The Flash: Season 1, Episode 8

The Flash

Episode Title: “Flash vs. Arrow”

Channel: CW

Director: Glen Winter

Writers: Ben Sokolowski and Brooke Eikmeier

Genre: Action, Adventure, Drama, Fantasy, Sci-Fi

Runtime: 43 min

Rated: TV-PG

Original Air Date: December 2, 2014

We all knew that if The Flash took off we'd be able to expect some crossover goodness with Arrow. Barry's origin first appeared in an episode of Arrow after all. When the news was announced that these were the episodes that would contain the first major crossover I was excited. These events are the most exciting possibility when talking about any shared universe. For people familiar with comic books, the event is bound to contain some predictable elements; one of the heroes will pop up in the other's territory, they'll eventually fight, make up, and then take out the villain as a team. That's just the way these kinds of things are done.

I'm going to start with the most disappointing aspect of this episode. It's not really a two night event. Sure, the Arrow appeared tonight, and the Flash will appear tomorrow night on Arrow but for some reason the writers decided that they should be self-contained stories. I understand the thinking behind this, you don't want to alienate viewers that don't watch both shows by requiring them to do so to know what's going on, but it severely detracts from what you can accomplish in such a crossover. Due to this the villain in “Flash vs. Arrow” gets an even shorter end of the stick than usual for a villain in The Flash. He has no backstory and no personality at all, he's there to serve one purpose; to give Barry and Ollie a reason to fight. He instills rage in anyone that meets his eyes, and at one unfortunate time, Barry does just that.

Barry spent most of the first part of the episode learning some tough lessons at Oliver's hands, he got shot and humiliated as Oliver tried to impart some of the knowledge he has gained over eight years of putting his life in jeopardy. In addition to that source of negative emotion, Eddie tries to convince Capt. Singh that the city should form a task force to bring the Flash to justice. When Barry falls victim to Roy G. Bivolo's power (the villain's names is Chroma, get it ROY G. BIVolo) he lashes out at those that he thinks unfairly judge, hinder, or hurt him. After yelling at Joe and Singh at the station he chases down Iris and Eddie and chucks Eddie out of a moving car. The Arrow shows up just in time to stop something very bad from happening and we finally get the tussle we've been waiting for.

The fight between the two heroes was well done. Oliver had to rely on trick arrows and his wealth of experience, while Barry did his speed thing. The atmosphere was lightened somewhat by some comic banter between Diggle and Cisco, Diggle especially was very entertaining in this episode, especially when he saw Barry's power for the first time. Oliver manages to delay Barry long enough for Joe and Dr. Wells to put their plan into action and calm Barry down. The Arrow and the Flash have a moment and then decide to go after the bad guy. Cut to a scene of them locking Chroma away in S.T.A.R. Labs. That's right, we are deprived of the second best part of a superhero crossover; seeing the way that the heroes' abilities compliment each other and allow them to tackle problems too big for them separately. It made it seem like an episode that was intended to be longer, and then cut down to 43 minutes in the editing room. We also learn that after being assaulted by the Flash, Eddie has succeeded in convincing the captain to start a manhunt for the Flash, and Iris has decided that she wants nothing to do with the hero after watching her boyfriend get beat up. The episode then closed with a cool, but completely unrelated, surprise appearance by a character that's been hinted at for quite a while.

Conclusion: The first of what I think will be many crossovers in the CW's DC universe was mostly a success. The banter between each hero's team, and the fight between the heroes delivered. Unfortunately the writer's didn't use the crossover venue to its fullest potential, and decided on two separate stories instead of one massive event. The poor villain this week didn't even have his capture shown to the audience. They've also started with another of the comic book story lines we all know; the hero is pursued by the law enforcement officers of the city he protects, if they don't slow down they're going to burn through all of the standard comic stories in one season.

Rating: 7.5/10