Arrowverse Review Index

Batwoman 1×15 & 1.16: “Off with Her Head” & “Through the Looking-Glass”, Supergirl 5×15 & 5×16: “Reality Bytes” & “Alex in Wonderland”, The Flash 6×15: “The Exorcism of Nash Wells”, and Legends of Tomorrow 5×07: “Romeo v Juliet: Dawn of Justness” reviews

Well, howdy, folks! Been a while since we’ve done one of these, hasn’t it?

With the whole virus situation sending the shows on a sudden hiatus, I decided to postpone these reviews a little longer than I normally would. Now that the Arrowverse is finally coming back to our screens (for a little while, at least), hopefully these reviews of the last few episodes can act as a sort of refresher on where we left off.

We’ve got a lot to cover, so let’s get to it, shall we?

 

Batwoman 1×15: “Off with Her Head” review

“Off with Her Head” could have been a stunning episode. Most of it is well-crafted mounting tension, keeping us interested in the moment, but leaving us with the sense that something terrible is going to happen. And when we reach the episode’s climax, and that something terrible arrives? It could have been so good. When I look at what the writers were trying to do here, I can see the ending of this episode being an emotional gutpunch, something that forever changes how we look at these characters and how they look at themselves, that sends the future of this series down a new and disturbing trajectory.

But the setup needed to make that climax work? It’s just not there.

There are two big, shocking moments that this episode is building up to: first, the revelation that August Cartwright decapitated Kate and Alice’s mom; then, as a result of said revelation, Kate attacking Cartwright, and ending up killing him. It’s easy to see the dramatic potential in these moments, but the groundwork laid for each of them wasn’t strong enough to make them as powerful as they should have been.

With the decapitation reveal, the issue is a simple lack of clarity. We’re told that Cartwright found Gabrielle Kane after the car crash and cut off her head, but it’s not made clear whether he killed her, or simply removed the head from her already dead body. Given how Kate and Alice react to this information, I think we’re meant to assume the former; while desecrating their mother’s corpse is icky, it’s decidedly on the low end of horrible things he’s done to their family, and doesn’t seem to warrant such an extreme reaction. But we’ve been told from the beginning that the former Mrs. Kane died in the crash, and seeing her head in a freezer doesn’t necessarily invalidate that.

This is the moment that makes both Alice and Kate snap, that makes them become killers. It’s filmed, acted, and edited with remarkable panache. But if you’re spending that moment wondering what, exactly, Kate and Alice are so upset about, whether they’re facing off with their mother’s killer, or are just really defensive of her remains . . . If you’re puzzling over that, then your attention is being drawn away from the dramatic goings-on, and you can’t invest in them as fully as you wish you could.

That’s a problem that could have been solved by adding a single line of dialogue to this episode, clarifying the situation. The problem with the second shocking moment of the climax, Kate’s killing of Cartwright, goes a bit deeper.

We’re clearly meant to see this moment as Kate crossing a line she never thought she would, betraying her most cherished principles, succumbing to the same madness as her sister. Even Jacob, who could barely restrain himself from killing Cartwright, is distraught at Cartwright’s death, because both he and a gloating Alice seem to know, in advance, how devastating this will be for Kate. A pity we in the audience weren’t given that same insight beforehand.

Now, I’ll be fair: the show has established Kate as having a code against killing. Several times this episode, she’s very adamant that they’re not going to kill Cartwright, that she won’t sink to the same level as the villains. And in the past, we’ve seen her oppose both the Executioner and Earth-99 Batman when they went on vigilante killing sprees. But while we know that Kate objects to killing bad guys on principle, it wasn’t established that she’s all that devoted to the idea.

In her backstory, Kate tried to join the U.S. military during a time of war, with the specific desire to see “action”. You don’t do that if killing is utterly abhorrent to you. And after being rejected by the military, Kate spent years preparing herself to join the Crows, an organization that also makes frequent use of lethal force. Even since becoming Batwoman, Kate’s shown that her objection to killing criminals is not absolute. While she’s never tried to kill Alice herself, when her dad vowed to do so in the wake of Catherine’s murder, Kate was initially supportive of the idea.

And, lest we forget, Kate has killed before. During Crisis on Infinite Earths, she killed her alternate-reality cousin, and while the whole Earth-99 experience shook her up, she mostly seemed fine afterwards. Sure, killing Bruce was somewhat more accidental than killing Cartwright, but it’s not like Cartwright’s death was completely intentional, either. Killing a bad guy is not entirely new ground for Kate, is what I’m getting at.

