Recap / Arrow S 7 E 9 Elseworlds Hour Two

This episode is the second part of the three-part Elseworlds Crossover event between The Flash (2014), Arrow, and Supergirl (2015). The episodes in chronological order are "Elseworlds: Hour One", "Elseworlds: Hour Two" and "Elseworlds: Hour Three".

"My name is Oliver Queen. After six months in hell, I have been released from prison and returned home with only one goal: to save my city. But things have changed. Instead of operating outside the law, I'm working with the police. I am no longer Inmate 4587. I am once again the Green Arrow."

— Barry Allen as Oliver Queen

In Star City, Oliver, Barry and Kara arrive in time to help Diggle capture Joe Wilson, aka Deathstroke II. Diggle and Curtis have the predictable trouble wrapping their head around Oliver and Barry's switch, but Oliver decides not to tell Felicity, believing they have enough to worry about already. As the trio prepare to leave for Gotham City, Barry and Kara learn, to their great amusement, that Oliver doesn't believe the Batman is real, insisting that the Green Arrow is the original vigilante. When they arrive, they find Gotham as dark and crime-ridden as its reputation suggests.

Oliver and Barry realize that acting too much like one another creates problems when they escalate a confrontation with muggers and they, along with Kara, end up in a police cell. Soon after, the trio are abruptly released, and escorted by private guard to the run-down Wayne Tower to meet Kate Kane, the new CEO of Wayne Enterprises. Kane took over the near-destitute company after her cousin Bruce Wayne disappeared three years earlier and the board mismanaged the company's remaining capital.

Not wanting the Green Arrow causing more trouble, Kane insists the trio conclude their business and leave Gotham as soon as possible. Using a police uplink that Oliver swiped from the station, they identify Dr. Deegan from the sketch. Kara speaks with Kane, finding sympathy with her plight of living in the shadow of a famous cousin. Kane recognizes Deegan's name and sends the trio to Arkham Asylum...and once they're gone, she descends to the basement and suits up as the Batwoman.

Meanwhile, Cisco and Caitlin arrive in Star City, where the yellow skies and red lightning have followed the trio all the way from Central City, and they believe it's caused by an attempt to breach into Earth-1. Caitlin also reveals the Oliver-Barry switch to Felicity by accident, and tries to convince her the secrecy was because of Team Flash's skeptical reactions, but Felicity admits she and Oliver have been having problems already. The group build a quantum anchor that allows the breacher, the Flash of Earth-90, to briefly appear and tell them "if you get the book, you can fix everything".

Diggle, Cisco and Caitlin travel to Gotham and pass on what they've learned to Oliver, Barry and Kara, and the team infiltrate Arkham to search for Deegan. Oliver confronts Deegan, who admits his goal in rewriting reality was to make himself the Flash. Deegan causes a mass release of Arkham inmates, and while Supergirl is able to retrieve the book, Deegan escapes in the chaos. Caitlin encounters a mentally-unstable Nora Fries, who attacks her with a cold gun. When Oliver and Barry show up to help, Oliver accidentally breaks several vials of fear toxin which affect him and Barry.

The two end up fighting each other: Oliver sees himself battling the Reverse-Flash, while Barry sees himself battling Malcolm Merlyn. Before they can kill each other, the pair are put down by the Batwoman, who helps the team stop the Arkham inmates from escaping. Batwoman orders the team to take the book and leave Gotham, but before they go, Kara privately tells Kane that her cousin would be proud, thus revealing her own secret identity, and says they'd make a great team. The team return to Star City, and Oliver takes Barry's advice and makes amends with Felicity.

With the so-called "Book of Destiny" out of Deegan's hands, the Flash of Earth-90 — named Barry Allen, but resembling Henry Allen/Jay Garrick — is able to breach to Earth-1. He explains that the Monitor, whose real name is Mar Novu, has been unleashing the Book's power on multiple Earths as a test. The Monitor presents himself and says his tests are to find an Earth capable of withstanding a coming "crisis"; thus far, the heroes of Earth-1 are the first to successfully reclaim the Book, but he is still unimpressed.

The Monitor, who can conjure portals with a mere thought, sends Earth-90 Flash away, retrieves the Book and returns it to Deegan, warning him to "think bigger" this time. Reality is rewritten, and Oliver and Barry find themselves as a pair of powerless wanted criminals called "the Trigger Twins". They escape police officers who resemble Merlyn, Joe Wilson and Ricardo Diaz, only to be confronted by Superman wearing a black suit...

