The CW has produced so many of television’s most beloved shows. Originally created as a result of the merger of UPN and The WB, who made hit shows like Buffy The Vampire Slayer, the new network was exclusively geared towards teen drama. It’s now a hub for superhero dramas as well as soap operas.
The network has a vibe that doesn’t necessarily fit in anywhere else on television. The shows are quirky, melodramatic, and tend to be slightly cheesy, but it’s a formula that typically works.
The Flash, Arrow, Supergirl, and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow are all a part of the channel’s lineup, making it the go to place for DC superhero shows.
It’s also known for cult-like dramas like Riverdale and Supernatural. They put out hit show after hit show, taking over the conversations on Tumblr and Twitter.
However, despite the successful lineup each week, not every show is perfect. Even some fan-favorite shows have their plot holes, unexplained aspects, and weak spots.
Not all of the CW series can be as perfect as Jane The Virgin, which scored the coveted 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Without further ado, here are the 20 Things That Make No Sense About CW Shows.
Arrow: Quentin and Black Siren’s Relationship
Quentin and Laurel Lance’s father-daughter relationship was one of the biggest parts of the early seasons of Arrow. They arguably have one of the deepest, most meaningful relationship on the show.
She was Quentin’s rock after he thought he had lost Sara. They had their differences, but they ultimately pritoritized each other and always fought to keep each other safe.
When Laurel died, something in Quentin changed. When he first saw Black Siren, he was certain she was his Laurel. The team finally got through to him that she wasn’t, and it seemed to sink in.
In season six, however, he went back to being obsessed with saving Black Siren and having his daughter back, to the point he helps her escape rather than help Team Arrow.
The constant flip-flop of he and Black Siren’s relationship is a little exhausting.
Supernatural: The Antichrist
Supernatural has a huge following, but it’s known for having some pretty blatant plot holes. It’s hard to avoid a few inconsistencies in thirteen seasons, but a few of them have bothered fans for years, like the introduction of the antichrist in season five.
During the apocalypse arc, they introduced viewers to a young kid named Jesse Turner. He was the child of a human who was possessed by a demon. He was powerful enough to teleport, move objects with his mind, and exorcise demons.
Supposedly, he was the antichrist. As big and powerful as the episode made him seen, fans expected to see him turn up again.
Since his disappearance that season, he hasn’t been heard from or mentioned again. Wouldn’t Sam and Dean wonder about the whereabouts of one of the most powerful beings in the universe?
Vampire Diaries: The Fog and Crow
The Vampire Diaries is another CW show that is known to have a few inconsistencies, despite being incredibly popular. Viewers couldn’t get enough of the Salvatore brothers during the show’s eight season run.
One of the biggest plot holes fans discuss is the fog that Damon controls in season one. In the first few episodes, he is shown controlling the weather, making a fog appear around Elena in a cemetery as well a creepy crows. However, after season one, his ability is never used again.
You would think if vampires could conjure up such a disorienting effect, they would use it a little more often, particularly all of the evil ones who seemed to constantly appear in Mystic Falls.
It was strange that there was such a heavy focus on it in the first few episodes, then dropped like it never happened.
The Flash: Cisco’s Miraculous Inventions
The Flash is one of the CW’s most successful shows. The characters are all beloved by fans, including Cisco Ramon, also known as Vibe. He’s funny, smart and awkwardly adorable. However, sometimes it seems like he’s a little too smart.
Comic-book science has always been a world of its own, not exactly adhering to the rules of reality while somewhat resembling real-life science. Viewers just silently agree to ignore some of the wacky science and enjoy the show for what it is.
It seems like Cisco, however, is able to pull off these miraculous scientific inventions just in the knick of time every time. It’s obvious he’s a genius, but no one can make every single techolognial advancement the team needs that quickly.
While science can be a little loose on superhero shows, a lot of the science on The Flash doesn’t make sense, even within the realm of comics.
The 100: Perfect Hair In A Post Apocalyptic World
The CW is known for having unreasonably beautiful people in their shows. Those beautiful people often look flawless. The 100, however, is set in a post-apocalyptic world. The unreasonably beautiful people should at least look a little roughed up.
Lexa was essentially Grounder royalty, so it made sense for her to have fancy hair and makeup, but for the general population to consistently look good seems unrealistic.
Sometimes the characters will have dirt or scrapes, but their hair always looks amazing. In a world that was ravaged by nuclear war, where would they find hair products and curling irons?
The men rarely have beards or scruff, and it’s doubtful they are all able to shave that often.
Of course it’s television, and all actors wear makeup, but it’s one of the aspects of The 100 that doesn’t make sense.
Supergirl: Where Is Superman?
Having a female-led superhero show was a big deal for fans when Supergirl premiered back in 2015. Kara is an iconic character and it was exciting to see her on the CW.
While she can certainly hold her own in most fights, sometimes it’s weird that she and her team don’t ask Superman for help.
In season one, it was very important for Kara to learn to be a hero on her own. She would ask Clark for help every once in a while, but he honored her desire to find herself.
