The Flash "Flash vs. Arrow" Review: World's Finest

The Flash S01E08: "Flash vs. Arrow"

The superhero crossover is a tried-and-true way to build narrative universes and allow the characters that readers know and love (or are at least aware of) to interact, so that everyone can watch the sparks fly. As kid, I remember reading a collected volume of early Spider-Man comics, and in the very first issue of The Amazing Spider-Man, Spidey tries to join the Fantastic Four. That results in Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four fighting for a couple of pages—it's a superhero comic book rule that upon meeting for the first time, superheroes have to fight each other—before Spidey sets off to deal with the Chameleon because the FF aren't interested in letting him onto the team. Superheroes teamed up and appeared in one another's stories before 1963, of course, but that particular instance always been one of the highlights of the genre.

Crossovers on TV aren't anything new, either. Sure, there scads of the more common guest-star cameos—in which when actors from one show pop up on another, particularly on sitcoms—but multi-episode events like this one between The Flash and Arrow have also happened before, and not just on shows that share an obvious narrative universe, like The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman or Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. After all, Dr. Kildare and The Eleventh Hour staged a crossover in 1963. Just a few weeks ago, Dick Wolf's trio of NBC crime procedurals (SVU, Chicago Fire, and Chicago P.D.) carried out a three-way swap. And I remember when The Practice overlapped with every David E. Kelley show on the air at the same time, including Ally McBeal and Gideon's Crossing.

The crossover between The Practice and Ally McBeal actually makes for a good comparison to the mixing of Arrow and The Flash, as both pairings are comprised of tonally different series. Ally McBeal was a show about gender politics, wacky lawyers, and CGI dancing babies, while The Practice was a serious and generally grim look at upstart defense attorneys who employed unethical tactics in the courtroom. Similarly, The Flash is a bright, funny, and optimistic series that embraces the sillier aspects of its source material, to really solid effect, and Arrow is part of the trend of making superheroes darker and grittier, with an emphasis on the morality involved in putting on a mask and fighting crime.

Whereas the Ally McBeal and The Practice cocktail didn't really jive—Bobby Donnell in the offices of Cage and Fish just didn't work—The Flash and Arrow managed to synthesize their respective tones into a very delightful and fun hour of television that showcased why superhero crossovers tend to be worth the effort. Even better, it didn't slow the momentum of The Flash's pre-existing storylines. Indeed, the presence of Oliver, Diggle, and Felicity in Central City actually gave the A-story a little more dramatic weight than it might have otherwise had.

A quick organizational note: Since we may have some folks reading who don't watch The Flash regularly (or at all), I'm going to divide this review of "Flash vs. Arrow" into 1) an overall take on the episode and that showdown between Barry and Oliver, 2) a discussion of the big developments for The Flash, and 3) a breakdown of that little Arrow bit at the end of the episode, and in that order. It may be a little unwieldy, but it seems like the best approach for different audiences, since I know some Flash readers don't watch Arrow and vice versa.

Regarding the episode overall, what really made "Flash vs. Arrow" work for me was the aforementioned synthesis of tones. Like last week's "Power Outage," which saw The Flash drift into darker-ish territory, "Flash vs. Arrow" kept the show moving in that direction with a cloudier hour that had Central City feeling a bit like an extension of Starling City. And given Barry's actions while under the influence of Roy G. Bivolo, a.k.a. Rainbow Raider's rage eyes, it was another dark installment by The Flash's standards. Indeed, the rage issue was probably handled a bit better on The Flash than it was when it cropped up on Arrow last season, albeit not caused by a guy with glowy red eyes.

Despite its darkness, "Flash vs. Arrow" made plenty of room for gags and humor. Stealing the show was David Ramsey's pitch-perfect performance of Diggle's response to Barry's superspeed. Diggle just couldn't wrap his brain around it, and Ramsey really sold Diggle's befuddlement with that unblinking stare. His delivery of, "I had a cousin get hit by lightning once. He just developed a stutter," left me in stitches. Pile on Oliver's casual willingness to shoot Barry in the back with two arrows just to make a point, and The Flash presented a way for the normally-not-funny Arrow folks to showcase their more comedic skills without breaking character.

