TV Review: Arrow Season 8 Episode 8

Arrow Season 8 Episode 8 “Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part Four”

Director: Glen Winter

Starring: Stephen Amell, David Ramsey, LaMonica Garrett, Katie Cassidy, Jon Cryer, Grant Gustin, Brandon Routh, Tyler Hoechlin, David Harewood, Ruby Rose

Rating: TV-PG

Runtime: 42 minutes

Major Spoilers Follow:

Ending a big event story like this in a satisfying manner is always difficult, be it in TV, movies, or, perhaps most of all, comic books.  Almost all of DC and Marvel’s superhero event comics start off quite explosively but the number of them that maintain that momentum throughout until their conclusions is much smaller.  The Crisis on Infinite Earths comic is one of those that did, hence its iconic reputation, which only adds to the pressure on these last two episodes to do the same for the TV Crisis.  Thankfully, they mostly accomplish the herculean task.  There are a few significant hiccups, including a tonal misstep and some notable exclusions, but generally, the two-part Crisis finale is a spectacular conclusion, full of more delightful DC surprises, emotionally affecting character development and acting, and a moving final outing for Stephen Amell’s Oliver Queen.

“Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part Four”, the Arrow episode, starts off with a flashback revealing the origin of the Monitor.  Ten thousand years ago Mar Novu and his wife were scientists from the planet Maltus, but when Mar traveled back to the dawn of time for scientific purposes he created a flaw in the universe that resulted in the creation of the Anti-Monitor and the anti-matter universe.

We next return to the present, months after the death of the multiverse.  In Purgatory, Jim Corrigan instructs Oliver on his new duties as the Spectre (Ollie’s Spectre look consists of a loose, Jedi-like hood and cloak) and describes how all of the many fights in his life have led to this moment, where he can play a key role in restoring all life.  But to do so he’ll need his surviving friends by his side.

The Paragons are, understandably, not in good shape when we pick back up with them.  Kate Kane may obsessively train for the battle ahead but the rest are unsure they’ll ever even be able to fight it.  The end of the multiverse left Kara shattered.  Lex and Ryan Choi try and fail to build a device capable of teleporting out of the Vanishing Point.  Barry disappeared months ago after trying to enter the Speed Force and when he finally reemerges, desperate to try again despite the obvious pointlessness of doing so, he’s on the edge of madness.  Fortunately, Oliver appears just as his friend is reaching his breaking point.  Spectre Ollie confirms that the Speed Force is their way out and that his own new abilities will be able to boost Barry’s enough to get them inside.  Once they do so, he explains, one group must travel back to Maltus to prevent Novu’s mistake, while the others go to the dawn of time to confront the Anti-Monitor head-on.

Kara, Lex, and Ryan successfully arrive at Maltus ten thousand years in the past but the Anti-Monitor intercepts Barry and the rest of the group are scattered throughout the Speed Force.  Barry awakens in a recreation of the day he met Oliver at Queen Consolidated.  A projection of Oliver explains that he is using pieces of his Spectre essence to keep himself and the others at key points in the characters’ history so they don’t fall out of the Speed Force and perish.  He tells Barry to return to “the moments where the connections between us were forged” to rescue himself and the others.  This is a fairly obvious excuse for a time-traveling tour through the history of the franchise, and it likely won’t help with the comparisons the crossover is getting to Avengers: Endgame, but the impulse to celebrate everything Arrow and Oliver have built, in this, their final crossover episode, is understandable.  It helps that the episode switches to a different, more cinematic aspect ratio for the Speed Force sequences, which along with their darker color palette and lighting does a good job of giving them an otherworldly feel.  The quiet tone of these sequences and the performances of all the actors, particularly Amell and Gustin, make the walk down memory lane emotional.

