Season Review: Freedom Fighters The Ray Season 2 “Earth X”

Crisis on Continuity!

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Waking up from a nap that felt seven months long, Ray finds himself surrounded by members of Team Arrow and Team Flash, including their titular leaders. Seems the point of it was to recruit him to their groups and properly help him control his abilities, and a good opportunity arrives in a call from Vixen regarding a giant robot attack. This gives Ray a chance to really cut loose with his powers while working with a team, though he still finds himself having a hard time coming out as gay to his parents, let alone reveal he’s actually a superhero.

This is made worse when Overgirl arrives from Earth X to retrieve Red Tornado’s cortex, allowing the Reichsmen to access even more Earths to invade. After getting a pep talk from his friend John, Ray realizes he needs to go to Earth X to take care of what he feels responsible for. Before he goes, he finally manages to tell his parents he’s gay, and they part on good terms.

Going to Cisco Ramon of Team Flash for help, Ray makes his way across the multiverse to Earth X and meets up with the remaining resistance forces, including Black Condor and Phantom Lady. The group is unsure of what to do next, but because Ray is the protagonist, he manages to unite them in their will to fight through a big motivational speech about hope.

On cue, the Reichsmen arrive for the final showdown, but even though the series began with the resistance barely making it out alive with five well trained heroes, they are now able to more or less kick Nazi butt with only half of the old team and a newbie because this is Act 3 and we need to show the heroes have learned something that makes them better even if nothing’s really improved. With the enemy pushed back temporarily, Ray decides to stay on Earth X to help make up for losing the cortex, to live up the previous Ray’s reputation, and to fight the never-ending battle against Nazis.

OUR TAKE

As those waiting for this set of episodes probably already know, this is part of CW’s Arrowverse, which is mostly made up of live action television shows and a few animated shorts. Or at least, this SEEMS like it’s part of that universe, until you notice all of the glaring continuity errors that make this impossible to reconcile with the other shows, despite this very clearly meant to be using those versions of these characters. Going back and rewatching the crossover “Crisis on Earth-X”, Ray does show up as someone from Earth 1, but has never met any of the principal casts of those shows before that point. Additionally, Black Arrow is both the current leader of the Nazis AND in love with Overgirl, neither of which are even implied in this series, and that’s not even mentioning the inclusion of Reverse Flash or the complete omission of basically everything related to Ray beyond where he came from and that he’s gay. All of these discrepancies apparently have to do with editorial conflicts between Executive Producers Marc Guggenheim and the recently fired Andrew Kreisberg about the purpose of the series in relation to the crossover, but what we have as a result is something that doesn’t fit anywhere but on its own. This, in addition to the Vixen series being wiped from the timeline by the events in the recent season of Legends of Tomorrow and Constantine’s current loose connection to the universe, may show a stepping back from animation for this shared universe.

But beyond that, how do this season and this series now stack up as a whole? Well, Russel Tovey still does a well enough job in the title role, but the lack of time to properly flesh things out in an hour’s runtime has a pretty costly effect on the story structure, especially in Ray’s own character arc. While it’s nice that he gets used to his powers while paling around with Flash, Arrow, and Vixen while fighting a giant robot in addition to coming out to his parents before leaving them forever to risk his life in another universe, it’s the need to do that last thing which I think ended up being unearned. The only reason the cortex wasn’t destroyed immediately was because of plot induced stupidity on Ray’s part to preserve it because it was “cool” that it was from another world. This only serves to keep it intact so that Overgirl can steal it back and give Ray a reason to leave, basically switching out one stupid reasoning for another to facilitate designated story beats. It’s basically the Cliff’s Notes of a Hero’s Journey without much of the foundation necessary to help us believe it.

With that in mind, the visuals are still perfectly fine, possibly even an improvement over the previous season, especially in the fight scenes. The other members of the voice cast also bring more than acceptable game, with Melissa Benoist sounding like she’s having quite a lot of fun playing the villain for once as Overgirl. And Matt Mercer (who I can’t not hear as Jotaro Kujo after so much Stardust Crusaders) and the rest of the actors with doppelgangers do fine playing double duty as either version of their characters.

Though ultimately, I have feeling this and Vixen serve a greater purpose even if they end up being lackluster stories on their own. Just as Vixen allowed for the first African American and female led superhero television series, The Ray does the same for gay protagonists. Ideally, a production should prioritize doing the best STORY they can do before simply wanting to check of diversity boxes, but maybe the important achievement here is that these shows made clear that shows starring these demographics CAN be done so that future creators can improve on the foundation. CW and WB seem intent to do this themselves, as the next big Arrowverse crossover plans to introduce Batwoman, a lesbian, into the universe before giving her a solo series of her own. So, while The Ray ended up being a bit dimmer than I might have hoped, that hope may light the way for even greater shows to come.