This week marks the season premieres for all the DC CW shows within the Arrowverse. While some shows had a definitive end in their season finales like Supergirl, others ended with cliffhangers like The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, and especially Arrow. Supergirl ended with Kara saving National City from the Daxamite invasion by flooding the air with trace amounts of lead (which is fatal for Daxamites) forcing the invading army to leave earth forever, only for her boyfriend Mon-El to also get infected and have to leave. Meanwhile, on The Flash, Barry stopped Savitar but had to enter the Speed Force in order to stop the lightning storm from destroying Central City, leaving behind the rest of Team Flash. On Legends of Tomorrow, the Legends stopped Eobard Thawne, but in doing so broke the rules of time travel by interacting with their past selves, causing a massive time quake, causing dinosaurs to show up in present time. Of course, on Arrow with the showdown between Prometheus/Adrian Chase and Oliver had them facing off on Lian Yu. As Oliver fought Chase, it was revealed that he rigged the island with explosives and a dead man’s trigger. Oliver spared his nemesis, but then Chase decided to shoot himself in the head causing the island to explode.
So how did the Arrowverse go for their season premieres? What’s next for the Girl of Steel? Will Barry get out of the Speed Force? Will the Legends fix time itself? Who survived the Lian Yu explosion?
Supergirl: “Girl of Steel”
OK, I get it, you had to break up with Mon-El (in a way) to save the entire world. The love of your life is now long gone and had to go back into outer space. It sucks. But this week on Supergirl, they really OD’d on her sadness and misery. Kara spends most of the episode wallowing in pity, only focusing on being “Supergirl” instead of “Kara,” and turning her back on her loved ones. It was nice for the first few minutes, but then became repetitive and annoying.
The episode begins in some sort of dream that Kara was having where she is in a field where she sees her former bae Mon-El as well as her Kryptonian mother. This dream is her safe space, her fantasy. The reality is, she still Supergirl, and now her only motivation in life is to be Supergirl and continue helping the people of National City.
Alex and Maggie are being National City’s dynamic duo, engaging in a high-speed chase with an armored truck. Just as they are about to get mowed down by a mini-gun, Supergirl comes in and saves the day. Kara also manages to save a family that was about to get hurt by the thieves. Although they are thankful to Supergirl, Kara just flies away emotionless. All Maggie can do is look at her adoptive sister with concern. Kara is blowing off wedding planning for her sister as well and not opting to head to the neighborhood alien bar with her friends. J’onn tells Alex to give Kara more time. In fact, she’s acting just as cold and calculated as Alex usually does.
The premiere also marks the introduction to the new Supergirl baddie Morgan Edge. Unlike previous villains, he’s not a metahuman or another superpowered alien. He’s just a simple real estate developer, showing the evilness of corporate cronyism and capitalism. Morgan got into the mix in the rebuilding efforts after the Daxamite invasion. His eyes are set on moving all low-income residents from the city’s waterfront area to make room for high end (and pricey) buildings for the 1%. How very Trumpian of him! While Supergirl has the strength to take on just about any physical obstacle, she knows nothing about business, which is where her good friend Lena Luthor can come in. After her face off with him in the boardroom, he intends to buy CatCo to suppress any editorial opposition to him.
The thief that Supergirl tangled with early on is a Merc who’s trying to steal Daxamite technology (complete with a cloaking ship) that he can use to nuke the city if he so pleases. After a brief confrontation with Supergirl, he and his fellow mercs get out of the area and now have the technology to cause some real chaos.
Everything may be going great for “Supergirl,” things are not going so well for “Kara.” After a spat with James, now the CEO at CatCo since Cat works for the White House (where she gets a global warming Trump dig in at a press conference), is worried for her and confronts her about missing deadlines. Kara opts to quit after lashing out at him. She also does the same to her sister. Like I said, it’s overkill that she’s so upset about Mon-El’s departure. Lucky for her, there’s a special waterfront ceremony to honor Supergirl for saving the city to help cheer her up.
