"Elseworlds" was the crossover event between The Flash and its sister shows Arrow and Supergirl. The Monitor (LaMonica Garrett) gives the Book of Destiny to Arkham Asylum psychiatrist John Deegan (Jeremy Davies) who uses it to rewrite the reality of Earth-1. This results in Oliver Queen (Arrow star Stephen Amell) to awake in the home of Barry Allen, having Barry's life, powers and identity. The reverse has happened to the real Barry (Grant Gustin), who is now in Oliver's identity.
Team Flash thinks something is up with Oliver and Barry and locks them in the Pipeline, but they break out and manage to get to Earth-38, where Kara Zor-El (Supergirl star Melissa Benoist), Clark Kent (Tyler Hoechlin) and Lois Lane (Elizabeth Tulloch in her Arrowverse debut) join them in trying to discover what happened to Earth-1 and how to fix it.
Back on Earth-1, Ralph and Killer Frost (Danielle Panabaker) face the superpower-copying robot A.M.A.Z.O. and fail, giving the robot their powers and meaning that it's up to Barry and Oliver to make use of each other's abilities as they team up with Superman and Supergirl to destroy the robot.
The crossover continued to Gotham City (for the first time in the Arrowverse) where we meet Batwoman (Ruby Rose) for the first time, stirring interest in her new show. The Flash of Earth-90 (John Wesley Shipp, reprising his role from the 1990 The Flash television series) pops up and informs them that the Monitor used the Book of Destiny to destroy his world. After confronting the Monitor again, Deegan again rewrites reality to make himself into Superman and many of our heroes into dangerous criminals. The heroes again have to reunite to stop Deegan once and for all.
"Elseworlds" proved a really good adventure, not as amazing as "Crisis on Earth-X," but in the final moments of the crossover, it was revealed that the event was a set up for next year's crossover, which will be named after the landmark DC comics crossover, "Crisis on Infinite Earths." This year, they wanted to step back a little.
For our purposes, Ralph only appeared in the first part of the crossover, The Flash episode. And he wasn't seen using his powers. I was a little disappointed as I wanted to see Ralph meet Oliver proper. Instead, there's an identity switch going on.
Ralph did not appear in the next episode of The Flash, "The Flash and the Furious," with Iris (Candice Patton) mentioning that he was visiting his mother. However, in that episode, Cisco comes up with the idea of creating a "cure" for metahumans and Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker) comes around to the idea of helping him with it.
Ralph did return in "Seeing Red" as Team Flash faces Cicada (Chris Klein) again, but Nora (Jessica Parker Kennedy) is injured by him, putting her out of commission and leaving Barry enraged. Cecile (Danielle Nicolet) comes up with the idea to get a number of known metahumans out of Central City, which Ralph and Killer Frost assist Barry with. Matthew Norvock (Mark Sweatman), a meta who worked with Amunet Black in Season 4, decides to work with Team Flash after he has a brush with Cicada that leaves a friend of his dead.
When Cicada damages a helicopter intended to lift the metas away, Ralph uses his powers to lift them into it. It was good to see Ralph not only recognizing the situation but also coming up with a solution, even when he and the metas were in grave danger. Some more of this and all that character development in Season 4 would be worth it.
That brings us to "Memorabilia," where using a night off, Ralph tricks Cisco (Carlos Valdes) into going to a bar with him to hang out. Cisco, trying to perfect the metahuman cure, isn't so crazy about this turn of events. Also, Ralph tips Iris (Candice Patton) about an office opening in his building that she can use to grow her blog into a newspaper.
Meanwhile, Sherloque and Caitlin have devised a way for Team Flash to enter the memories of Grace (Islie Hirvonen), Cicada's comatose niece. Wanting to keep her own memories (which would be exposed) hidden from her parents, Nora enters alone, but finds that there's no easy way out.
Season five has begun to be a little uneven, but so far, no truly horrible episodes.
Viewers in the US may view these episodes at no charge during a limited availability window on the CW website and app. With the current licensing agreement, the entire fifth season of The Flash will be available on Netflix in June, 2019. Digital versions of the episodes may be purchased on iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, Vudu, Google Play and other retailers of digital video content. Blu-Ray and DVD copies of the season are expected to be available for sale in or by September, 2019.
Non-US viewers should check their local listings, the websites of the channels that air The Flash, and digital video retailers
