Arrowverse Couch Club Season Two, Week 22: John Diggle Returns

I haven’t seen anything about Dougray Scott leaving the show, so I figure this won’t be more than a temporary absence for Jacob, if that. Hell, it’s not even the 1st time he’s been in jail, so it wouldn’t surprise me to see him out relatively soon

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Personally, I saw Batwoman as the single most improved episode of a very troubled season. S&L remains strong, Flash has its ups and downs this season (and this was a definite up episode), and Legends has actually seemed to be not as good and Sara being a clone is very disappointing (hope that gets reset in the Back to the Finale episode). I still miss Supergirl, as it is easily my favorite of the season (with S&L a strong close second).

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While I would love for that to happen, the synopsis for the episode after mentions that Sara reveals her “secret” to Ava and the team. While I suppose that could end up being reset to something different, I think it’s most likely gonna still be her being a clone

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I hope not, because it is just bad storytelling in my eyes. It was a surprise that she was a clone, but it was also a huge disappointment…

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I think the clone thing is gonna end up sticking around for a while, but like I said earlier, it could also be revealed to be a fakeout as well. But until/unless that happens, we’re just gonna have to accept it as being real sadly :sob:

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Ugh, I’m caught up and I’m conflicted. I’m gonna compare this to Agents of Shield so if anyone hasn’t watched all of that I’ll spoiler tag this to be safe…

This is basically what they did in the last season of AOS with Coulson being an LMD. But AOS handled it way better than this. They had a multiple season lead up dealing with LMDs and Coulson’s impending death, and then a final reveal after Coulson had died on his own terms. This is just killing Sara and making her a clone. Which, as of right now, I am not a fan of.

All of that comparison aside, right now I’m not happy with my favorite character in the Arrowverse being killed and then ‘perfected’ and ‘fixed’ of her scars and such. That destroys seasons of character growth and I’m just not happy about it. I’ll give myself time to think this over though, I literally just finished watching this episode.

I kinda hope this is a fake out but I’ll give it time to address itself.

My good thought is now this show has two strong female leads who can’t be killed. So that’s good? :laughing:

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Flash - the institution part seemed more back story than retcon. It provided the necessary structure for the talking victory. Screaming Warrior Chester aside.

S&L - I get your beef with respect to Kara. Do we know where in the history this story is taking place with respect to her arrival?

I liked Jonathan squaring off against Grandpa Sam.

What I keep wondering about is how things played out on JHI’s earth vs “ours”. For JHI, his Superman may have been named by his Lois, but that S&L were never an item.

I like how they called kryptonian consciousness transfer device the Eradicator. all we need now is Connor “Kid Metropolis” Kent and a Cyborg Superman and it will be like the death of superman without the death.

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I am actually quite OK with this. I will admit it was a nice shocking twist to see the original Sara dead, while the one we have been following is a clone, but it makes more sense than Bishop curing her of the bite she had received. He is smart, smart enough to be able to develop clones with same thoughts and memories of the original, but he does not strike me as the type who could cure venomous bites. Also, he seems like the type of person to take the easier way out, like she was a goner, so I will just transfer her consciousness into a new body and continue.
Sara still acts and thinks and feels like Sara. Yes, she may be a clone, but so is Ava. She helped Ava when she discovered the truth about herself, and so she should have a different perspective on this. Her soul, her thoughts, her loves is what makes her Sara, not the body. Who is to say when she was revived by the Lazarus Pit after she died before that it did not change her body.

Since Kate is such a member of this family, I would not like for her to come back just to go away again. This would feel like it did when Barry Allen’s father got out of jail and rather than stick around, he disappeared. I agree that Ryan has earned the right to be in the suit now, so Kate should not take this back, but she still has all the fighting skills she had before and could be a good asset for the team. Maybe she could get a new codename and costume like Luke turning into Batwing. Flamebird? (since Nightwing will always be Dick Grayson). I just think she has too many ties, and as long as they keep Ryan the focus, it would be good to keep her around.

I actually was satisfied with his appearance. I got so excited when I saw him because to be honest I had forgotten that he was going to be there. He showed up as the wise mentor who has seen and been through a lot. He was there to provide Luke just the right advice at the right time to bring him back to Team Bat. It made my heart feel good to see him talk to Luke after Luke was self destructing. I am sure he has had many opportunities with Oliver to practice. Also, they laid enough background subplot with him mentioning his headaches and turning down an opportunity to build towards a bigger role, preferably on Flash as they had the closest ties to Arrow. Plus if it does build to Green Lantern, that would be the show best suited to showcase powers like that. I love my Legends, but his transformation may be lost on a show that off the wall plus I heard he will be playing a different character in his appearance there. Batwoman was more grounded so his appearance here made sense. Superman and Lois just forgets about the remaining Arrowverse although he did move to Metropolis.

