Legends of Tomorrow, Season 2, Episode 7: Invasion!
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The final part of the Invasion three-parter, Legends of Tomorrow arguably is the part that delivered the most as far as the crossover promises -- heroes fighting aliens. The Flash and Arrow portions of the crossover spent a bit too much time dealing with their respective titular heroes' angst, with the Flash portion spending a not-insignificant part dealing with Barry's guilt over the creation of Flashpoint, whereas the Arrow portion was an episode about Oliver Queen first and foremost before it was one about the Dominator invasion.
So it leaves to Legends of Tomorrow to pick up the slack, and fortunately Legends is well-versed in a huge ensemble cast fighting against an epic world-threatening enemy. It's a satisfying end for a pretty... convoluted and inconsistent story, even if it's one that is entertaining through all three parts. The lineup changes again, with the full cast of Legends of Tomorrow taking point, while the show ditches Neo Team Arrow (and Thea, who apparently went home after the whole 'kidnapped by aliens' thing) and everyone from Team Flash other than Cisco and a little bit of Caitlin. There was some personal drama being told, yes, mostly Stein and (surprisingly) Cisco, but this episode was a lot more insistent in delivering what it promised -- superheroes fighting aliens, and it's the first episode in the Invasion storyline to actually try and flesh out the Dominators beyond the blank slate of evil alien invaders that they were.
It was... a bit of a strange thing, really, to have the motivations told to us so late in the story, and again I maintain that it would probably be a lot better to have the Dominators' motivations told earlier in the story. It's a pretty simple motivation told to us in two separate monologues, basically a simplification of their comic book counterparts' plan. They want to get rid of the metahumans on Earth before they pose a threat, and one Barry Allen's dicking around with the timeline and creating alternate universes has caused them to take action. While it does help make the Dominators a lot more intriguing than just a faceless alien threat...
A ship full of you naked bastards actually landed next to Barry Allen! It's a bit of a glaring plot hole, really, because if their big plan was to take Barry Allen from Earth, why ignore him during the Flash portion of the crossover?
We did get a little time travel sequence that involves part of the Legends team, Felicity and Cisco go back in time to when the Dominators first landed on Earth, and tried to kidnap one to learn about their motivations. While we get to see Citizen Steel's brand new suit, our heroes instead get captured (how did the past Men in Black get technology to nullify Steel's powers and Vixen's freaking magic totem?). Cisco frees the Dominator because he tries to make it understand that not all humans are evil, but as they return to the present day they find out that it didn't quite work out as they planned. This leads to a bit of a convoluted epiphany as Cisco realizes that he's trying to do what Barry did while he created Flashpoint, and he has changed timeline...
Except not really, because Cisco was trying to stop an alien invasion for the good of all mankind. And, yeah, maybe he should've consulted with the rest of the team instead of pushing for his E.T. agenda, but that's a far cry from Barry Allen selfishly and randomly going to the past to save mommy from dying. It's a bit of awkward writing, but at least we got past the tiresome 'Cisco blames Barry for Dante's death and is passive-aggressive as all hell' plotline, which is a huge blessing. It's a solid piece of characterization, I think, even if we did have to jump through some logic hoops to get there.
The tie-in with Flashpoint is that, well, Barry finds out that his creation of Flashpoint was what drew the Dominators' attention to Earth, and he's about to sacrifice himself to the Dominators to atone for his sins. Of course, everyone else clamours in their support for Barry, especially Cisco, which is heartwarming and all that. I guess we're just going to close the book on the Flashpoint ramifications? I guess so, because honestly Flashpoint never quite delivered the huge shake-up that we thought it would do, so yeah.
