Arrow Arrow Season 5 Episode 8: "Invasion"

[Chip Chipperson]

gave up on arrow last season and still haven't changed my mind, but that was a really entertaining hour of tv, blemishes and all.

great to see the mansion, Laurel and the Queens.

 

[Thome216]

 

[Slade W]

Hopefully people will keep tweeting the Arrow writers saying they liked Katie in the episode. If it happens enough, they may bring her back. It would be in their best interests to do so.

 

[Snow Queen]

Did I miss something more to this or did they try to play that the space ship they were abducted onto was in space as a reveal?

 

[Trainwreck2100]

it's a shame they ran out of money and had to go cheap on those jedi ghosts at the end.

 

[KillerMcQueen]

Man, everything in the hallucination was excellent. Such a big love letter to the series and featured everything that was so good about it. Christ I've missed Laurel, Moira, and the Queen mansion.

While the hallucination stuff was great, everything to do with the recruits, Felicity, and Cisco did nothing for me. I can't stand Curtis and Wild Dog. They drag the show down so much. Even the stuff with Supergirl and Flash was meh. This part of the episode brought it down for me.

honestly, the recruits showing up so much just felt weird, and yeah, Curtis is kinda annoying and Wild Dog was just being a prejudiced arse, they should've stuck to Barry, Kara, Felicity, and Cisco for the side plot if they couldn't incorporate the recruits organically.

 

[Slade W]

Perhaps I am mistaken, but I do not remember Wild Dog having any issues with Metas before this episode, so it seems like they just decided to make him hate them just to give him something to do and to involve Barry and Kara. Something that makes him unlikeable is not worth it for just one episode. It will probably be forgotten too. I do not remember him having much issue with Ragman either so it just came out of nowhere, or did I miss something?

 

[Legendver2]

Are they trying to revive that Oliver/Laurel ship or what? I'm actually kinda ready for this OTP now. Please bring Laurel back somehow, maybe via Flashpoint somehow.

Anyone else noticed the opening card logo went through all versions of the arrow logo through out all the seasons? Thought it was a nice touch.

 

[Frodo]

Great episode and a great retrospective of Arrow. Some really solid acting and touching moments. It was really nice to see alot of the old cast members .

 

[Mysteryman]

It was a fun episode all around.
I experienced some feels,too.

 

[flickchick85]

Did I miss something more to this or did they try to play that the space ship they were abducted onto was in space as a reveal?

Nope, they totally did. Basically so that Cisco/Felicity/randoms could spend the entire episode figuring out what we had all already assumed as soon as we saw them get "beamed up" last episode. IMO, a better use of Supergirl and Flash would have been to have them on a rescue mission, maybe trying to commandeer one of the other Dominator ships that landed on Earth to track down their mothership and go get them, and have to fight off some Dominators to do so. They legitimately seemed like they were hanging around with these newbies because they were bored...which doesn't exactly scream "high stakes." Especially since Barry had literally just watched his friends/teammates get abducted.

 

[Lencho01]

I thought it was an ok, but weird episode. I found myself comparing it to Smallville's 100th episode in terms of overall impact. As much as I hate that episode, I have to give it to Smallville.

The intention was nice but they could've used that money else where.

When I saw those, I laughed so hard.

I also laughed at Diggle doing the Arrow voice and Flash punching that lady so hard she was shooting stuff out of her eye and hand.

 

[O'Haire]

As a crossover episode it was disappointing. Nothing really happened until the end. As an Arrow episode, it was satisfying. It was the 100th episode, so I don't blame them for pushing almost everything to the side to give the fans that have been around since the beginning something special.

 

[The Caped Knight]

So far The Flash has been the best crossover of Heroes vs Aliens four part saga.

 

[Lighthouse]

Does anyone remember the Batman: The Animated Series episode "Perchance to Dream"? Bruce wakes up to find he's engaged to Selina Kyle, his parents are alive, he's not Batman but someone else is. Then finds out its all a dream conjured up by the Mad Hatter. I kept thinking about that while watching this episode.

 

[Slade W]

I wonder if the mugger in the alley was their way of paying homage and respect to Batman, because of him being one of their main sources that they have drawn from over the years. Not that I am complaining, mind you.

 

[Slade W]

Does anyone remember the Batman: The Animated Series episode "Perchance to Dream"? Bruce wakes up to find he's engaged to Selina Kyle, his parents are alive, he's not Batman but someone else is. Then finds out its all a dream conjured up by the Mad Hatter. I kept thinking about that while watching this episode.

It is funny you posted this, right before I made my post. It wouldn't surprise me if they were inspired by that episode. They have taken from B:TAS before.

