With his powers drained and his identity outed to the world, Clark Kent has not been having a good month. But Hordr - the criminal group that attempted to blackmail him - is still at large. And he is still Superman. The trail to Hordr's new base leads Clark to California and an odd new arena where the gods of old do battle like professional wrestlers.


Despite enjoying this issue, I'm a bit torn on it. And not for the reasons most of the Superman fandom seem to have mixed feelings right now. I'm fine with Clark not having a secret identity and being depowered because I know this is temporary, no matter what DC Editorial says.  Like the electric blue and red Supermen of the 90s, this too shall pass. And the idea is a fun one to play with for a time.

No, my issue is with the idea of Mythbrawl. It's a great idea, mixing the shtick of  JSA villain Roulette with the idea (best explored by Neil Gaiman in The Sandman) that old gods take on new jobs in modern society to draw what worship they can. Yet as innovative as Gene Luen Yang was with this concept, I can't help but think this sort of thing is more appropriate to Wonder Woman. It's a minor quibble, however, and this issue is well-written.


It's been a while since I've read a book with artwork by Howard Porter and I honestly didn't recognize his work here until I looked at the credit's page. Porter's style has changed since the days when he was on JLA with Grant Morrison, becoming stronger and less stylized. The vibrant colors by Hi-Fi perfectly enhance Porter's pencils and inks, crafting one amazing looking book.

Doreen Green has a secret. To the world, she's just an average computer science major with a fantastic badonkadonk, who still uses the word badonkadonk. But whenever people need help, Doreen Green becomes Squirrel Girl - a superheroine with all the powers of a squirrel and a girl! Also, she can talk to squirrels and understand them when they talk back. And most of the time they'll do what she tells them. Not because she commands them or anything - they just really like her!


The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl is back and not a moment too soon. This is one of the most hilarious books on the market but Ryan North also instills a sense of innocent fun that is sorely lacking in most modern comics. This is a comic that knows how silly The Marvel Universe can be and revels in the sheer insanity of villains like Brain Drain.

On that note, Marvel really needs to market a line of Deadpool's Guide To Super Villains flashcards.


The artwork is well matched to the writing. Erica Henderson has a cute style and an acute ability for depicting the ludicrous action of North's scripts. The color palettes utilized by Rico Renzi are well chosen. And Joe Morris does a fine job on the Deadpool Guide card this month.

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.





Plot

As Kara tries to build a good working relationship with her sister Alex and the rest of her DEO team while they peruse one of the escaped alien criminals, Cat Grant begins to pressure James Olsen to deliver an interview with Supergirl.


Influences

Superman: The Movie (the opening scene of Kara chasing the missiles as training mirrors the climax of this movie, the montage of Kara helping the people of National City mirrors Superman's first night as a superhero, right down to her rescuing a little girl's pet from a tree and the hologram of Alura In-Ze is straight from this movie), Superman II (the character of General Astra is basically a female version of General Zod), Man of Steel (the theme of distrust regarding an alien savior), various Supergirl comics, but particularly New Krypton, which dealt with a group of rogue Kryptonians on Earth and features Supergirl and her mother, Alura In-Ze, as prominent characters.


Goofs

Apparently the DEO has procedures for training an alien to become a field agent. Even though they didn't have any interest in recruiting an alien field agent last week.

For that matter, they were able to get a fighting arena with Kryptonite emitters embedded in the wall built on a week's notice so Alex could teach Kara how to fight? Along with a private room with a Kryptonian A.I.?


Performances

Mehcad Brooks is doing a great job bringing Jimmy Olsen to life. The best moment of the episode comes with his speech about wanting to be his own man and not depending on his relationship with Superman to define his career.

Melissa Benoist continues to impress as Kara. She was born to play this role, managing to portray Kara as confident in the heat of battle but still scared senseless of her boss.

On that note, it's worth noting that Calista Flockhart is very effective at playing Cat Grant as the kind of character you love to hate.


Artistry

The montage in which Kara flies around helping the people of National City under James and Winn's direction, set to Pat Benetar's Hit Me With Your Best Shot is magical. It shows off Kara's powers in a fun way and makes a far better "girl-power" statement than any forced dialogue with Director Henshaw.


Super Trivia

Dodging missiles and moving in such a way as to cause them to take themselves out is a fairly standard trick for both Superman and Supergirl in the comics.

The line "This looks like a job for Supergirl" is a nod to one of the most famous lines from the classic Superman comics. Many heroes have appropriate the phrase since then, but the original wording was "This looks like a job for Superman."

Kara's issues with saving the oil tanker during the dock fire are clever nods to the problems certain superpowers would have in regards to real-world physics. For instance, while Super-Breath is routinely used to put out fires with ease in the comics, any wind of sufficient force to extinguish a fire would run the risk of spreading the flames if not properly focused. And while Supergirl may have the strength to push an oil tanker, the side of the tanker may not be strong enough to withstand her pushing it with all her might.

In the original DC Comics, Maxwell Lord was a shrewd and powerful businessman who was instrumental in the formation of Justice League International. Max later developed the ability to control the minds of other people, following the Invasion! storyline.

Maxwell Lord's characterization has been amazingly inconsistent since his creation. Some writers portrayed him as an amoral con-artist whiles others depicted him as an easily-tempted but ultimately redeemable figure, who was inspired to be a better man by the heroes he managed. That all went out the window during Countdown To Infinite Crisis, where Max was revealed to be a criminal mastermind and secret leader of the organization Checkmate. It was further revealed that Max had used his position with the JLU to render the group ineffectual, so that humanity would have time to develop safeguards to protect itself from the menace of super-powered beings.

The DCTVU version of Maxwell Lord seems to be cut from the same cloth as his earliest incarnation, being a businessman in National City who holds a low opinion of superheroes. He appears on TV speaking as to the negative effects Superman has had on Metropolis while pledging to use his fortune to clean up the oil spill Supergirl accidentally caused.

Cat Grant drops the names of Lois Lane and Clark Kent when speaking disparagingly of "the hags" at The Daily Planet. Clark Kent is, of course, Superman's secret identity and Lois Lane is his chief rival - and later love-interest - at the Metropolis newspaper The Daily Planet.

We get our first look at The Hellgrammite at Plastino Chemicals.  This is named in honor of Al Plastino - the artist who co-created Supergirl, as well as the Superman villain Brainiac and The Legion of Superheroes.

Hellgrammite is discovered in Sector 52 of Plastino Chemicals. This is a nod to the importance of the number 52 in the DC Comics Universe.

In the original DC Comics, Hellgrammite was the name of a super-villain and enemy of Superman. Originally an entomologist named Roderick Rose, The Hellgrammite was created after Rose exposed himself to a mutagen that transformed him into a giant, grasshopper-like insect. The mutation gave The Hellgrammite increased strength, the ability to leap long distances, a super-dense exoskeleton and the ability to secrete natural adhesives that could be used to craft cocoons. He later developed the ability to transform other people into "larvae" under his control and worked as an freelance assassin before joining the super-criminal organization Intergang.

In our world, Hellgrammite is also the technical name for the larvae of The Dobsonfly. It does not seem to have any relation to the super-villain apart from having a fearsome sounding name. They are popular as bait with angler fishermen.

The DCTVU version of Hellgrammite is an alien. Hellgrammite is the name of his species. He is seen climbing on walls like a spider and has the jumping powers of his comic-book counterpart. Unlike the comics version, this Hellgrammite has poisonous stingers, which it shoots out of its hands. It is a shapeshifter, capable of posing as a normal human and has an enhanced sense of smell. It is not immune to its own poison and it dies after Alex Danvers forces it to stab itself in the chest with its own stinger.

In the flashback, Alura In-Ze makes reference to the Kryptonian Military Guild. Before its destruction, The Military Guild was an organization which combine the duties of police officers and military soldiers. They were charged with keeping the peace on Krypton.

The idea of Kryptonians being easily beaten in a physical fight by Earthlings with advanced combat training once deprived of their powers is a fairly common trope in DC Comics. Early on, both Superman and Supergirl depended exclusively on their powers. Superman eventually sought martial arts training from Batman and Supergirl - in the post-Crisis DC Universe, at least - spent some time on Themyscira being trained by The Amazons.

Cat Grant says that she started out as Perry White's assistant before finally getting a chance to write a gossip column for The Daily Planet. In the comics, Perry White is the editor of The Daily Planet. However, in the original comics, Cat was a successful syndicated gossip columnist in her home town of Los Angeles before she was hired at The Daily Planet, though she did wish to be taken seriously as a real reporter and attempted to infiltrate Intergang on her own to prove herself.

General Astra In-Ze is an original creation unique to the DCTVU. Thus far, she seems to be a female version of General Zod, who just happens to be Supergirl's aunt.

In both the comics and the movies, Zod was a military leader on Krypton who lead a military coup against what he saw as a corrupt and ineffectual government. He and his followers were punished with banishment to The Phantom Zone. Eventually they escaped and contested with Superman - usually over Zod's plans to conquer or destroy The Earth. Both Superman II and Man of Steel were based around the conflict between Zod and Superman. In most of the comic books - and both films - Zod bore a grudge against Superman's father, Jor-El.

This episode establishes a similar conflict between Supergirl and General Astra, with Astra holding a grudge against her sister Alura. While the exact nature of Astra's crimes are not explained, she claims that her own sister imprisoned her for telling the truth.

The name Astra has multiple meanings. In Greek, it means "star".  In Latin, it means "of the stars". In Norse, it means "divine strength". Tellingly, Kara makes reference to her aunt showing her all the stars and telling her their names when she was a child.

In the 1950s, DC Comics published a sci-fi series called Astra - Girl of The Future. The book centered on a futuristic television reporter named Astra.  It is worth noting that one of Superman's many titles was The Man Of Tomorrow.

Astra's two minions - while not named in the episode - are identified in the cast list for the episode as Commander Gor and Lieutenant Mur.  Gor and Mur are based on two characters from the original Superman comics. They appeared in the Return to Krypton story-line, where they were two of the 600 soldiers trapped in the Kryptonian city of Kandor, which was shrunk, trapped in a bottle and stolen by the evil A.I. Brainiac. Later, when Superman found a way to restore the city, they learned of General Zod's imprisonment in The Phantom Zone, and bargained for his freedom. They later served under General Zod when he attempted to declared war on Earth.

The DCTVU versions of Commander Gor and Lieutenant Mur appear to serve a similar function, save that they are underlings of General Astra rather than General Zod.

The first crime James and Winn send Kara to stop is the armed robbery of a pizza place on 5th and Sigel. This is a reference to Jerry Siegel - the writer who, along with artist Joel Shuster, created Superman.

The next problem James and Winn send Kara to help with is an ambulance stuck in traffic on Donner Avenue. This is a reference to Richard Donner - the film director who, among other great movies, directed Superman: The Movie and most of Superman II.

Saving kittens from trees is another classic superhero trope. Superman does it in Superman The Movie. This may be the first time, however, that the pet a superhero needed to rescue was a snake.

The exact meaning of the stylized S-Shield used as an emblem by Superman and Supergirl has changed over the years. Originally, it was indeed a stylized-S. It was first used as a coat of arms for the House Of El in Superman: The Movie, at the suggestion of actor Marlon Brando.

Both the 1987 comic mini-series Man of Steel by John Byrne and the novelization of the 2006 movie Superman Returns by Marv Wolfman made reference to the S being a stylized snake. The former story said that Jonathan Kent designed the emblem based on a Native American legend regarding the snake being the symbol of the healer. The later story said the shield was a Kryptonian symbol, representing one of the three great houses that helped to stabilize the planet after a violent civil uprising. The snake-coiled-in-a-shield emblem was meant to be a symbolic warning against returning to the ways of violence and treachery.

The 2004 comic book story Birthright established the idea of the S-Shield being the Kryptonian symbol for hope - an idea that was later utilized in the 2013 movie Man of Steel. Writer Geoff Johns confirmed that the S-Shield was both the Kryptonian symbol for hope and the coat of arms for the House of El in his story, Superman: Secret Origins.

The idea put forth in this episode - that the S-shield is also the family motto of The House of El and meaning "stronger together" - is a new conceit.

Director Henshaw makes reference to having had a family once. In the original comics, Hank Henshaw lost most of his family due to the space-shuttle crash that gave him super powers.

Alex makes a reference to Superman having a hidden base - a fortress - in the Arctic. This is a reference to The Fortress of Solitude.  She also makes reference to the base allowing him to commune with his Kryptonian ancestors, though it is not explained how the DEO knows this.

The DEO set up a similar room to what they believe is in The Fortress of Solitude, using an interactive artificial intelligence program culled from living memory, located in the rocket that took Kara to Earth. This artificial intelligence takes the form of Kara's mother, Alura In-Ze. This is just like the interface Jor-El created to run the Fortress of Solitude in Superman: The Movie.  Later Superman movies revealed other Kryptonian elders made manifest through the Fortress' computer.

We see Director Henshaw's eyes flash red at the end of the episode. This may be another reference to his eventual fate as The Cyborg Superman, who also had red glowing eyes in some artistic interpretations.


Technobabble

The DEO determine that the chemical factory The Hellgrammite was robbing manufactured sodium hypochlorite and ammonium nitrate.  Sodium Hypochlorite, when dissolved in water, becomes liquid bleach, though it can also be used to make chlorine gas. Ammonium nitrate is used as both a fertilizer and a mining explosive. They theorize that The Hellgrammite may be building a chemical bar.

Hellgrammites are an insectoid species, but they can camouflage themselves into any shape they want.

Winn notes that a fulled-.loaded ambulance weights 9200 pounds - just over 4.5 tons. This means Kara needs to use a maximum of 44,498 Newtons of force to move it.

The Hellgrammite is a chlorine-based life form, rather than a carbon-based one like all life on Earth.

Alex realizes all of the chemical plants The Hellgrammite robbed were used to store DDT - a chlorine-based pesticide. She theorizes that The Hellgrammite has been eating the DDT as it is one of the few things on the planet it can eat safely.

