This episode is the first of the four-part Crisis on Earth-X Crossover event between Supergirl (2015), The Flash (2014), Arrow, and Legends of Tomorrow. The episodes in chronological order are "Crisis on Earth-X, Part 1", "Crisis on Earth-X, Part 2", "Crisis on Earth-X, Part 3", and "Crisis on Earth-X, Part 4".
It is the day before Barry Allen and Iris West's wedding, and some "special guests" show up to make this a momentous occasion. In the ceremony itself, before they can exchange their vows, some uninvited guests arrive: Nazis.
Tropes:
- Action Dress Rip: Sara and Alex, in tandem, when the Earth-X soldiers crash the wedding.
- Action Prologue:
- On Earth-X, Dark Arrow cleans out a Resistance Base and kills Guardian.
- In Central City, Flash is going up against King Shark.
- In Star City, Green Arrow is fighting a bunch of ninjas.
- 1183 AD Sherwood Forest, the Legends are robbing a bunch of royal tax collectors.
- On Earth-38 in National City, Kara is fighting a Dominator.
- Aesop Amnesia: Kara has failed to learn that there is nothing wrong with wanting to have love interests. She accuses herself of not learning that her life should just be about Supergirl.
- Alternate-History Nazi Victory: Earth-X is the result of the Nazis winning World War II.
- Arrows on Fire: Sara catches one in 1183 AD England when noting that the Legends are not Robin Hood.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: The mode of transportation of some of the special guests: A time-travelling Cool Ship, a portal from another universe, and a motorcycle.
- Ballroom Blitz: Nazis crash the wedding. Of course, the heroes in attendance are having none of that, and immediately fight back.
- Back-to-Back Badasses: Sara and Alex easily flow into a fighting tandem taking down Nazis and then Prometheus.
- Bad "Bad Acting": Sara and Alex acting like they've just met in front of Kara after sleeping with each other is not convincing in the slightest. Indeed, Sara, who seemed to only even try for Alex’s benefit and not particularly care about the whole thing, just gives it up to ask if Alex hurt herself falling out of bed that morning.
- Beam-O-War: Supergirl and Overgirl duel with their heat vision clashing up in the sky.
- Bedmate Reveal: On the dawn of the wedding, Alex wakes up, then shortly afterwards realizes Sara is sleeping next to her.
- Blade Below the Shoulder: Killer Frost creates one on her right arm made of ice in the battle with the Nazis to cut down several of them in succession.
- Breather Episode: Outside of the cold open, this episode doesn't really concern itself that much with the Earth-X plot, until near the end during the wedding.
- Bullet Catch: Barry and Wally both do this during the wedding fight. Wally goes a step further by throwing a bullet back down the gun's barrel, jamming it.
- Call-Back:
- Oliver brought his old collapsible bow from several seasons back to the wedding.
- Barry asks Kara to sing at his wedding, remembering her impressive soprano in the musical "Duet". In fact, the song she sings is "Runnin' Home to You", which Barry himself serenaded as his proposal to Iris in the same episode.
- Cisco and Harry devise a serum to decouple Stein from the Firestorm matrix using quarks to essentially trick it into thinking he's still a part of it, again.
- The Cameo:
- King Shark in the opening scene, fighting the Flash.
- The Steins are also invited to the wedding, to Martin's delight; Jax (and Mick) even sleep over at their place.
- Captain Singh and his husband at the wedding procession, sitting right next to Mick. Singh's husband disappeared from screen for a long time.
- Former superhero William Katt as the minister.
- Car Cushion: Supergirl makes her Dynamic Entry in the episode by crashing into a car while fighting a Dominator, under the eyes of the car's distressed owner.
- Collapsible Helmet: Dark Arrow and Overgirl's facemasks can dematerialize with the push of a button.
- Combat Pragmatist: During their fight with Prometheus-X, Sara grabs the incense censer, using it like a chain flail. While it doesn't hold up against a sword blade, it does allow her and Alex to get the upper-hand.
- Continuity Nod: Killer Frost hates pink — guess what Caitlin is wearing at the wedding?
- Dance Battler: Wally shows some elements of this, at super-speed no less!
- Defiant to the End: Earth-X's Guardian doesn't show fear when Dark Arrow prepares to kill him.
- Designated Girl Fight: When the big battle starts, Supergirl and Overgirl quickly square off against each other, as they're the strongest characters on either side.
