Friday, January 31, 2020

Starman Plays Fallout 2 - Part 18

In which, having reversed time so we freed Vic and slaughtered the Slaver's Guild without Sulik dying, we make our way with pockets full of loot to Vault City. Well, the slum OUTSIDE Vault City, to be accurate, but we make a new friend and find several lost souls in need of assistance.

Tuesday, January 28, 2020

Starman Plays Fallout 2 - Part 17

In which, having had to return to The Den yet again to retrieve a quest item I accidentally sold off, I decide to take another stab at bringing down the Slavers.

Will I be any more successful this time? Eh, for a given value of successful...


Monday, January 27, 2020

Arrow Episode Guide: Season 8, Episode 9 - Green Arrow & The Canaries

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.




Plot

It's 2040 and Mia Queen's life couldn't be better. She just graduated from college and her boyfriend J.J. just proposed. Then two of her father's old friends showed up and suddenly Mia remembers being someone else... something else. Now one of her best friends has been kidnapped and the future her father sacrificed himself to save is in peril, leaving Mia no choice but to become the new Green Arrow.



Influences

Birds of Prey
(idea of all female vigilante team)



Goofs

While Mia may have had her knowledge of how to fight restored by Laurel's device, it seems highly unlikely she'd be in the same physical condition she was as an underground pit-fighter as a rich debutante.

For a reformed supervillain, Laurel seems to be a pretty deep believer in the idea that people can't change and is adamant that J.J. Diggle has to be a bad guy because he was a bad guy in the original timeline.



Performances

Kat McNamara has a brilliant turn here, truly selling Mia's conflict between the life she rememebrs and the comfortable one her father wanted her to have.



Artistry

The aesthetic of Star City 2040 is solid, looking relatively close to the present day but with enough changes that it seems like a credible "not-too-distant future."



Trivia

The loft apartment above Dinah Drake's piano bar is modeled to resemble an old clock tower. In the classic Birds of Prey comics and the 2002 TV show, Barbara Gordon organized the team from an old clock tower.

The club where Mia holds her graduation part is called The Fish Net. This is a nod to the most famous fashion accessory of the various versions of Black Canary in the comics.



Technobabble

The device Laurel uses to restore Mia's memories was built by Cisco Ramon and replicated the telepathy of the Martian Manhunter.

Mia took classes in design theory and sustainable concepts. These allow her to recognize the plants in the background of the photo of Bianca as biophilic in nature, meant to power the building photosynthetically.



Dialogue Triumphs

Reporter: What would your dad think about your life choices?
Mia: My father saved Star City so that we can enjoy it. And he also never graduated college, so I think he'd be pretty impressed.

Mia: I spent my whole life looking at these pictures of my dad, all of the amazing things he did for the city, what a hero he was, wondering how I could possibly live up to that in anything I chose to do. And...And so I chose to do nothing.



Dialogue Disasters

Laurel: People are who they are, Mia, no matter what timeline, universe, or Earth, and that's not your fault.  (...says the reformed supervillain!)

Bianca: (after being saved, as everything blows up) Who are you bitches?!



Continuity

Laurel attempts to get a woman named Bianca Bertinelli to come with her, shortly before she is abducted by a group of men.

Star City's mayor in 2040 is someone named Ramirez, who is running for his third term. It is suggested that this might be Rene "Wild Dog" Ramirez, who was the mayor of The Glades in the original 2040 timeline.

Star City has a vigilante museum, which just received a $1 million donation from Victor and Maria Bertinelli.

In the new 2040, Oliver and Felicity's daughter Mia goes by Mia Queen rather than Mia Smoak.

In the new timeline, Mia has just graduated from college. In the original 2040 timeline, she ran away from home before graduating high school. She was also raised as part of the upper class.

Mia lives in Queen Manor, which was apparently restored and purchased by Felicity Smoak at some point in the last 20 years.

In the new 2040, John Diggle Jr. goes by JJ and is an art gallery manager rather than a gang leader.

JJ proposes to Mia. She accepts.

Dinah Drake is living in Star City 2040. She owns her own piano bar and lives in the loft above it.

Dinah says that she woke up in Star City 2040 the day after Oliver Queen's funeral. She also discovered there was no record of her ever having existed or there being a Black Canary in the post-Crisis timeline. She later says she felt it was the universe's way of telling her that she wasn't needed, despite her Canary Cry also being restored following the Crisis.

Sara Lance found Dinah living in 2040 and offered to take her back. Dinah decided to stay in the future.

There have been no major crimes in Star City for 20 years.

Bianca Bertinelli is a famous socialite and the adopted daughter of Helena Bertinelli.

According to Laurel, all hell breaks loose in Star City three days after Helena Bertinelli is found dead after being kidnapped.

The ring JJ proposed to Mia with belonged to Felicity and it's the same one Oliver proposed to her with. She says she knew she'd want to wear the family ring.

William Clayton says he's going to be the Man of Honor at Mia's wedding. He is revealed to be running Smoak Tech in the new reality and just broke up with his boyfriend, Keven. (I.E. The villain from the flash-forwards of Arrow season 7)  Apparently Keven didn't want to be tied down to one boyfriend.

Zoe Ramirez crashes Mia's graduation party, but Mia doesn't mind. This confirms that Zoe is alive in the new 2040 reality, but she is not part of the Canary Network since there is no Canary Network and there was no Dinah Drake around to train her as a child.

Connor Hawke crashes Mia's graduation party and Mia does mind, asking if he's out of rehab and if he's going to start a fight or set something on fire. Apparently, in the new reality, Connor is the bad son of the Diggle family, rather than the pre-Crisis future where he was an agent of Nightwatch and Mia's lover.

Bianca's ex-boyfriend, Trevor, is also in attendance at Mia's graduation party.

Mia never met Laurel or Dinah in the new post-Crisis reality.

Laurel restore Mia's memories of the pre-Crisis world with a device built my Cisco Ramon.

Dinah was married when she was 21.

According to Mia, Helena Bertinelli was a great mother to Bianca before Helena disappeared mysteriously. Since then, Helena has lived with her great-aunt and uncle.

Logan Bertinelli is Bianca's cousin who is involved in some shady business.

The vehicle they think is holding Bianca turns out to be carrying drugs or chemicals of some kind. Mia doesn't recognize them, but they look suspiciously like Mirakuru - the miracle serum that turned Slade Wilson into Deathstroke.

The vehicle is blown up by a man in a Deathstroke mask.

Mia hacks the computers in JJ Diggle's office based on Laurel's instance he must be this new Deathstroke. The only secret she finds is hat he was planning a vacation to Fiji for their honeymoon. He later breaks up with her because of her apparent distrust of him.

Trevor is revealed to be the new Deathstroke and he only kidnapped Bianca because she dumped him.

Trevor has a tattoo on one wrist that resembles the emblem on thee Queen family hozen. He makes reference to a boss who is a woman.

Bianaca is saved and informs everyone that a new Green Arrow saved her. She does not, however, mention them being a woman. This leads the press to ask William if he's the new Green Arrow, much to his amusement.

Laurel confesses to Dinah that the real reason she pushed Mia to recover her memories was because Mia was blamed for Star City falling apart within the next year and was called "The Woman Who Failed Star City." in one 2041 article.

Mia and JJ reconcile, but it looks like the wedding is still on hold.

Laurel temporarily moves in with Dinah, but says she plans to get a place of her own.

Dinah announces her intention to set up the Canary Network in the new Star City 2040 and asks Laurel to help.

William is kidnapped by a group who knock Mia out and leave her behind as the two were meeting before the bronze statue of Oliver Queen as Green Arrow in one city park.

The episode ends with someone using the same device that Laurel used on Mia on JJ Diggle, restoring his memories of being leader of the Deathstrokes


Location

Star City - 2040



Untelevised Adventures

We know virtually nothing of what happened to the heroes of Star City post-Crisis, apart from Rene Ramirez (maybe)eventually becoming Mayor of Star City and Dinah being sent forward in time.

There's an implication that Black Siren knew Huntress and worked with her in the revised timeline as she makes reference to Helena having old enemies. Could there have been a Birds of Prey team sometime in the gap between 2020 and 2040?


The Fridge Factor

Between her refusal to accept that JJ Diggle might be a good guy in the new reality and her general lack of competence throughout the episode, it's fair to say that Black Siren/Laurel Lance isn't a very good vigilante.


The Bottom Line

If it weren't for its connection to Arrow, it would be an easily forgettable, wholly generic action series pilot of the same school as VIP and Cleopatra 2525. Inoffensive, but hardly likely to encourage enthusiasm for the spin-off, particularly since Black Siren seems to have regressed into her formerly catty self and Dinah Drake is an after-thought, as usual.

Sunday, January 26, 2020

Black Lightning Episode Guide: Season 3, Episode 10 - The Book of Markovia: Chapter One: Blessings and Curses Reborn

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here




Plot

With the Crisis averted, Jefferson returns home to Freeland to find nobody but Jennifer remembers the anti-matter storms that destroyed their world. They both have bigger concerns, however, as Anissa runs afoul of an ASA ambush as Blackbird, Brandon's earth-bending powers trigger an earthquake and the depths of Lynn's drug use finally become apparent. Throw in a desperate Agent Odell readying to weaponize all of the captive Green Light Babies and Pod Kids and Freeland needs its heroes more than ever.


Performances

The scene in which Jefferson confronts Lynn and discovers her drug use is a career high for both Cress Williams and Christine Adams. The former perfectly captures Jefferson's anguish as he's torn between his responsiblity to the community and his pain over the woman he loves destroying herself and Adams plays a credible addict.


Artistry

The episodes use of music to establish mood is fantastic.


