The Arrowverse is kicking off their fall seasons with just the right amount of excitement, political allegory, and everything else we have come to expect and love from those shows. On Supergirl, we are diving deep into the “Make America Great Again” aesthetic, as the season big baddie seems to be a bunch of “humans only” nationalists who are hell-bent on kicking all aliens out of Earth, even if it means through unconventional means. Their latest victory was a propaganda one as they were able to show that the president of the United States was in fact, an alien. On Arrow, Oliver is now serving his sentence as “Inmate 4587.” He’s finding out that life as a prisoner is way different than as the Star City vigilante. Meanwhile, even with the no vigilante’s rule, a newly hooded archer is carrying on the Green Arrow’s legacy, while the rest of Team Arrow is getting used to their new way of life. On The Flash, Barry just discovered that his daughter from the future has come back in time to spend time with him (as he’s still missing is whatever crisis is going to happen). However, a new villain has emerged: a metahuman serial killer known as Cicada. Finally, on Black Lightning, Jefferson is being forced to step down from being principal as he was missing in action during an attack on the school (even though he was there as Black Lightning).
So how did the Arrowverse go this week?
Supergirl: “Fallout”
Thanks to the revelation that President Marsdin was an alien, there is naturally some fallout (hence the title of the episode). The country is divided. In one hand, the president of the United States is an alien who has been lying about who she specifically is, and could be argued that she is part of an alien invasion. On the other, this proves the American Dream, that through hard work and determination, anyone can be the president of the United States, even an alien. Naturally, this is causing problems on both sides of the aisle. There are protests going on in front of the White House. Facing an impeachment, President Marsdin resigns. After meeting with Kara, she’s actually relieved that she no longer has to hide who she truly is, and she maintains her integrity and will not accept a pardon from the new president. It’s tearing the country apart as well, and protests turn violent, forcing Kara to intervene and tell people to stop fighting and talk to each other.
It’s not just protesting at the White House, this is affecting daily life as evidenced at the DEO. Even some soldiers are starting to adopt the human’s only mindset. Alex is forced to resolve a dispute between two soldiers and remind her troops that they are to defend everyone, humans, and aliens the same. While the DEO captured one of the Graves siblings who launched the attack on President Marsdin’s compound, however, he’s not cooperating at all. Meanwhile, Otis’ sister Mercy is working with Agent Liberty to further their plans against the aliens of the Earth. She has managed to secure Kryptonite off of the Dark Web, meaning soon enough, they will attack Supergirl.
Their attack instead is against Lex Corp. Lex Corp has the patent on the image inducing technology that helps aliens mask their true appearance in order to fit in with humans. As Mercy hacks into Lex Corps database to turn off the image inducers, Brainiac-5 is going for a pizza run for the DEO. At the wrong moment, his image inducer turns off, revealing his true form to the staff at the restaurant. The owner then attacks him with a baseball bat. Brainiac-5 was in no danger as evidenced by how easily he is able to avoid being hit by the bat, but he is somewhat taken aback by how quickly the owner turned on him, someone he considered to be friendly. Lucky for him, Catco reporter Nia steps in and yells at the pizza owner for attacking someone.
When Nia returns to Catco, she asks James to write an editorial for Catco to speak up for alien rights and not be bullied. James of course, has shareholders and maintains that Catco’s job is to report the news in situations like these, and not editorialize content. However, she and James later notice a few writers picking on an alien reporter. Nia tells James about her being a transgender and she is all too familiar with being attacked for being who she is, and doesn’t like the same thing done towards aliens. James, later on, decides to write the editorial.
While Lena Luthor is able to stop Mercy’s hack, that doesn’t mean that Marcy isn’t done trying to stop the image inducers. Instead, she launches an attack on L Corp’s headquarters. Lucky for Lena, Kara happens to be there at the same time. Of course, Kara wants to maintain the lie that she isn’t Supergirl to her friend, so she tries to fend off the attackers is the strangest ways possible, and always under the radar. Eventually, Lena is going to have to realize who Kara is, or else she comes across as extremely naïve, and they’ve built her up to be smarter than that. Mercy confronts Lena, and the two fight each other for control of an experimental suit that could be used to fight aliens. It’s a pretty even fight, but it ends when Kara manages to sneak away and return as “Supergirl” and stop Mercy.