Still, there are some problems with these scenes in regard to how they fit in continuity and how they deal with some, admittedly unavoidable, behind-the-scenes issues.  Barry’s introductory sequence on Arrow featured Paul Blackthorne’s Quentin Lance and Emily Bett Rickards’ Felicity Smoak, neither of whom are regulars on Arrow anymore and are not featured in the crossover.  So the Crisis crew isn’t actually able to recreate the scene, instead reduced to having Barry and Oliver’s talk take place behind some supplies, while audio from the old scene plays in the background.  There’s also some awkwardness with how J’zonn and Kate fit in the scenario, given how minimal their emotional ties are to Barry or Oliver.  Kate learns a lesson in managing trust in regards to secret identities from the talk she witnesses between Oliver and Ray from several years ago, but the randomness of putting her there is still apparent.  Returning to one of Oliver and Kara’s more frosty early conversations could have done a great deal to highlight how they’ve both grown in their friendship and as individuals since then but having J’zonn witness it limits the emotional impact because no crossover has ever taken enough time to give him an established relationship with Oliver beyond a vague mutual respect.  Sara’s sequence works somewhat better given her closer ties to the found family at the franchise’s core but the moment in her history Barry finds her at is still a rather odd choice.  It’s when she was dead in Arrow Season 3, her body laying on a table in the Arrow Cave, while Diggle and her sister, Earth-1’s Laurel Lance (Katie Cassidy), who herself is now dearly departed, mourn her.  Cassidy and David Ramsey deliver a very nice scene celebrating the Black Canary legacy in which Dig encourages Laurel to take up her sister’s mantle, but doing so also contradicts the objections Dig would make to her doing just that in the actual Season 3 episodes.

There are two of these time warp sequences that are undeniably great, however, and they make the whole thing worth it.  Right after leaving Queen Consolidated Barry finds himself in a Speed Force version of S.T.A.R. Labs, face to face with yet another doppelganger, Ezra Miller’s Barry Allen from the DC Extended Universe film franchise!  Their interaction is very brief, but Miller’s oddball energy contrasts nicely with Gustin’s everyman charm.  The scene is completely unnecessary to the plot and opens a lot of questions that are left unanswered (as Gustin Barry notes, any doppelgangers of him and the others shouldn’t even exist at the moment) but it’s such a delightful bit of fan service that neither of those things matter.  Miller’s appearance confirms that the DCEU is part of the multiverse along with all the other shows and films Crisis has connected and opens up the door for future meetings between the TV and film franchises.  It’s fitting that this occurred in the Arrow episode, despite only Barry being involved, because it accomplishes one of the few pieces of franchise-building that had always seemed outside the realm of possibility, connecting the DCEU to the Arrowverse.

There’s also when Barry retrieves Oliver himself, a sequence that gets the admittedly somewhat scattered episode back to focusing on the core story.  Oliver’s consciousness was thrown back to the climax of last year’s Elseworlds crossover when he used the magic arrow he got from the Monitor in exchange for making his Crisis sacrifice to stop John Deegan and save Barry and Kara in the process.  Barry finally learns the full extent of Oliver’s arrangement with the Monitor and is disturbed by the fact that his friend gave up the chance at a life with his own family to save him.  But Oliver assures him that he doesn’t regret doing so because “Dying’s the easy part.  The dead are at peace, the real heroes are the ones who go on living.”  Oliver may no longer long for the peace of death, as he seemingly has at some of his lowest points, but he’s also not actively fighting against his own end as he has been throughout Arrow‘s final season.  He now approaches death with resolute contentment, secure in the knowledge that his sacrifice will save not only his friends and family but trillions more and the sequence serves as a solid conclusion to his season-long and in many ways his series-long, character arcs.  Amell’s performance is perfect, subtle but affecting as he depicts Oliver with a level of calm serenity the character has rarely, if ever, been blessed with.

Back on Maltus, Lex surprises no one by turning on Kara and Ryan.  While he intends to prevent the birth of the Anti-Monitor as planned, he also seeks to trick Novu into rewriting history in a manner that will benefit him.  When Kara and Ryan arrive to stop him he and Kara duel (Lex apparently had used the Book of Destiny to give himself superpowers, seemingly consisting of flight and shooting laser beams out of his hands.  Creative choices there, Lex.) while Ryan convinces Novu not to go through with his experiment for the good of all life.

Still, when Barry finally gets all the Paragons to the Dawn of Time the Anti-Monitor is still waiting for them with the simple explanation that while they changed the mind of one Novu, somewhere in the multiverse at least one will always have made the decision that leads to his creation.  This is somewhat frustrating as it renders the Maltus storyline pretty much pointless plot-wise even if it did have the effect of letting Ryan’s humanity restore some of Kara’s hope.

