What I’m Watching: Arrow

Arrow: Season 8, Episode 8 “Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part Four” (B+)

There’s certainly no arguing the intensity of the first installment of this crossover in the new year, and though so little of it still makes sense to me, I’d say I enjoyed it. I liked that it opened with the Monitor before he had that role, eagerly traveling through time with his wife as the Monitor before he accidentally unleashed whatever energy it was that created the Anti-Monitor, who seems hell-bent on destroying everything he possibly can. Understandably, this hour was very Oliver-centric, in part because it’s the third-to-last episode this show will produce. I plan to check in for the penultimate one since it’s meant as a backdoor pilot for a potential spinoff, just the latest one to be announced after Tyler Hoechlin and Elizabeth Tulloch got their own show borne of crossovers like this with “Superman and Lois.” But back to trying to save the entire universe and all that, it was definitely irritating in an appropriate way to have Lex modify himself so that he could double-cross Supergirl and try to achieve universal domination, but at least he made himself the paragon of truth, which was helpful when they all had to band together to focus their single energy on defeating the Anti-Monitor. It doesn’t look good for Oliver, which isn’t a problem given that his show is ending, but I also suspect that rebuilding everything won’t be quite so easy. Having Barry return to so many different points in their past before they knew each other was interesting, and hopefully it will be just as powerful to see him work to put things back together, especially since he was never supposed to return to his earth. I haven’t seen any of the films with him in it, but I recognized actor Ezra Miller’s voice as another Barry who was very confused about what was happening.