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Examples:

• Adaptational Wimp: Psycho Pirate doesn't seem to have any superpowers.
• All for Nothing:
  • The events of the episode and all the trouble the heroes went through to get the Book of Destiny are instantly undone when the Monitor effortlessly spirits the book away and returns it to Deegan. Even moreso, all the efforts Oliver and Barry went through to convince everyone they were switched is rendered moot when Deegan alters reality again, this time stripping the two of all powers and making them into fugitives.
  • Also, the Barry Allen of Earth-90 desperately struggled to make it to Earth-1 to warn the heroes about the Monitor, only to (presumably) be sent back to the ruins of his world by the Monitor with a wave of his hand.
• Alternate Universe Reed Richards Is Awesome: On Earth-90, Diggle was a Green Lantern.
• Arbitrary Skepticism:
  • Averted, Diggle notes that Oliver and Barry switching places is only the latest in a very long line of weird stuff that's happened.
  • Oliver is quite adamant that Batman is a myth, if only because he considers himself the original costumed vigilante.
• Bait-and-Switch: While the heroes walk through a Gotham alleyway, an armored van ominously approaches from behind. Then the vehicle reveals its passengers, who are actually ordinary Gotham citizens using it to safely get to their destination. The heroes are assaulted by would-be muggers from the front instead.
• Bat Signal: Barry uncovers the mothballed Bat Signal on top of Gotham PD, seeing it as further proof that Batman is indeed real. Oliver still refuses to acknowledge it.
• Bedlam House: Arkham Asylum, as usual.
• Big Damn Heroes: Oliver, Barry, and Kara save John and the A.R.G.U.S agents from Joe Wilson during the beginning of the episode.
• Big Damn Kiss: Oliver and Felicity share one, patching things up again after Oliver tells her that it's okay to change and that he will always love her.
• Birds of a Feather: Cisco and Curtis get along great, getting into a nerd discussion about Freaky Friday and Quantum Leap.
• Brick Joke: Barry reports that Vesper Fairchild hung up on him when he tries to call—turns out Oliver Queen did sleep with her.
• Brought Down to Normal: Deegan's altered reality at the end turns Barry and Oliver into the completely normal Trigger Twins.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Played for Laughs with Oliver's former Really Gets Around lifestyle.
  Oliver: There is a radio personality named Vesper Fairchild. She knows everyone in Gotham, and I know her. She was doing an exposé on White-Collar Crime back in the day and I wanted to...persuade her that Queen Consolidated was above board.
  Barry: You slept with her, right?
  Oliver: No! I...I don't know.
• The Cameo:
  • John Barrowman as a hallucination of Malcolm Merlyn, and then as a cop in the second Elseworld.
  • Joe Wilson also returns wearing his dad's old Deathstroke armor (sans the mask) and later as a cop in the second Elseworld.
  • Kirk Acevedo as Ricardo Diaz (current Big Bad of Arrow) as an Elseworld policeman. Oh, the irony!
• Creator Cameo: A nameplate on a door identifies its resident inmate as "M. Guggenheim", no doubt a reference to Marc Guggenheim, who is writing the third hour of Elseworlds.
• Dynamic Entry: Batwoman's first appearance in front of the other heroes is her smashing down on the roof of a van so hard the windows blow out.
• Forgot About His Powers:
  • Oliver only chases Deegan at Super-Speed after he already had a headstart.
  • Barry (as Oliver) is now a duly authorized rep of Star City PD (as of last episode), which should have carried over when they swapped lives. The Gotham PD might not have gotten the memo. It's mentioned that Oliver (as Barry) did convince a cop to call the Star City DA...and Laurel decided that a night in jail could do Oliver some good.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • A shot of the inside of the Book of Destiny shows it's written in the same cypher language that Nora uses to record events in a way that can't be altered along with the timeline.
  • There are nameplates on cells in Arkham Asylum for "Cobblepot, O." (The Penguin), "Isley, P." (Poison Ivy), "Nigma, E." (The Riddler), and "Guggenheim, M.". Later, a fight in a vault of confiscated items involves weapons belonging to "Fries, V." (Mister Freeze) and "Crane, J." (The Scarecrow).
• Friendship Moment: After a lot of bickering throughout the episode, Oliver and Barry compliment each other for their inner strength, after experiencing their respective inner fears.
