Flash vs Arrows

Eddie Thown ( Rick Cosnett ) proposes to create a strike squad to combat meta-people. Meanwhile, a new meta-man, Roy Bivolo (Paul Anthony), is robbing a bank, while demonstrating the ability to arouse uncontrolled fury among others. Oliver Queen ( Stephen Amell ), John Diggle ( David Ramsey ) and Felicity Smoke ( Emily Bett Rickards ) come to Central City to find out something about the criminal who kills people with boomerangs. Barry Allen ( Grant Gastin ) and Oliver decide to join forces and catch both Bivolo and Captain Boomerang. Nevertheless, Barry is eager to fight Bivolo without any plan, as a result of which he falls under the influence of his ability. Since Barry is not an ordinary person, the duration of the effect has increased. As a result, he gradually begins to turn into a villain. Oliver is forced to fight with a friend and hold him until Joe ( Jesse L. Martin ) and Harrison Wells ( Tom Cavana ) arrive in a van equipped with a color strobe and return Barry to normal. Flash and Strela later catch Bivolo and imprison him inside the S.T.A. Labs accelerator. Since Flash, while he was a villain, attacked and beat Eddie Thone, the police approve the detective’s strike initiative. Barry admits. that he still has room to grow, while Oliver advises the young hero to stay away from Iris ( Candice Patton ). Iris, after she saw the dark side of Flash, decides not to support him anymore. Oliver leaves, but before that he asks the Flash team to keep his identity secret. A burning meta-man appears in Central City ( Robbie Amell ).

Five years before the events of the crossover, the young Oliver is in Hong Kong and is learning how to use torture most effectively to obtain information. In the present, Roy Harper ( Colton Haines ) finds out where Digger Harkness ( Nick Tarabey ) (aka Captain Boomerang) lives, but at the indicated address the Strela team finds only A.R.G.U.S. employees who are also looking for Harkness. Meanwhile, in Starling City, in order to help Felicity investigate the death of Sarah Lance ( Katie Lotz ), Cisco Ramon ( Carlos Valdes ) and Caitlin Snow ( Daniel Panabaker ) arrive. Digger arrives at the headquarters of A.R.G. W.C. and attacks Laila Michaels ( Audrey Marie Anderson ). Strela's team rushes to the rescue, but is ambushed by Digger. They are saved by the Flash that arrived at Starling City. It is revealed that Digger was a member of the Suicide Squad. Oliver’s interrogation techniques make Barry think about his friend’s mental poise. Harkness later tracks the location of Strela's hideout, finds Laila, and injures her. To be able to leave the city, the villain lays five bombs in different parts of the city. As a result, Flash and Strela decide to join forces again: Oliver enters the battle with Captain Boomerang, and Flash uses the joint efforts of both his comrades and Oliver's associates to defuse all the bombs at once. In the end, Digger lost and was sent to Lian Yu, where he was imprisoned by A. R. G. U.S., along with Slade Wilson. Diggle goes to the hospital to Layla and makes her an offer, she agrees. Before leaving the Flash team, Barry and Oliver had a friendly duel.

Basic and Duplicate

Invitees

Ideas

The first signs of the upcoming crossover began to be observed after Barry Allen, Cisco Ramon and Caitlin Snow were introduced during the 2013–2014 television season, which later became the main characters of Flash. ^[8] In July 2014, it was announced that the eighth episodes of the first season of Flash and the third season of Arrows would be a two-hour series of crossovers ^[9] . Andrew Chrysberg , executive producer of both series, revealed that “it will be a real two-episode adventure with Arrow and Flash. Watching these two teams come together and work side by side is one of the most fascinating things in the world ... We just can't wait. We truly believe in accelerated narration and in the first nine episodes of both series ... ” ^[10] .

Script

Scenarios for both parts of the crossover were written around mid-September 2014. Greg Berlanti and Andrew Kreisberg wrote short stories ^{[11] [12]} , according to which later Ben Sokolovsky and Brooke Ickmeyer (for Flash) ^[11] , as well as Mark Guggenheim and Granny Godfrey (for Strela) created television scripts ^[12] . Guggenheim admitted: “I have never had such an interest in writing a script, perhaps in my entire life. It was such a powerful impulse for work ... I continue to tell everyone that we should try like the Avengers. Two heroes on a high budget. We blow down on this. And when we see all these characters together, we have a lot of jokes. What happens if Cisco puts his eyes on Thea? There are moments like this that we cannot show in a regular episode. This is so exciting. A real explosion ” ^[13] .

