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Welcome back to Maid of Steel! This week, Karen and I are joined by our incredible friends at Central City Underground to discuss the first Supergirl crossover with The CW’s The Flash! Season 1 Episode 18 “World’s Finest” aired on Monday March 28, 2016 and featured special guest star Grant Gustin, who portrays Barry Allen on The Flash. This podcast is a recording of the live Blab session we had with the CCU guys on Wednesday night and it’s…a very different type of podcast. However, Karen and I will be recording a bonus podcast this week in order to cover all of the feedback that we received! So look for that one to come out over the weekend.
The introduction of Barry Allen/The Flash on Supergirl was nothing short of awesome. Grant’s portrayal of Barry Allen is so light and easy that it was no surprise he and Kara became fast friends. Super friends, if you will. For those who’ve been loyally tracking with The Flash, we were rewarded with a ton of Barry-isms. The scene in the picture here, for example, after Barry saves Kara and races her out into the middle of nowhere, she expresses very little gratitude and, instead, flies off…shedding her Kara costume in the meantime. “That’s a first,” Barry said. “I thought I was the impossible.”
The incorporation of Barry into the show brought more of the same light-hearted, hope-filled essence we love about this show. Every superhero has their dark days, and Kara has had quite a few lately, so it is extremely nice to see a couple of kids bring hope because of their passion to help people through their extraordinary powers. The character nuances in our main cast not withstanding, I was very pleased with the end result.
Steely, Speedy, Sparky, Shrieky
Clearly this Earth needs Cisco, the King of Naming Heroes and Villains on The Flash, because Barry’s idea of naming villains was not quite up to par! Livewire named herself, of course, earlier in the season, and Silver Banshee’s name was pretty inherent in her cursed nature, but it was nothing short of hilarious when Barry and Kara land in the park and he calls them “Sparky” and “Shrieky”. That’s why we love him, though, right? He’s witty and light-hearted. Like Kara.
Light & Dark
Both Supergirl and The Flash have done incredibly good jobs, up to this point, of painting their good guys in primary colors. They’re depicted in the light and they like to fight in the light, both figuratively and literally. This episode did a great job of drawing out the contrast of light and dark between the heroes and the villains. The motives and ambitions of the villains are shrouded in darkness and an intent to do malice. Their team-up isn’t a magical pairing of two compatible personalities and abilities, its a team-up of convenience and end-goals. Admittedly, that isn’t a terrible reason to join forces, but it makes the bond between individuals much more tenuous.
On the other side of this, then, we have the heroes…shown in bright colors, in daylight, smiling and laughing, and finding joy in what they do. When something doesn’t go their way, they don’t play the blame game. Barry takes a moment to be real with Kara and have a frank conversation about Superhero-ing. Kara hasn’t known someone like Barry, yet, in the strictest sense, and getting to hear a “I’ve-been-there” story from him was very meaningful.
And the final show-down between the heroes and the villains was fought in the daylight, in front of people who would see the villains for who they are and see the heroes for who they are. What was most impactful to see Kara regain the public’s trust by simply being who she is, and then to see the public respond to that.
Next Week
In TWO weeks, Supergirl returns for the final two episodes of the year! No promo has been released yet for episode 19 “Myriad”, so you’ll have to keep an eye out yourself!
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To be fair, was this really a crossover?
When I hear crossover I think of something that’s going to effect all parties and that doesn’t seem to be the case yet with this; it sounds more like a guest appearance than a crossover since it had no baring, not even a comment, on “The Flash”.
It’s a small nitpick I know, but I’m back in a funk kind of about this episode due to hearing it wasn’t touched on in any way on “The Flash”, this according to some “Flash” watchers I’ve asked recently; it was a good episode stunt vibe aside but with the stunt vibe I’m back to asking “Why did it have to be Barry now? Why couldn’t he appear in a season 2 episode and had another lesser known hero help out here?” and that affects my mood about this episode overall.
I’ll try not to be too negative in this section!
Someone isn’t watching “Supergirl”? He has to get on that! At least he got to experience some of the awesomeness. It makes me feel slightly better about the hype of the episode hearing it introduced “Supergirl” to viewers who may not be watching yet for whatever reason; that said, in the spirit of honesty in return, while I enjoy Grant Gustin in guest spots as Barry this didn’t convince me to watch “Flash”. I am open to him returning in later seasons, no earlier than season 3 now, but as I’ve said before while he’s enjoyable and I like moments with him, if I’m going to watch a Flash show I want Wally West to be Flash. Do you think Grant is up for dying his hair red or wearing a red wig? 🙂 If not, always see Michael Rosenbaum!
I’m taking it as this means a double sized Cougar’s Comic Corner in the bonus episode, that’s cool right Karen?
It was hard to hear audio wise at times, which I understand is possibly due to the Blab app, so I’m not sure which guy said it but I totally laughed hard at the “Dear Lord you guys are grim!” comment regarding Kara in the Arrowverse. Karen made a comment that I have to ask in response to, why would you want Arrow on “Supergirl” but not Kara on “Arrow” in that situation; is it because of the darkness or something else?
