Warning: This will contain spoilers for tonight's episode as well as yesterday's episode of The Flash.
This week, on Arrow, the team heads to a farmhouse, away from the city to figure out a plan of attack against Vandal Savage. Kendra starts remembering her past and a moment where Vandal Savage came to her temple. Kendra is going to get trained by Hawkman and he presents her with her helmet. Ollie heads to follow Samantha as he saw her in the coffee shop. He asks about her son and she says it's not his. Malcolm calls him and said he arranged a meeting between Arrow, Malcolm, and Savage.
During the meeting, Vandal explains that he, Kendra, and Carter are all connected. He says he wants them both or he will destroy both Flash and Arrow's cities. He tells them they have 24 hours. Oliver doesn't want to do it, but Malcolm wants to hand them over.
Barry pulls Cisco aside and tells him he "ghosted" the night before so he thinks he's going to time jump again. Diggle brings the group a tape from 1975. It's a professor that explains who Vandal Savage is but there's a way to beat him. Barry ran a DNA sequence for Oliver of his possible son's hair and the chromosomes match. Oliver approaches Samantha and she says Oliver's mother paid her to be quiet. Felicity finds out about it and confronts Oliver. Felicity leaves and Barry asks him what's wrong. Barry and Oliver head inside and establish a gameplan.
Only Flash, Arrow, Hawkgirl, and Hawkman head to meet Vandal. He plans on killing the two. He's about to do it, but Arrow intervenes. Vandal beats everyone down, then he kills both Hawkman and Hawkgirl. Barry grabs the staff and shoots Vandal. Oliver takes control and tells Barry to run. Vandal blows up the building and the city and Flash runs. As he outruns the blast, everyone is dying. Flash runs so fast, he goes back in time... back to the moment of the meeting with Malcolm and Oliver.
After the meeting, Barry and Oliver get back to the farmhouse and Barry tells him the plan doesn't work. Barry tells him Oliver's head wasn't in the game. Oliver wants to do everything differently. Oliver tells Cisco that Carter shouldn't be talking to Kendra, Cisco should be. Cisco talks to her about finding out who she is. Cisco tells her she needs to remember who she was. She remembers a moment where her and Carter were together and Vandal Savage walked in on them, during Egyptian times. Vandal kills both of them and gains his powers while meteors hit the Earth. Kendra wakes in present day and says she knows how to beat Vandal.
This time, everyone goes to the warehouse to take on Savage. Everyone is in a position hiding out though. Everyone takes on Savage and it seems to be working a little bit better. Both Oliver and Barry get the staff and blast Vandal into oblivion.
Oliver heads to Samantha's house and under her terms, he can't tell anyone. Oliver goes to talk to his son, William, but he can't tell William he's his father. William loves the Flash so they play action figures. Oliver has to be Captain Cold.
Back at the warehouse, Malcolm collect's Savage's ashes. The end.
Vandal Savage has been destroyed, or has he? Viewers are treated to some pretty fantastic fight sequences in this episode and one of them involved everyone dying. Luckily, Flash has the ability which he has to use very sparingly, to travel back in time, resetting everything. It's a nice reminder that Barry is extremely powerful, but good-hearted, so he only uses his powers with great responsibility. That last fight was pretty fantastic as well as we got to see all the heroes of the CWverse teaming up to beat down Vandal.
Here's the thing with that though. That final fight ending was extremely anti-climactic. I kept saying to myself "that's it?" as it moved to the next scene. It felt like it was too easy and the whole final battle was a little bit of a letdown.
And what's going on with Malcolm? He's the most Snidely Whiplash character on television. The moment he starts putting Vandal's ashes into the pouch, I expected him to grow a long mustache, which he would twirl, or a maniacal laugh. I like the idea of Vandal coming back in present day, but that last scene left a sour taste in my mouth.
Oliver confronting Samantha was a terrible idea. Vandal Savage threatened those closest to the heroes and Oliver heads off to find out more about his son. It seems like the biggest foreshadowing moment in the episode. However, it actually played out extremely well and threw me through a loop. It became a nice side piece for this story and a bit of a break from the "how do we stop Vandal Savage" story.
Once again, the highlight of this episode, much like last night's episode of The Flash was the dynamic between Oliver and Barry. That's really what makes these crossovers so great. We have two well-established heroes who do their crime fighting in two very different ways. They also have two very distinct personalities. They work really well together, even if they don't agree on the best plans of attack. The same could be said for their secondary team, which many mirror each other in certain ways, like Felicity and Cisco, but they all have their significant place on the team. The only downside to all of this is that there were so many people on these teams, that a few never really got their time to shine on screen.
Overall, this was a solid crossover for 2015. It wasn't as great as last year's crossover, but it was a blast seeing these two teams work together. Vandal Savage was an impressive character and Casper Crump nails the role, but the whole story line with him felt a tad anti-climactic. However, these two episodes are all really just a lead-in to the upcoming Legends of Tomorrow series. Imagine, if everything lines up, how amazing next year's crossover could be with all three series. Anyway, this was a solid two-part crossover that was a ton of fun.
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