My name is Barry Allen and I'm the fastest man alive: THE FLASH tv show

yeah his mom was killed by the reverse-flash (not a spoiler if you know what the reverse-flash looks like), with his dad thrown in jail by the weepy-eyed detective who then raised him. so it is personal but it hasn't stopped him from being a pleasant goober boy scout.

xpost yeah i'm worried the tone could change on a dime, esp if there's a change in management.

he named his quiz team E=MC Hammer

i also love that cisco looks like he could have teleported in from any hacker show over the last twenty-five years

he also looks like he could be taylor lautner's dorky cousin

has jesse l martin always looked like he's about to cry? i never noticed that until this show. granted his character has a million to reasons to be catching feelings at any moment.

dude was a single parent to his daughter and his friend's son, said friend being put in jail for murdering his wife only it turns out the wife was murdered by someone with the same magical powers the kid now uses to risk his life constantly. meanwhile the kid really wants to fuck his daughter but can't because his daughter is fucking his partner.

I like this show a lot. It's generally been better than Arrow's season 3 so far (whose story arc for this season only really started in the 9th episode) and certainly off to a better start than Arrow's season 1.

It's fun and joyous and the supporting characters are all fantastic aside from poor Iris who really needs something to do that isn't obsessing over the Flash or being lovey dovey with Eddie. Yeah okay so bad stuff happens sometimes and Barry Allen's childhood was traumatic but it's nice that hasn't been used as a reason to make another tormented hero in the vein of Oliver Queen or Nolan's Batman. Nothing wrong with those characters, it's just refreshing to have some contrast/variation.

ahahaha "absolute hot"

"It's so hot, it's like, 'How much more hot could this be?' And the answer is, none. None more hot."

man those cops were lucky cap'n cold shot his freeze ray directly at their shields rather than their almost entirely exposed legs

gotta get the clock man to team up with 'em for the full prison break reunion.

and peter stormare's playing count vertigo over in arrow!

xp that closing shot of the last episode, with the non-reveal of whoever Wentorth Miller greeted with, "Hi, sis," my wife said "If that's Sara Tancredi I'm out."

That'd be Lisa Snart, the secret identity of The Golden Glider.

Felt unusually poorly written, between the exposition-heavy dialogue (admittedly its the mid-season premiere), cold's unexplained relish for the corniest villain speak (really needed someone to call him out) and little bits like jesse l Martin saying he's going to give iris and Barry time alone, only we pan back after the convo and see he just went to the couch directly behind them.

I'm not really looking for people to point out corn, cliche and plot holes in earlier episodes. There was still bits I dug and it pushed the plot forward, this was just the first time I was distracted by flaws.

am i the only one a little bit creeped out by barry being in love with a woman who could kinda be considered his sister? i know they're not related but they did grow up together and it feels weird to me.

I wouldn't say I'm creeped out, which is probably a credit to the actors, but their family dynamic is definitely weird as fuck.

prison break dude is terrible in this

but no one would be good with those lines tbf

they're both prison break dudes, but either way you're otm

don't recall being annoyed by cold the first time, though

he was chewing the scenery in his first appearance but he seems to be having more difficulty digesting it this time around

i was like "is everyone involved too busy high-fiving over the prison break reunion to notice how inexplicably goofy they're coming off right now?" - and as i had no beef with the girder clearly i'm not asking for that much emotional grounding

if cold had expressed a jealousy of the flash - "Everybody thinks he's so cool but i'm the most awesome guy ever" that would have explained his cartoon bad boy shtick a little, but if all he cares about is being heist-puller #1 there's no reason to be acting like poochie on every network

heat wave's hammy pyro bit at least is part of a long history of hammy pyros on tv

i think the problem is that wentworth miller just isn't a good enough actor to pull off the over-the-top moustache-twirling villainy he's aiming for (or president keyes otm in other words)

yeah if it was more fun i would have been likely to forgive its randomness too

on the bright side, goddamn i can't believe how much i enjoy tom cavanagh in this compared to everything else i've ever seen him in

he's like a used car salesman who knows it's a lemon but truly believes the world will be a better place if you buy it

yeah, he walks the line between being a gee-whiz scientist and a sinister weirdo really well.