I’m not saying Kate can’t feel awful after having killed someone, that it can’t make her question herself and her mission, and make her look at things in a new light. But this episode assumes that, as soon as we see Cartwright die, we’ll know how devastating this will be for Kate, that the idea of her killing someone will be inherently shocking and dramatic. And the groundwork for that just hasn’t been laid.

What we see of Kate afterwards, trying to drunkenly cope with what she’s done, does a lot to sell us on what this means to her. But that’s only afterwards. Prior to Cartwright’s death, there just wasn’t enough done to establish that killing someone (especially someone as vile as August Cartwright) would be a source of such extreme anguish for her. And without that knowledge beforehand, seeing her kill Cartwright doesn’t pack the emotional punch it’s supposed to. It’s only seeing how the characters react to it afterwards that establishes, “Oh, I guess that was supposed to be a big deal.”

Stray Observations:

• Mary continues to be the best (“Doctor/vigilante confidentiality”) and her forming a detective duo with Luke is something we need more of, stat.
• Of all the things that could counteract fear toxin, why’d they go with adrenaline? Shouldn’t someone in a state of incredible fear naturally produce a lot of adrenaline?
• Batwoman is the Arrowverse show that most consistently goes artsy with its staging and cinematography. Alice’s flashbacks and hallucinations are shot beautifully with an eye towards creating striking images, which is a good way to make the grisliness of the whole thing go down smoother.

 

Batwoman 1×16: “Through the Looking-Glass” review

Taken on its own, this is a rip-roaring, heart-rending, all-around fantastic episode of Batwoman. My only niggling qualm is: where does it go from here?

The heart of this episode is (as is usually the case on this show) the relationship between Kate and Alice. And boy, does that take us on a wild ride. We start off the episode with Kate and Alice being antagonistic to each other, but unable or unwilling to strike out. Then, later, we get the two clashing openly, with harsh words leading to a bare-knuckle brawl. Then we get them opening up to each other, being real and honest, without the barriers of hero and villain between them, reforging their sisterly connection as Alice shows there is still humanity in her. Then we get them working side-by-side for a bit, still bickering, but showing how they could actually make a good duo. And then we get the turn, where Kate puts the greater good over her murderous sister, betraying Alice, breaking her heart all over again, and setting her on a renewed path of vengeance.

All of this is done masterfully. Ruby Rose and Rachel Skarsten are at the top of their games, and are each given great material to work with. As always, the theatrical flare Alice puts into everything she does is a delight to watch, and that makes it all the more moving when she drops the artifice around Kate and we get to see the wounded person inside. Kate, too, keeps up a facade around most people, a wall of toughness and implacability, so when she finally gets real with Alice about her feelings, it’s surprisingly moving. Coupled with the joys of seeing them as a mismatched buddy comedy duo, it makes you want to root for their sisterhood to be restored.

All that, of course, is to lure us into the trap, to get us in the same headspace Alice is, where she thinks she and Kate can finally be cool with each other and both get a happy ending. So when Kate turns her back on Alice, leaves her on the other side of a locked door once again, it brings tears to our eyes just as it does hers, even as we understand why Kate had to do it.

All of this is wonderful, wonderful stuff.

But it’s also stuff we’ve already seen.

We’ve seen Kate and Alice go through all these stages of their relationship before: brawling, awkward teamups, heart-to-hearts, I’ll-get-you-next-time sniping. Even Kate’s big betrayal of Alice at the end is not that much different from her choosing Beth’s life over Alice’s four episodes back. “Through the Looking-Glass” is essentially a highlight reel of Kate and Alice’s relationship up to this point.

And it’s a damn fine highlight reel, don’t get me wrong. But if, sixteen episodes into a series, the show’s central relationship is already repeating so many of the same beats? It raises the question of whether it’s got anything else in its bag of tricks, or if this is all there is.

In the episodes to come, will we see Kate and Alice interact in different ways, form a different kind of relationship from what we’ve seen before? Or have we already seen everything the writers have to offer with this relationship, and all that’s left now is to go round and round in circles?

I do hope it’s not the latter. Because as compelling as the dynamic between these two sisters has been, as expertly crafted as every iteration of it in this episode is, eventually seeing them go through the same old motions is going to get dull. I hope that this highlight reel is the show’s way of saying goodbye to this phase of Kate and Alice’s relationship, and when we pick up their story we’ll be seeing something different from them. Because the actors have shown they’ve got the chops, and the writers and directors clearly have some skill; all we need from them going forward is a little variety.