I enjoyed this development of her character. They have not done much with her beyond give her powers and show she is a great lawyer, but this episode shows how strong she really is. This being said, I did feel the addition of this felt last minute as only one episode before she sees something and hears a voice, and then she is trapped in a psychic cell. It would have been better if they had little scenes here or there so you could piece it together more. I know they showed some flashbacks to show where we could pick up clues but it was not exactly a trail of breadcrumbs. Also, didn’t we just had storylines with Mirror Mistress and dopplegangers acting evil? This is what it reminded me of when Cecile was taken over.
The actress did a really good job of portraying the fear she had and the worry about it coming out. She showed real development to face her problems.
Now, can we get back to the Flash? His name is in the title of the show after all.

Now, I have mentioned before that I just could not get into Supergirl, but that is no reason for her not to be referenced at all. Don’t get me wrong, I think this show is wonderful, showing a rather realistic depiction of a family and how brothers act, even with superheroes. I also like the revelation of who Morgan Edge was, almost had a Brightburn look and feel to it. It would make sense if he was hunted and experimented on in his early life that he would be resentful to humanity. He did work the long plan though and worked with these humans as a businessman as he worked towards his ultimate goal. Especially since he would have ti hide his powers.
But I digress…they really need to explain why this show seems set outside of the main Arrowverse. There is no mention of any other characters, and especially Kara. It is almost like maybe this is not Earth-Prime which would help explain it. I am trying to remember if we saw Superman after Crisis reset the world. We saw Kara and the Flash and others but I can’t remember. I know before Crisis happenned, Lois was pregnant, but when Crisis resolved, they had two teenage sons not just one child. Is it possible either this is another earth or even in the future from that time in which case maybe in those 13 years or so, something happenned to Kara?

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Batwoman - I would prefer the Kate Kane sitch be wrapped up and she doesn’t join the team. Whatever her mission post memory return would leave an opening for a surprise appearance down the line, but I won’t be holding my breath.

I was unaware of the BTS of Diggle rejecting the ring. I look forward to seeing this play out.

Legends - The fact that there are no scars on Sara means she might be a clone. I don’t see this Bishop guy having scars removed when cloning a new body is pretty much his jam. But let’s see this play out.

If the body is a fake, real Sara must be on ice and my best speculation is Bishop using Sara clones to learn how to beat her/win her over.

if the body is the real Sara, Bishop’s cloning technology includes the memories and personality of the person being cloned. So, if all of real Sara’s memories and personality are in the no scar clone, isn’t it still Sara?

I like this speculation.

@Row.Harper LMD Coulson’s arc was a highlight of that last season. also the grandson of fitz and simmons and his stream analogy regarding time travel gets an honorable mention.

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Same with Ryan as Batwoman: this is her first season. and she has to be her own Batwoman. My speculation is that there is some Kane family closure plus whatever other bumps and bruises collected along the way. Including and certainly not limited to the death of Ocean.

i was getting a weird editing conflict, so it just seemed easier to double post.

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It was! It was also done in a way that was way better than Sara’s reveal.

Here’s my weekly Legendary Island of Misfits summary:

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I probably should have followed your non-spoilery lead.

With respect to Sara, I think they wanted the audience to feel what she would feel when confronted with what everyone is grappling with.

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To be fair, w/ Sara’s speech to Bishop right before the big reveal, I do think it’s clear the show is agreeing w/ you on that point – that Sara’s scars and other flaws are still perfect to her, and it reinforces Bishop as the bad guy by getting rid of those things that meant so much

So long as Bishop’s cloning technology remains intact, though I’m not sure if I see that surviving the season. If it does get destroyed when he’s taken down, then Sara and Ava would be more mortal then they’ve ever been :open_mouth:

True, though I feel like it’s still accurate to call it a retcon as well since it does change how you’d view Cecile in earlier seasons knowing that she went through all that hell

I guess we don’t know 100%, though I had assumed like most that this is still taking place present day around when the other shows are happening. But I’ve also seen people speculate more and more about this, w/ some people saying that the boys were actually still babies during Crisis, Supergirl will pull an Arrow and kill off Kara by the finale and S&L takes place years later when the boys are teenagers. But even if that’s all true, it wouldn’t mean that Kara never existed. And if this does happen to take place right before Kara’s pod came to earth, that’d put this show nearly 20 years in the past, and so Jonathan and Jordan would be in their 30s now, which wouldn’t line up w/ Lois still looking the same at the end of Crisis. If this was the case, she’d have to be aged up somewhat. But then again, this show has already contradicted the end of Crisis by giving Supes the red heat vision instead of blue, so who really knows at this point? Not me

