So, after this week’s string of CW DC shows, I’m left with a question. Did they decide that they were allowed to play into the “women in refrigerators” trope but only with one refrigerator? So every time they want to kill a female character solely to further the plot of a man they have to resurrect the last woman they killed for that reason? Obviously I’d rather there be no refrigerators, but I don’t hate women coming back to life.

I’m getting ahead of myself like some kind of Barry Allen. Let’s zip back in time to Tuesday and start from there.

The Flash 309: Draco Malfoy and the Philosopher’s Stone

That title isn’t even a metaphor you guys. In this episode, we learn that Julian used to be Indiana Jones and found the Philosopher’s Stone, which is why the god of speed, Savitar, is using him as a puppet he calls Alchemy.

Flash Sr from Earth 3 gets paid a visit by Alchemy, too, so he comes to our Earth to hang out with Team Flash for a bit. Though when he comes face to face with Savitar, the god calls him by name and says that he, Garrick, is not who he’s after. It’s just Barry.

When Team Flash finds out Draco is Dr. Alchemy, they put him in a cell in Star Labs, but he thinks he’s being framed. Barry takes off his Flash mask to get him to trust him, and finally gets Julian to admit that he has been blacking out and losing time. For…years? I think for years. YEARS. He has been losing time. And people around him have been dying. And he didn’t feel all that concerned about it.

This doesn’t have anything to do with anything but she’s cuter than Draco, sorry.

Anyway he admits that this all started when his sister died and her ghost appeared to him to tell him about the Philosopher’s Stone. So he followed her, found it, and inadvertently released Savitar and became Dr. Alchemy.

Well, now the box is in Star Labs, and now Cisco’s brother is appearing to him, and CISCO opens the box, releasing Savitar.

Savitar throws Barry around like a ping pong ball and Wally tries to help and they’re shouting at Cisco but he’s drunk on box fumes and wants his brother to be alive again. But eventually it’s Caitlin that gets through to him and helps him grip reality and ignore the box’s pretty lies.

Casually saving the world two doe-eyes at a time.

So Cisco closes the box.

They decide that since Julian is the puppet Savitar uses to talk to them, maybe they can use the puppet to talk to the master, too, so they hook Julian up to the box with some wires to have a chat. Savitar speaks through him and is surprised no one is kneeling to him. He claims to know their fate, and issues a prophecy about the members of Team Flash: One will betray Barry, one will die, one will “suffer a fate worse than death”. Actually technically he just said fall. But. Probably not talking about a little stumble on the sidewalk.

“I KNOW you’re not talking about me, sir.”

Anyway, Savitar is generally not a frolicking-through-a-field-with-a-flower-crown kind of god and sounds really evil and angry until they break the connection and the box becomes just a box again.

Flash Sr. decides that their best plan is to throw the Philosopher’s Stone box into the Speedforce so no one be lured into the same trap again, even though I feel like maybe there was a way to store it in the lab with like a few types of materials inscribed with warnings in multiple languages or something.

However, Barry gets sucked out of the Speedforce and somehow ends up in the future, where he sees Savitar kill Iris dead. Flash Sr. pulls him back out and Barry straight up panics. But Flash Sr. says that what he saw was only one possibility for the future, and that surely the CW DC universe wouldn’t fridge another woman so soon after Laurel took her sister’s place in the wretched refrigerator.

Barry doesn’t feel eased by the fact that it’s not a sure thing, because it’s still a likely/possible thing, but Flash Sr. says there’s no point in stressing about it right now, just go enjoy Christmas with your family.

Of course, the weight of the world and its many futures is a lot for his narrow shoulders, so he’s looking rather gloomy. (Iris is looking cute though.)

I like these two together more than I want to. I like Iris’s little bow just the right amount.

Anyway, aside from the looming fear of Savitar’s prophecy, Christmas is lovely, with Wally getting his Kid Flash suit and Julian giving Barry his job and lab back.

Oh and Caitlin makes it snow over the whole town even though she’s been wearing magic-quelling fitbits to avoid turning into Killer Frost.

I am VERY concerned about this Iris flashback, though I feel like maybe since we’ve seen it, it can’t happen now? Right? Promise me?

Arrow 509: A life for a life

We open with Artemis bringing Prometheus intel about Team Arrow, including photos she took herself. Prometheus points out that wanting to kill Oliver for killing people seems a little dumb, but Baby Bird says she wants Oliver to make him wish he was dead instead.

Meanwhile, the whole town is gathered for a Christmas party Thea, effectively mayor at this point, threw.

From Party Girl to…well, still a party girl but in a classy way.

Carly Pope returns to us this week as Susan Williams, clad in a little red dress to slay us all.

Felicity and her boyfriend Billy are there too, and she awkwardly introduces him to all of her friends as if she’s embarrassed to be with him at all. It’s even more than your average everyday Felicity awkwardness, and as she tries to navigate what she can mention around who – for example, what her boyfriend knows vs. what Curtis’s husband knows – and opts for chugging booze instead.

Literally same.

