In the ‘Arrow’ recap for the third part of the ‘Invasion’ crossover, Oliver is trapped in a dream world while Barry and the others try to free their friends…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
The massive CW crossover only has one hour to go and yet it feels like so much has yet to happen.
The timing of this event coincided with the 100th episode of ‘Arrow’ that aired on Wednesday night and for fans of the show, it was an incredible reunion of sorts as many favorite characters from past seasons reappeared as part of a dream sequence for Oliver and his friends while they were trapped on the Dominator’s ship in space.
On the flipside, the dreamy episode didn’t do much to further the ‘Invasion’ storyline as the aliens were really secondary for the entire hour. Sure, the Flash and Supergirl both made brief appearances in the episode but outside of a brief mention of an ultimate weapon being designed by the Dominators, there’s still a lot that has to unfold during Thursday’s episode of ‘Legends of Tomorrow’ to truly make this crossover as big as it was supposed to feel.
Perhaps that criticism comes from someone who doesn’t watch ‘Arrow’ as religiously as ‘The Flash’ or ‘Supergirl’ but it seemed like the ‘Invasion’ angle lost a little bit of steam.
That being said, ‘Arrow’ fans were undoubtedly excited to see many of their favorites return to the canvas if only for one night — especially the reunion between Oliver and Laurel after she was killed in season 4.
With that said, let’s recap the latest episode of ‘Arrow’ as part 3 of ‘Invasion!’…
It Was All a Dream
At the end of ‘The Flash’ on Tuesday night, Oliver Queen, Ray Palmer, Thea, Sara and Diggle were all transported away from Earth, presumably to the alien ship where the Dominators placed them in some kind of Matrix-like pod where they were entered into a dream sequence of sorts.
When Oliver ‘wakes up’, he’s in a different time and place — a ‘Flashpoint’ universe if you will — where he’s about to marry Laurel, he’s no longer the Green Arrow, his father is still alive and about to become mayor of Star City and he wants his son to take over Queen Industries or potentially watch the company fall under control of rival industrialist Ray Palmer.
There is a Green Arrow in town but it’s actually John Diggle, who goes by the name of the Hood.
Throughout Ollie’s dream sequence, he continues to get flashes of his real life, especially when he starts interacting with more and more people who were captured with him by the Dominators.
As happy as this life might seem to all those involved, the flashes to reality continue to pull Ollie and the others out of the dream state. Eventually, Oliver convinces everybody that this must be some sort of mind warp courtesy of the Dominators after they all begin to remember the previous night where they were transported away by a flash of light.
The one major obstacle that really doesn’t fit in this world is a building — ‘Smoak Industries’ — and that leads all of them to believe the key to escaping must be through there. To get to the entrance, however, the heroes must first battle a group of imagined super villains blocking the way.
Everybody from Damien Darhk to Deathstroke are standing in the way, but Team Arrow eventually gets past all of them to finally make it to Smoak Industries.
Inside, the group finds a glowing portal that clearly leads back to reality so they all jump through and when they awaken, the team is back on the Dominator’s ship, crawling out of the mind warping pods they were placed in after being captured.
Out of This World
Back in Star City, Felicity leads the rest of Team Arrow in a mission to find out where the Dominators have stashed Oliver and the others and they get a helping hand from Cisco Ramon, who arrives from STAR Labs with some stolen alien technology to assist in the hunt.
The team comes up with a plan to plug in some translating software from Curtis in hopes of deciphering some information from the Dominators to track down Ollie and the gang. Unfortunately, the alien tech overloads the software and explodes, which leads everyone to believe that they need some kind of regulator to make it all work.
Unfortunately the last known piece of technology in Star City that matches what they need was just stolen by a woman amassing all kinds of toys to turn herself into a powerful weapon. With the odds stacked against them, Felicity calls in the Flash and Supergirl to back them up while going after the regulator.
A battle ensues once they find the woman — and after Wild Dog expresses his displeasure that metahumans or people with powers are involved in this endeavor at all — but he realizes their help is needed when he’s nearly killed. Thankfully, the Flash and Supergirl take out the woman, steal back the regulator and they now have a way to trace Ollie’s location.
Unfortunately once the regulator is plugged into the alien tech, the team finds out some bad news. Oliver and the others are on the alien ship — the one that’s currently hovering outside of Earth’s atmosphere in space.
The Final Countdown
Once Ollie and the others awaken from the dream state, they realize it’s time to escape the ship or face certain doom. The team also realizes that none of the metahumans were taken, which means the Dominators were distracting them with the dream state to delve into their minds for information.
The team quickly makes their way through the ship but one wrong turn leads them right into the Dominators. Oliver thinks fast and grabs a weapon off the wall before firing at the aliens as they make a fast getaway.
They arrive at a ship and all hop in without much knowledge about how this whole thing works. Thankfully, Thea figures out a way to make it launch and they are shot into outer space — and seconds later the Dominators give chase. Just when it looks like they are going to be blown to smithereens, the Waverider shows up out of nowhere and grabs the ship before disappearing into thin air.
Aboard the ship that belongs to the ‘Legends of Tomorrow’, Ray remembers a phrase he heard on board the Dominator’s ship and repeats it back so Gideon, the onboard computer can hopefully translate it. Gideon gets the job done and the words mean “we are nearing completion of the weapon”.
Now the main Dominators ship is headed for Earth for one final showdown between heroes and aliens.
The mega-crossover event comes to an end with ‘Legends of Tomorrow’ on Thursday night at 8pm on the CW.
