Supergirl 1.18 “World’s Finest”

WARNING! SPOILERS! 

I don’t cover Supergirl as much as I would like to for this site, but every now and again I try to check in on this series and I thought that it would be a good idea to offer my thoughts on the Flash crossover. Here we saw Barry Allen stop by National City from his world, in an effort to help Kara team up to fight Livewire and Silver Banshee in exchange for return home.

World’s Finest serves up completely the opposite tone to what Batman v. Superman gave us, a grimdark version of the two iconic superheroes meeting for the first time. This chapter wisely avoids the cliché that all superheroes must fight on their first meeting, and sees Kara and Barry quickly engage in fun and playful banter over the course of the episode as they are reacting to each others’ powers with excitement. Kara’s reaction when Barry used his speed to get the group Ice Cream was fantastic, and it seems that Barry might have even been more at home in the world of Supergirl than in his own television series on The CW, as strange as it sounds. The characters’ interactions all worked perfectly and it was fantastic to see Barry show up in this world. Hopefully we’ll get to see Kara cross to Central City in the future, and maybe more crossovers further down the line between Supergirl and the wider DCU. This makes me really wish that Supergirl had remained on The CW as originally intended, keeping all of the fun DC shows under the same roof as it were.

Barry’s attempts to increase his speed have accidentally pulled him into another universe where he’s just in time to save Kara from a fall out of the window. Of course Kara doesn’t need saving due to her powers, but it serves as a handy way of keeping her identity intact. Barry and Kara quickly befriend each other as the series gave us one of its more goofy episodes to date, but it had plenty of heart and really worked. Barry’s interaction with the people around him would have easily kept me satisfied for an entire episode but obviously it’s a CBS show and you need a villain of the week to keep things interesting and in steps Livewire (who was last seen in episode four), and Silver Banshee, an ex-employee of Cat Grant Siobhan Smythe, who is dealing with her newfound powers and a desire for revenge.

The show unfortunately seems to spend too much time with its villains and they kind of needed better work, as unfortunately Livewire and Silver Banshee were rather underwhelming. Despite this their presence did allow for Kara to redeem herself in the eyes of the city, following her exposure to Red Kryptonite, as she was willing to sacrifice herself to save a helicopter. This inspired the everyday people to take a stand and try to defend her from Livewire and Silver Banshee, with some firemen being on hand to save the day. Of course, in true Barry Allen style, he arrives late, after the battle had already happened, allowing for Supergirl to steal the show and regain the trust of the people of National City.

Did the people regain their trust in her almost a little too quickly though? It kind of felt like it. But at the same time it was an effective way of getting things back to the status quo and giving Kara something to prove at the same time.

On the whole, World’s Finest was a delightful, fun and light-hearted crossover between DC’s strongest two television series (I’m sorry, but Arrow is a complete mess right now), and a very strong episode that hopefully will encourage The Flash fans to keep watching Supergirl and Supergirl fans to keep watching The Flash. The next episode of Supergirl looks set to air next Monday on CBS at 8pm, so stay tuned for that, and remember to let me know what you thought of the episode in the comments below.