As this season of the DC CW shows within the Arrowverse continues, things are all heating up. Last week on Supergirl, Kara had to deal with her own demons, thanks to having to fight a psychic villain who shows anyone their greatest fears. On The Flash, Barry and Wally faced off against a new metahuman, who it turns out wasn’t created by the particle accelerator explosion. Legends of Tomorrow last week continues their fun streak as the Legends had to travel to the circus, only to find themselves become attractions. On Arrow, Oliver found the juggling of the mayor, vigilante, and now dedicated father to be too much to handle. He now has passed the title of Green Arrow to his trusted confidante, Diggle.
So how did the Arrowverse go this week?
Supergirl: “Far from the Tree”
This week of Supergirl was all about dealing with your father. While Maggie and her father’s resolution did not go as well as it could have, J’onn and his father’s interactions made me even want to give my pops a call. Yeah, it was one of those types of episodes. It’s no surprise that the episode is titled “Far From the Tree,” a novel about parents and children.
Last week J’onn received a telepathic message from M'gann needing him to come to Mars to help him and her rebel White Martians. So this week he is going to answer the call and help her out. As he’s getting ready to leave, he tells Kara where he’s going. Because of the close nature, he has with the Danvers girls thanks to working together at the DEO, Kara tells him that she’s coming to help him if he wants her help or not. J’onn gets in his “spaceship,” a flying old school convertible that “shape-shifts” into a ship once they breach Earth’s orbit.
Meanwhile, on earth, Maggie and Maggie are preparing for their bridal shower. The two are putting together a bridal board complete with pictures of the two. Alex notices that there aren’t any pictures of Maggie as a child. Here, we find out a little bit of Maggie’s backstory. While Alex was a late bloomer in discovering her sexuality, Maggie has known about her's since she was a child. When she was 14, she told a girl that she liked her, and once the news got back to her parents, her father moved her out of the house to live with an aunt. After being told that she was a shame to her family, they cut her off and pretended that she didn’t even exist. So what does Alex do? Tell her to invite her father to the bridal shower. Nothing bad could come of it, right?
As Kara and J’onn arrive on Mars, they are greeted by M’gann. While I thought that the J’onn and M’gann would continue their relationship, but that takes a back burner this episode as we instead focus on a new person on Mars. The White Martian rebels need to obtain a special weapon of religious significance. They also have the person who knows where it is in their custody: J’onn’s father, M’yrnn. Turns out J’onn’s not the last living Green Martain. It’s cool they got actor Carl Lumbly to play J’onn’s father, since he has voiced J’onn for many Justice League cartoons including Justice League, Justice League Unlimited, as well as other DC animated films and video games.
Needing to find out where the staff is, the rebels ask J’onn to help convince his father to tell them where it is. However, M’yrnn has been tortured now for centuries, so it’s not impossible that a shape-shifting White Martian would use the image of his son as a means of psychologically torturing him. He doesn’t buy that J’onn is genuine and that he son is dead. Even after saying that he’s been hidden on Earth, M’yrnn then says his son would not have fled like a coward.
Maggie picks her father up from the bus station. She was expecting both of her parents, but her mother couldn’t come because she “doesn’t like to fly.” Her father is at least trying after all these years, not so much for the mother. Even though Maggie’s sexuality was a problem for her father, he never stopped loving her. He’s followed all her cases from afar and watched her climb and succeed with pride. Later on, at the bridal shower, her father notices no pictures on her bridal board, so he pulls out a picture he has kept in his wallet since she was a child and places it on there. So it looks like everything’s working out.
It then takes a major c-change when he actually sees his daughter and Alex kiss. It’s a bridal shower for your gay child, did you not expect her not to kiss? He then walks away, leaving the party. Maggie walks outside to confront her father. Oscar uses the same old trope of doing it “in his face.” Oscar then goes off on a rant not only about his past, but also throws in a little contemporary politics into the show (gotta throw shade at Trump). Oscar reveals that he came to America and was treated with prejudice and racism as a result of their Latino heritage and he had to overcome a lot. Maggie natively tries to tell him that currently, things are different. Her father laughs at her and references Trump's wall and that Mexicans are “rapists and murderers.” He then says to his daughter that the only thing they hate more than a Latino, is someone who’s gay. Sorry, but that’s a really dumb reason to dislike your own flesh and blood. Maggie finally has some closure as she is the one who distances herself from her father.
