The first part of the DCW mega-crossover was a bit of a disappointment.  Other than the last few moments of the episode, there just wasn’t much to tie Supergirl to the crossover in overt fashion.  Thankfully, the opposite is true for The Flash, which takes the whole notion of the crossover and embraces it to a requisitely ridiculous degree.  Clearly everyone is having a lot of fun, from the writers to the extended cast. 

 

 

Like many of the comic book crossovers that this event is meant to emulate, the seams are more than apparent.  Mixing all of these shows together in a logical manner, while still addressing the ongoing plot and character threads running in all of the various shows, is never going to be perfectly done.  But it’s surprising to see how well it works in this episode.  It doesn’t hurt that they casually threw in a Hall of Justice for good measure! 

 

In terms of The Flash, it was great to see that Flashpoint finally started to have the vast consequences that it always should have had.  While the changes could have been a bit more substantial in terms of how many were spread around, it was nice to see pieces from each of the main DCW shows get included.  (Only Supergirl, being in a different dimension, gets left out of the timeline changes.)  The warning from the future that was featured on Legends of Tomorrow becomes a plot point, as one might have expected, and I appreciate the kind of coordination all of this required.

 

 

What makes the whole concept work as more than an experiment is the overall team chemistry.  It helps that there is a ton of cross-pollination within the DCW already, but some characters actually benefit from getting to interact more with characters outside of their respective series.  Look at Heatwave and Supergirl, for example.  Or how Sara shows serious leadership skills.  The amount of focus given to characters outside of The Flash, even with the narrative bent still being very much with Barry and his cohorts, overcomes a lot of the minor awkward beats.

 

In terms of the threat that serves as the basis for the crossover, the Dominators are sufficient.  The writers will have to be careful not to overdo the extent of their activities worldwide, because that will either require a lot of follow-up on the aftermath on individual shows or a fix to the timeline to erase those events.  And since a big chunk of this episode is devoted to exactly why messing with timelines is a bad idea, that could feel like a bit of a cheat.