Fun little show. It’s certainly starting off better than Arrow did. The technobabble is really groan-worthy though.
The original form of the costume included a gas mask. You’re fighting a villain that can turn to gas. Is that really too big a leap of logic to make?
I did notice the cell with the Grodd-nametag as well, although I also couldn’t really figure out why you’d keep a gorilla near a particle accelerator. But it’s probably something the doctor from the future did for unspecified Nefarious Purposes.
And while I am getting a bit annoyed at the little ambiguous-to-evil scenes with the not-wheelchair bound head physicist (can you tell I can’t remember his name?), it’s also the main thing that keeps me watching: there does seem to be a well planned-out story arc going on in the background, and the character is just so damn affable, you know, when he’s not sticking knives into people and smirking that sinister little smirk of his.
Well, the persistence of vision is around 1/25 of a second. If Barry were in your field of vision for less than that we can assume you’d miss him. Assuming he’s in your field of vision for 100 feet he’d have to be traveling somewhere around 1,700 miles an hour to be in and out of it that quickly. As long as he can come into a room, do whatever he needs to do, and get out of it in 40 milliseconds he’d be as invisible as those black bars separating the frames of a movie.
I’ve just watched the first three episodes back to back. I don’t mind it. A few of the usual super-hero tropes that annoy a little, but I’ll keep watching for the moment.
One of those tropes that bothers me a little is the only a meta-human can handle another meta-human shitck. The weather guy, sitting inside a mini tornado, I can’t imagine that with that small an area, a bullet is going to be deviated by the winds. And the multiple man, sure he can create clones of himself (fully clothed and armed somehow), but each individual is just a guy with a gun. Nothing the cop’s couldn’t handle. The mist guy, yeah sure problem there.
I appreciate they’re trying to give us some realistic technobabble, but as someone said upthread there’s an antidote to Hydrogren Chloride now?
As to Barry fighting, I can forgive some of that as inexperience with the powers. I would be interested to see if they address further in the show the damage he could inflict just with punches? Maybe the ‘inertia field’ or whatever fanwank is settled on changes thing, but a fist travelling at 700 miles/hour has got to impart some serious force. Anyone inclined to do a back of the envelope calculation on that?
Wondering why Barry didn’t run in a circle to create a vortex to contain the gas
Brian
Or propellor his arm in its general direction.
I took it as him being a guy unfamiliar with his own powers at least for the arm vortexes but he had already done the cyclone circle once already so he must have knew he had that in his pocket.
I think the reason he didn’t do it was his plan was to have The Mist chase him and get exhausted. Containing him would have been antithetical to that.
Also, the tornado was just wind, spinning counter-clockwise, so he could run clockwise against the spin and thus dissipate it. He didn’t dissipate it just by running fast, but by running fast in the opposite direction to set up an equal-but-opposite motion.
The mist is not just mist, but mind-controlled; running in a circle might force the mist into a tornado-like shape, but that would just be giving MORE power to the meta-human: “Wow, not only can I control the mist, but now I’m moving at tornado-like velocity!”
I can’t wait for the first time he tries vibrating his molecules during a fight and his assailant’s fist gets stuck in his body.
My point wasn’t that he dissipated the tornado, it’s that running fast enough to set up an equal-but-opposite motion means he can run fast enough to set up that strong a wind in its own right, without being equal-but-opposite to anything.
By that logic, what do you figure would’ve happened if the meta-human had ever tangled with a naturally-occurring tornado?
He’ll move as fast as the plot requires and his enemies will be as dangerous as the plot requires.
Obviously, whenever the Flash doesn’t do something we know he can do, it’s because he hasn’t eaten enough.
Another shout out to the fans: early in the episode Barry is told something is happening on Waid Street (or Lane, or Road). Mark Waid wrote the Flash comics for years (and still may be, as far as I know).
They did something similar on Arrow. John Diggle is named after a writer on the comic and a judge on the show was named for Mike Grell.
Wow physical security at Star Labs really sucks if some random janitor can just take a freeze gun with impunity. How can they possibly hope to keep a prison full of metas down in the basement?
Also: Mmm…Felicity Smoak…mmm…
I remember a Blue Devil comic a long time ago in which Star Labs brought back Metallo for essentially the same reason Cisco made the cold gun: to take down a superhero if he went rogue. (It was Superman in that case, and he was not happy about it. “We’re going to have a long talk about this.”)
I love Felicity and the actress has legs to die for but her wardrobe is hilarious. She can’t be this lonely, nerdy hottie and dress like a Vegas call girl. In no universe, even fictional, could this woman get from cab to curb without excessive attention. When she showed up at the Espresso bar for trivia night, my first reaction shouldn’t be “who wears that to get coffee!?” They can wow us without the Fredericks of Hollywood wardrobe, surely.
Besides, the Iris thing is kind of skeevy. Even if they aren’t related, thet were raised as brother and sister. I can give Harper and Tolliver a somewhat queasy pass, but this time…
It was also Batman’s motive in Tower of Babel.
The League as a whole reacted pretty much like Barry did here - ‘OK, we understand the reasoning, and don’t disagree, but you should have told us’…they found out the same way, too - a villain stole it and blindsided them with it. (By targeting them, rather than civilians, but still, same general deal.)
I don’t mind the fanservice, though I agree that dress would have been better suited at night, in a bar. I think the writers are sometimes too devoted to the concept that The Flash take place mostly in the daytime to differentiate it from Arrow, which actually has (or rather had) a bar and takes place mostly at night. Although, if they really wanted to differentiate their show, why have Felicity over?
This episode highlighted the great chemistry between Barry and Felicity. We, the viewers, know it, the writers know it, even the characters themselves acknowledge it. Too bad it’s never gonna happen.
Wentworth Miller makes a great scenery chewing villain. Everything else having anything to do with super powers, science or technology is really annoying. “I can hack anything with one click!”
I like the dad. His partner is interesting because I can’t figure out if I’m supposed to hate him or like him. The rest aren’t growing on me, including Barry.
There’s really no reason not to have the relationship between Barry and Felicity. Knowing tv writers, they’ll want to keep Barry and Iris apart for multiple seasons anyway, so why not have him in a long-distance relationship with Felicity? It adds plot possibilities, crossover opportunities, and has the benefit if being somewhat realistic. The most common cure for pining for someone who “doesn’t see you that way” is typically discovering that someone else quite nice does. And seeing you in a happy relationship tends to help the object of your pining with their visualization skills.
Plus, since they’ve already foreshadowed Firestorm debuting in Center City, Felicity visiting there expedites her meeting her future husband.