Crisis On Infinite Earths: Episode 3 Breakdown & Ending Explained

For Episode 3 of Crisis On Infinite Earths, it’s better the devil you know as we watch the heroes go through hell in order to get Oliver’s soul back. There’s a tonne of easter eggs, big moments and revelations that we’ll be breaking down throughout this video just incase you missed anything.

Obviously there will be heavy spoilers here so if you haven’t had a chance to watch the episode yet and don’t want to know what happens then I highly recommend that you turn off now.

With that out the way I just wanna give a huge thank you for clicking this video now let’s get into our breakdown of Crisis On Infinite Earths Episode 3.

Black Lightning

Ok so before we get into the episode we just kinda need to recap the ending of the latest episode of Black Lightning that aired yesterday. Though this wasn’t initially confirmed as part of the Crisis lineup, we do now know that the character is included and he features throughout this episode.

Lightning was brought across the multiverse in the closing scene of his own show yesterday after his Earth was destroyed and he joins the team in this entry helping out during one of the major Flash scenes.

So yeah, just a little side note there in case there was any confusion as to why he’s here for a couple of minutes.

Crisis Episode 3 Breakdown

Crisis episode 3 opens in New Gotham on Earth 203 with Huntress on the run from the Red Wave of death. This is the same continuity as the DC TV show Birds Of Prey that had a very short run and before we even get to say hello to the characters, the reality is wiped out in an instant.

We then travel to Earth 1, namely the Waverider where the flash arrives with Cisco and the rest of the team in order to fix Palmers Paragon finder.

Earth 1 is becoming the main evacuation point of the Multiverse and time is running out for the heroes to save the existence of all realities. Luckily, amongst their ranks exists the other remaining Paragons made up of Martian Manhunter, The Flash and a guy named Ryan Choi, a Psychics professor.

Ryan is the Paragon of Humanity and this is why he’s just a regular guy. He also does the classic line, you know the one where a scientist meets another scientist and says ‘your paper on that overly long science word changed my blah blah blah.’ Iron-Man did it in Avengers, remember? Yeah well they do it here just not as well.

Choi takes some convincing from Iris to leave his family as the newly introduced character is afraid of what could come but eventually, she manages to make him see the bigger picture. He joins the team and it’s gonna be interesting to see what he actually brings to the table as for the most part, he seems pretty useless.

Maybe he can assemble Ikea furniture really well…maybe he’s a great actor….maybe not…look I dunno, I dunno what the paragon of humanity can do.

Lucifer Cameo

Elsewhere on The Waverider, Diggle discovers that Oliver died during the initial episode and that the group tried to revive him to no avail. This sends them on a quest to travel to purgatory in order to try and bring Oli’s soul back to his body and along with Sara, Mia and Constantine they go Earth 666 and run into none other than Lucifer played by Tom Ellis.

It’s great seeing the character back even if his appearance is really shortlived, similar to Oliver, Lucifer has been killed off or well…cancelled a couple of times now so it’s nice that he was at least included in this plot that centred around resurrection and revival.

However, as with the first two episodes, the character doesn’t really get much room to breathe and once more Crisis suffers from an extremely fast pace that has many moments rushing by before you can even catch your breath. It just feels like there is far too much going on at once and it makes it difficult to invest in any of the scenes because of how fast they whiz past. Before you start to engage with what’s going on you’re already off to the next moment and yeah, I wish they’d given the creative team more space when developing this storyline.

Crisis In A Crisis

I got some flack yesterday for criticising the Tom Welling cameo so I’m gonna kinda discuss that more but I felt like the entire time he was in it they just stood him in one spot had some characters walk up to him, then disappear, then have other characters walk up to him and disappear. There just want’ really much dynamism to it whereas Conroy got a lot more to play with.

Lucifer kinda falls victim to the same thing that Welling did but he did at least have a purpose whereas Wellings appearance didn’t really help the plot.

With the help of Lucifer, the group find a way to travel to Purgatory through the use of a magic card that also sets a time limit for them. Purgatory looks exactly like the Lian Yu and there’s lip service paid to the fact that souls choose their own personal hells in some way and as the island is tied so heavily to Oliver’s life he has returned there.

Just before the transference of Oliver’s soul into his body, Jim Corrigan appears who many of you will know from comic books as The Spectre and he convinces Oliver to take him the Mantle of the character which if you’ve been keeping up with the channel was a big prediction that we made in the first episode.

Not that we’re special or anything…just…it was kinda obvious.

Oliver Queen Is The Spectre

The Spectre is a huge part of the original Crisis On Infinite Earths graphic novel and he will no doubt be instrumental in taking down the Anti-Monitor. In the book, The Anti-Monitor is initially defeated by the heroes and thus he decides to travel back in time to the creation of the multiverse in order to destroy it before it’s even created.

