A week after the Arrow's team visited Central City, the Flash arrives in Starling City to help the Arrow deal with a killer targeting A.R.G.U.S.. Part of a crossover, together with the earlier Flash episode "Flash vs. Arrow".
Tropes:
- Actually Pretty Funny: Oliver cracks up when Barry calls The Arrow "a douche".
- All Your Base Are Belong to Us: First, Harkness storms A.R.G.U.S. HQ and then tracks down the Arrowcave, both to try and kill Lyla.
- Annoying Arrows: Averted; the fact that it hurts more when you pull them out makes them good for torture.
- Arc Words: "Sweetie?!", followed by "You only call me sweetie if you want something" for Diggle and Lyla.
- Artistic License – Gun Safety: The pistol in the Arrowcave is shown to be kept loaded in an unlocked drawer of a cabinet. Despite the prevalence of people doing it in fiction or Real Life, guns should never be stored loaded; there's a small chance they can malfunction and go off.
- Badass Normal: "Captain Boomerang" Harkness manages to come up with Batman Gambits so that he remains a threat against Barry.
- Batman Gambit: Harkness lets the heroes track his phone, so that he can backtrack the trace, leading him right to Lyla.
- Becoming the Mask: Oliver expresses his belief to Barry that every time he does something dark (like torture someone for information) as the Arrow, he loses another part of Oliver Queen. Barry counters that he believes that Oliver isn't losing his humanity but that his humanity is what pulls him through.
- Best Served Cold: Harkness has waited three years to try and get his revenge on Lyla.
- Big Damn Heroes
- Roy and Oliver make their entrance by shooting out of the air a boomerang that would have slashed Lyla before entering the fray.
- Barry snatches two boomerangs out of the air that would have impaled Oliver when he makes his appearance.
- Birds of a Feather: Oliver and Lyla, both having worked for Waller, and with friends (Barry and Diggle) who maintain their idealism.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- Oliver tells Cisco not to touch a Trick Arrow that's activated by compressed C02. Later Felictiy uses one as an improvised grenade against Captain Boomerang.
- Waller delivers up Li Kuan Hui for Oliver's interrogation training.
- Chekhov's Gag: A Running Gag of the episode involves Diggle repeatedly calling Lyla "Sweetie", which the latter will then respond that he only calls her that if he wants something. However, the more it is repeated, the serious it actually means. The final time they do it, Diggle asks Lyla a not-so Wacky Marriage Proposal.
- Continuity Nod:
- Barry mentions Multiplex when he says he can't be in five places at once.
- At the end of the episode, Ollie and Barry imprison Harkness on Lian Yu, along with "one Slade Wilson".
- Felicity mentions the land mines on Lian Yu.
- Captain Lance (barely) remembers Barry from the last time he was in Starling City.
- Demoted to Extra: Much of the main cast is cast aside in favor of the visiting cast members of The Flash. In addition to Merlyn not showing up at all:
- Laurel and Captain Lance show up for a single scene.
- Thea appears on the corner as Barry runs by her at the start and then near the middle serving drinks to Cisco, Caitlin, and Roy. She has around four lines.
- Distracted by the Sexy: Lampshaded when Caitlin asks what the salmon ladder is for.Felicity: (deep sigh) Distracting me from work.
- Dramatic Irony: Felicity says that Barry and Oliver teaming up was a "one-time thing." As it turns out...
- Double Take:
- Roy pulls off a good one when he sees the Flash's entrance.
- And Quentin when an irate criminal appears out of nowhere, handcuffed to his filing cabinet.
- Eating the Eye Candy: Felicity and Caitlin watching Barry do the salmon ladder.Caitlin: How often does Oliver do this?
Felicity: At least every Wednesday. There's a lot of sweating. - Evasive Fight-Thread Episode: At the end of the episode, Oliver and Barry decide to settle once and for all who would win in a fight between them, but the episode cuts to black before we can see the outcome.
- Evil Mentor: Waller to Oliver in the flashbacks. She's the one who taught him how to torture people.
- Expy: While Batman and Superman may never appear in the Arrow/Flash continuity, the comparisons and disagreements between Oliver and Barry in this episode and the associated episode of The Flash regarding the differences in their methods and the cities they operate in could have been lifted word for word from the many conversations and discussions comparing the Dark Knight and the Big Blue Boy Scout and their cities of Gotham and Metropolis.
- Fighting Fingerprint: Oliver recognises the apparent SWAT Team holding them at gunpoint as A.R.G.U.S. from the flanking position they're using.
- Foreshadowing: The idea that Oliver can save his city as himself instead of the Arrow is something he tries next season.
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: When Barry shows disgust over Oliver's methods, Oliver goes on a rant on all the personal tragedies he's gone through in a hellhole like Starling City, while Barry lives in "sunny" Central City. Barry counters that he's also experienced tragedy, having seen his mom murdered right in front of him when he was only 10, but he doesn't use that as an excuse to torture everyone who ticks him off.
