Before we dive into this recap, it is important that you are very well aware that there will be major – and I mean gigantic – spoilers ahead. Proceed at your own risk.
Let me start this out by saying that I really, really enjoyed last night’s conclusion to the FLASH/ARROW crossover. I’ll go even further and say that, while I really liked “Legends of Today”, I loved “Legends of Yesterday” a lot more. And I know that the repercussions about Oliver’s decision at the end of the episode are exploding the internet right now and we will get to that soon enough.
But first, let’s talk about the fact that this crossover was supposed to serve as a platform for LEGENDS OF TOMORROW, which is set to premiere on January 21. I was expecting more. I can definitely admit that. We saw the origin story of Hawkgirl/man and – while it was action-packed and very entertaining – I felt like it kind of missed the point in launching the new show and there was something missing from this particular storyline. And that is a complete paradox in itself because, at the same time, I also thought both episodes felt rushed and that there was way too much information squeezed into a short period of time. This was a lot more prominent on THE FLASH than on ARROW. And maybe that was because “Legends of Today” didn’t really feel like a FLASH episode. It wasn’t really about Barry – and it wasn’t even really all that much about Cisco – and the Velocity 6 storyline, that was actually pertinent to the show itself, felt a little out of place with all the action going on in Star City.
That brings us to last night’s ARROW and why I liked it a lot better than the first part of the crossover. We still had the whole Hawkgirl/man storyline to wrap up, so they could move on to LEGENDS OF TOMORROW and all that, but we had a very, very significant B plot that was all about Oliver and that will have major repercussions through the rest of the season.
Teams Arrow and Flash, along with Kendra and Carter go to a remote location in order to hide them from Vandal Savage. Oliver and Barry brief them on what went down in the church and how the Staff of Horus is super powerful and protected by a force field, so they can’t exactly take it from the immortal dude. The geek squad (and I loved that line from Oliver) quickly comes up with a possible solution and that is to create a gauntlet that could protect them and get through the protective force field. They get to work, but Felicity notices that Oliver seems distracted, especially when he says he needs to take care of something. She asks him about it and he promises he will tell her, but he needs to see what he’s dealing with first. She accepts that and he leaves, going after Samantha to confront her about whether the kid he saw at Jitters with her is his son or not. She denies it, but Oliver still isn’t convinced, so he manages to get a hair sample from William’s hat.
While that is going on, he gets a call from Malcolm Merlyn, who says he arranged a meeting with Savage. Oliver and Barry go and Savage gets all growly and gives them 24 hours to hand over Kendra and Carter or he will kill everyone in Central City and then he will go to Star City and do the same. They return to the house that is serving as headquarters for both teams and brief everyone on what is going on and how they only have one day left to figure out what to do, or else Savage will unleash the apocalypse on them. Kendra starts training with Carter, and Oliver asks Barry to run a DNA test on William’s hair and his own, saying it’s something about Damien Dahrk. When the results return, Barry tells him it’s a match and Oliver goes straight back to Samantha to tell her he knows William is his son. And this is where everything starts to go wrong. He learns that Moira offered a million dollars for Samantha to tell him that she had lost the baby. She never cashed it, but she didn’t want to be anywhere near his family, so she left and never told Oliver that she had a healthy baby boy.
Oliver obviously wants to get to know his son, but she puts her foot down and says that if he wants that, William can’t know he is his Dad and Oliver can’t tell anyone about him. I understand her reasons, but that was a little harsh, wasn’t it? Oliver is devastated and he has no idea that Felicity already knows about the DNA test, because Barry can’t keep a secret under pressure. So when he returns to the house, she confronts him and this right here was the moment that made this episode worth it for me. Oliver is at a complete loss about what to do and Felicity tells him she doesn’t care that he has a kid; what she cares about is the fact that he didn’t tell her, that he didn’t trust her enough to share this life-altering news with her. And I understand where they are both coming from, but what really sold this moment was Stephen Amell’s performance. Emily Bett Rickards killed it too, but Stephen broke my heart. The pain and confusion he was feeling at that moment was so obvious in his expression, and the fact that Felicity was also coming at him about this hard seemed to be the last straw.
They go up against Savage with a half-assed plan and everything is shot to hell. When it looks like there is no hope, Oliver tells Barry to run and the speedster does exactly that – running so fast that he time jumps and manages to return to the moment they were having that meeting with Vandal Savage. He tells Oliver all about it, including the fact that he knows about the test and that it will be a match and that things will go south really fast between him and Felicity. It was because of that that everything went wrong and Central City was wiped from existence. Oliver was too shaken about everything he had learned and didn’t have his head in the game when they fought against the Savage.
Despite Barry’s reservations about messing with the timeline, they handle everything differently this time and come out as victors. Savage is apparently dead – killed with his own staff – and all is well again. Kendra and Carter decide to leave and poor Cisco gets heartbroken. I just felt bad for Cisco through this entire crossover. When he finally had something good going from him, falling in love and everything, and it just had to be with a girl who was a reincarnated warrior priestess, who had a soulmate already.
Oliver confronts Samantha again, but this time, knowing what the possible consequences could be, he agrees to her conditions. The moment he officially meets William is so touching and I feel like it completely justifies his decision, even if I don’t agree with the direction TPTB decided to go regarding his character. It’s not that he chose not to tell Felicity. It’s more that he chose to have an opportunity to get to know his son and he wants to protect that. It still doesn’t excuse the fact that he is lying to Felicity by omission, but I completely get it. The thing is, he has just nuked his relationship with her. Because we all know keeping secrets never end well for Oliver and this is a time bomb waiting to go off. And when it does, I have a feeling that it will shatter our hearts and theirs. Also, Felicity is not an idiot. She knows there is something going on and she knows he is not telling her something. If I know her at all, I am willing to bet that she will do some digging of her own and she will find out what he is hiding. And that just breaks my heart because it won’t end well.
We all knew things wouldn’t go well between them for all eternity. This is a television show and it’s a drama and something had to happen. We all knew that. I just think that this has the potential to completely destroy their relationship and – as of right now – I can’t see a way out of this mess. Unless Oliver tells her soon, this will blow up in his face towards the end of the season and it won’t be pretty.
What did you think? Are you Team Oliver? Team Felicity? Team William? Hit the comments below and tell me all about it, or come talk to me on Twitter.
Don’t miss an all new episode of ARROW on December 9 at 8/7c on The CW.