Stray Observations:

• Wonderful Alice Moments: Almost everything, but special highlight to: “Are you trying to draw attention?” “Who, me?
• Now that the Wonderland Gang’s all dead, I gotta ask: how did Alice recruit these guys? What do you gotta pay someone to wear a rabbit mask 24/7 and work for a boss who openly refers to them as “evil henchmen”?
• Mary is doing some solid friending for Luke this episode, and they are definitely setting these two up to be a couple (or at least some will-they/won’t-they teasing).
• Wasn’t expecting Julia Pennyworth back, but since, last we saw her, she was tracking down the Coryana criminal group, and said group has now come looking for Alice, her return makes sense.

 

Supergirl 5×15: “Reality Bytes” review

This episode of Supergirl was fine.

It was fine the way that, let’s face it, most episodes of the Arrowverse shows are fine. Some good performances, a couple neat action scenes or effects shots, and a few solid one-liners. An enjoyable way to spend an hour, but not truly remarkable. Not something you’re likely to seek repeat viewings of, or that you’ll recommend to others saying, “You have to watch this ep!” To be a fan of the Arrowverse is to have a high tolerance for episodes that are merely fine, our appreciation of them buoyed up by our fondness for the characters and the general verve of the show, and our knowledge that, on occasion, these shows can rise above fine and deliver something truly superb.

Given this, I would normally not criticize an episode simply for being fine. The exception is when an episode clearly had the potential to be something far more than fine, but failed to realize it. That is the case here with “Reality Bytes”.

There are two plotlines running through this episode, and each has its own silver bullet ready to fire, an aspect of the story that could have taken it to greater heights, made this a truly remarkable episode. But those silver bullets remained frustratingly unfired, leaving us with an episode that’s no more or less than an average episode of Supergirl.

Consider first Alex’s plot. She’s taking on one of J’onn’s PI cases, a missing person’s that takes her to Obsidian’s virtual reality program. Specifically, it sends her to “Virtual Vegas”, looking for leads. And those leads take her to a virtual reality haunted mansion that traps people in their own worst fears, and she can only escape it by fighting the bad guy in a battle where, Matrix-style, they can alter the reality around them through sheer force of will.

That is an amazing setup. Sending Alex on a classic hardboiled detective adventure, but in a virtual reality setting where anything you can imagine, no matter how wild and out there, can happen? That should be one of the most terrifically fun plots Supergirl has ever done.

But all the fun ideas that come up? They’re only touched on briefly, before being discarded. Our trip to Virtual Vegas consists of Alex talking to one guy who’s gorging on the casino buffet, and that’s it. We then move on to the haunted house, but Alex ends up overcoming the death/torture traps there with ease, and we quickly move on to fighting the bad guy. Which, despite teasing us with a few “your mind makes it real” tricks, ends up mostly being a conventional fight scene for this show. We’re given just enough of these ideas to make us go, “Cool! This sounds awesome!”, but we never get to do enough with any of them to really get the exciting potential it offers.

That’s the key flaw with Alex’s plot. With Nia’s plot, we’ve got the opposite problem; instead of moving on too quickly from one idea to the next, without time to savor them, this plot remains stuck in one idea for too long. Nia’s roommate is attacked early in the episode, and Nia immediately goes into quiet-rage/plotting-murder mode. And she stays in that mode for pretty much the entire episode, without doing anything to act on it or explore other ways this is affecting her until the showdown with the bad guy, followed by her balcony talk with Kara. It’s a story with only three beats, and two of them are saved until almost the end.

Which is a crying shame, because this plot’s silver bullet is Nicole Maines, putting in a jaw-dropping performance. You could mute the dialogue, and just from watching her face and her body language, tell exactly how much anger and exhaustion is burbling up inside Nia. When she confronts the baddie, even though it’s a standard hero’s-tempted-to-kill-but-is-talked-out-of-it scene, hitting all the familiar beats, Maines brings Nia’s passion in that moment to vibrant life. And when she breaks down in front of Kara later, her pain is so palpable, it’s the most I’ve teared up at Supergirl in a good long while.

Had Nia been given more to do throughout the episode, more actions to take in her pursuit of justice/revenge, more people to interact with, more emotional beats to hit, and the performance had been this good throughout? It could have been an all-time great episode.

