SciFi Weekend: World’s Finest, Supergirl and The Flash; Another Death on The 100; Gilmore Girls; Studios vs. Religious Liberty Law; Gilmore Girls; Bernie Sanders on Colbert; Donald Trump Heroin

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When I was younger and reading comics in the 1960’s, World’s Finest featured a team up between Superman and Batman in every issue, and at other times in its history it included other DC superheroes. While Superman and Batman are together in the same movie this month, television teamed up Supergirl and The Flash instead. Lacking the rights to Superman, ideas from the comics are often adapted to Supergirl (as Batman story lines have been adapted for Arrow).

I also clearly recalled the classic Superman cover with Superman racing The Flash. Supergirl used a similar poster to promote the show, and TV Addict has put the two together in the graphic above.

Melissa Benoist and Grant Gustin had terrific chemistry together in this Glee reunion. I don’t know if them having worked together in the past helped, and it certainly helped that both characters are similarly light. I doubt we would have seen the same chemistry with an Arrow/Supergirl crossover, unless Supergirl became a Felicity-substitute for Oliver.

Their awkward meeting can be seen in the video above.

The premise was actually explained further on Tuesday’s episode of The Flash in which Barry traveled back in time to seek ways to become faster to fight Zoom. Fortunately the show kept technobabble to a minimum and concentrated on the chemistry between the characters–although I do wonder how Barry would be able to get back to his original earth. I can envision this as a Barry from yet another earth who is spending years traveling from one earth to another in search of home. While there was a brief discussion of parallel earths, it was pretty much limited to Winn’s “That’s cool.”

The show had many other great lines. Supergirl was still trying to regain the support of the people of National City after the episode in which she was exposed to red kryptonite and briefly became a menace. She expressed her frustration and the drastic measures she was utilizing: “I saw that winning the people back wasn’t going so well. I have tried everything I can think of. Last night, I helped a family assemble their IKEA table!” The Flash demonstrated his super speed to Supergirl by quickly running out for ice cream. Supergirl’s response was perfect: “That’s cool.”

Cat might have been fooled by Supergirl’s secret identity (although now that she knows there is a shape shifter around, I’d would expect her to figure out how she was tricked). She had no difficulty figuring out that Barry was the new speedster in town, but she did not like the name of The Flash: “The Flash sounds like someone whose only super-power is jumping out of an alley in a trench coat.”

There was a reference to  CW, which The Flash is on: “All four of you, standing there, doing nothing. You look like the attractive yet non-threatening, racially diverse cast of a CW show.”

While I could have easily spent the hour just watching Supergirl and The Flash hanging out together, there was even a plot to the story. If there were two superheroes, there had to be too super villains working together, Siobhan (Italia Ricci) and Livewire (Brit Morgan):

Siobhan: “You want to kill Cat Grant and Supergirl, and I want to kill Cat’s assistant, who’s protected by them both. Figured we could team up.”

Livewire: “Like an evil Taylor Swift squad?”

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Nerdist has information from Greg Berlanti and Andrew Kreisberg on the repercussions of the cross over episode:

“We always wanted to do it,” says Berlanti of the crossover. “From the day we cast Melissa [Benoist], the notion of her in scenes with Grant [Gustin] or someday maybe, in the best of all worlds, with Stephen [Amell] as well…it’s exciting to think of them on screen together. And there was a similar tonality to the shows. But a few things had to go right. We were introducing this notion of Earth-2 and the Multiverse on Flash, and that had to work for us. We always said very openly that Flash and Arrow exist in a universe where there’s no Superman, or you would have heard about him. They would have had at least one conversation about him, and certainly Supergirl as well. And he exists on this show.”

But the multiverse would prove the easier hurdle of the two shows converging—even though they live on different networks (CW for The Flash and CBS for Supergirl. “It was more challenging in that way because it’s not so convenient. It’s two separate cites that they shoot in. You wanted the show to work and stand on its own, and CBS has its own audience. We thought we might wait until the second season,” explained Berlanti. “But after Christmas we came back and we were planning out the final third of the year and we saw a way that we thought we could do it; and it felt like the right time for him to enter her world and help her out. So it all came together. We went to all the powers that be and said, ‘I think we had indicated maybe we’d wait a little longer. But we’d really like to do this now.’”

…But will there ever come a day where Kara returns the favor and visit Barry on The Flash”

“We would love that,” said Berlanti. “Just like we love this and are excited about this. I think we want to wait and see the audience reaction to something like this. But just as storytellers and fans of the actors, obviously. We love it when we can figure out a way to do it creatively and hopefully everybody enjoys it.”

Of course, the Multiverse does add a tiny wrinkle to this: wouldn’t that mean a Kara already exists on Barry’s Earth? And if so, what might a version of her look like there?

