Written by Marv Wolfman & Marc Guggenheim & Keto Shimizu & Ubah Mohamed
Directed by Glen Winter & Gregory Smith
Barry: "An end."
Sara: "And a beginning. Thank you, Oliver."
Last time we left our seven, well one of them got replaced with Lex Luthor and the rest of them were slowly beginning to lose confidence in their mission. New boy, Ryan Choi somewhat went to town on bringing us all up to speed on that one while Lex continued to scheme and generally get on Kara's nerves while Barry was feeling a bit out of sorts to boot. On top of that, we did get a bit of a trip into the Monitor's past, met his wife, Xeen Novu (Melanie Merkosky) while also seeing the formation of the Anti Monitor. Between Lex trying to blackmail the Monitor for his own schemes, the Paragons also took some trips in past events, which made for seeing certain events in an interesting new way but then we got this moment to boot.
In the first three episodes of this event we got nods to Burton's Batman movies, a continuation of sorts to Superman Returns as well as characters from Smallville, Lucifer, the 90's Flash TV series, Titans and Birds of Prey and Burt Ward for Batman 66. All of that in itself was ambitious and shocking that they pulled it off. However the fourth segment went one better and had Ezra Miller's Flash from the DCEU pop up in a brief cameo where he got to interact with Barry. Seeing the two Flashs fanboy each other while trying to figure out what was going on was absolutely amusing and I'm kind of hoping now that Grant Gustin makes a cameo in Miller's Flashpoint influenced movie that's coming out in July 2022. It's a credit that the producers managed to keep that cameo concealed when pretty much every other one leaked and it's by far the best we've had in this five episode event.
As for Oliver Queen, well his days certainly seem to be done. It took a little way but the former Spectre, Jim Corrigan (Stephen Lobo) got through to him and he helped the Paragons to fan the flame while he lit the spark and battled the Anti-Monitor. In the end, things took a big change but before getting into that, there was no denying that Oliver made the ultimate sacrifice and while you can argue that it should've been Diggle and Laurel at his side during his final moments but the inclusion of Barry and Sara worked just as well for me. Of course whether or not Oliver is truly gone considering there are two episodes of Arrow left though is the other thing.
As for the changes, I think we all knew that worlds were going to merges so having Earths 1 and 38 become Earth Prime was hardly a shocker. More shocking was Lex winning a Nobel prize, being loved by everyone and also being Kara's boss at the DEO but I loved Kara's joy at being on the same Earth as everyone else even if it were tempered by Oliver's death and the Anti Monitor still being at large though. Of course as various characters banded together and we did get a rather quick defeat for the Anti-Monitor but not strictly a death as such. Either way, he's out of the Paragons hair for the time being.
As for the last few moments, things have certainly changed. Oliver's dead but no-one will be forgetting him any time soon and Barry setting up a Paragon council with himself, Sara, Kara, Clark, Kate, J'onn and Jefferson definitely means we should be psyching ourselves up for another crossover event at the end of the year. I've wanted Kara's world to merge with everyone's for a while now and while I was disappointed that we didn't see more Legends in their segment of this part, I do think it worked not having them as the show forges into a new status quo. Worlds may have died but many came back and at least two merged. The DC Universe certainly got a lot bigger now.
- Cameos: Marv Wolfman who wrote the original comic and co-wrote the fourth segment appeared as himself in the fifth part of this event.
- Other cameos included Stargirl and her gang from Earth 2, more Titans from Earth 9, Green Lanterns from Earth 12, Swamp Thing from Earth 19, Doom Patrol from Earth 21 and of course, Superman again from Earth 96.
- Superman and Lois have two boys instead of one and both Diggle and Lyla have Sara back again. Is Ryan also a single parent now too?
- Sargon the Sorcerer (Raúl Herrera) appeared and tried to use Beebo to distract the gang while Weather Witch also crossed paths with Supergirl and The Flash.
- I still can't believe they managed to get the DCEU into this event in some capacity.
- Chronology: Months passed since the events of the third part of this event.
Well, this was certainly a stunning event series and Crisis On Infinite Earths is definitely the pinnacle of what the Arrow universe has managed to achieve in the space of eight years and multiple shows. It's a credit to the CW they were able to pull this whole saga off the way they did and between the various nods, cameos, character moments and game changing events, things have certainly gotten a lot more exciting in this part of the DC Universe.
Rating: 9 out of 10
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