Review: Arrow v. The Flash
EntertainmentReviews December 9, 2014 Admin
PHOTO CREDIT: Official TV Show Poster
BY SARAH SHARPE
It’s the question debated at fan conventions around the world: When pitted against each other, which superhero would win? The executive producers of two of The CW’s hottest series took that question head-on and brought together the scarlet speedster and emerald archer in one huge crossover event.
The crossover was split up into one episode of The Flash on Tuesday night where Team Arrow visited Central City and one episode of Arrow on Wednesday night where Team Flash visited Starling City.
On The Flash, in an episode appropriately titled “Flash vs. Arrow”, Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell), Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards), and John Diggle (David Ramsey) follow a criminal who kills people with deadly boomerangs to Central City just as Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) and his team (Caitlin Snow played by Danielle Panabaker and Cisco Ramon played by Carlos Valdes) are tracking a meta-human who can manipulate people’s emotions (Roy G. Bivolo, better known from the comics as Rainbow Raider, played by Paul Anthony). Oliver takes it upon himself to impart his wisdom on the young superhero, giving him advice about being aware of his surroundings and not running into dangerous situations blind. He even shot Barry in the back to prove his point. While Barry’s two father figures, Joe West (Jesse L. Martin) and Harrison Wells (Tom Cavanagh), don’t particularly find The Arrow to be a good influence on him, Barry teams up with Oliver to take Bivolo down. However, when Barry feels he can at least go confront the meta-human by himself, Bivolo infects Barry with an unstoppable rage. It’s then up to Team Flash and Team Arrow to work together and cure Barry before he can harm the people he loves. In a B-story plotline, Eddie Thawne (Rick Cosnett) believes that The Flash is a menace that needs to be stopped and tries to rally a task force to bring down the speedster. At first, he’s doesn’t get support from his captain, David Singh (Patrick Sabongui), or his girlfriend, Iris West (Candice Patton) who happens to be The Flash’s biggest fan. However, after Barry, in his rage-fueled mania, attacks Eddie in front of Iris, Eddie is granted his task force and The Flash loses Iris.
In “The Brave and the Bold”, the episode of Arrow, after Felicity asks Caitlin for help solving the murder of Sara Lance (Caity Lotz), aka The Canary, Caitlin and Cisco arrive in Starling City. (Cisco, a long-time Arrow fanboy, needed to see the toys in the “Arrowcave”.) Luckily, they brought The Flash with them, just in time, as Starling City is being attacked by the infamous boomerang killer, Digger Harkness (Nick Tarabay), aka Captain Boomerang, as dubbed by Cisco. This time, it’s Barry’s turn to impart some wisdom on Oliver. Barry tells him that, despite what Oliver may think, as long as Oliver Queen still lives inside The Arrow, he can also be inspiration, like Barry. Concurrently, when Harkness attacks Lyla Michaels (Audrey Marie Anderson), Diggle’s fiancé, Caitlin and Cisco get educated as well, learning that they should be taking their jobs more seriously as a life of fighting crime can lead to some major life-or-death situations. In the end, when Harkness plants five bombs around the city, it is again up to the combined efforts of Team Arrow and Team Flash to stop him.
In “Flash vs. Arrow”, we got the big fight scene we were all promised, as Oliver tries to subdue Barry long enough for Dr. Wells and Joe to flash bright strategically colored lights at Barry in order to reverse the effects of Bivolo’s powers. In one of the most brilliantly-choreographed fight sequences in the series so far, the two heroes were able to perfectly showcase their strengths: Barry’s speed and wit and Oliver’s precision and skill. As this fight could only end one way, with Barry being cured, Oliver and Barry decide to actually have a battle of their own in “The Brave and the Bold” to see who would win. (However, the beginning of this fight is the very last thing we see in the episode, as it’s immediately cut off by the Arrow title-card.) While we may never know the outcome, we may be seeing a lot more of Barry in Starling City, as Oliver gives Barry his very own mannequin for his suit in the “Arrowcave”.
Overall, both of these episodes were so much fun to watch, as we were granted amazing storylines, like Team Arrow’s reactions to Barry’s speed, Central City and Barry bringing some much needed levity to Oliver’s life, Oliver reconnecting with the mother of his child (Anna Hopkins) while in Central City, and an incredible surprise appearance by Ronnie Raymond (Robbie Amell), Caitlin’s fiancé who she thought died in S.T.A.R. Labs’ particle accelerator explosion, enveloped in flames as his superhero persona, Firestorm. However, what this crossover was able to do for The Flash, it sadly was not able to do as well for it’s brother-show, Arrow: furthering plotlines. Whereas The Flash is a brand-new series that’s still building it’s storylines, Arrow is currently in the middle of many storylines that aren’t getting anywhere near equal screen time, including solving Sara’s murder, making Laurel Lance (Katie Cassidy) the Black Canary, and letting Oliver deal with the League of Assassins, none of which were touched on in the episode itself. The Flash, on the other hand, perfectly handled bringing in Team Arrow while still further developing their characters. Eddie now has a purpose instead of just being the guy Barry’s jealous of for being Iris’ boyfriend, Iris has lost her faith in The Flash and Barry will now try anything to get it back because, as Oliver told him, “guys like [them] don’t get the girl”, and not only Barry, but Caitlin and Cisco, have learned a lot about the superhero game and how it’s not all fun and games, hopefully bringing more stakes to future episodes.
Despite its flaws, though, the “Flarrow” crossover definitely lived up to the hype. Fans really couldn’t have asked for anything better. It’ll be very interesting to see what goes down when these two heroes join forces again, hopefully some time in the near future. Until then, the mid-season finales premiere this week and they’re sure to be exciting as both Barry and Oliver face their greatest foes, respectively, Reverse Flash, the man who killed Barry’s mother 14 years ago, and Ra’s al Ghul (Matt Nable), the leader of the League of Assassins.
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