With everyone assembled the battle finally begins, with Oliver engaging the Anti-Monitor directly while the Paragons charge against the shadow demons.  This climactic sequence is far from perfect.  The shadow demons remain a dull, non-threatening enemy force (especially when one sees regular guy Ryan somehow dispatching them) but the quarry-like setting helps set it apart from most other Arrowverse battles and the sight of all the heroes working together is still a thrill, even if their powers can’t be realized as fully as a high-budget film would be able to.  Oliver’s duel is also quite striking, with the clash of the Specter and the Anti-Monitor’s fiery energy powers making for a nice, colorful sight.  Eventually, Ollie delivers the line we’ve all been waiting to hear, “You have failed this universe!” before a beam of light erupts out of him into the sky.  The whole thing, especially the beam specifically coming out of Oliver’s face, visually recalls the energy-bending finale of Avatar: The Last Airbender.  Given that Avatar‘s is one of the best endings of any story ever, that’s no bad thing.

After defeating the shadow demons the Paragons look on in awe at the battle between the two cosmic beings.  Eventually they realize Oliver releasing the energy into the sky is him fulfilling his purpose, lighting the torch, that will create the possibility of a new universe but they must shape it using the remaining piece of the Book of Destiny and their respective Paragon attributes.  After they do so Oliver and Anti-Monitor’s duel ends with a massive explosion in which the latter disappears.  Barry speeds himself and Sara up to be with Oliver, who is once again dying.  They at first futilely try to convince him that he’ll be OK but he assures them that he has accepted his fate and is happy to go out saving them and everyone else, repeating the line about dying being the easy part.  Barry and Sara tearfully thank Oliver for the new life he’s given the world before their friend’s life finally ends, for real this time.  I thought Oliver’s death in “Part One” was also quite good, and it was especially nice that Mia was there for it, but this one does feel more complete and perfect, probably due to the fact that it doesn’t have to handle shock value like the first one did, and can, therefore, focus solely on making sure the appropriate emotional weight is delivered, which it very much is, thanks in large part to the actors.  Amell’s contented, earnest heroism is heartbreaking to watch and both Lotz and Gustin are appropriately shattered.  The restoration of the universe and the peacefulness of Oliver’s end make it a triumph moment but Gustin and Lotz sell the tragedy of the loss and make it clear that Barry and Sara will be greatly affected by it.  The episode ends with the energy collection in the sky growing until the screen burns to white.

“Part Five” begins with Kara waking up back home in her apartment in National City, where she’s thrilled to see Alex alive and well, and believes everything has been restored to normal.  She quickly learns, however, that that isn’t really the case when her journalistic and crime-fighting partner Nia Nal (Nicole Maines) calls, telling her to hurry to a Nobel Prize acceptance speech their supervillain boss, Andrea Rojas (who died before Crisis started), is insisting they cover.  But Kara’s in for an even bigger surprise when she learns that the recipient of the prize is none other than Lex Luthor, who apparently succeeded in rewriting history while helping create the new universe so that within it he is a beloved public figure, head of Luthor Corp., which owns the DEO, making him Kara’s boss.  After J’zonn confirms this is their reality now a fuming Kara is relieved to hear of a super-villain attack, hoping to blow off some steam.  She finds herself facing off with Joss Jackham/Weather Witch (Reina Hardesty) but has no idea who that is because Joss is a villain of Barry’s from Earth 1.  Barry himself quickly arrives, without having traveled between Earths, increasing the confusion.  After defeating Jackham, Barry and Kara meet a civilian fan named Marv, played by Crisis comic author Marv Wolfman, who confirms that to his knowledge Supergirl and the Flash have always resided in the same world.  Barry and Kara finally begin to realize the full scope of the changes made during the creation of the new world.  The cameo from Wolfman is one of the most wholesome throughout the event and having him be present to help convey the magnitude of the changes Crisis caused is a perfect way to celebrate his own momentous impact on DC history.  He’s no actor but his excitement at the appearance is obvious and infectious.  There’s also a nice irony to having him share his scene with Barry and Kara, the two characters he most famously killed off in the comic Crisis.

