Arrow S05E08 [Invasion Pt 2] Review: Infinite Crisis

Arrow, Season 5, Episode 8: Invasion!

The second part of the Invasion three-parter... didn't function very well as a part of a huge crossover. I mean, yeah, there are other characters from other shows who pop up here -- Cisco, Barry and Kara show up to provide Team Arrow some muscle to help track down the goobledeygonk that they needed to hack into the Dominators' ship, and Nate shows up a little to pilot the Waverider, but everyone in this episode (hell, even Barry and Cisco!) owes their origins to Arrow. The characters that represent Legends of Tomorrow that get abducted by the Dominators, Ray and Sara, both started as characters of the Arrow show, and this being the 100th episode of the huge series (what the actual shit) it actually functions as a milestone episode far better than it does as part of the Dominator three-parter.

So yeah, this episode is absolutely excellent, tugs at all the right heartstrings and makes all the right callbacks. And it's very, very hard to hate this episode, especially with the weight of so much history in-universe of what's being presented to Oliver, Thea, Diggle, Sara and Ray in the Dominators' dream-world. At the same time, it's a pretty bad place to jump from the Dominator setup in Flash's portion of the crossover, because, well, the Dominators' influence wasn't felt that well. The five superheroes stuck in a dream world have to fight against their inner demons more than anything, and when they do break out... the Dominators are apparently just kind of idiots who leave their prisoners without even a single guard, and they leave active space-guns laying around anywhere for people to steal. And yeah, the space battle at the end is cool and all, right up to the Waverider rescuing them, but other than that, the Dominators have minimal influence and it's a bit odd why a mind-world created to trap them would have such an obvious exit.

Even the B-team, with Cisco helping the rest of Team Arrow (bar Artemis, who's conspicuously missing), ends up facing off against this Cyber-Woman lady who literally showed up out of nowhere. There's a pretty weak and basic sub-plot of Wild Dog absolutely hating metahumans and aliens (despite working with fucking RAGMAN), noting that destruction is sure to follow their wake... but of course, Flash and Supergirl are superheroes and after saving Wild Dog from Cyber-Woman he's like 'yeah, you guys are cool'. It would be a lot better if this particular sub-plot was connected to the Dominator plot, yeah? Give Wild Dog's hatred of metahumans and motive rants to Cyber-Woman, who might be working for the Dominators instead of just some random lady with an alien cyborg arm that apparently is operating in Star City and no one ever noticed?

Anyway, back to the amazing storytelling in the dream-world. It's a very common trope in superhero stories, for a long-running superhero to be shown the life they might have had if things had happened differently, if they hadn't jumped to the call, if the tragedies that struck them didn't happen. Superman's "For the Man who has Everything" is the most iconic such story, but various other superheroes and series have also done something similar. So Arrow did its own spin, by having its characters get trapped in a dream world that embodies perfectly the life they might have had if they hadn't became superheroes. It's a saccharine world where Oliver is about to marry Laurel, where Moira and Robert Queen are alive, where the tragedy aboard the Queen's Gambit never occurred, Quentin is happy and actually getting along in a world where his two daughters are alive and one is about to get married, where Malcolm Merlyn is a nice fellow, where Ray and Felicity are happy together, where apparently John Diggle became Green Arrow while leaving Oliver's life in peace...

Basically, everything they have lost over five seasons of Arrow are undone in this imaginary world. Oliver isn't the only one who has lost loved ones -- Thea, Diggle, Sara and Ray have also lost a lot, and it's a nice bit to see all these characters in this 'what could have been' world... and honestly, it's a not hard to see why our heroes so desperately want all this to be true, so much that everyone but Oliver have fooled themselves.

Add that to the very welcome return of so many Arrow alumni -- Laurel Lance, Moira Queen and Robert Queen all show up alive and well in the dream-world, and the latter two are especially a treat considering how long they've been gone from Arrow. We also get brief cameos from Roy Harper and Tommy Merlyn in the end, though obviously those two are just archival footage and not their actors returning.

The shared dream-world is a bit of an odd thing if we're considering this as a part of the bigger alien storyline, but as an Arrow episode, as an episode focusing around Oliver Queen and the people around him, it's a very well-done episode. It's a treat watching even altered dream-world versions of show regulars like Quentin Lance. Happy Quentin Lance is so weird considering how he's arguably the member of the cast that had lost the most and is dealing with it in the shittiest way possible. Oliver starts to notice things are wrong with the dreamworld and it's heart-breaking as he tries to get everyone out of their funk. In particular, the goodbye to the dream Laurel and his dream parents are very heartbreaking. We've got Thea as the obligatory 'I wanna stay, but in five minutes I'll show up in the climax' character and it's a bit strange that Oliver is so okay with leaving his freaking sister behind in an alien dream-world, but considering how happy they were... I guess Oliver is just planning on forcibly taking Thea with them once they got out of the Dominators' machine?

Regardless of how forced it was, though, it was heartbreaking to see Thea as this idyllic world crumbles all around her and she just wants to stay because, fuck, they've all lost so much. Thea is not a character that has had much chances to shine, but moments like this really show what a talented actress Willa Holland can be.