• From Bad to Worse: Things get much worse when Deegan gets the book back and radically alters reality, rather than the relatively minor problem of Barry and Oliver swapping identities.
• Fugitive Arc: When reality is altered for a second time, everyone on Earth-1 now believes Barry and Oliver are the dreaded Trigger Twins, forcing them on the lam.
• Funny Background Event:
  • The hilarious expressions of confusion and sheer disbelief on Kara's face while she silently listens to Barry and Oliver's conversation about Batman.
  • Diggle threatening Cisco with a clenched fist after his Innocently Insensitive gaff in front of Felicity.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Batwoman snaps Barry and Oliver out of the effects of the fear gas in typical Bat fashion — by knocking both of them silly.
• Get Out!: Batwoman doesn't appreciate the other heroes budging in on her turf and making a mess in Arkham and tells them to leave Gotham, ASAP. She doesn't care what their reason was for coming. She even literally says it when Barry asks for a ride in the Batmobile. She does get along with Kara, though.
• Greater-Scope Villain: The Monitor claims that he's trying to prepare the heroes for the coming of an evil being even more powerful than himself, strongly implied to be the Anti-Monitor.
• Headbutting Heroes: Barry and Oliver are constantly bickering throughout the episode, though they patch things up after fully experiencing each other's respective burdens.
• Hypocrite: Oliver complains about going to Gotham City, a "dead city" lost to the criminal element. That's rich coming from a (normally) vigilante of crime-ridden, terrorism-plagued Star City.
• Inadvertent Entrance Cue
  Felicity: We're gonna need Cisco's help on this one.
  Cisco: I've been summoned!
  Curtis: Okay. That was a disturbingly coincidental entrance.
• Immune to Bullets: Joe Wilson's suit (or rather, his father's old one) is immune to assault rifle fire.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Inverted. Diggle and the other A.R.G.U.S. agents do their very best to hit Joe Wilson in his armored torso with their automatic fire without a single bullet hitting the exposed head.
• Innocently Insensitive: Team Flash telling Felicity that Iris might be better at feeling that something is wrong about Barry and Oliver. Given that the two are currently experiencing another relationship crisis, that is really not helping things for Felicity.
• Internal Reveal:
  • Barry gleefully reveals to Kara (much to Oliver's annoyance and Kara's disgust) how Oliver once cheated on his then-girlfriend Laurel with her sister Sara.
  • Felicity learns about the body swap.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Black Siren gets some payback for Oliver disrespecting her by letting him stay in a Gotham police cell for the night, rather than come to his aid when he gets into trouble.
• Layman's Terms
  Diggle: What the hell is this?
  Felicity: No offense, but you'd need like Ph.D.s for the dumbed-down version.
  Diggle: How about the very dumbed-down version?
  Felicity: It's a quantum flux anchor that utilizes wave theory to fire nano-particulates across an Einstein-Rosen bridge to create a secure claxon field.
  Diggle: How about the very, very, dumbed-down version?
  Caitlin: Felicity made a magnet that will draw whoever's trying to breach through to us.
  Diggle: You could have just said that.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: John Diggle is well aware of how crossovers tend to go in the Arrowverse.
  Diggle: All I know is whenever you three show up, it usually means we have one huge problem.
• Leitmotif: Earth-90 Flash's return is accompanied by a reprise of Danny Eflman's theme from the 1990 show.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Felicity, for a very short portion of the episode.
• Loss of Identity: The more Oliver and Barry are in each other's place the more they start acting like each other. This is best seen with the muggers — Oliver tries to talk them down while Barry immediately pulls a classic Oliver move...which gets them in jail because Oliver Queen is now a convicted vigilante.
• Malevolent Masked Men: Psycho Pirate wears a golden mask, true to the source material.
• Moving the Goalposts: The Monitor notes how the heroes are the first group to ever manage to steal the book, only to give it back to Deegan because he considers Deegan's altered reality too petty to be a proper challenge.
