky for her, her friend Lena Luthor asks her to come with her to a conference where her ex-boyfriend Jack Spheer (iZombie’s Rahul Kohli) is unveiling a new medical technology that is set to revolutionize the healthcare industry. It’s not like she has anything else to do, so it’s off to the conference.
In Ted Talks fashion, Jack shows off a new nanite based technology that has the ability to heal any disease. To show off what his new technology can do, he cuts himself, and the nanites immediately heal his wounds. Lena is impressed as she and Jack had worked on the technology when they were dating. Although Kara comes to the conference as a blogger, she runs into her former boss Snapper Carr and they exchange in a few passive aggressive comments towards each other. After the conference, a whistleblower comes to Kara telling her that not everything is as it should be as the company has faked its human trials. As Kara and the whistleblower meet, later on, they are attacked by the same nanites that are supposed to be healing. Turns out, they are sentient and capable not only of healing, but murder.
Kara knowing something is up with the company, continues her investigative reporting into Jack’s company. As does her nemesis Snapper. She ends up saving Snapper’s life as he also is meeting with another whistleblower who is also murdered before he can slip the beans. How Snapper doesn’t know Supergirl is Kara (or anyone else for that matter) is mesmerizing. Kara continues investigating, where she and Mon-El crash Lena and Jack on a date, where despite the awkwardness, Mon-El swipes Jack’s key card, which Kara uses to go to his office and look on his computer where she realizes that the only human trial Jack used the nanites on, was himself. Jack is the nanites and therefore, Jack is the murderer.
Kara later tells Lena (who was just growing attached to Jack) the truth and warns her to stay away from her ex. Naturally, she goes to confront him about the nanites and the murders. At first Jack’s denials seem like he’s just deflecting. However, it turns out he is oblivious as to what’s going on as the real villain is his CFO Beth, who has been controlling Jack (and the nanites) and wiping Jack’s memory of the incidents. It’s the perfect way to gain control of whomever the nanites infect as they basically become her slave. Beth then has a controlled Jack turn against Lena, only for Kara to come and save her. As Kara is fighting the nanites, the only way to stop them is to destroy the computer core, which will kill her former love in the process. Jack temporarily in control tells his former love to go ahead to stop Beth, and he is sacrificed. After Beth is arrested, a heartbroken Lena is comforted by Kara.
Later on, Snapper runs his story on the events, and gives Kara a byline as well as welcomes her back to work at CatCo as a reporter as some of her work helped uncover the conspiracy. Snapper tells her that she’s a great reporter, despite some of her previous setbacks. Meanwhile, Rhea shows up to meet with Lena Luthor and give her an offer.
Next week, Alex is held hostage, forcing Kara to try and save her.
The Flash: “The Once And Future Flash”
This week on The Flash, HR/Harrison Wells himself, actor Tom Cavanagh directs the episode “The Once and Future Flash” where Barry travels to the future to investigate the aftermath of Savitar’s murder of Iris and see the aftermath of her death on Team Flash.
In the aftermath of Caitlin becoming Killer Frost again, she destroys the necklace that held her powers in, meaning her villainous alter-ego is here to stay. Although STAR Labs is in shambles, Barry has to travel to 2024 to figure out what happened to Iris and hope to find out just who Savitar is. If he knows the identity of the culprit, perhaps he can find out a way to stop him. The reason 2024 is a good choice, is because there is no mention of Savitar in his time vault newspaper, which means that Savitar was caught/defeated, or sent back to his prison in the Speed Force by Barry.
The Flash has great episodes when they do time traveling or going to other realities as it gives the audience to see our characters in a different light. Whether it’s traveling to Earth-2, or going through Flashpoint, our characters go through changes. In the year 2024, we are now in a bleak future. We see the aftermath of Iris’s death as it affects our heroes. Her death literally breaks up Team Flash. STAR Labs is in shambles. Cisco, Joe, and Barry are now broken shells of themselves, and Central City is a hellscape after Barry stops being The Flash in his depression, and metahumans run the city.
