“Invasion†marked the actual start of the DC CW crossover, since it is pretty hard to count Supergirl’s 45-second segment that was even played out in this episode. “Invasion†is based off of the graphic novel storyline of the same name. As can be surmised from the title, the DC Universe has far more to fear than metas.
The setup of all these DC CW shows draw from varying villains across their universes, but rarely is it the villains duty to carry the episode. Villains, when done properly, do carry weight throughout an episode, but they are even more so a fantastic device to pull more depth from each of the characters.
As much as alien overlords taking over the world, or attempting to anyway, the absolute strongest part of the episode were the interactions between our teams. Â Atop that pedestal is the completely fractured relationship with Cisco and The Flash. Their interactions continue to define a working relationship, doing simply what they must alongside one another to get the job done. The catalyst that drove a wedge between them was exposed to the entire team just as they were preparing to go take on the aliens that just landed in Central City.
The team’s preparation against Supergirl was easily the most entertaining aspect of the episode. Melissa Benoist is just absolutely the most adorable character on the entire slate of the DC CW shows. She just has such a bubbly personality that perfectly compliments Stephen Amell’s brutish demeanor. The thought that most of them had and almost felt bad going up against her was quickly dismissed when they actually started training.
The message left for Stein and Jefferson was eventually found by Cisco and, since they are still in cahoots over him essentially being the reason Dante died, Cisco brought it up in front of everybody which helped in tearing the team apart just before they were about to take on the aliens.
Once the one group of heroes that is mind-controlled squares off against those who are not, we get some of the better fight scenes amongst their respective shows. Seeing the various heroes attacking their counterparts was great, even if we knew it was always going to be a short lived segment. The fight sequences and the resolution thereof, played perfectly into the next part of the episode on Arrow.
While a lot of “Invasion†did revolve around heroes attempting to rid the aliens from Central City, there was a bit of a weird segment with Stein and Caitlin attempting to find out what has triggered his memory flashes. I actually enjoyed the segue, but I felt like it was oddly placed in such a monumental crossover.