i am worried this show will be like heroes, where it will build to such a climax this season (esp if they reveal the prof's whole deal to barry) that next season won't have the same narrative thrust. hope they can find a way to give some resolution to the reverse-flash thing without turning the prof into a straight villain. i love his balancing act too much to wanna lose it.

also torn whether i want to see grodd now now now or know that a talking gorilla is still out there...waiting

xp i think that's a legit concern. i was surprised that they got to the reverse flash reveal so quickly but now that they have i guess they'll be building towards a season finale featuring the time-crisis that's in the headlines of wells' newspaper from the future?

and presumably a fight between barry and the reverse flash which goes back through time, possibly creating the lightning which struck barry on the way to the scene of his mother's murder?

Looks like there's a means to an end thing with that reverse flash.
So I wonder if there was something worse in an alternative future that he had to retcon engineer things for.
Definitely looked like without the Flash being present in the show's current day or later in that timestream some calamity happened.
Seems really drastic that they'd have to kill Barry Allen's mum to ensure he was motivated to become The Flash though?

Not 100% sure that really is a reveal that the Prof is the Reverse Flash. Just because he knows about the suit and character doesn't necessarily mean it's him. Not least because there's a charade name already in use in the series directly related to the identity of (one of) the Reverse Flash(es) in the comics...

Barry Allen's mum dying is a big thing in recent-era Flash - him trying to prevent her death is the entire premise for how Flashpoint plays out.

I thought the Reverse Flash looked like that Chris Hardwick cop dude

yeah, it does seem like eddie thawne could well be more than just a red herring.

Also the thing in the future is Crisis On Infinite Earths - the headline in the newspaper about red skies gives it away, plus use of the word Crisis. Barry Allen died during it (although beware, retcon during Final Crisis) hence 'disappeared' in the newspaper.

Not 100% sure that really is a reveal that the Prof is the Reverse Flash

to be clear, the reveal i was referring to here was the fact that the reverse flash existed and was a threat to barry, not that he was wells. i'm not convinced he's the reverse flash either (or, if he is, someone else won't pick up the mantle or there won't be some time-travel shenanigans to make it less straightforward)

man I really don't wanna see Crisis re-done for tv

xp

xxp yeah, that's what i was alluding to when i mentioned the possibility of time-travelling barry becoming the lightning bolt which gave him his powers (from that secret origins story from way back)

I don't think they'll get as far as the Crisis, but Prof Wells will be someone from the future also who knows the importance of the Crisis and has to make sure that history pans out the way it's supposed to or the Crisis won't happen.

I think that means he's the Monitor, but I'd love to think he might be the Psycho-Pirate.

ok would be down with Psycho-Pirate haha that would be p funny

yeah to be clear i don't think the prof IS reverse-flash, by his "whole deal" i just meant barry finding out he's either in cahoots, a future dude or simply not to be trusted.

i can easily see them taking flash-centric aspects of the crisis while avoiding any monitor/earth-2 mumbo jumbo

another funky plot element that i wouldn't sweat if the episode had given me tastier stuff to chew on - is Star labs still a going concern with a staff of three?

that, like, used to have a staff of four (RIP ronnie, heaven needed a guy to drop an acronym to his fiancee and then fire-fart away)

wells is actually Jay Garrick

When they whipped that F.I.R.E.S.T.O.R.M. acronym out all I could think of was

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XnS1BncrYM

I'm guessing Vibe and Killer Frost will turn up in S2 and with the Prof Welles reveal also bye-bye S.T.A.R. Labs - although I could see Barry working with A.R.G.U.S. instead maybe?