- Hypocritical Humor: Roy complaining about Cisco geeking out over everything in the Foundry, only to change his opinion on their guests after Cisco notes that Roy's costume is much cooler than Ollie's, and that red's better than green anyway.
- Impaled Palm: As Oliver turns to walk away, Digger tries to throw a boomerang at him only to get an arrow through the hand. Barry calls Oliver on having set that up deliberately.
- In-Series Nickname: Oliver is rather annoyed that Roy's picked up the habit of calling their lair the Arrowcave from Felicity.
- Insistent Terminology:
- Regarding the Foundry.Cisco: We want to see the Arrowcave.
Felicity: We don't call it that. Ever.
[one scene later]
Roy: Since when did we start selling admission to the Arrowcave?
Oliver: It's... [points at Felicity] do you see what you've done? - Everyone is quick to point out that Dig and Lyla are not married.
- Regarding the Foundry.
- It Doesn't Mean Anything: Thea is shown on the phone trying to convince Chase of this regarding their smooch in last week's episode.
- It's a Long Story: Felicity's reaction to Team Flash asking her about Lian Yu's land mines.
- Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: As usual, this is Oliver's preferred method of getting information, to Barry's shock. And the flashbacks confirm that he learned how from Waller.
- Oliver's belief that this works is used against him in the same scene, as the one being interrogated gives up a phone that he got from Harkness, but this turns out to be a Batman Gambit on Harkness' part which allows him to find out where they're keeping Lyla soon afterward.
- The Knights Who Say "Squee!": Cisco goes completely fanboy when he gets to see Oliver's specialty arrowheads and Oliver and Roy's costumes up close.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
- Felicity notes that Oliver works out on the salmon ladder every Wednesday.
- Oliver snarks that Barry works in Central City "where it's sunny all the time".
- Lethal Joke Weapon: Ask the bunch of dead A.R.G.U.S. agents how dangerous a weaponized boomerang can be, both thrown and in close-quarters.
- Meaningful Echo: Lyla and Oliver recite a phrase justifying their more ruthless tactics that turns out to have been given to them by Waller.
- Mundane Utility: Barry is able to use his super speed and his forensics training to piece together the exploded boomerang fragments before Oliver is done saying it may take a while.
- My Sister Is Off-Limits/The Bro Code: Cisco got hit by both of this tropes when he attempted to make a move on Thea. The former trope was invoked by Felicity on Oliver's behalf.Cisco: [after Thea served them at the Verdant] Yo, who was that hottie?
Felicity: [simultaneously] Oliver's younger sister.
Roy: [simultaneously] My ex-girlfriend.
Cisco: So stay away, that's what you're saying... - Mythology Gag:
- The episode's title refers to the DC comic which featured team-ups between assorted characters.
- Cisco asks if Team Arrow has an "Arrow Mobile". Once upon a time, they did
. - The warehouse where Harkness is supposedly hiding is located at the intersection of streets named Infantino and Adams, named after Carmine Infantino who designed the classic Silver Age Flash costume, and Neal Adams who updated the Green Arrow's Silver Age look to the classic costume and goatee most people recognize.
- Detective Lance misidentifies Barry as Bart Allen, who in the comics is the Teen Titans member and grandson of Barry known as Impulse (or sometimes Kid Flash).
- Lyla calls Barry "Speedy", with Oliver misidentifying who she means as Roy momentarily, as another nod to Roy's original superhero name in the comics.
- One-Man Army: Captain Boomerang has no problem waltzing into A.R.G.U.S. headquarters and cutting down multiple mooks to get to Lyla.
- Once Done, Never Forgotten: Barry's still not over Oliver shooting him in the back.
- Plot Armor: Dig and Lyla are apparently the only two people in ARGUS who know how to duck.
- Revenge: Captain Boomerang was a member of Task Force X. When the mission when sour, Lyla activated their bomb implants. Digger's malfunctioned and now he's out for payback.
- Rogue Agent: Like Slade Wilson, Digger Harkness is a former ASIS agent turned mercenary.
- Running Gag:
- People keep referring to Diggle and Lyla as if they're married. The first time is Diggle himself.
- Diggle only calls Lyla "sweetie" when he wants something.
- Secret-Keeper: Some people don't quite get it.
- Barry shoots into the Arrowcave with his hood off, casually outing his Secret Identity to Lyla under the assumption that Diggle must have told her. Diggle has to explain that not only are they not married, but keeping secrets is part of his job.
- And then while Oliver pulls Barry away from the group to lecture him, Caitlyn has to restrain Cisco from taking a picture of the two of them. Fully suited up, but with their masks off.