• Mugging the Monster: You almost pity the street thugs who try to stick up the Green Arrow, the Flash, and Supergirl.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Dozens of them during the stint in Arkham Asylum. On the inmmate doors, we see the names of several prominent Batman villains, like Penguin, Poison Ivy, Clayface and The Riddler. Oliver and Barry are also subjected to Scarecrow's fear toxin. Bane's mask is seen on a shelf. And we see the wife of Victor Fries.
  • When Kara suggests she and Kate would make a great team, Kate calls their teamup "World's Finest".
  • Kara notices a bust of William Shakespeare in Kate's office, which had once been Bruce's office. It looks almost exactly like the Shakespeare bust in Batman (1966) that hid the button that opened up the Batpoles.
• Negated Moment of Awesome: The Flash from Earth-90 charges at the Monitor...and the Monitor teleports him to parts unknown with a mere twitch of his finger. Supergirl fares little better, getting sent back to the same spot she was standing at to begin with.
• Noodle Incident:
  • The incident that caused Bruce Wayne to leave Gotham three years ago is left unexplored.
  • Somehow, Nora Fries is not only awake (unlike most of other incarnations of the character) but also completely off her rocker and locked up in Arkham Asylum. All the more mysterious because the labeling on the freeze gun implies Victor did become Mr. Freeze in Earth-1.
    • She's babbling about her cryofreeze being accidentally shut off when the cells were opened.
• Nothing Personal: What Joe Wilson tells John when he is about to kill him.
• Odd Name Out: Walking down a hall in Arkham, Oliver and Diggle see rooms for Batman's notorious rogues Penguin, Poison Ivy, Clayface, and the Riddler, but the last room is marked "Guggenheim, M." for Marc Guggenheim, co-developer for the Arrow series.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • The GCPD's reaction when they spot Oliver Queen (actually Barry) in their city.
  • Barry's and Oliver's reaction when the black-clad Superman lands in front of them.
• The Oner: John gets one, fighting off Arkham inmates.
• Out of the Frying Pan: Barry and Oliver escape Joe Wilson, Malcolm, and Diaz in the newly altered reality, only for black-suited Superman to land in front of them.
• The Password Is Always "Swordfish": The wifi password for the Wayne Tower is "Alfred".
• Power Perversion Potential: When Kara points out Kate's odd look for a CEO, specifically the tattoos, Kate says there's more that she can't see. When Kara uses her X-ray vision to discover that Batwoman is Kate, she notes Kate wasn't lying about the tattoos.
• Present Absence: Bruce Wayne, who naturally casts a long shadow even without being on screen. He left three years ago and Gotham City fell into hell.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Batwoman tells Barry "Get. Out." when he asks if they can hitch a ride in the Batmobile.
• Really Gets Around: Oliver's many one-night stands are brought up, specifically when the heroes are talking about Oliver's contact Vesper Fairchild, a radio host with whom he also slept.
• The Reveal:
  • The Red Skies are caused by Earth-90 Flash trying to breach into Earth-1. Once they steal the Book of Destiny from Deegan, he's able to push his way through.
  • Dr. Deegan tried to make himself the Flash, and instead Barry and Oliver switched places.
  • Earth-90 Barry finally arriving on Earth-1 to fill everybody in on how the Monitor wants to use the Book to test the Earths to prepare them for some kind of crisis.
• The Rival:
  • Hilariously, Oliver considers Batman this and they've never even met; he's very adamant that Batman is an urban legend concocted by the GCPD to scare criminals — because he was the original vigilante.
  • Back on Earth-38, it turns out that Clark and Bruce are, as Kara puts it, "frenemies".
• Running Gag: Continuing from the last part, everyone wonders if Barry and Oliver's situation is more akin to Freaky Friday or Quantum Leap.
• Secret Secret-Keeper: Kara clearly knows that Bruce Wayne is Batman from the situation on Earth-38, and her X-ray vision lets her know that Kate is Batwoman, but she doesn't tell any of her Earth-1 allies. Kara graduates to regular mutual Secret-Keeper with Kate after a conversation with Batwoman near the end of the episode.
• Seen It All: The receptionist at Arkham doesn't so much as bat an eye when Killer Frost arrives.
  Kara: She gets cold, and freezes stuff.
  Receptionist: Yeah, we got a few of them in here like that.
• Sequel Hook:
  • The Monitor gives the Book of Destiny back to Deegan who then uses the Book for something much more sinister. Oliver and Barry become the Trigger Twins, who are confronted by policemen who look suspiciously like Malcolm, Joe Wilson, and Diaz...along with Superman in his black suit!