Technobabble

Gambi says that both Jennifer and Jefferson have anti-matter particles on them, which should be impossible according to everything he knows about science. He suggests that the nature of their powers and how they react to energy are what allowed them to experience whatever they experienced during the Crisis. This is probably why Jennifer remembers the old reality, despite not having her memories restored by Martian Manhunter, like her father did.

The side-effects of Green Light addiction include hallucinations, agitation, sweats and dry mouth.


Dialogue Triumphs

Jefferson: (into his comms) Gambi? Gambi, I don't know if you can hear me, but if you can, you're not gonna believe what happened. I traveled to an alternate dimension. I met other metahumans... a kid named Flash. Gambi, Superman is real! We saved humanity. Multiple humanities, actually. (sighs) A lot happened. But I just kept thinking about you and Lynn and the girls and... and Freeland.

Jefferson:  Don't you think it would be better to help the Resistance as Thunder?
Anissa: No, I don't.
Jefferson: Thunder is a clear symbol of justice. She's selfless, saves people. Blackbird steals money from drug dealers and does other questionable things.
Anissa: Oh, come on, Dad, stop. I need to lead this. Black Lightning is not the face of this Resistance.
Jefferson: Whoever said he was?
Anissa: You did. The moment you came in and just took over. Now, I know you have done this a million times, but I'm running this.
Jefferson: Anissa, I didn't take over. Henderson asked for my advice. And I gave it.
Anissa: No, I had everything under control until you came in with your male privilege, and you just pushed me aside.
Jefferson: Male privilege? What are you talking about? I'm your father. And this isn't about you.
Anissa: Yes, this is about me.
Jefferson: No. If we get this wrong, people die.
Anissa: Yes, Dad, I know that. And I also know that this is hard for you. But I'm so much more than just your daughter and Thunder, and you need to see that. I am a leader, and I can handle myself.
Jefferson: I know you can handle yourself, I know that. But you haven't always made the best choices, and I haven't said a lot about it, but you have done some very questionable things.
Anissa: Okay, okay, I've made some mistakes, and so have you. But so what?
Jefferson: Mistakes? You use money you stole from drug dealers for yourself. That is not a mistake, that's just wrong.
Anissa: Now is not the time for us to focus on that. We have a mission to take care of, and what I need from you is support. I need you to trust that I'm gonna make better decisions after the bad ones that I made. That's what I need from you, Dad. Can you do that?
Anissa: A lot of people are counting on you.
Jefferson: Yeah, I know that. And I need you to be one of those people

(Brandon and Jennifer are hiding behind some crates by the docks.  A black SUV moves past them.)
Brandon: Hey, can we go now?
Jennifer: Almost. I'm about to end this, once and for all.
(The SUV stops and Jennifer approaches it. The window in the back passenger side of the vehicle rolls down. Agent Odell is seated inside.)
Agent Odell: Happy you finally called, Ms. Pierce.
Jennifer: I'm not working with you anymore. And I'm not your weapon.
Agent Odell: You don't have a choice.
Jennifer: Wrong answer.
(Jennifer's eyes flash orange and she lifts her hand, sending a bolt of lighting into the car. The energy passes through Odell, who regards her unblinking as his image begins to blink like an unstable television signal.)
Brandon: Whoa. That's a hologram!
Agent Odell: (mock cheerful) This isn't over, young lady.
(The window rolls up as we see the SUV doesn't have a driver. It moves off on its own. Jennifer is too stunned to do anything to try and stop it.)
Brandon: Who's that?
Jennifer: The devil.


Continuity

Jefferson flies back to Freeland under his own power, using his abilities to create an opening through the forcefield into Freeland.

Jennifer falls through an unidentified void she thinks is the safe-space inside her head she was trained to go when she was mastering her powers.

Jennifer has had a revelation, after her visions of the other Earths, that Agent Odell was using her and he has to be stopped.

Jennifer materializes on the patio at Anissa's apartment, just as Jefferson arrives there.

Jefferson persuades Jennifer to come with him to Gambi's first before going after Agent Odell, pointing out that the suit he made her probably has safeguards that can be turned against her.

Gambi has no memory of the Crisis or Jefferson or Jennifer disappearing. He also claims to have never seen the ASA-made costume that Jennifer is wearing before. This confirms that the events of 309 didn't take place from his perspective.

The ASA have begun searching the tunnels Blackbird had been using to get around Freeland undetected. Jefferson goes to save her from an ambush while Jennifer goes to check on Lynn.

Gambi suggests that until they have a chance to deal with current events, Jefferson and Jennifer shouldn't say anything about reality being rewritten since they have no way of knowing how the universe might have changed from what they know.

Lynn is at a chemistry lab at Bowman College, trying to make more Green Light.

The Freeland Resistance in the new reality seem to be better organized than they were Pre-Crisis, with more ordinary citizens being part of the movement rather than it being made up of cops, criminals and a few of Reverend Holt's followers.

The Freeland Resistance is said to be occupying several blocks of the city, including the area around Garfield High School.

Agent Odell is back in active command of the ASA forces in Freeland.

The ASA scientists have proven unable to stabilize the metahumans in their custody without Lynn's supervision. At the best guess of the scientist running things at present, no more than 60% of the metahumans would survive the conversion process into soldiers.  Major Grey tells him to start converting them once they get the process to 80% stability.

According to Major Grey, the Freeland Resistance has managed to disable 15% of their vehicles and 25% of their soldiers.

Commander Williams, whom Jefferson defeated in 308, is said to still be recovering.

The Resistance has successfully prevented the materials needed to turn the detained metahumans into super-soldiers under the ASA's control from being delivered from The Pit. This makes Odell give the order for the Pod Kids and Green Light Babies to be transported to The Pit.

Jefferson saves Anissa from the ambush.

Jennifer startles Lynn as she's mixing her Green Light, making her drop the flask. Lynn loses control and shouts at Jennifer.

TC is able to use his powers to locate Gambi and talk his way into his secret room behind his tailor shop.

An earthquake shakes Freeland, which Jennifer realizes is the result of Brandon losing control of his powers.

Lynn give Jennifer some drugs that can stabilize Brendan, refusing to come with her to administer them herself and all but pushing Jennifer out the door so she can return to making more Green Light.

Jennifer calls Jefferson and tells him he should check on Lynn because something is wrong, but she's got to stop the earthquake.

Jefferson agrees to catch up with Anissa later as he checks on Lynn, as she just got work from the Resistance that the ASA is about to try moving the captive metahumans.

Gambi agrees to take TC in and offers him a place to stay, as his usual hiding place was being searched by the ASA.

Jefferson finds Lynn at their home, tearing everything apart trying to find more of the Green Light drug she might have left behind.

Henderson calls Jefferson as he's in the middle of trying to reason with Lynn. She escapes into the night as Jefferson is trying to balance both discussions.

One of the ASA soldiers, Travis, is fitted with the same chips used to control Painkiller. This make him "fighting fit" despite his doctors not being sure he's mentally fit to return to duty. Travis is assigned to be second in command on a mission to capture Jennifer Pierce.

Jefferson and Anissa have a talk about him stepping on her toes and leading the Resisance movement she built. Jefferson says he can't help people looking to Black Lightning for leadership, but agrees to scale back and follow Anissa's lead and lack Blackbird call the shots openly.

TC discovers the secret room holding all of Black Lighting and thunders' gear in Gambi's backroom.  He says that Gambi's computer wanted to show it to him.  He promises to keep the secret.

Gamti says that he might make TC a costume one day.

TC offers to help Gambi track down whoever put the hit out on him, using his power to talk to machines to work through the BitCoin protections

Jennifer and Brandon are tranquilized by a sniper rile while hiding in Brandon's apartment.

The Resistance rescues all of the Pod Kids and Green Light Babies that were being transported.

Jennifer is able to short-circuit the power-repression collars she and Brandon are wearing. They make their escape from the ASA transport, but Jennifer seems to kill Travis, due to her powers interacting badly with the chip controlling his mind.

TC passes out while hacking the last round of encryption. As he goes under, he pulls up a picture of the person who paid for the hit on Gambi - it is Lady Eve, who was originally killed off in the pre-Crisis timeline in 107.

Jennifer calls Agent Odell in a bid to get him where she can kill him. Instead, she attacks a robot car with a hologram of Odell inside it.


The Bottom Line

A solid episode which neatly establishes the new status quo in Freeland. Not much has changed, apart from the Resistance seeming more together, but the idea that Lady Eve is back (or at least someone is manipulating her organization) suggests things are about to get interesting in Freland's underworld very shortly. If this means we get more of Tobias Whale and finally get back to whatever Lala started doing at the start of the season, I'm all for it. As it is, this is a good start and a solid jumping on point for new viewers.

Supergirl Episode Guide: Season 5, Episode 10 - The Bottle Episode

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.




Plot

National City has been relocated to the new Earth-Prime and the world has been forever changed. The DEO is out in the open and Lex Luthor is now Supergirl's boss! As Kara and Alex struggle to figure out what this change means for them, Lena finds herself torn between an apologetic Kara and the devil she knows, as she tries to decide who she can trust. Meanwhile, Brainiac-5 finds himself confronted with several versions of himself from other realities as it becomes clear that the universe may not be finished settling after the recent Crisis.


Influences

The Callahan's Crosstime Saloon stories of Spider Robinson. (idea of a bar full of aliens and people from alternate timelines)


Goofs

Why does Lena value Lillian's word at all when she knows that she is just as treacherous as Lex?

The logic behind why the Kryptonian witches help Brainiac-5 doesn't quite scan - how can he help them get back to their world when all the universes are dead? (Either Brainiac-5 lied or they mean their version of Earth, which coincidentally is the one they came from.)