- Oliver meeting Captain Lance for the first time since "The Calm" & calling him "Detective" before verbally back-pedalling, since that is what the Arrow calls Lance.
- Shout-Out: The final scene seems to be a deliberate homage to the ending of Rocky III where Rocky and Apollo have a private sparring match with friendly banter beforehand about who can beat who. It even ends with the outcome not shown, with a cutaway right as they throw their first attack, like in the film.
- Special Edition Title: In conjunction with "Flash vs. Arrow", the arrow is replaced by the lightning bolt from the Flash titles.
- Story-Breaker Power: Barry is nothing but this. When storming the Bratva and hunting Harkness, Barry knocks out and ties up guards in the time it takes Oliver and Roy to get there. Harkness remains a threat by being savvy enough to find distractions for Barry.
- Strange Minds Think Alike: Both Cisco Ramon and Barry Allen like Roy's outfit more than Ollie's.
- Superhero Paradox: Brought up by Roy and Diggle. Cisco notes that people like Digger Harkness existed long before the explosion of the S.T.A.R. Labs particle accelerator or Mirakuru, so maybe the world isn't getting weirder, but people like the Flash exist now to protect normal people from the craziness of the world.
- Superman Stays Out of Gotham: When Barry shows disgust over the Arrow's methods, Oliver explains he's not in Central City:Oliver: Barry... you live in Central City, where it's sunny all the time and your enemies get cute nicknames. You're not in Central City.
- Take a Third Option: Harkness thinks the Arrow and the Flash can either take him in or allow multiple bombs to explode across the city. Barry realizes he can't be in five places at once to defuse them all simultaneously... but then he realizes that he doesn't have to be in five places at once when he's got four friends available.
- Tempting FateLyla: I appreciate the offer Johnny, but we have it handled. [cue alarms]
- Past!Oliver demands to know where the bomb is. The bomber just grins as massive explosions light up the Hong Kong skyline behind him.
- Torture Always Works: Subverted when it just sends Oliver down a false trail while Digger attacks the Arrowcave. It also doesn't work if you haven't had a chance to start in the first place.
- Trenchcoat Warfare: Digger has multiple boomerangs holstered under his Badass Longcoat.
- The Power of Friendship: Subtly done. In both crossovers, when the Flash and the Arrow and their respective teams work together, the Villain of the Week is defeated much more easily as they cover weaknesses and deficiencies. The Flash can quickly take down mooks while the Arrow's experience means that it's easier to figure out traps and overcome obstacles. It extends to their respective teams. For example, Felicity simplifies hacking and finding criminals while Caitlin's medical skills saved what could have been a fatal injury. Heck, Barry's good for Oliver's
Wangst and Oliver serves as a Big Brother Mentor. - That Man Is Dead: Oliver invokes this trope with his analogy that every time he tortures, he is trading away piece of himself that is Oliver Queen, and that lately he only felt like the Arrow was left. Barry thinks he's "full of crap".
- This Is Gonna Suck: Barry has one of these faces when Oliver asks to talk to him privately.
- This Is Reality: After Lyla gets sent to the hospital, Caitlin and Cisco grimily note that since they normally go up against meta-humans, they've been treating their super-operation like some game since all of the superpowers made it feel less real.
- Time Skip: Unlike the previous times, Teams Flash and Arrow crossed paths in some way, this episode does not happen concurrent to the associated Flash one, but rather one week later.
- Title Drop: Layla says that it's not enough to be brave, sometimes you have to be bold. In her case, she's referring to the tactics of The Cape and The Cowl respectively.
- The Unreveal: Who won between Oliver and Barry is not revealed to the audience (the 4-part "Invasion!" crossover reveals that Barry won).
- Unwinnable Training Simulation: A non-simulation example. In the flashback part of the episode, Amanda Waller giving Oliver the task of getting the location of a bomb out of a terrorist can easily be seen as this. Instead of having an experienced interrogator do such an important job, she gives it to him, and the bomb goes off before he has much of a chance to do anything. Even if he had used more brutal methods, all the perp would have had to do would be hold out for a few minutes, but the feeling of failure and the loss of innocent lives leaves Oliver more open to adopting the methods that Waller wants him to learn.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Barry chews Oliver out for torturing criminals for information, while in the flashback, Waller chews out Oliver for not torturing a man who knew where a bomb was planted.
- Would Hit a Girl: Captain Boomerang is so hellbent on killing Lyla and barely succeeded. At the time that he finally cornered Lyla, he attempted to also kill both Felicity and Caitlin for collateral damage.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are:
- The flashbacks give a very twisted example, as Waller tells Oliver that yes, he can torture people, she believes that he has it in him.
- Thankfully, this is balanced by a straighter example in the present, as Barry cuts off Oliver's self-loathing by telling him that he can inspire people — not as the Arrow (he's kind of a douche), but as Oliver Queen.