All is not good by the end of the episode though. Turns out the anti-alien sentiment has penetrated the DEO and the sympathetic solder has allowed the Graves to escape from their cell. J’onn while looking for his missing friend (who Agent Liberty killed last week) is not having any luck finding her and he manages to find himself at a Trump-style town hall where Agent Liberty is riving up the masses. Yeah, they’re going to have a big problem with him.
Arrow: “The Longbow Hunters”
The episode opens with Oliver after spending some time in solitary confinement. After all, he did deliver one hell of a beating to an inmate last week to show that even though he’s trying to be peaceful, he’ll still mess you up. After all, he is the Green Arrow. After released from solitary, he continues his daily routine. All seems to be normal, except of court he has a hardass guard who continues to mention him by his number sarcastically, and of course, there’s still the trio of criminals who he had locked up.
Out the outside, Felicity has learned that Diaz has hired the Longbow Hunters, who are carrying out some thefts in his name. Fans of the comic book know the Longbow Hunters are longtime Green Arrow enemies, going all the way back to the 80’s, so fans have been eagerly anticipating to see them on the small screen. They arrive and quickly show how badass they could be. They break into an ARGUS facility to get some sort of “super battery,” that if weaponized could cause some serious damage. Diggle, being an ARGUS member, receives the directive that the priority is to recover the weapon, not take down the Longbow Hunters. Knowing ARGUS, they probably could eventually be used as a part of a new Suicide Squad
somewhere down the line.
Felicity’s priority, on the other hand, is stopping Diaz. This puts her at odds with Diggle. He first refuses her help, so she and Curtis go behind his back to try and solve this themselves. After they discover a possible headquarters for the Longbow Hunters, they investigate, only to impede of ARGUS investigation, once again angering Diggle. The two have a spirited debate later on about being on the wrong side of things in this fight.
Meanwhile, Oliver needs to figure out where Diaz is so he can try to keep Felicity safe. He asks the trio of prisoners where Diaz is located, which falls on deaf ears. Lucky for them, the same prison guard that has a big problem with Oliver has also been giving them a hard time. They want Oliver to play prison politics, he has to do them a favor and they will do one right back for him. However, the favor they want is for Oliver to “take out” the prison guard. Although Oliver has killed in the past, it was always in the name of justice, not killing just to kill, or worse, as part of a criminal arrangement. What’s Oliver to do? He needs to know where Diaz is and keep his family safe. Is this a line he’s ready to cross? He tries to find a way around this. He even attempts to warn the guard, who simply doesn’t care. Oliver comes up with a new plan to “take out” the guard, which won’t involve killing him. He purposefully starts a confrontation with the guard and then takes a shank given to him and stabs himself, but makes it look like the guard did it. The guard is quickly arrested by other guards, giving the trio the room they wanted. Maybe they will play ball and help Oliver out. However, he’s going to have to heal first.
Elsewhere, Dinah has discovered that Laurel Lance has ditched her security detachment. Although she is the villainess from Earth-2 pretending to be the honorable Laurel Lance from Earth-1, she (and Dinah) have to keep up the facade. Laurel, also an enemy of Diaz, has been trying to track down one of the Longbow Hunters, Silencer. Silencer has a unique ability. She has technology that renders sound inert, meaning Laurel’s sonic scream isn’t going to do much against her. Dinah manages to track down Laurel just as she is about to face off against Silencer. The fight scene is pretty awesome as it’s in complete silence, thanks to Silencer’s noise-canceling technology. It’s only after Dinah gets involved and uses her sonic scream abilities as well in concert with Laurel that they are able to cancel out Silencer’s field and defeat her.