Sara is shocked to find herself back in Star City.  She is filled with relief to see Ray alive but is once again confused when it becomes clear he has no memory of Crisis.  J’zonn shows up and gives those memories back, saying he’s been going around doing so to all the heroes and their allies (this is obviously the only major reason he was written to be a Paragon).  Sara desperately asks if he’s found Oliver but J’zonn says there’s no sign of him. She heads to the Arrow Cave where she meets with Diggle, Rene/Wild Dog (Rick Gonzalez), and Dinah (Juliana Harkavy), hoping they’ll be able to help track him down.  But they tell her Felicity already did a global search offscreen and when Sara slips into denial, even the utterly broken Diggle stays adamant that Oliver is gone for good this time.  It’s a gut-wrenching scene and all the actors are exceptional, particularly the tear-stained Ramsey whose delivery of Dig’s quiet recognition that he failed to be by Oliver’s side for his last stand as he promised brings tremendous, tragic weight to the dialogue.

Elsewhere, an unconscious Nash Wells is found by construction workers in the tunnel where the Anti-Monitor’s lair used to be.  He is brought to STAR Labs where J’zonn also arrives, restoring Nash and Caitlin’s memories and condemning Wells for unleashing the Anti-Monitor.  The crazy, tragic events he’s experienced would naturally have J’zonn’s emotions running high, having him so viciously chastise Wells feels a little off given both J’zonn’s own usually high degree of empathy and Wells’ own clear remorse (Tom Cavanaugh does great work at quickly showing how the gravity of his mistake is crashing down on Nash).

Barry and Kara arrive at the Arrow Cave, thrilled that their whole group of Superfriends now shares an Earth before Sara and Team Arrow give them the tragic news.  They don’t have any time to mourn, however, as the computers send out a warning that the city is under attack.  This is where the episode makes a big slip up. Rather than any serious new threat, the attacker is a giant Beebo, the thinly-veiled Tickle Me Elmo stand-in stuffed animal that has played an inexplicably big part in the plot of Legends of Tomorrow.  Beebo has become something of a mascot for Legends, a symbol that encapsulates the show’s absurdist, comedic tone and while it’s understandable that the Legends creative team would want to mark their episode with their show’s unique identity, especially since, other than Sara’s significant role, their show has been the least heavily represented throughout the crossover, in the wake of Oliver’s death and the new universe’s creation the inclusion feels wildly inappropriate, especially since its only real plot purpose is to provide a short-lived threat to gather the heroes back together (Kate arrives as Barry, Kara, Ray, and Mick battle Beebo, with Sara advising from the Arrow Cave).  After defeating Beebo, the group deduces that his attack was a distraction.  We then cut to new, flamboyant “villain” Sargon the Sorcerrer (Raúl Herrera), who conjured Beebo, robbing a bank.  Sara and Barry easily stop him.

Fortunately, the episode gets back on track almost as quickly as it veered off.  While the others celebrate victory over Beebo and toast Oliver, a still shaken Sara slips out on her own before Barry follows to check on her.  She tells him a story about her and Laurel racing up a tree while they were young and how she’s come to realize the reason she always won is probably because Laurel let her, knowing what a sore loser her sister was, a quality she knows she still has, even after all the change in her life, from being an assassin, to dying, to becoming a time-traveling superhero.  Barry reminds her that it’s OK to miss Oliver but also to be happy with what his sacrifice created.  He describes how he had to accept that life would never be the same after losing his parents but that it can again be OK, happy even, if one learns to move forward and recognize the family they still have.  Sara acknowledges that the Legends are and have been her family but is still in pain over losing Oliver, the one person who knew her before that fateful trip on the Queen’s Gambit.  It’s hard to overstate the power of this scene which serves as an example of the kind of moving, deeply human storytelling the Arrowverse is capable of at its best.  Despite knowing one another and working together for several years, Barry and Sara have never been that close.  But part of the reason the scene works so well is because of this, not despite it.  They’re very different people without much in common (other than being superheroes) but they share deep connections with and love for Oliver and watching them come closer together after losing him is touching.  It helps that Gustin and Lotz both imbue their characters with the perfect mix of melancholy at the loss and warmth for one another.  Lotz, in particular, is phenomenal throughout the episode, her captivating, vulnerable work practically jumping off the screen.