- Didn't Think This Through: Dark Arrow and Overgirl mount an attack on Barry's wedding, as they assumed the heroes would be caught flatfooted and they could take them out easily. Instead, they get beaten and the heroes now know there is another invasion going on. Reverse-Flash even calls them out on their foolishness and how it cost them Prometheus.
- Disintegrator Ray: Overgirl's heat vision acts as this when she kills the wedding pastor.
- Expy: The costume of Earth-X's Guardian bears a slight resemblance to Captain America, with a Star-Spangled Spandex-styled armor and shield.
- Foil: The forces of Earth-X are from a different Earth as opposed to an alien planet, like the Dominators were.
- Forgotten Fallen Friend: Averted, Stein and Caitlin talk about Ronnie at one point.
- Foreshadowing: Overgirl is evidently even stronger than Supergirl in a straight fight, but Supergirl manages to lay her out with one good punch to the chest after using a Shockwave Clap to disorient her.
- Funny Background Event: Mick spends the entire wedding procession catching some Zs and no-one bothers to wake him up. This may have been for the best, all things considered.
- Guns in Church: Even before the Nazis crashed the wedding, Mick brought his flame gun and Oliver brought a bow. Of course, this is a Justified Trope, as Mick is a Reformed Criminal (more or less) and Oliver is Crazy-Prepared with a Retractable Weapon.
- Have We Met?:
- Barry to the waitress congratulating him on his wedding day. She quickly insists that they haven't, because she's a complete and total stranger and not, say, his and Iris's Kid from the Future.
- At the rehearsal dinner, Mick passes Caitlin and asks, "Did I try to kidnap you once?" She replies, "Yes, I'd advise not trying it again."
- Hope Spot: The Freedom Fighters are banking on the breach to be their last hope, but then Dark Arrow arrives, takes out the Freedom Fighters protecting the portal, and claims it for himself.
- Idiot Ball: The Nazis would later claim that they have been keeping tabs on the heroes of Earth-1 for quite some time now, yet they underestimated their capabilities, and it didn't occur to the Nazis that a person they should know is a superhero would have invited a few fellow supers to his wedding. The Nazis promptly get their asses handed to them and lose one of their leaders in the process. Not to mention the fact that the Nazis could have kept themselves hidden if it weren't for such an act. Thawne (who wasn't in the church fight) only shows up to chew them out on this.
- Improvised Weapon: Sara picks up a censer at the wedding, as a kind of Epic Flail.
- In Love with Your Carnage: Mick is visibly intrigued when he sees Killer Frost for the first time.
- Irony: When the wedding pastor comments on how happy everybody is to be here, the camera lingers on several people who are actually quite upset, like Alex, Oliver and Felicity.
- It's the Best Whatever, Ever!: After the fight with the Earth-X invaders ends, Mick enthusiastically pronounces this the "BEST WEDDING EVER!"
- Just in Time: To ridiculous degrees, the other Arrowverse characters more or less waited until the day before Barry's wedding to RSVP. Then again, they are all superheroes, so...
- Just Like Robin Hood: The Legends actually get confused for him when they are robbing the royal tax collectors.
- Kinda Busy Here: Both Flash and Green Arrow have this problem, with their respective significant others calling them to discuss Barry's incoming wedding while they are busy fighting bad guys.
- Kissing Under the Influence: Alex and Sara are first seen kissing after getting drunk. Then we learn that they had sex.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: When a Dominator attacks National City, Kara comments that Dominators are "so last year", referencing them being the villains of the previous year's crossover.
- Mind Wipe: It's mentioned that the Legends used their memory-wiping device to make wedding guests forget they saw the gang using super-powers.
- Mirror Match: Supergirl vs. Overgirl, and Green Arrow vs. Dark Arrow.
- Moment Killer: Felicity blurting out that she doesn't want to marry Oliver, loud enough to get everyone's attention.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Fully played for laughs as Alex is horrified at drunkenly hooking up with Sara, while Sara is utterly casual about it and Kara is outright delighted.
- Mythology Gag:
- Overgirl is an alternate Nazi Supergirl who made her first appearance in Final Crisis.
- At one point Supergirl delivers a Super-Clap, a movement used by both her cousin and herself in animated movies and comics like the "Red Lanterns" story arc "Atrocities".
- In order to create a cure for the Firestorm matrix, Cisco ran Stein's experiment data through a "Conway class nuclear dynamic synthesizer." This is a reference to Gerry Conway, creator of Firestorm.
- Noodle Incident: It isn't explained in the Action Prologue how King Shark broke out of A.R.G.U.S. custody, why Oliver is fighting ninjas, or why the Legends are robbing medieval tax collectors.