It wouldn't be an Arrow episode without a martial arts fight, and we get the very welcome return of Deathstroke (played by a stuntman instead of Manu Bennett, but I don't care), Malcolm Merlyn and Damien Darhk as our heroes do battle against them. Diggle and Palmer have to make do with fighting a Ghost and a Mirakuru Soldier, but it's actually brilliant in hindsight because Diggle seems to be fighting the masked version of his brother Andy, arguably his greatest enemy, while a Mirakuru soldier is the one responsible for killing Ray's old fiancee, making it pretty suitable for them to face their respective Star City nemeses. The whole Deathstroke thing was satisfying, but also equally satisfying is seeing Thea and Sara take down Merlyn and Darhk respectively.

So yeah, they escape, kill some Dominators, hijack a ship and get rescued by Nate on the Waverider. All that jazz. In the real world, Team Arrow go through some filler. Again, as cool as it is to see the two-superhero takedown of Cyber-Woman (which is a silly name even by superhero standards) via Supergirl and Flash, it's still very much undisguised filler. Like I mentioned above, the Wild Dog stuff felt forced and one-note. There is the entertaining factor of Cisco coming in and acting like he's this big shot while talking to the Neo Team Arrow members, but that's honestly not very much to go on.

It's a bit unfair to harp on this side of the episode simply because I find the Oliver-dreamworld stuff so much more entertaining and engaging emotionally, but really, instead of babbling about how alien communication devices work, why not have the Flash/Supergirl/Team Arrow people actually engage some Dominator minions and let us learn about these wrinkly, naked aliens? We did get a truncated origin story in the next episode, and I honestly can't help but wonder if it's better to replace the very filler-y and random Cyber-Woman lady with actual Dominators. If they can't afford the CG, well, fighting a human thrall of the Dominator, like an Agent Smith style 'form you are comfortable with' herald, would do so much more than just seeing what a dick Wild Dog is.

This leaves the final Legends episode to pick up the slack as far as crossover material go, and it's their one chance to get the epic showdown that this arc deserves.

Justice League Roll Call:

• Superheroes: Green Arrow, Speedy, Spartan, White Canary, the Atom, Wild Dog, Mr. Terrific, Ragman, Overwatch, Vibe, the Flash, Supergirl, Citizen Steel
• Supporting Cast: Laurel Lance (dream), Moira Queen (dream), Robert Queen (dream), Quentin Lance (dream), Tommy Merlyn (dream), Roy "Arsenal" Harper (dream)
• Supervillains: Dominators, Cyber-Woman, Deathstroke (dream), Damien Darhk (dream), Malcolm Merlyn (dream)

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• We've got multiple flashbacks to significant events in Arrow's history. Dream versions of former supporting characters Moira Queen, Robert Queen and Laurel Lance appear, as well as former antagonists Malcolm Merlyn, Deathstroke and Damien Darhk. We also get very brief cameos of Tommy Merlyn and Roy Harper.
• Flashbacks to Queen's Gambit sinking, Oliver meeting Diggle, Oliver meeting Felicity, Deathstroke killing Moira, Darhk killing Laurel, Diggle killing Andy, the death of Ray's fiancee, and various other scenes are briefly seen here and there. 
• In the flashback, Ray Palmer is about to buy Queen Consolidated, which was what he is doing in season three.
• Dream!Quentin is investigating 'the Hood' (John Diggle in the dream), which is Oliver's nickname in season one. Adam Hunt, a villain from the List, is briefly mentioned as one being taken out by this mysterious vigilante.
• Thea gives Oliver a hosen stone here, which alludes to the first episode of Arrow where it's Oliver that gives Thea a hosen stone.
• Walter Steele is mentioned briefly in the dream world -- he's a supporting character in the first two seasons, but has since disappeared.
• Diggle makes references to a 'Russian maid', which is a reference to the Queen household's Russian maid Raisa, who was seen in the pilot episode and disappeared afterwards. 
• Diggle, of course, has donned the costume several times in the first season to help stop the police suspicion that Oliver Queen is the hood.
• Quentin's chilly relationship with Oliver in season one is briefly mentioned by Oliver and dream!Quentin. 
• Cyber-Woman, a.k.a. Laura Washington is a character created for this series, though some fans have noted similarities between her and obscure villain Cyborgirl. Van Horn Industries is a reference to obscure superhero Gunfire, a.k.a. Andrew Van Horn. Geez, even I don't know who any of these people are.
• Dream!Laurel's necklace has an engraving of the pretty obscure Black Canary logo from the comics. 
• Malcolm tells Thea that Tommy is busy being a doctor in Chicago to show up -- this is a cheeky reference to how the actor is starring in the show Chicago Med.
• Mr. Terrific has a brief debate with Ragman about the latter's belief in religion. In the comics, Mr. Terrific often had arguments with religious characters like Doctor Mid-Nite over their beliefs of the divine.
• Oliver is mentioned several times in the dream world as 'the man who has everything' by Diggle and other characters, which is, of course, a reference to the Superman story of the same name, where Superman finds himself trapped in a similarly idyllic world.
• Artemis is absent among the Arrow cast, because the producers felt it would be too confusing after last episode of Arrow revealing that she's an agent of Prometheus.