Filming

Filming of both episodes lasted from September 24 to October 8, 2014 ^{[12] [14]} . The director of the Flash series was Glen Winter ^[11] , and the Strela series was directed by Jesse Warne ^[12] .

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On December 18, 2014, the WaterTower Music label released a CD with the Flash vs Strela crossover soundtrack, on which you could find musical themes from both parts of the crossover, as well as two additional tracks that were written for the ninth episodes of Flash and Arrows who completed the first half-season of both series ^[16] . To the question of how it was possible to combine all the tracks with a single theme, Blake Neely answered as follows: “It was not difficult, since I initially wrote music for both series with a view to their future unification, but at the same time their possible coexistence as two separate music worlds. If for one series I wrote in the style of jazz, and for another - electronic dance, then yes, I would have damn big problems. But given my initial approach, it was very exciting to do ” ^[17] .

Two bonus tracks were added to the album, because "it was they who found the greatest popularity among fans of the crossover." Neely revealed that “we were almost done and getting ready to release [the album] when I received tweets from various people asking about these two topics that people liked and I had the idea to include them as bonus tracks ... Fans asked and received it is ” ^[18] .

The author of all compositions is Blake Neely ^[19] .

The premiere of both parts of the crossover took place on November 22, 2014, when they were specially shown for fans at the Crest Theater in Westwood, Los Angeles ^[20] . After the show , Steven Amell , Grant Gustin , David Ramsey , Emily Bett Rickards , Daniel Panabaker and Carlos Valdes , who attended the premiere, were joined by executive producers Chrysberg, Berlanti and Guggenheim to hold a conference with the audience ^[21] . The television premiere of the episode “Flash” took place on The CW channel on December 2, 2014, and “Arrows” on December 3, 2014 on the same channel ^[22] . That same evening, the crossover was shown on the Canadian television channel CTV Television Network ^[23] .

Ratings

The episode "Flash" was the highest-rated episode of the series, not counting the " Pilot series ", released on October 7, 2014 ^[27] . Compared to the previous episode, “ Power Outages, ” the audience grew by 22%, and the rating in the age group from 18 to 49 - by 14% ^[28] . The Strela episode also yielded only to its pilot episode (released on October 10, 2012) in terms of the number of viewers, but turned out to be more successful in terms of ratings from 18 to 49. Compared to the episode " Put your bow down ", an increase of 46% and 56% in television audiences and ratings from 18 to 49, respectively ^[29] , which made him the most popular of the Wednesday’s shows in The CW’s channel grid over the previous two years ^[30] .

Criticism

After the release of the first crossover featuring Strela and Flash, Brian Laurie, writing for Variety, praised the creators for replicating Strela’s success, but “with a lighter tone” and “hero with true superpower” and called the crossover “an opportune moment for everyone interested made a short but deserved circle of honor. ” Lori also noted. that the crossover “does a delicate job of combining the two series, although it is probably not his goal to attract more audiences to them than already exists” ^[31] . Meredith Borders of Birth.Movies.Death called the crossover “funny” and added with approval that “so much has happened that is not connected with any series, nor with another - and that’s good. On the one hand, crossovers were definitely open to new audiences, either Arrows or Flash (or, more likely, both), and on the other, each episode wrapped in a beautiful wrapper moved the plot further, without bothering to explain it to beginners . New viewers will go further and have a good time, while old ones are rewarded with a significant shift in the main storyline ” ^[32] .

According to Chancellor Agard, who writes for Entertainment Weekly , the Flash and Arrow crossover was a success. When viewing the episodes, it became clear that mainly the crossover was made for the sake of “Flash”; its main purpose was to draw attention to the show, which has its own reason. “Flash” is not yet a fledgling chick and in this unstable television landscape it is impossible to say whether he will be able to survive thanks to his ratings. In terms of storytelling, Flash really didn't need a crossover. Yes, the plots of both parts additionally revealed the majority of Flash characters. However, given the high quality of the work of the screenwriters of the series, in my opinion, screenwriters would probably create a regular episode where the same thing takes place. However, both Flash vs. Arrows and Brave and the Bold put the characters in completely new situations and it was interesting to watch how they reacted to them. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the characters of Arrows. This is not to say that there were no really funny moments involving Strela's team; however, Strela’s team interaction with another group of superheroes didn’t bring anything new to the series. The presence of Flash in the second part of the crossover did not affect the storylines of Strela. This was mainly because in the third season Strela had a rather blurry plot. In a word, it was a super-fascinating, but wasted week for Strela ^[33] .

