It’s that time of year again. Time for the DCW TV Critics Society of Multiversity to come together and discuss the annual crossover. This year though, we’ve got something a bit different thanks to the MASSIVE event that is “Crisis on Infinite Earths;” This time, there are five of us. Yup, five people in one conversation? Chaos, you say! Well, fear not for rather than chaos, we got something more ordered and a little more scattershot. Coordinating between this many time zones and schedules with day jobs is a tough thing, y’all. So join us for some of our thoughts, a bit of a chat, and get ready for part three, coming to a screen near you later tonight and our thoughts the next day. Editor’s Note: Conversation has been edited for clarity & to account for our, well, time zone coordination. If it seems like we jump around, just pretend that universe’s segment was wiped by the Anti-Monitor. Spoilers ahead.
Worlds will live. Worlds will die. And nothing will ever be the same again.
Elias Rosner: And we’re back, for what was technically the Batwoman episode but felt more like a Batwoman/Supergirl show that I wish we would get.
Joe Skonce: Oh yeah, their dynamic was great! However, I do NOT like how they did Luke Fox dirty like that. Luke is so great on Batwoman! I hope this isn’t people’s first experience with him…
But I do like how the mission to the Earth in the future (however that works) is basically to give Kate and Kara the opportunity to be better than their cousins. That was nice.
ER: Totally. And I think, on the Luke Fox thing, people who are coming into the show will put together that everyone on Earth-99 is an ass and is probably not indicitve of their Earth-1 counterparts.
Also, anyone else watch Black Lightning right after? I did and oh man, good stuff and it was essentially a tie-in to the event. Love how they kept that while fitting it to the narrative too.
ER: It’s been hard to pick just one part that got me super jazzed. There have been a lot of moments and separating out the nostalgia factor from the well done character beats can be difficult but I think Kara’s journey through the episode was my favorite. One reason is, this is kinda the most we’ve gotten from her in terms of actual growth in a good while and seeing the weight of losing her world break her spirit a little was a damn fine place to put her at the start. Sure, I knew it was gonna be resolved in one episode but sometimes arcs just have to be that way.
Ramon Piña: Guys, I loved this episode! It was quirky, it was ingenious, it had all I was expecting from the crossover! My favorite part was, weirdly, the scene where the Monitor is explaining the existence of seven paragons and baby John is interrupting him, it was fun, it was cute and it is an easy exploration of the characters for newcomers in one subtle scene.
I also loved Brandon Routh coming back to Superman, he always deserved more, I loved how they played us with expectations, with the pictures they released, we all thought it was going to be Kingdom Come-Superman, fighting against Earth-38 Superman, but no! It was a Clark that has suffered and still keeps his hope.
JS: I also loved it!
It’s going to be hard for me to choose ONE favorite part! How is that even possible? I was smiling like a damn fool the entire time, it was just all so good! I guess if I were to choose, it would have to be the quest for the Paragon of Truth. It was fun watching the quest for Superman, with some fun cameos along the way. I was especially fond of Lex and Smallville Clark’s conversation. He seems like a good guy, I would want to hang out of him. Also, that little smirk after he punches out Lex and says “I’m still stronger than you.” That’s comedy gold right there.
It was also nice given the recent story about how DC films not knowing what to do with Superman, the CW gave us THREE good Clarks!
Continued belowER: Wasn’t it such a great second part?
Right?! Eat our shorts Warner Bros Film
RP: I really don’t know where those rumors of Warner not knowing what to do with Superman came from? It is more relevant than ever, it means hope, truth, producers are really dumb!
ER: This may just be me reading into things but it may have come from the lack of them giving it to filmmakers who get the core of Superman, instead wanting to do endless deconstructions and “gritty, realistic” versions of the character.
Which, honestly, we got three versions of those here as Joe said! Routh’s Superman is older and world weary, Welling’s was middle aged and content with being Clark while Hoechlin is the young hopeful. They all have that core Superman ethos while still being distinct and complicated characters.
JS: Exactly! I don’t want a gritty Superman! Now a dark and broken Bruce? I can be here for that. Also, once again props to the CW for reminding us what would actually happen if Batman went up against Superman. That rig looked… unpleasant.
ER: Totally.