While it’s great to see Kara be strong and fight off villians on her own, sometimes they’re too much for her to take on, just like any other hero.
For instance, where was Superman when Reign nearly killed Kara? That was an instance when the team should have called him and asked him to come help. He hasn’t even checked in with Kara on Messenger like he used to. It doesn’t make any sense.
Supernatural: Passing Away Means Nothing
Supernatural doesn’t shy away from the idea of death. The main characters have died and come back to life so much that it’s hard to keep track of who died when.
While Sam or Dean dying is still immensely sad, fans are never truly distraught because they know they’ll come back to life. The same goes for any character, really.
While some do stay dead, viewers know that there is always a possibility they could come back. There usually aren’t even any long-lasting consequences after they come back. Dean’s demon phase was short lived and Sam eventually got his soul back.
Obviously, without Sam and Dean, Supernatural wouldn’t work, so they have to bring them back. It’s just confusing that death doesn’t mean anything on the show.
Arrow: They Don’t Ask Flash For Help
Much like on Supergirl, the characters on Arrow are always able to ask other heroes for help. The Flash is one of their biggest allies, but they almost never request his assistance.
There have been some pretty epic crossovers, but in between it’s like Team Flash doesn’t exist to Team Arrow.
There have been so many instances when it would have been a great time for Oliver to ask for assistance, like he did when Barry ran he and Diggle to Cayden James. Why don’t they take advantage of his superspeed more often?
The same goes for the Flash. Why didn’t he ask Oliver for help to defeat Savitar? It just seems like there have been multiple instances when either Barry or Oliver say there’s no hope they haven’t exhausted all of their options yet. It’s okay for them to phone a friend!
Riverdale: The Kiss Between Betty and Veronica
Riverdale is known for having crazy plot twists and unpredictable drama. It’s no surprise there have been a few aspects of the show that don’t make sense.
One of the biggest unexplained instances is the kiss that happened between Betty and Veronica in the first episode. The kiss wasn’t exactly necessary to the cheerleading storyline, leading viewers to believe it would be of a certain importance later.
However, the kiss was never mentioned again, making it feel like the writers just threw in a girl-on-girl kiss for a ratings boost.
Since Betty and Veronica haven’t had any more romantic interactions, the kiss just seems weird and out of context.
It’s even led some viewers to accuse the writers of queer-baiting. Regardless of how fans view the kiss, it simply didn’t make any sense.
Arrow: Oliver’s Identity Is Still Intact
Oliver’s identity has been revealed so many times it’s hard to keep track. Most superheroes have one or two scares, but he seem particularly unlucky.
He has been publicly accused of being the Green Arrow at least three times, and despite each of those times being explained away in some way, it’s hard to believe that his secret identity is still in tact.
Members of Star City have seen way too much evidence stacked up against him to simply ignore that he may be a vigilante.
The show wouldn’t make sense if he couldn’t be a hero anymore, but it just doesn’t make sense with all of the public accusations and slip ups that everyone doesn’t realize Oliver is actually a ninja who jumps over rooftops shooting arrows every night.
Legends of Tomorrow: They Mess Everything Up
The heroes of Legends of Tomorrow don’t always seem to be heroes. Despite calling themselves “Legends”, they typically screw everything up before eventually putting it back together and saving the day.
The members are all incredibly incompetent at their jobs. It’s usually glossed over with funny jokes and sarcasm, but the show is very aware that the characters mess up a lot. It’s a wonder they’re still allowed to time travel at all.
A lot of times, it seems like the timeline would have been better off without the Legends interfering at all.
It’s fun to watch them scramble to fix their mistakes, but it doesn’t seem logical to tote them as heroes when they don’t even really know what they’re doing half the time.
The Flash: S.T.A.R. Labs Is Up and Running
S.T.A.R. Labs is incredibly important to Central City. It’s the reason metahumans, therefore The Flash, were created in the first place.
The public thought it was shut down after the particle accelerator exploded, but it secretly hosts Team Flash during their missions.
The real questions is: how is it still up and running so they can use it? Harrison Wells, although it was really Eobard Thawne at the time, did give the company to Barry Allen, but someone still has to pay to keep it powered up.
While H.R. Wells did help turned S.T.A.R. Labs into a museum, it’s doubtful that the museum makes enough to power all of their technology. I guess the writers are assuming they explained it enough so that viewers will focus on other aspects of the plot.
The 100: The Mutated Animals Disappeared
The 100 has changed a lot since season one. It took the show a while to find it’s following, but the CW is busy gearing up for the premiere of season five this April.
In season one, the show made a big deal of mutated animals. The kids are exploring the ground when they spot a deer.
At first the deer seems beautiful, but when it turns it’s head, they can see it’s been horrifically mutated and has two faces.
The two-headed deer is the result of exposure to radiation, but since season one, all of the animals shown have been normal.
The realistic answer is that making mutated animals simply costs too much for production. It just didn’t make sense to make the deer scene seem so significant if they weren’t going to show any more mutated animals.
