Flash: new TV show (boxed spoilers)

Cafe Society
522

The relationship between Barry and Iris is sort of no-win for the actors. How do you portray a healthy relationship with this backstory? Any sexual heat comes off as awkward and creepy all around, thanks to Barry being fostered with the West family. Joe’s supposed to be cool with his surrogate son lusting after his daughter when St. Eddie makes him uncomfortable? A teen Barry lusting after Iris doesn’t come off like a stalker’s fantasy, or vice versa? The entire situation calls for massive repression on all fronts.

As for alternatives, Caitlyn’s got Firestorm and Felicity’s coming off like a groupie at comic con as it is. Only thing worse would be Ollie sleeping with River Lance, thereby nailing every female in one family.

523

Yeah, I thought before when she was all ‘if you love me you must tell me all your secrets’ towards Eddie that maybe there’s just a tiny bit of entitlement on her side; that impression wasn’t lessened by this episode. Just once, I want somebody to find out that their longtime friend/spouse/partner fights crime at night, and be like, ‘That’s you saving all those people? Awesome!’. But instead, it’s always, you betrayed my trust, clearly how I feel about that should have been your first concern, yadda yadda.

And also, did Iris just spend half the episode lurking around the corner to butt in at just the right moment of the conversation?

524

Here was me during last week’s episode:

ME: “Oh no you di’un’t!”
EPISODE: “Oh yes we di’ud!”
ME: “No way!”
EPISODE: “Way!”
ME: “Duuuuuuuuude!”
Here’s me during this week’s episode:

ME: Barry, tell the general guy about the mind control blocker! No, wait, on second thought don’t – if the army reverse-engineers it, not only will they know how to block mind control, they’ll have a good guess as to how mind control works, which means they could start building mind control devices of their own. Good call keeping him in the dark, Barry!

525

Notwithstanding the occasional drunken karaoke interlude, Barry has even more of a sibling relationship with Caitlin than Iris. Which is why that scene a couple weeks ago with Everyman-Barry trying to make out with Caitlin was so oogy. It’s a wonder that Caitlin didn’t catch on and stab the fake Barry with that neutralizing agent right then and there.

526

Anyone else think that Wells was going to make one of those body sucking machines to use on Eddie? Not only would it explain the Thawne connection, it would also give him a chance to screw with Barry and company in a new form.

527

Wasn’t that pretty much the reaction of Thea (of all people) on Arrow? It may be the only news she’s taken well… and Mary Jane took it pretty well in Spidery 2.

528

Check post 507. :wink:

529

One thing that bugs the hell out of me is Caitlin’s clothing. Her clothes are insanely inappropriate for her job. She always looks like she’s about to go out to a cocktail party with the Kennedys or something. Yeah, she’s there to provide the fanboys some leg/boob-service, but sheesh–she’s working around volitile chemicals, tangles of wires and crazed metas. Those little cocktail dress thingies* she wears are just jarring. Put some pants on, lady, get rid of the sleeveless dresses and dress for your job, not for your party-life. (note: I don’t object to boobs/legs, but it’s bizarrely jarring to see her prancing around in those outfits.)

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That said we got a live-action, non-camp Gorilla Grodd who’s actually scary. If you’d have told my 14-year old self that in the future we’ll be seeing Flash fight Grodd on live-action prime-time TV, he would have called us a liar. I’m willing to forgive a lot (including the lack of locks on any door at STAR Labs) for that.

530

Eobard has said that he and Eddie belong to the same family tree, but I haven’t yet heard him call Eddie an ancestor. Eddie might be Eobard’s great-great-great-great-grandfather, or he might be his great-great-great-great-granduncle, in which case his death would have no effect on Eobard’s life.

Ollie may have killed, but AFAIK (I don’t watch Arrow regularly) he’s never killed an innocent person. I think Eobard would know that, and wouldn’t be fooled.

As far as the name goes, the Reverse-Flash’s name was revealed in the comic book series to be Eobard Thawne way back in 1964. I’m pretty sure that is was just a made-up, futuristic-sounding name. If it was a play on words, I’m missing it too – but it couldn’t be a reference to anything recent.

531

I mentioned this to my wife as we were watching the episode. Not even a lab coat. But what more can one expect from the CW?

Heck, given how bad all previous comic movies and TV shows were, my 14 y.o. self would be calling you a liar for anything we’re getting today (except the F4 and Ghost Rider movies, which would be about what my 14 y.o. self would expect).

532

Eobard wants Eddie to think of himself as a loser. If all those awesome future Thawnes (or even some of them) are descended from Eddie, he could think, “Hey, I’m a pretty good detective, and I have some awesome descendants, except for this guy, of course. Not bad.” When I saw this scene, I quoted Shakespeare: “Thou shalt get (i.e., father) kings, though thou be none.”

Also, he’d likely think, “Bummer about losing Iris, but maybe I’ll meet someone I’ll love just as much.”

533

Now now, I’ve seen one or two cases where Caitlin wasn’t wearing a cocktail dress. Once, she was wearing a separate blouse and skirt that were ALMOST casual enough for a receptionist or PR representative. Her hair and makeup are always immaculate, though.

534

That was actually Thea’s reaction to finding out Ollie was the Arrow in Arrow. Made me dislike her a lot less.

535

Awesome, the Reverse Flash costume just came out of a ring.

536

Is that what happened? I didn’t understand what went on there.

Cool battle between Reverse Flash and Barry and friends.

I believe the saying is “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” Shame on Cisco for falling for the same trick twice. She totally played him. Peyton List is really hot, though, so I can’t blame him too much.

I like that they addressed–sort of–the questionable ethics of running a private prison in the accelerator.