Instead . . . it’s fine. No better or worse than a typical episode of Supergirl or the Arrowverse in general. It’s only the fact that it could have been so much more that makes it disappointing.

Stray Observations:

• Before anyone in Team Supergirl put on the Obsidian Lenses, did no one consider how it drawing information from their memories is a major secret identity risk?
• ‘Course, not a lot about the Obsidian project makes sense. Like an expert on human psychology who works on the project being shocked that anyone would use it to have affairs. Has Kelly never seen the Internet before?
• The rows of catatonic Obsidian victims is a wonderfully creepy image to end on, I’ll give them that.
• Al’s still alive. Does that mean he’s got a dead doppelganger buried somewhere?

 

Supergirl 5×16: “Alex in Wonderland” review

When you think about it, Alex’s family life is kinda messed up.

That’s not a thought that occurs too often, because mostly what we see of Alex’s family is her and Kara being some of the most supportive and adorable siblings out there. But take a look at their family history for a moment.

Kara is brought suddenly into the Danvers family just as Alex is entering her teen years. And because Kara’s an alien living secretly on Earth, with all the risks that entails, Ma and Pa Danvers have to devote much of their energy and attention to keeping her safe. So much so that, within a couple years of Kara’s arrival, Alex’s dad has to leave them to go with the DEO, disappearing from his daughter’s life for close to twenty years.

And with him gone, it’s clear that a lot of the responsibility to keep Kara safe fell on Alex. Protecting Kara became part of her purpose in life. There seems little doubt it motivated her decision to join the DEO herself, little realizing it was this same organization, preying on the same protective impulse, that took her father from her.

Yet Alex’s urge to protect Kara clashes with the fact that Kara is, y’know, a superhero. As Supergirl, Kara is constantly putting her life in danger. And because she’s Supergirl, anything that can put her life in danger is almost certainly too big and too dangerous for Alex, an ordinary human, to handle. Being Kara’s sister has been the most important relationship in her life, but it’s meant taking more worry and responsibility on herself than anyone could cope with.

Her father’s death brings all that home. Protecting Kara took him away from her, killed him once, turned him into a metallic monstrosity, a tortured slave of an evil organization, and eventually left him to die halfway around the world, never getting to be a father to Alex again. He lost everything, and she lost him, because of the impossible burden they’ve been given.

So when Alex loses herself in a VR world where she plays at being Supergirl? There’s more to it than the simple wish-fulfillment of the sidekick getting to be the big hero. In her virtual dreamworld, Alex is still Kara’s protector, because she would never want a world where Kara isn’t in her life, and likely can’t imagine not being driven to protect her. But with the Obsidian lenses, Alex is now the one with superhuman might, with the power to right any wrong, to beat any bad guy, to save the day and look cool doing it. The fake reality that traps Alex isn’t one where her problems are gone, but one where, for the first time in a long, long time, she has the strength to solve those problems herself, without the heartache and sacrifice she and her father have had to go through.

It’s been a while since Alex has had a truly great outing, but “Alex in Wonderland” delivers. What could have been simply a parable about Internet addiction with one of our leads acting out typical daydreams in a VR setting, instead becomes a deep dive into the family bonds and hangups that, while we may not think of them often, are key to making Alex who she is. Easily one of the best episodes of the season.

Stray Observations:

• A lot of what makes this episode work so well is Chyler Leigh’s performance. I know she’s a good actor, I’ve seen her do plenty of great stuff on the show before, but it’s been long enough since she got any meaty material like this that I’d sort of forgotten, and it came as a wonderful surprise.
• Been a while since we’ve seen Hank Henshaw, huh? And he’s really hamming it up here, too. Supergirl’s taken surprisingly little advantage of the fact that J’onn’s got an evil lookalike out there.
• Between taking personal information directly out of a user’s brain and uploading it to the shared virtual reality, and the inability to disconnect someone by simply taking the contacts off . . . Obsidian must just have no customer safety or privacy policies.
• When faced with a rampaging dragon, Alex asks herself, “What would Kara do?” She comes up with: use heat vision on the dragon. I’m sorry, Alex, the correct answer was: calm the dragon down with the power of friendship.
• Eve’s back! Post-Crisis Eve, too, so who even knows what the deal is with her.
• I know it would be entirely inappropriate, but how can anyone begin a eulogy with “Jeremiah was a” and not expect people to chime in with “bullfrog”?