I'd hope Atom will migrate from Arrow to Flash.

haha i was just about to say i'm hoping against hope this show isn't a "just watch season one" flame-out but a "oh i still liked the show when cisco became vibe in season five" gradual shark-jumper

(Also I've always been more of a Marvel zombie at heart, so.)

Oh, who am I kidding? I did love some DC comics here and there.

gave up on Flash several seasons ago, is he still trying to save his mother?

Hey nerds, has anyone watched the new Stargirl series?

(I didnt know where else to post abt Berlanti-verse stuff.)

I’ve watched first 2 eps & its v good so far.

Stargirl feels kind of fun, in a very inconsequential way. I suppose the telling point will be how Johnsy it gets.

I'm off the bus with all of them except Legends of Tomorrow.

I intend to watch all the arrowverse crossovers…have done Invasion and am about to finish Crisis on Earth X…there is no way that I'm going to plow through like 15 seasons of each of these shows…

1. I literally cannot remember the last mainstream, produced for mass appeal— or however you describe the contemporary equivalent to standard network fare— scripted tv show I watched…like maybe in the early 90s? It is very strange to watch something in that style, despite having evolved considerably, and yet which is suffused in DC lore…

2. and as a result of that last point, it does seem that these shows are embracing the shit that the MCU and the Snyder DC/Murderverse are embarrassed by… there are secret identities, masks…I often encounter variations of "well these characters and this universe is GROUNDED" and I don't see that at all here… but I can easily imagine someone unacquainted with DC in the 70s/80s watching these shows explicating some obscure lore or going batshit with the alternate worlds and saying "man this is too much!" if there are people who get into this shit without a a prior immersion, I suppose that's an achievement…

3. Each time the narratives touch on Oliver Queen as a rich guy or Arrow as the king tough guy, I"m thinking "you guys really wanted to do a Batman show but Warner Bros wouldn't let you, huh?" To me, GA is the crusader of the left, pointer of the finger that used to be discussed on I Love Comics. And I agree that it is super suckass that Berlanti and Co. went along with the Geoff Johns directive that Barry' mom was killed… Barry allen was a good character because he was well adjusted (that is, before the Iris murder in the early 80s)…

Animated special Beebo Saves Christmas airs tonight: https://www.avclub.com/beebo-saves-christmas-is-the-strangest-holiday-offering-1848129179

This show is so astonishingly mediocre, yet my son and I can’t stop watching (and making fun of it)

(The Flash, specifically.)

couldn't find a DCU thread but I bothered to watch the Flash movie last night. First off, I was a fan of the TV show for a few seasons until it got so repetitive I got bored with it. I was also fully aware of all the strikes against this movie: took forever to come out, Miller's psychotic behavior over the past two years, criticisms about CGI-ing in Reeve and Reeves as Superman, the fact that it was a massive bomb at the box office.

So I was surprised to like it. It's really funny and fairly light-hearted. This was something I liked about the first Shazam movie too and it's more along those lines but with a bigger budget. The CGI is fucking dire but I didn't really care. It's cool to see Keaton back even if they kill him off twice unceremoniously. I thought it was hilarious they did a CGI Nick Cage Superman with long hair. Miller is great. Excellent surprise ending. Best end credits scene of any superhero movie in recent memory. I vote this the second best DCU movie after the first Wonder Woman.

that actor came to my town and terrorized a little kid and their family. very scary.

I was a fan of the TV show for a few seasons until it got so repetitive I got bored with it

Haven't seen the movie, I'll probably watch it at some point when I can stream it for free, but this was my experience as well. We really liked the first two or three seasons and it was nice to have a show to watch with our son, but even he wanted to give up about season 4 or 5 since the arc of every season was the exact same.

yeah miller has been terrorizing hawaii, vermont, and martha's vineyard for some time and seems to have avoided any actual consequences for any of this. I suspect Miller is on loads of cocaine at all times.

He's sort of like--what if Manson had actually been a successful musician?

I'm sorry-- They are like Charles Manson