Arrow and The Flash Prepare For Crisis in Their November 26 Episodes

Both The Flash and Green Arrow are getting ready for a coming Crisis in the November 26 episodes of their respective shows. In "The Last Temptation of Barry Allen, Part One" -- the first half of a two-part midseason finale -- the titular hero faces off against Bloodwork and Iris's journalism uncovers a conspiracy. Meanwhile, Arrow's "Reset" (directed by David Ramsey) will apparently feel like a fairly direct continuation of some recent threads, with Black Siren facing her past and Oliver being betrayed by Lyla/Harbinger who, as we know from recent episodes, is secretly working with The Monitor behind Team Arrow's back.

That last bit will resonate with fans who have been wondering just what The Monitor is doing on Arrow lately, on the heels of this week's episode stinger that saw him trying to recruit Black Siren to work against Green Arrow for him. That moral ambiguity is at the heart of what the shows seem to be shooting for with The Monitor.

"You have to unlearn everything -- your morals, your ethics, what you define as right and wrong. You have to throw that all out the window," LaMonica Garrett, who plays The Monitor, once told me. "I think that's the part where people were having a hard time grasping The Monitor as being this person, this antagonistic character. 'Cause we all know him from Crisis, and he paid the greatest sacrifice, to me, to become one of the biggest heroes in the DC mythology. But, he went about it his way. So, preparing for someone like that -- everything you know, right is left, up is down, that's all gone. He's not good or evil. That was a challenge in itself."

You can check out the official synopsis for The Flash's episode here...

PART ONE OF THE MID-SEASON FINALE – As Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) stands on the threshold of his impending death in Crisis, his convictions are tested when the monstrous Dr. Ramsey Rosso (guest star Sendhil Ramamurthy) infects The Flash with a mysterious, hallucinogenic contagion. Meanwhile, reporter Iris West-Allen (Candice Patton) uncovers a vast conspiracy. Chad Lowe directed the episode written by Jonathan Butler & Gabriel Garza.

...and the synopsis for that week's Arrow here:

YOU CAN'T FIGHT YOUR FATE – After being double-crossed by Lyla (guest star Audrey Marie Anderson), Oliver (Stephen Amell) finds himself facing a life or death situation that seems very familiar. Laurel (Katie Cassidy) has the opportunity to make amends with the past. David Ramsey directed the episode written by Onalee Hunter Hughes & Maya Houston.

In the comics, Crisis on Infinite Earths centered on a battle between the combined superheroes (and even some villains) of the DC multiverse and an immortal, cosmic threat known as the Anti-Monitor. Like The Monitor, the Anti-Monitor will be played by LaMonica Garrett in the Arrowverse. As the Anti-Monitor destroys realities, he replaces their positive matter energy with antimatter, growing his own power and sphere of influence. He was eventually stopped by the sacrifices of several heroes, including The Flash and Supergirl, as well as the merging of multiple universes to save reality by becoming a single, unified timeline. Fans have long wondered whether the events of "Crisis on Infinite Earths" might bring Supergirl and even Black Lightning to Earth-1, where the rest of the series take place. The crossover will also feature guest appearances by Tom Welling as Clark Kent, Erica Durance as Lois Lane, John Wesley Shipp as the Flash of Earth-90, Johnathon Schaech as Jonah Hex, Kevin Conroy as Bruce Wayne, and Ashley Scott as The Huntress.

"Crisis on Infinite Earths" kicks off on Sunday, December 8 on Supergirl, runs through a Monday episode of Batwoman and that Tuesday's episode of The Flash. That will be the midseason cliffhanger, as the shows go on hiatus for the holidays and return on January 14 to finish out the event with the midseason premiere of Arrow and a "special episode" of DC's Legends of Tomorrow, which launches as a midseason series this year and so will not have an episode on the air before the Crisis.