The tradition continues as the Sentries team up to cover the seventh annual CW/Arrowverse crossover event. This season the five-part “Armageddon” airs only on The Flash. Read “Part 1”, “Part 2”, “Part 3, and Part 4.
Gordon S. Miller:
Armageddon has been avoided and the timeline has been corrected, but there’s still work to be done for some reason.
Turns out in the Arrowverse, time travel isn’t taken seriously by the writers. Barry brings back tech from the future, and gives it to Chester, who questions if it is okay to have. No one else, with all they’ve been through altering time, has a problem with it.
It’s not clear why other than dramatic effect, but some people who don’t belong in the timeline slowly fade away. This allows for 2031 Damian Dahrk to have a reunion with his daughter, which was nice but probably means more to Arrow fans. What also will mean more to them is Arrow’s daughter Mia comes from the future to look for her brother.
More importantly to The Flash and its characters, it allows Thawne to ask for help. This causes a fracture in Team Flash because some are okay with Thawne disappearing forever, while others think they should try and save his life. But this isn’t a fair choice because is it really heroic to save a psychotic killer to give him another chance to kill you again, which he promises to do? Joe, who was recently killed by Thawne, argues to save him. It’s a bit hard to believe and Jesse L. Martin goes over the top with anger. To no surprise, they decide to strip his speed powers to save him, but there’s no explanation why that would stop him from vanishing.
Despero wants Thawne dead and asks Barry to let him die. As they argue, Barry realizes Despero was the despot. No real reason to guess that or why an evil despot would care about Earth. Despero decides to kill Thawne himself but rather than pop into the lab he decides to destroy the city (??) by creating an energy bomb. With a new pair of golden boots that Chester invents, Barry is able to redirect the energy.
The writing of “Part 5” and the entire “Armageddon” event was disappointing. Continuity and story logic no longer are a concern. Flashy action and emotional moments between characters is that is offered. That’s not enough to keep me watching, so I am going to fade away from watching the series.
Shawn Bourdo:
The conclusion to the Armageddon crossover is supposed to answer our questions with exciting action and amazing plot twists. Or will we even care?
- The appearance of Mia Queen from the future makes this officially an Arrow crossover. Mia shows up with a tough as nails attitude that was her father’s for much of the last few seasons. Normally, I’d be excited to see a character from a show I previously loved to show back up again. But they picked Mia Queen who just never resonated as the Arrow character.
- This episode illustrates what has been my biggest problem with Reverse Flash over the past eight seasons. They give him too much dialogue. Tom Cavanagh is a great actor for the human side of the role but I’ve grown tired of his Reverse Flash persona. This show gets bogged down in defining what is good or bad and what a hero would do. This is called “flash”, not “thoughtful moderate pace.”
- Remind me again why Despero is still here. This was one of the more poorly developed characters that appears over five episodes as any other in the Arrowverse. And finally I have placed that Despero is trying his best to do a Sean Connery imitation.
- I’m worried for the show when so much of Act Three of this episode takes place in the lab with the power out. CW budgets are not what they used to be.
- Is Damien Dahrk gone for good? Reverse Flash and Damien Dahrk gone in one crossover? We really are cleaning the decks for the rest of this season.
There just weren’t the hallmarks of a good crossover these past five weeks. The heroes didn’t interact in any meaningful way, the villain wasn’t worthy of five episodes, and the solution didn’t feel like the Arrowverse was changed in any meaningful way. It’s just business as normal and that has become less fun over the past couple seasons.
