Review: CW Invasion

There is no new Supergirl episode this week ... or even this month. But that doesn't mean that there isn't stuff for me to talk about. And with Wednesday as a sort of 'show slot' I thought I'd talk about #DCWeek

Last week was the Invasion crossover of the the four CW DC shows and I have to say it was pretty entertaining. There were plenty of tiny flourishes for old school comic fans. There was a feeling of 'my god I'm watching a Justice League live action show'. Each chapter did a good job of both pushing the story along while staying true to their individual show's character and style.

It certainly wasn't without its story flaws. There were plot twists that seemed forced. The ending seemed a bit rushed. Maybe there was a little bit too much angst. There were things that happened which I meta-textually explained away as scheduling issues and budget constraints.

But I am going to be honest here. In the end we saw a bunch of super-heroes fighting a bunch of Dominators. I got to see minor characters from my comic childhood on the small screen interacting with each other. And Supergirl played an important part. How can I not be thrilled! Giddy!

Look at the picture at the top of this post. What world am I living in when this is something that actually happened. It wasn't perfect. But it was and it was a ton of fun.

I'll try to do a relatively brief review, highlighting the parts I loved, probably focusing on Supergirl too much. But settle in because I'm going to try to review the last three parts in one post. At the very least, enjoy the pretty pictures.

We start out on The Flash were everyone is still sulking a bit about Flashpoint. Cisco's brother is dead. Caitlin has powers. Wally has powers but is linked to a villain. And then the Dominators arrive.  This isn't the first time the aliens have come to Earth. ARGUS has footage of them from the 50s.

Despite warnings from the government, Barry decided that the metas need to unite to fight this threat. So the Arrow family and the Legends and the Flash team all show up at the Legends Hall of Justice/STAR Labs hangar.

Cisco and Barry head to Earth-38 (nod to Superman's first appearance in 1938 I'm sure) and get Kara to join in. She meets everyone and is eager to join in. We hear that she is stronger than might rivers. Huzzah!

And to show why she is super, she floats in the sky and blasts her heat vision. But the big joy here is the big, goofy smile she is sporting. She is thrilled to be part of the team!

Flash gets elected leader of the squad but Ollie ends up organizing the training sequences. Basically he asks everyone to attack Supergirl. It is an amusing scene because she clearly outclasses them. She just floats there, absorbing their blows and smacking everyone around. So much fun.

But everything isn't as sunny as Kara's disposition. Barry's cryptic future message heard on Legends is revealed to everyone. In it he confesses to Flashpoint. Everyone's life has been changed because of Barry's selfish act. In particular, the Legends, whose job it is to stabilize the timeline, take umbrage to this.

When the Dominators kidnap the President, the team needs to act. But Barry decides to sit out this mission because he doesn't want to be a distraction. And Ollie, loyal to Barry, decides he won't go either.

Everyone heads to an abandoned warehouse where a Dominator has the President captured.

Outside, Supergirl hears Heat Wave's origin which she laughingly calls a 'colorful backstory'. Such a fun moment. And Rory remains a surly dude, telling Supergirl he'll call her 'Skirt' if he needs here. (Remember he calls The Atom 'Haircut'.)

Inside, the Dominator vaporizes the President and then activates a red crystal which takes control of the heroes' minds.

Back at STAR Labs, we see that the classic 'Flash Disappears' article is no longer written by Iris Allen-West. It now has a byline of Julie Greer. Arrow ends up retelling his origin story (Dad kills crewman and himself so Ollie can live; his mother dies at hands of Deathstroke) and how anyone would try to change their past. Flash needs to stop beating himself up. As I said, I don't watch Arrow. What a brutal origin!

The mind controlled heroes attack Flash and Arrow. Luckily, Flash is able to lure Supergirl towards the mind control device. Standing before it, he vibrates so she flies right through him, destroying it. It works well as an action scene as Barry keeps taunting Kara so she'll follow him. Nicely done with good effects.

Suddenly freed from the device, the heroes reconvene only to have the non-powered Arrow team members (Arrow, White Canary, Rigg, Speedy, and Atom) teleported away.

And so the Flash episodes ends.

The Arrow episode follows and my guess is this episode meant a lot to folks who have watched this show since season one. The Dominators have placed their captives in a 'For the man who has everything' shared perfect universe. The Queens are alive. Ollie is engaged to Dinah. Rigg is Green Arrow. Speedy is successful. Sarah is happy. I am sure all the poignant moments mean a lot for viewers who are fans. But I could only intuit which scenes truly tug the heart strings.

