The Flash
- Just about everything in this episode is pure awesome, starting with the introduction of Supergirl.
- The effects on The Flash are always top-notch for TV, but this episode really takes the cake - for the range of what they accomplished, if nothing else. Highlights include:
- The human fight scenes are (somehow) even better than some of the ones on Arrow.
- The CGI department managed to capture Flash, Atom, Firestorm, and Supergirl without any decrease in quality.
- The Dominators, which look more like something from a blockbuster movie than a CW show.
- The Dominators themselves. They manage to kidnap the President, and almost take down all the heroes through mind-control. It even worked on Supergirl, who's been immune to every other form of manipulation on her own show. Last time they came to Earth (the 50s), they killed "hundreds" of soldiers.
- The fight scenes. At one point, everyone except for Barry and Oliver ends up mind-controlled. What does Barry do? He takes on Atom, Firestorm, and Supergirl all by himself. For his part, Oliver manages to hold off Sara, John, and Thea all by himself, while guarding Wally.
- Wally is only injured because he took out half of the mind-controlled heroes, and then survived being hit by Supergirl.
- Barry starts off the battle by knocking out Mick with a super-punch, then races up to the top where he is confronted by the three mind-controlled heroes mentioned above. He then summons lightning and strikes all three targets before they can even react, knocking out Atom and Firestorm in the process.
- Supergirl, whose participation in fights this episode basically amounts to "No-Sell, No-Sell, No-Sell". Oliver advises her to not hold back in a training session. Turns out she didn't need to; by simply hovering in one place she was able to take out everyone, and nothing they do can touch her. She tanks Ray's photon blasts, Firestorm, Mick's heat gun, and Barry's lightning: although it was substantially weaker because it was divided into three bursts.
- Barry, while running up a building during his speedfight with brainwashed Supergirl, he dodges her heat vision, then proceeds to do a 180 and go right back down again, all in one move.
- At the end of the episode, Barry almost outruns a teleportation beam.
- We finally get an answer to the question "Who's faster: the Flash or Supergirl?" It depends. Out in the open, Kara is able to catch up to Barry several times, with him barely escaping. In close quarters, there's no contest; Barry is almost literally running rings around Kara.
- Of course that's not taking into account the possibility that neither was at their full potential: Barry might've been holding back so that Kara could catch up with him, and the mindcontrol doesn't appear to give the Dominators full control.
- On the other hand, there's nothing to suggest Barry is actually trying that hard, and was slowing down to let Supergirl catch up with him.
- It should be noted that when Barry really gets going, Kara can't land a single hit on him.
- Barry's version of the Wronski Feint: don't suddenly dodge out of the way to make Supergirl take out the mind-control device, instead vibrate so that she goes through him.
- Oliver gives Barry a much-needed reality check: that him tampering with the timeline isn't why things got screwed up. The timeline is a lot of people making choices for which Barry isn't responsible, and he's not God.
Arrow
- The entire fact that the episode's creators were in the seemingly impossible position of not only making the middle part of an epic crossover event (ie. the part that can't rely on having a proper beginning or ending), but a celebration of Arrow on its own as the show's 100th episode, and they actually made it work, delivering a highly moving character examination of Oliver Queen using the show's entire history and also providing the action goods in the alien story.
- To escape the Lotus-Eater Machine, original Team Arrow plus Ray has to fight their way past Malcolm Merlyn, Deathstroke, Damien Darhk, and their various henchmen. Watching them all wipe the floor with these guys is beautiful, with special mention to Thea firing an arrow for Sara to grab and stab Dahrk with.
- It's even better when you consider each team member's opponent. Malcolm turned Thea into a weapon for his own purposes after she came to him for help, Darhk murdered Sara's sister, the Mirakuru soldiers killed Ray's wife, the Ghosts (alongside Darhk) indoctrinated Diggle's little brother, and Deathstroke capped a season's worth of pain by murdering Oliver's mother. Watching the team take on and slay their personal demons in a way they never could in the real world is incredibly satisfying.
Legends of Tomorrow
- The heroes capturing a Dominator in '51 is pretty impressive. Nate knocks it out in one punch; note that before it had thrown a soldier at Mick like a pillow.
- Later, Felicity and Cisco break Mick, Nate, and Amaya out of capture. Yes, you read that right.
- Stein figuring out how to take down the Dominators – with the help of his daughter.
- The Legends, Green Arrow, Spartan, Flash, and Supergirl vs the Dominators is an even more incredible sight to behold.
- The somewhat unique – but absolutely amazing to watch – case of realistic outcomes ensuing. It's cool to see the Badass Normals taking down aliens one at a time. It's way cooler to see Ray, Firestorm, Amaya, Nate, Barry, and Kara tear through them like they're barely even there.
- Firestorm managing to transmute a LARGE (almost the size of the Waverider) Dominator bomb into water.
- After the heroes (mostly Barry) tag or take down all the Dominators they're fighting, Felicity reminds them that there are at least a dozen other alien ships still out there across the country. In response, Kara and Barry apparently tag all of them in a matter of minutes. It's left slightly ambiguous whether other parties were helping, but still.
- After The Men in Black have antagonized, detained, and generally been dicks to the heroes, Agent Smith comes back to "mop up" the aftermath of the fight and trade vague threats with them. Kara interrupts this to say that she's been talking to the new president; apparently, the president was interested in the fact that Earth-38 has a government agency dedicated to dealing with superhumans. Madam President was also responsive to Kara's suggestion that Smith be Reassigned to Antarctica. Beware the Nice Ones, indeed.