How do the jacket-wearing Brainiac-5 and the Kryptonian witches enter the sealed bottle to wait for release? (The seal only works one way?)

The female Brainiac-5 tells the Prime Brainiac-5 of the value of love and her her marriage empowered her, yet encourages Brainiac-5 to abandon everyone he loves in order to work with Lex Luthor for a greater good.

Setting the fight scene between the Kryptonian witches and our heroes to N'Sync's It's Gonna Be Me was a weird decision.


Performances

Jesse Rath is clearly having a lot of fun playing the different versions of Brainiac-5, including the new one sans inhibitors.


Artistry

The new make-up for Brainiac-5 is a marked improvement and the costume looks like it was taken directly from the classic Legion comics.


Super Trivia

In television circles, a bottle episode is one that is produced cheaply and intentionally written with a limited scope, often making use of old sets with no guest stars or extras. The term was coined by The Outer Limits creator Leslie Stevens, who likened it to "pulling an episode right out of a bottle like a genie."

Usually bottle episodes have a single setting and have a greater focus on interpersonal relationships. Quite often bottle episodes will be written to follow after a mid-season cliffhanger or an expensive season opener so as to better budget the show's expenses for the fiscal year, allowing more money to be spent on more lavish productions.

Despite its name, "The Bottle Episode" is not actually a bottle episode, featuring a lot of expensive special effects shots for the Brainiac-5 sequences, several locations and a special guest star.

At one point Lex Luthor is due to be given the Man of Tomorrow award. The Man of Tomorrow is a title that is typically applied to Superman and one of his comics was titled Superman: The Man of Tomorrow.

It is revealed that the full alias Brainiac-5 uses while posing as a human is Barney Fife. This is the name of the deputy played by Don Knotts on The Andy Griffith Show.

Upon encountering his doppelganger, Brainiac-5 asks if he is Martian, Durlan or made of clay. This is reference to two DC Comics alien species capable of shape-shifting and the shape-shifting villain Clayface.

The female Brainiac-5 is played by Meaghan Rath - sister of regular Brainiac-5 actor Jesse Rath.

Mention is made of The Anti-Life Equation - a techno-organic poison that can kill Coluans through their genetic hive-mind.

In the original DC Comics books based around the New Gods, the Anti-Life Equation is an artifact sought by Darkseid which he believes will give him the power to conquer the universe by eliminating all free will.

Trapping cities or planets in a bottle is a common stunt performed by various versions of Brainiac and the people of Colu throughout DC Comics history. Perhaps the most famous example of this is the Bottled City of Kandor - a Kryptonian City which Superman kept in the Fortress of Solitude, while searching for a way to safely restore its citizens to normal size after rescuing the city from Brainiac.


Technobabble

The Anti-Life Equation is described as a techno-organic poison, targeted and transmitted through the Coluan hive-mind.

The Brainiac-5s determine that they were transported to Earth-Prime through some kind of dimensional wormhole and that they must find the nexus point to return to their home dimensions. However, Brainiac-5 says that is impossible since following the Crisis there are no other dimensions. At least, none that can be detected through unique vibrational frequencies.

Coluan Personality Inhibitors block off a Coluan's access to The Big Brain - the Coluan hive-mind. This gives them more control over their emotions, but also limits their intellectual potential.

The Brainiac-5 attempting to free his Earth from a bottle is said to have piggy-backed off the personality inhibitors of Brainiac-5 Prime to hide his thoughts from the other Brainiac-5s and the Coluan hive mind.

Releasing a world from a Coluan bottle while standing on another planet can destroy both worlds, due to the gravity ripping both planets apart as they come to occupy the same space.

Coluan world bottles are sealed beneath the quantum level to prevent leakage. They can only be opened using magic or a device that harnesses Argonium 44, such as an Argonium Saber. Only one such saber exists in the Sol system in the 21st century and it is in the custody of the DEO.


Dialogue Triumphs


(We open on an image of a sunrise as a drone flies into view. As  the narration begins, we see images of doctors working on a patient and hot metal being poured into a foundry, giving way to images of children being threatened by aliens and scary ships filling the skies.)
Lex Luthor: (voice over) We live in a world on the cutting edge. And as mankind advances, so too does the danger it faces. For years, we protected America in secret. But now, we want you to know you're in good hands.
(An explosion transitions into an image of several black clad soldiers grappling down from the top of the screen before an office building. A fire suddenly blazes between them but Supergirl flies into the shot and puts it out with her freezing breath. The camera closes-up on Supergirl as she smiles like a beauty pageant queen.)
Supergirl: Hope, help and compassion for all.
Lena Luthor: (voice over) That's our motto here at -
(Cut to the scene from earlier, with Lex and Lena now standing before the DEO soldiers.)
Lex Luthor: The DEO. Call us for all your extranormal needs.
(We pull back away from the screen to see that this is a television commercial. Kara and Alex walk past. Kara looks disgusted and like she almost can't finish the doughnut she's devouring. Almost.)

(Lena slowly wakes up on the couch in her apartment. Lex Luthor is busying himself in her kitchen. He offers her a glass of orange juice.)
Lex: Hey there, sleepyhead. I fried a couple of eggs for you. Methohexital hangovers are no joke. You must be ravenous.
(Lena looks at Lex in disbelief.)
Lena: This can't be real. You're dead!
Lex: (curious) So, you remember everything?
Lena: Of course I remember! I killed you!
Yes, that's right, you killed me. But that is all in the past. Because I'm back now, and I forgive you.
Lena: What are you talking about? What is happening?
Lex: Well, it was, uh... a sort of a Crisis.
Lena: It was an antimatter wave.
Lex: Ah, yes.
Lena: Alex and I worked together-
Lex: (nodding) Mmm-hmm.
Lena: We built a portal....The wave still came?
Lex: Yes, and billions were lost and the multiverse collapsed, and it was all very interesting. What matters now is that a very powerful person brought me back to life. To help. But I refused to do so, unless he promised that you would make it through okay, And you have. With your noggin intact.
Lena: You gambled the fate of the entire multiverse to get your own way?
Lex: (cheerfully) It gets better! In this new world, we work side by side at LuthorCorp and the DEO to make the world a better place.
Lena: So I'm in hell!
Lex: No, no, you're in a new reality. To the outside world, we're billionaire philanthropists. It's the perfect cover.
Lena: I want nothing to do with you!
Lex: Ah, yes, you want to fix humanity with your Project Non Nocere. And using Myriad to broadcast the Q-waves? That was smart. But you should have known the moment you decided to steal from a Kryptonian, the Non Nocere was doomed. Kara Danvers will never see things your way. She'll always work against you.
Lena: (sarcastically) Right. So you'll be my friend now?
Lex: The world is ours now, Lena. You don't need a robot and you don't need friends. You need a partner. Imagine what we could accomplish together. Why not give it a go?
Lena: So you think this is your world now? You were a puppet on a string for Leviathan before. What makes this time any different?
(There is a long pause as Lex Luthor honestly looks confused.)
Lex: What the hell is Leviathan?!

Supergirl: So, uh, there's something I have to tell you. I know you think Lex is a good man, That he's your partner...
Lena: Save it. I already know.
Supergirl: What... exactly do you know?
Lena: The Crisis. What Lex did. What you did.
Supergirl: (muttering) Lex...
Lena: That you took the punch. What did you think would happen when you came here? That you'd tell me everything in a fit of selflessness, even if it meant that I knew how you betrayed me? And then I'd just keel over and forgive you?!
Supergirl: Lena, I hurt you. I...I know I hurt you. And I'm never ever going to do it again. And I know how much good you want to do in the world. Just think of what we could do together to help people.
Lena: (coldly) Funny. Lex gave me the same pitch.
Supergirl: He asked you to help him? (sighs) You're not seriously considering it, are you?
(Lena just stares at Kara coldly.)
Supergirl: Please, just be careful.

(Lena enters The Luthor Foundation offices. She sees Lillian Luthor wearing a pink suit.)
Lena: I never thought I'd live to see the day my mother wore petal pink.
Lillian: Technically, you didn't.

Brainiac-5: When I was eight years old, my family went on what humans might call a vacation. This was the first time I had seen the snow. It was incredible.
Kara: Why are you telling me this? '
Brainiac-5:  Because my mother saw how much I loved it. How badly I...I wanted to stay there in the snow. And so, she bottled it for me. The entire planet.
Kara: Brainy...
Brainiac-5: My father was horrified at what she had done. He freed the planet. I was so young and angry with him for taking away my planet. My planet! And that anger terrified him. He feared that I, too, could hold such darkness within me. That I could become my mother. So he placed three personality inhibitors on me. The same ones I wear to this very day.
Kara: Your three dots.
Brainiac-5: When I wear them, I'm not fully calibrated with the Coluan network of minds, The Big Brain. If I hadn't been wearing them, that bad Brainy wouldn't have been able to fool us.
Kara: And you're afraid to take them off?
Brainiac-5: Because I might be worse. And Nia... she...She might not care for me.
Kara: Brainy, you are good to your core. You will never be your mother.
Brainiac-5: How could you be sure?
Kara: Because you're loved. And the people that love you will always fight for you.

(Brainiac-5 and Kara figure out where the other Brainiac-5 with the bottle is.)
Kara We have to tell the other Brainys.
Brainiac-5: No, I...I need to do this alone.
(He pauses dramatically as the music swells and Kara just stares at him.)
Brainiac-5: But you should come, too.
Kara: I'm coming.