Barry and Sara’s lovely chat is cut short when they’re attacked by a shadow demon, which they quickly dispose of.  Nash had earlier arrived at the Arrow Cave, warning that he’s been getting renewed anti-matter readings and believes the Crisis is starting again.  J’zonn telepathically contacts Barry and Sara to inform them of the situation and of the group’s belief that the shadow demons are targeting the Paragons.  Sara arrives at Ryan’s home just in time to save him and his daughter from a demon.  Nash explains that since he is made of anti-matter the Anti-Monitor can’t truly be destroyed, but his form can be changed.  Ray and Ryan theorize that if they can create a device to shrink the villain exponentially he will be trapped in what they call “the microverse”.  The scientists and tech advisors get to work, with Caitlin (as Frost), Mick, and Black Lightning staying at STAR Labs as a last line of defense while a team of heroes consisting of Sara, Barry, Kara, J’zonn, Hoechlin’s Clark, Alex, Nia (in her Dreamer guise), Rene, and Diggle head into a city for the final battle.  Just as in “Part Four” the actual fight sequences aren’t really anything to write home about in terms of choreography or staging.  The Anti-Monitor grows to a giant form in the middle, and while this does up the stakes somewhat it also leaves the non-flying, less physically powerful heroes without much to do, so then a swarm of shadow demons comes out of nowhere to ensure sufficient punching, kicking, and shooting.  Still, the character beats embedded within the action, such as the battle cry “For Oliver!”, Sara giving the orders, and Kara readying herself for a suicide run at the Anti-Monitor all work well enough that the whole thing feels climactic.  Fortunately, Ray arrives before the Girl of Steel has to sacrifice herself.  He gives Kara the shrinking bomb, and she throws it at the Anti-Monitor who shrinks out of existence, finally defeated for good.

With the threat finally ended the President (Eileen Pedde) makes a broadcast telling the country that the Crisis is over and praising Oliver Queen and his team’s heroic efforts and the former’s noble sacrifice.  A national moment of silence is held, the episode cutting through various different groups of the franchise’s characters.  This is mostly another well-executed grieving scene but it also highlights and reveals some of the changes to the heroes’ lives that Crisis in general and the creation of the new universe specifically have brought about.  Watching from Kara’s apartment, the Danvers sisters are joined by Kate Kane, Diggle and Lyla enjoy time with both their children, Sara and John Jr., who now live in the same timeline for the first time, and Clark gets a big surprise when Lois calls and mentions his two sons. Oliver’s voice then narrates a similar speech to the one the Monitor opened Crisis with, amended to include the optimistic ending that a New Age of Heroes has begun.  This voice-over is accompanied by a montage revealing that a new, different multiverse has been born in addition to the Earth-Prime on which the main CW heroes and company reside.  Viewers are treated to their first brief glimpse of Brec Bassinger as Stargirl.  She and the version of the Justice Society of America seen with her reside on the new Earth-2 and will have their adventures chronicled in an upcoming Stargirl series airing on both DC Universe and The CW.  Universe-12 is represented by footage from the 2011 Green Lantern film of both an unidentified Lantern (in the film, of course, it’s Ryan Reynolds’ Hal Jordan but it’s a long shot where no distinguishing features can be seen) flying over Earth and the larger Green Lantern Corps on the planet Oa.  This was likely included more so to tease Greg Berlanti’s upcoming Green Lantern series on HBO Max than to remind anyone the film exists.  Derek Mears’ Swamp Thing from the recently cancelled DC Universe series resides on Earth-19.  The Titans once again take Earth-9 and are separated from surrealist spin-off Doom Patrol, now set on Earth-21.  And Brandon Routh’s Superman, back in the traditional red, blue, and yellow costume, soars above a new Earth-96.  This was always the most likely conclusion to the event.  The main CW shows are united on a singular world so future crossovers don’t always have to include reality-hopping as a plot point just to get the characters in the same room together, and the significant changes to the timeline, of which more will almost certainly be discovered on the individual series, ensure that both Oliver’s sacrifice and the Crisis itself still created significant change.  But while the comic Crisis ended with a singular Earth, which stayed the status quo for at least a little while, if there’s one thing the TV version has proven it’s how valuable a tool the multiverse is for both storytelling and stunt casting and it’s understandable why the creators wouldn’t want to give that up.  Now the more stylistically distinct series (and those on different channels or platforms) like Doom Patrol can stay independent if they so choose but the possibility also exists for any of them to cross over with the core Arrowverse or one another.  Stargirl in particular seems destined to interact with the other CW heroes, provided her show takes off.