Of course, the mercs decide that the ceremony would be the best place to stage their attack. After Lena gives an impassioned speech dedicated to Supergirl, bombs go off. Because of the Daxamite cloaking technology, there’s no way to tell where it comes from. Kara focuses away from all the screaming people to hear breathing underwater. Because logic dictates no one can breathe underwater (Arthur Curry doesn’t exist in this universe), Kara knows that the ship is underwater launching attacks. While Supergirl is rushing towards the water, an unsuspecting child is caught by a piece of steel from debris. Her mother using “mom strength” pulls the steel off of her child, only to have that steel be all mangled. Is she a Kryptonian? She’s just as surprised as we all are. Kara manages to stop to the mercs by capturing the ship underwater. Once again Supergirl saves the day, with a little help from Kara's humanity (and humility).
Kara knows that Morgan was responsible for it. After all, she does have super hearing and knows that he was in league with the mercs. Since she can’t prove it, she’ll bide her time to wait for the moment to stop him. Alex, who’s still planning her “big gay wedding” realizes she has no one to walk her down the aisle with her father gone. She asks J’onn, who has raised her in her father’s absence to do it, and he tearfully accepts. The episode ends with all of them going out for drinks. Kara’s out of her stink after all!
The Flash: “The Flash Reborn”
For all those who were expecting The Flash to mirror the comics, and have Wally take over the role of “The Flash” for a long time when Barry was lost in the Speed Force, think again. Wally serves as Central City’s “Flash” only for this episode before Barry makes his return from the prison of the Speed Force. That kinda makes this a letdown as the show needs to do something more with Wally besides have him continue to be the black inexperienced version of Barry.
The episode begins with Wally and Cisco being their own crimefighting team, carrying on in Barry absence, taking on metahumans. They are joined by Joe as they are trying to take on Peek-a-Boo, the teleporting metahuman. Although Wally has superhuman speed, and Cisco has his vibe powers, they are having trouble stopping her as she leads them all over the city trying to find her. Once they figure out her teleporting pattern, they are able to stop her. While they are in the field, Iris is playing the Felicity (Team Arrow) role for Team Flash. In a sense, she’s stepped up in Barry absence. However, like Supergirl, in the absence of her man, she’s become a lot colder and driven. This doesn’t really send a great message that if a girl loses her man, she’s a cold, calculating woman.
All seems to be well for Team Flash (minus Barry of course). Joe and Cecile are moving in together, although she wants him to get rid of her record collection (how you gonna ask an old black man to get rid of his tunes?). Wally and Cisco are becoming their team. Of course, everyone misses Barry. Rest assured, something has to come and complicate things.
After an explosion happens in Central City, everyone steps into action. There they meet some sort of futuristic samurai. The samurai has the capabilities to destroy the city and only wants one thing: The Flash. Wally steps up, but he’s not the Flash that the samurai wants, he wants Barry. But how can they get him? He’s trapped in the Speed Force. Lucky for everyone in Central City, Cisco has been working since the season finale to figure out a way to safely get Barry from the Speed Force that will not destroy the city. He just needs a little help. He needs Caitlin.
Last season Caitlin developed into her evil alter-ego Killer Frost, who teamed up with Savitar against Barry. She had a last-minute change of heart and helped Barry stop Savitar. However, she left the team as a means to find herself. Cisco catches up with her and she’s tending bar in a seedy part of town. She agrees to help her friend get rescued and uses her scientific genius to help Cisco work on a device that will help Barry escape from the Speed Force. The next day the gang all head to the racetrack from the very first episode to use the device to try and help him. The device shoots a ball with Barry’s DNA into the Speed Force with the hopes that the real Barry will then be able to leave. After the fire it, nothing happens. However, on the outskirts of town, Barry has emerged from the Speed Force.