The TV Line website put crossover dilogy at 9th place on its list of the best TV moments of 2014: “There are crossovers. And there is a show about superheroes. But in recent times, there has never been a case when two costumed crime fighters performed by live actors faced each other in a battle using super abilities (albeit in mitigating circumstances). Flash’s smooth movements and Strela’s strength and strategy turned everything into an intense tango, really corresponding to the hype that unfolded around it ” ^[34] .

Flash

Jesse Shedin, a critic at IGN , set Flash vs. Arrow to 7.8 out of 10. According to him, “Flash vs. Arrow” was not as ambitious as it might seem, but it was funny to see two heroes clash their foreheads ... Scriptwriters focused more on the entertaining side of the battle of these heroes and the relationship between their allies. It was interesting to see. that relations between Barry and Oliver continue to develop, but at the same time these two heroes fought for a short while. However, the decision of the creators to make this story an exclusively autonomous episode severely limited them in the amount of material, which led to the emergence of another weak villain ” ^[35] . In his review for the AV Club, Scott Vaughn Doviak rated the episode A-, calling it “a satisfactory frank exchange of views.” According to him, “Despite the fact that The CW promoted Flash vs Strela as the first part of the crossover dilogy, including tomorrow's“ Brave and Bold, ”the episode is actually an independent, separate“ Flash ”hour.” Vaughn Doviak also mentioned that “One of the potential pitfalls in creating the crossover of the two shows lies in the collision of their atmospheres. The arrow, although certain light moments are associated with it, is an eternally serious and gloomy avenger. Barry Allen, despite his inner demons, is from the kind of superheroes who save people among picturesque and fascinating scenes. Screenwriters Greg Berlanti and Andrew Chrysberg and director Glen Winter took the strings of this dichotomy and weaved them into a bizarre episode pattern. ” He also highlighted the scene of the battle between Flash and Arrow: “This is a quality-set battle, where each hero is strong in his own way and smart in his own way” ^[36] .

Dave Trambor of Collider.com directed Flash Against Arrow A-: “While you are watching with interest how two TV characters performed by live actors share some screen time, today continues the storyline begun in previous episodes of each of the series. And although the final scene hints that Mr. Oliver Queen will face big changes, the episode is entirely about Barry Allen and the difficulties that he faces as a young and assertive crime fighter ... It took a lot of holes and kicks received from Strela to Barry realized that his abilities were an amazing gift that he had to develop and hone in order to become a real hero in the future. ” Trumbor also “liked the way Strela’s attention to detail and his desire for self-improvement faced Barry’s carelessness and even carelessness when it comes to beating villains” ^[37] . Agard had high expectations about the episode and he was “not disappointed,” indicating that “Flash vs Strela” excelled both in terms of action - the battle between Flash and Strela was set flawlessly and in terms of characters. And while we are watching with interest how the Flash team interacts with the Strela team, the episode does not forget for a minute that it is “Flash”, and everything has been done to take a step in the development of the storylines of the series. Yes, today's meta-man looks no more than a plot move, but this is a wonderful plot move, as it provides us with an epic battle scene promised by the name of the episode ” ^[38] .

Eric Walters, who writes for Paste , rated the Flash vs. Arrow series 9.0 out of 10. In his opinion, the episode “was all that fans could expect from a crossover.” The part of the dilogy, which was published as part of Flash, was complex, well-posed, well-written, and, most importantly, fascinating ... Grant Gustin showed an impressive range with annoying screams (Gastin had more serious moments before, but his anger turned out to be good) ” ^[39] . Caroline Price, a critic of Den of Geek, praised the episode, admitting that “it had everything the fan needed and more. This is what makes the idea of ​​an expanded universe so magnificent, and this first attempt in the world proved that the most comic of ideas can be transferred to a small screen if it is implemented with special care, joy and enthusiasm ... [and] the most remarkable in the episode the thing is still the Flash episode, slightly flavored with Oliver, Felicity and Diggle added to taste. We were faced with the same problems in S.T.A. Labs, Barry’s same love for Iris, and even a small teaser showing Amell Jr. as a Firestorm - the crossover did not take an entire hour and this was a pleasant surprise, presented with hype ” ^[40] .