Personally, I wouldn’t want “Arrow” on “Supergirl” unless they’re going to have her on there too because while I don’t believe there’s any ill intent I still don’t like the vibe of “Why does she need the boys on, but they never have her on?” if that makes sense. If Stephen wants to come play Green Arrow who’s in a relationship with DINAH Lance then okay, but to be Oliver from “Arrow” I just don’t know how it would be believable without Barry’s help and again then see why are they here but she can’t go there? Melissa could be on “Arrow” as Powergirl if they wanted the link but without the so in your face vibe of she has to play with the boys but they don’t have to play with her.
Again I don’t believe Greg and company have any ill intent regarding the feeling, but due to history and some saying female characters can’t hold their own there is for me this unbalanced vibe of the boys coming over but she doesn’t get to play in return if that makes sense. I think that’s the big reason I was so reserved about the event in the first place, not having seen “Flash” beyond his crossovers with “Arrow” I can’t say if Oliver was in his first season a lot, but having Flash in season one of “Supergirl” just made me nervous because Kara was holding her own, it’s not like she needed the help so I don’t get why this had to be in season one. I liked Barry in the episode, but upon rewatch I don’t know why he specifically was needed in this episode. The DEO has a tech team who could have built the earbuds for Kara and again they could have pulled from the roster of characters, some of who may have been better equipped to help than Barry, to team with Kara and Lucy could have added DEO troop support so I just don’t get why it had to be Barry specifically in this episode. It’s just another factor that makes it feel stuntish and I’m not crazy about that.
Clearly it has one of the Central City hosts wanting to watch the show so I accept it did good things and all these outside feelings aside it was a good episode, but I can’t personally dismiss the outside feelings either so I’m back to the mixed feelings about the event.
I am very happy to hear there is a slight reason to why Barry’s adventure wasn’t mentioned on “Flash”, thank you hosts for touching on this (note: I’m writing this while listening to the podcast so my feelings may lighten up some given this information), and that it may be mentioned near the end of the current “Flash” season, but again part of me asks if they had time to shoot Grant here could they not have shot a quick scene to insert into the episode that followed the event – just someone asking Barry where he’s been or Barry laughing at someone talking about people flying or something. I’m not a film expert so I don’t know how reasonable it is to expect a 30 second clip to be filmed, edited, and inserted into an approaching episode but it just feels arguable they could have done something knowing they were going to film the episode and had a “Flash” scene which touched on it without taking from the episode planned for Tuesday. But that’s me; readers feel free to explain why this wouldn’t work or what it would have needed to work or Central City hosts just keep telling me it’s coming so I can feel better about the outside factors to this event. 🙂
Ha to Plot Device and Hand Wave; Hand Wave clearly showed up at the start of this episode because how Lucy wasn’t yelling at Kara over Siobhan just walking around the DEO after the whole “intruder in the DEO” plot from last week I don’t know. I know Lucy was busy but still…this is how things stop being secret. Also why Siobhan could see Livewire getting interrogated even though every time we’ve seen those rooms they’ve been closed off was clearly Hand Wave opening that slot for her to see through; I get why she needed to see Livewire hating on Cat, but I feel the same thing could have been achieved by having Livewire lead down the hallway to a room and her yelling about Cat. I definitely had some Felicity Smoak-Barry Allen feels regarding the shirt on fire scene; that was a hilarious scene.
I SO missed Alex this week! The Silver Banshee-Livewire team up was awesome; I’d love to see them teaming up again! The look on Kara’s face when Cat grabbed her hand to stop her from getting the cupcakes was priceless; that was more of a “You’re literally impervious to bullets and I’m scared for your safety right now!” moment than the elevator ride in “Falling”. Such a great reaction by Melissa. I really hope Cat knows Kara is Supergirl because again Cat is not dumb so if she knows Barry is Flash on basically NO evidence then she has to know Kara is at least some superhero even if it’s not Supergirl because of all the evidence in her face.
Happy belated birthday Karen!
Barry’s “Let’s settle this like women!” line was great!
“It’s been a good 22 years.” – lol.
Nice podcast team-up.
Some blog post comments…
“The introduction of Barry Allen/The Flash on Supergirl was nothing short of awesome. Grant’s portrayal of Barry Allen is so light and easy that it was no surprise he and Kara became fast friends.” – I did enjoy his appearance in this episode, but I’m saddened to hear the “Flash” episode that aired Tuesday didn’t touch on Barry’s disappearance so in that respect I’m back to feeling sad about this episode some and that it, while fun, was a stunt episode. I wouldn’t call it filler like some crossovers can be because it touched on continuing “Supergirl” events, but the fact Barry’s disappearance meant nothing for his spot just rubs me the wrong way. But that’s me; I loved it was more about Kara with an assist by Barry but I would have preferred to hear they at least mentioned his adventure on “Flash” because the stunt side of this just leaves me with a bad taste know?