It is time for the DC TV Show Crossover event! The Flash kicks off with Dominators invading Earth and Barry seeking the help of other DC TV heroes in Season 3 Episode 8, titled Invasion! Check out Josh’s recap, followed by both Josh’s and Violet’s thoughts on the episode!
- His thoughts on Invasion!, Episode 308 of The Flash
- Her thoughts on The Flash, Season 3 Episode 8: Invasion!
This episode of The Flash officially kicked off the crossover event for all of the CW TV shows. Supergirl, which moved over to CW, was supposed to be the start, but nothing really happened in the episode aside from a few wormholes popping up here and there, and then Barry showing up at the end of the episode. Lame.
The episode begins with Wally wanting to test his powers, while Iris is trying to get people to talk him out of using his powers. Wally is pretty annoyed with his sister. Meanwhile, H.R. is trying to convince Caitlin, Cisco and the others to open up STAR Labs to the public, but they don’t seem too excited about it.
This is all interrupted by what appears to be a meteor heading to Earth, which Barry heads out to investigate. It turns out that it is not a meteor, but a spaceship. Aliens pop out immediately, and begin attacking Central City.
Barry then meets up with Lyla, who informs Barry that the aliens, known as the Dominators, came to Earth back in the 50s, where they took a few people and left Earth, never being seen again until now. But they had contacted Earth 3 months ago, telling them to not attack upon their return.
It is time for the team up to begin though, and Barry gets in contact both with Team Arrow and Team Legends, asking for their help. Barry and Cisco also head to pick up Supergirl in her dimension.
The team arrives at an airplane hangar, and Flash greets them all. There is a slight argument over who the leader should be, with Cisco namely wanting to have Oliver in charge, but Oliver says Barry should take the lead. Barry has a hard time with it, and Oliver provides some not so subtle hints as to what they should do, which is to train against Kara/ Supergirl. Oliver, meanwhile, lets Kara know that he doesn’t trust her one bit.
One thing that also comes up this episode is Flashpoint. How it comes out is Jax and Martin approach Barry about the mysterious message we had heard about on Legends of Tomorrow. Oliver is also a part of the conversation and tells Barry to keep it quiet for now, as it would be a distraction the team doesn’t need right now.
Meanwhile, Martin learns he has a daughter now, which came about from his own meddling of the timeline, when he encountered his younger self in 1987.
Cisco, who still has a problem with Barry, manages to hear the recording Martin and Jax had, and confronts Barry. Barry then reveals to everyone Flashpoint, and tells Diggle about his daughter who is now a son. We also hear the message, which is actually an older version of Barry who is talking to Rip Hunter, telling Rip to not trust present day Barry because Barry had messed up the timeline. Everyone, particularly Sara and Diggle, are shocked and hurt by this revelation.
Later, the team learns that the Dominators have kidnapped the president. Barry decides to stay behind given recent events. Oliver stays behind too, refusing to leave Barry. Barry and Oliver talk with each other, and Barry shows Oliver the newspaper from the future, but Oliver tells him to chill out, and that is not the future yet.
Meanwhile, the others are out to save the president, but it turns out to be a trap. The president is killed, and to make matters even worse, the Dominators brainwash all of the heroes trying to save the president.
Barry and Green Arrow are then in trouble, being forced to fight their own team members. Wally tries to help, but Supergirl takes him out pretty quickly. Barry tries to distract Supergirl so that Green Arrow can make a run for it carrying the unconscious Barry. Barry, meanwhile, is able to get Kara to smash the device controlling everyone, which saves a potentially fatal fight between Sara and Oliver who were about to square off.
Everything seems to be going happily, but given there are two more episodes in this crossover, things can’t be all sunshine and rainbows. We then see the Dominators beam up a bunch of the team members to their ship, leaving Barry on Earth with a couple others.
His Thoughts on The Flash, Season 3 Episode 8: Invasion!
While I liked the previous crossover better, this one is going pretty well so far. The Dominators are pretty scary looking and as Violet noted when we watched the show, this feels right out of the movie Independence Day.
It was very entertaining watching Barry and Oliver take on the rest of the team. It seemed believable enough that those two could hold their own against the rest of the crew, despite Supergirl on paper, should be able to wipe them both out pretty easily, given Barry and Oliver don’t seem to have access to any Kryptonite. I was actually hoping to see Sara and Oliver square off a little more, but I guess it worked out better for the team if they didn’t murder each other.
The big thing that stood out to me this episode was Barry’s message from the future. Why doesn’t Barry trust himself? He knows what happened over the next 15 or so years, so he would know if he is trustworthy, right? Does Barry feel guilty for all this time, and feels he can’t be trusted be cause of that? Or was this a ploy for Barry to get himself to be left behind on the mission, so that he and Oliver could save the day? It is a bit confusing, but I hope this isn’t the end of this storyline, and that it culminates into something interesting, rather than just being a throw away thing.
Her Thoughts on The Flash, Season 3 Episode 8: Invasion!
This was a super fun team up, and it’s pretty awesome getting almost all the heroes across the board in this episode! It was a bit cheesy how they made up excuses for certain people that weren’t around, or to split them up, but this is quite a huge undertaking with so many multiple moving parts and characters that I can understand and let it slide.
As you may know, we don’t normally watch Supergirl. We tried watching it when it first started up last season, over on CBS, and got about 6 or 7 episodes into it, but just could not get into it, and eventually just stopped watching. When I heard about this crossover event, I contemplated trying to go back and catch up with Supergirl so that I would feel more prepared and feel more like I would know what was going on with this crossover. Well, good thing we didn’t do that. We did watch the Supergirl crossover episode leading up to this episode of The Flash, but apparently it wasn’t necessary. It did give some background info on the aliens, but overall, I felt a bit cheated. All that happened was that a couple of breaches popped up, and then at the end we got a scene with Barry and Cisco that was a scene pulled from this episode of The Flash.
But anyway. It was pretty cool seeing all the characters come together, and also to see them face off against each other. This episode made me really excited about the rest of the crossover event!
Scenes from The Flash, Season 3 Episode 9: The Present
Preview of Season 3 Episode 9 of The Flash