Stein, meanwhile, has to deal with his own time aberration, because he has a fully-grown daughter thanks to convincing his past self to 'pay more attention' to his wife. Thanks to him being stuck outside of time, and only now returning to his base timeline, his memories are returning little by little, and thus he is confused at this strange human. He knows it's a time aberration, something that shouldn't exist... but at the same time, she is also his daughter and he feels an irrational, unconditional love towards her especially when his memories return. Stein's scene with Caitlin is very effective as the latter tells him to be a good father, and Victor Garber is a very, very excellent actor and seeing him allowed to unleash his acting chops is very well done. I am far more invested with the Martin Stein drama than I am with the Barry/Cisco one, which was functional at best. Stein's interactions with this daughter and his trying to connect with a daughter he doesn't exactly remember, is very well-done.
There's a weird subplot where Oliver suddenly distrusts Supergirl and acts like a dick to her, only to regain respect in the end when Supergirl saves him from being thrown off a roof. This bit came out of nowhere, really, and it's just... weird.
Of course, what we're here for isn't heartwarming character moments, but big beat-em-up moments between superheroes and aliens. And boy, we're missing a couple of important characters from Arrow and Flash, but all the big players, all the big fighters, are all assembled here. Holy shit, man. I freaked out a little, that's for sure. I think the show tries a bit too hard to play the 'global' angle of the invasion because a lot of it is just implied and shown via Flash and Supergirl zipping around the globe to latch the plot devices on the Dominators that are just... walking down the streets and alleyways? Oh well.
The rooftop battle is just amazing, with a dozen superheroes unleashing their powers and weaponry on the Dominators. We've got Green Arrow and Heat Wave standing back to back, using more primitive weaponry, we've got the Atom dropping a Dominator down from the sky, we've got Vixen charging with the power of an elephant, we've got Citizen Steel and his brand-new costume, we've got Firestorm changing the metagene bomb into water... yeah, it's a pretty awesome fight. Again, a bit weird that the Dominators just left -- they have a fuckton of giant motherships with little ships that all have lasers in them, and what's stopping them from returning for a visit? A bunch of plot holes, again, but the superheroes end up driving the Dominators away, and we get a fun little party.
The party's pretty cool, and the evil Agent Smith, who recurs as a villain both in the past and present, gets put in his place because Supergirl made nice with the newly-elected president. There's a lot of fun conversations between the heroes at their little party, and a little fun drink between Oliver and Barry after everyone else went home. It's amazing to see how far from Arrow we've gone through, and while Invasion didn't quite hit on all beats -- it was far to self-referential and way too reliant on personal drama instead of the larger conflict -- it's still a damned entertaining thing to watch. No, it's not the best story in the CW series, not by a long shot... but still an entertaining one.
Justice League Roll Call:
- Superheroes: Green Arrow, Vibe, Atom, Spartan, Citizen Steel, White Canary, Firestorm (Martin Stein & Jefferson Jackson), the Flash, Supergirl, Overwatch, Killer Frost, Heat Wave, Vixen
- Supporting Characters: Lily Stein
- Supervillains: Dominators, Agent Smith
DC Easter Eggs Corner:
- The Dominators' mission in this Invasion storyline is similar to how they were in the comic-book arc, er, Invasion, where they tried to purge Earth's superhumans because they are worried that a primitive race such as us given cosmic-level powers would be bad for the universe. The Metabomb was also something that was borrowed from the comics, though there it was called the Gene Bomb... though the comics version of the Dominators did manage to set off their Gene Bomb.
- "This looks like a job for Supergirl!" Felicity says, which, of course, is a reference to Superman's catchphrase in older material.
- Nate describes Supergirl as a 'strange visitor from another planet', which is a very obscure Golden Age era title that Superman used to have. Of course, it not being anywhere as heroic as stuff like Man of Steel or Man of Tomorrow, it was quickly dropped... but the fandom never forgets.
- Supergirl refers to the group as Earth's mightiest heroes, which is a tagline used to refer to... the Avengers! Wrong universe, Kara.
- During the party at the end, Ray notes how Kara looks like his cousin as the music grinds to a screeching halt. We haven't had a reference to how Ray's actor Brandon Routh played Superman in Superman Returns, and this is an absolutely hilarious way to have that particular Easter Egg dropped.
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