Legends of Tomorrow Review: Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part Five
Legends of Tomorrow Season 5 Episode 1, “Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part Five,” ends out the Arrowverse crossover with a bang and a Beebo.
To say that this episode is an atonal mess might be putting it lightly but that dichotomy of going from the incredibly dour to then do what Legends of Tomorrow does is what makes it worthwhile. If the shot is the realization of Oliver’s death, the chaser is having a fight with a giant Beebo.
It’s insane for the way that this show is known for operating.
A question that often pops up with these Arrowverse crossovers is when you look at an individual installment, how well does it function as a purely an episode of that series? The answer that Legends of Tomorrow comes up with here is to not focus so much on the time travel side of things but more on the zany weirdness that it’s known for now.
A part of what makes Legends of Tomorrow such a fun show is that it is so removed from the rest of the Arrowverse.
It can do things like have a murderous unicorn at Woodstock or Gorilla Grodd attacking a young Barack Obama that the other shows, even The Flash, cannot do. It is weird on a level that defies logic and to blatantly include that sensibility here is kind of perfect.
A great thing that this episode does is it lends its own perspective to the rest of the crossover and comes away with its own conclusion to it. Despite the serious tone throughout the other parts of the crossover, it decides that this is all massively silly and will be treated as such.
As a result, you get a climactic battle with a supersized Anti-Monitor where the ultimate goal is to just shrink him and have him get progressively tinier for all of eternity. That’s ridiculous and that’s the arena that Legends of Tomorrow operates within so masterfully.
Is it a very good episode? Not particularly but this show has never really cooperated with that kind of categorization. It’s more like that friend who’s clearly out of their mind, but you hesitate to label them with being a good or bad friend because it wouldn’t quite do them justice.
Having this show be the one to essentially reboot the universe is a good move too because this is the type of thing that Legends of Tomorrow would do. Not to imply that something this huge would happen on a regular episode of theirs, given that they’re the Arrowverse equivalent to the weird cousin, but the spirit of it is there.
This also has a lot of longstanding implications for the rest of the shows that will only reveal themselves in time.
All of the series have merged into one unified Earth, and while there are questions as to how that works (how did National City and Midvale get squeezed onto the map? Did it replace other cities? Someone please explain the logistics of this), there are still a lot of exciting possibilities here.
Mainly, this makes Supergirl a lot more accessible to the rest of the Arrowverse, and how that will play into the future of that show will be really interesting to see.
On another note, this episode lets Oliver stay dead and is largely overshadowed by the goofier elements of this episode, which might become a problem retroactively if he remains dead when Arrow returns.
For now, it’s fine because it’s doubtful that Arrow will have a series finale where he is already dead. That’s just a guess, but it doesn’t allow for much sadness to be had until we fully know his fate.
Some of the most interesting stuff within the episode is what they end up giving to Sara, who without Oliver seems to have been slotted into a kind of tactical leader position and the emotional core here.
To go through and be reminded of her hero’s journey from shipwrecked girl to assassin and now to Time Captain, it makes us appreciate all she’s been through.
Ultimately, “Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part Five” isn’t the perfect conclusion, but it’s one that feels completely in line with the type of show that Legends of Tomorrow has proven itself to be.
What did you think of this episode of Legends of Tomorrow? Share your thoughts in the comments below! And be sure to catch up with our review of “Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part Four.”
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Legends of Tomorrow airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on The CW.
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Drew Koenig
Drew has an ongoing, borderline unhealthy obsession with pop culture, but with television in particular. When he's not aggressively trying to get out of a perpetual state of catching up, he can be found passionately defending the ending of Lost. More of his online work can be found at The Lost Cause and he also co-hosts The Lost Cause Pod.