If "Flash vs. Arrow" hadn't so nicely blended the two shows' different approaches, I'm not sure it would've been as successful. Instead, it would've ended up feeling like a crossover for the sake of as crossover, and an affront to each series' storytelling style. It also helped that the episode took care to make sure that the big showdown between Barry and Oliver wasn't the sole reason to tune in, even if it was the highlight of the hour. The Flash continued to impress with its special-effects work, using both slo-mo shots and streaks of red and yellow to depict Barry's powers. And just like the merging of tone and humor, the fight nicely showcased our two heroes' respective fighting techniques... even if Oliver's was clearly the better one. Sorry, Cisco.

Okay, onto The Flash stuff. Arrow folks, head to the next section—after the photo of Oliver—for your fix.

As I mentioned above, I was glad that "Flash vs. Arrow" didn't pause The Flash's ongoing storylines just because Oliver was in town, and that Oliver's visit actually helped move some of them along. Barry's rage infection likewise provided a nice parallel to the rage issues Oliver experienced in Arrow's first season; even if the episode didn't do much to draw out and make those parallels apparent, it did highlight how Barry is still trying to sort out what it means to be a hero. The Flash has been light on super-inspirational speeches from Harrison and Joe recently, but their resistance toward Barry's idolization of Oliver/Arrow brought their various speeches full circle because they finally a bad example to point to.

Of course, what both of Barry's mentors are unaware of is that Oliver wants the same thing for Barry as they do. While some of Oliver's advice in this episode came from where he's at in his life right now—particularly when it comes to women—it was still rooted in helping Barry improve at his heroic activities without sacrificing his optimism or his ability to bring about real good in Central City. You know, as opposed to the sort of city-disrupting good that Oliver has stirred up in Starling City. Basically, Oliver doesn't want Barry to be the Arrow; as he told Barry back in The Flash's series premiere, he wants Barry to be something better, which is what Joe and Harrison want as well.

The Rainbow Raider rage also helped to ensure that Eddie and Iris stay relevant. Eddie's desire to establish a task force to stop the Flash didn't really work as a first move for me, but in the aftermath of Barry pulling him out of the car, there are going to be some real repercussions sooner or later. The task force will also give Eddie something to do that doesn't involve being cute with Iris or following Joe everywhere, which is good. As I've said repeatedly over the past few weeks, I sort of like Eddie, and I'm glad to see The Flash developing its story enough that the character can be a bit more driven.

As for Iris... part of me is prepared to stop trying to anticipate where the show is going with her, in light of her understandable turn against the Flash. However, I'm not sure how long her being against the Flash will last. Will he save her and then everything will be hunky dory again? I do know that I'm glad that Caitlin gets to speak for me whenever she tells Barry to stop interacting with Iris in costume, because, really, Barry's getting a little pathetic now. I know it's probably supposed to come off as "Aww, but he's socially awkward and so deeply into her" but no, his rage-induced attack on Eddie wasn't about the task force. It was about being jealous, and those are emotions Barry needs to deal with, and stat.

Now, if you don't watch or care about Arrow, or you intend to catch up on the show, you may want to skip this next section as it deals with that last little scene that took place at Jitters, and could potentially spoil a few things. Just scroll down to right below the next photo and you'll be all set!

In Season 2's "Seeing Red," we learned that Oliver and a woman WHO STILL DOES NOT HAVE A NAME conceived a child sometime before Oliver ended up stranded on Lian Yu. Oliver's mother paid the woman off, commanding her to disappear and never tell Oliver about the baby. And ever since then, we haven't seen Unnamed Woman Who Gave Birth to Oliver's Child (UWWGBTOC for short), in any capacity... until that super-awkward run-in at the coffee shop in Central City, complete with confirmation that UWWGBTOC kept the child and is raising him or her the Flash's hometown.

