With characters who can sprint to alternate timelines and leap tall buildings in a single bound, there's not much that lies outside the realm of the possible for the CW's superhero lineup. This week, The Flash and Supergirl will crossover yet again — this time in the splashy genre of the big band musical. Though the stage is set in the March 20 episode of Supergirl, it'll be on the March 21 episode of The Flash that the show will really go on. Take two leads who got their feet wet on Glee, a cast of supporting characters rife with Broadway veterans, and putting a song in the hearts of Barry, Kara, and their friends feels inevitable. So will you be able to listen to the songs from The Flash musical episode online? With the talent that's been rounded up for the crossover, once won't be enough. Update: On March 22, The CW released a soundtrack for The Flash musical episode, "Duets," which is available on iTunes.
Earlier: As of right now, the CW has not announced if or when the songs from The Flash musical will be available for streaming or download. But it's a good sign that full score soundtracks for Arrow, The Flash, and DC's Legends Of Tomorrow are up for grabs on iTunes and Spotify already. For the sake of speed (and Barry is all about that), I hope that the network uses the same music release model for these songs as it does for Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. The songs from each episode are made available on streaming services immediately afterwards. And most numbers are also posted on the CW's YouTube account, in their entirety.
The Flash is already borrowing from its CW neighbor anyway. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend star and creator Rachel Bloom co-wrote one of the original songs Grant Gustin and Melissa Benoist will be performing in the episode. Gustin told Entertainment Weekly that the song "Super Friend" is "a comedy piece" and "very consistent" with the songs Bloom and her castmates perform on the musical rom-com send-up. (Though, I'd suspect it's G-rated compared to most Crazy Ex material.)
The other original song featured in the episode is called "Runnin' Home To You," and is sung by Gustin alone. (A love ballad for Iris, perhaps?) While "Super Friend" lends subversive comedic cred, this song comes with an Academy pedigree. Songwriters Benj Pasek and Justin Paul just won Best Original Song Oscars for writing the lyrics for "City Of Stars" from La La Land, composed by Justin Hurwitz. They and their consistently sold out Broadway musical Dear Evan Hansen are also early favorites for this year's Tony Awards. The Flash and Supergirl Executive Producer Andrew Kreisberg boasted about this get for the crossover in a statement shared by Deadline, calling Pasek and Paul "the premiere song-writing duo of our time."
Ensemble Arrowverse members like Carlos Valdes (Cisco), John Barrowman (Malcolm), Jesse L. Martin (Joe), Victor Garber (Martin), and Jeremy Jordan (Winn) will show off their vocal talents too in covers of songs like "Moon River," which fit the time period of the vintage musical into which the episode's big bad traps them. Gustin's Glee castmate Darren Criss is playing the Music Meister, the orchestrator of this melodic nightmare the two heroes have to see through to the end.
The cover songs could present some licensing issues that might prevent the CW from being able to put them up for download. But it's very likely that at least the original songs from The Flash and Supergirl's musical crossover will show up on streaming sites soon, ready to be added to your "Super Work Motivation" playlist.