Mike Mazzacane: This is hard, it did the easter egg reference fest right! The previous episode crammed so much into such a small space, this one used those references for purpose. I’ll go with the Conroy Batman quoting Affleck Batman, it’s a nice little encapsulation for a mad bat. The oral cameo of Wentworth Miller, doing his best You Don’t Know Jack impression is a close second.
Christopher Chiu-Tabet: It’s difficult, but I think the episode’s crowning achievement has to be cramming in so much fan service while still being a story about Kate Kane’s growth and being a Batwoman episode – I was perturbed that Kevin Conroy’s first live-action Batman (the first live-action Batman played by a gay actor no less) turned out to be evil, but it made sense for all the reasons the Monitor laid out.
JS: So obviously there was a lot to love tonight, but with the highlights come some things that maybe didn’t work quite as well.
Can I just say, I’m so sick of Lazarus pits! Have they EVER been a good idea? How many times are we going to have to learn and relearn that “you come back but not yourself?” I get it, we want Steven Amell in the big epic finale, without Arrow we wouldn’t have a Crisis, but still… damn Lazarus pits. It just feels like backtracking (and to some of the weakest stuff in Arrow!) Also it created weird tension between Ollie’s daughter and Sarah. Who have just met? I don’t know, it just didn’t work for me.
ER: Again, not a lot I didn’t love here. The motivations are clear, the action is solid, and I like how the episode took us on a tour of the multiverse without overloading us with nostalgic winks. That said, the Crisis isn’t doing enough to sell the Crisis part. Sure there are mentions of worlds dying but the impact of that is not made clear or visualized. I know it’s callous but I want to see more world’s destroyed, more single person refugees saved. Let the weight of the event fall on the shoulders of our heroes like it does in the original. OH, and where’s Nash? He scooting around watching worlds die? Can we get the overly dramatic crying from him?
JS: I also have to agree with Elias. Blow up more stuff! Show me worlds collapsing! You can just have a big red lens flare and boom, Iris is sad and looking at a screen. Easy peasy!
MM: The sound mixing for Lyla Michaels hearing voices. It’s a fine line between too loud and obvious and not loud enough, at least on my setup it was too low. You could tell it was important and a thing but it also wasn’t making enough sense.
ER: Oh totally. I had no idea what was being said and just kinda assumed she was hearing the multiverse.
CCT: I found the cameo from Smallville’s Clark and Lois ultimately pointless: it didn’t add anything to Lex’s quest. If this were to be reedited into a film, that’d be the first thing I’d cut.
Continued belowRP: I agree, I loved seeing Tom Welling again, but it was pure fanservice, it was absolutely pointless, to the point where he gave his powers again, so he can’t come back to the crossover.
ER: I know Ramon wasn’t a huge fan of Barry being wasted thus far and I kinda have to agree. . .but I’m also really glad they’ve had the other shows’ heroes step up and take the limelight. Sara, Kate, and Kara being our main trio, the new trinity, is pretty awesome and makes up for the fact that almost every previous crossover was an Ollie/Barry-fest the whole way through.
CCT: Yeah, although to be fair we haven’t had The Flash and Arrow‘s installments yet. It’s nice to see Sara representing Legends and her original show after being absent last year – I’d say it’s more of a quartet though, with her and Mia forming one duo and Kate and Kara the other.
RP: Yeah, I concede on that, at least this two episodes have been focusing on the other heroes, you know, with Arrow ending and Flash dying (allegedly), the creative team is doing de right thing focusing on the other heroes, even if I get angry because I don’t have enough Flash, I mean, he will have his shot in tomorrow’s episode
ER: Speaking of, think this will actually be his big sacrifice tonight? I’m not convinced but, then again, that’s only because we got two more to go in January.
JS: I’n sure it will be ambiguously teased. Iris screaming “BARRY!” Kara looking on in sadness. Things along those lines. I don’t think we’ll get a definitive answer.
RP: My guess is that he will “disappear” but give hints of him being alive, and the story arc for the rest of the season will be Team Flash trying to recover him from wherever he’s stuck on.
ER: I know we’ve spoken a lot about the characters but I have to give props to the “Crisis” team for taking the right lessons from Legends and putting a lot of thought into the environments and sets. Maybe it’s just because I see the same four, boring sets on Supergirl all the time but it was a breath of fresh air to feel like I was in a different universe or location simply by how open or dark or wide a space was.