(Lex has bonded himself with a Truth-Seeker so he cannot lie.)
Lex: So, sis, what do you want to know?
Lena: Can you help me achieve Non Nocere?
Lex: Better and faster than anybody else.
Lena: Will you truly be on your best behavior? No homicides?
Lex: No unnecessary homicides.
Lena: This is about doing no harm.
Lex: But I won't. I have everything I want except for your partnership.
Lena: When will you turn on me?
Lex: As soon as this partnership inconveniences me. Just like you'll use Non Nocere on me as soon as you get the chance.
Lena: Good. As long as we're clear. You don't need me. Why do you really want to work with me?
Lex: Truthfully?  I don't want to be alone.


Continuity

On Earth-Prime, the DEO operates openly and has commercials informing people as to their existence.

According to Alex, based on her memories, Supergirl and Lex were once great collaborators when it came to the DEO's mission.

Alex's memories of Earth-38 have been restored.

According to Alex, Brainiac-5, Dreamer, Kelly Olsen and every hero who took part in the final battle against the Anti-Monitor in L501 had their memories of the original Arrowverse restored by Martian Manhunter.

Martian Manhunter can't restore the memories of the entire world, as it would likely blow everyone's minds given the way various relationships were changed by the merging of multiple Earths.

According to Kara, CatCo is unfortunately still a tabloid owned by Andrea Rojas and she's being wasted covering Lex Luthor being given the Man of Tomorrow Award.

According to Alex, Lena and Supergirl are partners on this world and there's no record of her having ever tried to mind-control the entire world.

Lena remembers her past-life on Earth-38 as well, thanks to Lex's bargain with The Monitor in S508. Lex only agreed to help The Monitor after he agreed to make sure that Lena survived the Crisis with her mind and memory intact. Apparently The Monitor was somehow able to make good on this promise, despite dying before the multiverse was erased.

Lex has no idea what Leviathan is.

Brainiac-5 and Dreamer encounter an alternate version of Brainiac-5 at Nia's favorite smoothie place. He uses the same human alias as Brainiac-5, but has a decidedly more cheerful personality.

Both versions of Brainiac-5 carry handcuffs on their person in case they need to arrest someone while off-duty.

Lena is seen researching the history of Earth-Prime, apparently having no memory of her life in the new reality. Apparently she and Lex worked together to cure some rare disease and Lex teamed up with Supergirl to fight Agent Liberty within the past year.

The web search also reveals that LexCorp bought the DEO due to it going over-budget and being in danger of being shut down by the Federal Government.

Supergirl tries to reveal her secret identity to Lena, not knowing that her memories of the old reality are intact. Lena is skeptical about her reasons for doing this, but Kara still tries to reach out to her and warns her away from working with Lex.

Three more Brainiac-5's appear at the DEO. One is a female version of Brainiac-5 who claims to be director of the DEO. Another is a male who wears a jacket covered with equations. The third one wears an eye-patch and dies, shortly after warning the others not to let "him" open the bottle.

The Brainiac-5 is determined to have been killed by the Anti-Life Equation - a techno-organic poison known to all the Braniacs except the Brainiac-5 of Earth-Prime.

According to Brainiac-5 Prime, the multiverse is dead. At least, he cannot detect other Earths through the old method of tuning to a specific vibrational frequency.

Lex suggests a truce between himself and Alex and Supergirl for the moment, saying they should focus on threats like Leviathan and see their conflict as a friendly chess game played out slowly. Neither Kara or Alex are agreeable to this, but Lex says he'll give them a day to think it over before declaring all out war on them.

According to Alex, there is no sign of Leviathan existing in the new Earth-Prime.

According to Andrea Rojas, 82% of Obsidian North's customers with cel-phone plans have purchased their VR plans.

Gamemnae is still the leader of Leviathan in the new reality and has been posing as a woman named Gemma Cooper for several years.

Gemma Cooper was Andrea Rojas' mentor in college and is part of the Board of Directors of Obsidian North.

The Brainiac-5's trace the wormhole nexus to Al's Dive Bar, where two versions of Al are now offering shelter to various alien doppelgangers from now-dead Earths.

The jacket-wearing, nervous Brainiac-5 almost falls prey to the Anti-Life Equation. He is saved when the cheerful Brainiac-5 manages to root out the virus using a process the Prime Brainiac-5 isn't familiar with that involves stroking his forehead and calming him down.

It is clear that Brainiac-5 Prime is much less quick-witted than his doppelgangers.

The doppelganger version of Al says that he had to close his bar down in 1979 when Disco died.

The doppelgangers include alternate versions of the trio of Kryptonian witches who created Reign during Supergirl season 3. They came from the same reality as the alternate version of Al, who claims they came to Earth as tourists and never left. He let them run a side-hustle out of his bar, telling fortunes, to get by.

Lillian Luthor is out of prison in the new reality, and now running The Luthor Foundation - the charitable wing of LuthorCorp.

Lillian Luthor doesn't have her memories of the old reality, but was told everything about what happened by Lex. She is somewhat annoyed that he only felt the need for Lena's memories to remain unaltered, but has put that aside given her apparently improved station.

Lena had a teddy bear named Miss Pizzly whens he was four.

Lillian encourages Lena to consider Lex's offer of a partnership, saying that she knows for sure that Lex can't be trusted but that her judgement regarding Supergirl is questionable and she can't be certain that Kara will never betray her trust again.

Alex vents about not being able to work for Lex Luthor to J'onn. He tells her a story about how he once saved an alien woman named Izzy from a co-worker who found out she was an alien and took her hostage, even thought the DEO regulations at the time prohibited him from moving against violent humans. He says that honor lies in running toward the bomb, regardless of what rules tell you.

The female Brainiac-5 hacks Lex Luthor's computer and determines that he is researching Leviathan.

Brainiac-5 reveals that he wears personality inhibitors. This stuns his female counterpart.

The female Brainiac-5 was married to a woman and credits the relationship with making her better - stronger and smarter in spirit. She says her wife is still with her thanks to her connection to The Big Brain.

Dreamer stumbles across the Brainiac-5 with the jacket trying to open a bottle containing a shrunken Earth in a DEO store room. He quickly asserts his true personality.

The jacketed Brainiac-5 reveals that he was able to save his Earth by trapping it in a bottle before the Anti-Matter wave destroyed it. Unfortunately, he lacks the tools to reverse the process.

Dreamer sends a psychic message to Supergirl and Braniac-5 Prime after the Evil Brainy attacks her.

The female Brainiac-5 notes that trapping worlds in bottles is an ancient Coluan practice.

Gemma Cooper encourages Andrea Rojas in her developing a more realistic shared virtual environment.

Brainiac-5 reveals that the reason he wears personality inhibitors is because of a tantrum he threw when he was 8 after his father freed a snow-covered world that his mother trapped to make him happy.  He feared Brainiac-5 would take after his mother and Brainiac-5 wore the inhibitors ever since, for fear he might go mad or that Nia would not love his real self.

After removing his inhibitors, Brainiac-5's skin becomes a darker shade of green and his hair a darker shade of blonde.

Brainiac-5 convinces his counterpart to allow him and his friends a chance to safely release his world somewhere it won't endanger either Earth.  The jacket-wearing Brainy and the Kryptonian witches enter into the bottle to wait for release.

The bottle containing the other Earth is taken to the Fortress of Solitude for safe-keeping.

The other Brainiac-5s decide to give up their corporeal forms and bond with The Big Brain of the new universe, saying it is the closest they have to going home, living on as digital ghosts of a sort.

The female Brainiac-5 warns Brainiac-5 Prime of Luthor's research into Leviathan and says that she nearly destroyed her world fighting against Luthor over Leviathan. She gives him her knowledge of how events played out on her Earth, saying they are similar to how things stand on Earth-Prime now.

Brainiac-5 Prime now carries the Life Projectors of the other two Brainiac-5s.

While bonded to a Truth-Seeker, Lex promises to assist Lena with Project Non Nocere and to avoid any unnecessary homicides. He does admit, however, that he will turn on her the moment their partnership becomes an inconvenience, but that he also realizes Lena plans to use Project Non Nocere on him the first chance she gets. Lena finds these terms acceptable because they know where they stand with each other.

Brainiac-5 breaks up with Dreamer.

William Dey reveals to Kara that he doesn't trust the Luthors and thinks they're involved in the death of his best friend, Russell Rogers, who died mysterious after the Luthors tried and failed to buy his company. He got hired on at CatCo hoping to get close to Lena Luthor, before she sold the company to Andrea Rojas. This is a change from Dey's backstory earlier in the season, where he thought Andrea Rojas was involved in the death of Russel Rogers.

Lex has a partnership with Lillian to manipulate Lena to their mutual benefit.

A photo reveals that Alex and Kara ultimately accepted Lex's offer of a truce, as they are seen standing besides him, Lillian and Lena at the Man of Tomorrow awards ceremony.

Brainiac-5 approaches Luthor and informs him that he wishes to work with him to find Leviathan, despite knowing Kara and Alex would not approve of it.

Lex asks Brainiac-5 to track down a doppelganger he believes has information on Leviathan from the futre - the doppelganger is an alternate version of Winn Schott.


Untelevised Adventures

Apparently, up until the Crisis, Supergirl and Superman in the original reality thought The Luthors were good people and had no objection to shooting commercials with them. This means there could be a whole host of adventures involving the Luthors and Supergirl working together that we aren't privy to. Indeed, this is implied by Lena's web search, which says that in the new reality Lex Luthor joined with Supergirl to fight Agent Liberty.

One of the Brainiac-5's makes reference to the experience of dealing with multiple versions of himself reminding him of "some crabs on Helven." The other Brainiac-5's agree that was a terrible experience.


