DC Recap Round-Up 3, Week 5: Through The Looking Glass!

7 Nov

Welcome back! While Black Lightning is taking the week off, we still got recaps of The Flash, Supergirl, and Batwoman to do. So, while we still got some breathing room before the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover, let’s settle in and get to it…

“Kiss Kiss Breach Breach”

While Barry and Iris go on a brief vacation (which you do when you have a blood sucking metahuman on the loose and a likely Crisis about to happen), Cisco is left to monitor things in Star City, and gets some horrible news from Breacher. It seems Gypsy has been killed by a dimensional hacker known as Echo, and Breacher needs Cisco’s help to find her killer. The only problem is that investigation seems to be pointing to one suspect: Cisco? Well, he can’t be the killer, possible breaching psychosis or not, right?

Well, if you guessed Cisco has an evil doppelgänger from another Earth that is Echo, you have guessed right. Cisco manages to trick Echo and get the evil him arrested for Gypsy’s death. So what else has been happening other than that little murder mystery? Oh right, Nash Wells claims he can help the Team save Barry Allen! I wonder how, exactly…

STAR Labs’ answer to Clippy. I won’t explain the joke, you look it up.

–The other plot glazed over was Caitlin (not Killer Frost, specifically) trying to reason with crazy man Ramsey to turn himself in, and well…it doesn’t work. But she’s still alive after that encounter, so no worries.

–Joe gets trapped with Nash in the sewers for most of the episode, and from their time talking about life and Barry’s imminent demise, Nash might help our Team. But I’m not sure.

–I was suspecting Gypsy may not have been killed off even though we see her (stage double, because the actress playing Gypsy is busy playing in another superhero show, Watchmen) get vaporized. What a shame.

–Kamilla turns out to be a helpful partner/girlfriend for Cisco this episode, and way better than that B.A.R.I. program Cisco designed. Also, Barry’s favorite movie is Jurassic Park? Well, okay.

–Speed run to multiple beaches in a few days? Sounds like more work than vacation.

–This actually marks the second evil Cisco we’ve run into on the show. Remember Reverb from Earth-2 all the way back in season two? The Wells’ are a bit arrogant, and Cisco’s doppelgängers are mostly evil? Alternate Earths are odd like that.

–“My brain is the Ryan Gosling of genius intellects.”

–“Awkward.”

“Dangerous Liaisons”

With the release of Obsidian’s new VR world simulator coming quickly, Kara and William start looking into Andrea Rojas as part of this conspiracy that we learn made William’s best friend vanish. This ties back to those assassins we’ve run into the last few episodes and a new one with metal tentacles called Rip Roar, in that they were all hired by the same shadow organization we know (but they don’t) as Leviathan. Rip Roar is our big focus though as he steals a prototype laser gun from all those Lex Luthor gear impounded by the military, all to start a massive tidal wave to destroy ALL the coastal cities, like National City! Our heroes capture Rip Roar and stop the tidal waves from killing anyone (especially those who conveniently are in Obsidian’s VR world as it goes live), and learn Rip Roar is actually William’s missing friend!

While it seems Andrea is taken off as a suspect, no sooner is she contacted by Leviathan to deal with this whole Rip Roar fiasco. In other conspiring women of power news, Lena offers to help Malefic destroy his brother if she can learn how he does his mind control trick. He might have wanted something a bit more binding than a verbal agreement, because the second he bristles at continuing this arrangement, she has already cracked his mind control abilities and used it against him to keep him placated! Also, we got other things to consider, like this: what the hell is a date-aversary? That’s not a real thing that real people celebrate, right?

It’s like jacking into The Matrix, only without the issues of being naked, hairless, having a giant rod stuck into your cerebellum, and lying in a giant pod of goo.

–Phil Lamarr appears as Malefic in human form here, even though he’s voiced the character since he appeared at the end of last season. This also isn’t his first role in the Arrowverse, since he voiced the villain Rag Doll for The Flash.

