In the ‘Arrow’ recap for ‘Elseworlds Part 2’, Barry and Oliver travel to Gotham City to find Dr. John Deegan where they also run into another caped crusader…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
It seems the crossover between ‘Arrow’, ‘The Flash’ and ‘Supergirl’ will have far reaching consequences for the characters involved as well as set up the epic event already being planned for next season.
In the recap for the first part of the ‘Elseworlds’ crossover, my one complaint was that the set up for many of these big events wasn’t very well done but rather somewhat thrown together at the start of one episode and then wrapped up by the third or fourth in the series.
It seems those concerns were answered by what’s actually happening with the big mega-crossover this season because the producers behind the CW series say that what’s happening this year will directly tie into next year’s event.
“We already know a lot about what’s going on in next year’s crossover,” ‘Arrow’ showrunner Beth Schwartz said after filming ‘Elseworlds’.
Now judging by comment that she made as well as what unfolded in the latest episode, it would certainly appear that the ‘Arrow-verse’ is headed towards the TV version of ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’ — a massive comic book event that saw the introduction of the Anti-Monitor as well as the death of several major superheroes including Supergirl.
Obviously it’s impossible to tell how this same story will unfold in the ‘Arrow-verse’ but it’s good to know that the events happening right now will directly tie into the epic crossover event next season!
In the latest episode of the ‘Elseworld’ crossover, Barry and Oliver travel to Gotham City to look for Dr. John Deegan while members from Team Arrow and Team Flash join forces to try and figure out the anomaly that’s been haunting the city ever since this body swap took place.
In Gotham City, the heroes run into Bruce Wayne’s cousin — a woman named Kate Kane, who is hiding her own secret — and they end up at Arkham Asylum in a search for Deegan in what turns out to be a treasure trove of Batman Easter eggs without the Dark Knight actually making an appearance.
And finally, the team runs into the Monitor for the first time as he reveals his plans for this Earth and all the other Earths across the multiverse.
With that said, let’s recap the latest episode of ‘Arrow’ for ‘Elseworlds Part 2’…
Welcome to Gotham City
After teaming up to stop a killer robot named AMAZO and then discovering that the man involved in this freaky Friday like body swap lives in Gotham City, Barry and Oliver prepare to land in Batman’s hometown alongside their friend from Earth-38 — Supergirl.
First things first, Barry and Oliver call on Team Arrow to join up with Team Flash in an attempt to figure out these weird weather anomalies that started happening as soon as the heroes switched lives a day ago. At the start, Oliver refuses to tell Felicity about his body swap with Barry because they’ve already been going through enough marital problems after he was in prison for the past six months and their relationship has been frayed ever since.
Without arming her with that information, Oliver, Barry and Kara head off to Gotham City to begin looking for answers and hopefully the identification of the men that they saw in that vibe of an alien handing over a book to a man in Gotham City.
As they arrive in town, Barry and Oliver are arguing about whether or not Batman actually exists. Barry believes in the Dark Knight but sadly Batman mysteriously left Gotham City three years ago and he’s never returned. Oliver doesn’t buy the myth that there’s even a Batman and he thinks it’s just an elaborate rouse by the police to keep criminals in line.
Add to that, Oliver is determined to believe he was the first masked vigilante because of course he does.
Whatever is reality, Gotham City has gone to hell without Batman around and the team finds that out rather quickly when they run into a “protection” crew sent to collect money from them as visitors, which ends with Barry using his Green Arrow fighting prowess to take them down as the police arrive to put him under arrest.
Remember, Oliver Queen is a known vigilante and Barry is who they believe is Oliver so everybody gets arrested.
In jail, the team argues about the best way to break free so they can continue their investigation when an unknown benefactor pays their bail to release them from jail. After exiting the police station, Barry, Oliver and Kara are scooped up by a black SUV where they will be taken to meet the person responsible for bailing them out.
That’s when the team arrives at Wayne Enterprises — but it’s not exactly what you’d expect.
Around the same time Batman disappeared, Bruce Wayne also left Gotham City (big surprise there, right?) and the executive board of directors at Wayne Enterprises made some questionable get-rich-quick investments that failed. That’s left the Wayne Enterprises building essentially in ruins and the financial downfall has obviously hurt whatever was left of the job market in Gotham.
Anyways after walking into the building, Barry, Oliver and Kara are introduced to the woman who bailed them out — her name is Kate Kane (Ruby Rose) and she’s Bruce Wayne’s cousin. Apparently she’s looking after the building in his absence with plans to open a real estate business there in the near future but for now she’s telling the heroes to do whatever they need to do and then get out of Gotham. The city has enough problems without more masked vigilantes running around. She offers them a space in the building to work so they can find this mystery man and then get out of the Gotham.
Thankfully, Oliver speedily grabbed a police database copy when they were leaving the station so they are able to do a search along with the drawing from the last episode and that’s when they finally run across Dr. John Deegan — a disgraced psychiatrist, who had nearly been drummed out of his profession but was eventually reinstated when there was lacking evidence to convict him of basically torturing his patients as part of his experimentation.
The problem is his record is several years old and they have no idea of his current place of residence. Kara decides to do a city wide search with her x-ray vision but as she goes to change clothes, she ends up running into Kate and the two of them have a heart to heart. It’s a good moment to learn a little bit more about Kate Kane, who the CW hopes to develop into her own Batwoman series, and this is obviously a precursor to that happening.