Oliver gives a speech about Die Hard and It’s A Wonderful Life, neither of which better be clues to how the second half of this season will go. After, he introduces Felicity and Susan, and it’s just about as uncomfortable as you can imagine.

You’re both too good for him just date each other!

Angry that he feels like Curtis is lying to him, his husband Paul decides he’s had enough of this party and heads outside. Curtis goes out to talk to him but Prometheus attacks, knocking him out after a bit of a brawl.

This reveals two things. One, Billy realizes now that Curtis is part of Team Arrow, and two, Team Arrow knows that Prometheus knows that Oliver is the Green Arrow. But they don’t KNOW they know they know. You know? (Just kidding that sentence is just extra complicated because unlike Team Arrow I’m trying not to assume Prometheus is a ‘he’ partially because we simply don’t know for sure and partially for reasons I’ll discuss later.)

Back in the Arrow Cave, the team does some research and figure out that Prometheus is linked to a drug company whose CEO Oliver killed four years ago. But as Felicity points out, “In our town, people we think are dead end up being alive almost every Wednesday.” This is possibly some on the nose foreshadowing, but her referencing the day Arrow airs reminded me of, “Dawn’s in trouble, must be Tuesday,” and for that I am very grateful.

The team heads to a warehouse to find the man they think might be Prometheus, and they do find Prometheus, but he gets away with the help of a little bird.

Chirp chirp, FatherKillers!

Felicity kicks herself for not vetting her better, but no one blames her for once.

One other funny-ish moment was Wild Dog thinking that if alternate timelines were a thing, maybe that means he and Thea dated at one point. Rag Man thinks this is a hilariously impossible dream in any reality, and frankly so does Thea.

I’ve really liked Felicity and Thea’s background dynamic lately. Makes sense since they both love Oliver like a brother, they both dated a Lance.

Felicity figures out that the man Oliver thought he killed, Clayborn, is indeed dead, so he can’t be Prometheus. While she’s solving that, her boyfriend poked around Clayborn’s old office, and gets himself kidnapped.

So Felicity uses the evidence he managed to text before getting snatched to figure out that Clayborn did have a kid, and that kid would be about 30 now.

So the Team gets to work. Even Thea suits up again, for Felicity.

Women supporting women!

Thea tells Oliver to stop assuming he has enough control to be the only factor in something like someone becoming a masked serial killer. And he’s affected a lot of people in a lot of ways, so he can’t let the bad things consume him and outweigh the good.

Eventually Oliver ends up alone in the warehouse with Prometheus and while Prometheus monologues about how every life Oliver touches ends in death, so Oliver touches him and he dies. But turns out it wasn’t Prometheus at all, but Billy. He goes back to tell his team and Felicity is so, so sad but, unlike the men in her life, her brain still works when her heart is broken, so she knows this is Prometheus’s fault.

She can safely assume she’s the smartest in the room at all times.

Oliver tells them all they’re doomed for knowing him but they don’t care, they’re in this now.

But he’s not wrong. Because on top of killing Felicity’s boyfriend, Curtis and his husband break up (their storyline in this episode was really heartbreaking to watch because Curtis being sad is like a sad puppy) because Paul says he can’t live the life of a vigilante’s husband and Curtis can’t NOT be Mr. Terrific. And side-note maybe I just don’t watch a lot of shows with gay male couples but the use of “baby” during their conversations made me happy…until all the words after it made me sad.

Also Diggle gets a call from “Lyla” and it’s a trap and a SWAT team gets him.

Oliver, distraught, decides to try not being alone for once, and goes to see Susan. Susan, who has a suspiciously-zoomed-in-on bottle of Russian vodka she pours for Oliver. Susan, who could be around 30. Susan, who showed up around the same time as Prometheus and managed to quickly sidle her way into Oliver’s life. I’M JUST SAYING.

So shady. Literally. Turn on a light.

Feeling better about Susan saying similar things as Thea and kissing his face, Oliver heads back to Arrow HQ, but there he finds someone he wasn’t expecting.

*record scratch*

Oliver looks about as surprised as I am, and what the ACTUAL FUCK is happening? How did we not know that was coming? Did you know? I didn’t know!

So I have a few theories. One was that Sara messed things up when she told Darhk his future and it’s just rippling through now. (This one seems the most unlikely but is my favorite because Sara gets to be selfless but then also get what she wants.) Two is that somehow the Philosopher’s Stone from Flash ended up in Star City and he’s hallucinating like Cisco did. (That one was from my friend and seems like a bit of a stretch.)

And one I made up myself because I love a lady villain is that Susan is Prometheus and used drugs from her dead father’s company to drug Oliver and make him hallucinate for maximum impact.

Though I’ll admit when Laurel first died I was sure that what she whispered to Oliver was that they had to fake her death, but that hope had since faded. What do you think? Help a girl out. While you think on that let’s move on to the last show of the week….

Legends of Tomorrow 208: Speakeasy

This week we go to Chicago in 1927, where Al Capone rules the streets…and now with a little help from Damien Darhk, Reverse Flash, who have now recruited Malcolm Merlyn. I think I’m going to call them the Toothache Trio because they just keep coming back even though they’re annoying and we keep thinking they’re gone.