 

The Flash 6×15: “The Exorcism of Nash Wells” review

“I’ve controlled your life for so long, Barry. How will you get along without me?”

Those were Eobard Thawne’s last words before his death. Yet it’s a question that’s never been answered, because Barry has never been able to fully free himself from Thawne. No matter how many times he’s defeated, no matter how many times he’s erased from existence, the Reverse Flash always returns, ready to manipulate Barry’s life and the lives of everyone around him, just to bring him pain. He’s become a specter of all the pain and loss and defeats Barry has suffered, returning to taunt him, daring him to keep running forward.

That has become Thawne’s role in the story. What “The Exorcism of Nash Wells” does is make that role literal.

At this point, Thawne is barely even a person anymore. His human body is gone, and he exists as a formless cloud of negative tachyons. In this form, he can never truly be destroyed, merely banished for a time before he returns. And in taking this form, he has discarded whatever nuance or complexity he once had as a human being. He is now a spirit of pure negative emotions, existing only to infest and destroy others with his own hatred and resentment.

It’s a change from the Thawne we’ve become accustomed to, a mysterious manipulator who always leaves you uncertain if any of the affection he claims for the heroes is genuine, or merely part of another ruse. But while far from the most interesting version of Thawne, his devolution here into a straightforward malevolent force makes a great deal of sense.

When Thawne was first made known to us in Season 1, it was with an unusually subversive take on the hero’s archenemy. We were shown that, in his past, Eobard Thawne had been a simple evil copycat of the Flash, duplicating the hero’s powers and inverting his name and costume, all out of a petty and deranged quest to destroy the Flash. He was about as simple and generic an arch-enemy as you could dream up.

That was who Thawne used to be. The genius twist that The Flash put on the character was to establish that, after a long and unseen rivalry with his nemesis, Thawne’s villainy came to bite him in the ass, trapping him in the early 21st Century with no way to return to his own time. To escape from the pit he’d run into, the Reverse Flash would need to become a very different sort of villain. The kind who hid his evil behind a friendly guise, who could work well with others, even with his hated enemy, slowly working towards a long term goal.

The Reverse Flash we’ve spent the most time with, in Seasons 1 and Season 5 (and in Legends of Tomorrow Season 2) is not the sort of villain Thawne would have chosen to be. Each time he’s been at the center of a long story arc, it’s been because his own actions have put his life or his freedom in danger, forcing him to become a master schemer, with allies and minions and an air of geniality, to escape his punishment.

But what Thawne has become now? Those concerns no longer apply. As a being of pure negative-tachyons, he can no longer be imprisoned or destroyed. He’s free at last to be his true self. And even after everything he’s been through with Team Flash, after every opportunity to see that there’s more to life than his grudge against Barry Allen, his true self hasn’t changed.

The Thawne on display here is a one-dimensional force of evil, existing only to kill Barry and everyone close to him. Because that’s all Thawne has ever wanted to be.

Stray Observations:

• Sunshine was a decent enough one-off baddie, though when she’s defeated two-thirds of the way through the episode, you can tell she’s not one the show was too interested in.
• Singh is going to be the mole, isn’t he? First he tries to dismiss the idea that there’s a mole, then tries to warn Joe away from investigating it for his own sake, then tries to blame the CCPD being compromised on Sunshine. Each action is, perhaps, reasonable on its own, but put together, it reeks of someone very desperate to shut this investigation down.
• The Nash flashbacks (Nashbacks?) were on the predictable side, but well acted and emotionally affecting.
• I’m liking that Eva and her Mirror Minions are working separately from, and even at cross purposes with Black Hole. Makes it a little harder to predict how all this is gonna pan out.
• Cecile coming to Star Labs with all the gear needed for a demonic exorcism and/or a vampire slaying was definitely the highlight of the episode.

 

Legends of Tomorrow 5×07: “Romeo v Juliet: Dawn of Justness” review

We’ve said goodbye to a lot of Legends before. Some have gone joyfully, excited to start a new adventure. Others have gone with tears in their eyes, torn up by what they’re leaving behind. One took off between seasons, vanishing as quickly as he came. And, of course, some Legends have died in their efforts to protect time. But there’s one constant among all our departing Legends, one overarching reason behind why they had to leave the team: they’d finally grown up.

