Crisis on Infinite Earths (Part 1 and 2) continues this week on The Flash, taking the show up to a mid-season break. For the characters, they take a whole lot more.
Title: Crisis on Infinite Earths (3)
Cast and Crew
Directed: David McWhirter
Written: Lauren Certo & Sterling Gates
Grant Gustin as Barry Allen / The Flash
Candice Patton as Iris West-Allen
Danielle Panabaker as Caitlin Snow / Killer Frost
Carlos Valdes as Cisco Ramon / Vibe
Hartley Sawyer as Ralph Dibny / Elongated Man
Danielle Nicolet as Cecile Horton (credit only)
LaMonica Garrett as Mar Novu / The Monitor
Tom Cavanagh as Harrison ‘Nash’ Wells / Pariah
Jesse L. Martin as Joe West (credit only)
Jon Cryer as Lex Luthor
Matt Ryan as John Constantine
Stephen Amell as Oliver Queen / Green Arrow
Caity Lotz as Sara Lance / White Canary
Brandon Routh as Ray Palmer / Superman
David Ramsey as John Diggle
Premise
Pariah enlists Black Lightning to help stop the Anti-Monitor after Flash-90 Shares what he learned from his battle in ‘Elseworlds’. With the help of Black Lightning, Barry, Cisco and Killer Frost come up with a plan that could save them all. Meanwhile, Iris has a heart-to-heart with Ryan Choi while Oliver and Diggle return to an old familiar stomping ground. (from IMDB)
High Point
Lucifer.Low Point
The Crisis of Infinite Cameos is very enjoyable, it is great to see appearances by many other past shows and unrelated shows, but it has reached a point where the appearances and cameos are so irrelevant to the story that they lose their appeal.
The Scores:
Originality: 5/6 With only a passing familiarity with the source material, this level of universe hoping and destruction is rivaled only in comics, and rarely (if ever) on television.
Effects: 4/6 The effects dip back to regular television levels. SuperRouth’s muscle suit, especially next to Ray Palmer, looks like the same type of super-padding we can expect from Saturday Night Live.
Acting: 6/6 The final scene between Black Lightning and The Flash seemed impossible, but the actors carried it off very well.
Story: 5/6 It appears to meander a bit, and the scenes in the Anti-Monitor’s hide out are full of plot contrivances,
Emotional Response: 6/6 This would be a solid five, but the Earth-666 logo was enough to raise expectations, and it delivered on those expectations. The rest of the episode was good as well, pulling the appropriate heart strings at the appropriate locations.
Production: 6/6 This is an ambitious undertaking. It’s like Infinity War for the CW.
Overall: 6/6 It is surprising that a forced story on a television budget is turning out to be so much fun.
In total, The Flash receives 38/42
My thoughts that didn’t make it into the review:
– There are a lot of characters, I think the comic book boxes that show who everyone is and which worlds they come from would help. That opening scene with a box above each character saying “Superman, Earth-38, Paragon of Truth.” “Superman, Earth-96, Paragon of Merging Kingdom Come with Superman Returns”, “Batwoman, Earth-1, Paragon of something-er-other.”
– Cisco is a wonderful voice for the audience, there should be more Cisco. I am glad to see Vibe back, but I feel bad that Cisco had that done to him.
– LUCIFER!!!!!!!!
– Black Lightning loses his world off screen? I feel like I should have watched his episode from this week before watching this episode.
– Also, I didn’t know he wasn’t in Earth-1.
The Arrowverse stuff is rife with plot conveniences and contrivances that are never really adequately explained. However, those particular plot contrivances in the Anti-Monitor’s hide out are actually explained in the story.
They are explained, but the explanations were weak.
“Why is Flash-90 there on a treadmill? Why can’t he stop?”
“Because the script says so.”
“What about Black Lightning?”
“Oh, his universe died, but I grabbed him.”
“Why him?”
“Look at him, he’s badass!”
I was okay with it, it was fun, but I don’t think we call it deep writing.
I am finally getting to the point where I’m watching Black Lightning. It is a Crisis tie in! Except Earth 1’s Black Lightning appears in it. (Still watching it, can’t comment further.)