“Crisis on Earth-X” wraps up in this thrilling, touching and surprisingly heart-breaking closer to the crossover…
This is the fourth and final part of our “Crisis on Earth-X” coverage. Click the links to read my reviews of Supergirl, Arrow and The Flash.
As much as I have enjoyed both the first three episodes of “Crisis on Earth-X” and last year’s “Invasion” crossover, something these events have typically not found room for is a whole lot of emotion. That’s fair enough – with so much going on, something’s got to give. That is definitely not true of Legends of Tomorrow‘s installment of the crossover. In fact, it’s got to be the most tear-jerking episode the Arrowverse has ever had.
I’m talking, of course, about the death of Martin Stein. We already knew that Victor Garber would be leaving Legends this midseason, but we had been led to believe that the kindly professor would retire to be with his family. Instead, as shown in the final moments of The Flash, Martin died saving his friends, shot by Nazis while attempting to open the breach to Earth-1.
Thanks to Gideon’s hi-tech life support, Martin survives long enough to have a big heart-to-heart with Jax, leading to a ridiculously moving scene where Martin pleads with the boy to let him die. Legends of Tomorrow is the last show I would expect to feature such a raw, visceral, emotional moment but the actors and the writing pull it off brilliantly.
But, anyway, this is episode isn’t all gloom and doom. After sitting out the rest of the season for… no good reason, really, the cavalry arrives in the form of the Legends, meaning our heroes have their own army to battle the Nazi hordes invading Central City. What follows is an epic action sequence that lasts the bulk of the episode.
Impressively, just about every character in the ensemble gets a chance to shine, and its full of thrilling little moments. Atom riding Mr Terrific’s T-Sphere like Ant-Man on Hawkeye’s arrow. Killer Frost gliding around like she’s Frozone. Even Cisco and Harry got to trade geeky quips while piloting the Waverider. The only thing I thought was off was how the likes of Barry and Kara were letting Team Arrow kill the Nazis indiscriminately. But, hey, I guess they were at war.
And then the whole thing ended as it began – with a wedding. Or two, actually, as Oliver and Felicity decided to get hitched as well. It was nice for Diggle to come in right at the end there (and get in his annual ‘speed sickness’ joke) and the whole scene was a likeable bit of schmaltz.
All in all, this was a terrific way to end a crossover that has definitely been the best Arrowverse event we’ve had so far. It was thrilling, touching and will no doubt leave an indelible mark on these shows going forward. Zod knows how they’re going to top this one next year.
Time Anomalies:
- Barry, old buddy, you work with the police. You should know that there’s a happy medium in between killing a criminal and letting them go: it’s called arresting them. If you’d just stuck Reverse-Flash in the pipeline, your problems would be over.
- Kara’s “General, would you care to step outside?” comment to Overgirl is a lift from Superman II (Supes says it to Zod). Their fight was also kind of Man of Steel-y.
- Yes, Citizen Cold is staying! Wentworth Miller has been one of the best parts of these last two episodes so I’m glad we’ll get to see more of the doppelganger. Hopefully, The Ray will be back as well at some point.
- Final thought: so the Earth-X’ers wanted Kara’s heart, right? So why did they invade Earth-1 and not Earth-38? How did they know her social calendar well enough to show up at Barry and Iris’ wedding?
Rating:
Fandom Factory 