The Spectre is the one that warns the heroes of them and he’s also the character that allows them to travel back to the initial moment in order to stop the villain from succeeding in his plan.

Here I think The Spectre will play an even more prominent role and be the one that takes the character down completely. As the Anti-Monitor grows in strength, The Monitor loses his and thus we need a high powered being in order to fight The Anti-Monitor on a level playing field.

The Book Of Destiny

Kara and Kate confront Lex over the book of Destiny’s powers with the former wishing to use it to save her Earth and the other destroyed realities. Kate isn’t too happy with it and we keep seeing her look at the Kryptonite like the screenshots you have of your mates Whatsapp messages just in case they ever decide to make you look stupid on Twitter.

I do think that they will end up reviving the saved Earths through this method but it will come at the cost of their friendship as the two will likely go head to head over the matter. Either way, there’s likely gonna be a million porn parodies made from this episode cos man that standoff, it was hot.

Kate tries to give Kara the Kryptonite but she refuses to, saying she should keep it just in case. It looks like Supergirl isn’t going to revive the Universe’s but yeah, how else they gonna film all-new seasons of Titans, Black Lightning and so on.

The Wave Of Destruction

Cisco and Killer Frost manage to track the source of the wave of destruction ripping across the multiverse which is located in Central City on Earth 1. When investigating it they come face to face with The Pariah, a man cursed to travel throughout the multiverse to witness tragedy after freeing The Anti-Monitor. Cisco, reinstated with his Vibe powers is able to pull memories from The Pariah and through this, they gain access to The Anti-Monitor’s hidden lair. Joined by Barry they find The Flash from Earth 90 played by John Wesley Shipp.

This Flash has been trapped inside a treadmill which is being used to generate power for the anti-matter cannon that is currently tearing across all realities.

They manage to free the Earth 90 version but he reveals that The Anti-Monitor put a fail-safe in which will send out a giant wave, destroying everything if he stops powering the device.

I dunno why he didn’t just send this out anyway as he was supposed to want to destroy the multiverse anyway but I guess his heart’s just not in it. The Pariah disappears but returns with Black Lightning who attempts to absorb the reaction. Unfortunately, he fails to contain it and this calls for desperate measures.

The Death Of The Flash

This is where the big callback to the comics comes and it looks like this is the apparent Death Of Barry Allen who says that he is willing to take his place on the treadmill. However, in the last second, Earth 90 Flash absorbs Barry’s speed force which makes him collapse and this allows the elder to take his place as The Flash that dies during Crisis.

He ends up running into nothing and destroys the canon thus stopping the wave.

Now this is a plot moment that we’ve been waiting for since the original season one of The Flash and I was always kinda hoping that Barry would be the one to do it, however, I wasn’t too annoyed by this change-up.

I can see a lot of being rolling their eyes at it though as it was a last-minute save that didn’t really feel earned, especially for all of the setup that it’s had so far. It does mean that The Flash can live to fight another day though and perhaps Oliver’s sacrifice did inturn actually save Barry as was part of his deal with The Monitor.

Obviously let me know your thoughts on that moment as I can see opinions being split on it but Shipp got his moment and there was even a call back to his original show in the 90s.

Transported away by Vibe, the group return to the Waverider and learn that almost every reality has been wiped out.

Crisis On Infinite Earths Episode 3 Ending

Barry and Jefferson have a heart to heart and the group become desperate to find The Harbinger. Instantly she appears and attacks the heroes. They try to fight back but she easily bests them making them do that scene in Friends where Ross tried to hide in the bedroom. It’s revealed that she’s actually being controlled by the Anti-Monitor and has been sent there to destroy them but luckily The Monitor is there to fight back.

The Monitor sacrifices himself to buy them time but the Anti-Monitor still succeeds and destroys the entire reality. There’s lip service paid to The Anti-Monitors real name which is Mobius and it makes for a nice way to end the episode.

Luckily before the destruction of the ship the Pariah teleports the remaining Paragons to another reality that hasn’t been destroyed yet.

Diggle, Superman, Iris and the rest get dusted and the group find themselves in The Vanishing Point. A location outside of space and time that is safe from the reaches of The Anti-Monitor.

In this reality Superman is torn apart and replaced with Lex Luthor who used the Book Of Destiny to transport himself there. Lex has made himself a Paragon and is now their only way out.

The Monitor may have bought them slightly more time but it is running out and it looks like we’re gonna have to wait until January to find out what happens next.

Episode 4 Predictions

Now as mentioned earlier when we discussed the comics, from the preview it looks like The Anti-Monitor is travelling to the dawn of time in order to destroy everything. Guided by The Spectre aka Oliver Queen the group will go there to tackle him face to face.

How Lex Luthor plays into it we don’t know yet but Alexander Luthor was actually a huge reason that the heroes managed to defeat the Anti-Monitor in the source material. He was vastly different to this universes version but I do think he will play a more vital role going forward.