The Bottom Line

A rather odd episode to come back with. On the one hand, it does an effective job of establishing the new status quo-post Crisis and the changes at the DEO and CatCo while showing where Lex, Lena and Leviathan stand.  On the other hand, the subplot with Brainiac-5 and the otherworldly duplicates seems like an unnecessary addition and revisiting the "will they/won't they?" nature of Brainiac and Dreamer's romance seems like a step backward... amusing though it is to see Jess Rath play the multiple Brainiac-5s. It accomplishes what it sets out to do and gives us a more comics-accurate Brainiac-5 in the bargain but the action elements are largely forced and the return of the Kryptonian witches maddeningly random.


Saturday, January 25, 2020

Starman Plays Fallout 2 - Part 16

In which we find the missing Johnny, discover the secret ingredient of Rose's special omelettes and finally do everything worth doing in the town of Modoc. And a good thing too, because the shaman is getting antsy about our doing all these side-quests.


Thursday, January 23, 2020

Batwoman Episode Guide: Season 1, Episode 10 - How Queer Everything Is Today!

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.



Plot

When Gotham goes gaga over a potential romance between Batwoman and a handsome young cop, Kate wonders if she can be true to herself in both her identities, despite the risk of exposure. Meanwhile, as Alice revels in her victory over Catherine Hamilton-Kane and Mary throws herself into managing Jacob's defense, a master hacker ransoms the secrets of everyone in Gotham City.


Influences

Batwoman: Elegy
by Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams, the movie Batman Begins (mention of a Scarecrow plot involving the trains) and All-Star Batman: My Own Worst Enemy by Scott Snyder and John Romita Jr (villain blackmails a city by threatening to expose their secrets.)


Performances


Ruby Rose does a fantastic job of selling Kate's conflict over being true to herself and the necessity of a secret identity.


Bat Trivia

The hero cop who is shipped with Batwoman is named Slam Bradley. In the classic DC Comics universe, Samuel Emerson "Slam" Bradley was a private eye, who first appeared in Detective Comics #1 in 1937. Slam had his own feature until Batman appeared two years later and slowly took over the Detective Comics title. Slam would make infrequent appearances over the next few decades. A cop named Slam Bradley would later be shown as a member of the Metropolis Police Department through Superman in the 1990s,but this Slam Bradley would later be retconned as the son of the original. The original Slam later became a supporting player in Ed Brubaker's Catwoman and went on to father her daughter, Helena Wayne.

The Arrowverse Slam Bradley is a good-looking cop described as resembling actor Chris Evans. Both Luke and Kate sarcastically refer to him as Captain America, confirming that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is still a thing in the Arrowerse.

The idea of a villain trying to crowd-fund a ransom or threatening to reveal everyone's secrets is similar to the plot of an All-Star Batman storyline, My Own Worst Enemy. In that story, Two-Face threatens to reveal the secrets of everyone in Gotham City if someone doesn't save him from being "cured" by Batman.

Mention is made of a safety protocol added to the trains after a Scarecrow incident involving the trains. This could be a nod to the movie Batman Begins.


Technobabble


The elevated trains in Gotham City run on a 650-volt, 3-rail system,.

Ever since Scarecrow hacked all the trains in Gotham City at some point in the past, each train is run off an independent analogue system.

Luke discovers that the hacker is using a packet analyzer - a deice which intercepts and jumbles traffic as it passes over a digital network - to hack the trains remotely.

Luke designs an electric charge disruptor, which kills every electric current within a 100-meter radius for 10 seconds.  He believes they can use it to find the Terrier since shell probably have her phone protected from such things.

Like uses an offline reverse audio modulation of the talking Terrier emoji to access the hacker's actual voice. He determines she's a teenage girl. Kate is able to further narrow down the suspect poll by recognizing the bell in the background of Terrier's recording as the bell at Gotham Prep.


Dialogue Triumphs

Luke: I got to say I can't really blame people for shipping you and Captain America.
Kate: Have we not had this conversation? I'm very, very gay.
Luke: Have you not seen Batwoman? Major straight vibes. Kate, it's not a total negative.
Kate: That I'm apparently dating Mr. Underwear that leaves nothing to the imagination?
Luke: That Gotham's confused. It's misinformation. The less they know about you, the easier it is to keep you a secret.
Kate: A train lost its brakes, and I saved 450 people from smashing into a concrete wall, and all Gotham cares about is Batwoman's sex life.
Luke: They just want to see her happy.
Kate: Well, too bad because she's not.

Sophie: You ever feel like you're hiding from the world?
Batwoman: I'm literally standing in a shadow.

Kate: Am I a fraud?
Luke: You still hung up on this Slam Bradley love affair?
Kate: Yeah. Whenever I put on this suit, I feel like I'm lying to our entire city.
Luke: Well, that's the job.
Kate: According the Multiverse, my job is to be a Paragon of Courage.
Luke: Right because a Paragon finder said so before the infinite Earths collapsed into a single space-time continuum. I'm sure it was all very exciting.
Kate: I live in shadows, I wear a disguise, and I let people believe that I am dating Captain America. What part of that is courageous?
Luke: Kicking bad guys' asses to protect your city is pretty damn courageous.
Kate: You said it yourself. I'm the most famous face in Gotham, but their image of me is not me.
Luke: They think you're a hero, Kate. You are.

Parker: My mom and dad thought they'd been raising some BTS-loving heteronorm. Now they sleep clutching rosaries and want to disown me. That's why I need the money To get out of Gotham.
Batwoman: That sucks, and it's not fair, but it is not an excuse to put hundreds of lives in jeopardy
Parker: My parents want me to be someone I'm not. Do you know how that feels? I hate myself, okay? And let's raincheck your it gets better PSA. We both know I'm gonna grow up hiding my girlfriends and aspiring to be represented by an ancillary character on my favorite TV show just like you were probably the cool girl in high school, and now you're famous, and everyone's shipping you and the hottest guy in Gotham. We have nothing in common. In fact, you pretending to feel bad for me is kind of making it worse, so could you just leave me alone before I find more reasons to wish I were dead?
(Parker storms out of the bathroom.)

(Batwoman finds Alice and Parker in the middle of the Gotham Prep Woodshop. Alice is holding a circular saw in one hand and holding it close to Parker's face.)
Alice: Mmm! I love living in a world where we trust teenagers with these things!

(Alice tells Parker to send a picture of Kate with her mask off all around Gotham.)
Parker: And if I don't, what are you gonna do, kill me? You need me. If you kill me, you lose.
Alice: As do you because you're dead. I'm sorry. Do they not teach Math in school anymore?

Alice: You're not a hero!
Batwoman: It doesn't take a hero to know what pure evil looks like. You ruined my life.
Alice: I fixed your life, Kate. Our father didn't believe us, and now he's being punished. Catherine tried to keep us apart for 15 years, and now she's dead. What more do I have to do to prove my loyalty to you?
Batwoman: You can tell me that you didn't put a bomb in a gym full of kids.
Alice: Ugh. Here we go again. Judgy, judgy, judge, judge.

Kate: (in journal, closing voice over) We all wear a mask of some kind; a cowl, a husband, wife, denial, anger. We all need our shield to protect us from the world, but for people like us, it's not always about stopping a runaway train or disarming a bomb... Sometimes, the best way to save someone is to be yourself.


Continuity


Luke gives Kate a custom motorcycle to ride as Batwoman.

As this episode opens, it is two days until Kate's birthday. When she mentions this to Luke, he says he had no idea.

Kate stops the runaway train using the two-way grappling hook last seen in 103.

Vesper Fairchild mentions the death of Oliver Queen, which occurred during Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Alice and Mouse hold a tea party on Catherine Hamilton-Kane's grave.

Mary is signing off her social media for a while due to the constant stream of negative comments she is getting regarding her family.

Kate tries to reach out to Mary but is blown off.

The hacker who sabotaged the train is dubbed The Terrier after she hacks a live news feed and puts a cute dog filter over the mayor's face.

Mary is able to get Jacob's trial bumped up a week from February 14th.

Luke tracks the packet analyzer used by the Terrier to a gang of Russian hackers. Batwoman goes after them only to find Sophie Moore is already there questioning them.

Tyler left Sophie, saying he thought she was lying to herself about being over Kate.

Kate and Luke are able to narrow the search for the hacker to Gotham Prep.

Mary seemingly starts to hallucinate seeing Alice everywhere.

Kate discovers the Terrier is a teenage girl named Parker Torres.

Parker was blackmailing the city to get the money to move out on her own, having been disowned by her parents after she was outed by the ex-girlfriend, Kayla Mason, who dumped her after she refused to come out to the whole school.

Alice plans to use Parker to reveal Kate's secret identity to the world.

Kate unmasks herself and reveals who she really is to Parker.

Parker is able to pull off a hack that summons the police to Gotham Prep while also sending a false message to Alice and Kate's phones.

Mary plans to close down her free clinic, but Sophie talks her out of it.

Alice bombs the Gotham Prep dance, but the building is evacuated before anyone is hurt.

Batwoman tackles Slam Bradley out of the way of the explosion and refuses to kiss him despite the cheering kids demanding it happen after he tries to kiss her.

Kate signs Parker up for 150 hours of scrubbing graffiti as punishment for what she did. She makes it clear that if she catches her hacking again, she will turn her in to the police.

Parker promises to keep Kate's secret identity a secret.

Alice is placed in the custody of the Crows as a favor to Sophie Moore from the mayor.

Luke bakes Kate a Batwoman-themed cupcake for her birthday. He also says he supports Kate for why she did what she did and says they'll do with the fallout when it comes.

Batwoman outs herself to the world as a lesbian in an exclusive interview with Kara Danvers (i.e. Supergirl's secret identity) conducted in CatCo Magazine.