Supergirl: She Doesn’t Hide Her Identity From The DEO
While Kara does a great job convincing friends and coworkers she isn’t Supergirl, she isn’t always so careful.
When Supergirl first started working with the DEO, she was very careful about keeping her identity a secret. At some point, she stopped hiding her identity and everyone there knew she was Kara Danvers.
The DEO is a super secret government agency, but that doesn’t mean Supergirl should blindly flaunt her identity in front of them. They’ve been infiltrated before, and word of who Supergirl is could get out.
It seems a bit careless and out of character for Kara to flaunt her identity to quite that many people, regardless of whether they are DEO agents or not. It wouldn’t be a far jump for a supervillian to connect her to Clark Kent, if the DEO were ever attacked.
The Flash: Time Travel Inconsistencies
One of the most confusing aspects of the Arrowverse is all of the time travel, a lot of which comes from Barry’s end. The Flash is known for it’s crazy time travel plots, including the Flashpoint story arc, when Barry went back and time and accidentally changed the future entirely.
While time travel is one of the best parts of the show when used correctly, a lot of times it’s confusing and inconsistent.
The writers try to go out of there way and have a character, usually Cisco or Wells, explain the time travel in an understanding way, but it doesn’t always help.
Sometimes Barry will travel back in time and there will be massive consequences, and other times it will be perfectly fine. The constant time travel has resulted in multiple plot holes and sometimes flat out doesn’t make any sense.
Vampire Diaries: The Sleeping Spell
The final season of Vampire Diaries was a little different because the main character, Elena, was in a coma for the entire duration. The rules of her sleeping spell were always a bit muddled and confusing.
It was made clear that if her friends found a loophole and tried to wake Elena up, she and Bonnie would both die.
That seemed a little unbelievable considering they had all been up against impossible odds before and miraculously beat them. Couldn’t Alaric’s kids have siphoned the spell out of Elena?
Regardless of what they could have done, Bonnie was somehow magically able to break the spell in the finale with zero consequences. It was very anticlimactic and random after all of the drama about the spell. The outcome just didn’t make a lot of sense.
Arrow: Laurel Becoming Black Canary So Fast
It seems like everyone in the Arrowverse is becoming a superhero these days, from Jimmy Olson on Supergirl to Cisco on The Flash. On Arrow, Laurel’s rise to becoming Black Canary was just a little too unbelievable.
Dinah Laurel Lance is the Black Canary fans know in the comics, so fans weren’t sure what to think when Laurel and Dinah were two different people. She had zero physical training and randomly picked up boxing as a form of stress relief.
Within a matter of what seems like only weeks, she’s able to fight crime. It was absolutely ridiculous to see the lawyer throw on a mask and be able to kick butt so quickly.
Fans immediately took to Twitter to express their thoughts on Laurel as Black Canary, and many weren’t having it.
Supernatural: Adam Is Still In Hell
In Supernatural, family is the most important thing to Sam and Dean. The brothers have literally died for each other multiple times.
That family bond doesn’t seem to extend to their third brother, Adam. Sam and Dean don’t seem too invested in him when he appears, and after he dies and goes to hell they don’t do much to save him, either.
Dean found a way to get Sam out of the Cage, and eventually Lucifer even got out, but Adam was left to rot. He’s still in hell in season thirteen and the show has even made a self-aware jokes that the brothers left him there.
With the emphasis Sam and Dean both put on family, it doesn’t make sense not to rescue their other brother.
Vampire Diaries: Bonnie’s A Miracle Worker
Vampire Diaries is full of powerful beings, and Bonnie Bennett is one of them. She’s supposed to be an impressive witch, but sometimes she’s just too impressive.
Her powers were inconsistent over the show’s eight seasons. She would go from insisting she could never do a spell to miraculously pulling it off all by herself at the last second.
All of the risk was taken out of any scene she was in because viewers knew she would suddenly save the day every time.
For instance, it was made very clear that there was no possible way to break Elena’s sleeping curse, but out of nowhere, just in the knick of time, Bonnie is able to wake her up.
Whenever she was able to miraculously pull something off in a dire situation, it wouldn’t make any sense.
Riverdale: Brother-sister stuff
Riverdale has its fair share of strange relationships, but there isn’t one exactly like the relationship between Cheryl and her twin brother, Jason.
In season one, the flashbacks to their interactions seemed extremely incestuous, but the show never brought that back up.
They were shown holding hands, and Cheryl put a lot of emphasis on the special bond they shared.
Of course, it could be normal brother-sister stuff, but the writers even had Veronica question the nature of Cheryl and Jason’s relationship, and Cheryl never truly debunked her theory. The actors have denounced the inappropriate theory, but it’s hard to ignore.
The weird, romantic flashbacks made a lot of fans question the direction of the show during the first season. The strange vibes between the siblings didn’t make any sense.
Can you think of any other things about CW shows that don’t make sense? Sound off in the comments!