The DEO sets up a private room that only Kara can open, containing an hologram generated by an interactive artificial intelligence program that was on the rocket that carried Kara to Earth. This hologram looks like Alura In-Ze and can answer any question based on her experience and knowledge.


Dialogue Triumphs

Supergirl: For the last 12 years I hid who I was. I don't have to anymore. And I don't want to waste a minute of it. Besides, this sounds like a job for Supergirl.

James: Kara, look out the window. Tell me what you see.
Kara: Buildings. Billboards. There's that bar where that guy always cards me. He knows how old I am...
James: I see a city full of people who need help. Who need a hero.
Kara: You really think so?
James: If anybody can fill Superman's boots, it's you.

(Supergirl floats down from a tree, holding something as she approaches a young girl.)
Girl: Fluffy!
(Pan to Supergirl, who is holding a large snake.)
Supergirl: Here you go.
(She passes off the snake to the girl. Once distracted with her pet, Supergirl makes a grossed-out face and surreptitiously tries to wipe her hands clean before whispering into her mike)
Supergirl: I thought you said it was a cat?
Winn: Who names their snake "Fluffy"?

Alex: Do you really think it was a good idea to tell your friends who you are?
Kara: Yes. Because they're my friends.

James: You know, it's been like this for a while. Back when I first started, I was this nervous kid with his camera, just trying to get noticed. And then one day, everybody knew my name. And not because of anything *I* did. Not really. Because I was friends with somebody who was making a difference. I dunno - I just thought... I could escape all that if I moved here. Be my own man, you know?
Kara: Back on Krypton, no one was their own man. Growing up, I was taught that to accept help from people is not a shame. It's an honor.
James: Your cousin never talks about Krypton.
Kara: He was a baby when we left. But I remember it. All the time. Did he ever tell you what that "S" means?
James: The House of El.
Kara: Yes, but it also stands for a Kryptonian phrase. Our family motto - "El mayarah". It means "stronger together". You say people will see me the way they see Superman one day. But I don't want to be a hero like him! My cousin - he's so used to going it alone. He doesn't know any other way. But I do. I see it now! You, Winn, my sister, Ms. Grant even. You all showed me that!  James... part of being your own man is knowing when to accept help.
James: You really want to do that interview?
Kara: First I was scared, but I'm not anymore. I want to do it
James: For me?
Kara: For what we're trying to do here together.  For us.

Astra: I let one planet die. I will not do so again.
Supergirl: Funny. I was going to say the same thing.

Kara: I'm not quite sure what to ask...
Alura AI: Whatever it is you wish you could ask Alura, you may ask me.
Kara:(starting to tear up) I'd ask for a hug.
Alura AI: I'm not programmed to do that.
Kara;(sniffling and then steeling herself before speaking again) Then tell me about my Aunt Astra.


Dialogue Disasters

Supergirl: Are these tests mandatory for everyone? Or just because I'm a- ?
Dir. Henshaw: It is not because you're a woman, Miss Danvers. The DEO requires rigorous physical and psychological evaluation for all perspective field operatives.
Supergirl: I was going to say "alien".


Continuity

Supergirl can fly faster than the speed of sound.

Alex Danvers trained for a full year with the DEO before she was allowed into the field.

According to Maxwell Lord, the city maintenance budgets for Metropolis have quadrupled since Superman's arrival. Lord blames this entirely on metahuman fights in the city.

Winn Schott's idol is Maxwell Lord. He owns several of Lord's watches as well as his biography and autobiography.

Kara is aware that Clark Kent is Superman.

Kara's father has many fine qualities but he is a terrible cook.

Alura In-Ze was an adjudicator - a Kryptonian position equivalent to a prosecuting attorney.

The Military Guild is a Kryptonian peace-keeping force, combining the roles of soldiers and police officers. It is they who arrested The Hellgrammite on Krypton.

Kara refers to her defeat of Vartox in 101.

Apparently only the DEO knows about the existence of Kryptonite. At the very least, it is not public knowledge.

Alex Danvers spent twelve hours a day for five months doing nothing but combat training when she joined the DEO.

Kara has no formal combat training.

Both Winn and James are astonished to learn that the other one knows Kara's secret identity as well. Together, they work on helping inform Kara about trouble Supergirl can help with.

The leader of the Kryptonian criminals on Earth is General Astra In-Ze. She is Supergirl's aunt, the twin sister of her mother Alura In-Ze. She is apparently bullying the other escaped prisoners into working for her.

Kara was scared of the Danvers' popcorn maker as a girl.

The Hellgrammite robbed six chemical plants around the USA over the past year.

"El mayarah" is the family motto of The House of El and the symbol relating to that phrase is their coat of arms (i.e. The S-Shield worn by Superman and Supergirl).  Translated from Kryptonian, it means "stronger together".

Director Henshaw had a family at some point.

Astra confirms that she and Alura were twin sisters. She notes that twins were rare on Krypton. She says that her goals are to save humanity - not kill it, but does not elaborate on that plan.

Astra was imprisoned in The Phantom Zone by Alura for "speaking the truth, while she told only lies" and "being a hero and trying to save their world."

Kara says that Astra taught her the names of all the stars as a girl.

Director Henshaw is armed with a kryptonite knife.

Kara asks Alex to teach her how to fight.

Alex reveals the AI room with the hologram of Alura to Kara. It was built at Alex's request as a favor from Director Henshaw.

Henshaw's eyes flash red as he walks away from Alex near the episode's end.

Cat Grant gets her interview with Supergirl, though the episode ends before we hear it.


The Fridge Factor

Kara makes a few rookie mistakes early on but seems to be given a harder time about it because of her gender.


The Bottom Line

A marked improvement on the first episode. It's gratifying to see they won't be dragging out the mystery of who the mysterious general is and that the Astra/Alura/Kara triangle has been established this soon. The best bits of the show continue to be James and Kara playing off one another. The action sequences are largely excellent, though the final fight between Astra and Kara is shot a little too close. Really, the only serious complaint I have is that I wish Winn would get some more development beyond being the quirky geek guy.

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.
>
Plot

The good news is that the Harrison Wells of Earth 2 (a.k.a. Harry) has come to join the battle against Zoom. The bad news is that he's an arrogant dick and everyone is reluctant to work with him. And that's ignoring that he's the spitting image of the man who caused the STAR Labs team so much pain.

But they will have little time for bickering when Zoom's latest minion - a thief called Dr. Light - begins robbing banks to lure The Flash into a fight. And after Barry's first encounter with Dr. Light leaves him blinded, he'll have to do something truly heroic - go on his first date with Patty Spivot while unable to see!


Influences

Doctor Who (The Earth 2 Harrison Wells acts like some of the more arrogant incarnations of The Doctor, even mistakenly calling someone Ricky as The 9th Doctor did when speaking to Micky Smith), The Steve Martin film Roxanne (the scene of Cisco trying to guide a blind Barry through a date through a headset) and The Flash and Vibe comics of Geoff Johns (Cisco's ability to sense things about "breachers" mirrors the comic-version's ability to find and track inter-dimensional disturbances.)


Goofs

How did Harry travel from Earth 2 to Earth 1 when a speedster's power is needed to jump worlds? Or were they wrong about that when they stabilized the breach in STAR Labs basement?

Why do the Earth 2 meta-humans need to kill their Earth 1 counterparts? It made a sort of twisted sense in the case of Atom Smasher, who was already a hardened killer and actively looking to lay low in Central City. But Dr. Light was actively looking to escape from Zoom and get out of town and it wasn't like anyone was in danger of confusing her and the Linda Park of Earth 1.

Jay Garrick seems to change his tune on helping Barry and proving he isn't a coward pretty quickly between Barry going after Dr. Light and Barry's return to STAR Labs.

Kendra says she just moved to Central City, but we saw her in town the day of The Singularity opening some seven months earlier. Was she lying for some reason?


Performances

The date between Patty and Barry is the high-point of the episode and Grant Gustin and Shantel VanSanten make the whole affair fun and uplifting to watch.

Tom Cavanagh is always a joy to watch but his turn as "Harry" is amusing in a totally different way. You can tell he's having fun playing yet another variation on the Harrison Wells character at this point.


Artistry

The special effects for this episode - with Barry catching Joe's bullets before they can hit Wells, dodging light blasts in his first encounter with Dr. Light and the speed mirages during Barry's final fight with Dr. Light - are of particularly high quality, even by the standards of this show.


Flash Facts

Harry Wells, indifferent to the deaths his Earth 1 counterpart caused, refers to Ronnie as Ricky, much to Caitlin's annoyance. This may be a nod to Doctor Who, where some versions of The Doctor were arrogant and didn't bother remember people's names. Indeed, the Ninth Doctor continually addressed Mickey Smith - the boyfriend of his companion Rose Tyler - as Ricky.

There are several characters in the DC Comics universe who go by the name Dr. Light.

The first Doctor Light was a Justice League villain with the unlikely name of Dr. Arthur Light. Dr. Light possessed an advanced power suit that gave him the ability to project and manipulate light energy. There are two conflicting stories as to how he acquired the suit. One says that he stole advanced technology from the planet Thanagar after accidentally opening a portal there. The other had him developing the suit with the aid of his partner, Jacob Finlay. In either case, Dr. Light eventually internalized these powers and no longer required a special suit.

The second Doctor Light was a Japanese scientist by the name of Kimiyo Hoshi. Both a medical doctor and an astronomer, she was empowered with the ability to generate and control light like a living star by The Monitor during the Crisis On Infinite Earths. Arrogant and spiteful, Kimiyo was a reluctant hero, at best and continued to live her life as a scientist, only utilizing her powers when absolutely necessary. Still, she did serve in Justice League Europe for a time and became good friends with the Wally West incarnation of The Flash.

The DCTVU version of Dr. Light appears to be an amalgam of both versions of Dr. Light. Like the first one, she is a thief by trade. Like the second one, her powers are natural rather than technologically based, though she is described as drawing power from starlight rather than generating it naturally. She is also an Asian woman, though the comic-book Dr. Light was Japanese and Linda Park (in the comics at least) was an American of Korean ancestry. (Strangely, the actress who plays Linda Park on the show - Olivia Cheng - is a Canadian of Chinese ancestry!)

The ability to channel energy by absorbing starlight is the main power of the man DC Comics heroes who went by the name Starman.  The first Starman, Ted Knight, was a member of the Justice Society of America along with Jay Garrick.

The DCTVU version has the ability to generate blinding bursts of light as well as focused lasers capable of cutting through a bank vault. She also seems to be able to convert the light into explosions with a concussive element capable of knocking people over.

Dr. Light's costume on the show uses the same black and white color scheme of both Dr. Lights from the comic.

Curiously, no version of Dr. Light until now, has ever worn a mask.

Cisco's powers, as described in this episode, are consistent with those of his New 52 counterpart.  In the comics, Vibe is described as having the power to find and track inter-dimensional breaches. He acquires these abilities after his DNA is rewritten following his being caught in the event horizon of an Apokolyptian Boom Tube.

The trick Harry suggests to Barry - running so fast that he creates a speed mirage of himself - is a trick that The Flash used in the classic comic books to confuse those enemies who had a chance of hitting him. This trick was also used by The Reverse Flash in 109.

The new barista at C.C. Jitters that Cisco asks out is named Kendra Saunders. She has the same name as the modern Hawkgirl in the DC Comics Universe and we will discuss her history in a future entry.

At the episode's end, Cisco adopts the name of his comic book counterpart - Vibe.


Technobabble

A human from Earth 1 is genetically indistinguishable from their Earth 2 counterpart.

Stars have a temperature of 5,300 degrees Kelvin and a blinding luminosity.

Cisco claims he can use STAR Labs satellite to scan for any irregular solar radiation emissions to track Dr. Light.

Barry temporarily acquires solar retiinopathy. His retinas are severely damaged but, owing to his faster-than-normal healing abilities, Harry estimates that he will recover fully within 6.25 hours.

Harry's Metahuman Awareness App watch flashes red when pointed at a metahuman and blue when pointed at a regular human.

Barry creates a speed mirage of himself by running so fast that he creates multiple after images of himself.


Dialogue Triumphs

Cisco: So let me get this straight? You're the doppelganger of the man who murdered his (Barry's) mom, and is responsible for both Ronnie and Eddie's deaths?
Caitlin: Yeah, but he's not even the doppelganger of the Dr. Wells that we knew, because that Dr. Wells' body was taken over by The Reverse Flash, who was really Eoboard Thawne and Eddie's distant relative from the future.
Harry: (pause) Yeah, I didn't follow any of that. I'm my own man. I had nothing to do with the murder of your mother or your friend Ricky.
Caitlin: His name was Ronnie!
Harry: Him either.

Joe: I just want one week where we're not surprised by somebody from our past!

Cisco: (To Harry) You know, our Dr. Wells may have been evil but you're just a dick.

Harry: What did he do to you? I know he caused The Singularity. He killed Barry's mother. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. What did he do to you? You can barely look me in the eye? Why is that? What did he do to you?
Cisco: He shoved his hand through my chest. He stopped my heart.
Harry: (chuckles) Ouch. Okay THAT would do it.

(Iris sees Harry and tenses up)
Iris: You... look just like him!
Harry: I'm guessing my counterpart did something to offend her as well?
Cisco: Her fiance died because of him.
Harry:(pause) Oh.
(Harry turns and leaves the room)
(Cisco is monitoring Barry's date with Patty through the sunglasses Barry is wearing)
Cisco: Dude, she looks amazing! You have to tell her how amazing she looks.
Barry: You look amazing, Patty.
Patty: Uh, thanks. I actually had a really hard time trying to figure out what to where. Like, if I should wear a dress or if this color was a little weird?
Barry: No! You look great!. Um, yeah, no, that - what WOULD you call that color?
Patty: Um - huh.. I don't know?
Cisco: I can't tell! The feed's black and white!
Barry: Yeah, well, whatever it is, that color should thank you for wearing it.
Cisco: (laughs) My man!

