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

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

though dc's tv plan is apparently throw everything against the wall and see what sticks so if there's a long-term game plan it's coming from the showrunners not the studio

wells is actually Jay Garrick

― Οὖτις, Friday, 23 January 2015 17:20 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh god, flashbacks to the JSA episodes of smallville

they do keep mentioning a mercury labs or mercury corporation, so maybe max mercury will show up at some point

i want this show to go on long enough for the music meister to appear - jesse l martin, grant gustin...got some singers in that cast

http://io9.com/check-out-the-flash-tv-shows-new-trickster-1682545189

GRODD! <3

Ok obv we're not supposed to think about it but the human rights violations going on in the star labs basement got a little distracting when they threw the petty criminal in a four foot long box. A giant lab run by three people now includes super-Guantanamo.

The relative juiciness of the pied piper was really comforting after the hokiness of cold and heat though.

GRODD.

Wouldn't put money on it but my new theory on wells is that he's darkest timeline Barry Allen, who stayed in the past after failing to save his mom and decided to warp his own life to change the future.

yeah, the fact that the cops seem happy to look the other way while a scientist who nearly blew up the city imprisons people without trial is a little troubling, as is the fact that clean-cut gee-whiz barry allen is apparently chill about it.

how do the inmates go to the bathroom? who's feeding them? do they get access to books or anything? is there an exercise yard? it would have been a lot better to toss out a 'dr wells improvised some super-cells at iron heights!' and then we don't have the awkward impression that our hero is basically judge dredd.

Also wtf at peekaboo's boyfriend "getting away" on foot while flash kicked out the lights, how far down that tunnel could he have gotten from THE FASTEST MAN ALIVE?

"The guy who got me in this mess has abandoned me!"

"Well you should have thought about that before you hit me with that stick! Now get in that box!"

people are forever landing hits on the flash or getting away clean when he's perfectly capable of punching them into a fine paste before they even realise he's in the same room. really, all crimes in central city should be stopped seconds after they start.

Pics of Mark Hamill in Trickster gear on the set: http://morningspoilers.io9.com/the-flash-bts-mark-hamill-photos-1684078715

man between this and grodd I am a little worried about the show peaking early

like where do you go after talking gorillas and luke skywalker in those duds

i feel like there are three possibilities for the flash in tv/film

1. dc recognizes the show's potential value and incorporates gustin into their cinematic justice league plans
2. the show gets knocked down after season 2 to make room for ezra miller in everyone's hearts
3. the earth-berlanti Flash and earth-snyder Flash co-exist, maybe even meet each other in a CRISIS

so i wonder if the tv show is unabashedly burning through its obvious storylines, which will either get enough attention to force scenario 1 (at which point the quality of later seasons won't really matter) or allow them to have as much fun as possible before scenario 2 unfolds

so i guess they went with the obvious reveal

or did they

otoh

GRODD

i'm pleasantly surprised how good the effects on grodd and firestorm look (and the effects as a whole tbh)

my wife asked how general eiling was hearing the voice in his head at the end of this episode and i explained grodd is a telepathic hyper-intelligent gorilla - a phrase i relished having the opportunity to say - and she was like 'okay that might be too much even for this show'