The same issue of CatCo Magazine outing Batwoman also has a feature on STAR Labs facilities and mentions that Lena Luthor was recently seen in Gotham City. This further makes it clear that Earth-38 and Earth-1 are merged together.

The episode ends with Kate returning to her office only to find Beth Kane waiting for her. As this occurs while Alice is in custody and she doesn't seem to be wearing a flesh mask, the implication is that this is an alternate-universe version of Kate that somehow survived the collapse of the multiverse.

Beth claims to have just returned from a semester abroad and found her apartment was turned into a boys dorm.

Beth asks if Kate fired the hot guard at the front desk. This may be a reference to the guard Kate let go in 107, after he let Mary into her office without calling ahead.


The Bottom Line

A solid episode with a truly shocking ending that could forever redefine the show. It looks like the fallout from Crisis isn't quite over yet.

Legends of Tomorrow: Season 5, Episode 1 - Crisis On Infinite Earths, Part 5

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.




Plot

Worlds will live. Worlds will die. And nothing in the Arrowverse will ever be the same again!


Influences

Crisis on Infinite Earths



Goofs

Sara says that Oliver Queen was the last person who remembered her as she was before Lian Yu and her becoming an assassin. Her mother, Dinah Drake Lance, was still alive in Central City by all reports, although the last time she was seen on the show was in Arrow season 4 at Laurel Lance's funeral.

How did Black Lightning get to Central City? At the present time, his city is sealed off from the outside world.by a force-field.  (Maybe J'onn phased through, found him, and they flew out... but this raises questions as to why J'onn doesn't come back to help save Freeland later...)

Superman seems astonished when he calls Lois and is informed that they have multiple sons now. Logically, since Clark was not one of the Paragons, his memories of Earth-Prime should be intact.



Performances

David Ramsey has a great emotional moment as John Diggle briefly breaks down in response to his inability to be there to save Oliver Queen twice.

Caity Lotz turns in what may be her best performance yet as Sara Lance as she talks about her past and everything changing after Oliver's death with Barry Allen while looking at the tree she and her sister used to race each other climbing as children. It's a great moment for Grant Gustin as well.


Artistry

The battle with the Anti-Monitor features some great effects work.



Trivia Of Tomorrow

The opening scene with Kara slowly figuring out that the world is changed is loosely based on the opening scenes of Crisis on Infinite Earths #11.  There, the Superman of Earth-2  found himself having a confusing time at The Daily Planet until he realized he was on Earth-1 and then he and the Earth-1 Superman flew around looking for answers and discovered that Keystone City (an Earth-2 city) now rested next to Central City (an Earth-1) city and that both the Jay Garrick Flash and Wally West Kid Flash were thought to be natives of the same Earth.

Marv, the fan who asks Supergirl and The Flash for an autograph, is Marv Wolfman, writer of the original Crisis on Infinite Earths comics, in a cameo appearance.

The giant Beebo which terrorizes Star City is revealed to be the work of Sargon the Sorcerer. First appearing in All American Comics #26 in 1941, John Sargent was a wizard who used his magic to fight crime while pretending to be an ordinary stage magician. In later stories, he was depicted as a villain, but this was later explained away as being a side-effect of the Ruby of Life bringing out the darker impulses of its owner. He continued to split the difference between good and evil, becoming an honorary member of the Justice League and later trying to an army of damned souls against heaven.

Strangely enough, Sargon the Sorcerer died during Crisis on Infinite Earths, during a tie-in storyline in Swamp Thing. Sargon was one of several wizards summoned by John Constantine to aid in an effort to stop the Rising Darkness from escaping Hell. Sargon joined John Zatara in sacrificing himself to save reality.

The Arrowverse version of Sargon The Sorcerer seems to be a full-fledged criminal who uses his magic to rob banks. He does not sport the turban of his comic book counterpart or seem to possess the Ruby of Life.

When trying to think of a way to defeat the Anti-Monitor, Mick Rory suggests just throwing him into the sun. Amusingly, this is basically how the Anti-Monitor was finally defeated in Crisis on Infinite Earths #12, though he was first beaten up by the most powerful heroes of the newly reborn Earth, blasted by the Omega Effect of Darkseid and punched into the heart of a star by the Superman of Earth-2.

When discussing the name applied to the microscoping realm in the heart of the universe, Ray Palmer says he likes Ryan Choi's name, "The Microverse" better than his own name (i.e. The Atomverse) but says there may be a trademark issue. This is either a nod to the famous on-line college called The Microverse or the reality of the Micronauts toyline, which is known as the Microverse and has prompted some legal challenges from Marvel Comics, who adopted the Microverse name for their small alternate realities while publishing a Micronauts comics in the late 1970s and early 80s.

The final battle with the Anti-Monitor occurs at Gardner Pier and Perez Landing in Star City. Gardner Pier is named in honor of legendary comic creator Gardner Fox who co-created the Jay Garrick and Barry Allen versions of The Flash (among other characters) as well as the Justice Society of America, the Justice League of America and the concept of the DC Comics multiverse, which he introduced in the 1961 story "The Flash of Two Worlds." Perez Landing is named in honor of the equally legendary George Perez, who was the artist on Crisis on Infinite Earths.

When constructing Ray Palmer's shrinking bomb, Nash Wells suggests that they use Depleted Promethium for the core. In the DC Comics universe, Depleted Promethium is an alloy that can be used to create near indestructible compounds. The substance first appeared in New Teen Titans and was created by Marv Wolfman and George Perez. It was said that the first wave of implants which transformed Victor Stone into Cyborg were made of Depleted Promethium.

The President of the United States refers to Oliver Queen as "the first of our heroes." In the post-Crisis DC Comics universe, Oliver Queen was the first superhero in what was known as the New Age of Heroes, following World War II.

Oliver's monologue describing the new Arrowverse near the end of the episode is partly based on the opening dialogue of Crisis on Infinite Earths #11.

In the original DC Comics universe, a single universe was formed after Crisis on Infinite Earths. The Arrowverse Crisis seems to have given birth to a new mutliverse, made up of all the DC Comics live-action shows currently in production.  These include Earth 2 (Stargirl), Earth-9 (Titans), Earth-12 (HBO Max Green Lantern or the 2011 Green Lantern Movie), Earth-19 (Swamp Thing), Earth-21 (Doom Patrol) and Earth-96 (Kingdom Come/Superman Movies)

The montage of the new Arrowverse worlds shows Brandon Routh's Superman flying around the Earth and smiling to the camera. This is how every Superman movie until Man of Steel ended.

While the name is not mentioned, it seems clear that the group which Barry Allen establishes at the end of the episode is meant to be the Justice League.

As the seven assembled heroes sit at the round table Barry Allen prepared, they hear monkey noises from the rafters above them. We then see a cage labeled with the name Gleek, from which the monkey apparently escaped. In the Super Friends cartoons, the Justice League had a mascot named Gleek, who was a blue space monkey and the pet of the Wonder Twins.

The final shot of the episode reveals that the STAR Labs Hanger looks like the Hall of Justice from the Super Friends cartoons. The theme song from Super Friends also plays as the episode ends.


Technobabble/Arcana

Ray determines that the giant Beebo is not made of any element on the periodic table.

Anti-matter, like matter, cannot be created or destroyed. It can only change forms or move from place to place.

Throwing a being the size of the Anti-Monitor into the sun would start a chain-reaction that would blow up the solar system.

Ray Palmer suggests that the Anti-Monitor could be made physically unstable by compressing his molecules so he's essentially shrinking for eternity would be an effective way of stopping him.

The Atomverse (or Microverse) is a sub-atomic realm from which nothing can escape.

The shrinking bomb requires a reinforced core to contain the reaction. Titanium is too heavy, leading to the core being made of depleted promethium.



Dialogue Triumphs

Lex Luthor: We live in dangerous times. Earth is a dangerous place. I suppose that's why people love superheroes so much. The power, the chutzpah of someone who can fly faster than a speeding bullet. But that's what makes this so special. I don't have any powers. I can't leap tall buildings in a single bound, but I have dedicated my life to fighting on the side of humanity, and to be recognized for that is more than I can put into words. So I will just say I stand with mankind.

(Sara, Kara, Barry, Rene, Dinah and Digg watch as a giant Beebo stumbles down the streets of Star City.)
Sara: How the hell did Beebo get here?
Rene: Isn't the more pressing question why is there a giant Beebo walking down the street?
Sara: Well, this wouldn't be the first time.
(Rene looks at Sara in disbelief.)
Sara: It's a long story.
Barry: (gasping) That's right! Wally told us about the time you guys used those totems to turn yourselves into a giant Beebo to fight a time demon.
(Sara blinks in surprise.)
Sara:
I guess it's not a long story.

(Supergirl, The Flash and The Atom fight the giant Beebo, as the rest of the heroes watch from the Team Arrow bunker.)
Giant Bebeo: Beebo want cuddles!
Dinah: Is this actually happening?
Rene: Is this what all the crossovers are like?
Sara: Yes and not exactly.
Diggle: (deadpan) I'm never letting my child watch that show again.

(Rene is passing among the other heroes with a bottle of champagne.)
Rene: So how normal was that for everyone? And don't say very.
Ray: Oh, well, with this new Earth, just may be.
Diggle: Well, dear God, I hope not.
(Mick regards the bottle Rene is holding suspiciously.)
Mick: What is that?
Rene: Alcohol.
(Mick grunts with approval and holds out his glass.)