On the Waverider, Sara is trying to keep her boys in line, and it’s a bit like training puppies, because they’re excited about their toys, when she just wants them to not destroy everything in the house.

Luckily she has a really strong, “Hey!” that would put any child or manchild in line.

CUTEST CAPTAIN AWARD GOES TO

 Sara tells Jax it’s just sibling rivalry.

When Gideon tells them about the aberration in 1927, they suit up and head out, and realize their mission will be to save a man named Ness so he can eventually take down Al Capone. But when they do save him (well, when Amaya and her dolphin powers save him), Darhk is in the distance all happy because they took his bait.

While Ness is recovering from being pushed in a river with cinderblocks tied to his feet, Ray and Nate decide they’ll do what he would have been doing at this point and get Al Capone’s ledger.

While they do that, someone has to go undercover, and Sara wants it to be Mick, but he’s feeling particularly ornery this week.

I’ve made this face so many times over the past month it’s not even funny.

So Sara says she’ll just do it herself.

And she looks better in the outfit than Mick would have anyway.

Do you think they started picking plotlines based solely on what costumes Caity Lotz would look best in?

So Mick stays back to “watch” Ness and try to talk Amaya into being “bad” and hallucinate that he’s talking to his old buddy Snart.

Jax and Stein are having a hell of a time trying to figure out if the club they’re in serves booze when Damien Darhk appears like a snake from under a rock.

Luckily birds eat snakes.

And fighting ensues. The fight ends with Stein and Sara being taken by Reverse Flash.

The team is a bit at a loss now, because they have two missions and no captain. So Mick takes charge and decides they’re going to think outside the box on this one. (The box being the law.)

Sara and Stein wake up tied to chairs, and Merlyn comes in to offer Sara a deal. He was the one who blew up the Queen’s Gambit, so if she gives him the amulet, he’ll go back and never do that, thus changing the past nine years entirely. He says she can go to college and meet a nice boy or girl and live a normal life. (He sort of sounds like he adds “or girl” like he wants to be respectful of her identity but also is mad he feels compelled to offer her any kindness because she’s his prisoner.) And of course, she’d have Laurel.

But Sara knows that the timeline is too important; what if doing that somehow sets off a genocide? It’s too risky. Plus, then she wouldn’t be a badass fighter and she never would have met Nyssa. So, no dice. “I’ll take a nightmare that’s real over a dream that’s a lie.”

When did our little Sara get so smart? *wipes tear*

Meanwhile, Amaya and Mick are going all Bonnie and Clyde, hijacking one of Al Capone’s delivery trucks.

I wish Amaya and Sara weren’t split up so often.

Since they’re tied up, Sara takes this opportunity to ask Stein why he’s been so squirrely lately, and he confesses about his daughter. She’s pretty pissed that Mr. You-Can’t-Save-Your-Sister is suddenly all about the daughter he created. Sara says she’s not real, but Stein’s memories of her are. Sara is furious, saying it’s Stein’s fault Laurel is still dead, but Darhk interrupts. He knows torturing Sara I’ve-literally-been-a-feral-cat Lance won’t get him anywhere, so he takes Stein. Reverse Flash stabs him with a tech-y looking thingamabob and Stein screams, making Sara twitch in her seat.

I feel like she didn’t try hard enough to break the chair she’s tied to.

But don’t worry Amaya saves her. Nate finds the ledger, they fight their way out, and go back to the Waverider. But Stein is acting even weirder than usual, making Jax a little suspicious.

Despite being told by the ghost of boyfriends past that he should stop being so nice to everyone and risking his life for skirts and nerds, Mick compliments Amaya on a job well done, and she smiles a sweet smile and hugs him in return.

Me-ow.

Which Snart thinks is hilarious and gross. Which is how you know it’s definitely not Snart, but something in Mick, because Snart respected Sara more than that.

Speaking of Sara, she goes into the library to talk to Stein, because she doesn’t hear Jax’s warning; Stein isn’t Stein, but the speedster in disguise. Everyone fights and fights and fights and eventually Sara ends up face to face with Merlyn.

If I could make that face my life would be so much easier.

She bests him and pins him to the ground with a knife to his throat, but she can’t kill him, because he knows where the real Stein is. So she trades the amulet for Stein’s life and they go save him by the river.

Once they’re all settled in, Stein asks Sara why she went against her own code and risked history to save him, and she says they’re family. She can’t save Laurel, but she can protect the family she does have. Which now includes his daughter, Lily.

“I’m so gonna bang her.”

The Toothache Trio puts two pieces of the amulet together and now they have a 3D starmap compass to find the Spear of Destiny to rewrite history, starting with Rip Hunter.

Rip Hunter who is apparently in 1967 posing as the hot-headed American director of Legends of Tomorrow: The Movie.

But is that before or after history is rewritten?

Only time will tell. And by time I mean a lot of it. About a month and a half, to be exact until our legion of superqueeroes returns to us. See you on Twitter in the meantime!

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