Carter and Kendra left to have a real relationship together. Amaya and Stein chose to leave so they could be parents, and while that wasn’t Jax’s reason for leaving, it ended up being the path his life took. Rip left so he could take a government job where he wore a suit and tie and formulated procedures. Wally left to pursue the path of meditation he started on. Mona left to start a career she was passionate about. And Snart, in the act of sacrificing himself, proved he’d finally matured past being the thrill-seeking thief he started out as.

All of them were finally moving forward with their lives, taking on adult responsibilities and relationships. And they couldn’t do that on the Waverider.

More than any show out there, Legends recreates the joy of a child playing make believe. Every mission sends our heroes off to play dress up, acting out their favorite movies, novels, and assorted pop culture obsessions, meeting up with historical figures and mythological monsters like a kid throwing all their toys into the same sandbox. And (this is key) the Legends are aware how much their lives are like something out of a childhood fantasy, and they embrace the hell out of it.

They’ll throw an impromptu bachelor party in the middle of a mission. They’ll come up with needlessly complicated plans just to make things more “epic”. They’ll bring ponies and strippers and animal-scooter races onboard their timeship. They’ll save history by dressing up in funny costumes and playing pretend for a while.

Despite the world-in-peril stakes, Legends is not a place for mature people making responsible decisions. It is, above all else, about being young and dumb and goofing around with your friends.

But it knows that can’t be all there is to life. Not for everyone, anyway. There will come a point when people want more out of their lives than having fun and getting into trouble. When they don’t want to be roommates with a half-dozen of their single friends in a one-bathroom home. When it’s time, at last, for them to move on, and move out.

When Ray joined the Legends, he was leaving behind a failed relationship and a failed business, wanting to do something great with his life, but not knowing what. When Nora came to the Legends, she was only just beginning to cast off the life prescribed for her by her father, to craft her own identity. Joining the Legends gave them time, time away from the everyday struggles of their life, to enjoy fun and far out adventures with good friends. Time to find out who they really were, and who they wanted to be.

Now Nora has a job, one where she’s helping people instead of hurting them, and it’s brought real meaning to her life. And Ray, searching for a purpose in his own life, knows more than anything that it means being with her. They’ve found what they were looking for, they’ve grown into people who have a place in the world, and being Legends is no longer something they need.

I’ve often called Legends of Tomorrow a “silly little show”, but it’s a smart silly little show. It celebrates acting like a kid, without denying the need to grow up. It revels in its characters’ immaturity, but doesn’t let that keep them from maturing. Like Oz or Neverland, the Waverider is a magical place, a place where people who are lost or troubled can escape for a while, can play around and make a mess and just have fun, until they’re ready to head back into the real world, a little wiser than they were before.

Stray Observations:

• I know a lot of people are upset about the decision to write out Ray and Nora. I can’t pretend I’m happy to see them go. But there are a lot of factors, both practical and artistic, that go into these sorts of decisions. Without looking over the showrunners’ shoulders and knowing everything they had to contend with, I’m not going to judge them for the choice they made. That being said . . .
• You made Gideon cry! You monsters!!
• Obviously, Ray and Nate are the highlight of this episode. It definitely takes some chutzpah to compare their bromance to Romeo & Juliet, and to say that not having this ending would be like if Shakespeare never finished his play. But damn if Brandon Routh and Nick Zano didn’t have me weeping right along with them!
• “This totally sucks, but I love you.” *sob!*
• Also doing some great work was Sara, having a sweet goodbye with Ray and being there for Nate when he needs someone.
• As funny as the drunken post-mission scene was, Sara and Ray seemed to sober up awfully fast once they moved to a different room.
• Mona made a return appearance here, and got one of the episode’s best lines: “And I killed a Federal agent.”
• The meta meter was off the charts this episode. “Why wouldn’t he just steel up again? Stupid Mercutio.” “No MacGuffin talk until after I’ve finished my coffee.” “The Loom of Destiny . . . the Spear of Fate . . . do you remember the totems?” “Blind faith in ridiculous plans that somehow always work.” “I love the characters, so why say goodbye?”

 

MVP of the Week: This one was tough. On the one hand, this is our farewell to Ray Palmer, who’s been an absolute delight in the Arrowverse for such a long time, it seems like he should get this prize by default. On the other hand, Rachel Skarsten put in such a fun and heartbreaking performance as Alice, it kinda feels like she deserves it. But, in the end, there was only one person this coveted award could go to.

Sexy Fireman Stripper

Question of the Week: How well do you actually remember the ongoing storylines after this surprise hiatus?