(Sara is sitting on a set of concrete steps in a park, looking at a tree. Barry walks up and takes a seat next to her.)
Barry: Hey.
Sara: How'd you find me?
Barry: You feel that gust of wind a few seconds ago? That was me. I did a quick search of the whole city for you.
(The two chuckle.) 
Barry: When you didn't come back for the post-Beebo celebration, I got a little worried.
Sara: Yeah. (nodding to the tree) See that tree over there? My sister and I, we used to race to the top when we were little. I'd win every time. I used to think it was because I was a better climber, but now I think Laurel let me win 'cause she knew I was a sore loser. A lot has changed since then. I was an assassin. (She laughs softly) I was dead. Now I'm the captain of a friggin' time ship! One thing remains the same. I'm still a sore loser.
Barry: I know it's it's hard not having Oliver here with us. But look at what his sacrifice made possible. Our world is it's different...but at least it's safe.
Sara: Yeah. He was just the last tether to my old life, you know? He was the only person left who knew me when I was just... me. With him gone... my connection to this world, this place, to that tree? It's gone.
Barry: I know what it's like to lose family. My mom My dad. Each death felt like there was no moving forward, like... life would never be the same. And I was right it's not the same. But somehow it's okay. Family isn't just the people that you grew up with. It's the people you find. The ones you love, ones that make you crazy. Make you smile.
Sara: (laughing softly) When did you get so wise?
(Barry laughs as well.)
Sara: The Legends... they are my family. They have been for a while. I guess I just... I always thought there would be at least someone who remembered what I was like before I got on that boat.

Anti-Monitor: I am destiny incarnate, inexorable and inescapable. You are nothing. Insects fated to be crushed beneath my heel without a moment's thought. Fighting is useless. Surrender.
(White Canary steps forward from the line of heroes.)
White Canary: Not today. Not ever. Oliver died so that we could continue to fight. He sacrificed everything for this new world, and we will not fail him! We will not fail this world. For Oliver!
Supergirl: (quietly) For Oliver.
The Flash: (firmly) For Oliver.
Diggle: (shouting) For Oliver!
All The Heroes: For Oliver!

(Martian Manhunter, Supergirl, Superman, White Canary, The Flash, Batwoman and Black Lightning stand before the Green Arrow memorial. Supergirl walks forward.)
Supergirl: Thanks for saving us, Oliver. The world has hope again. I have hope again. We'll never forget you.
(Supergirl walks back into the line as The Flash steps forward.)
The Flash: Thanks for believing in me even when I didn't. You had this way of bringing out the very best in all of us. I'm gonna miss you, man.
(The Flash goes back to his place as White Canary steps forward.)
White Canary: I've lost a lot of people that I love. But I never imagined my life without you in it. You were always there for me. And now...Ollie, you changed my fate for the better. Thank you.
 (White Canary steps back into line. Supergirl steps forward and looks at the arrowhead-shaped planter in front of the display case holding Green Arrow's costume and bow. Her eyes flash blue and the eternal flame is lit.)
Black Lightning: I never met Oliver, but he must have been a good dude.
(The Flash nods solemnly. Black Lightning looks around, clearly a little uncomfortable with being here for this private moment, but also because something is eating at him. Finally, he just says it.) 
Black Lightning: But why'd you choose a condemned building?
The Flash: What? No, this is not a condemned building. No, listen, this is an old STAR Labs Research Facility that nobody uses, and what's even better, no one knows it exists.
Batwoman: (dryly) Good for you.
The Flash: No, good for us. I figure we could all use this to gather if anything ever happens again.
Superman: It's a great idea, Barry.
The Flash: Thanks, Superman.
Martian Manhunter: It's a better option than you all dropping by the DEO.
Black Lightning: Why do we even need it? I mean, how often does the world almost come to an end?
(Black Lightning chuckles nervously. Batwoman winces visibly. Nobody else is laughing.)
Black Lightning:  Oh, it's like that?
Batwoman: Don't worry, I was the new kid last year.
The Flash: All right, listen, I haven't even shown you guys the best part yet. You ready?
(Everyone nods as Barry moves to a sheet covering a lumpy collection of objects. Supergirl grins like a kid on Christmas morning as The Flash pulls aside the sheet to reveal a round table with eight chairs. Supergirl gasps audibly and even Batwoman and White Canary seem impressed.)
Black Lightning: Oh, nice.
 (The Flash beams as we see each chair has the emblem of one of the assembled heroes painted on the back. )
Black Lightning: You should have led with that, bro.
The Flash: Yeah.
Superman: Not bad.
Supergirl: I love it!
(Everyone moves forward to take their chair except White Canary, who smiles softly as she sees the chair The Flash was standing in front of. She nods with approval.)
White Canary: It's perfect.
(The Flash nod and moves as we see the chair at the head of the table has the Green Arrow emblem on it - a memorial for the man who brought them all together to save the world.)


Continuity

As the episode opens, Kara wakes up in her apartment in National City. She quickly discovers that Alex has no memory of the events of Crisis or Earth-38 being destroyed.

A CatCo news article says that Kara fought a White Martian the night before, but Kara does not remember this.

Nia Nal also doesn't recall the events of Crisis.

Lex Luthor is awarded the Noble Peace Prize.

Both Nia and Alex are convinced that Lex Luthor is a good guy, not remembering their fight with him during the events of Supergirl Season 4.

Kara discovers that LCorp has returned to being LuthorCorp and they now own and operate the DEO.

Martian Manhunter confirms that Kara is not going crazy, but their world appears to have changed following Crisis and only the Paragons remember how it used to be.

Supergirl and The Flash face Weather Witch - a Flash villain who last appeared in F520.

Supergirl and Kara figure out that reality has been rewritten so they are now living on the same Earth.

A fanboy named Marv confirms that it is not unusual for Supergirl and The Flash to fight villains together, but they usually due it with Green Arrow or a Legend or two.

Nash Wells is discovered unconscious in the tunnel where the entrance to the Anti-Monitor's realm was. It is no longer there.

Sara Lance woke up in Star City.

Ray Palmer meets Sara at the bar where they played in a trivia night event in S509.

Ray Palmer doesn't remember the Crisis.

Ray Palmer does know J'onn J'onzz, before his memory is restored. He does not remember him previously having lived on an alternate Earth.

J'onn says that he's been traveling between cities, restoring the memories of all the superheroes he knows.

J'onn confirms that nobody has seen Oliver Queen and it looks like he is still dead.

Sara goes to Team Arrow's bunker looking for Oliver. She meets John Diggle, Dinah Drake and Rene Ramirez. She discovers that all of them already met with J'onn and they know that Oliver died twice to save the universe.

J'onn goes to STAR Labs in Central City and restores the memories of Caitlin Snow and Nash Wells.

Barry and Supergirl go to the Team Arrow bunker and confirm that it seems that Earth-38 and Earth-1 have joined together into a single Earth.

Argo City is also confirmed to be safe.

A giant Beebo plush rampages through Star City.

Sara calls the Legends and speaks to Ava and Nate. They confirm that nobody has used the totems to make a giant Beebo.

Mick Rory is in Star City, doing a book signing.

Batwoman also shows up in Star City.

The giant Beebo is revealed to be a magic construct, created as a distraction from a bank robbery by Sargon the Sorcrer.

Rene makes reference to Rory Regan (aka Ragman) upon meeting Mick Rory, saying they used to have a Rory on Team Arrow.

Nash Wells arrives in Star City and breaks into Team Arrow's bunker. He reveals that his gauntlet censors are still detecting anti-matter and it looks like the Anti-Monitor is coming for them.

Sara is sad about Oliver's death because Oliver was the last person left in her life who remembered her before she became the Canary.

Shadow demons begin attacking the Paragons, trying to catch them off guard.

The heroes plan to fight the Anti-Monitor by destabilizing his physical form with a shrinking bomb.

Nash Wells, Ryan Choi and Ray Palmer work on the bomb at STAR Labs with Mick Rory and Killer Frost protecting them. They are later joined by Black Lightning.

Dinah Drake runs the comms from the Team Arrow bunker.

Wild Dog, Dreamer, Spartan, The Flash, White Canary, Supergirl, Martian Manunter,Alex Danvers, Batwoman and Superman plan to fight the Anti-Monitor.

Martian Manhunter has a new costume.

The Anti-Monitor's shadow demons confront them at Gardner Pier in Star City.

The battle later migrates to Perez Landing.

John Diggle and Lyla Michaels are revealed to now have a daughter named Sara who is the same age as their son, John Diggle Jr. In the pre-Flashpoint timeline, their first child was a daughter named Sara, who became a son named John Diggle Jr. after Flashpoint.

Oliver Queen's death and heroism is acknowledged by the President of the United States in the new reality, who is a woman.

Superman calls Lois Lane and informed he has to come home because of their sons. Before the Crisis, they had just had one son named Jonathan.

Martian Manhunter, Supergirl, Superman, Batwoman, White Canary, The Flash and Black Lightning meet at the STAR Labs Hanger the heroes used as a base of operations during the Invasion! storyline.

Barry sets up a display case for Oliver's costume as a memorial. Supergirl lights an arrowhead-shaped eternal flame in front of it with her heat vision.

Barry suggests they use the hangar as a meeting place for global disasters in the future and reveals a round table with eight chairs - one for each of the assembled heroes with their logo on it, and a eighth chair with the Green Arrow logo on it.

As the heroes sit down at the table, they hear what sounds like a monkey climbing in the rafters above them. This is revealed to be an escaped test animal named Gleek.



Location

National City - Earth-Prime
Central City - Earth-Prime
Star City - Earth-Prime
Washington D.C. - Waverider
STAR Labs - Central City - Earth-Prime
STAR Labs Hangar - Near Central City - Earth-Prime



Untelevised Adventures

John contacts most of the heroes and restores their memories off-camera.




The Crisis Factor

Even for Ray, snapping a selfie with a giant Beebo that is endangering a city is a little dumb.