Party: I think another thing too. I think you can't see me.
Cisco: Abort!
Barry: What?! What do you mean?
Patty: I think you can't see me. Come on, I would not be a good detective if I couldn't have figured this one out.
(They both laugh)
Barry: Uh - yeah.
Patty: Yeah.
Barry: I'm really sorry and embarrassed that I didn't say anything.
(Barry tucks his glasses into his jacket pocket) 
Cisco: Barry?
Barry: I had my pupils dilated earlier and I really didn't want to cancel.
Cisco: Barry! I lost my eyes!
Barry: No, you have a great smile.
Patty: Really? How do you know I'm smiling?
Barry: Just a hunch.

(As Patty guides a still-blind Barry)
Patty: Funny how we've skipped straight to the hand-holding part.
Barry: Yes.
Patty: We've arrived at my car.
Barry: Ah. (pauses) Well, do you think we've reached the good night kiss stage?
(Patty guides Barry's hands onto either side of her face. He smiles and they kiss. They both break the kiss,  laugh and Barry opens his eyes, which have finally focused again)
Barry: This is burgundy, by the way, And you look great in it.
Patty: Now you can see?
Barry: I can.
Patty: That must have been some kiss.
Barry: I guess so.


Continuity

Harry Wells created a series of Meta-human Awareness Apps. They are capable of instantly detecting the presence of a meta-human and can even sense the approach of a speedster seconds before they arrive.

Eight months earlier on Earth 2, Jay Garrick, as The Flash, publicly accused Harry Wells of creating the metahumans with his experiments and dark-matter radiation being expelled beneath STAR Labs.. Wells denied the charges and Garrick was unable to prove anything.

Harry Wells has a daughter.

The breach in the basement of STAR Labs on Earth 1 connects to the basement of STAR Labs on Earth 2.

Harry Wells now takes responsibility for creating the metahumans of his world.

Once again, it is confirmed that the Big Belly Burger franchise exists on both Earth 1 and Earth 2.

Joe tells Barry about the break-in at Mercury Labs from 204 and how Dr McGee claimed to have seen Harrison Wells.

Barry refers to Eddie's sacrifice erasing Eobard Thawne from existence in 123.

Linda Park is seen for the first time since 203. It turns out her Earth 2 counterpart is Dr. Light.

Eric Larkin, the editor-in-chief of the Central City Picture News, is seen for the first time since 111. He is killed by Dr. Light.

Joe taught Iris how to fire a pistol and gives her one to protect herself.

Patty refers to the shark-monster from 204. She named him King Shark. Cisco approves.

Cisco decides - to avoid confusion - that the should call the Earth 2 Harrison Wells "Harry".

Cisco gets a "vibe" of Dr. Light robbing a bank. This is the first one he's had since 202.

The local newspaper on Earth 2 is called The Central City Citizen. This also the name of the future Earth 1 newspaper Eobard Thawne consulted regarding the stability of the timeline.

Jay Garrick and Harrison Wells know each other. They don't like each other. At all. Wells is determined to beat Zoom as quickly as possible. Garrick wants to train Barry further before attempting a direct confrontation

Jay says that Dr. Light was a thief, not a killer and could be reasoned with. Wells says Zoom has the ability to manipulate people into doing what the wants now and they can't count on that fact.

Eobard Thawne and Harry have very different musical tastes. According to Cisco, Thawne's were better.

Zoom apparently knows that Barry Allen is The Flash and that he dated Linda Park.

Patty once arrested her boyfriend (soon to be ex-boyfriend) while on a date, after he got drunk and insulted the waitress.

Coffee does exist on Earth 2. Indeed, Jay thinks it may be the one constant in the multiverse.

Jay Garrick fought Zoom many times and nearly died in all of those encounters. He admits to being afraid of Zoom and maybe shying away from fights with him. Garrick does not trust Wells at all and notes that Wells was happy to deny responsibility for creating the metahumans on Earth 2 so long as he was making money off the crisis with his Metahuman Awareness Apps.

When Patty was 9, she drowned and was legally dead for two minutes before her dad revived her.

Earth 2 has a Tahiti, but Jay Garrick has never been there. He has, however, been to Atlantis and loved it. Atlantis in Earth 2 is above water and Jay has a close friend from there. He describes it as the kind of place you never want to leave.

Jay and Caitlin are blasted by Dr. Light before they can have their first kiss.

Barry and Patty have their first kiss.

Barry is much faster than Jay, despite Jay having more practical experience and having mastered a few more tricks with his speed than Barry.

Harry deduces that Cisco has powers and uses his Metahuman Awareness App to prove that Cisco is a metahuman  The watch also detects Barry as a metahuman and says Caitlin is not a metahuman. He reveals this fact to the rest of the STAR Labs team.

Cisco is able to use the mask to get a "vibe" on where Dr. Light is.

The trick Harry suggests to Barry - running so fast that he creates a speed mirage of himself - is a trick that The Flash used in the classic comic books to confuse those enemies who had a chance of hitting him. This trick was also used by The Reverse Flash in 109.

At episode's end, Dr. Light is locked up in the pipeline and the STAR Labs team - minus Jay Garrick - decides to go with Harry's plan to use Dr. Light as bait to lure Zoom into a trap.

We first saw Kendra Saunders in 123 among the people watching The Singularity open. She says that Central City is bigger than she's used to and very different from where she used to live. She agrees to a date with Cisco.

Harry is seen stalking Barry, Caitlin and Cisco at CC Jitters.

Zoom has Harry's daughter held hostage.


Location

The opening scene, where Jay Garrick accuses Harry Wells of creating the metahumans, takes place at STAR Labs on Earth 2, eight months earlier.

We see Harry's daughter being held captive by Zoom in a cage somewhere on Earth 2.


Untelevised Adventures

Jay Garrick refers to having fought Dr. Light before, saying that she is a thief rather than a killer and that she can be reasoned with.


The Fridge Factor

Averted hard in the case of Patty, who figures out that Barry is blind on their date. Granted, it wouldn't take a detective to figure that out, but it's a welcome change from the usual comic cliches where the hero's love interest never notices things like the hero wearing sunglasses at night.

Averted again as it is Iris who stops Dr. Light with a well-placed gun-shot.


The Bottom Line

It isn't bad. But there's a lot going on and very little of it (the new Harrison Wells, Cisco's powers being revealed to the team, Dr. Light being an evil version of Barry's ex-girlfriend/Iris' co-worker) is given the weight it deserves. Ironically the best parts of the episode are when things slow down and we get to see Barry and Patty's first date and Jay flirting with Caitlin, talking about how Earth 2 is different from Earth 1.

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.



Plot

While on a search for more signs of The Rising Darkness, John and Zed run into Judith - another member of The Newcastle Crew and John's former lover. The Newcastle Incident gave Judith a precognitive power that lets her sense a new evil - bad people coming back from the dead to kill again. John offers to help Judith with the latest of these "Meat Cutters" and find the source of their power but Judith is less interested in learning why these creatures exist than stopping them - a point of contention that will lead to the discovery of a horrible secret.


Influences

Alan Moore's Swamp Thing (the character of Judith) Hellblazer #11 (references to The Newcastle incident) and Scooby Doo (John's trap for the second Meat Cutter at the bar seems like a Freddy Jones trap if ever there was one.)

The whole episode plays like a dark parody of 1980s slasher films, with all of the various Meat Cutters acting like Jason and Mike Myers.

This may not be intentional, but the whole episode is also reminiscent of the Hunter: The Vigil role-playing game, which allows for the players to contend with monsters similar to The Meat Cutters called Slashers. (Slashers are what writer Daniel Cerone refers to the creatures in the action notes of the script.) The game suggests that one possible origin for Slashers is that they are Hunters who have been driven mad by repeated encounters with supernatural evil and there's some suggestion this is starting to happen to Judith.


Artistry

The script is very well written and it's a shame it was never filmed.


Pub Trivia

This episode was never filmed.

As a way to build publicity for Matt Ryan's appearance as John Constantine in the Haunted episode of Arrow's fourth season, writer Daniel Cerone offered to release this script if a certain Twitter post got over 2,000 re-tweets. It got over 3,000 and the full script can be read here.

Judith was another member of The Newcastle Crew in the comics. She was a tantric magician and John's lover. They met at the North Beach Ashram where they both studied Tantric Yoga. Like John, Judith was addicted to the thrill of using magic. It was Judith who assisted John in trying to summon a bigger demon than the demon that was plaguing Astra, the little girl they were trying to save.

After The Newcastle Incident, Judith was scared straight for a time and became a member of London's punk community. John recruited her to help him with his plans to stop The Brujeria from bringing about the end of the world in Saga of The Swamp Thing. Sadly, Judith turned traitor and joined with The Brujeria after being cornered. She died after outliving her usefulness to the cult.

The physical description for Judith mirrors her appearance from the comics when she was part of The Newcastle Crew, though slightly older. "Early 30s -- punk rock, bottle blonde, goth lipstick -- dressed in form-fitting leather pants".

Rather than being a tantric magician, the TV show version of Judith had precognitive dreams. She apparently dabbled in necromancy as well.

John sings one of his original songs to Judith after they shag. The lyrics he quotes are from Venus of The Hardsell - an actual song written by Hellblazer author Jamie Delano as the one single of John's old band Mucous Membrane. You can listen to one fan's cover of it here.


Arcana

John uses a mouthful of alcohol from his flask and his lighter to create a fireball to fight the first Slasher.  While this may be a simple fire-breathing trick, it seems to have a magical effect.

Judith had precognitive dreams, seeing the future while she was asleep.  Her power changed after The Newcastle Incident, causing her to have visions of people dying from the perspective of The Meat Cutters.

The Meat Cutters, as Judith calls them, are animated corpses that refuse to die unless beheaded.

Meat Cutters seem to be formed from the bodies of bad people who died violently and, when possible, will target the people they view as being responsible for their death. The first Meat Cutter we encounter was a man named Brad Howard who committed suicide after losing his job and went after his former co-workers. The second one, formed from the body of local bully Reggie, targets the four friends who accidentally killed him and dumped his body down a well.

Judith collects the weapons she takes from The Meat Cutters that she kills, though they don't seem to have any magical properties on their own.

John and Judith both know how to hypnotize people. Judith uses it to calm the surviving victims of The Slashers and help them overcome the trauma. John uses is to put Judith to sleep - first to help her fight her insomnia and then to induce a precognitive dream.

Zed uses the nails from the coffin of St. Padua to find John.

John does a series of tests on the captured Meat Cutter to determine what makes it tick. The final test rules out phase-shifting entities, which - by process of elimination - means that it was spell work. Necromancy, to be specific.

To deal with the guilt of Newcastle, Judith found a spell of atonement that could be used to remove sin from a person's soul. John is familiar with the spell and notes that it requires the sacrifice of a damned human soul. Judith worked the spell outside of a prison on the night of a death-row execution but, due to the influence of The Rising Darkness, the ritual got twisted and that killer's soul is now animating the other bodies of recently deceased evil people. Judith's precognitive gifts have been likewise corrupted due to her connection to the killer's soul thanks to her spell.


Dialogue Triumphs

(John attempts to explain a trust fall to Zed)
John: Close your eyes.
(Zed does so) 
John: Now... fall into my arms.
Zed: Nice try.
John: And that’s why you’ve lasted this long. You’ve got the good sense not to trust me.

(As John is about to get killed by the resurrected Slasher, Judith stomps in.)
Judith: Sorry I'm late.
(The Slasher turns and Judith attacks. She disarms The Slasher before beheading it.)
Judith: Burlap. This season’s trending fashion.
John: Nice blade work.
(Judith turns to recognize John with shock.)
Judith: John Constantine?
John: Judith. Can’t seem to keep away, can we?

(John and Judith cuddle, wrapped in a blanket after a good shagging)
John: (singing) “Love, adventure, death and glory. The short goodbye, the whispered story.” That bit’s brilliant.
Judith: I hate to break this to you, but you were better when you stuck to covers. Your original music...
John: Sadly, there might be a sliver of truth to that. You see this scar? You know how I got it?
(John moves his hair aside and points to his scalp.)
Judith: Wrestling a 500-pound golem?
John: No. From a bottle tossed on stage by a drunken frat boy who didn’t appreciate the poetry behind my lyrics.
Judith: Punk is best left for the wasted and the wounded. Frat boys... you gotta stick with your own, John.
John: That has become abundantly clear.

John: Jude, Jude... you might be hunting random, reanimated killers, like you think. Or you might be playing whack-a-mole with one demon, or one entity, moving from body to body. I got tests in my kit to find out.
Judith: Damn you, John! This is why I didn’t want you coming with. I knew you'd find a way to make it all about you.
John: About me? I'm trying to stop people from dying!
Judith: (realizing) This was your plan from the start, wasn’t it? “I’m not sure I want to see you go right now.” You used me. Same way you use everyone.
John: That’s not true.
Judith: Then why didn’t you tell me this was your plan before we left?
(John is cornered, but he plays it honest.)
John: Would you have taken me with you if I had?

(As Judith is about to strike John down with her katana, Zed enters the bar and throws a knife into Judith's calf. The pain makes her drop her katana and Zed moves forward.)
Zed: I told you, I'm used to my knives.

Judith: You should’ve let him have me
John: Why? The lives he took are on his soul, not yours.
Judith: Another con. It’s just what I’d expect from you, John
(Judith turns and starts walking.)
John: C’mon, Jude. Let’s hash this out over a pint. We’ve free run of a tavern and hours till dawn!
(She stops and looks back.)
Judith: You know, John, at least I tried to make myself better. But you’re still lying to your friends and sacrificing them for the cause. What are you going to do when you’ve killed off everyone you ever cared about?
(Judith turns and keeps walking. John, not having the heart to argue, watches her go.)


Continuity

John refers to Manny destroying his scrying map in C112.

Zed makes reference to Chas being a great chef.

John refers to the events of C104, C108, C109 and C111 in telling Judith what happened to Gary, Ritchie and Ann Marie from The Newcastle Crew.

Zed uses the nails from the coffin of St. Padua from C103 to find John. (Curiously, the script says they were from episode C104 - though this may be because the original second episode was aired as C106.)

