written by George Hatch

SPOILER WARNINGS ARE IN EFFECT

Part 3 of “Crisis On Earth-X” picks up, funnily enough, on Earth-X. The majority of our heroes have been taken prisoner there, put in shackles which block their powers, and now are basically just standing around. They meet a random prisoner whose crime was “loving the wrong person.” (HE’S GAY) I wonder what (HE LIKES DUDES) that’s supposed to mean? (HE HAS ROMANTIC RELATIONS WITH MEMBERS OF HIS OWN SEX). Look, for the most part this episode is really good, but by Crom is it heavy-handed with the symbolism.

Quentin Lance, White Canary’s father, has a doppelgänger on this Earth and is a major in the SS. He reveals that he killed his Sara because she was bisexual, then orders all of our heroes (plus the gay prisoner) to be rounded up for the firing squad. Meanwhile, at S.T.A.R. Labs, apparently Eobard Thawne has been taking heart surgery lessons because he’s going to take Supergirl’s heart and then put it into Overgirl. There’s a little tête-à-tête between the two Karas which shows us that Overgirl is irredeemable.

On Earth-X, our heroes are rescued by that Earth’s Leonard Snart, and the “random” prisoner turns out to be the Ray. Now freed, the heroes meet the leader of the Earth-X resistance, General Winn Schott, and find out that the Nazis have a breach generator. Of course, with the leader of the Reich on the other side of that portal, Winn wants to blow it up immediately. After a little convincing from Ray (who was convinced by his boyfriend, Snart), he gives the group one hour to get in and get through.

Back on Earth-1, Felicity and Iris have been coming up with a plan that would get all the captured heroes out of the pipeline and rescue Supergirl. It’s a pretty good plan, and it almost works, except Metallo is in the elevator and stops them from escaping. Back on Earth-X, Ollie decides the best way to get into the main control center and disable the metahuman dampeners is to impersonate his counterpart, who also happens to be the Führer. It works long enough for Oliver to get in (during which he also lets the Nazi version of the Waverider – the Windrider – through the breach), but is soon exposed because he won’t execute a young Jewish girl. He does take down the metahuman dampener, but the control panel to the portal is destroyed in the crossfire.

As the battle is underway, Schott reneges on his deal and sends a weapon to destroy the facility. That weapon? The Red Tornado. The Flash and the Ray try to slow it down, but fail. Inside the facility, Firestorm separates into Jax and Stein so they can override the portal’s manual controls. The last thing we see before the episode ends is Martin Stein, an openly Jewish character, gunned down by a Nazi.

Okay, first, let’s get this out of the way, because everyone fucking thought it:

He only had two days to retirement!

Now, on the serious side, I know Victor Garber was leaving anyway. But to have a Nazi blatantly murder a Jewish person…I’m not the only one who sees the problem with this, right? I get showing the stakes, I get retiring the character, but to have him killed by a Nazi? That’s not cool.

It does diminish my enjoyment of this installment, but I still liked it overall. Next up, Kate Danvers gets to give the final part of the crossover a legendary send-off. Get it? Legendary? Because it’s Legends Of Tomorrow? Jokes are way funnier if you explain them!

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CRISIS ON EARTH-X PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 4

The Flash airs Tuesdays on the CW at 8 ET/7 CT. George can be reached on Twitter @Raeseti.