On Mars, J’onn isn’t having much luck with his father either. It’s only when he shows his father one of his memories when they were younger and M’yrnn threw his son a surprise visit for J’onn’s birthday. Now he knows that J’onn is the real deal and the two have a tearful reunion. At least one of tonight’s relationships ended on a happy note. He reveals to J’onn and Kara where the staff is just in time for the rebel White Martians to defeat the regular ones. The rebels see the staff in action and decide it’s too powerful and should be kept off world so J’onn and Kara take it to Earth for safekeeping. On Earth, J’onn and M’yrnn walk down the street catching up on two centuries worth of familial bonding.
The Flash: “Luck Be A Lady”
The Flash continues its charm offensive and making a season with new more humorous episodes, and this week was no different. This week focuses on the new meta of the week, this one’s power is good luck. Now as ridiculous as that sounds, it can be devastating. If she had good luck, that means you have bad luck.
Here we meet “Subject Number 2” that The Thinker has just placed into action. Before she was gifted with new powers, she was the “unluckiest person” in the world. She’s been rear-ended four times, had her identity stolen twice, had a cat burglar actually steal her cat. She observed her boyfriend cheat her in their home, but couldn’t even confront him because the coffee she got at Jitters caused her to get the runs. She then got fired from her job for accidentally spilling a customer’s drink, to then find her car had been booted. Talk about bad luck! She then gets on the same bus that Kilg%re (last week’s metahuman) was on. Then there’s a blinding light.
Team Flash starts this week’s adventure with Wally expecting a reunion with Jessie Quick as the portal from Earth 2 opens up. However, Harry Wells show up with a “break up cube,” an Earth 2 custom of breaking up with someone by giving a cube with a holographic message instead of doing the hard work of breaking up with someone yourself. At least it wasn’t a text!
That moment is interrupted by a crime alert as someone is robbing a bank. Here comes Becky, who literally just walks in and we see bad luck just start affecting everyone around her as they try to stop her. She casually walks in and takes the money right out of a vault. As Barry shows up to stop her, events were put in motion that he slips on a case of marbles spilled onto the street. Team Flash realizes that this new metahuman has the ability to gain good luck for herself, and make it bad luck for everyone else. In addition to Jessie and Wally’s breakup, Joe’s house starts to fall apart, and a venue for Barry and Iris’ wedding had to back out.
As Team Flash tries to discover the mystery surrounding new metahumans, they determine that Dark Matter is responsible for creating these new powers. As they trace back to the point of origin, Barry realizes it’s the exact place that he exited the Speed Force from. Bringing Barry back has created new metahumans. Harry yells at Cisco for opening the Speed Force without talking to him and the two are continuing their usual bickering.
Barry realizes that Becky is not out for revenge or doing anything overtly evil (except bank robberies of course), Barry opts to confront her and appeal to her better angels. Revealing to her that he knows she has powers and they are hurting people, he appeals to her sense of congeniality. Becky has been on the receiving end of bad luck and simply wants to take advantage of all this good luck coming her way. Her thought process is that the universe is balancing out and it’s her turn. Whoever is affected by her good luck, it’s “their turn” for bad luck in her mind.
Next is a pretty funny scene as Barry and Iris try to “press their luck” and just go ahead and get married. The crash the end of a funeral and convince a priest to marry them impromptu. Actress Candice Patton surprisingly has great comedic tone and works very well off of Grant Gustin during their moments this season, and this weeks’ episode is no different. Just as the reluctant priest is about to marry the two, that bad luck starts kicking in and he gets cinnamon poisoning, thanks to an altar boy burning incense (that was for the funeral), and has an allergic reaction.
Becky’s good luck keeps on coming, creating a vortex of bad luck for the people of Central City. She heads to a local casino, which increases her luck exponentially. Barry tries to stop her, only for her good luck to cause him clip on quarters and then handcuff himself. Now the bad luck vortex is uncontrollable. A plane had two geese get stuck in engines and is about to crash (a great Captain Sully nod) as well as Joe’s house about to fall apart. Cisco and Harry instead to decide to turn on the particle accelerator, which counteracts Becky’s powers. Finally powerless, Barry is able to take her into custody.
