‘The Flash’ season 3, episode 8 review: The crossover, the Dominators, and Flashpoint galore
Tonight, “The Flash” entered with a clever flash-forward to the thick of an epic superhero battle, one that is apparently going to feature the likes of Oliver Queen, Barry Allen, and Kara Danvers all together trying to figure out how to stop the Dominators … or at least that’s what we thought. We learned a little bit differently later.
After this opening, we went back to the present. After we saw the arrival of a spaceship containing the Dominators on Earth, it was pretty darn clear that it was on. The good thing about the crossover this time around, as opposed to the barely-there appearance of Barry on “Supergirl” yesterday, is that we got into the thick of it almost right away tonight. Within 15 minutes, we saw Barry and Felicity do their part to ensure that everyone from this extended universe was present and prepared to fight, including bringing the Legends of Tomorrow in from the past in order to help out. Lyla provided the intel on what the Dominators are up to and that they’ve been around for decades — this is just the first time they’ve appeared in a truly-dangerous fashion.
Meet the new team – This was EVERYTHING that we wanted it to be. Diggle’s reactions to aliens and the other heroes were all sort of awesome, as was seeing Kara meet everyone for the first time. You could tell that the writers were very aware at how much people love these characters, and at the end of the day, they wanted this to be a hoot and then some.
At the same time, however, there was some rather tragic news to pass along. Ray Palmer had to tell Barry about the death of Leonard Snart, while everyone started to figure out the truth about Flashpoint. There was a debate between Firestorm, Barry, and Oliver as to when to tell everyone about what he did, but they decided to wait, at least for the time being. There were clearly some other issues that need to be dealt with for the time being … such as the Dominators taking away the President (who apparently on this Earth is not Lynda Carter).
The only part of the team-up that was a little weird was Thea being suddenly okay to become Speedy again just because she was fighting aliens. Really? That’s all it took?
Flashpoint reveals – Martin Stein’s now got a daughter, and that was just the tip of the iceberg. Eventually, Barry was pushed into revealing everything that happened when he went back in time. Suffice it to say, nobody was altogether happy with what he did, and as a matter of fact, they all went to fight the Dominators themselves. Probably a bad thing. Oliver was left to offer up a pep talk to Barry about how he understood everything that he did with Flashpoint, and he needed to move forward. Everyone may be upset, but they weren’t in his shoes dealing with tragedy.
Eventually, this pep talk was enough to get Barry and Oliver back out into the field, but they came across a pretty terrible reveal: The Dominators had turned all of the other heroes, including Supergirl, against them. This was actually what was going on in that opening scene with Oliver and Barry.
Wally’s story – Unfortunately for Kid Flash, he found himself sidelined for most of the action since nobody trusted him yet to be out in the field. With that, he wasn’t altogether interested in this advice. He wants to be out there, fighting crime! That’s why he looked to H.R. for help.
As it turns out, Wally didn’t get much help, but he was still in need out in the field while Barry and Oliver figured out a way to stop the signal that was turning their super-pals evil — even if he was knocked out rather quickly.. We had an awesome chase sequence here between Barry and Kara, but they both emerged okay as he figured out how to bring back the heroes back. That worked, and now it’s onto the next test: Finding the heroes after they were teleported away in the closing minutes.
As for Wally, H.R. did agree to train him in the closing minutes! It’s too bad he’s probably not going to have a clue as to what to do to help the remainder of the good guys after they’re all likely stranded aboard a spaceship somewhere.
Overall – While there were some things done for the sake of convenience here and there, we have to say that overall, this was every bit as fun as we could’ve hoped for. It felt reasonably organic, there was relentless action, and many of these characters had surprisingly great chemistry. Of course, there are two more parts to come, so we’ll see what happens next. Grade: A-.
Next week – It’s the winter finale, and fittingly, we’re going to be focusing back in specifically on Savitar and Alchemy. For more news on that subject, all you have to do is head over to the link here now. (Photo: The CW.)