The Flash - Flash vs. Arrow - Review

Sorry for the late review guys! Had some personal stuff going on that delayed things.

Ever since The Flash was announced, one of the things I was most anticipating was the inevitable crossover episodes. How would Barry and Oliver react to each other? Would they be friends or foes? While we've seen plenty of shared-world references and smaller scale crossovers already, this was the first (of hopefully many) large scale crossovers between the The Flash and Arrow.

As with any superhero crossover, the formula is simple. The 2 meet, argue, fight and then team up against a bigger threat while bonding in the process. Thankfully this crossover took that formula and expanded on it due to the past friendship developed by Barry and Oliver (not to mention Barry and Felicity).

Diggle and Cisco were relegated to the comic relief role for this crossover and eventually almost became a stand in for us, the audience. Wells however, using his knowledge knew who Oliver's true identity was which led to a small source of conflict. Felicity and Caitlin also had their girl power moments that were really fascinating to see. I almost want to see a Barry-less episode where Felicity and Caitlin have to team up to take down a foe. In the end, I have to say that the crossover proved to be really entertaining and blew all my expectations out of the water.

Prism/Rainbow Raider was a fun villain and may have potentially introduced the Emotional Spectrum into this universe (paving the way for the Lantern Corps perhaps?), which opens a lot of doorways in the future. Prism pulled out the red element (Rage) from Barry which set up the conflict between he and Oliver. Otherwise while they would have still come to blows, it wouldn't have carried the same impact that it did due to Prism's involvement. While Prism himself wasn't as developed as I'd have liked, he wasn't killed off which is a good start.

Throughout the crossover, Barry and Oliver learnt much from each other which I feel is one of the strong points of The Flash. Barry is constantly growing, he's not already at or near his peak. Despite the title, this isn't a journey that can be done in a flash. Over time, Barry is going to continue to grow, learn and develop to slowly become a hero of legend.

An aspect I really enjoyed was witnessing the differences in how both Barry and Oliver are treated by the public. While The Flash is becoming a hero to many (but not all), The Arrow is still treated with suspicion and fear. The shift in tone allowed us to see Oliver in a different light, still the same person yet...differently.

Some further foundation was also set this week due to the events of the crossover. Eddie is starting to become a real threat to Barry and Iris has now turned on her once hero. Likewise we finally got our first look at Firestorm, was anyone else as surprised as I was? I totally was not expecting to see him just yet.

The only real gripe with the crossover that I had was Oliver's run in with the mystery girl. This is something I feel would have been better included in an episode of Arrow (or even in the Arrow part of the crossover) rather then in The Flash. For those that don't watch Arrow, there was probably a collective "huh?" over that scene.

Overall Feelings:
While many crossovers can prove underwhelming and extremely forced, the crossover between The Flash and Arrow was a big success to me. It was extremely entertaining and I hope it encourages more people to watch both shows. Furthermore it potentially introduced an important concept to the TV universe that I hope reaches far beyond a cameo-reference. How long till we get our next crossover I wonder?

About the Author - Christopher DeBono

Australian Student. Addicted to TV, novels, comics and all things video games.

Watches everything on The CW and many Australian shows.

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