The unknown child born out of wedlock is a storyline from the Green Arrow comic book mythology, so it's not a soapy twist that Arrow came up with on its own—it's a soapy twist the show took from the comics. That means the UWWGBTOC's name is probably Sandra, but the show wants to hedge. I was genuinely hoping that Arrow was going to drop this arc, as I'm not really a fan of secret-kid storylines, but no such luck. "Flash vs. Arrow" started the timer on this particular narrative bomb; now the writers just have to decide when it'll explode. Arrow's has come to excel at choosing the right moments to pay off these sorts of teases, and given the general thrust of Season 3 so far, it's difficult to predict whether the show will circle back to the UWWGBTOC and the kid anytime soon.

Either way, dropping this "reveal" into Arrow's crossover with The Flash was pretty clever. Having the UWWGBTOC up in Starling City would've been a bit odd, given Moira's influence, so an appearance in Central City feels like the most organic way to bring her and the kid back into the narrative fold, as it were. I'm still not even remotely interested in their return, but it wasn't poorly executed—for Arrow fans, at least. I'm sure there were a few Flash-only viewers who were like, "Um. Okay. Oliver Queen's got a secret kid. Aaaaaaaaaaaaand.....?"

One last big takeaway from "Flash vs. Arrow": It's interesting to see how the producers are conceiving of both shows, and the comic-book traditions they fit into. When Arrow debuted, there was no shortage of talk of how it was borrowing very heavily from the Christopher Nolan Batman films, and "Flash vs. Arrow" re-emphasized that Batman connection with Joe and Harrison's displeasure over Barry viewing Oliver as a role model. Hell, Harrison's contention that Oliver's work in Starling City is "a brutal, violent vision of justice" and a "dark reckoning" for the city could just as easily be applied to Bruce Wayne and Gotham.

If Oliver is Batman, than Barry is being positioned as a Superman stand-in, hence the title of this review, which is a reference to the comic book that initially featured Batman and Superman in separate stories and then the same story later on. Barry can inspire people and give them hope, and he makes the impossible possible, in the same way that Superman's existence has often been shown to do. Indeed, if we stick with the "previous adaptation" parallel, then The Flash is in the vein of the Richard Donner-directed Superman films: mostly fun, with a few elements of seriousness mixed in and great special effects. As far as comparisons and influences go, The Flash could do a lot worse.

LEFT IN THE DUST

– The hunt for Roy G. Bivolo (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet, hence Rainbow Raider) was decidedly a backburner issue, as Bivolo was really only present to give Barry and Oliver an excuse to fight one another, and so he's easily the lamest Freak of the Week The Flash has trotted out so far. However, since the rest of the episode was very good, I didn't care too much.

– Now even more people know that Oliver is the Arrow. Oliver, your secret identity is the worst-kept secret in the world. Just tell Thea already and get it over with.

– Did Iris finish her dissertation? When was the last time she even mentioned school?

– So glad they're keeping Singh gay. Now, can he actually do something? Like, I don't know, maybe fire Barry? Would anyone else still have a job after reacting to their boss like that?

– Oliver Queen is on Iris's list of people she's allowed to sleep with and Eddie can't get mad at her. Felicity needs to sell footage of the salmon laddering. She'd make a bundle.

– Joe continues to be the best, as he, like me, is very much in the "It's nice that the Arrow's no longer killing people, but what about all those people he did kill? We're just okay with that?"

– "Did you just say 'whammied'?"

– "Okay. We'll help you catch your bad guy." "Great. Metahuman." "I am not calling him that, Barry."

– "It is so nice to have another woman to talk to." "I know!" At least the writers are aware that they're isolating their female characters.

– "There is something off about that guy." Oliver is onto Harrison, and I love it.

– Hi there, Ronnie! Can I get you some water?

What'd you think of "Flash vs. Arrow"?