Did Jesse L. Martin break a leg or something? These past three episodes have always shown Joe West seated, in a couch, in an armchair, at the dinner table. Something also seems to be “off” about his acting, like he’s heavily medicated.
I’m finding Sherloque Wells’ French accent to be somewhat grating. I hope they catch Cicada soon so I don’t have to listen to that faux French. [Fun fact: Despite being French, Captain Jean-Luc Picard has an English accent because Patrick Stewart’s French accent made it sound like Jacques Cousteau was Captain of the Enterprise. Or maybe it was Inspector Clouseau.]
When Sherloque faked his own death I knew that Vibe’s death would be faked as well. Not a particularly subtle bit of foreshadowing. Still, it gave a good excuse for Iris’ journalism to be relevant.
Yeah, there’s gotta be something going on. I noticed that he was acting very subdued last episode, but it was really obvious in this episode. Hope he’s okay.
NORA IS TARGETED BY A DANGEROUS META - *Barry and Iris face the ultimate parenting test when Team Flash battles Spin (guest star Kiana Madeira), a savvy millennial armed with meta tech, and a dangerous agenda for their daughter, Nora. Ralph is feeling defeated until an unlikely source issues a challenge to help boost his confidence. *
More importantly, is Joe West ever going get out of his chair?
Finally, they showed Papa Joe standing, er, leaning against a door jamb. Progress, I guess. Meanwhile, Cisco was completely absent. What was happening during production?
This episode, we finally learn the reason why Nora has been snubbing her mom. And it’s a biggie. Future Iris still hasn’t learned that keeping secrets to protect your loved ones is never a good idea. On the other hand, Nora is displaying resentment like a teenager rather than trying to discuss it like the mature adult she’s supposed to be.
Even though the (non)meta-of-the-week was supposed to be an acquaintance of Iris’ who worked at Central City Picture News we’ve never, ever seen her before. Imagine the emotional impact if they had shown her and Iris interacting while they had both been working at CCPN. The writers don’t think that far ahead, unfortunately.
I spoke too soon when I said showing Papa Joe standing meant that he was making progress.
I thought it was just a leg injury. That he would work through a back injury (including a an action scene with Cicada) shows how much of a trooper he is.
“I’m mad at you for a thing that you haven’t done yet for reasons that I know nothing about but have decided your motives were bad!!!”
It makes slightly more sense (but not a lot more) than being mad at something someone does to you in a dream. And she is acting like a 12-year-old.
Just got around to watching this week’s episode…having to watch it on Netflix, since it’s no longer on non-streaming TV in Canada is a pain in the ass (it runs on THURSDAY…I hope they make some sort of arrangement for the crossover - Arrow and Supergirl are on regular cable), and it took me a while to get around to watching it.
I still don’t like Sherloque, but his actually acknowledging Ralph helped (it was predictable, but I almost wondered if they would subvert that when it took so damn long)…his accent still grates on me.
And while I agree that Nora’s being petty, it doesn’t seem like bad writing or even an unusual immaturity for someone in her early 20s - holding a grudge like that has no age limit. (What is baffling is that literally nobody in the family thought maybe Iris’s reasons were ‘my husband died because of his powers, I don’t want my daughter to, too’? Sure, Nora not clicking on it makes sense, but Iris, Barry, Joe? People who have actually lost love ones that they’d actually been able to know (albeit not always fatally)? Come on…)
Spin is, unlike most of the metas, basically a new character. The name has been used in the comics, with obvious media connections, but powers, gender, civilian name, origin of powers…all different. But very cool, though.
Hasn’t it occurred to Nora that as a non-speedster, Iris couldn’t possibly keep her safe? To be fair, presumably she’s had her powers all her life, and if Iris had told her when she turned 18 or something, she would have forgiven her.
Also, who put that chip in Nora? Iris isn’t a surgeon, so I’m guessing Cisco (or another scientist) built the chip and Caitlin did the surgery. Yet Nora isn’t angry at them.
Finally: Who told Nora? Wally? Or was it a villain? Grodd is a telepath… And how did Nora get that chip out? Again, was it a villain?
Interesting episode. Fun variation on the old mind control villain.
They’ve done his the past couple seasons. Cutting out each actor for a couple episodes to reduce the budget.
So far, i’m liking this season more than the last, but I’m growing tired of the “Flash has to deal with a new speedster rushing into situations” plots. He already did that with Wally.
I would assume the chips are the evolution of the power-dampening cuffs Team Flash uses in capturing metacriminals. Probably standard use for controlling imprisoned, or at least, repeat-offender metas.
Possibly even used routinely for metas like Plastique or Piper whose powers are always on, or uncontrollable, and a danger to themselves and/or others.
So, off the rack tech, most likely…but Caitlin is probably the only person she could turn to to implant it - both having the medical expertise and knowledge of Barry’s identity, since ‘Nora might have her father’s powers’ would kind of give it away (assuming they managed to keep it secret after his death…that’s always an open question with superhero deaths).
One thing keeps bugging me about this season (only one thing?):
As Sherloque has told us multiple times, he’s famous for having caught Cicada something like 27 times across the multiverse. And Nora has told us that Cicada is incredibly dangerous, because she comes from the future and knows these things.
So why hasn’t Team Flash sat the two of them down and had them do a data dump on everything they each know about Cicada? It’s already been established, of course, that this Cicada isn’t the usual Cicada- this one has a different secret identity- but does the “normal” Cicada have the same powers as this one? Or is he Cicada in name only?
Yeah, it doesn’t really make sense. The weird “cicada” noise is because our guy has a lung problem, but there’s no indication that the original Cicada had the same problem.
Another thought. Now that they have “meta” tech, the character of Golden Glider, who in the comics could fly on high tech ice skates, could fly on TV. They might even bring her back–Cisco liked her, and he’s unattached right now.
Note that the Cicada that is so scary to Nora (the one they never caught and is memorialized in the Flash museum) isn’t the Cicada that is currently a menace - the one that Sherloque caught is the one that was in the museum (Nora changed things). I guess in the original history, the other guy found the lightning bolt meta-tech and became Cicada (surely the lightning bolt thingie that Cicada uses is “meta-tech”) while in this history the guy with breathing problems got it (or some other dark-matter accident created a shard of metal with the similar powers).
It’s going to be the height of irony if future Iris didn’t/won’t know about the chip and it was/will be future Barry that (will) put the chip inside her.