The Flash and Green Arrow Reunite! Read Our Recap of the Super Friends' Final Team-Up and Grade the Episode
The following contains spoilers from the April 26 episode of The CW’s The Flash.
The Flash this week faced a multiversal crisis, thanks to Bloodwork’s fiendish handiwork — but luckily super friends Oliver Queen/Green Arrow(played again by Arrow vet Stephen Amell, Wally West/Kid Flash (Keiynan Lonsdale) and John Diggle/Spartan (David Ramsey) were around to give Barry a big assist.
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Having escaped ARGUS, Bloodwork (aka Dr. Ramsey Rosso, played again by Sendhil Ramamurthy) crashed Barry’s 30th birthday party by poisoning the guests, leaving Barry and his visiting speedster brother-in-law Wally the only ones standing.
The villain gradually revealed his grand plan to use Wally — who has learned to project his consciousness into other timelines (but really, other Earths) — as a vehicle to infect all possible worlds, making them all impervious to death. To that end, Bloodwork preyed on Wally’s psyche, leaning into his deep-seated issues with Barry “stealing” his dad Joe West, and tempting him with the promise of another Jesse Quick out there who isn’t dead.
Wally succumbed to Bloodwork’s darkness and promptly used a vibrating hand to kill Barry. Barry “woke up” on Lian Yu, where he was reunited with Oliver (who was not rocking his Spectre garb; read more on that here). Oliver affirmed that Barry, too, was in fact dead, and then explained how, at the end of “Crisis on Infinite Earths,” he as Spectre in fact created a new multiverse. (Meaning, yes, the Red Death Ryan Wilder was from another Earth, No. 4125 to be exact.)
Barry overcame some doubts about himself and all those dear who have died, and decided he would not go down without a fight. So with a bit more than a “boop,” Oliver walloped him back into the living. What’s more, Oliver as Green Arrow joined Barry in this adventure, explaining that Spectre is allowed to intervene in Earthly matters when the multiverse is in danger. Flash and Green Arrow raced downtown, where Wally was helping Bloodwork reach into the mutliverse to spread his infection. While Barry and Wally chased each other around the city, Bloodwork sicced an army of infected cops on Green Arrow, cuing up an extended, very Arrow fight sequence.
Barry was able to gain the upper hand on Wally, empathize about the rough childhood Joe’s son had, apologize for any time he made Wally felt unseen, and then convince him to shake Bloodwork’s sway. (“Everyone has darkness inside them! I know you can beat this!”) While Wally expunged the infection, Oliver squared off against Bloodwork — only this time, he got an assist from a BFG-toting Diggle, whom Khione had helped dis-infect back at STAR Labs.
Diggle enjoyed his own reunion with Oliver, after which the heroes teamed up to set Green Arrow up for the shot of a lifetime — fwip!ing an arrow armed with an UV pulse up into the multiversal breach, and all as the archer famously bellowed, “Ramsey Rosso, you have failed this city!” A defeated Bloodwork shrank down from his hulked-out incarnation, but learned that Spectre had cured him of his HLH
Afterward, with everyone rid of Bloodwork’s infection, Oliver suggested the STAR Labs party resume. There, Dig asked his old buddy if he was going to check in on Felicity, but Oliver explained that with his Spectre powers come “rules.” Besides, his and Felicity’s destiny “has already been written.” Dig assured Oliver he would be proud of William (who is now in college) and Mia (who can “climb a salmon ladder with the best of ’em”).
Oliver told John that he is aware of what his friend had been through with the Green-ish Lantern-y “cube,” and affirmed that it was “designed to tempt you.” Diggle “did the right thing” by denying it, Oliver said, noting: “All of your brightest days are ahead of you, to be spent with your family.”
“I’m just glad I got to say goodbye to you this time,” Diggle said, after which the BFFs hugged and shared I Love Yous.
Elsewhere post-soiree, Wally and Iris stole some sibling alone time at the loft, where Iris expressed how sorry she was he had to revisit his mother’s dark struggles. Wally then assured his big sis that she was going to be a wonderful mom — and he’d be the very coolest uncle.
The episode closed with Barry and Oliver alone at a bar, grabbing beers, where they [wink-wink] compared how many times (episodes) they respectively saved the day — 170, versus 180 or so. “You made me a better hero,” Barry shared, to which Oliver said, “You made me a better man.”
Barry asked Oliver/Spectre if he was “doing enough” with his powers. And in an exchange that was a direct callback to one they had in The Flash pilot, Oliver asked, “Do you give people hope? Are you moving through your city like a guardian angel? Do you make a difference?
“That bolt of lightning chose you,” he reminded Bar. “Don’t ever forget it.”
Oliver then pulled off an Irish exit, leaving Barry to foot the bill. After all, even when a billionaire, “You can’t take it with you!”
What did you think of this week’s episode? Grade it below and sound off in Comments!
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