“All four of you standing there doing nothing… you look like the attractive yet non-threatening racially diverse cast of a CW show.” – Cat Grant
So we here at GWW had been guessing since the beginning of Supergirl that the show would eventually crossover somehow with the CW DC TV shows, and last night our guessing was proven correct as we finally got a Supergirl/The Flash crossover. It was easy to guess that the CBS show would be able to cross over with the CW shows seeing as the CW is a joint venture between CBS and WB. My faith that the crossover would happen is actually the only reason I’ve stuck with Supergirl for as long as I did; and I’m glad I did. The show has gotten better and better ever since “Strange Visitor from Another Planet” (1×11). While Supergirl doesn’t have the same quality writing as it’s CW sister shows, it’s still a fun superhero show and Melissa Benoist is great. Seeing Benoist on the same screen as Grant Gustin just brings a smile to my face. This episode wasn’t the best but it didn’t disappoint completely. Let’s travel to another Earth for this Supergirl “Worlds Finest” (1×18) breakdown!
Warning: SPOILERS will follow!
Difference in Vibrations
Last week’s episode of The Flash – “Trajectory” – was one of the worst episodes of The Flash that I’ve seen in a while, so I feel like this Supergirl/The Flash crossover was already coming out on top as it began. What was a bit disappointing is that they didn’t actually tie this episode into the current The Flash timeline. All they had to do was show Barry running so fast in his “Zoom reveal rage” that he pops through a breach. I swear if tonight’s episode of The Flash doesn’t begin with Barry popping through a breach to jokingly tell Harry and Cisco that their device works… I’ll be a bit upset. Instead, we get Barry just appearing from a breach wearing a device that I assume Harry and Cisco made for him to attempt to travel back to Earth-2. I think the fact that this isn’t set up in last week’s The Flash took away a bit of the hype I was having for this crossover. Barry just pops in and immediately saves Kara from falling out a window. They should have had him pause and look around with that “Where the hell am I?” look that he should have given when arriving in a strange new Earth. I also didn’t get why Barry ran Kara to the middle of nowhere after saving her. For all he knew she was just a normal victim. His excuse was that he has been working on his speed, but it just seemed a bit contrived to me. With all of my nitpicking aside, the rest of Kara and Barry’s interactions were amazing. The two heroes worked so well together on the same screen and I hope that CBS and The CW get serious next time and give us a really awesome crossover. I almost wished it would have been an actual event where Kara would have popped into The CW Universe so she could have met Oliver Queen and Felicity Smoak. I think her and Felicity would be friends and Kara would definitely ship #Olicity.
World’s Finest
So these two heroes both came from shows with very similar feels to them, and I think that that is the reason they felt so natural together in this episode. Both Barry and Kara have a lightheartedness that translates well no matter which universe they’re in. It was great getting to see Barry meet James and Winn (aka White Cisco), but it was especially great getting to learn some interesting facts and differences between the two universes. No Barry Allen or Oliver Queen are known about in Supergirl’s universe. This must mean that on her Earth, Superman does everything alone. If there’s no The Flash, then there is probably no Justice League; at least not one I care to explore. Central City is a thing on Supergirl’s Earth, but I’m a bit sad we couldn’t learn even more about all the differences like we did on Barry’s first trip to Earth-2. One thing I noticed was that this episode brought back a very heavy handed feminist message like we got during the Supergirl Pilot. While Supergirl has maintained a pro-feminist theme during its season, the heavy handed messaging became slightly less obvious until this crossover episode. I’m not sure if it’s because Barry is a male hero or if the writers were just under a lot of pressure, but they were obviously tiptoeing around making sure that Barry didn’t show Kara up on her own show. In fact, The Flash barely did anything during the actual fights. When he did do something, like his thunderbolt, it only made Livewire stronger. While I don’t mind the pro-fem stance of Supergirl, when they shove it down our throats or allow it to hold characters back, it kind of bothers me. I’d rather the pro-fem messaging come in a subliminal fashion or at least once that feels natural. Supergirl and The Flash could have worked together equally and no one would be bothered. What we ended up getting was Barry giving her advice and playing the role of Cisco by finding the bad guys and developing tech to assist Kara in defeating Livewire and Silver Banshee. The chemistry the two shared out of costume was what made this episode fun though. My absolute favorite part of this episode was the music by Blake Neely. The scene where Barry and Kara are talking on the CATCO balcony was set to a gorgeous piano composition of the Supergirl theme and The Flash theme mashed up into one. While the Arrow/The Flash crossovers always mash those themes together, they always end up being the high tempo fight music. The nice dramatic theme mash-up made the scene on the balcony the highlight of this episode for me. It was also really nice to finally see Barry in the mentor role like Oliver was to him during his first Crossover. I hope Kara uses the lessons Barry taught her as the season reaches its finale.