As Team Flash celebrates yet another disaster avoided (of their own making), Wally shows up. Oh, yeah, Wally’s been missing almost the entire episode. We the audience didn’t notice his absence, and neither did anyone on the show. Wally has officially become “extra.” Wally spent his time on Earth 2 to talk with Jessie about their breakup as she told him she needed to find herself. Wally realizes that he has to do the same thing and tells the team that he’s leaving Central City to find his own way. Harry talks with the team about why all these metahumans are now appearing and thinks it may be connected to the samurai robot. Team Flash kept its head in their lap, which the Thinker has been using as an eavesdropping device.
Oh yeah,
Joe has the best reaction that only Jessie L. Martin could do!
Legends of Tomorrow: “Zari”
One thing that continues to make Legends of Tomorrow so great (besides that the show absolutely knows it’s a campy, fun comic book show) is that every week, it’s a new adventure throughout space and time. Like I’ve said before, this is Doctor Who but with DC comics characters. This week, it’s to Seattle in 2042.
The Time Bureau discovers a time anachronism, which turned out to be the mater-based metahuman we saw at the end of last week’s episode. After a decent display of the show’s CGI budget showing the meta take on soldiers, they reveal that she’s there to kill a prisoner who was being transported. Even though this is a case for the Time Bureau, the Legends overhear about it, spring into action, and head to that location.
However, not every future is all nice and good. In this timeline, ARGUS, the clandestine organization that Diggle’s wife Lyla is now the head of, has become an evil military organization that is ruling with a fascist thumb. In fact, Zari who we meet is a metahuman who is Muslim, something that this version of ARGUS will lock you up for being them. Metahumans are in detention camps and drones monitor all of the city, not a great place to be.
As the Legends locate Zari’s hideout, only for her to get the slip on them when ARGUS agents show up. Being a hacker Zari can avoid being scanned by their drones. When the soldiers round them up, only for the Legends to spring into action taking them out. There’s a fun scene where Mick keeps trying to take out one of the soldiers only for someone else to do it before he gets his chance.
Realizing that Zari needs to lay low, so the Legends head to a seedy bar where they think she’ll show up, of course, she’s there. As soon as they confront Zari, the metahuman Kuasa shows up. However, fighting a being that can turn into water at will is not as easy as it sounds. To help escape, Mick instigates a bar brawl and they all dip out in the chaos that ensues.
Meanwhile, Amaya’s still having problems controlling her animal side of her totem. Stein and Nate do their best to try and help her. Stein being a scientist, opts to do scientific testing on her, even though her problem is of a mystical nature. Nate thinks of another option. The people of her village take a hallucinogen to go on vision quests, so he has Gideon replicate some of it so she can go tripping. Nate opts to do the same to make sure it works, as well as for mental support. For the test of the episode, Nate’s high as a kite.
After escaping from the bar, they reveal to Zari that they are time travelers and need to stop Kuasa who is also time traveling. She agrees to help the Legends, only if they help he break her brother out of an ARGUS detention center for metahumans. Mick then asks if they are going to do a “Prison Break,” in a tongue in cheek reference to the show Prison Break which actor Dominic Purcell is famous for. They head off to one of the facilities.
However, it’s not really her brother she’s after, it’s a totem that’s in lockup. When she dons it and then it begins to glow. When she does this, Amaya’s totem starts to glow on the Wave Rider as well. The team notices that at the detention facility, ARGUS is experimenting on metahumans. They open all the doors to facilitate a prison riot and help the metahuman prisoners escape. This allows them all to escape. As Zari heads to a rendezvous point for her family, she sees it in ruins. Just then Kuasa shows up to once again try and kill her. The only one there is Ray, and he’s proving not to be a match for Kusa, even with his Atom suit.
While Amaya is going on her vision quest, she speaks with an older woman who tells her that she’s her “kin.” The older woman tells her that she has to find “the girl” who needs her protection. Now and fully in control of her power, Amaya show ups to help Zari take on Kusa. In defeat, Kusa warns that she could easily kill Amaya but then says, “but I’d just be killing myself.” It seems that this season will center around Amaya, her totem, and her kin as Kusa may be a time-traveling descendent.
Because both Zuri and Amaya have amulets that give super powers, the two are now connected. The Legends invite her to join the time-traveling team to continue her adventures with them. She gladly accepts.
Arrow: “Next of Kin”
Last week ended with Oliver passing the reins of the Green Arrow to Diggle. Little does he know that some shrapnel from Lian Yu is causing John to have tremors to where he cannot shoot his gun, much less shoot an arrow for which he has no training. Needless to say, he’s gon a learning curve.