Judith and Zed are both skilled knife throwers but Zed is used to throwing with her own knives.


Location 

The script describes the setting as "a nondescript town whose name bears no relevance to this tale." Later clues reveal it to be in Kentucky.


Untelevised Adventures

Technically, this whole episode was an untelevised adventure.

Judith and John both make reference to The Newcastle Incident.


The Fridge Factor

Averted hard. While Judith did screw up in her ritual to atone for her sins, she is good in a fight and proves more than a match for John in the heroics department. She saves John from the first slasher and Zed saves John from Judith in the end.


John Screws Up

John's meddling in Judith's life - while helping stop the continual cycle that was getting people killed - pretty much destroys any chance of romance or friendship he has with Judith.


The Bottom Line

A bit hard to judge since we only have the script to go by. But based on the script alone, this would have been a great episode. With the proper casting Judith could have been a great foil for John had the show continued and the future scripts stuck with the eventual fate of The Newcastle Crew based on what happened in Saga of the Swamp Thing.  There are hints here of Judith starting to go mad from her repeated encounters with The Slashers and it's easy to see her being corrupted by The Brujeria as she was in the comics. Alas, barring a miracle, we'll never know...

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.




Plot

When Sara goes on a rampage and Laurel finally reveals what she has done to the rest of Team Arrow, Oliver will call in some special help. But John Constantine's help usually comes with a price and the blue collar magus has a way of making things go from bad to worse. At the same time, Lance is asked to place a bug in a local computer network for Damien Darhk and that act will have unforeseen consequences for John Diggle's mission to avenge his brother...


Influences

Green Arrow: Year One (the scenes on Lian Yu), Green Arrow: Quiver (the concept of a hero coming back from the dead without a soul), The New 52 Constantine series (John traveling the world retrieving magical artifacts so bad people don't get them) and the late, lamented Constantine TV series (Matt Ryan's characterization of John Constantine and a few other Easter Eggs).


Goofs

Laurel's being angry at Ollie for never telling her about Thea and the Lazarus Pit is illogical in the extreme. That being said, one wonders why the subject never came up when Thea, Digg and Felicity came back from Nanda Parbat without Oliver back when he was training to take over the League of Assassins near the end of Season 3. You'd think one of them might have mentioned the magic hot tub to Laurel then and precisely why Oliver didn't come back.

On that note, while I can understand that the writers' need to make sure death still means something on this show and explain that they can't just dunk anyone who dies in the future in the magic hot tub, one wonders why - in universe - they named The Lazarus Pit after a Biblical figure who came back from the dead if it isn't meant to raise the dead.

Laurel seems to shift gears on wanting to kill Sara as opposed to saving her awfully quickly.

Ignoring that, how did she gear up in the Arrow Cave with a loaded gun without anyone saying something earlier?


Performances

Matt Ryan is a delight as John Constantine and has great chemistry with Stephen Amell. Hopefully The Powers That Be will find a way to bring him back for future episodes.  Maybe just in time for the final showdown with Darhk? Please?

While Willa Holland doesn't usually get a lot of great moments, she does shine in this episode. Her fight scene with Caity Lotz and sparring with Stephen Amell show how far she's come as an actress from just being the kid sister to being able to handle some intense stunt work. And the moment where Thea's ready to sacrifice herself to bring Sara the peace she can't ever have is understated yet powerful.

It never occurred to me until this episode that we never really got to see John Diggle and Quentin Lance interact that much one-on-one. David Ramsey and John Blackthorne do a great job playing off one another and one wonders why nobody thought to put their characters - peacekeepers and fathers who have gone far afield from what their oaths and uniforms require - together in a scene.

Again, Caity Lotz does more with a few smoldering gazes and garbled Arabic than most actresses can with a monologue meant to convey more emotions than blinding rage.


Artistry

The fight scene between Thea and Sara is very well handled.

The special effects for John's magic, while limited, are effective. Much like John's magic in the comics, fittingly enough.


Trivia

Alex Davis refers to the Sara Lance's death and the sinking of The Queen's Gambit as Oliver's personal Chappaquiddick. Though he is not named directly in the episode, the Chappaquiddick Incident effectively killed the Presidential ambitions of Senator Ted Kennedy.

Thea thinks Chappaquiddick is "that game from Harry Potter". She is thinking of Quidditch - a rugby-like game that is played on flying brooms.

John Constantine is an anti-hero magician from DC Comics and Vertigo Comics. Created by Alan Moore as a supporting character during his run on Saga of the Swamp Thing, John proved popular enough to inspire his own solo series - Hellblazer - which started out as a DC Comics book but became one of the flagship titles for the adult-oriented Vertigo imprint.  Hellblazer remains Vertigo's longest-running series, having lasted 300 issues. John current stars in the DC Comics series Constantine The Hellblazer.

John also starred in his own sadly short-lived TV series called Constantine. The show had a rabidly loyal fan base who trended the #SaveConstantine hashtag at numerous points when the show's fate was still up in the air. This fan base included actors William Shatner and Stephen Amell.

Matt Ryan, who plays John Constantine in this episode, also played John Constantine on Constantine. His casting in this episode - and indeed John Constantine's involvement in the story - may have come about because Stephen Amell lobbied to have the blue-collar magus make an appearance on Arrow with Matt Ryan in the role when Constantine's fate was still in doubt.

Green Arrow and John Constantine have only met once before in the comics. In Green Arrow #25, Oliver is hired to track down a young noblewoman - a practicing Wiccan who has retreated into the local woods after death threats from locals who blame her witchcraft for their troubles. Oliver agrees to take the job for one reason - the local woods in question are Sherwood Forest!  Before entering the woods, Ollie asks for directions at a local pub and a certain trenchcoat wearing man warns Ollie about there being dark powers in the forest.

The theme from Constantine is played when we first see John Constantine in the flashback scene.

John's motivations in the flashback are much the same as in the New 52 Constantine comic. There, John traveled the world, looking for powerful magical artifacts and taking them before they wind up in the wrong hands.

When Felicity is surprised that Curtis works out, he reveals that he was an Olympic decathlete and won the Bronze Medal at the 2008 Olympics. The comics version of Mister Terrific was also an Olympic decathlete, though he won The Gold Medal.

John makes a reference to Alice In Wonderland, when he addresses Ollie as Alice and tells him to go down the rabbit hole (i.e. the trap door he just uncovered).

When we first see John in the modern day, he is stomping out a cigarette. This is a clever nod to John's chain-smoking in the comics, which could not be portrayed on American television due to the rules against depicting casual tobacco use. They used this trick on the Constantine show to suggest John's nasty habit even if they couldn't show him actually smoking.

We get a quick close-up on John Constantine's business card. It's the same one from the Constantine show. If you call the number on it - (404) 248 7182 - you'll get John's rather rude answering machine message.

John makes reference to Oliver being surrounded by a lot of beautiful women and says he would have paid a visit had he known. In the comics, John is a notorious flirt. He's also bisexual, so it's curious he doesn't include John Diggle among the pretty people.

Constantine has Felicity bring him a dead peacock's feather to use as a back-scratcher. The symbol of the NBC network - which canceled Constantine - is a peacock.

The artifact that John retrieves from Lian Yu is known as The Orb of Horus. While there is no such artifact in the DC Comics Universe, Hawkman has made use of a magical gauntlet called The Claw of Horus, which gives him strength enough to knock out Superman with one punch. There is also an artifact called The Orb of Ra, which transformed Rex Mason into the superhero Metamorpho.


Technobabble

The device Dhark gives Quentin is a RAT - A Remote Access Trojan. A computer virus with polymorphic code designed to target and erase certain pieces of data, wrapped in three layers of encryption.

Oliver uses a tranquilizer arrow to knock out Sara.

An exorcism is a ritual to remove demonic possession.

A restitutionem is a ritual to restore a soul to a living body.

A grimoire is a word meaning spellbook.


Dialogue Triumphs

Conklin: Look, we've been on this island eight months without a single problem. He shows up; suddenly two guys find landmines and a whole bunch of drugs go missing.
Oliver: (sarcastic) Yeah, Conklin? You got me! I didn't wash up on shore here after a boating accident. I parachuted in on a secret spy mission!
Conklin: You wanna die a liar, that's fine by me.
Oliver: (scoffing) Man, that's enough.
Reiter: Enough! There are more pressing matters at hand. Perhaps if you were more focused on external matters than... witch hunts, you would have caught this man spying on us in the fields.
Constantine: Oh, I wasn't spying, mate...
(Reiter strikes the kneeling "spy", who rolls over to reveal... John bloody Constantine, as the theme from the Constantine TV show plays)
Constantine: Any of you squabblers got a cigarette?

Quentin: What do you want?!
Damien: A new beginning for the world. A nice glass of Merlot. Not necessarily in that order.

Felicity:(over the PA system, in a sinister voice) This is your overlord, Felicity Smoak.
Thea: We have a PA system?
Oliver: Yet another decision I might live to regret.

Oliver: Your sister's alive. She's out there. And she's hurting people. How is she alive? (pause) The Lazarus Pit? Did you two spend your spa weekend at Nanda Parbat?
Thea: (weakly with a forced smile) It was the only place we could get a reservation?
Oliver: The blood lust is worse with Sara, isn't it? Because you brought her back from death.
Laurel: Yeah, and that's not the only problem. Sara's not herself. She's changed.
Oliver: Why didn't you come to me with this?
Laurel: (sarcastic) Come to you for what? Your expertise on magical resurrection? Or that judgmental look on your face?
Oliver: (exasperated) For help finding her, Laurel! Before she gets hurt? Or she hurts anyone else? And if I have a judgmental look on her face right now, it's because you played with forces that you don't understand and now people are dying because of it!

Quentin: We need to talk.
Oliver: About Sara?
Quentin: Laurel told you?
Oliver: Not exactly.
Quentin: You've got to admire her consistency. Keeps her death secret from me. Keeps her resurrection secret from you.

Constantine: There are things on this island that bad people shouldn't have access to.
Oliver: Says the guy with a gun pointed at my head!
Constantine: (chuckles) Oh, I'm not a bad guy. A little hard scrabble, sure., but uh, I'm on the side of the angels, mate. At least when they're not busy trying to screw me over.

Oliver: I don't understand. How did you-?
Constantine: Well, that's the great thing about magic. It can't be explained. There are places in this world as old as the world. Places of nexus. Draw bad people to them. This island is such a place. It's no accident that you're here.

(Having just saved Constantine from a booby trap)
Oliver: I'm not a bad guy either.

Constantine:(answering the phone) Oliver.
Oliver: John.
Constantine: It's been a dog's age, mate.
Oliver: More than. You remember that favor you owe me?
Constantine: I hardly expect you to let me forget about that.
Oliver: How quickly can you get to Star City? I need your help.

Constantine: You know, if I knew you were surrounded by so many pretty girls, Oliver, I would have stopped by sooner.

Diggle: I hate to be the one to say this, but what if something goes wrong?
Constantine: Oh, don't worry. If things go wrong then we'll all be too dead to care.

(Felicity enters holding a metal bowl and holding a peacock feather.)
Felicity: I think I got everything in here that you wanted, although I am not entirely sure what you need a dead peacock feather for.
Constantine: Ah.
(Constantine takes the feather, tucks it down the back of his shirt... and begins scratching his back with the sharp end. Oliver rolls his eyes as Felicity looks incredulous.)
Constantine: Ahhhhh!  Oh, nice one!  That's been bugging me for hours.

Oliver: Thea, I don't have the right to feel mad at anyone for keeping secrets. But I'm sorry I made you feel as though you had to.

Lance: I asked Darhk about your brother. He, uh, gave me something
(Lance holds up a folder)
Lance: You don't have to read this. You can remember your brother how you knew him.
(Diggle takes the folder and begins to read it wordlessly)
Diggle: Are you sure about this?
Lance: Yeah. It's legit. I'm very sorry.
Diggle: Thank you, Detective.
Lance: A gut punch doesn't deserve a thank you.
Diggle: I wanted to know why HIVE had my brother killed. And now I do, so...

Ray: I'm alive and I'm in trouble.


Dialogue Disasters

Laurel: Hey! I didn't tell you that I took my sister to Nanda Parbat because I knew that you wouldn't approve. Why didn't you tell me that you took Thea?
Oliver: What does that have to do with -
Laurel: It's the hypocrisy I can't stand. What? It's okay for you to do whatever you have to for your sister but it's not okay for me to do the same for mine?
Oliver: Sara was dead. Thea wasn't.
Laurel: Then why didn't you tell me about Thea seven months ago?
Oliver:(scoffs)Laurel: Because you don't see me as an equal.
Oliver: What?! Oh, come on... Laurel, of course I see you as an equal.
Laurel: No you don't!  You never have! You never told me that you were the Arrow!  You never supported me becoming the Black Canary and you never would have told me that there is a way to save my sister. My sister is half out of her mind right now. Because of something that I did. A decision that I made.. Did you ever just stop and think for one second about what I might be going through?


Continuity

Alex Davis is hired by Thea as a political strategist for Oliver's campaign. His first bit of advice is for Oliver to distance himself from Laurel because of the potential negatives associated with Sara's death while at sea with Oliver.

Alex makes reference to Bethany Snow - the news anchor on Channel 52 - who is set to do Oliver's first major interview.

Sara is revealed to have only been killing muggers and street thugs and attacking women who resemble Thea Queen in the Pennytown district of Star City. As of the first attack we see at the start of the episode, she's killed five men.

Laurel refers to Quentin nearly killing Sara in the last episode.

Thea refers to when Laurel took her in to do her community service with CNRI in 112.

Both John Constantine and Ollie know how to slip out of a pair of handcuffs.

Laurel is still attending AA meetings.

Thea finally tells Oliver and Laurel what Malcolm told her in 403 about how her blood lust requires regular deaths to keep under control and how she would have to kill Ra's in order to find peace. This also means that Sara, to find peace, must kill Thea.

Oliver's first encounter with magic is John Constantine working a spell to reveal a hidden trap door.

Oliver confirms once again that while The Lazarus Pit can restore a body, it cannot restore a soul.