537

Wow, they threw everything and the kitchen sink at that episode. I understand they have to let Ollie punch WAY above his weight class to make him a credible threat against super villains, but nailing the speedster twice with arrows strained the credibility a bit.

538

Once again, someone - a supervillain, no less - walks into the Cortex from off the street. Would it kill them to at least put a frakken lock on the damned door?

539

Good that they finally explained why Reverse Flash is faster than Flash. Also good that Lisa has that truck driver’s license (or at least ability to drive a truck) and they didn’t explain it as “I had a boyfriend who taught me to drive his truck.” That happens much too often in fiction to explain why a woman has what are considered “typically male” skills.

540

Ever since people in this thread have posted about the lack of locks, I’ve noticed how often that happens. :slight_smile:

That said, on the other hand, it DID let Deus Ex Iris come in at exactly the right time to bonk Peek-A-Boo on the head.

(And the resemblance between the comic book version of Peek-a-boo and the TV show one is amazing. Most of the other characters aren’t bad matches, but damn…they got her perfect.)

Also: Why would Cisco name Lisa “The Golden Glider”? She doesn’t glide. Her original version (back in the late '70s) was a figure skater who went nutz when her boyfriend (the Top) died and she wanted to murder Iris so Flash would suffer like she did. Great character, great motivation. And since she had flying, ice-slide generating skates, the name fit. Here? You might as well call her “Goldface”. It would make more sense.

Finally–it occurs to me that we’re not going to see the big confrontation between Barry and Wells/Thawn (the current guy). Wells/Thawn is locked up*. Barry’s gonna use the Flux-Capacitor battery (which is obviously charged by the Speed Force) and/or the accelerator (which is on, and powered up, Wells/Thawn’s capture not withstanding) to go back in the past to save mom…and run in to Thawn/pre-Wells.

I’m guessing this is a set-up by Thawn/Wells. By accidentally snuffing Nora, Thawn/pre-Wells wiped out his own future (possibly the Flashpoint future?) and so Thawn/Wells has been making Barry better so that when, from Barry’s POV, he first goes into the past, he can stop the Pre-Wells Thawn, save Nora and restore Thawn’s future (that what was what all the “I can’t go home again” whining was about, and would explain why, if Thawn is faster than Barry, why Thawn doesn’t just run home.

So the timeline looks like this:

[ol]
[li]Original 25th Century/Flashpoint Future (as a guess) Thawn/no-Wells goes into the past for reasons. (best guess: Thawn/no-Wells wants to emotionally cripple Barry by murdering mom? I dunno.)[/li][li]Original 2004-ish: Thawn/no-Wells appears in the past. Barry from 2015 appears soon after. [/li][li]Altered 2004-ish: Thawn/no-Wells beats a Barry who Thawn (any version) hasn’t trained and murders Nora. Oops. Thawn’s 25 Century evaporates.[/li][li]Altered 2005-ish: Thawn/no-Wells tries to get home, but home isn’t there. He figures out that he’s erased his future and becomes Thawn/Wells.[/li][li]Altered 2005-2014: Thawn/Wells does everything he can to make sure Barry is in a position to become an incredibly well-trained Flash so that when Barry goes back to 2004, Barry will win, thus restoring Thawn’s original future. (Possibly the Crisis doesn’t happen in Thawn’s future?)[/li][li]Altered 2015: The episode we just saw (“Rogue Air”)[/li][li]Altered 2015: Barry, after “capturing” Thawn/Wells decides to go into the past. [/li][li]Original 2004-ish" Barry is surprised to find a Thawn/No-Wells who’s never encountered the Flash before hanging around. Since Flash has been trained to fight a 10 year more experienced Thawn, Barry trounces Thawn/No-Wells and saves Mommy Nora. Oops. But we’re back to the “original” timeline where Thawn’s future exists again.[/li][li]Original 2005-ish: With Thawn/No-Wells captured, Wells (sans Thawn) and his girlfriend have a very nice drive home from their day at the beach. Nothing happens at all (salvaging the popular character of Wells).[/li][li]Original 2015: No Thawn/Wells means no “accidental” particle accelerator explosion means “no Flash” means “Thawn’s 25th Century is back” (or the particle accelerator explodes anyway, but Barry isn’t trained by Thawn/Wells and without the training and without the motivation of mommy’s murder, Barry is a half-assed slacker-Flash) [/li][li]Original 2015, first episode next season: Barry returns from his triumphant victory in 2005 to find out that Central City makes Gotham look like the “Small World” ride at Disneyworld and is part of bigger crapsack world. Barry has to undo, as best he can, what he did and let Nora die. (say 3-4 episodes of S2.)[/li][/ol]

Feel free to point out this post to me next week when it turns out I’m completely wrong and PALAMe. :wink:
*As part of his evil plan, no doubt.

541

I was really really disappointed in this episode.
(1) It just rubbed in our face how ridiculously inhumane (not to mention logistically impossible) the “prison” for baddies is… particularly contrasted with the supposed motivation of moving them out to save their lives
(2) They are physically right there in the accelerator building. Can’t they just go unplug some stuff or blow up a few feat of cyclotron or something? I find it hard to believe that Cisco can’t disable an accelerator with 36 hours notice
(3) Maybe he would be better if I were a comics reader, but the whole character of Captain Cold has always left me, umm, indifferent. A prime example of “if Barry just used his super speed with any intelligence he would have defeated this guy 2 seconds after meeting him”, and then the way he trusted him was obviously ridiculous
(4) And Ollie showing up right in the middle of all the crap going on over on Arrow doesn’t make any sense at all… bad schedule overlapping. (Not to mention that now it’s Wells who is using his super speed in a moronic fashion, in that he decided to stop and normal-speed monologue before finishing Ollie off.)