Having lived through 'For the Girl who has Everything' on Supergirl, I know how powerful these episodes are, especially when the hero needs to abandon this heaven and face reality. So watching each character realize something is wrong, to see Speedy struggle with leaving, to see Ollie say goodbye to these people was powerful stuff.

Meanwhile, the heroes on Earth need to get a McGuffin off a super-villain so they can activate Dominator tech to figure out what the aliens' plans are.

As a DC fan, it was great to see Mr. Terrific and Ragman live. But the winner here is Wild Dog, an angry vigilante who has little time for super-powered people. This scene were he shakes his head in disgust at the super-cheery Supergirl waving to everyone was great.

But the best scene was seeing Supergirl and Flash tag team to beat up the cybernetic nameless villain woman. They literally tag each other in an out.

Eventually the Arrow team extricate themselves from the dream device (fighting all their villains on the way out of the scenario). They jump into an escape ship on the Dominator mother ship and are whisked away by the Waverider which arrives just in time.

But the teams have learned the Dominators' plan. They are creating a doomsday weapon.

And so on to Legends...

On Legends, the teams realize that kidnapping and interrogating a Dominator might give them even more intel. The Legends will go back to the 50s and grab one of the Dominators from that time. (Does that make sense? How is that Dominator supposed to know what the current ones are up to?) Vixen, Steel, Heat Wave, Cisco, and Felicity all travel back in time.

In one of those plot points that I chalked up to Melissa Benoist needing to film her own show, Green Arrow tells her that he can't trust her and asks her to step down. Now this makes absolutely no sense. If I think too much about this, my head hurts.

Back in the 50s, Heat Wave, Vixen and Steel to grab a Dominator. But then everyone is captured by the US Government. The alien admits that the Dominators sense when Metas are manifesting on a planet and fear they will be a threat to the Dominion. In the 50s, that's the JSA.

Eventually, Cisco and Felicity rescue the Legends. They, in turn, rescue the Dominator the government is torturing. Everyone makes it back to the present.

There the Dominator the team rescued in the 50s, now with a much bigger caste mark, tells the team that the Dominator will drop a meta-bomb, killing all metas on Earth (and 2 million normal folks as well) unless Barry turns himself in. The Dominion know about Flashpoint too and think Barry is a universal threat. (Wow ... Flashpoint is a really big deal!) And Barry being Barry, he agrees to do it.

But now Cisco realizes how changing time and history is easy and flawed. His rescuing the Dominator in the 50s has changed things. They won't let Barry do it.

Now faced with an armada of Dominator ships in Earth's atmosphere, the heroes finally completely unite and decide to fight. Armed with tiny devices which cause intense pain on Dominators when attached, the war is on.

In a scene oddly reminiscent of Captain America:Civil War, we see the heroes and the Dominators race towards each other.

We then get some great action and effects. Everyone gets a little moment.

Flash and Supergirl use their speed to attach the pain devices on the Dominator troops.

White Canary and Cisco use the Waverider to grab the bomb with a tractor beam. But the bomb is massive. They can't hold it.

And so Firestorm arrives. Straining, Firestorm uses his transmutation power to turn the bomb to water. Yes, Supergirl could punt the bomb away if she wanted but Firestorm deserves a moment too!

With the troops in agony and the bomb gone, the Dominators beat a swift retreat.

There is nothing left but the wrapup.

The new President holds and press conference. She states these are heroes. Nothing like a medal ceremony!

And then a party. We get a group hug from the CW Trinity.

Yeah ... that's right ... I called them the CW Trinity.

I love seeing Kara in her work clothes. And even Ollie has to admit she is an asset.

And Cisco gives Kara a device where she can open a breach to their world on her own or even communicate with them. Suddenly crossovers are easy! With the war over, Barry and Ollie head to a bar for a quiet drink.

Okay, first off, I glossed over some subplots like Professor Stein having a daughter, an 'aberration' he created on Legends but comes to love. There is a government official who hates metas and aliens alike and was active in the 50s and now. Wally again tries to join the action. But overall I think I covered it.

I'll also reiterate that I loved Wild Dog in this crossover. He might be enough to have me check out Arrow.

And yes, there were some plot speed bumps. But I am willing to blink and miss them given the fun we got to see. Sometimes you just need to enjoy the popcorn movie and not dissect things. And when you compare this to the trainwreck of the cinematic universe, this made me very very happy!  Thanks CW! This was great fun!