Although they have a spat about their different missions, Felicity and Diggle have a heart to heart about carrying on Oliver’s mission. Diggle later learns about the location of the Longbow Hunters on a train with the stolen technology. He leads an ARGUS team against them. However, just about all of his team is no match for them. Diggle manages to fend off Kodiak, who uses a giant shield while fighting. Diggle then runs into Diaz on the train and those two engage in a fight as well. Diggle manages to stab Diaz in the chest, but he is forced to make the decision of either getting the technology, or stopping Diaz. Diggle decided on his job, not his emotion, which is the final straw for Felicity. This forces Felicity to stop working with ARGUS and instead team up with someone who will focus on stopping Diaz, the same FBI agent who sent Oliver to prison.
Flash-forward wise, we spend that time with gown up William and older Roy on Lian-Yu. William reveals that he’s gay amidst a conversation, so that’s something that will be revisited as William grows up in our current timeline. Roy tries to get William just leave everything behind, but a determined William wants to know why his device started beeping and telling him to come to the island. Roy then goes to a crate and opens it up to reveal Oliver’s bow and arrows. He then tells William that they are going to need to go to Star City.
Legends of Tomorrow: “The Virgin Gary”
Legends of Tomorrow continues to be the most tongue-in-cheek show within the Arrowverse. Despite the ridiculous premise, the show’s success is due to its sense of humor, and its willingness to be self-referential, and just to go wherever the hell it wants to without being bound by the other shows. The season premiere centering on preventing a massacre at Woodstock is no different.
The episode begins with the Legends doing their last bit of cleanup for all the time aberrations they caused. This one was simple, monitor the Beatles’ “British Invasion” by stopping a time displaces Paul Revere and bring him back to 1776. With that being the last of the time aberrations, they seemed to be free and clear, something that’s bumming Nate and Mick out. With John Constantine warning them about demons coming into the timeline after they allowed Mallus to come from his prison, they were expecting more demons than the dragon head he showed them in the season finale. With a lack of demons, and the time aberrations slowing down, things are being stale.
The Legends get summoned to DC for a surprise party in their honor by the Time Bureau. Sara and Ava spend some quality time together only to be interrupted by John Constantine reminding them that monsters are out there, which she says hasn’t happened. To help with their boredom, Nate and Mick proceed to “rob” a house in DC. Turns out the house is Nate’s parents, and Nate just wanted to steal some of his dad’s expensive alcohol. However, Nate’s parents were there during and not on vacation in Martha’s Vineyard. Nate doesn’t have a strong relationship with his father who frowns on his career and life choices. As he and his father are arguing the topic of the “Woodstock Massacre” comes up. Nate realizes that something must be wrong as history doesn’t recall the event as such.
Each of the Legends then goes to 1969 to Woodstock. Ray and Zari think that Nora Dahrk may be committing the murders, and Ray let her escape the Time Bureau because of his friendship with her. Sara wants to see what monsters Constantine was talking about, and Mick and Rory investigate whatever massacre has happened. They have a very funny “Brady Bunch” styled montage of them walking around at the music festival and then they proceed to investigate. Turns out, something is afoul at Woodstock, and comes from the strangest of places. Turns out a unicorn has slipped into 1969. Of course, everyone is infatuated with this mythological animal of beauty. But this being Legends of Tomorrow, things aren’t as they seem. The unicorn’s favorite thing to do is spear people with its horn and then proceed to eat their hearts. This means that this season on Legend of Tomorrow, we’re probably looking at monsters that don’t traditionally appear to us as monsters (as evidenced by next week’s preview of an evil witch in the form of a nice old lady), will be the true threats. The Legends try to stop the unicorn, but it then squirts out some rainbow good at them which proves to be a powerful hallucinogen, causing them to spend a few minutes tripping out of their minds. But since, it’s Woodstock, everyone’s already doing drugs and tripping, so that’s no big deal there.