First thing different about the new direction of the show is the intro. No longer is “My name is Oliver Queen, and I am the Green Arrow.” Instead, it starts off with “His name is John Diggle, and he is the Green Arrow.” At least for tonight, this is John’ show. Oliver does no vigilantism this week, he just sticks to being a mayor and a dad.
The episode begins with Team Arrow in pursuit of some bad guys. Right off the bat, you see the team doing something different. Diggle (as the Green Arrow) launches off of a building. Instead of using an arrow to zip line across from building to building like Oliver usually does, he has Dinah use her sonic scream to send him across. While this looks cool as hell, it’s because Diggle is no archer. Even the bad guys notice this and comment on it before they get beat up by Team Arrow. John still has his tremors, but he assures that he’s fine to Dinah when she’s concerned. At this point, Dinah seems more a wife to Diggle than Lyla, who we still haven’t seen this season.
Oliver is juggling things on the civilian side. Last week’s FBI agent is still on the case as she’s convinced that Oliver is the Green Arrow and Diggle is just masquerading for the time being. He also has another problem, one that he can’t tackle at the Green Arrow or Oliver Queen: math. Oliver’s son William is having problems studying for a math exam and Oliver relents to his son saying that getting Cs are OK. Bad parenting Oliver! Another problem Oliver has is his fellow City Council. Fed up with Team Arrow’s vigilante activities, there’s veto-proof vote to finally crack down on vigilantes. Oliver has to learn how to flex his political muscle as well as he would with an arrow.
This week’s bad guys are a bunch of ex-CIA spies who are hell-bent on still doing their own thing, staging terrorist attacks to get rid of the perceived enemies. Thanks to our favorite “guys in the chair,” Curtis and Felicity, Team Arrow knows where the bad guys are going to strike to get some nerve gas to launch their terrorist attack. They opt to help out the truckers transporting the nerve gas and Diggle actually gets into the car with them and comments on their poor choice of roadside music. The bad guys strike and even though Team Arrow is usually prepared, this is a badass CIA team, and Diggle is not 100% prepared for his new job. They incapacitate Team Arrow and make away with the nerve gas. As they escape Renee asks Diggle for advice as to what they should do next, and John freezes. It’s clear he has to step up in his new leadership role.
Oliver knows he’s in over his head in regards to his son with studying for math. He asks Felicity to help be William’s tutor. Now, remember, Felicity called off her engagement with Oliver for keeping William a secret (something he was forced to do), so I was actually surprised that she was ready to step up to the plate. Being a mentor to William would continue to dig the knife about Oliver’s perceived betrayal, but Felicity does it anyway for her friend and for William.
After Renee privately goes to Oliver saying that Diggle is not up for the job, Oliver pays his friend a visit. Diggle confirms that his new job is tough and better served with Oliver back under the hood. Oliver tells his friend that everything that he did was because of Diggle. Without Diggle’s advice and friendship, there would be no Green Arrow. He assures Diggle that he is more than capable of being the Green Arrow and he has complete faith in his friend.
Oliver still has his political troubles at City Hall. The anti-vigilante legislation is up on the floor and will probably pass. Oliver flexes his political muscles and invokes a special clause within the city charter and makes the bill become a city-wide referendum. He doesn’t want his colleagues voting on vigilantes, he wants it to be left up to the people to do it at the polls. But what if the people don’t want Team Arrow?
The next time Team Arrow faces off against the ex-CIA folks, it’s way different. As the bad guys prepare to unload nerve gas on a hotel where one of their former teammates was, Team Arrow comes in to take them on. We now see an in-control Diggle with complete confidence, telling each of the team members what to do in order to ensure there are no casualties and help save the day.
Oliver comes by Felicity’s place to thank her for helping William with his work. At this point, their off again/on again relationship moves into its next phase. Oliver tells her that everything is better with her in his life and the two embrace once again in a passionate kiss. How long is this going to last (again)?
Now that Diggle is ready to be the team leader, he still needs to be able to use arrows. After all, he is the Green Arrow and hasn’t fired one yet. Felicity and Curtis give Diggle his new weapon: the “Green Monster.” A crossbow that is capable of launching arrows with the speed, accuracy, and ferocity worthy of the Green Arrow mantle. Diggle takes it out for a test spin and handles some tennis balls. Everything seems to have a happy ending, right? Unfortunately, the episode ends with Diggle going to some drug dealer and purchasing some sort of drug that he injects into his hand to stop the tremors. Turns out he’s not healed and this will surely be a problem later on.