After the tour of the new multiverse we return to Earth-Prime for the final sequence.  Barry has assembled Sara, Kara, Kate, Clark, J’zonn, and Jeff at the STAR Labs hangar used as a base in the Invasion crossover from a few years ago.  They’ve set up a memorial to Oliver with his suit and bow behind a glass frame and an arrow-shaped flame in front of it. Kara, Barry, and Sara each say a few words as thanks and goodbyes.  Sara’s is particularly affecting because of the emphasis the episode had already placed on how significant the loss is to her but Gustin, Benoist, and Lotz are all equally strong in the scene, putting caps on their collectively excellent work throughout the event.  Jeff adds his regards, stating that while he did not know Oliver he must have been “a good dude” to inspire such respect before asking Barry why he’s brought them to the hangar specifically.  Barry replies that he thought it would be a good place to meet in case of future threats and, to everyone’s, but especially Kara’s, delight, unveils a table with seats emblazoned with each of their heroic logos (including one for Oliver).  It seems like they still can’t name it such out loud but it’s clear the CW Justice League has been formed and it’s a delightful moment for fans, especially because of how earned it feels.  The Arrowverse has done a ton of work and taken its time to get to this point and because of that its version of the team is much more well-developed and impressive than its cinematic counterpart despite the higher-profile names of the characters in the latter.  Crisis‘ final images find the League sitting together, all smiles, before a strange sound distracts them and the camera cuts to an image of an empty cage with the name “Gleek” written on it and the theme from the old Super Friends cartoon plays.  Gleek is the pet monkey of the Wonder Twins, and all three characters debuted on Super Friends.  It’s a very obscure reference (even I had to look Gleek up) and isn’t really necessary but it ends the event on a nice note of mischevious optimism and once again highlights the immense love for all things DC that the creators have, which is what made Crisis, and generally makes the Arrowverse, so enjoyable.

Now that the crossover is well and truly over it’s time to address some of its overall shortcomings, particularly its notable exclusions and missed opportunities.  Without question the biggest of these is the lack of any appearance at all by Eobard Thawne/ the Reverse-Flash.  Not only is the captivating villain one of the Arrowverse’s best but Flash, which as I’ve mentioned has literally been building to Crisis since its pilot, has repeatedly teased Thawne as having a crucial part in the event, specifically by having a climactic battle with Barry and other heroes.  Thawne’s planned part in Crisis was so firmly cemented that his last words to Barry in his most recent appearance (in The Flash‘s Season 5 finale) were “See you at our next crisis.”  Obviously plans changed but I’m not sure they did so for the better.  LaMonica Garrett did the best he could under the heavy make up and prosthetics and the Anti-Monitor didn’t need to be a particularly complex villain (it’s hard to make the goal of ultimate destruction complicated or sympathetic in any way) but the inclusion of some more human villains as lieutenants could have added to the conflict.  Any more down to Earth antagonists would’ve sufficed (Jeremy Davies’ John Deegan and Bob Frazer’s Psycho-Pirate from Elseworlds both seem like obvious choices also) but Thawne’s presence could have added an even greater degree of tension and emotional investment than the already high one the crossover managed to create given how well developed he already has been and the prior connections he has to many members of the cast.  Obviously Thawne is mostly Barry’s problem but he also has history with the Legends from serving as their second season antagonist and he’s faced off with both Kara and Oliver as well.  On the heroic side the exclusion of Earth-2’s Laurel Lance is inexcusable, given how closely tied her story in Arrow Season 8 was to the Crisis.

Despite these and the other problems I mentioned earlier, Crisis‘ conclusion is overall an immensely successful one.  The whole event really has been a triumph for everyone involved.  It accomplishes its main goals of bidding a fond farewell to Arrow, celebrating DC’s live-action past, and setting up an exciting future in spectacular fashion while also containing moving development for many of its main characters.  Take a bow, DC.  This was something special.

Notes:

•  I think what we’re supposed to take away from the final multiverse montage is that new versions of all the Earths were created so the worlds like those of Smallville, Lucifer, the Burton Batman films, and even those of DC properties not seen in the crossover like The Dark Knight Trilogy or the Lynda Carter Wonder Woman show are all out there somewhere
• There actually is one other person who knew Sara before the boat trip, her mother.  But actress Alex Kingston’s time in the Arrowverse is pretty clearly done and it doesn’t take away from the impact of the scene.  Still, it wouldn’t have been hard to change Sara’s dialogue a bit.  She could’ve just said Oliver was the one person who could understand both eras of her life fully.
•  Along with his cameo, Marv Wolfman actually co-wrote “Part Four.”

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