Sara seems to have some ability to psychically track Thea, due to their connection as Lazarus Pit users.

Oliver saved John Constantine from a death trap in the underground caves of Lian Yu. This is why Constantine owes Oliver a favor and why he agrees to help perform a ritual to save Sara's soul.

Andrew Diggle was some manner of crime lord in Afghanistan. His activities brought him into conflict with HIVE, which is why they hired Deadshot to kill him.

John's list of things he needs for the restitutionem is written in Aramaic. Felicity is still able to translate it.

The dreamscape in which Sara's soul is being held looks like Nanda Parbat, with Sara being held down inside The Lazarus Pit and Oliver, Laurel and Constantine having to fight League of Assassins members to free her. In this dreamscape, Laurel and Oliver are in their superhero costumes without masks while John is in his usual trenchcoat, white dress-shirt with red tie and black trousers.

John works a "guide spell" that allows him to find the way to where Sara is being held in the dreamscape.

John knows how to fight with a sword, but not very well.

John casts a spell that paralyzes the assassin he sword-fights.

Sara's is clad in what appears to be a white version of her Canary costume in the dreamscape.

Oliver says he'll be there whenever Constantine needs his help, though John considers their debts squared. John says he can live with that.

Constantine has heard of Damien Darhk and advises Oliver to get out of town while he still can.

Thea admits to finding Constantine attractive. though she may be joking to annoy Oliver.

The artifact that John retrieves from Lian Yu is known as the Orb of Horus. It is a grimoire - a spell book.

John offers to help Ollie off the island but Ollie refuses, saying he needs to rescue the people Reiter is holding as slaves.

In the flashback, Constantine transfers some kind of magical tattoo from his right arm to Oliver's chest. He claims this will give Oliver insurance against Baron Reiter and that Oliver will know how to use it when the time is right.

Oliver goes against Alex Davis's advice, and has Laurel there as he gets ready to do his first interview. We do not get to hear all of the interview, but Ollie is overheard on the radio speaking about how he will not run from his past.

Quentin gives Diggle a folder full of classified information on his brother's crimes.

Ray Palmer is revealed to be alive and in trouble after Curtis Holt cleans up his last transmission.


Untelevised Adventures

As Quentin and Diggle break into the federal data bank, Lance asks if Diggle learned how to break in and enter before or after he teamed up with Oliver. Diggle says they'll save that for another story.

Constantine says that he has performed a restitutionem once before, a year earlier. This does not seem to be a reference to the Constantine show since - while John did many things to save a number of lost souls - none of them involved a ritual to restore a lost soul to a living body.


The Fridge Factor

With this episode, Laurel is pretty much confirmed to be the worst person in the world. She admits that the only reason she didn't go to Ollie for help is because she knew he'd object to what she was doing. She further accuses him of being hypocritical because he used The Pit to save Thea but it's somehow wrong for her to do the same for Sara. She's also mad that Oliver never told her about Thea being restored by The Pit.

Ignoring that The Pit isn't meant to be used on the dead (something Ollie points out in his comeback to Laurel), Oliver was on something of a deadline when Thea was nearly killed and didn't have a chance to tell Laurel everything since he had to stay in Nanda Parbat afterward.

What this episode neatly ignores is that while Laurel accuses Ollie of not seeing her as an equal, Laurel is confirmed to think so little of Oliver and his capacity to feel empathy for others that she thinks he'd sit on a fool-proof method of bringing back the dead! Oliver has lost far more loved ones in the past few years than she has. Does she really think Oliver wouldn't have used this magic to bring back his parents back if he could? Or his best friend, Tommy Merlyn? And there's the ultimate punchline - Oliver spends more time mourning the loss of Tommy in this episode than Laurel does and Laurel was Tommy's girlfriend!

So in summary  - Laurel Lance is an awful person.


The Bottom Line

Ultimately, the flaws with this episode involve what was left out rather than what was left in. Every moment Matt Ryan is on screen as Constantine is magical - pun very much intended. But the subplots with Ray Palmer being discovered alive, Thea's continuing issues and Diggle discovering the truth about his brother are given less screen time in favor of trying to resolve all of Oliver and Laurel's baggage.

Granting there's a lot of material there that has been neglected by the writers for a long time, none of Laurel's complaints about Oliver read true and Katie Cassidy's performance fails to sell any of it. Had more time been given to Diggle and Captain Lance playing off one another, Thea coping with her blood lust and her role in Sara's death, Felicity bantering with Curtis or heck - Sara being give a chance to speak after being restored, body and soul in place of Laurel whining about Ollie not respecting her, this could have been a much stronger episode.

Trapped in a world he never made (whatever THAT means?!), Howard The Duck has finally had it. Sure, he's found some limited success as a private investigator. And he has a good pair of friends in elderly widow May Parker and shape-shifter Tara Tam. But he still wants to go back to the universe from which he originally came.

As luck would have it, his recent encounters with The Abundant Glove - an artifact of moderate but ultimately limited cosmic power - may be the key to getting Howard back home. But the way will not be easy, even ignoring Howard's innate ability to find trouble and costumed weirdos no matter how much he tries to live a normal life. Well, as normal as your life can be when you're an anthropomorphic duck trapped on a world full of hairless apes.


If you were enjoying the previous Howard The Duck series (you know - the one that ran for five issues before Marvel renumbered everything? AGAIN?!), you'll enjoy this one as well. Chip Zdarsky is still delivering the funny. And Joe Quinones and Joe Rivera are still making everything look good.


The only real change is that the back-up comics seem to be serialized now as well. In this story by Chris Hastings, Howard is hired by Black Cat to track down a pink-clad mercenary who is unbeknownst to her but knownst to us as Gwenpool!  Yes, there's some universe where Gwen Stacy became Deadpool. And now she's here - cutely and insanely illustrated by Danilo Beyruth and Tamra Bonvillain.

So... yeah. If you're the sort of person who enjoys utter lunacy and the sheer randomness of The Marvel Universe laid bare to be laughed at, then you'll love Howard The Duck. Assuming you weren't already loving it.  Damn renumberings....

The rock band Motherfather is loosing groupies and technicians at an alarming rate. But this is of little concern to the band, as they're faced with a group of French assassins who have come seeking the money one of the band-mates owes their drug-lord employers. Meanwhile, a camera crew filming a documentary about the band stumble across something strange in the band manager's room which may answer the mystery of the people going missing around Motherfather...


The artwork by Tony Parker and Lovern Kindzierski on this issue is brilliant. Parker has shown amazing versatility in previous issues and this one is no exception! Parker illustrates the bits of the story filmed by the camera crew in his usual manner while adapting a style that is equal parts Yellow Submarine animation and The Adventures of Tintin for the bits that happened off-camera.


This artwork brings Paul Cornell's script to life wonderfully. Fans of Cornell's previous work on Action Comics and Doctor Who will not be disappointed by his work here. Indeed, this may be the single funniest thing he's ever written. 

When you travel around as much as The Doctor does, it's easy to lose track of little things like checking up on your house. So when he stops in on Earth to search a little place he kept back when he was younger but looked older, he is surprised (but not displeased) to find a young artist named Josie Day squatting in his house. This - and the book he came to find - are quickly put aside, however, as The Doctor discovers two things - Josie has visions of the many monsters he has fought in the past and the paintings she's made of said monsters are coming to life!


This is the first comic since Titan Comics took over the Doctor Who license to center upon a Classic Series Doctor. The Eighth Doctor is - paradoxically - both the longest-serving incarnation of the character and yet one of the least solidly defined. He had only one television appearance and numerous books, comics and radio plays, whose place in canon is debatable.

Thankfully, George Mann ignores all that baggage, saying only that The Doctor is recently returned to Earth after a long period of traveling alone and focusing on the one aspect of the Eighth Doctor that is solidly confirmed - his personality being that of a Romantic. Mann has experience writing The Doctor across multiple media and that experience is in evidence throughout this issue. Josie Day is established as a spirited and likable young woman and her going for a ride on the TARDIS at the issue's end is all but assured even before she saves the day.

The artwork by Emma Vieceli and Hi-Fi is a perfect match for the bright and cheerful spirit of The Eighth Doctor. The colors by Hi-Fi are vibrant and Vieceli's style shows influences of both traditional Western comics and Shojo manga. The only real fault with the artwork is that the word balloons are oddly placed at times and it becomes tricky, at these points, to know who is speaking first. Despite that hiccup, this is a great comic and a must read for all Doctor Who fans.

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.


Plot

Cat Grant's exclusive interview with Supergirl turned into a critical expose of the "real" Girl of Steel. But Kara and her friends have bigger worries than Cat's vendetta. Because Kara accidentally let it slip that Superman is her cousin and now Reactron - an enemy from Superman's past who blames Superman for the loss of his wife - is determined to kill Supergirl in retribution.


Influences

The Sterling Gates run of Supergirl, which featured an antagonistic relationship between Supergirl and Cat Grant, and the New Krypton storyline, which reestablished Reactron as a Supergirl enemy.


Goofs

It seems really unlikely that James Olsen would be so clumsy as to spill Superman's first name being Clark in front of someone besides Kara.

How did Kara not hear James using his Superman signal watch? Traditionally, the watch broadcasts a high frequency signal only Superman can hear, so theoretically Supergirl should hear it too. Does the watch work differently in the DCTVU reality? Or does it broadcast on a specific frequency that Clark listens to on a regular basis that Kara doesn't?


Performances

Peter Facinelli all but steals the show as Maxwell Lord. He manages the difficult feat of playing Lord as a conniving sleaze but a likable one in spite of that and we're left wondering if he's a ruthless man with good intentions or a villain whose philanthropy masks darker intentions.

Cherly Leigh truly shines for the first time as Alex Danvers. The first two episodes haven't given her much to do besides nag Kara about staying hidden and nagging Director Henshaw about needing to trust her sister. Here, we get some real sense of her as a character beyond that, though her dialogue is not much different than what's come before. For some reason, her sticking up to director Henshaw here resonates in a more powerful way than before.

As before, the best moments of the episode involve Melissa Benoist and Mechad Brooks playing off one another as Kara and James.


Artistry

The special effects throughout the episode are of cinematic quality.


Super Trivia

Reactron was a frequent enemy of both Supergirl and The Doom Patrol in the original DC Comics. Originally an American Army Sergeant of loose morality, Benjamin Krullen gained super powers after his attempt to kill a peaceful village of Vietnamese citizens during the Vietnam War. His shocking actions triggered the super powers of an idealistic medic named Joshua Clay, who later became the hero known as Tempest. Krullen survived Clay's attack, his own latent ability to emit radiation.

Reactron's origins were changed following Crisis on Infinite Earths. In the new reality, Sgt. Krull was injured during an accident at a top secret government instillation and the scientist in charge of the project he was guarding placed him in a special suit to save his life. Reactron was later recruited by General Sam Lane during the war with New Krypton and outfitted with an artificial heart made of Gold Kryptonite. Reactron later died, triggering a chain reaction that destroyed the planet of New Krypton, but not before starting a rivalry with Supergirl.

The DCTVU version of Reactron has a slightly different origin and powers. This Reactron was a nuclear power plant worker, who appeared shortly after Superman prevented a nuclear disaster.  Two people were reportedly killed in the disaster - a married couple named Ben and Alyssa Krull, who were trapped in the power plant when Superman sealed it from the outside. It turned out that Ben survived the disaster and, blaming Superman for the death of his wife, built a power suit to seek revenge. The power suit increased Ben's strength to Kryptonian levels and gave him the power of flight as well as the ability to emit focused blasts of nuclear radiation.

Director Henshaw notes that the DEO's mission is to go after dangerous aliens on Earth - not humans with high-tech weaponry. The comic version of the DEO involves itself in the study of all metahumans - not just aliens.

The DCTVU version of Maxwell Lord is further developed in this episode. Unlike his comic book counterpart, who was a brilliant but manipulative mogul ala Donald Trump, this Maxwell Lord appears to be more of a technical genius akin to Lex Luthor, Ted Kord or the DCTVU version of Ray Palmer.

However, like his comic book counterpart, the DCTVU version of Maxwell Lord appears to be a conflicted and complex character, whose alternates between generous acts of philanthropy and just being a jerk. He'll fire an engineer for second-guessing his desire to have a train go at KPH instead of 450 KPH but give himself up as a hostage to Reactron to save his employees.  He'll offer to do what he can to cure Reactron's radiation poisoning then turn around and credit Superman with saving him rather than Supergirl on the news, only to turn around and thank her for saving him twice in as many days when he meets her in person.

Reference is made to the Bakerline Nuclear Power Station. Bakerline is one of the six boroughs of Metropolis in the comics.

As in the comics, James Olsen has a special watch that broadcasts a signal only Superman can hear, which he uses whenever his life is in danger.

In the comics, Lucy Lane is Lois Lane's sister and a former girlfriend of Jimmy Olsen. She became involved in a government project overseen by her father, General Sam Lane, which attempted to create secret ways for the government to fight Kryptonians. To that end, Lucy was equipped with a special power suit that allowed her to replicate the abilities of a Kryptonian under Earth's yellow sun. This brought her into conflict with Supergirl, during the New Krypton storyline.

Thus far, the DCTVU version of Lucy Lane doesn't appear to be anything more than Jimmy Olsen's ex-girlfriend.


Technobabble

Bulletproof Coffee is a particular brand that is made from unsalted grass-fed butter with an extract of coconut oil that improves brain energy. Cat Grant swears by it for improving her ability to write.

A Code Grey is the DEO code for a potential alien sighting.

Reactron uses advanced bio-medical tech. He shoots highly concentrated bursts of nuclear energy from his gauntlets. His chest-plate increases his strength and allows him to fly.

Winn writes an algorithm that sweeps National City for any variable changes in radiation, hoping this will let them locate Reactron.

Maxwell Lord has designed a magnetically-levitating high-speed train that is currently capable of going 450 KPH. He theorizes, on the fly, that by replacing the tungsten alloy in the vacuum tubes with hafnium will decrease the weight in each car by 30 kilos, boosting the maximum speed to his desired 500 KPH.