Barry has emerged from the Speed Force. However, he’s not 100% all there. Barry’s mind has been broken, and he’s writing things all the wall A Beautiful Mind-style. He cannot speak in complete sentences, and it seems almost like a lost cause to have gotten him out. Wally even attempts to don Barry’s Flash suit and pretend he’s the original, but the samurai sees through that and demands Barry come forward or he’ll destroy the city. With little choice, Iris volunteers herself to the robot. She thinks that if she’s in trouble, then Barry will snap out of whatever he’s in and come and save her. Turns out, she’s right! Barry leaves STAR Labs, and somehow finds Iris and deals with the samurai, who turns out to be just a robot. The faceless robot’s final words are “Flash, welcome home.”
Barry is fine, memories intact, and ready to be a part of Team Flash once again. He and Iris reconnect and all seems well. The episode ends revealing who sent the robot. Comic book fans know him as The Thinker, a highly intelligent supervillain who has no physical superhuman powers, but is highly intelligent. The episode ends with his assistant asking what to do next. He responds, “I’m thinking.”
Legends of Tomorrow: “Aruba Con”
Legends of Tomorrow continues to the be fun sleeper within the Arrowverse. The show on its premise, should not work. It’s a superhero show mashup of Doctor Who and Back to the Future (or whatever other time travel show/film you can think of) with superheroes. They are a mix-up of heroes and villains who end up helping keep all of existence safe, even though they are a bad choice away from ending it all. Case and point, last season ended with them safeguarding the Spear of Destiny from supervillain Eobard Thawne by breaking the rules of time, and as a result, they have broken it. Now they have to find a way to fix their errors.
The season premiere picks up right off where the finale left off, the Legends crashed the Wave Rider in Los Angeles 2017 (instead of their planned destination of Aruba) to a dinosaur-infested city as time has been broken. Before they can spring into action, enter Rip Hunter. Rip used to be their former leader, but he opted to leave them behind as they can take care of things themselves without his help. However, now Rip has returned and is a completely new person. Rip has reconstituted the Time Bureau in his own image. It’s a little corporate, but they are getting the job done. Although they last saw Rip a moment ago, because of the time travel nature of the show, the next time The Legends see him, it’s been 5 years for him, and he’s had 5 years to put together the new Time Bureau. Now, they don’t need the Legends and retire them.
The Legends have become disbanded and everyone is back to plain old, boring life. Sara works in retail, not the best job for a reincarnated former assassin. Ray, despite his scientific genius, now has to work in Silicon Valley for a tinder-like app, since his former company shut down in his absence. Still having his Steel powers, Nate is moonlighting as Central City’s “second best” vigilante, thanks to a cameo by Kid Flash. Jax is now in school studying engineering and bored that he’s not actually doing engineering. Stein is at home with his daughter Lilly and is expecting his first grandchild. Mick being Mick, of course, is vacationing in Aruba.
Mick discovers Julius Caesar while down in Aruba. This prompts the rest of the Legends to approach the Time Bureau and Rip about the missing time aberration. The skeptical and by the numbers agents are dismissive of the “reckless” Legends. This prompts Sarah and the Legends to steal the Wave Rider, which now isn’t a timeship, but used for training time agents and go and search for Julius Caesar. When the Legends arrive to Aruba, Caesar is hanging at a toga party, which makes everyone look like they are Caesar. The Time Bureau agents also arrive and they and the Legends capture who they think is Caesar, who turns out to be just a regular college student. Rip has lost what little hope he had in the Legends after that. However, Caesar gave Mick an authentic Roman coin, which means they were right. They then capture the right Caesar and now Rip knows they got the right man. Good job Legends!