Kara does mention the name John Deegan and Kate immediately recognizes him — he’s a doctor at Arkham Asylum, which means that will be the next stop for the heroes.
The Flash in a Flash
Back at Arrow headquarters, the teams are able to figure out that the weather anomaly is actually somebody trying to breach through from another universe. Felicity helps to build a tool that will hopefully bridge the gap between worlds so this person stuck between two places can finally reach through to them.
Meanwhile, Felicity accidentally finds out about the body swap with Oliver and Barry and wonders why she wasn’t trusted enough to be told about the truth. To make matters worse, Felicity feels like her connection with Oliver must be off because Iris was able to tell that her Barry was a different person and she recognized the real love of her life by the end of the episode.
Felicity didn’t have those same feelings when she saw Barry and Oliver.
Caitlin eventually sits down and convinces Felicity that her love with Oliver is very real and they are just going through a bad patch. Not recognizing that he had swapped bodies with somebody else doesn’t mean they aren’t in love — the two still somewhat newlyweds are just out of sync.
Finally the team is able to break through the breach and that’s when they spot a Flash from an alternate Earth trying to get to them. While this version of the Flash is unable to get through the breach, he’s able to pass along a message that they need to get the book that’s controlling their destinies.
We All Go A Little Mad Sometimes
At Arkham, the team is trying to figure out a way inside when the rest of Team Arrow and Team Flash show up to give some extra support while passing along the message from the Flash from an alternate universe. This time it’s actually Barry who wonders if they should believe this mysterious message — once again living in Oliver’s pessimistic shoes.
Still the team connives their way inside to track down Dr. Deegan and this book that apparently they need to find to stop this weird alternate reality that’s happening right now.
Inside Arkham is like an homage to Batman’s greatest hits with cells that read names such as Oswald Cobblepot and Edward Nygma — but when the team tracks down John Deegan, he scoffs at their suggestion to fix reality and he manages to escape by releasing all of the prisoners from their cells as he makes a run for it.
Team Flash and Team Arrow help restore order in the prison — including a fun battle between Nora Fries (aka Mr. Freeze’s wife) and Killer Frost as well as a box filled with Dr. Jonathan Crane’s notorious fear serum spilling on the floor and gassing both Barry and Oliver.
After sniffing the toxin, Barry (as Oliver) is faced with his greatest nemesis Malcom Merlyn while Oliver (as Barry) faces off with Eobard Thawne aka the Reverse Flash.
In reality, the two heroes are actually just fighting each other but in their minds they are dealing with some serious psychological torture with ghosts from the past haunting each of them. Finally a new hero arrives on the scene to lend a hand — enter Batwoman!
She shows up, kicks both Barry and Oliver out of their fearful minds and they are able to stop the prison break and restore order. Meanwhile downstairs, Supergirl is able to track down Deegan and take the Book of Destiny away from him as he tried to make his escape.
The team now has the book that they believe can restore the universe to its original reality but they have to figure out how to get it open. Before leaving, Kara spends another moment with Batwoman as each of them now know their true identities — Supergirl figures it out thanks to her x-ray vision and Kate Kane’s many tattoos. With that, the team is headed back to Star City for answers.
The Trigger Twins
Back at Arrow headquarters, the team is trying to figure out a way to open the book when they spot a news report that shows the mysterious alien that Barry and Oliver saw in their vibe with Cisco has arrived in Star City.
Oliver has a heart-to-heart with Felicity, explaining why he didn’t tell her about the body swap and promising that no matter what they’ve gone through, she’s always going to be the love of his life. Felicity reunites with her husband, hopefully for good this time.
Simultaneously, the Flash from Earth-90 finally breaches through to warn them about this mysterious alien, who has flipped their reality on its head. First he introduces himself as Barry Allen — it’s actually John Wesley Shipp from the 90’s ‘Flash’ TV series — and he tells them about Mar Novu aka the Monitor — and he’s the being responsible for destroying his Earth and now he believes that the Monitor has arrived here with the same agenda.
The team rushes to face off with the Monitor when he finally tells them his true purpose.
The Monitor says that there is a force of nature coming for the multiverse — so powerful that even he can’t stop it and so he’s trying to find an Earth with heroes strong enough to fight back against this ultimate evil. So he’s been twisting reality on all these different worlds in an attempt to find the one capable of facing off against the biggest of big bads.
The Monitor quickly dispatches the Flash from Earth-90, sending him home again, and then he takes back the Book of Destiny before disappearing himself.
He then reappears in John Deegan’s lab, hands him back the book and tells the deranged psychiatrist to think bigger with his next reality twist. He really wants to test these heroes and Deegan needs to give them an even bigger challenge.
The next thing you know, Barry and Oliver wake up in the middle of a street wearing biker jackets, neither of them have any powers and there’s a newspaper with their photos on the cover along with the headlines talking about the ‘Trigger Twins’ pulling off another heist. It seems in this alternate reality, Barry and Oliver are criminals.
To make matters worse after they dispatch a police force sent to arrest them, they run into a different kind of hero who has been keeping an eye on this version of Earth.
It’s Superman — dressed all in black — and he’s there to restore the peace to Star City…or is he?
The final part of the ‘Elseworlds’ crossover takes place on Tuesday night at 8pm ET with a brand new episode of ‘Supergirl’.