Mean Girls
So this week we saw the return of 1×04’s Livewire and the final transformation of Siobhan Smythe into Silver Banshee as our villains. After last episode’s end, Siobhan had finally unlocked her powers of sound manipulation and has her sights set on Kara. I thought Silver Banshee was the weak point in this episode. They spent so long building her up and all we got was this? Firstly, Silver Banshee is actually a hero in the books, but in this episode we see her actively trying to kill Kara. I hope that Siobhan gets over that hate and can be used next season as an actual hero, otherwise I feel like they really wasted good potential for more Silver Banshee. Livewire was pretty good, Brit Morgan does a decent job playing bat shit crazy, and I feel like they did a decent job with her lightning effects this episode. What I didn’t like about these two were the special contact lenses in their eyes. While both actual costumes looked okay, Silver Banshee’s looking somewhat faithful to the comics, the contacts made their eyes lifeless and distracting. I honestly wasn’t sure if Italia Ricci could even move her eyes while wearing those things. Livewire’s pure black irises made her look weird too. I also didn’t like that they picked these two “villainesses” for the crossover. We got Vandal Savage during the Arrow/The Flash crossover. I almost feel like Non was the only one worthy enough to fight these two at once. One good thing that came out of this crossover was Barry’s apparent helping the police so that they will finally have a place to imprison metahumans. I hope this means that we’re going to start getting less dumb alien villains in season two, and more metahuman villains. I think they’ve done a great job testing The Flash’s powers with metahuman obstacles, and I think Supergirl could use a bit more human villains. No more Fort Rozz escapees, please.
Jealous James
Kara’s personal story came in the form of James Olsen being super jealous of Kara’s newfound friendship with Barry. I felt like this was a bit weakly written. I totally buy that James would be jealous of seeing Kara with someone who matches her – personality wise – quite perfectly. I mean, Barry is a superhero, he’s good looking, and he’s smart. I just don’t think that the writers gave James enough time this episode. All we really got was James asking about Kara and then just saying “Oh nevermind, she’s got Barry helping her” and sighing as he walks off. Or he huffs and puffs while Winn talks about how awesome Barry is. Kara was trying to confess her love to James a few episodes ago, she shouldn’t need x-ray vision to see that he was jealous. Everyone else knew. I mean, Barry knew James for like six hours and realized that James both loved Kara and was jealous of him. While I’m glad that the Winn/Kara relationship mess is finally over, I feel like the writers need to do something better with James’ character other than have Lucy Lane keep popping up. Now that Lucy is head of the DEO, maybe having her on the forefront helping out Supergirl will make her come around to wanting James back. I don’t really feel the connection between James and Kara yet. Not sure I ever will. It feels very forced in the same way Laurel and Oliver did back in the earlier seasons of Arrow. It’s hard to write a male love interest in a show where the female is the super badass, mainly because it hasn’t really been done before, but I hope the writers crack that code and start giving us a real romance like The Flash had with Patty Spivot and Arrow has with Felicity Smoak. Honestly, some of the best episodes of Supergirl were the few when Cat Grant’s son Adam Foster was in town. It’s a bit unfair though seeing as how Blake Jenner who plays Cat’s son is Melissa’s actual husband outside of the show, but the chemistry from their real life romance showed during those episodes. Season two needs more #Karadam. Plus, the ending with a mind controlled James ruining the first kiss between him and Kara just creeped me out.
I can nitpick all I want about this episode, but the overall feeling about the episode was… Eh, it was pretty good I guess. Any fan of The Flash on The CW should enjoy this episode purely because of the opportunity to see our favorite Scarlet Speedster on screen with the Girl of Steel. I was hoping for more racing between the two this episode, as it’s always fun to see a Kryptonian be slow for once. No one did this race better than Smallville when Clark raced Bart Allen only to have Bart turn around and start running backwards before speeding off out of sight. The thing that this episode did well though is cross promote. Supergirl fans who haven’t checked out The Flash got a great look at Grant Gustin’s portrayal and some of the powers he has, while The Flash viewers who haven’t given Supergirl a second chance might be more intrigued after seeing a more seasoned Kara Zor-El. So, no the episode wasn’t perfect, but I want to see more like it. That’s why I’m going to keep supporting Supergirl and hope that someday we’re going to get the Supergirl/Flash/Arrow/Legends crossover we deserve, and the crossover we need for next season of all the shows. “The Flash? Sounds like someone who’s only super power is jumping out of an alley in a trenchcoat.” – Cat Grant (Calista Flockhart) is still the best part of this show. Seriously, I just want to see an episode focused on Cat Grant.
Let me know what you thought of the crossover on Twitter @TheEverwritten.
Once it’s on YouTube I’ll add the promo for the next episode below!