Alex isolates the nuclear signature of Reactron's weapons system, after using the DEO satellite to scan the highway following Supergirl's first fight with Reactron. His suit is powered by thorium 232 - a unique nuclear isotope found in only one place - The Bakerline Nuclear Power Station.

Maxwell Lord determines from one glance at Reactron's armor that the moderator's been damaged which is preventing neutron speed reduction. He also determines Reactron is suffering form acute radiation poisoning based on his respiratory distress, skin desquamation and ulcering. To repair Reactron's armor, Lord requires thorium, cesium 137 and tributyl phosphate.

Winn is able to track Reactron by tracking the same black mold that grew in Chernobyl following the nuclear disaster there to a junkyard 60 miles south of National City.

The DEO has fancy dresses made of bulletproof cloth for their agents to use while incognito.

Reactron's chest-piece is powered by a Demon Core - a sub-critical mass of plutonium. Removing this from the suit should shut down his weaponry, but it will also cause the core to begin nuclear meltdown the moment it is released from its containment matrix. In order to safely contain the Demon Core, Kara must immediately encase the core in lead before pulling it free.


Dialogue Triumphs

Supergirl:  When I was a child, my planet, Krypton, was dying. I was sent to Earth to protect my cousin. But my pod got knocked off course and by the time I go there, my cousin had already grown up and become Superman. And so I hid my powers until recently, when an accident forced me to reveal myself to the world. To most people, I'm an assistant at CatCo Worldwide Media. But in secret, I work my adopted sister and the DEO to protect my city from alien life and any one else that means to cause it harm.  I am Supergirl!

Cat: Any plans to start a family?
Supergirl: Nobody ever asks my cousin these questions!
Cat: ... Superman is your cousin?!
Supergirl: ... this interview is over.

James: How's the covert alien hunting business?
Alex: Not as covert as we would prefer.
Kara: I didn't tell him!
James: It's okay. I can be trusted with a big secret.

Supergirl: Who are you?!
Reactron: I'm just a ghost.
Supergirl: What do you want?!
Reactron: I want the Man of Steel to suffer! I want him to know what it's like to feel everything! Starting with you!

Kara: I'm still... trying to figure out what being Supergirl means? Who I am? And now I know. I'm not Superman's cousin! I'm Supergirl! And if I'm going to be defined, it's going to be by my victories and my losses! No one else's.
James: I guess stubbornness runs in the family.

Maxwell Lord: When I was a kid, I had a train with blue streaks. Coolest toy I ever had. I know that a train that magnetically levitates is inherently cool. But still... the color's kinda bumming me out. (smiles) Let's paint blue streaks! And while we're at it, it needs to go 500 kilometers an hour.
Scientist: We've been working three years, you know, to push it to 450. The test is in six days!
Maxwell Lord; And it probably occurred to you over the last 36 months that if you used hafnium instead of a tungsten alloy in the vacuum tubes, you could decrease the weight of each each car by 30 kilos. And get it to... 500. But Carl over there will see the job to the finish. You can go. You're done.
Scientist: Mr. Lord...
Maxwell Lord: I said you're done.

Maxwell Lord: How much radiation were you exposed to?
Reactron: More than enough to kill me.
Maxwell Lord: How about we go back to my lab? Let my team analyze your case. Find a way for you to regain a normal life
Reactron: I had a normal life. It didn't work out. You're gonna repair my suit... or they're gonna start building memorials to you!
Maxwell Lord: Fine. I'll need thorium, cesium 137, tributyl phosphate and a Dr. Pepper. That last one's for me. I'm thirsty.

(As James begs her not to confront Reactron directly)
Kara: Krull is not some crazed alien. He's a human being. Who's been hurt enough. That's something my cousin never knew. And that's why I'm going to go talk to him the way I'd want someone to talk to me.
James: And if he doesn't want to talk?!
Kara: Then I'll punch him really hard until he falls down. That always seems to work.

(As Kara frets about Superman saving her.)
Alex: Your story is just starting. And some day you're going be the one saving him.

(Regarding Cat getting an exclusive interview with Supergirl)
Maxwell Lord: Are you going to tell me how you pulled it off? Or am I going to have to get sneaky?
Cat: You've very sexy, Max. But as I recall you're big on promises but not much else.

(Henshaw has just uncovered Alex using DEO resources to help Kara without permission)
Henshaw: It's been increasingly difficult for you to follow orders since your sister flew onto the scene.
Alex: When you asked me to join the DEO, I didn't hesitate. Because you told me that together, we were going to save the world. Except saving the world means everybody. Aliens. Humans. I can't separate them anymore. Especially when my little sister's life is at stake.
Henshaw: Who else knows about this?
Alex: No one.
Henshaw: Good.
(Henshaw moves to the command console, types in a command to bring up a new screen and sits down)
Henshaw: Wouldn't want them getting any ideas. So... how do we defeat this Reactron?

James: Me pressing that button on my watch had nothing to do with you. It was me. I call him when things get tough. I always have. It's part of the reason I left Metropolis. My safety name became my reflex. I press that button when I get scared. And I was scared that I was going to lose you.
Kara: I really like that you care about me. But you have to care enough to let me fly my own path, separate from his. Trust that I'm going to save the day.

(Through a chat window on Kara's computer)
Clark: Hi.
Kara: Hi. Thanks for saving my life.
Clark: I talked to Jimmy. Won't happen again. :-)
Kara: I don't know how you do this.
Clark: You're doing great Kara. You stopped Reactron. Something I could never do. Guess it was a job for Supergirl.
Kara: Thanks Clark. It means a lot to me.
Clark: What else is family for?


Continuity

This episode continues immediately from the end of 102, with Supergirl confronting Cat Grant.

The world now knows that Superman and Supergirl are cousins.

Jimmy Olsen came up with the name Reactron for Ben Krull when he wrote about the villain's first appearance in The Daily Planet.  Superman fought him several times, but neither one came out on top.

The DEO's duristiction applies only to alien menaces - not humans with advanced technology like Reactron.

Winn creates a secret lair for Supegirl in the CatCo offices, hidden inside a disused office, stuffed with state-of-the-art technology.

Winn figures out that Clark Kent is Superman after James accidentally mentions "Clark" in relation to Superman.

Maxwell Lord has designed a high-speed bullet train, which he plans to donate to National City as part of an effort to make people more likely to use public transportation.

Superman shows up to save Kara from Reactron, having been summoned by Jimmy Olsen's watch.

Maxwell Lord later credits Superman with saving him on the news later.

Reportedly Maxwell Lord survived an avalanche on Mount Everest the same day he released a new tablet on the electronics market.

Maxwell Lord and Cat Grant are suggested to have had a one-night-stand and may have possibly dated.

Director Henshaw's eyes glow red again, as in the end of 102.

Kara uses her cape to deflect Reactron's blasts, showing the strength of Kryptonian fabric.

A side-effect of Kara's powers is that she has a super-metabolism that prevents her from getting fat.


Untelevised Adventures

Five years earlier, Superman prevented a nuclear disaster at the Bakerline Nuclear Power Station. This event led to the creation of Reactron.


The Fridge Factor

Three episodes in and it seems Cat Grant is more of a caricature than a character. While Calista Flockhart does a great job of playing Cat as the kind of person you love to hate, there's little more to the character than snarky one-liners. As a result, her scenes are painful to watch since most of the other cast members have been offered greater depth and Cat just comes off as uninteresting in the face of that.

Supergirl is beaten by Reactron, only to be saved by the sudden arrival of Superman. And while this is used to set up her beating Reactron later, the victory is colored somewhat by the fact that Kara would have been completely helpless had it not been for her allies coming up with the plans to track and stop Reactron independent of her.


The Bottom Line

A decent enough episode, though it's troubling that Maxwell Lord has been better established as a character in one episode than Winn or Cat have been in three.  Winn still has yet to progress past the dogged "nice guy" who clearly crushes on Kara but won't act on his attraction while Cat continues to be a one-note witch. Still, the parts of the the episode that work well work very well. As with Arrow before it, the show is at its best when it tries to be a superhero show rather than a comedy about women in the workplace or a drama about an alien-fighting organization.

War... War never changes. And neither, ultimately, does the Fallout series.

Okay, there ARE a lot of changes and most of them will please console gamers and shoot-em-up fans and aggravate the role-players and series purists. But underneath the surface, this is still a Fallout game with all that entails. And that means the series purists complaining about how much has been dumbed down in the name of making things easier on the console gamers. It's tradition.

The grand irony of Fallout 4 is how much customization has been added to the game on a cosmetic level while simultaneously stripping down the mechanics. For instance, you've never had more options for customizing your appearance and it's possible to make a character that is morbidly obese for the first time. You also get to customize the appearance of your spouse. Yes, you start the game married and with an infant son and you get to decide how the man/woman of your dreams looks.

Well, unless you want to have a same-sex relationship in which case you're out of luck. Ditto if you'd hoped to give your male protagonist fantastic make-up. Though the unmodded game will apparently let you crossdress if you are so inclined to wander the wasteland in a ballgown and heels.


By contrast, the Skills system has been completely scrapped in favor of a new Perks system that unlocks new talents based on your SPECIAL statistics. (That's Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility and Luck, if you didn't know!) This means that everyone working on the Perception Perk chain has to take Pickpocketing at Level 2 to access the higher-level feats... even if you're intent on playing the straight-and-narrow sort of character who would never steal someone's wallet.

Another major selling point of Fallout 4 is the revised crafting system. Not only can you modify and construct new weapons based on what you can scavenge (the system will seem familiar to anyone who played Skyrim), you can even modify buildings and construct your own wasteland bunker. No doubt these options will please some gamers but if I wanted to build a house, I'd have bought The Sims.


Me? I play Fallout games for the story. And Fallout 4 has what is easily the strongest opening of any game in the series. At the very least, it is the most cinematic opening yet.

The story is that you are a Veteran retired to civilian life. Your service has bought your family a ticket into Vault 111 - an underground environment meant to keep select members of humanity safe in the event of nuclear war. You confirm your appointment just in time for the mushroom cloud to rise over the horizon as you hurriedly sprint through your peaceful town toward The Vault.

This ends with you being cryogenically frozen, awakening just long enough to see your child taken by sinister figures and your spouse seemingly killed. From there, you have to fight you way through the wreckage of the Vault, discovering in the process that it's over 200 years in the future. Also, that giant roaches suck to fight bare-handed.


It's fortunate that the game's opening is so engaging because you'll feel like you're on the plot railroad almost immediately. Admittedly, I didn't try to go off the reservation beyond accidentally running down the wrong road before entering the vault and getting nuked for my trouble but it's clear Bethesda has listened to complaints about the world being too open-ended and about how hard it was to find companions. You can't help but find a trusty dog to help you in your travels shortly after leaving The Vault, after your robot butler points the way for you to go.

As to be expected, there's a lot of bugs in this initial release. I myself have fallen prey to a fairly common one for PC gamers that renders it impossible to resize the screen past a window half the size of my screen or play in full-screen mode. On the bright side, this does enable me to keep an eye on my chat windows in Facebook while continuing to explore the ruins of Concorde, but it would be nice to use my whole screen for the fire-fights.

Bottom Line: It's different and it's buggy... but it's still engaging when it works and it's still Fallout.

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.



Plot

Fed up with Zoom's machinations, Barry seeks a way to draw the evil speedster out into the open - against both Jay and Caitlin's advice. But Iris proves supportive, helping Barry come up with a plan to place Zoom right where they want him. A plan that will place the Linda Park of their Earth in tremendous peril, as she masquerades as Zoom's minion, Doctor Light. Meanwhile, Joe tries to throw Patty off the trail as she starts to wonder just why Joe isn't as concerned as she is about catching the still-at-large (as far as she knows) Dr. Light...


Influences

The Flash and Vibe comics of Geoff Johns.


Goofs

Reference is made to the dart that The Arrow used to stop The Reverse Flash last year. Why didn't they also use the serum Ray Palmer developed to slow down a speedster?  Did Harry's ego get in the way?

Caitlin and Cisco discuss making another attempt to "vibe" on wells after Cisco's first failed attempt, 20 feet away from Wells, through an open door.


Performances

It's nice to see Barry's conflict in this episode be born of his being too impulsive and Grant Gustin playing tough is surprisingly effective.

Tom Cavanagh doesn't get to do much in this episode past play straight man to Carlos Valdez... until the last speech when he gets to unleash all of Harry Well's anguish over his endangered daughter and his failure to save her.

The best performance of the episode, however, goes to Shantel VanSanten, who continues to develop Patty Spivot into an amazing character as both Joe's partner and Barry's love-interest. Her annoyance at Joe's hiding something from her is well-conveyed and you'd think Joe would have learned his lesson about trying to hide things from people to keep them safe after.. oh, everything that happened with Iris in the last year. Regardless, VanSanten plays Patty as tough without catering to the cliched "tough female cop" tropes.


Artistry

The special effects for the sequences where Zoom drags Barry around are good.


Flash Facts

Harry refers to his daughter as "Jesse Quick". This is a nod to Jesse Quick - a superheroine and ally of The Flash in the original DC Comics. Jesse Quick is the code-name of Jesse Chambers - a superheroine who was the daughter of two Golden Age heroes - Johnny Quick and Liberty Belle. Jesse gained both of her parents powers - flight, super-speed and super-strength.

Robert Queen being The Arrow of Earth 2 may be a nod to the New 52 version of Robert Queen, who had some kind of secret life as a master archer before Oliver Queen became the Green Arrow. It may also be a reference to the second Batman of the current New 52 Earth 2 comic, who is Thomas Wayne - Bruce Wayne's father.

At the end of the fifth segment of the episode, the lightning as the screen fades to black before cutting to commercial is blue.

We get our first clear look at Zoom's costume and it appears to be a black version of Barry's costume, save with the face completely covered by the mask and the lighting-bolt symbol on the chest reversed. This could be a reference to both The Black Flash (a manifestation of Death that attempts to lure speedsters to their doom) or The Rival - an evil speedster who modeled his costume on that of Jay Garrick, but in darker shades.


