World’s Finest Plot: Kara gains a new ally when the Flash arrives from an alternate universe and helps her fight the Silver Banshee and Livewire in exchange for helping him return home.
I don’t normally watch Supergirl. I caught the pilot and the one with Martian Manhunter. That’s about it. Don’t get me wrong. It’s entertaining enough and I appreciate everything it stands for. It’s just that in this world of Flashes and Daredevils and Agents of SHIELD, there are only so many hours in the day. But you can bet when Flash breaks the universe and network barrier, I’m gonna watch. I think that’s the idea.
I also had the pleasure of watching the episode with someone who had never seen Supergirl before and knew precisely zero about the overarching story. While I don’t watch, I do keep up with the character announcements and big plot events so I was kind of prepared. That being said, there was definitely a lot even I missed.
So let’s start with the important question: How did Barry get to the CBSiverse? The answer is, I’m not really sure. He ran through a portal and was just kind of there. He didn’t seem like that was what he was going for either, since it was a pretty big surprise to him. He also had a more streamlined version of the tachyon device from Mercury Labs on his chest, so that was clearly also part of the equation. Whether or not it will even be brought up in Flash is another question. He does seem like he’s planning to do some time travel this week, so it very well could and probably should.
On the Supergirl side of the episode, a lot of it seemed to revolve around two villains teaming up to take down Kara, Supergirl, and Cat Grant and the rest involved James Olsen’s potential relationship with Kara that every character, including Barry, was able to recognize before Kara. One villain was Livewire, a character I remember from the Animated Series, and the other was Silver Banshee, who seems like a carbon copy of the X-Man Banshee with some cosmetic changes.
The show did a lot of legwork to make it abundantly clear who was after who and for what reason, which I appreciate as some who knows next to nothing about either character. Livewire has a look that really smacked of Earth-2 Killer Frost and an attitude to match. Silver Banshee has a pretty goofy outfit and I was never able to tell if we were supposed to assume it was makeup or not. I recognize that Banshee costume was very comic accurate but still. Maybe this time do that thing where you have the character acknowledge how dumb it looks and then pick a new outfit. Also at one point Banshee met up with a fortune teller. Not sure what that was all about. Didn’t really bug me but it was worth mentioning.
The most important part of the episode was the relationship between Kara and Barry and I am happy to report they worked pretty well together. Their dynamic is very different from the Barry/Oliver partnership which revolved mainly upon Barry’s team questioning Oliver’s methods and Oliver’s team standing in awe of Barry’s powers. Supergirl’s crew is a lot more accepting of Barry’s peculiarities with Winn even finishing Barry’s sentences about the multiverse for him. Very Cisco.
The actual fighting part of the episode was fine. Barry and Kara have different styles. She likes to punch. He likes to plan. They go in without a plan and things go all wrong. The fight ends Amazing Spider-Man 2 style and a firehose takes down an electricity based hero. It’s fine. The effects for Barry are pretty solid and thankfully the episode didn’t come up with a contrived reason for Kara and Barry to fight (even though Barry would totally win). Also the episode ended with some sort of weird reference to characters from Krypton that had me and the person I was watching with completely confused.
Here’s why the crossover worked. At one point, Barry has to prove that he has superpowers and to do that he runs away and comes back with an ice cream cone for everybody. Hooray! That is exactly what this crossover is about. They’re both fun. They’re both nice. Kara needs a pep talk after her super dickery episode last week and Barry is the perfect character to give it. Then they race and everyone is cool. I’d call this crossover a huge success. The big ratings bump Barry gave Kara was an added bonus.
Matthew Nando Kelly is an incredibly cool and handsome Senior Staff Writer for Pop-Break who was allowed to write his own bio. Besides weekly Flash recaps, he focuses on film, television, music, and video games. Matthew also has a podcast called Mad Bracket Status where he discusses pop culture related brackets with fellow Pop-Break writer DJ Chapman. He has an unshakable love for U2, cats, and the New Orleans Saints. His twitter handle is @NationofNando. Did we mention how handsome he was?
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