JS: The same can also be said about Batwoman. Good thing they establish how run down Gotham is, because Kate does an awful lot of fighting in abandoned warehouses and construction sites.
ER: It also helps make her costume look better. It. . . does not work so well in broad daylight.
JS: That’s totally fair. They’re Dark Knights for a reason. But yeah, even if the CG was a little rough from time to time, the fight between Superman and Superman just felt different. It was interesting seeing a fight of that magnitude at midday in a busy city. Any other thoughts on the episode?
I love a good fetch quest, so trying to find the paragons responsible for saving the world was right up my alley! All of the individual quests and teams worked for me, having fun team dynamics. I’m also fond of personal quests, so giving Kara and Kate a chance to not only bond but realize that they truly are the paragons of their respective virtues was nice.
All of the stuff with old Bruce was very tense and Conroy did a good job of really showing a Bruce pushed to the edge. It was also just fun to see the different iterations of Earth. I’m glad Snart is back, even if it is just an AI. I’m glad Mick is still motivated by beer and becoming a successful smut author. It was just all-around a fun episode, even when the doom and gloom began to build.
ER: The Legends not showing up because Sara promised they wouldn’t be a part of another crossover is a hilarious way of writing them out, while still giving the wiggle room of bringing the actors in via alternate universe counterparts; Mick being exactly the same, only with Leonard as his AI being a great example.
Continued belowI also appreciate that Ollie is actually, really, dead. Like, he died, no doubt about it and while he can be resurrected via an alternate world’s Lazarus pit, I count this as a success for the shock ending. Ollie’s body may be back but his soul ain’t and, sure, he’ll come back for his big ending later, but for now, he’s out of commission.
MM: This was the kind of episode I like out of the crossovers. Now that the board is set they used the excuse of the crossover to litter the screen with references and use them to reinforce the qualities and emotional lives of our core cast. They broke up like the interdimensional scooby gang to go look for clues Paragons and found out it was a cancelled video game and inside them all along.
CCT: I don’t mind the Anti-Monitor’s make-up, I think it’s really well done: I just hope he gets the helmet and grow to full size in time for the finale.
RP: I don’t feel they have been using Barry right, last episode he was barely in it and in this one he is on the mission to bring back Ollie, but he knows what happens when you bring back people from the dead, he had a whole season living the consequences of bringing his mother back to life! Why would he accept using the Lazarus Pit if he knew it wouldn’t end well?
JS: So this is certainly is not a fun Crisis, but there were fun moments! Once again, the scene with Smallville Clark and Lex was just so much fun. Jonathan Cryer as Lex was so good in this episode that I have decided that I’m going to watch Supergirl again. It’s also always fun to see Constantine just being British and grumpy and chain-smoking. Really most of the cameos in this episode were fun. (Except for Jonah Hex, that guy was a creep.) They never detracted from the story and were handled well.
ER: Every time Brandon Routh is on screen, the scene is fun. Him as Superman again is really satisfying and the Superman fight was the right amount of action, the right amount of callback to “Kingdom Come” and also allowed for us to watch Jonathan Cryer get hit on the head by a bottle. Lex 0, Bottle 1.
The same is true for Mick taking care of Jonathan Kent by reading his romance novel to him. Pure comedy gold.
CCT: Seeing Mick turn out to be as good a nanny as he is a writer was hilarious, as was hearing Wentworth Miller again as his universe’s Waverider AI. But for me, the biggest laugh came when “Kingdom Come” Superman quipped he’d gone insane and fought himself before, confirming Superman III still happened despite Returns’ intention of ignoring it and The Quest for Peace.
RP: The whole episode was great, it served as a Batwoman episode with growth and character development for Kate/Batwoman and funny interactions between characters from other series, it was a great contribution to the crossover even though it didn’t add much story-wise, I loved seeing Kevin Conroy as the consequence of a Batman gone wrong and I loved Brandon Routh as the Superman of truth.
MM: Fun little moment for me was Melissa Benoist’s line reading for “that’s dark even for Gotham.” It’s the right kind of reaction when you hear about what went down in Batwoman last week – even if that is a staple of the DCWverse.
JS: I was surprised at how much I didn’t hate that the Monitor was ultimately a successful Chessmaster. He was such an aloof dick throughout the episode, I figured I was going to be mad when he raised his eyebrow and was all “see, I told you I was right.” But I thought it worked.