“I would think that any Kara that exists on Earth-1 would also have to have been an alien,” explained Kreisberg. “There can’t just be Kara Danvers from Poughkeepsie. That’s the fun of the Multiverse. We have a really exciting, fun doppelgänger coming up on the penultimate episode of The Flash that we haven’t announced yet. That’s just another one of those ‘Oh, that would be really cool…’ It’s surprisingly easy to justify any of these decisions. Usually when we’re in the writers room, and arguing the merits of doing something or not doing something, it really comes down to ‘Is it cool? Is it fun?’ The logic of how we get to it we find we can make work, especially if you don’t dwell too much on it. Because at the end of the day the audience wants to see the fun thing, they want to see the Flash and Supergirl together. So getting them across—he ran a little too fast with his tachyon drive—it wasn’t a lot of shoe leather to make it happen. Then you get forty-two minutes of the fun stuff.”

As a lifelong fan of the DCU, we posited the idea of Melissa Benoist appearing on The Flash as the Power Girl of Earth-2 to Kreisberg. His thoughts? “Sure,” he laughs. “[It’s] a different costume, but sure!”

As for why the two iconic heroes are first meeting on Supergirl as opposed to The Flash, Berlanti explained that it was “because it was his capacity to come this way,” adding that they “never really considered it the other way” and that “it’s maybe a little bit more fun at first to bring the veteran from that show to the chemistry of a new show.”

As for whether or not the time-traveling heroes of the Flash spinoff Legends of Tomorrow could appear on Supergirl via their ship the Waverider, Kreisberg got our hopes way up, saying that, “The Waverider can go anywhere.”

That last line also explains how Rip Hunter once said, “I’ve seen Men of Steel die and Dark Knights fall. Your entire 21st century world will suffer.” Superman and Batman apparently do not exist in the Arrow/Flash world but did exist in Rip’s past. Does this mean that the characters picked up by Rip are actually working to save a different earth?

"Worlds Finest" -- Kara gains a new ally when the lightning-fast superhero The Flash suddenly appears from an alternate universe and helps Kara battle Siobhan, aka Silver Banshee, and Livewire in exchange for her help in finding a way to return him home, on SUPERGIRL, Monday, March 28 (8:00-9:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. Pictured left to right: Jeremy Jordan, Grant Gustin, Mehcad Brooks and Melissa Benoist Photo: Robert Voets/Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. © 2016 WBEI. All rights reserved.

More at TV Line, including some comments related to what I wrote above about Supergirl’s secret identity:

In discussing this crossover’s genesis, Berlanti also hints at the idea of Supergirl and Green Arrow interacting, saying, “From the day we cast Melissa [Benoist], the notion of her in scenes with Grant [Gustin] – or someday maybe in the best of all worlds with [Arrow star] Stephen [Amell], as well – it’s exciting to think of them on screen together.”

…If Cat was so easily able to decipher that Barry is The Flash, then how can she still be in the dark about her assistant’s secret identity? “There’s a number of people that assume that she does know and just doesn’t say anything,” Berlanti notes. “Both are safe bets. We haven’t firmed up if and when we [will] clarify that point. I think it’s kind of enjoyable to appreciate the show both ways.”

The 100 Steaiing Fire

When watching most television shows and a character’s life is in danger, the assumption is that they will survive. (Spoilers ahead). The opposite is true on The 100–especially when the character is played by an actor who has a role lined up on another television show, such as with Ricky Whittle. This is the second major death in a short time. Lincoln’s death has not been met with as much controversy as Lexa’s, but there has been some protests over how he died.

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Amy Sherman-Palladino never got the chance to use the four final word she planned for The Gilmore Girls as she left the show in its final season due to a contract dispute.  She kept them secret in case she ever had a chance to use them, and it has been verified they will be used in the Netflix revival. There are many possibilities from, “Luke, I love you” to “Mother, you are insane” to “Rory, you were adopted.”

I recently posted on how Marvel Studios and others protested the “religious liberties” bill in Georgia. The loss of potential income to the state appears to have been more important than appeasing the religious right as Governor Deal has vetoed the measure.

Dave Schilling gave his ideas on who different television characters would vote for at The Guardian. For example:

Mulder & Scully

Mulder’s naturally rebellious, so he’d have to be for Bernie Sanders. All the revolutionary rhetoric would appeal to his lack of trust in government. Scully, on the other hand, is highly religious and less prone to seditious behavior. Still, I don’t think she’d ever vote for any of the Republicans because of their denial of climate change science and anti-choice policies. I’m going to guess Hillary on this one.

Bernie Sanders played Wheel of News on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Friday. The segment ended with Sanders shooting the T-shirt cannon. Video above.

After the Michigan and Missouri primaries, Donald Trump put on an infomercial and talked about all the products with his name on them, even if not very truthfully. Now there is a new product to add to the Donald Trump line, Donald Trump Heroin. Mediaite reports:

A New Hampshire woman was arrested a few days ago for selling heroin with the name of none other than Donald Trump branded on the bags.

According to the Union Leader Correspondent, Darcie Hall was busted after a confidential informant managed to organize two heroin buys––one at a McDonald’s, another at a mini-mart. She had been under investigation by the police and the state attorney general’s drug task force.

And the detective who saw the heroin bundles wrote in his affidavit, “I also observed that each wax bag was stamped with a ‘Donald Trump’ logo.” (Make Heroin Great Again was probably too on-the-nose.)

Plus The New York Post reports on women who not only support Donald Trump, but are stripping down or him. Pictures included.