Future Cisco lost his hands battling Savitar and as a result, no longer has his vibe powers. He’s the only person at STAR Labs. Happy to see Barry for 2017, he tries to ensure he remains in 2024 as Barry in that timeline is completely into Emo territory. Joe also doesn’t speak to Barry as they both couldn’t survive Iris death together and withdrew from each other and the world. Future Barry knows who Savitar is, but won’t tell 2017 Barry in his depression. Barry opts to try and find out who Savitar is by asking future Killer Frost, now a prisoner in Iron Heights under future Julian’s care. future Killer Frost does her best Hannibal Lecter by teasing to tell who Savitar is, but she opts to tell Barry it's better when he finds out. The next person Barry tries to talk to in order to discover who Savitar is, is future Wally. However future Wally is in even worse shape than anyone else. His battle with Savitar shattered his spine and as a result, he is so broken he doesn’t not even speak. This episode served to be very depressing as it showed us just how bleak The Flash could be. Lucky for all of our future heroes, 2014 Barry is here to help write their wrongs. He helps them reclaim Central City from future Mirror Master and Top. After they save the city (which even future Barry suits up again to fight in), future Barry gives 2017 Barry a hard drive and name of a physicist named Tracy Brand who can help him take on Savitar. Barry will seek her out so he can try and save Iris.
Meanwhile, in 2017 Killer Frost runs into Savitar. He asks her to join him to ensure she will never turn back into Caitlin. To prove to a skeptical Killer Frost, he shows her who he really is (of course we don’t see), but whoever he really is, she reverses her posture immediately. Now, who could Savitar be? He’s either 3 people: Ronnie from another timeline, Eddie from another timeline, or yet another version of Barry.
Either way, we find out next week in “I Know Who You Are.”
Arrow: “Dangerous Liaisons”
In the aftermath of the reveal that Adrian Chase as Prometheus, there’s a manhunt for him. Not only are the Star City police, the FBI, ARGUS, and Homeland Security after him, but so is Team Arrow and Helix.
As always, Chase is one step ahead of everyone as he ambushes the police as they try to catch him at an arcade. Curtis is so impressed with a vintage “Maximum Force” arcade game he’s more beat up when the game is destroyed than that Chase escaped and killed a few cops. Oliver has to face a hostile press vulturing in on him having let his chief of staff be a serial killer.
Meanwhile, Felicity has been working with Helix to try and find out where Chase is. However, Helix has ulterior motives. As they are a “freedom” hacker group, they also have a problem with ARGUS and their clandestine ways. Helix graduates from spying to murder this week as they hack an elevator to kill an ARGUS agent (“by accident”) in order to obtain a key card that will help them locate one of their fellow hackers unbeknownst to Felicity. However, Alena promises Felicity that if she helps them go against her own team, they will be able to use a biometric hacking technology to find out Chase via his signature heartbeat (there’s such a thing?). As a result, she now has to go against Team Arrow for the “greater good.”
Helix truly steps up into dangerous territory as they hire mercenaries to attack another ARGUS agent, only for Team Arrow to try and stop them. Felicity tells her friends to let the mercs go through with their plan as it means that they will finally be able to find Chase. Oliver still isn’t wearing the hood, meaning that he still feels he’s “unworthy” to be the Green Arrow. This sets Oliver against Felicity as he sees her going down a dark path that she might now be able to come back from. Felicity is too stubborn and proceeds to be at odds with her team.
The person Helix is after has been held without trial by ARGUS, which sets Diggle at odds with his wife Lyla who he is also seeing turn into a new Amanda Waller and breaking the rules in the name of national security. This episode showed that the women in Arrow are just as willing as the men to go into gray territory for what they feel is right. When the shoes on the other foot, the men push back against them. Both Diggle and Oliver and their significant others are at odds for their own reasons. Both of their relationships might not survive this as a result.
Felicity and Helix break into an ARGUS black site to break out the prisoner and face a confrontation with Team Arrow. The confrontation is pretty tough as they hack ARGUS remote-controlled guns and open fire on Team Arrow. The battle ends with Helix securing the prisoner and Felicity secures their escape, putting her at odds with Oliver permanently. Oliver nurses his wounds by drinking in the Arrow Cave alone. Felicity returns to her home to find out that Helix has frozen her out of the group. They saw her as too much of a liability as she is too connected to Team Arrow. However, they did give her what she wanted and the tracker for Chase is now hers. She comes to the Arrow Cave to talk with an already drunk Oliver revealing they now can track Chase’ heartbeat. When they locate Chase, the find that he’s right where they are, and then their secret lair explodes.
Next week looks for Oliver and Felicity to reconcile as they are trapped in the Arrow Cave in “Underneath.’