  • Nora Fries seemingly escapes Arkham armed with her husband's cold gun, presumably setting up a plot thread for Batwoman (2019).
  • In a broader sense, the Monitor and Earth-90 Barry drop hints at a future Crisis on Infinite Earths (2019) adaptation.
• Something Only They Would Say: Barry's very geeky speculations about him and Oliver's situation is what convinces Curtis they're telling the truth.
• Special Edition Title: Unlike Hour One, we actually get Grant Gustin in the usual Arrow opening, doing the Opening Narration while filling in for Stephen Amell in all the usual opening scenes.
• Stating the Simple Solution: As Kara later points out, there would have been no need for a brawl or talking the thugs down; they could've just used their Super-Speed to get away unnoticed.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: Deegan, as Kara notes, is quite slippery. Must be a Gotham thing.
• Superman Stays Out of Gotham: Batwoman really doesn't like the other heroes being around Gotham. Ironically the only one she takes a liking to is Supergirl, which given Kate's sexual orientation may not entirely be unrelated to her being an attractive woman.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Per fitting a member of the Bat Family, but Batwoman is not happy with other heroes on her turf and only works with them very begrudgingly.
• Tempting Fate:
  • "You don't want that lightning to strike when you're engaging Deathstroke's son." Sure enough a bolt of lightning knocks everyone to the ground and Deathstroke II appears.
  • Just when Kara speaks about the unlikelihood of three superheroes getting mugged a second time, Kane's associate tells them to come with him at gunpoint.
  • Kara doesn't think she should be worried about what Kate Kane might think—it's not as if she has some kryptonite stashed away.
• Terror Hero: Batwoman, just like her cousin. One of the escaped inmates starts screaming in absolute fear once she arrives at the scene.
• Thinking Up Portals: The Monitor is able to open portals with a twitch of his finger, fast enough that Earth-90 Flash and Supergirl can't even touch him before he portals them away.
• This Is Gonna Suck: Diggle's reaction to seeing Kara, Barry, and Oliver together again. He just knows it means something bad is afoot.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Joe Wilson impales an A.R.G.U.S. field agent in the face by throwing his sword.
• Title Drop: Earth-90 Flash calls the twisted realities created by the Monitor "Elseworlds" while explaining the situation to the rest of the heroes.
• Too Fast to Stop: When Kara and Barry land on the roof of Gotham PD, they have to wait a bit for Oliver since he is still getting used to his powers. When Oliver does show up, he runs onto and then back off of the roof before turning around and managing to stop in the right place.
• Troll: Barry (as Oliver) telling Kate that he couldn't possibly compare to a badass like Batman, much to the real Oliver's annoyance. Barry just gleefully smiles at him.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Monitor is using the Book of Destiny to simulate the clashing of multiple realities, hoping that heroes would emerge from the chaos capable of taking on a much greater threat to come. He credits Supergirl, Barry, and Oliver for actually managing to find and steal the book, then immediately sends them back to square one by giving it back to Deegan and getting him to make the world even more chaotic.
• Wham Line: Earth-90 Flash reveals he knows Diggle and more importantly how.
  Earth-90 Flash: You're not wearing your ring. Things must be different here.
• "What Do They Fear?" Episode: Courtesy of the Scarecrow's fear gas, Barry and Oliver see each other as their current identities' Arch-Enemy — Barry sees Oliver as Malcolm Merlyn, while Oliver sees Barry as Eobard Thawne (in his Wells disguise).
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Slade's son appears as the episode's Starter Villain, but no mention of Slade's whereabouts are made.
• Who Are You?: Our heroes on encountering Batwoman in person. They conclude that she's...not Batman.
• The Worf Effect: The Monitor makes short work of the heroes, effortlessly.
• Wretched Hive: Gotham, per usual; even worse than Star City, it went downhill fast ever since Bruce Wayne left. People who can afford it don't travel in armored limos, they travel in Armored Personnel Carriers. Oliver also notes that this is why people in the Arrowverse rarely talk about the place.
• You Are in Command Now: Kate Kane is now in charge of what's left of Wayne Enterprises and protecting the city as Batwoman.

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