 

[super85]

It could have gotten some inspiration from Batman TAS, but that type of plots/stories are very common with superheroes. Besides "For the Girl Who Has Everything" (based on The Man Who Has Everything ) that they did on the Supergirl TV-show, I also remember similar stories, like a Justice League story with The Key as the villian that had a similar story.

 

[Slade W]

Guggenheim said that they had the Team Arrow members fight the enemy who had the biggest effect on their lives in the battle at the end, so had Sara fight Darhk, Ray vs the Mirakuru soldiers, Oliver vs Slade and Thea vs Malcolm (he said they tried to get Diggles brother back for John to fight, but he wasn't available, so had him fight the Ghosts were the next best thing, I guess.) Thea fighting Malcolm makes sense, but I wonder if Thea wasn't there, would they have had Oliver fight Malcolm instead of Slade. I know Slade had done a lot of damage to Oliver, but so has Malcolm, arguably more.

 

[divan]

I've been enjoying the crossover so far, but I agree it's been clearly rushed. Yesterday's episode had pretty well done plot, but rushed the meeting, characterization and emotional beats. This one I've felt nailed down the emotional charge needed for the 100th, but in exchange we've got rushed plot points like Team Arrow escaping an (severly lacking in defenses, apparently) alien spaceship in 2 minutes.

The crossover should have been at least 4 episodes long, but personally I'd gone for 5. I mean, we still don't even know anything about the Dominators themselves and the scale of the "invasion" feels pretty small.

That being said, I think they've done a very good job keeping each's shows tone and plotlines despite the strange premise. This felt much less out-there than I was fearing it would (for an Arrow episode) and, grumpy Cisco aside, they integrated the Flashpoint consequences and Oliver's desire for a different life in the crossover's story pretty well.

Spoiler

My theory is that the Dominators will launch a fullscale attack the heroes have no hope of defeating so Barry/the Legends suggest traveling back to a point where they're more vulnerable/and or still haven't noticed Earth.

 

[The Chris]

Still can't believe I saw a space ship chase on Arrow. Not saying that negatively either.

 

[Slade W]

I don't think many people would have predicted that we would ever get one in season 1 lol.

 

[Loki882]

I think that this crossover has suffered from a problem with structure, timing, and promotion:


-Timing-This was probably not the optimum time to do a big crossover between the shows. Supergirl is having their mid-season finale, so they feel like they have to address a lot of the plot lines that have been building this season. And as a result, it comes across as more of a prelude to the crossover, than part of it (and if you watch The Flash episode, they basically replay it, so it renders watching the SG scene even more unnecessary).

And with Arrow, they are in their 100th episode, so they felt like they needed to do some kind of special Arrow-stuff. And again the tie-in to the crossover suffers as a result.

Structure-This is more how they're scheduled on the CW line-up than anything. SG is on Monday's, and it doesn't really connect to the crossover except for that last scene. The Flash on Tuesdays, which does tie-in a lot (but it also has that scene in it, so you could just watch Flash and skip Supergirl and get the same info basically). Then Arrow on Wednesday where the tie-in is also disappointing. And then presumably LOT will be another crossover-heavy episode. It's just weird structuring that causes the crossover to go in fits and starts.

Promotion-They advertised this as a four part crossover event (implying that all four shows will play major roles in it). But really only Flash and probably LOT do that.

 

[CrystalFortress]

Why was the Spaceship thing a reveal? Didn't everyone know that? Shouldn't Cisco have known that with all the movie references.

Ground B plot did nothing but set up a reveal that wasn't a reveal. Wild dog has problems with Aliens and Metas but not with magic rags. Good to see where the line is drawn. Artemis wasn't there which was odd considering no-one should know about her being a mole yet.

Overall they are still treating the Alien invasion as if it isn't the top priority. Barry/Supergirl just seemed to waiting for the call. Actually would have more sense for like Firestorm to come to aid, since you know 2 members of their team were taken.

Waverider coming to aid was predictable. Alien drop ship had just enough seats, how convenient. Dominators leave Flamethrower gun thing hanging on wall, how convenient.

Dominators continue to show they don't understand the concept of guards. Given how many of them they casually bump into you'd think they could spare 1 to keep an eye on their prison. Or you know at least lock the door to the room they were in.

Given the exposition about them not being able to fight back, was there some awesome fight scene we didn't see? If not there doesn't seem to be a need not to take Metas, and if the were going for not-Metas why did they not take Heatwave? Did they only have 5 of those Stasis pod things?

 

[Slade W]

I wonder how the Birds of Prey became jewellers in this alternate world .