The Bottom Line

A fitting conclusion for an epic event that truly lived up to its tagline.

Tuesday, January 21, 2020

Arrow Episode Guide: Season 8, Episode 8 - Crisis On Infinite Earths, Part 4

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.




Plot

The positive-matter multiverse has been destroyed!  The Paragons are trapped outside of space and time in Vanishing Point. Thankfully, Oliver Queen has become someone else. He has become something else. And as the origins of the Monitor and Anti-Monitor are revealed, Oliver Queen will return to life with one goal; to save his reality!



Influences

Crisis on Infinite Earths and Zero Hour (heroes needed to save reality gather at Vanishing Point)


Goofs

The origin of the Monitor here doesn't quite gel with what we saw in earlier episodes, where it seemed liked he was unaware of the existence of The Monitor and had no idea what was causing the Crisis. Here, it is clear that he's known about the Anti-Monitor for quite some time and was responsible for releasing him, if not creating him.

How did the Anti-Monitor become imprisoned in a way Nash Wells could release him, when it seems like the Anti-Monitor was released by Mar Novu in the first place and Mar Novu was helpless to do anything 10,000 years ago?

How exactly is Ryan Choi supposed to be hurting the shadow demons?


Performances

I dare you to not cry during the final scene as Oliver Queen dies a second time in the arms of Barry Allen and Sara Lance. Stephen Amell, Grant Gustin and Caity Lotz sell this scene perfectly.


Artistry

The special effects for the battle between The Spectre and the Anti-Monitor are some of the best in the show's history.


Trivia

The script for this episode was co-written by Marv Wolfman: writer of the original Crisis on Infinite Earths comics.

The opening prologue is set on the planet Maltus 10,000 years ago. In the DC Comics Universe, Maltus is the planet which spawned three long-lived races that moved on from Maltus to other planets. These races became known as The Guardians, The Controllers and the Zamorans.

The opening prologue reveals that Mar Novu conducted experiments to observe the beginning of time that resulted in the creation of a link between the positive and anti-matter universes. In the original Crisis on Infinite Earths comics, the multiverse (including the anti-matter universe) were created because of an Oan scientist named Krona, who violated a similar ban The Guardians had upon trying to watch the creation of the universe. Krona's actions were said to have introduced evil into the universe.

The general plot of this episode is taken directly from Crisis on Infinite Earths #10. In that issue, The Spectre assembled two groups of heroes and villains. The villains, led by Lex Luthor, went to Oa to stop Krona's experiment. The heroes and The Spectre went to fight the Anti-Monitor at the dawn of time and stop him from preventing the universe from being born.

Ezra Miller, who played Barry Allen in the 2017 Justice League movie, has a cameo playing his version of The Flash.

The heroes needed to save the universe gathering at a place called Vanishing Point seems to be a nod to Zero Hour: the semi-sequel to Crisis on Infinite Earths in the comics. That story saw the heroes needed to stop the villain Parallax from resetting time and rebuilding the universe in his own image meeting at Vanishing Point; the hide-out of a group of time-cops known as The Linear Men.

As Barry accidentally runs into a memory and startles John Diggle and Laurel Lance, he says "Oh boy." This may be a nod to Quantum Leap and how Dr. Sam Beckett said the same thing when he time-traveled into an awkward situation. It could also be a nod to a running gag from Elseworlds, which also paid homage to the show and established Barry as a "Leaper."

Lex refers to himself and Mar Novu as "the brave and the bald." This is a pun on the classic comic The Brave and The Bold.


Technobabble

The Monitor's armor protects him from coronal radiation.

Zneen noted a particularly impressive quantum flux cascade.

The device which allowed Mar Novu to travel through time was a quantum portal.

Mar Novu's entering the Temporal Zone corrupts it, releasing anti-matter and forming a breach between the positive matter universe and its opposite, the anti-matter universe.


Dialogue Triumphs

(Lex and Ryan have just finished building a teleporter.)
Sara: So we send somebody to test it?
J'onn: I'll go.
Kara: No. We've lost too many good people already. (deadpan) Thanks for volunteering, Lex.
Lex: Well, that's very cold. Is it because I killed your parallel reality cousin?

The Spectre: Do you trust me?
Barry: Are you Oliver Queen?
The Spectre: Yes.
Barry: Then I trust you with every cell of my body.
The Spectre: Good. Now run, Barry.
(The Spectre smiles briefly.) 
The Spectre: Run.

Ryan: (looking around the forest of Maltus) Why doesn't this alien forest look more alien?

Ryan: On the bright side, I haven't been knocked unconscious on an alien planet before.
Kara: It's pretty much the same as being knocked unconscious on Earth.

(Kara has just broken down the door into Mar Novu's lab.)
Kara: Mar Novu, do not trust this man with anything! Give him a knife for his food and no matter how much he thanks you for the dinner he'll stab you right in the back with it.
Lex: Or the front. I'm not choosy.

Ryan: Trillions of other people's lives, an infinite number, will be lost if you go through with it! It's not worth it!
Mar Novu: You just show up here as if by magic and demand belief.
Ryan: The fact I'm here at all should be enough to convince you.
Mar Novu: (nodding, considering this) You are a remarkable individual.
Ryan: Funny. A new friend of mine just told me I'm special. I didn't believe her until now.

Kara: I wonder, is it a double-cross if I never trusted you in the first place?
Lex: Why do you Kryptonians always have to take things so personally?!
Kara: You tried to kill my cousin! You tried to kill me! You betrayed Lena! Left her with nothing but a ruined name and a broken heart!
Lex: All I did was tell her the truth - something you never had the courage to do. Don't take it personally!

The Spectre: All of you, listen to me. This is why you were selected. You're Paragons.
Ryan: Yeah. I'm still a little unclear on what all that means.
The Spectre: It means you're powerful enough to hold the line, to buy us the time we need.
Kate: To do what?
The Spectre: Rebirth the universe.
Sara: What, like, a do-over?
The Spectre: The Dawn of Time is the only place it can happen. I'll light the spark. You fan the flame.
Lex: And how do we do that?
The Spectre: You'll know when it's time.
Lex: (annoyed) Why do you cosmic types always have to be so obtuse?
The Spectre: If I knew, I'd tell you.
(There is a long pause before The Spectre shrugs apologetically.)
The Spectre: I don't.

The Spectre: (To The Anti-Monitor) You have failed this universe!

Oliver: You remember what I told you?
Barry: Dying is the easy part.
Oliver: I'm at peace. The real heroes They're the ones that have to keep going. So keep going And don't ever stop. This world, this new world It needs both of you.


Continuity

10,000 years ago on the planet Maltus, Mar Novu and his wife Xneen attempted to observe the creation of the universe. Their experiment resulted in the creation of a breach between the anti-matter universe and the positive-matter multiverse. It may also have fractured a singular universe into a multiverse, but this point is unclear.

Several months have passed since Crisis on Infinite Earths - Part 3.

Barry vanished mysteriously. It is later revealed that he tried to enter The Speed Force and, while only gone a few seconds from his perspective, everyone else thought he was gone for months.

Supergirl, Lex Luthor and Ryan Choi go to Maltus to stop Mar Novu's experiment.

Batwoman, The Spectre, Martian Manhunter, White Canary and The Flash try to go directly to the dawn of time, but get lost in the Speed Force.

Barry meets another version of himself from another Earth while in The Speed Force.

Barry winds up in the Queen Consolidated lab where he first met Oliver Queen in A208.

Kate Kane winds up in Ray Palmer's office where he confronted Oliver Queen in A317. She realizes that she needs to learn to trust people, just like Ray and Oliver eventually learned to trust each other.

Sara Lance winds up inside her own dead body in the Arrow Cave, as John Diggle and Laurel Lance discuss her death. This seems to take place during the events of A302, just before Sara was buried, but does not correspond to a scene from that episode.

Barry encounters Oliver in his memory of the battle with Dr. John Deegan in S409.

Oliver tells Barry about the bargain he struck with The Monitor: to give up his life in place of Barry and Kara.

Martian Manhunter winds up in the STAR Labs hanger where Supergirl and Oliver Queen first met in L207. He gives them a speech about needing to work together despite their differences before Barry finds him again.

Lex Luthor is revealed to have given himself super-powers (i.e. the ability to shoot energy blasts) when he rewrote the Book of Destiny.

Lex Luthor has seen the movies Aliens and Predator.

Lex Luthor attempts to influence Mar Novu in shaping the multiverse with his experiment. He is stopped by Supergirl and Ryan Choi, who persuades Mar Novu not t o go through with his experiment

The Anti-Monitor still comes to exist, as there will always be one version of Mar Novu tempted to attempt his experiment regardless of the warnings.

The Paragons use the page from the Book of Destiny still held by Lex Luthor to imagine a new universe into being as The Spectre fights the Anti-Monitor.

The Anti-Monitor is defeated and Oliver Queen dies a second time as the Arrowverse is reborn..


Location

Maltus - 10,000 Years Ago
Temporal Zone
The Anti-Matter Universe - Dawn Of Time
Vanishing Point
Purgatory
The Speed Force


The Bottom Line

A surprisingly flat episode, given all that is at stake. The heroes getting lost in the Speed Force feels like filler and the subplot on Maltus is a shaggy dog story. The scene with Ezra Miller is completely unnecessary. (Indeed, it was added at the request of WB Films after the rest of the event was filmed, in case they ever get around to making that Flashpoint movie.)  What's worse is how little explanation there is just what Mar Novu did and to what degree he's responsible for creating or empowering the Anti-Monitor and the multiverse. Even Oliver Queen's second heroic sacrifice is a pale imitation of what we saw in the first part of the crossover and its the best part of the episode!