The month of May makes for some strange alliances in this week’s DC on The CW recap. What’s left of the DEO partnered with Cadmus in an attempt to rescue Lena Luthor and stop the Daxamite invasion on Supergirl. Barry messed with the timeline (again!) when he pulled Captain Cold from season one of Legends of Tomorrow to help the speedster break into an ARGUS vault on The Flash. When Team Arrow is abducted, Oliver is forced to throw in with old friends and enemies alike to stop Prometheus on Arrow. We watched and discussed the episodes on the GeekDad Facebook page. Some of the excerpts of those discussions are below.
Joey: President Wonder Woman vs Mom-El is awesome.
Lisa H: Don’t piss off Wonder Woman! Especially if she’s working with Cat Grant.
Lisa H: “Well at least tell me your still a Democrat.” – Cat. Ha!!
Corrina: Queen-el, Joey. 
Also, they’re still having problems using J’onzz, aren’t they?
Joey: Shh… you’ll wake him.
Lisa H: I’m partial to Mom-El.
Verdict: While nice to see this season’s two main conflicts included in what amounts to the first half of a two-part season finale, this show still feels like it’s floundering about, looking for a hook to make us care about these characters and what’s taking place onscreen. Maybe this week’s season finale will do a good job of pulling this season’s loose narrative together. Maybe not. What the finale does need to do is give us a reason to tune in again next fall, and that alone may be Supergirl’s toughest battle.
Corrina: An angry white dude who blames the world for his issues skewering a black woman is a really unfortunate visual.
Lisa H: Just so I’m clear… Savitar is just Emo Barry. That’s really what we’re going with huh?
Joey: Question is whether Iris is really dead, or whether someone left the fridge door open a crack.
Lisa H: I’m thinking that Killer Frost becoming Caitlin again in the next episode will be the undoing of it all.
Joey: I’m thinking that when (for no obvious reason) Savitar dumped Iris and went to go run laps around a tree (?) while Barry fired up the proton pack, that HR swapped places with Iris using his face transmogrify thingy. Otherwise, why–to butcher a cliche–show us the device in Act One this season at the STAR Labs reopening, and remind us of the device when Barry used it to break into ARGUS, if not to use it to save Iris?
Lisa H: But then where is Iris?
Joey: I dunno, but if following seasons of The Flash are 22 episodes of watching Barry descend into Emo Barry from 2024, I’m just gonna go ahead and check out now. Thank for the uneven and generally underwhelming run, Flash!
Lisa H: I’m a glutton for punishment. I’ll stick around till the bitter end. I watched all 10 (?) Seasons of Smallville. I’ll finish this no matter how bad it gets.
Verdict: Again with the first part of what amounts to a two-part season finale feeling a little flat. Barry and Snart facing off against King Shark was great, but continues to defy the rules that this series (the entire Arrowverse) establishes and takes great pains to remind us of every time someone messes with the timeline. That’s why Barry continues to remain the worst hero ever and why this show is so far off the mark from its comic source material. Maybe this week’s season finale will see the completely unexpected (sarcasm) resurrection of Iris and mark a new, hopeful turn for the character of Barry Allen, which is what the previous “Barry gets amnesia and forgets that he’s a whiny tool” episode got right.
Joey: No one else commented on this episode on the GeekDad Facebook page, which is a shame because Arrow is currently the strongest of the three shows wrapping up their seasons, so I’ll handle the commentary on this one. Arrow has the advantage over the others in that there is–and has been from the start of this season–a clear and simple direction that this season had to take. We have known all along that Prometheus is the season’s “big-bad”. Supergirl never clearly defined that role until the past month or so. The difference between how Arrow has used Prometheus and how The Flash has used Savitar is that 1) Prometheus’ identity was revealed earlier in the season, so instead of being a paper-thin villain, the character’s motivations were given time to be fleshed out, and 2) the conflict between Oliver and Prometheus has been used to explore the characters and their relationships with others, not as a reason to break from the established rules and add another CGI-heavy fight scene.
Even more to the point, Arrow has been working within the confines of having to wrap up the flashbacks to the point where Oliver was rescued from Lian Yu in the series’ pilot episode. That path is still taking unexpected turns, right up to the end. Simple, yet unexpected… that’s the best way to characterize what has been the best season of Arrow in three years. Of the three shows wrapping up their seasons this week, Arrow is the one I’m most excited to watch.
It doesn’t hurt that Deathstroke is back, either.
Join us this week on the GeekDad Facebook page as the season finales of Supergirl, The Flash, and Arrow air, and in the days that follow. Tell us what you think of the finales and what you’re hoping to see next season. Then, look for us right here next week as we pull together our thoughts and your comments on each of the programs for our final DC on The CW of the 2016-17 television season.