- Nothing Up My Sleeve: At the wedding, Oliver keeps a bow that's collapsible to the size of a small baton up his sleeve, just in case.
- Plot Armor: At one point in the church fight, the Nazis fire at Sara and Alex from a few feet away, yet don't seem to raise so much as a flesh wound. Meanwhile, the two women are able to punch and kick them into unconsciousness with their bare hands. They then proceed to charge an enemy swordsman, Sara with an Improvised Weapon and Alex with nothing at all, yet manage to win the fight. See Too Dumb to Live, below.
- Red and Black and Evil All Over: Everything on Earth-X is red and black, including the sky.
- Red Sky, Take Warning: Among many other hints (including the swastikas everywhere) that Earth-X is a bad place, there's the fact the sky is blood red there.
- La Résistance: The opening shows Dark Arrow raiding a resistance base and killing Earth-X's version of Guardian.
- San Dimas Time: While in 1183 AD England, Sara abruptly remembers that the Legends never RSVPed for Barry's wedding.
- Seen It All: When Barry asks Kara what happened to Mon-El:Kara: The end of the world.
Barry: Faced that three times.
Kara: Time travel.
Barry: I've been there a lot.
Kara: He's married to someone else.
Barry: ...Oh. That's...I got nothing for that, I'm sorry. - Sex for Solace: Sara and Alex engage in some, after they get drunk.
- Sigil Spam: The Nazis do love their swastikas, which are hung everywhere.
- Shockwave Clap: Supergirl used this technique to stun Overgirl and deliver a heavy punch hard enough to cause the Nazis to retreat.
- Shout-Out: Several to list:
- Cisco calling Harry Squidward while discussing how to defuse the Firestorm Matrix safely with Martin and Jax.Cisco: What Squidward here means to say is we took the data you extrapolated from Newton and Curie and Galileo...
- Stein modifying the S.T.A.R. Labs cure into a smart virus that can rearrange the genetic code using a spider extract, leading Jax asking if Stein is trying to turn him into Spider-Man. They even talk about his various powers.
- Cisco calling Harry Squidward while discussing how to defuse the Firestorm Matrix safely with Martin and Jax.
- Slut-Shaming: inverted big time, Alex is ashamed at having a drunken one night stand to help her get over her break up, declaring it "Such a guy thing to do". Kara assures her it's actually perfectly healthy and she should explore her sexuality.
- Smoke Out: After being overwhelmed by the heroes at the wedding, Dark Arrow uses a light-generating grenade to obscure his escape with Overgirl.
- So Last Season: Kara's first scene has her give a Curb-Stomp Battle to a Dominator, one of the villains of the previous four-way crossover, even calling it "so last year".
- Suspiciously Specific Denial:
- When she shows up nearly late to the wedding, Alex claims she was out "jogging...fully clothed." Then Sara arrives and foregoes any pretense about the fact that she and Alex had sex.
- The awkward waitress at the wedding receptionnote says she's just really happy to be there. At a wedding, any wedding. Not specifically Barry and Iris', of course.
- Swapped Roles: Oliver actually comments on how he used to do the mentoring when Barry gives him some advice on his relationship with Felicity.
- Take That!: Jax uttering his disgust with Nazis with the quip "Make America Aryan Again".
- Techno Babble:Stein: This is a molecular resequencing smart virus with a non-normative reciprocal action.
Jax: Do you just make up scientific words to make yourself sound smarter?!? - Thou Shalt Not Kill: Notably averted when Barry shoves one Nazi's gun into another's face and knocks the guy backward. Unless the masks are bulletproof and Barry somehow figured it out.
- Too Dumb to Live: Not a single one of the Resistance soldiers Dark Arrow attacks at the beginning thinks of just firing their weapon at him instead of charging towards him, which naturally gets them all killed. Of course, this is generally the case with Mooks...they never shoot at the main characters.
- Villain Opening Scene: Which shows the event's Arc Villain, Dark Arrow/Führer, easily taking out a resistance group.
- Wham Shot:
- Dark Arrow and Overgirl are Oliver and Kara's doppelgangers, respectively.
- And Eobard Thawne is still alive and once again wearing Harrison Wells' face.
- What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: Jax's response to the fact that the power that Stein is synthesizing is super-adhesion, and nothing else.
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: How Iris reacts to her wedding being crashed by a horde of Nazis.
- Zeppelins from Another World: Earth-X has them.