And for the 2nd time. Jonathan might not have powers (yet?), but I’d say he already has a nemesis

Exactly, and that’s the big difference that I don’t think has really been pointed out on the show so far. W/out someone like Lois to keep him grounded and remind him of his humanity, it makes more sense that this alternate earth Supes would be more susceptible to Edge’s schemes

Idk, he’s definitely the type to be prepared for all sorts of eventualities, so the more we learned about him, the more I believed that he’d be the type of person to have a cure like that on hand. Though that belief also made the twist all the more shocking

Ooo, that’s an interesting point. Considering the many times Sara has died and been revived already, maybe it could be revealed that those were also “resets” of her life like this. It’d certainly soften the blow to discover that this actually isn’t even the 1st time she’s been through it

I definitely get the logic behind this and I’m still kinda conflicted on it. On the one hand, it’d be really cool to see Kate take up a new identity from the comics, and Wallis Day is awesome so I couldn’t really complain too much about seeing more of her. But on the other hand, I feel like 1 of the main flaws of the Arrowverse shows is that the longer they go on, the more they lose focus on the lead as these teams continue to grow. That kind of a moot point for something like Legends, which is already mostly an ensemble show, but it’s definitely affected Arrow, Flash and Supergirl in negative ways. I appreciate how Batwoman has been able to keep the main team to just 2 or 3 people this whole time and subvert that, but if Kate and maybe even Sophie (re)join the team, you could start to see it slipping into that territory. Not that it’s objectively impossible to lose focus on the lead if it happens, but I’d still be weary given the network history

You heard right! And it’s definitely not GL. In fact, there’s already been an official look at his character in 2 weeks! Given the western setting and big mustache, I think he’s gonna be Bass Reeves

Dig

I guess you could say they’ve been laying the groundwork of this since she got hit by that psychic lightning bolt, but we also haven’t had any reason to be suspicious of her until that previous episode. It definitely would’ve hit harder if there had been more buildup

Well we’re gonna have to wait an extra week on that. The next episode is Allegra-centric w/ the teaser saying that Flash is “off the grid” :slightly_frowning_face:

Oh yeah, he was part of that final fight against the Anti-Monitor on Earth-Prime, and we had that quick scene of him and Lois talking about Jonathan and Jordan afterwards. So yeah, none of this really makes any sense. I know some of the writers have tried saying that because COVID threw off their schedules so much they couldn’t really reference the other shows so as not to spoil anything, but that logic just doesn’t hold up. Not only has every other Arrowverse show made some sort of reference to another this year, but you can make vague, general mentions/references to Kara w/out spoiling something big like her being trapped in the Phantom Zone

If that does happen, I wouldn’t be surprised to see her make an occasional appearance. Wallis Day has been really excited to take on this role, so I can’t imagine she’d be opposed to returning

That’s the main argument, isn’t it? Because it’s like she is but she technically isn’t. You don’t really think about this too much when you’re copying data from 1 drive to another, but humans are far more complex. Unless you’re Bishop, apparently, then they’re only moderately more complex. I’m sure this debate on the show is only beginning

It does make the twist all the more powerful when we can see her reaction at the same time as processing our own

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Ugh… I hate that this makes sense to me. I still hope they don’t kill her off though. That’d be rough. :frowning:

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Considering how dark and broody Arrow was, I feel like that made some sense for Oliver’s character. Not Kara, though. I just don’t think she’d be the kind of character who’d be best served by killing her off. Plus Black Lightning just showed us that you don’t need to end an Arrowverse show by killing off the titular hero, so it’s not like Arrow set a precedent

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Yes, Oliver was a dark hero. Kara is hope. They shouldn’t kill off hope.

I wonder if she takes her Dad to Argo City and retires with her parents? Does Argo City still exist post-Crisis?

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Yep, the last episode confirmed that it was restored after it was an early casualty of Earth-38’s universe

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Ok, so that’s interesting that Clark hasn’t mentioned it at all in all this Kryptonians talk. I wonder if that knowledge would stop Edge from doing what he is trying to do.

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I would understand if Clark didn’t tell Edge about them so as to keep them safe, but he could still take a minute to acknowledge them to Lois or something

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