NOC Recaps Arrow: Hubris, Not Hope

As we know, Team Flarrow is trying to protect the Hawks from Vandal Savage, who wants to murder them because of destiny or habit or something. So everyone’s all teamed up, Kendra’s unlocked her hawking powers, and Oliver’s spotted his baby mama!

I’ve been so cautious this season, guys. Good things were happening. Oliver was LEARNING LESSONS. TEAM FLARROW WAS AWESOME. Despite some plot/exposition bumps, the team up in this half of the crossover was fun. There were things I wished for: Less Carter. ANY Snowlicity aside from their one nerd moment. Less white ancient Egypt (I’ll get on some of that later). But the Barry/Oliver moments were great — they’re wonderful foils for each other. As was anything with Cisco. Can he be my friend? Also he should be in every show. But just like we were burned last season with the Ra’s al Ghul arc, this Kid arc (I’ll come up with a better name for it another time) is only going to lead to terrible things. Unhappy fans. Annoyed fans.

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NOC Recaps The Flash: It’s Getting Hawk in Here

Other title options: Ready to Hawk and Roll, Hawked and Loaded, Hawk of Ages, We Will Hawk You, Too Hawk Hawk Damn, and Drop It like It’s Hawk1.

Before we begin… does Hawkgirl “claim” to be white? Uh oh, this is hawkward… but it wouldn’t be too surprising. (See Sandra Hawke, Sin, and Ra’s Al Ghul). I personally went through Kendra Saunders’ twitter history to read her tweets and reactions and responses to identifying as white. I urge others to do the same and form an opinion after seeing both sides.

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Crisis of Infinite DC Shows

As we do every year, we take some time to preview the upcoming debuts of our favorite superhero shows. And since Netflix recently announced The Flash will be joining Arrow to stream, everyone can catch up before both shows return next week.  To discuss those shows and others, criminology professor ‘Shawn Smith makes his triumphant return to the NOC, joining our resident Flash recapper and TV superfan Christelle Gonzales (@christellexoxo).

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NOC Recaps Vixen: The Animated Microseries

Watch the episode here.

I was probably more excited than most when it was announced that DC Comics’ Vixen would be animated for the small screen. Vixen is one of my all-time favorite characters and if you aren’t up on her, check out this and this. Marvel may be the heavyweight champs of the cinematic landscape, but DC are the lords and masters of the animation realm. Rarely does DC miss with their animated properties. So far, with Vixen, I think I’m going to have to put the first five-minute episode in the ‘eh… maybe’ column.

[Spoilers Ahead]

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NOC Recaps The Flash: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Enemies?

If last week’s “Rogue Air” is anything to go by, tonight’s episode will be a beautifully worked and satisfying finale leaving us with lots to look forward to in the second season. Before I recap the penultimate episode below, I want to bring attention to the title “Rogue Air.” This show (and Cisco) has made it clear that names are important, so why the partnering between the words “rogue” and “air?” Team-ups and partnerships were a major theme of the episode, and “rogue” obviously refers to Captain Cold’s teaming with The Flash, then his betrayal to form his own team of Rogues. But “air?” Could it be alluding to Ferris Air and a possible test-pilot Hal Jordan aka Green Lantern coming into Barry’s life? The presence of The Flash’s superfriends and Arrow’s changing-of-the-suit-color to make room for another guy who likes green leads me to believe YES YES HELL YES.

Alright, onto the recap.

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Why There Must be an Arrow/Flash/Supergirl Musical Crossover

The latest issue of Variety features a profile of super-producer Greg Berlanti — who will have six(!) different shows on three different networks next season. It’s a great profile about one of the most prolific producers in Hollywood. But what got the internet buzzing was the magazine’s cover, featuring Berlanti flanked by the stars of his most recent superhero offerings: The Flash’s Grant Gustin and Supergirl’s Melissa Benoist.

Because they’re both Glee alums, it got me thinking about the potential for not only a Flarrow/Supergirl crossover, but why that crossover needs to be a musical episode!

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NOC Recaps The Flash: Everyman? More Like Everyship

Pizza party!  Reason why I love Barry Allen #427: He uses his powers for good… like running to Coast City to get the best pizza pies on the west coast. In my head, he bumped into a young test-pilot Hal Jordan. Maybe they exchanged a few friendly words, unaware of what kind of best friendship they’d eventually form. I wonder what they ordered on their pizzas? I wonder if they have similar pizza topping tastes, so that they’d probably even split a pie every once in a while. Wait, no. Barry needs all of the food for his metabolism. Maybe Hal shakes his head at Barry’s appetite beca — sorry, I lost focus. Pizza party.