Of course, they aren’t the brightest bulbs. On the way to returning Caesar back to his own timeline, Nate tells him all about his future while reading a historical book. When they return back to 2017, something’s wrong with the timeline. Turns out Caesar swiped the book in a Back to the Future Sports Almanac type of way and was able to take over the known world. It’s back to ancient Rome they go. This time Rip and some of his time agents come along as well. When they arrive, Caesar set a trap for this which fools the Time Agents, but not the Legends. They manage to rescue Rip’s number two, Agent Sharpe, and defeat the Romans.
Rip now has a dilemma, let the Legends keep the Wave Rider and go on their own adventures, or send them back to their boring lives again? He opts to let them play outside his jurisdiction as they still are effective, even if they are reckless. The only Legend that’s missing is Amaya, who broke up with Nate and went back to 1942 when the Legends disbanded. There, she’s defending her village from imperialists who want to take it over. Does she want to stay there, or go back to 2017 and continue with the Legends?
Arrow: “Fallout”
Arrow’s finale was the ultimate cliffhanger. Who lived? Who died? The explosion of Lian Yu set up a potential game changer for a premiere. However, the delivery was a bit of a letdown.
Because it’s Arrow, we HAVE to have flashbacks. This time, the flashbacks are of the aftermath of the explosion at Lian Yu. Through the events of this week’s flashbacks, you find out who died and who lived, even though it’s damn near impossible for Diggle to survive the explosion, even though he did. The only person to die was Oliver’s baby mama Samantha, which has repercussions for Oliver and his child as a result. Thea has been in a coma for 5 months. Everyone else was able to survive, but the true casualty is probably their psyche.
Although he defeated Adrian Chase, Oliver is suffering. His son thinks he’s a monster as responsible for Samantha’s death and his sister is in a coma. Diggle is dealing with his own PTSD as he can't seem to fire his gun anymore. He even opts to stay behind in the Arrowcave and operate as “Overwatch” on a mission. The person most damaged is Quentin, who even though he knows that evil Laurel Lance from Earth-2 isn’t his daughter, he’s acting like she is. He’s even almost ready to start drinking again.
Despite all that, Team Arrow is still a well-oiled machine. Rene has a new armor, finally ditching that damn hockey mask and making us think Casey Jones is in the Arrowverse. Curtis even is useful as his T-Spheres manage to stop a missile from destroying Star City by a crazed madman. Dinah is fitting into the Black Canary quite well. Even Oliver and Felicity seem to be on the bend (and maybe even get back together). However, their problems are just starting thanks to Laurel Lake.
The person they stopped from blowing up the city is in police custody when he gets broken out by Evil Laurel Lance and they then proceed to blow up the police station. The end goal is to use terrorism to kill police officers and ensure that the police academy graduation doesn’t take place. Because Evil Laurel has the face of the original Black Canary, this sinks Quinten in a further depression, that Dinah has to help pull him out of. After Team Arrow faces off against Evil Laurel and her goons, Renee is injured and Diggle is shown not to be able to take the shot. Even though Evil Laurel escapes, they figure out her end game, the police academy graduation at City Hall.
The graduation at City Hall goes off without a hitch. Turns out City Hall wasn’t the target. It was a means to lure Team Arrow away as they attack Diggle at the Arrow Cave. Diggle once again was unable to pull the trigger. Turns out, his PTSD is a little deeper than just mental, the explosion on Lian Yu has caused some sort of tick for his firing arm, so he may be out of commission permanently. Evil Laurel took off with one of Curtis’ prototype T-Spheres, so she will definitely be back and use them for some nefarious purpose.
Oliver has been dealing with his own problems on home. His son William is blaming him (rightfully) for his mother Samantha’s death. This has forced the young kid to have an icy demeanor towards his father. It is only after Oliver has a heart to heart with Slade about patience that Oliver tries a different approach with William. Oliver offers to allow his son to stay up late to watch a sports game and the cold shell is finally broken. Unfortunately, this good news will have to be put on hold as Felicity calls Oliver telling him to tune to the television. The late-breaking news is that Oliver has been outed as the Green Arrow.