I was also surprised when they DIDN’T do Batman Beyond. I thought for sure that Terry McGinnis was going to be the “Bat From the Future.” (Also, hold up, how is one of the earths in the future?) I guess that’s what they were hoping I was going to think so we all go “AHA!” when it’s actually Kate, I was just hoping for that suit design.
Continued belowRP: I haven’t watched Supergirl in a while, so It was a genuine surprise for me seeing John Cryer as Lex Luthor, he fits good! He’s a good version of Lex for the Arrowverse in my opinion, he enjoyed his part and you notice, I really liked him!
MM: It was surprising how dark they made Conroy Batman go. I mean he’s coded in “Kingdom Come” imagery which is never a good sign, and he’s Old (when has that ever actually been a good thing?), but yikes murdering Superman, that’s dark.
CCT: I wasn’t expecting Constantine or the Lazarus Pit, but it made sense, didn’t it? Nice way of bringing Sara, Constantine and Oliver’s history full circle. It was also great seeing Iris drafted in already, and seeing her team up with Lois: these are unexpected meetings you don’t think of but make you wonder why it hasn’t been done before, which make crossovers worth it.
ER: So, I have watched exactly one episode of Smallville, and that was the finale. This means I have no attachment or understanding of Tom Welling’s version of the character. But I absolutely loved every minute he was on the screen, and the reveal that he gave up his powers was quite surprising. That was a fantastic coda for the series and a great use of the actor. Hell, it had a totally different feel to the rest of the episode and I appreciated that.
Also surprising was the Anti-Monitor’s design. WOW is it bad. OK, maybe bad is the wrong word. Silly but not in a good way. The costume itself is fine but the make up. Eeesh. It looks like the New 52 version of him and that was a bad design even back in 2015. Let’s hope he gets something more like the whale look soon.
JS: I gotta agree about the Anti-Monitor design. That was probably the biggest disappointment for me. Call me old-fashioned, but I want my Anti-monitor looking like a scary robot skeleton. The design looks like a weird blend of the J’onn makeup and the Skrull’s from Captain Marvel.
Also, this might not be the place for this, but I enjoyed their explanation of why the Legends get crossovers off. That’s the good 4th wall humor of that show, but at this point, it seems like they’re just excluding Nate. I hope he shows up tomorrow and is properly pissed that he didn’t get invited RIGHT AWAY to meet Superman. Any major disappointments?
ER: It may shock you but the end of the Paragon of Courage quest. I mean, I knew it wasn’t gonna be Conroy Batman but I was holding out hope for Terry McGuinnes to come swooping in. Or it be Batwing! Then again, this Luke Fox is an asshole. But nah, it’s another of the main cast. I’m glad they’re giving Batwoman more places to shine, and I felt that Ruby Rose sunk more into her character here than before, but I’m still a little sad we didn’t get to see the sleek red and black batsuit in live action.
Oh and skeevy Jonah Hex. I was so excited when he arrived! Then I wasn’t. Gave Sara and Mia a great bonding fight though.
MM: Other than the sound mixing with Lyla, whose thread was both too obvious and extraneous at the sametime, nothing was a real disappointment for me. This is the kind of earnest stuff I come to the DCWverse for.
CCT: I appreciated Brandon Routh’s Supes name dropping his son Jason, but it made it all the more strange that he wasn’t mentioned elsewhere: you’d think a dead son would be as important as Lois, Jimmy and Perry.
I also thought the fight between Supermen was an ambitious idea but ultimately hokey in execution: I know we shouldn’t expect Game of Thrones levels of spectacle on the CW, but perhaps it should’ve been restricted to the Daily Planet offices instead of trying to emulate Man of Steel.
RP: They wasted the opportunity to bring us Terry McGinnis! Man wouldn’t it be awesome to have the live action, Arrowverse version of Batman be Batman Beyond?
I said it earlier, I don’t like how they are using Barry, but I guess that will change with tomorrow’s episode.
Continued belowJS: Any final thoughts before we move into the mid-finale? I’m pretty excited myself, seeing where we go from here. But I won’t lie, I’m not excited about the cliffhangers!
CCT: Very excited to see Old Man Jefferson out of his element.
ER: Same. I’m mostly excited to see where we’re gonna leave off. I have hopes that it’ll be sufficiently exciting and discussion worthy but I have no idea what that will be.
