The Arrowverse ended the first half of its season with a blast, coming off the Invasion! of the Dominators and then some cliffhanger set-ups for the back half of the season. Now, we have some trailers about what to expect when the shows return next week.
In Central City, Barry Allen is a bit upset about dealing with the shocking future he saw, where God of Speed Savitar killed Iris West. Now, the team is working towards preventing that future from happening.
I guess it’s better than going back and changing the past, like the Flashpoint that screwed up the timeline to kick the season off. At the very least, Barry is being more open with his teammates – and Iris – about what’s going through his head, so he doesn’t have to go through everything alone.
My biggest issue with the future death tease is that we’ve been through it before, with Arrow last season, as we waited for months to find out who was being buried in the opener of Season 4 to the moment where Laurel Lance was killed. Sure, they’re giving us more information with teasing Iris’ death, but I think we’d all be shocked if they killed her off given how important she is to Barry and the overall Flash mythos.
Because saving Iris seems like fait accompli, I’m much more interested in what they’re doing with Caitlin Snow and her accelerating descent towards becoming Killer Frost and whatever is up with HR, the third version of Harrison Wells to appear on the show. There are infinite Earths out there, which means there are infinite Harrison Wells for Tom Cavanagh to interpret.
Meanwhile, over in Star City, and speaking of Laurel Lance…
With Katie Cassidy signed on to appear across all four DC-CW TV shows, and the appearance of the Earth-2 Laurel – The Black Siren – on The Flash last year, you knew the character wouldn’t be gone too long, even after being killed last year.
Bringing Laurel back – I’m guessing as Black Siren and NOT Black Canary, should hopefully infuse some life into Arrow, which has been lagging a bit since the Ollie-Felicity relationship started in earnest. While Flash has a clear direction to what it wants to do with its back half – dealing with Savitar and saving Iris – I’m not as sure about Arrow. Sure, they have Prometheus to deal with, but how they get there is all up in the air. Maybe after they deal with a returned Laurel this week, we’ll start to see where things go.
The Flash is back on The CW on Jan. 24 while Arrow returns on Jan. 25.