Arrow

Having given an episode of 9.2 out of 10, Shedin wrote in his review that “the second part of the Strela / Flash crossover was just a bomb, and in many ways a more coherent and satisfactory episode than the first ... While the first is a grandiose crossover , being divided into two autonomous episodes, lost part of its potential, the second half turned out to be more consistent and exciting. Captain Boomerang almost became the most unique villain of all presented this season. An interesting interaction between Strela and Flash teams continued, but at the same time, we got a good dramatic component. and Barry and Olli again clashed their foreheads. Here, the crossover found a balance between light and dark, which he needed ” ^[41] . Alasder Wilkins put the episode A- on the pages of The AV Club magazine and noted that “this episode does not need much narration when it can be just easy and fun for an hour, and Barry is almost the only character who can stretch Oliver out of a whirlpool of tearful nonsense. Simply put, “The Brave and the Bold” is a fascinating episode filmed in an interesting manner not seen during the season ... [and] by a strange coincidence, he shared the name “The Brave and the Bold” with a long series of DC Comics comics about a team of heroes. Flash in this case is brave, he is a hero, inspiring his courage, even if his naive idea of ​​right and wrong ignores much of what they do. The arrow is brave, he is a hero, for whom it does not matter what he must do in order to uphold justice ” ^[42] .

According to Trambor, the episode “Arrows” completed the crossover “in an exciting way” and the critic rated it at A. According to him, the episode “called“ The Brave and the Bold “could also be called“ The Tale of Two Cities “, as both heroes absorbed the essence of their hometowns with all their nature: the raging youth of Barry Allen carries innovative technologies and, for some time, is clean to the brilliance of Central City Street, while the respectability of Starling City contradicts the level of crime, which is embodied in Oliver Queen as a lone avenger in mask. This is a smart move by the scriptwriters to push heroes from time to time, but at the same time giving them the opportunity to unite for a common goal ” ^[43] . Nevertheless, Agard objected to his colleague, noting that “it was a very worthy episode, but not as good as the Flash episode. If we take into account that the development of the main plot lines is noticeable in Flash, the same cannot be said for Brave and Bold, which is more implemented as a crossover. “Brave and brave” tried to consider Oliver’s personal problems and develop his character, but it all ended with the plot focusing on the team. However, there were a lot of funny moments in the episode, most of which are connected with Cisco kickbacks always and everywhere ... In addition, Captain Boomerang became the most solid and compelling opponent of the Strela team this season, as he is one of those who value strategy and thinks through everything many steps forward ” ^[33] .

In his review for Paste, Mark Roseman put the second part of Flash vs. Arrows 9.3 out of 10, noting that “The Brave and the Bold” not only caught up with his brother, but also in some ways even overtook him ... [Episode] almost became the most the best of all Strela series of this season and the significant completion of the successful Strela / Flash crossover. This is exciting, since it is still an episode charged with emotions, in which all elements are combined with unprecedented dexterity. Both creative groups (both Strela and Flash) should applaud for understanding that you can not give a damn about ratings and take the best from each show, dynamically developing characters. If “Flash vs Strela” proved that “Flash” can stand the night and hold out for a day, then “Brave and brave” shows that “Strela” still had gunpowder in the flocks ” ^[44] . Mike Seccini of Den of Geek revealed that “like Flash vs Arrow, this is one big adventure. Indeed, even if there were no boomerang uniting these episodes together, they would work well independently. And just as “Flash vs Strela” was exclusively an episode of “Flash”, so “Brave and courageous” became exclusively an episode of “Strela”, which was visible from the very beginning. And this is not any episode for you. [This] is the best episode of Strela’s third season so far ... And one more thing, the music tracks were great. Look, “Arrow” is a series, and there are things with which they are more successful than anyone else (tricks, fights, etc.), but from time to time Blake Neely also knocks you off balance cinematic sound. " He set the episode 4.5 out of 5 ^[45] .

In January 2015, The CW President Mark Pedowitz expressed his intention to make official crossovers between the Strela Universe projects every year ^[46] . In the framework of the television season 2015—2016. the dilogy “Heroes Unite” was released, the main purpose of which was to prepare the audience for the release of a new series, the events of which occur in the same fictional universe - “ Legends of Tomorrow ” ^[8] . A year later, the premiere of a large-scale series of crossovers called “Invasion!”, Combining both the three existing projects (“Flash”, “Arrow” and “Legends of Tomorrow”), and one third-party - “ Supergirl ” - began broadcasting on The CW starting from the second season ^{[8] [47] [48]} . In December 2016, Wendy Merikle said that “believe it or not, but we already have an idea of ​​what we want to dedicate a new crossover to. It is simply a breathtaking thing! ” ^[49] . In September 2017, it became known that the crossover was called the “Crisis on Earth-X” ^[50] and it will be shown on The CW on the evening of November 27 and 28, 2017 ^[51] .