Sara returns to 1969 with John Constantine for assistance. After all, he is a warlock and has experience in this sort of thing. He tells her that the unicorn uses its good to cause people to hallucinate, and then proceeds to kill them an eat their hearts. In order to counteract it, there are a few things they will need. They get the DNA of Jerry Garcia and a few other things. The last key ingredient they need is a virgin, not a large quantity of them at Woodstock, so they recruit Gary. With Gary (who insists he’s not a virgin after doing “something” with the bisexual Constantine, but he really still is one) used as bait, they lure the unicorn while Constantine uses a spell to send the unicorn back to hell. The Legends once again save the day!
As they return to 2018, Sara realizes that she needs to continue her mission with the Legends and she and Ava will have to wait. Nate tries to make amends with his father over a beer. Constantine refuses to join the Legends, but is then attacked by an unseen entity which tells him “I’m coming for you Johnny”
The Flash: “The Death of Vibe”
The episode opens in Nora’s future as she is walking through the “Flash Museum” as a young girl. While in the museum, she is walking through the “Hall of Villains.” In the present day, she is speaking to Team Flash telling them that although her father has faced a plethora of villains, the scariest on in her opinion was Cicada because he was never caught. She name drops all the DC CW superheroes and says that Supergirl, the Green Arrow, the Legends, and even the League tried to face him and he was never brought to justice. With this being a new timeline than the one she is from, this means that Barry and company will have their work cut out for them.
Nora does have an idea of how to stop Cicada though, something Team Flash didn’t do in her timeline, bring in a Wells for help. Nora tries to bring in Herr Wells (from the Council of Wells) for help. He says that he is too busy to help, but instead, he recommends another Wells, a French detective named “Sherloque Wells.” This is just yet another excuse for actor Tom Cavanagh to once again chomp on the scenery as another outlandish version of his Wells character. Despite doing it countless time, and each subsequent time more ridiculous, it never gets old. Sherloque charges for his services, which Barry agrees as long as they can stop him. Unfortunately, it proves to be the wrong person. They catch a person named David Hersh. Forensic evident exonerates him and Sherloque is forced to admit he cheated in trying to solve the case. He says he has stopped Cicada 36 times, and each time it was David Hersh, so he just thought it was Hersh on Earth-1. This causes Nora to feel even more guilt for messing up the timeline, something Iris and Barry notice.
After a humiliating viral robbery thwarting is captured on social media, Ralph wants to do something to remove that from his mind. He continues to help Caitlin discover the mystery surrounding her father’s supposed death. She confronts her mother, who tells her not to go down this rabbit hole. However, Caitlin proceeds anyway. After breaking into her mother’s facility, she discovers a suicide note her father left, meaning he ended up taking his own life. While this provides Caitlin with some closure. However that is short lived as she found a cryptic message embedded in the note telling her to find him and save him, meaning he’s still alive.
Meanwhile, the real Cicada eyes his next target to kill: Cisco. As he pours through newspaper clippings of Vibe saving the day, he realizes that Joe West is usually on the scene of the crime in the pictures. Cicada realizes that Joe must know who the real Cisco is. As a result, he pays Joe a visit. After he tied Jo up and proceeds to torture him with his dagger’s energy, Cecile wakes up. Luckily for us, her mind-reading powers aren’t gone yet and Joe is able to communicate with her. She presses the emergency button on her phone to let Team Flash know they have a problem. Cisco is the first on the scene, which is just who Cicada was looking for. He jumps in to fight Cisco and they go through one of his breaches, landing is a forest. Because Team Flash still doesn’t have all their resources (thanks to Nora punching the satellite last season), they have no idea where Cisco could be. Sherloque uses deductive logic to help Team Flash figure out which forest Cisco is in and Barry races there to fight. Of course, proximity to Cicada causes Barry to lose his powers and he has to engage in a regular fist fight with him, which causes Barry to start losing. Nora wants to jump into the fight and help right her wrongs, but instead relies on a pep talk Barry gave her about thinking things through. She then comes with a plan. She speeds just out of proximity to him so her powers are still active and throws a bolt of lightning at him. The explosion is also close to Cisco, and Team Flash cannot find him afterward, meaning that he probably died. However, Cisco comes from another breach, meaning he lived. However, Team Flash would like to keep the ruse of his death to throw off Cicada. The whole world now thinks Vibe is dead.
