We’re recapping this week’s Arrowverse episodes: Supergirl 3×15 “In Search of Lost Time,” The Flash 4×19 “Fury Rogue” and Arrow 6×20 “Shifting Allegiances.”
This week in the Arrowverse, M’yrnn accidentally causes psychic disturbances in the DEO, Citizen Cold visits Earth-1 and Oliver takes a major risk to win over an old ally.
‘Supergirl’ 3×15 ‘In Search of Lost Time’
The DEO becomes a dangerous place as M’yrnn’s dementia starts creating psychic disturbances; his frustration at losing his mind, the one thing he has never lost in all his suffering and resistance to the White Martians, starts bleeding out and affecting everyone around him.
This includes Kara, who is training with Mon-El to learn his cape tricks in order to fight the emerging Pestilence. Mon-El keeps referencing events in their past with fond nostalgia — which makes sense, considering it has been years since these things happened for him. He has emotional distance from them.
But for Kara, it’s still only been months and wounds are still raw. She ends up lashing out at him, revealing some of the flaws in their relationship that she had glossed over in mourning him. This seems to give her a sense of perspective about her feelings about his return. My hope is that this is step forward in Kara moving past Mon-El (who, let’s not forget, is married) and getting on with her life.
Things are less simple for J’onn and M’yrnn. J’onn is afraid to give M’yrnn mind-dampening tech, making him dependent on J’onn, after everything he’s been through. But Alex tells the story of Eliza having to take her elderly mother’s car keys away after she nearly caused an accident, and J’onn realizes it’s for the best — no matter how painful it is — considering what is happening around them.
David Harewood is incredible as he expresses J’onn’s pain at taking his father’s independence away, especially so soon after getting him back. His heartbreak is palpable as M’yrnn rages at the impending loss. Both J’onn and M’yrnn are lucky to have the support of Alex and Kara; the family bond, one that has grown with the addition of M’yrnn, that has formed here remains one of my favorite elements of the series.
Meanwhile, Lena has confirmed that Sam and Reign are essentially two personalities inhabiting one body; when Sam blacks out, her body’s DNA actually changes. But Sam refuses to believe that she is a killer. James offers a frustrated Lena good advice: to hold up a mirror to the person needing the intervention. So Lena provokes Sam into transforming and records it so Sam can see it.
Sam completely breaks down as she is forced to accept the truth; she doesn’t want to be a killer. Lucky for her, Lena is there to offer support and look for a solution so Sam can go back to her daughter. Just as Lena held up a mirror to Sam, Sam provides an interesting mirror to Lena; both women are connected to killers but don’t want that destiny. It makes the dynamic between them, especially now that Sam knows the truth, fascinating.
‘The Flash’ 4×19 ‘Fury Rogue’
In the wake of Ralph’s death, Barry isn’t dealing well — in the sense that he’s not dealing at all. Multiple people try to get him to open up, to grieve, but Barry can’t seem to face the loss. Not, we learn, when he feels so much guilt for what happened.
Instead, he tries to jump headfirst into work. DeVoe manipulates the team into moving Fallout from the lab he’d been housed at to make him easier to access. While Team Flash has a Plan A — a containment suit — for moving him, they need a Plan B to cool him down in case anything goes wrong, which it always does.
With Killer Frost gone, they head to Earth-X to ask Citizen Cold, Leo Snart, for help, but he’s in the middle of tracking down Siren-X, the last remnant of the Nazi regime on that Earth. She follows Leo to Earth-1 and quickly decides to steal Fallout to take out Earth-1’s protectors in revenge for the loss of her comrades.
The beauty of Leo, as we saw on Legends of Tomorrow with Mick, is that he is not shy about feeling his emotions or encouraging others to work through their own emotional blocks. So, much of his purpose is to push Barry to feel. This is an interesting choice, because Leo is both familiar and an outsider. He has his own experience grieving those he feels responsible for, coming from an Earth taken over by Nazis and all.
Barry freezes in the field when confronted by DeVoe and again when trying to stop Fallout from going critical. It’s only then that he’s able to break down and let his feelings out. Barry opening up in a couples therapy session is quite heartbreaking but also cathartic. (Side note: At what point does Barry’s therapist realize she’s working with a superhero?)
Curiously, Barry freezing also causes Devoe a minor freakout: for all his intellectual capacity, his cold detachment does not allow him to compensate for emotions. In DeVoe taking his final form, Marlize also realizes that although her husband has his face back, he is no longer the man she married; the love her felt for her is seemingly gone. She is heartbroken and takes another step forward to becoming the key to taking him down.
Meanwhile, Harry must confide in Cisco that attempting to infuse his Thinking Cap with dark matter, he basically broke his brain. He’s losing his intelligence. Cisco is mad but also determined to help him. Could Harry’s situation be a preview for how Team Flash takes down DeVoe: breaking down his intelligence?
‘Arrow’ 6×20 ‘Shifting Allegiances’
To take on Diaz, Oliver sets his sights on getting Anatoly back on his side. For much of the episode, Oliver seems naive and in over his head, as Anatoly turns on him, despite a peace offering of a place back in the Bratva, and takes him to Diaz. And when Diaz suggests a duel with the loser leaving Star City, Oliver fights honorably while Diaz shivs Oliver.
Everything seems to be going to hell until Anatoly, alongside the audience, realizes that this had been Oliver’s plan all along: Anatoly has always prided himself on being an honorable man, and Oliver wanted to prove that Diaz is not. It’s satisfying to realize that Oliver saw this coming. We sometimes forget that Oliver really is clever; when he’s working solo, he gets more opportunity to shine.
Anatoly is won over by Oliver’s gambit — thank goodness; their bromance is one of my favorites — but it might be too late as Diaz, now essentially in charge of Star City despite Quentin serving as acting mayor, revokes Oliver’s bail and pushes up his trial. This didn’t seem to be part of Oliver’s plan, and the episode closes with a bloody Oliver cuffed in SCPD.
Meanwhile, Diaz pressures Quentin to sign over a piece of land. Quentin wants nothing to do with a crooked land deal, and he feels betrayed when he realizes Black Siren is working with Diaz, but she shows genuine regret for getting him into the situation. She also seems genuinely afraid for Quentin’s life. After seeing firsthand what Diaz did to join the Quadrant, she’s haunted.
Quentin finally relents and signs the deal — on the condition that Laurel lets him help her get away from Diaz. Things get more complicated when Diaz reveals that he only wanted Quentin to sign the deal to get a copy of his signature. It’s worrisome to consider what he might do with that.
Meanwhile, Diggle, now working with A.R.G.U.S., joins forces with New Team Arrow to stop an arms deal. There seems to be some fence-mending on that side, though Rene struggles with going into the field after nearly dying. NTA has been the weak link this season, so I honestly am not thrilled with this development.