8 Things Barry and Cisco Should Do on Supergirl

At around the 50-minute mark of Supergirl's"Medusa," I started to lose my patience. Yes, fine, we'd just seen the Lena (Katie McGrath) and Kara (Melissa Benoist) relationship develop a new wrinkle and, OK, Cadmus had been exposed as the flawed, inept, terrorist regime that it was. J'onn (David Harewood) got his Green Martian swing back, and Maggie (Floriana Lima) and Alex (Chyler Leigh) finally got their groove on fine, fine, fine. But this is crossover week. The CW has only been shouting about this event even before Supergirl got its bags packed for Vancouver. So where was it? Where is my crossover?

I might not have been so impatient if Supergirl's first crossover with The Flash in "Worlds Finest" hadn't been such a success and one of the best episodes of an uneven first season. Barry (Grant Gustin) and Kara were adorable superfriends, Winn (Jeremy Jordan) came into his own as an asset for the DEO, and everything about the show became a little sharper, a brief preview for what we're now enjoying on Supergirl. So imagine my disappointment when Barry and Cisco (Carlos Valdes) finally do show up and it's for barely a minute at the end before (presumably) Kara gets whisked to Earth Prime.

I say "what's the rush?" Why not let Cisco and Barry exist in this space for a while? Sure, there seemed to be a sense of urgency about the giant alien attack happening in the Arrowverse and lives hang in the balance. But there's so much National City has to offer a couple of quirky dimensional travelers. Why not spend a night on the town to explore Supergirl's Earth? Barry can just run Kara and Cisco back into the near past before the aliens pillage their Earth, bing bang boom, no harm, no foul. Right? Right.

Not sure what cool things Barry and Cisco could do while in the embrace of National City? Here are a few of my suggestions.

1. Go check out the DEO.

The S.T.A.R. Labs Cortex is pretty advanced but imagine how much Cisco's mind would be freaked if he walked into the command center of the DEO with all their resources, budget and shiny glass walls. And then there's his cosmic brother from another mother, a kindred spirit in love and military-grade weapons technology, Winn Schott. They could talk shop over how entitled superheroes are to their costumes, though, admittedly, Barry has never been as demanding over a costume like Kara and James (Mehcad Brooks) were. But I could see them bonding over superheroes being prima donnas.

Winn: I know, right? And then he's, like, taking all the glory when I'm the one sitting in the van telling him what to do.
Cisco: Barry ran back in time, changed a bunch of stuff so he could unkill and then rekill his mother and now my brother is dead.
Winn: Well, that's ... rough. Butterfly effect, amirite?
Cisco: She's a fickle mistress.
Winn: [raises his beer] Here's to the underappreciated partners.
Cisco: Guys in the van. We get the job done.
[clink necks of beer bottles]

2. Eat all the food.

Barry may have had Jesse Quick (Violett Beane) for a while and now Wally (Keiynan Lonsdale), but how often does he get to have lunch with someone that can hang with him on his massive needed-calorie scale? I want to see piles of wrappers of Belly Burgers, boxes of pizza, and take-out cartons of pot stickers all strewn about Kara's apartment while they binge-watch The Great British Bake Off. Kara can tell James that a slice of pizza he's about to eat is a "bad bake, Mary!" and saves him from eating it by eating it herself. It'll be great. If nothing else, they can at least go out for ice cream.

3. Go look up their doppelgangers

On Barry's first trip to Supegirl's Earth, he tried to look up Cisco, Harrison Wells (Tom Cavanagh) and Caitlin Snow (Danielle Panabaker), but had no luck. But there has to be some overlap between the multiverses. What if Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards) is, like, a cowboy or something? What if Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) is the most handsome burger flipper anyone has ever seen? What if Joe West (Jesse L. Martin) has a glorious mustache?! These are the kinds of answers we need. I just want a condensed Season 5 of How I Met Your Mother where really fast superheroes navigate the globe in search of Earth Prime personalities. Is that so much to ask?

4. Get Barry drunk

With his metabolism always cranked up to 11, Barry can't get drunk on normal spirits. Kryptonians and Daxamites know that problem, too, so that's why Mon-El (Chris Wood) has the special elixir that can even get the strongest of sun-powered bodies a little bit tipsy. Maybe that's just the kind of booze Barry needs to let loose, shed his Members Only jacket, and get that karaoke so right. Maybe it's a little disrespectful to do karaoke in a bar that was recently the site of an alien mass murder. But wouldn't you want to see Barry belting out some Taylor Swift? I knew you would.

5. Just obliterate Cadmus

Lillian's in jail (presumably) and Cyborg Hank is in the wind, so why not use the power of three superheroes to wreck the entire operation? Free the imprisoned, get Alex's dad back, and topple the whole shebang while the Luthor matriarch is still trying to arrange money for her bail. This is the kind of thing you'd think Superman (Tyler Hoechlin) and Supergirl would be able to do together, but Clark seems to take a "Kara's got it" approach to National City woes. And she usually does. I'm just saying why not thwart the rest of what's left while the serpent's head is still holding it in while staring at a metal toilet in her cell and we have three superpowered youths freshly recharged on pizza and GBBO?

6. Have an orphans' day

We've had a lot of fun here today but, as Kara learns about the dubious nature of her parents' role in politics and weaponized biological agents, it might be important for the two orphans to touch base and talk about what it means to uphold their parents' memory. Sure, Kara, your dad might have created the virus equivalent of a neutron bomb, but you'll be reminded of how special your parents were once Barry talks about his own parental troubles of late. Parents are complicated. Sometimes bringing them back results in catastrophic changes to your timeline. Sometimes you learn they might've been responsible for destroying your planet with their finger on the trigger of a xenophobic genocide. But they're still your parents.

7. All the knowledge transfer

If there's anything Cisco can bring to the table, it's how to sit in a command center and save superheroes from killing themselves while fighting crime. Winn and James are relatively new to this game and could maybe take some pointers from a guy doing it for three years. Or maybe James and Winn can talk about how they've been able to improvise with a mere mortal in a supersuit who has no superpowers other than a super-quick retention of high-level martial arts. Or what if you bring Cisco to L-Corp, introduce him to Lena Luthor, and they build the world's most amazing do-gooding technology empire together? I like the idea of Lena and Cisco working together saving the planet and leading us into a tech-based utopia. It could be one of those things where Cisco has a full life, getting married, raising children, saving the world and then, when Cisco is retired and happy, Barry steals him from the future and brings him back to Earth Prime right before the aliens are about to tear everything up. I'm sure the time gods won't mind. "Vibe 'em, Cisco!" "But I'm oooooold! Where's the early bird special? I want pancakes." Yeah, maybe there's a flaw in this plan.

8. Bring in H.R. from Earth Prime for Supergirl's amusement

You know that one friend in your group that everyone makes fun of whenever he's not around? The one that's so obliviously confident, so blissfully ignorant of his douchiness, that finding new ways to tease him behind his back is like a friendly sport? That guy for The Flash crew is H.R., hands down. Why not bring H.R. over for a little bit so he can remark on coffee and bid everyone salutations. Look, he's asking for it. Even though I know that Tom Cavanagh is just playing a slightly alien Ed variation (complete with gum-chewing) and I love Ed, the guy is asking for it. And maybe the group could use a little bit of catharsis before flying into battle against alien terrorists on Earth Prime. I think even Kara would find a way to make fun of him. That's how easy it is. It'd be a blast.

Sigh. We really missed a great opportunity here. Next time, I guess.
Supergirl airs Mondays at 8/7c on The CW.
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