Last night's hour of Crisis gave us some spectacular treats as the crossover reached its midpoint and everything came to a head in the biggest way, leaving us hanging with the biggest cliffhanger in TV history to keep us guessing over the winter break and oh boy, will it.
The Flash hour opened with a quick journey to New Gotham, Earth-203 where Helena Kyle is racing to try and stop the anti-matter wave, assisted by Barbara Gordon (Oracle) but sadly, both her and Barbara are wiped out along with their Earth. Long live the Birds Of Prey. Back in the prime universe our heroes have returned to the Earth-74 waverider, having bought together four of the seven paragons and itching to find the remaining three. Because this was The Flash's portion of Crisis, of course the missing members of Team Flash were bought in. With the assistance of one Cisco Ramon, Ray's paragon detector was able to determine that two of the remaining paragons were already among them with the reveal that Barry is the paragon of love and J'onn the paragon of honor. The final paragon, of humanity, was revealed to be Ryan Choi who exists on Earth-1 and works as a physics professor at Ivy Town University. Yep, very comic faithful indeed. Ray, Ralph and Iris quickly head back home to seek him out.
Meanwhile Cisco, Barry and Caitlin decide to go after the source of the anti-matter wave after discovering that whatever the source is, its underneath Central City. Before they depart though, The Monitor informs Cisco that although he is not a paragon, he has a role to play in the Crisis and restores his Vibe powers by force despite Cisco's desire to remain non-meta. One of the more uncomfortable moments of this whole event. Pariah joins them in the tunnels where he, as Nash had discovered the doorway with the symbols of the paragons. Through Cisco's vibes, they were able to repeat the sequence and gain access, discovering the Anti-Monitor's anti-matter cannon and what....or rather...who it was being powered by.
What plays out next is truly extraordinary as Team Flash and the audience make the discovery that John Wesley-Shipp's Earth-90 Barry Allen is trapped within a force field, running on a cosmic treadmill that powers the anti-matter cannon and keeps the wave travelling across the multiverse. Pariah briefly jumps away and returns with Black Lightning in tow, officially bringing the character into the Arrowverse for the very first time, following his Earth's (Earth-73) destruction in the mid-season finale of Black Lightning, which itself was directly tied into Crisis. Cisco is able to breach Shipp-Flash off the treadmill, giving the old speedster a reprieve but the anti-matter cannon quickly goes crazy and Shipp-Flash explains that not only was the destruction of Earth-2 the result of a test fire but that if he stops running, the cannon will destroy every remaining Earth at once. Black Lightning uses his powers to try and siphon the cannon's energy in an attempt to shut it down but both Barry's realise that the only way to destroy it is for one of them to get back on the treadmill and run in the opposite direction, which will bring about their death. This leads to our Barry to the realisation that this is what he's been running toward since he first learned of his fate from the newspaper. This is the day The Flash vanishes.
In a rather heartbreaking but poignant twist, as our Barry prepares to make the ultimate sacrifice, Shipp-Flash steps in and temporarily steals the speed of his Earth-1 counterpart and convinces Cisco to breach him back onto the cosmic treadmill with our Barry having to be practically dragged away to the safety of a breach. Running backwards proves effective as Shipp-Flash begins to 'evaporate' and we're treated to a tearjerking flashback of Barry with Tina McGee from the CBS Flash series accompanied with the classic Flash theme before Shipp-Flash completely vanishes, leaving only scraps of scorched fabric from his suit littered around the treadmill. After three decades, John Wesley-Shipp's time as The Flash comes to a conclusion. Long live The Flash!
Elsewhere, Constantine, Mia and Diggle travel to Earth-666 to meet the only man in the multiverse who can get them into purgatory. The devil himself, Lucifer Morningstar. That's right. Lucifer is now officially canon to the arrowverse. Tom Ellis is devilish in more ways than one, apparently as he recently fibbed that he had visited Vancouver simply to visit friends. Lucifer took up his usual antics of being flirtatious and asked Mia what it was that she desired, to which she answered that she desired to get her dad back. Lucifer provided a magical tarot card that granted them entry to purgatory and quickly went back inside LUX after having a brief swipe at the pronunciation of Constantine's name.
Immediately arriving in purgatory, dressed as Lian Yu due to Oliver's connection to the island, the team quickly found Oliver who was ready to return to his body but they were quickly interrupted by Detective Jim Corrigan, aka The Spectre who informed Oliver that it was his turn to become "something else" in order to save the universe and Corrigan seemingly passed the possession from himself to Oliver, meaning that Oliver couldn't return to his body and the team returned to the waverider empty handed.
Arguably the biggest and most dramatic moment of this crossover came when after our heroes reconvened on the waverider, Harbinger returned and it was quickly revealed that Lyla Michaels was gone, her body taken over by the Anti-Monitor. She engaged in a battle with Mar Novu, overpowering and killing him before siphoning his life force. The anti-matter wave seemed to return and destroyed Earth-1, completing the destruction of the multiverse. Pariah was able to step in and send away the paragons before the anti-matter wave hit the waverider, claiming the lives of those remaining onboard including the likes of Iris, Ralph, Cisco, Earth-38 Clark, Pariah himself and the body of Harbinger. The paragons were revealed to have been sent to the vanishing point, the former home of the time masters from DC's Legends Of Tomorrow. One paragon however, Kingdom Come Superman, was taken back, presumably, into the anti-matter wave and replaced by Lex Luthor by way of him using the book of destiny to rewrite his destiny, ensuring his safety and ultimately killing the only remaining Superman and is now the seventh paragon.
Analysis & Breakdown : Hours Four and Five [Arrow & DC's Legends Of Tomorrow]
coming January 15th 2020!
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