–Brainy notes how odd it is to see future technology popping up in the present at the rate it is, leaving me with some theories as to who (or what) Leviathan is. But I’ll keep those theories to myself for now.

–William takes the time to call out Andrea as a VR simulation, mirroring Lena’s doing that to a virtual Kara earlier this season. Something tells me all this venting through simulations is not going to lead to good things for either Lena or William.

–Nia and Kelly looks like another friendship connection with some possibilities, especially as Kelly is trying to deal with all these near death experiences of late. On the plus side, Alex bought her a helmet for their date-versary (seriously, that’s not real, is it?) to be her riding partner.

–Brainy getting that weird spider tattoo alien on him so they can interrogate it was rather comical, and a little bit unintentionally. But also, the key phrase to switch the parasite on and off for Brainy is a Keanu Reeves movie. Guess which one?

–Nia and Kara upon hearing they are suppose to promote that VR world in all their articles prior to its launch: “Gross.” “Double gross.”

–“Pop quiz, hotshot!”

“Mine Is A Long and A Sad Tale”

We get an Alice origin story this week, along with another bad decision Kate makes in regards to her twisted twin, because you know, sisters and all that. Once she learns Alice has been stealing slivers of skin from the morgue (!), Kate suits up and tracks down Alice, imprisoning her. Alice is happy to tell Kate what happened to her after the crash fifteen years ago and about her “mouse” she is looking for, but only if she will take her on a road trip. Yeah, this is already a horrible idea before Kate agrees to do that, but a even worse decision when learning it was a setup to drug Kate and take her to the place Beth became Alice. Short version: Beth was found by a psycho who sliced off faces for his deformed son (a rather gifted vocal mimic, by the way) to wear. And Jacob and Kate went to that psycho’s house years ago, and out of fear for their safety, Beth didn’t call for help.

Jacob and Sophie were already looking for Kate after she called saying she imprisoned Alice, and Jacob figures out Kate must be at the house he suspected Beth was at all those years ago. He arrives there, and tries to talk down Alice from her insanity, only to get stabbed in the gut for it (he gets better, don’t worry). It’s only after Kate escapes and finds the grown up son of that face chopping psycho, do both good guys and bad guys reach a stalemate to deal with things another day. Of course, “Mouse” there happens to have a unique mimic skill and now likes wearing faces, so expect him to do some horrible things for his surrogate sister, Alice.

This is like those episodes of FRASIER where Frasier and Niles take a road trip into the country, only difference is one sibling is a demented crime boss held captive in a nutjob’s house as a child, and the other clearly is going to regret this trip.

–We are absent a lot of Kate and Vesper Fairchild narration this episode, and that’s not completely a bad thing. Well, I mean, considering the episode at hand.

–Mary gets a bit drunk when finding out what her mom did to cover up Beth’s vanishing, and maybe a bit more drunk when thinking Kate’s attention is going more to the crazy sister instead of her. At least Luke is there to…deal with that issue this episode.

–There are still some big gaps in that origin story, like how did Alice escape her captor, and what happened with her and “Mouse” in that time. We know “Mouse” may have inspired Beth in that Alice persona by lending her Alice In Wonderland to read while imprisoned, but there are still details left to explore.

–A brief mention of the breakout at Arkham Asylum where “Mouse” apparently escaped, which ties into the first Batwoman appearance in the Elseworlds crossover.

–Who didn’t feel a bit bad for Alice when she tells Kate about why she didn’t feel Beth was behind that door, being twins and all? Then you remember she’s nuts and a bit of a liar, so who knows how much of that story is true.

–“Batman doesn’t do goggles.”

–“Yes I know, you’ve skinned zero corpses!”

–“Are we mad?” “I’m afraid so.”

NEXT TIME: While The Flash takes a break next week, a dangerous situation develops for Alex in Supergirl, things start boiling over in Freeland in Black Lightning, and Kate faces a murderous vigilante in Batwoman!