Technobabble

Wells attempts to develop a serum that can reduce Zoom's speed. Cisco develops a gun that can transmit the serum into Zoom.

Wells berates an employee for being unable to align the quantum helix.

Patty notes that light energy can be manipulated to form hard light and make objects invisible. Dr. Light uses this later power to escape from STAR Labs.

The STAR Labs building of Earth 1 runs on fiber-optics that transmit pulses of light. Dr. Light was able to hack into this from her cell, turning off the power dampeners and using her powers to become invisible.

Cisco modifies the dart used by The Arrow to take down The Reverse Flash for his gun to bring down Zoom.

Harry suggested using tungsten composites to dampen vibrations. Cisco admits this was brilliant.

Cisco creates a set of gloves that allow Linda Park to replicate Dr. Light's powers. At the very least, it allows her to release focused light blasts.

Terminal velocity is the highest velocity obtainable by an falling object.  When objects are falling, their drag force equals the downward force of gravity, making the net force zero. In other words, two objects traveling against the flow of gravity, no matter what their original speed, will fall at precisely the same speed.

Terminal velocity on Earth is 32 feet or 9.8 meters per second.


Dialogue Triumphs

(As Harry outlines his plan to have Cisco build a gun that can deliver his slowing serum.)
Caitlin: Oh great! That could be this year's cold gun! Maybe another criminal could get it and then we'd have Sgt. Slow!
Cisco: I would never let that happen. Sgt. Slow is a terrible name.

Jesse Wells: I've never understood why you disliked him (The Flash) so much but now I know it's because he knew what you'd done.
Harry Wells: What I've done at STAR Labs is change the world, Jesse. Unlocking the mysteries of the universe. And when you don't have the key to the lock? Sometimes you have to kick in the door (beat) You should get to school.
Jesse Wells: Don't worry. I got my education today.

Linda Park: I - I can't do this. I just don't have it in me.
The Flash: That's not true. You're one of the strongest women I've ever met. You can do anything.
Linda Park: And you know about me based on what exactly?
The Flash: Linda... you... are trusting me. So I need to trust you. Fully. I know that you can do this...
(Barry pulls of his mask.)
Barry: ... because I know you.

Patty: I trust you. I do. I wouldn't be your partner if I didn't. This is about you not trusting me.
Joe: I trust you.
Patty: Not enough.

Cisco: The next time we do this I'm writing better dialogue.
Iris & Caitlin: (in unison) Next time?

Barry: It's - Wells - he said something to me on that video before he confessed to my mom's murder. He said that even if he was dead, that he still won because I wasn't happy. That I'd never really be happy.
Joe: How the hell would he know?
Barry: He knew me. He knew Future Me.
Joe: That's Future You. This is the you here and now.
Barry: I still think that Wells is right. Ever since I went back - to that night and I didn't save her - I didn't save my mom... there's just been this void in me, you know? I just feel like that's always going to be there. For better or worse, Wells... he knew me.
Joe: Better than I know you? He may have stalked you for 15 years but I raised you. Look, Wells said what he said to you to mess with you. To get in your head one last time. If you listen to him, you let him win.
Barry: I know.  I don't want that...
Joe: You're responsible for your own happiness, Barry. Forget about Wells.  Think hard about what you want. What makes you happy. Go out and get it. It's as simple as that.  All right?

(Holding Linda Park over a roof-ledge)
Zoom: You like to fish with bait. I do too.

Joe: Zoom sent you here like the others?! You kill The Flash and you get your daughter back?!
Harry: The only way I get my daughter back is I capture Zoom! Do you understand?! You love Barry. (punches the wall) I love my daughter. And none of these children are safe as long as Zoom is here! I tried, on my Earth, to capture him. I failed. I thought I could bring him down here, with Barry's help.  I was wrong...


Dialogue Disasters

The whole training montage with Linda learning how to use the Light Gauntlets Cisco built is painful to watch.


Continuity

Dr. Light reveals that her trying to kill Linda Park was born not out of a desire to replace her but to create a body she could use to convince Zoom she was dead.

Caitlin makes reference to Captain Cold and his cold gun.

Harry Wells' teenage daughter is a genius who graduated high school at age 15. Her name is Jesse Wells. He calls her Jesse Quick.

Harry Wells knew Jay Garrick's secret identity back on Earth 2.

Linda Park refers to the death of her editor in the last episode.

Cisco refers to the dart used by The Arrow to stop The Reverse Flash in 122.

A television broadcast Harry listens to in the flashbacks reveals that Oliver Queen's father, Robert Queen, is The Arrow on Earth 2 and had just had his secret identity revealed at about the same time Oliver was almost exposed as The Arrow on Earth 1.

Oliver Queen apparently did die during the wreck of the Queen's Gambit on Earth 1.

Earth 2 also has a Channel 52 News station, but this station has a male newsreader rather than Bethany Snow of Earth One.

Linda Park cooks when she is stressed.

Barry reveals his secret identity to Linda Park.

Cisco sees Jesse Wells trapped by Zoom on Earth 2 when he vibes on Harry. By the episode's end, everyone on the team knows that Zoom has Harry's daughter as a hostage.

Barry spins his arms into a focused tornado to create an air cushion to catch Linda Park after Zoom drops her off the STAR Labs roof.

Barry attempts to throw lightning at Zoom, repeating his feat from 202. Zoom is able to flip over the lighting bolt, catch it, and throw it back at Barry. He also attempts to lure Zoom int a fist-fight in freefall. This too fails to work.

Zoom drags a defeated Barry before the press, the police and finally unmasks him at STAR Labs.

Cisco is able to shoot Zoom, but the serum does not seem to slow him down at all.

Until Cisco confirmed it with his vibe, Harry had no idea if his daughter was alive or not.

Linda Park is said to be staying with friends in Coast City follow Zoom's attempt to murder her.

At the end of the episode, Barry says he is unable to feel his legs.


Location

There's two flashbacks set in the Central City of Earth 2.


The Fridge Factor

Surprisingly averted.  While Linda's failure at playing Dr. Light is played for laughs, Cisco gets just as much ribbing over the problems with his light gloves. And Linda and Iris gets some nice scenes together that pass The Bechdel Test.


The Boomerang Factor

Granting that Cisco has always been the comic relief, even he seems to be uncharacteristically incompetent during his attempts to "vibe" on Harry and during the training montage for Linda.


The Bottom Line

Cisco says it best - "The next time we do this, I'm writing better dialogue." The whole episode is a bit of a mess for the first 50 minutes and a clear candidate for the worst episode ever. It's pretty clear they were biding time until Zoom showed up.  But once Zoom shows up, it's a whole other ballgame and everything is beautiful and only gets better until that cliffhanger.

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.




Plot

The revelation that Ray Palmer is still alive (and now in the clutches of Damien Darhk) sends Felicity into a frenzy of guilt and stress, that will drive a wedge between herself and Oliver. A surprise visit from her mom doesn't help matters. Thankfully, the rest of Team Arrow - now bolstered by the return of The Canary - is ready to save Ray on their own. At least, until the side-effects of The Lazarus Pit endanger the mission...


Influences

The Atom comics of Gil Kane (The Atom shrinking and having to cope with unexpected troubles at that size) and Green Arrow: Year One (The Lian Yu sequences).


Goofs

Ray looks remarkably clean-cut for someone who hasn't been able to shave or get a haircut in six months.

Why do they send the whole of Team Arrow out for a burglary where a smaller group would be much more effective?  At the very least, why didn't someone act as a physical look-out?

The attitude toward our heroes killing is all over the place in this episode. Oliver seems to shoot down one guard, though it is possible he used a tranquilizer arrow. And Laurel gets shocked when Sara snaps the neck of one of Darhk's men... yet nobody seemed worried about giving the ex-assassin who is apparently having magical blood-lust issues a loaded gun. Or indeed using guns at all. Granting that Digg has probably shooting to wound all this time, it still seems foolish to trust Sara to have that kind of control.

The flashback sequences really need to stop depending on cliff-hangers where Oliver's life is in danger. We KNOW he survives, okay?  We know he's going to survive the drowning attempt. And it just seems like padding to pretend he's in danger.


Performances

The chemistry between Stephen Amell and Emily Bett Rickards contiues to be the best aspect of the show.

Second only to that, however, is David Ramsey and Stephen Amell playing off of each other as they share a bottle of whiskey.

Caity Lotz is criminally wasted in this episode. You'd think there'd be a bigger deal made about Sara Lance coming back from the dead and some examination of that fact. But no - we're lucky to have her get two fight scenes and one bit where she tells about how Thea explained the Lazarus Pit inducing blood-lust at some point off-camera.  That's a scene I would much rather have seen - if only to see how weird things were between Thea and Sara - than another Felicity sniping at Ollie scene.


Trivia

The quantum manifold needed to restore Ray Palmer to normal size is made by Kord Industries. In the comics, Kord Industries is the business of Ted Kord a.k.a. The Blue Beetle.

Felicity refers to John Diggle by the code name Spartan when Curtis is with her. There is a DC Comics hero called Spartan, who was a member of the team Wild C.A.Ts. However, the character bares no apparent relation to Diggle, being a robot programmed with the personality of an alien warrior. Most likely it's a reference to the general design of Diggle's helmet/mask resembling that of a Spartan warrior.

Ray makes reference to fighting roaches the size of cocker spaniels while he was shrunk. The Atom fighting giant (from his perspective) insects was a frequent thing in the classic The Atom comics.

When told about HIVE, Ray compares them to SPECTRE - a similar evil organization from the James Bond novels.


Technobabble

Felicity creates a back-trace algorithm to find the point of origin of Ray's broadcasts.

Ray jerry-rigged his suit to broadcast a short-range message burst.

It is confirmed that Ray perfected miniaturization by finding a way to shrink the space between atoms shrink. Curtis says this feat is comparable to getting cold fusion to work or discovering the Ultimate Theory of Everything.

The one part Palmer Technologies doesn't have to build the device to enlarge Ray Palmer is a quantum manifold.

The Kord Industries building's interior is protected by pressure-sensitive flooring.

Felicity's program to control the traffic cameras around Star City takes a minute to upload.

The Latin Building was at one time totted as the most secure building on the west coast, with every access point requiring a retinal scan and voice print to enter.

The box holding Ray requires an asymmetric cipher to open. His best guess is that five years and an NSA grade computer might be able to open it.

Curtis says the quantum field won't be able to penetrate that polymer making up the cube containing Ray when Felicity asks why they don't just use the enlarging ray and Ray's increased size to break it. They're eventually able to bypass this complication when Ray siphons the energy powering the security cameras inside the cube into his suit, which shorts the containment field.

Apart from a noticeable iron deficiency, Ray did not suffer any adverse physical effects because of his shrinking.


Dialogue Triumphs

(Upon meeting Ollie for the first time, Curtis holds up his hand to focus on Ollie's jawline.)
Ollie: Curtis? Whatcha doing?
Curtis: The Green Arrow showed up right about the time that you came back into town.
(Curtis suddenly scoffs and shakes his head)
Curtis: Nah. It's not you though. Jaw's not right.
Ollie: That's what I keep telling people.

(After getting off the phone with her mother)
Quentin: How'd that go?
Sara: Easier than the last time Mom found out that I wasn't dead.
Quentin: Are you okay, honey?
Sara: Yeah. Fine. It was just something mom said about how I got lost when I was walking home from school once, and - and how I promised that I'd always come back. But I can't remember...

Ollie: Is there anything that I can do to help?
Felicity: Well, have you magically learned how to code in the last 72 hours?
Ollie: No.
Felicity: That was a rhetorical question.
Ollie: I know.
Felicity: I will, however, accept your undying support and back-rub.
Ollie: You can have both as soon as you -
Felicity: Shower.
Ollie: And take a nap.

Ollie: I thought it would be a good thing!
Felicity: A good thing? What on Earth made you agree to this?
Ollie: Well, you know your mom really doesn't take no for an answer...
Felicity: You've faced down Mirakuru soldiers and the League of Assassins. Are you honestly telling me that you couldn't say no to my mom?
Ollie: She said she missed you and then she texted me one of those emojis with the single tear...
Felicity: YOU HAVE BEEN TEXTING WITH MY MOTHER?! How long has THAT been going on?
John: You guys think we can find a better time to fight about this?
Felicity: John? I thought only Oliver's line was open.
John: Nope. Mine is open.
Laurel and Thea (in unison) And mine.
Sara: I don't remember there being so much chatter on these missions.
Laurel: Are you ok?
Sara: Yeah. I need a little normal. And for me, this is the kind of thing that passes.

(As Darhk threatens Felicity)
Ray: Don't you touch her!
Darhk: Don't make empty threats. It's so... small.

Felicity: Ray was sending distress signals for weeks after the accident. I wasn't here to receive them because I was too busy traveling the world with you. I took the voice's word for it that no body could be recovered because I was so swept up in being with you. I'm sorry. It was my choice to uproot my entire life, leave my home and my job - which it turns out I'm very good at. I lost myself in you. And I was never that girl. That girl who just loses herself in a guy. That is not who I am.

Oliver: It it just makes me wonder... why did she choose me?
John: Oliver. I've heard you say a lot of crazy things over the years, but that has to take the prize.
Oliver: You know what I mean. (gesturing to a computer) It takes me ten minutes to log into this thing. Felicity does it in two seconds. And Ray probably invented it.
John: Yeah, you're probably right. Except, Felicity didn't choose Ray. She chose you. Sure, she has a lot in common with Ray. But sometimes what looks good on paper isn't what works in real life.
Oliver; What if something happens to him?  We don't get him back?
John: Felicity Smoak is one of the smartest, most badass women on the planet. She comes through this, she'll get Ray back.
Oliver: You seem pretty sure.
John: I married a woman just like that. Twice, Oliver!  Twice!

Felicity: I didn't exactly grow up with the best example of a normal, healthy relationship,
Ollie: Line forms behind me.


Continuity

The episode opens with an extended sequence of the scene from 323 where Ray blows up his lab. This time, however, we see him shrink and fall among the wreckage.