Joe, later on, reveals that he thinks Cicada is a father as evidenced by him talking about family while torturing him. We see Cicada at a hospital for his child in a coma. His daughter’s doctor seems to know who he really is and pleads him to stop, which falls on deaf ears. This could help Team Flash track down who he really is though. Later on, Nora and Sherloque have a quick chat as he’s setting up to stay in the loft (and she with Barry and Iris), and he uses his investigative techniques to question why she really came to the past. He tells her it’s because she wanted to be a hero, or perhaps it’s something else. By both of their faces when she walks away, we know it’s something else.
Black Lightning: “The Book of Consequences: Chapter Three: Master Lowry”
Focusing on the Green Light children (a parable for “crack babies”), the episode begins with one of them overdosing on the drug in a hospital at the same time her powers are starting to kick in. the young lady is confused, scared, and of course, extremely dangerous. She fights off the orderlies and even the police (who surprisingly have their tasers drawn instead of their regular guns), until Black Lightning steps in. he uses de-escalation techniques to calm her down until he is able to then zap her unconscious so that she can be safely apprehended. See cops in real life, that’s what you can do.
The next day Jefferson and Gambi are looking at security footage of the attack on the high school by Tobias, Syonide, and Khalil. Unfortunately, they don’t have any footage as the camera go out as the attack begins. Jefferson realizes that he needs to find Khalil is he’s going to take Tobias down. Next, he attends Freeland High School for his first day as a teacher (instead of as principal), and quickly realizes that changes are coming, and not for the better. As he walks in, he sees metal detectors being installed, something he strongly opposed when he ran things. He then has his first meeting with the new principal, Major Lowery (hence the title “Mastery Lowery”), who is rather dickish in his approach to both the students and towards Jefferson. It’ll be interesting to see what happens between the two of them as Lowery starts to tear apart something Jefferson has built with his blood, sweat, and tears.
Jennifer, who still can’t control her powers has been on “house arrest” and not able to go to school yet. The only “freedom” she has is to be able to go on a run. When she is out running, a woman addresses her by name and strikes up a conversation. As she introduces herself as Perenna and shakes Jennifer’s hand, the two are transported somewhere else. This starts freaking Jennifer out, so Perenna transports them back to where they were. Jennifer confronts her parents who reveal that Perenna is a metahuman therapist recommended by Gambi. At first, Jennifer doesn’t want to work any of this out and is upset with her parents. Eventually, Jennifer realizes that Perenna might be able to help her deal with things and control her powers.
Henderson comes to the crime scene of the dirty copy Tobias killed, finding a burnt-up vehicle and all evidence removed. He realizes that the copy was probably dirty, and there are only a few people in Freeland that could have torched the car professionally. He shares the information with Jefferson as he knows Black Lightning can help. However, since Jefferson kept his vigilante activities a secret, all’s not well with the two of them.
Anissa meets up with Grace. Given their last confrontation when she was out at a bar, she felt is was necessary to talk with the girl she was attracted to before. As the two talk, Anissa realizes that she’s still very attracted to Grace, despite dating the pop singer from last week. Anissa also has other stuff to do. The church still needs help to sue the federal government and the money she stole from the drug dealers last week isn’t enough. She recruits Gambi to be her back up. Although he opposes her doing this at such a high-profile target (seemingly the mob), she doesn’t want her to get hurt. She is able to beat them all and steal their money to give to the church. However, this may come back to bite her.
While investigating the arson, Jefferson learns that Khalil is the one who hired him on behalf of Tobias. This causes Jefferson to visit Khalil’s mother to try and find a way to reach him. Khalil is going through his own problems as Tobias is having him be a more ruthless enforcer to some of his dealers. While shaking them down, one mocks Khalil, who he accidentally kills in his rage. He realizes he’s going down a dark path. Jefferson, later on, confronts Khalil and tries to reason with him with no such luck, or so he thinks. Later on, Henderson reveals to Jefferson that he received a tip (probably Khalil) and have arrested Tobias.
