Arrow – Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part Four

By: Courtney Groom

We open on the planet Malthus, home to The Monitor (LaMonica Garrett) who is planning to jump to the dawn of time with the help of his wife Xneen (Melanie Merkosky). He steps into the portal and, to their surprise, arrives at the dawn of time. Xneen starts to detect waves of anti-matter corrupting the temporal zone. Xneen loses contact and Mar Novu (The Monitor) is sent to the anti-universe where he meets the Anti-Monitor (LaMonica Garrett) for the first time.

At the Vanishing Point the Paragons are struggling with the reality of their situation: everyone they know and love is dead. Ryan Choi (Osric Chau) writes a letter to his vanished wife explaining how they’re all dealing with things. The Paragon of Courage, Batwoman (Ruby Rose), is training for a fight that will never happen. The Paragon of Hope, Supergirl (Melissa Benoist), has lost all hope and The Paragon of Destiny, White Canary (Caity Lotz), is still struggling with the death of Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell). The Flash (Grant Gustin), The Paragon of Love, is struggling the most. He’s gone missing.

Instead of sitting around doing nothing, Lex (Jon Cryer) and Ryan begin to create a teleportation device with the parts of technology scattered around them. Kara volunteers for Lex to try it out, seeing as no one dares trust him, but it doesn’t work. Suddenly, Barry reappears from the portal. He’s been gone for months, but for him it was seconds. He explains that he tried to enter The Speed Force, which surrounds The Vanishing Point, and is the only way to escape. But he failed. He tries to go back, saying he can do it if he tries one more time. But Barry is looking a little worse for wear and Sara refuses to let him go.

But there’s hope! Oliver Queen appears in front of the Paragons but not as the man they know. Instead, he has transformed into The Spectre. He explains his new situation as Spectre, while also confessing that the Multiverse is gone and the anti-matter universe awaits to replace it. He says the Anti-Monitor is at the dawn of time and they all need to work together to stop him, while also going to Malthus to stop the breach from happening in the first place.

Oliver gives Barry the power he needs to break through the Speed Force while Supergirl, Ryan and Lex head to Malthus to find Mar Novu. Lex; however, isn’t working to save everyone. Instead,  he reveals to Supergirl that he’s working on a universal domination plan and gave himself powers from The Book of Destiny. He then takes down Supergirl and Ryan intending to move forward with his plan.

Unfortunately, the journey to The Dawn of Time isn’t smooth as it was hopped because the Anti-Monitor attacks the party and all of them end up falling out into The Speed Force. Oliver uses his new Spectre powers to keep everyone in The Speed Force, but he tells Flash he needs to hurry and find their friends who are scattered throughout Oliver’s memory — specifically memories of him forging lifelong bonds with them.

With a little trip down memory lane The Flash finds his friends in a few of Arrow’s iconic episodes which brought them altogether. But, of course, The Flash had to save himself from falling out into The Speed Force. As he arrives in the empty Star Labs, a former version of himself appears in front of them. Well, that’s what we think. The Flash that appears isn’t the Barry Allen we know from the Arrowverse, but the Barry Allen played by Ezra Miller in the DC-Universe, making it a cameo fans will never forget.

Back to collecting his friends now, heading to Season 3’s Suicidal Tendencies Batwoman is placed into the scene as she watches Oliver and Ray’s (Brandon Routh) tense argument at Palmer Tech. Season 3’s episode Sara in which Sara’s dead body was brought to the underground bunker and Diggle (David Ramsey) encourages Laurel (Katie Cassidy) to carry on her sister’s legacy. Next, we head to the Elseworlds finale, the moment in which Oliver saves Superman (Tyler Hoechlin) with an arrow given to him by The Monitor. Barry doesn’t remember being a part of this moment and as he approaches Oliver he learns of the deal he made with The Monitor with Oliver sacrificing his life for Barry and Kara.

Once Barry saves everyone from The Speed Force, they all head to the Dawn of Time to end the Anti-Monitor once and for all. Oliver tells him he will reignite the fire, but they have to fan the flames. And, of course, the Anti-Monitor brought an army with him in the shape of shadows and ghosts. So, the Paragons deal with them as The Spectre goes head to head with the Anti-Monitor.

The Spectre uses all his force and power against the Anti-Monitor, creating what looks like a ball of energy rising above them. Standing down below, the Paragons realize they need to use their “powers” of hope, destiny, truth, courage, honor, love and humanity to fan the flame and rebirth the universe. In the end, the Anti-Monitor disappears, and Oliver falls to the ground as a singularity forms in the sky.

Confused and worried by what’s happened, Sara and Barry speed up to the mountain and sit with Oliver. Oliver tells him they did it, but they don’t know what they did. He tells Sara and Barry to look up to what is the birth of the universe again. Sara says for Oliver to hang in there as now the universe has been reborn again they can save him. But Oliver tells her no. This was always going to be ending to his story. He was always going to die after taking the deal with The Monitor. “Dying is easy, it’s the fighting on that’s hard,” Oliver says. Her continues to tell them he is at peace and he needs Sara, Barry and all the heroes to keep going and to never stop.

As Oliver takes his final breaths, he looks up to the sky one more time when a single tear falls down his face. Oliver Queen is dead. Sara tells Barry to look up as the singularity in the sky continues to grow until the scene smashed to white.

Have the heroes managed to bring make Earth and the multiverse they once knew? The final episode of Crisis on Infinite Earths continues with “DC’s Legends of Tomorrow.”