The message Felicity decoded in the last episode was made on the day she received it. This episode takes place six days later.

Ollie refers to what Constantine said in 405 about the chamber inside the ruins having a barrier that prevented the impure of heart from passing.

Baron Reicher was interested in the ruins Constantine was looking for because of writings describing a greater treasure in a heart of water - a cove surrounded by mountains.

We see a black canary as a decoration in Laurel's apartment.

Ray modified his suit with the same nanites Felicity injected into him in 318.

Palmer Technologies main business competitor is Kord Industries.

Another note is made that Felicity dyes her hair blonde.

Sara has the same blood-lust that infects a non-dead person healed by The Lazarus Pit.

Ollie makes a great Chicken Cordon Bleu.

John prefers Tennessee whiskey to vodka.

Darhk's base of operations - at least the one where he held Ray Palmer - is The Latin Building.

Curtis Holt is an experienced base jumper.

We once again see Damien Darhk using telekenesis - both to catch Oliver's arrows and to strangle him with some handy chains.

Felicity hates snakes and spiders but not as much as she hates cockroaches.

Ray elects not to reveal that he isn't dead for the moment.

Sara leaves Star City at the end of the episode to visit her mom in Central City and wander around for a bit.

Quentin Lance and Donna Smoak just happen to meet at a bar.

Thea asks Ollie's campaign manager, Alex Davis, out for a drink.

Darhk's people were able to get a sample of the dwarf star alloy that powers Ray's ATOM suit and turn it into a power source. He tells them to test on the box we first saw in 405, which unfolds into board or map of some kind.


Untelevised Adventures

Ray makes reference to fighting giant roaches while he was shrunk.


The Bottom Line

Honestly, it wouild be rather dull if it weren't for the chemistry between Stephen Amell and Emily Bett Rickards. The drama between Ollie and Felicity feels a little forced but we get enough distractions from it (Ollie talking about his romance troubles with John, Felicity talking with her mom) that it is manageable. Less forgivable, however is that very little is done with Sara's return apart from confirming that she has the same issues as Thea and sending her away until Legends of Tomorrow is ready to deal with her. This is a shame given how much drama between Thea and Sara is just waiting to be tapped and goes completely ignored. But hey - Quentin and Donna are hooking up!  Yay?

In which we salute our Veterans, figure out who we (and our spouse) are, attempt to break the railroad plot and discover one more way the lack of a skills system has shafted our attempts to become Liam Neeson.


Special thanks to Mary Channell and Jeff Hillary for their support and feedback.

In which we escape from Vault 111, discover (again) just how evil Vault-Tec is, punch giant roaches, drool over the ultimate freeze ray and arrive home 210 years later for dinner.

In which we are reminded of what a kind, loving and peaceful man we were and then kill a bunch of stuff. Also, we adopt a telekinetic, teleporting dog, walk into the middle of a firefight and meet a wandering dog breeder who doesn't give a damn about the raider attacks.

John Constantine is back in New York and, for the first time in a long while, free of his ghosts. Unfortunately, things haven't been quiet on the supernatural side of The City That Never Sleeps while he was out of town. And since an honest night's work dealing with the worst of the supernatural world is marginally less taxing than doing the Jedi Mind Trick to convince his landlord that he already paid this month's rent, John is out to make the restless dead a bit more restful... even if he has to hit them over the head with a magical tire-iron to do it!


I'm somewhat torn on this issue. As a Hellblazer purist, the idea of John Constantine indulging in honest work and living anywhere besides London is a borderline blasphemy. And yet the scenes of John's "honest work" are so hilarious and true to form (Only John Constantine would be called upon to deal with the haunted buffet at a strip club!), I'm inclined to forgive James Tynion IV and Ming Doyle the faux pas.


I wasn't originally fond of Riley Rossmo's artwork but it's starting to grow on me. John doesn't look quite so much like Astro Boy here. And if nothing else the various ghoulies and ghosties that John fights throughout this issue are well-illustrated and imaginatively designed.

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here. 




Plot

It's almost Thanksgiving and Kara and Alex's mother is in town to celebrate. But the usual tensions that flare up around the holidays may be even greater this year, as Alex frets that their mother doesn't approve of her Kara's new life as Supergirl and blames Alex for not protecting her little sister. On top of everything else, an accident turns one of CatCo's most volatile employees into an electricity-manipulating super-villain with a grudge against both Cat Grant and Supergirl.


Influences

Superman: The Animated Series (The character of Livewire and her origins), Superman: The Movie (the sequence of young Alex and Kara flying) and the DC Comic series The Weird (mention of the alien species Zarolatts).


Goofs

The drama between Alex and her mother seems forced. Granting that families are illogical even at the best of times,the reasons Eliza Danvers gives for blaming Alex for what Kara is doing don't ring true.


Performances

For the first time, we get some inkling of Cat Grant being more than just the dragon lady who makes both of Kara's lives difficult. Calista Flockhart plays Cat as someone who is so used to hiding behind a mask that she can't deal with honesty. The scene in which Cat unloads on Kara about her own mother issues has done more to humanize Cat than anything in the series so far and Flockhart plays it well. There's also some subtle hints of Cat's heroism from the comics, as Cat offers to play decoy as Kara runs for help.

Brit Morgan nails the part of Livewire, capturing the attitude and snark of the character with ease.


Artistry

The special effects for Livewire's powers are very effective, particularly the teleportation.


Super Trivia

This was originally meant to be Episode 105 and was scheduled to air three days before Thanksgiving 2015. However, a series of violent terrorist bombings on November 13, 2015 caused the original episode 104 to be held back a week, due to the plot involving a similar series of attacks.

Leslie Willis a.k.a. Livewire was originally created as a villain for Superman: The Animated Series. An acid-tongue shock-jock of the Howard Stern school, Leslie Willis had little respect for authority and no respect for Superman, cynically believing that nobody could possibly be that good without an ulterior motive. Leslie acquired electricity-manipulation powers after being struck by lightning at an outdoor concert she had organized, which Superman tried to shut down due to the threat of severe weather. Blaming Superman for the accident (which left her with bleach-white skin and electric blue hair that stood on end), Leslie dubbed herself Livewire and embarked on a campaign to kill Superman and anyone else who got in her way.

The DCTVU version of Livewire is virtually unchanged from her original inspiration, save that she was in a traffic helicopter rather than at a concert when she gained her powers.  She has the same powers to travel through electrical wiring, virtually teleporting at the speed of light. She can manfiest her image on television screens and computer monitors and become intangible. She can also shape energy into constructs, creating whips and fetters of lightning.

The DCTVU version of Livewire seems to be somewhat more powerful than the cartoon and comic-book versions in one regard - she is apparently able to control pure energy rather than just electric energy. To that end, she is able to absorb Supergirl's heat vision with no ill effects.

Leslie Willis raises several questions regarding Supergirl's sex life on her radio show, chiefly how unlikely it is that alien sex organs would calibrate (as it were) with those of a human. The difficulties of Earthling/Kryptonian sex have been joked about in a number of stories, movies and comics (including this one by Stjepan Sejic) and been discussed in more scholarly terms by writer Larry Niven in his article Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex. While focused on the issues with Lois Lane and Clark Kent consummating their relationship, it does mention Supergirl as a possible surrogate mother for any potential children in the event that Lois could not safely deliver a half-Kryptonian child.

Using heat vision to cook (as Kara does with the turkey here) is a trick both Superman and Supergirl have used in the comics.

It is revealed in this episode that Cat Grant has a son named Carter. In the comics, Cat Grant's son was named Adam.

Director Henshaw suggest that a trap the DEO used to contain Zarolatts may be altered to hold Livewire. The Zarolatts are an alien race in the DC Comics universe, first introduced in the comic The Weird. Created by writer Jim Starlin and artist Bernie Wrightson, the comic centered upon a nameless Zarolatt - dubbed The Weird by Ted Kord - who assumed a corporal form and sought the help of Earth's heroes to free his people from another alien race that used them as an energy source.

Kara calls Cat "the queen of all media." This may be a nod to radio host Howard Stern, who dubbed himself "The King of All Media" and served as a partial inspiration for the personality of Livewire.

Kara compares the energy trap the DEO modifies to catch Livewire to the ghost traps from Ghostbusters.

As in the cartoon, Livewire's biggest weakness is that she "shorts-out" when she touches water.


Technobabble

Henshaw says that Leslie Willis became Livewire due to normal electrostatic discharge intensified as it passed through Kara's Kryptonian DNA, picking up unknown properties, as the lightning traveled through Kara and into her.

Zarolatts are an inter-dimensional race of aliens consisting of pure sentient energy.

The trap for Livewire is a portable industrial capacitor.  Opened underneath Livewire, it should draw in the electricity running through her, temporarily breaking her down on an atomic level.


Dialogue Triumphs

(Kara has just beaten down a beastly alien prisoner attempting escape)
Kara: He was tough!
Dir. Henshaw: She.
Kara: Oh.

Leslie Willis:  It's Thanksgiving week which means it is time for my annual list of things I am not grateful for. And this year's list is only one item - Supergirl!
(Cut to Kara, Alex and Eliza listening to the broadcast. Eliza looks shocked. Kara just rolls her eyes.)
Leslie Willis: The blue-and-red abscessed tooth in the otherwise gleaming smile that is National City! How much do I despise, I mean loathe her 'look at me, I'm adorkable!"thing? And that hideous, like rejected from The Olympics figure skating outfit she wears?
(Cut to Winn, at work, looking annoyed as his costume design skills are torn apart.)
Leslie Willis: I mean, a skirt and tights? Puh-lease. Seems like overkill, especially since no one is trying to get in there. And who would that be?
(Cut to James, looking disturbed as he's trying to work on a layout.)
Leslie Willis: You know, who is hombre enough to puncture the Chastity Belt of Steel? Or is what's required a softer touch? I mean, she does kind of give off a Sapphic vibe with that big-ol' butch S-chest plate. I mean, how would it even work with an alien? I mean, is everything the same "down there"?
(Cut to Cat Grant, eating sushi in her office, looking increasingly disgusted as Leslie speaks)
Leslie Willis: Are we talking tentacles? Maybe it's time for a break? Or a makeover!

Cat Grant: Supergirl is changing the conversation of National City. People don't want your brand of negativity anymore, Leslie. They want optimism, hope, positivity.
Leslie Willis: You're a hypocrite, Cat!
Cat Grant: And you're finished, Leslie.
Leslie Willis: I have two years left on my contract. You are too proud and you are too cheap to buy me out.
Cat Grant: That's true. However, I'm not firing you. I'm transferring you to traffic chopper. You'll be National City's highest paid traffic reporter.
Leslie Willis: You do this, you will regret it!
Cat Grant: Rush hour starts at 4:30. If you're not on the Cat Copter when it goes up, you'll be hearing from my lawyer. (gasps in mock surprise) Oh, and you'd better take some Dramamine. Looks like it's going to be a bumpy ride.
(Leslie Willis just glares at Cat as the thunder rolls outside.)

Cat Grant: (to a comatose Leslie Willis, after Kara leaves the room) Get up off your ass, Willis. You and I both know you're tougher than a bolt of lightning.

Supergirl: You don't have to do this! Let me help you!
Livewire: Good as is.

Cat: Well, mothers and daughters, it's... hard.
Kara: Yours must be so proud of you.
Cat: (chuckle) Well, if she is it's on some subterranean level. In her mind, I have never lived up to my potential.
Kara: You're the queen of all media!
Cat: Yes. An accomplishment that never mattered to her. Oh, don't get me wrong. I am entirely grateful. Everything I am, everything I have is because of her constant... pushing, let's call it? She was never satisfied with me and so I've never been satisfied with myself. Which is why I keep pushing too. Myself and all the people I care about.
Kara: (in realization) Pushing Supergirl...
Cat: I should have pushed Leslie. The more awful she was, the more I rewarded her. Leslie turning into Livewire - that started a long time ago. It's my fault. I turned her into a monster...

Cat: Just give me your terms.
Livewire: The only thing you have that I want is your skin. And there are so many ways to skin a-
Cat: - a cat, yes. Congratulations. You have the wit of a YouTube comment.


Dialogue Disasters

Livewire: Your 15 minutes are up, you boring... weak....
Supergirl: Oh, shut up, you mean girl!


Continuity

Kara refers to Alex taking down The Hellgramite in 102.

Kara's favorite dessert is chocolate pecan pie. She swears it is the best dessert in the galaxy.

Kara has been to 12 different planets.

Leslie refers to Cat Grant's article on Supergirl from 103.

Cat Grant has a fear of germs.

Eliza Danvers is a bio-engineer - the same field as Alex.

Alex went to Stanford.

It is revealed that Cat's son is named Carter.

The DEO pose as FBI agents when working with the public.

Director Henshaw uses the alias Agent Munroe when leading field operations.

It is confirmed that Jerimiah Danvers is dead and that he was, like Alex, a DEO Agent. He joined the DEO and gave them all of his research on Superman in exchange for Kara's freedom.

Winn reveals that his father is in prison.


The Fridge Factor

Cat Grant's justification for demoting Leslie Willis is based around Leslie attacking Supergirl's sexuality (or lack thereof) and how she dresses. Apparently Cat is fine with generalizations about millennials (re: her article on Supergirl in the last episode) but not reverse slut-shaming.

Livewire discovers her powers dealing with that most cliche of threats - the random rapist who just happens to be hanging around some dark alley.


The Bottom Line

It's a fairly typical episode in that the best bits are those in which the show tries to be a superhero show and doesn't focus on Kara's forced family drama. It's a fairly untypical episode, however, in that the bits involving Cat Grant aren't the worst moments of the show and Cat comes off as a real person rather than a stock stereotype for the first time. The attempts to parallel Eliza Danvers' treatment of her daughters and Cat's "pushing" the people she cares about doesn't quite work but Livewire is handled so well you can forgive it.

In which we explore the perks of leveling up, test out the new (but not improved) V.A.T.S. and marvel at how terrible laser muskets are despite sounding awesome.

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.