So far, everyone in Central City who knows Barry’s secret who isn’t a body snatching, anachronistic speedster  was invited to the West house to discuss Harrison Wells/Reverse Flash. The game plan is this: Joe and Cisco investigate the night of the Tess Morgan’s death in Starling City, Eddie covers for Joe at the precinct, Caitlin covers for Cisco at the lab, and Barry must refrain from punching Wells in the face.

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NOC Recaps The Flash: Bee-ing Truthful or Why Lies Sting

Central City buzzed with excitement this week when Team Flash teams up with Team ATOM  (Team ATOM consisting solely of Arrow‘s Felicity Smoak and Ray Palmer) to tackle CC’s new bee problem. The bees, however, aren’t the only stings felt by our favorite Central citizens: Barry hesitates whether or not to talk to Cisco and Caitlin about his Wells theories,  Eddie and Iris are on the road to couples counseling, and Cisco is feeling some bad vibes concerning Dr. Wells. Are we sure that bees are the only bug problem? Surely, there have gotta be spiders, too, because everyone is tangled in a GOTDAMB WEB OF LIES.

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Orange is the New Black: Racebending Redheads

The ever-expanding DC Universe on The CW just got a little bigger. Relative newcomer Ciara Renee has been cast as Kendra Saunders, aka Hawkgirl, in the still-unnamed Flarrow spinoff that will also star Brandon Routh and Caity Lotz from Arrow and Victor Garber and Wentworth Miller from The Flash.

What’s unmistakable about this casting, though, is the fact that Hollywood producers have once again gone “ethnic” when casting a traditionally redheaded character from the comics. So I have to ask, has the pendulum swung too far? Is this too much of a good thing?

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Flash v Arrow: Dawn of Just Awesomeness

We conclude Flarrow Week at the NOC with our own special crossover featuring our Flash and Arrow recappers Constance Gibbs (@ConStar24) and Christelle Gonzales (@christellexoxo). Together for the first time! Join us to sort out all of your thoughts and feels about your two favorite shows.

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NOCs of the Roundtable: All the Flarrow Feels

Wow. It’s been two days since the epic crossover between The Fastest Man Alive and the Emerald Archer blew up the internet and we are still thinking about it! Even though Christelle and Connie dropped 5,000 words combined on both episodes, we still have more to say. So we reconvened the Roundtable and brought in some of the other Nerds to talk through their Flarrow Feels.

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NOC Recaps Arrow: A League of Their Own

*Mad props to my awesome Flarrow tag-team buddy Christelle for the subtitle. We are Flarrow. She’s The Flash, I’m Arrow and together we bring you these recaps with precision and speed. It’s our superpower.

The first thing I thought of when preparing for the Arrow portion of the crossover was how would they Flashify the title card? Instead of the arrowhead, we got a beautiful lightning bolt. And so begins the Flash team’s adventure in Starling City! We’ve actually seen all of these characters here before. Barry, obviously in his debut last season, as well as Cisco and Caitlin when they briefly helped Felicity on a case also last season. But it’s our first time seeing them all together like this and It. Was. AMAZING!

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NOC Recaps The Flash: Rainbows, Sunshine, and Flarrow Feels

You guys you guys you guys… IT’S HAPPENING. Some have been waiting for this crossover since the announcement this summer, but I, personally, feel like I’ve been waiting since Barry’s first appearance on our screen’s during Arrow’s second season1. And I’ll say what the entire internet is saying about the epic Part 1 of The Flash vs. Arrow crossover: “Holy crap, they did not disappoint.” No seriously, just check all of twitter and tumblr. We’re all going crazy!

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Flash vs Arrow: Two Different Hero’s Journeys

The epic The Flash/Arrow crossover (henceforth called #Flarrow) is so close I can taste it!

We’ve been getting teases all week from the actors and the PR teams, and it’s been giving me so much excitement anxiety! Soon we’ll get our OT3s from each show (Oliver/Diggle/Felicity, Barry/Cisco/Caitlin) in the same room, fighting the same villains! There’s so much to dissect concerning group dynamics (Oliver vs Harrison Wells — Oliver will surely find Wells suspicious; Diggle vs four talkative nerds; also: what’s Lyla doing in some of the promo shots?), but as The Flash portion of the crossover is called “Flash vs Arrow,” I wanna take some time to talk about Barry and Oliver and their differences as heroes. This will set the scene for what we’ll see in the episode and show us, perhaps, how each hero makes the other achieve character development over the course of the two episodes.

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