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

I liked most of the season 2, but IMO the finale had too many deus ex machina type of situations, so it felt kinda rushed and definitely as good as the season 1 finale. First you had Zoom's doomsday machine, which had barely even been hinted at before this episode (the only clue was Cisco's vague visions in the pentultimate ep); how did this guy, who we know is violent psychopath who's spent most of his life in solitary confinement, even possess the scientific genius to build the machine? All his previous plans had been fairly simple and brutal (I'll kidnap someone and force the Flash to give me his speed! I'll bring all the metahumans from Earth-2 to tear shit down on Earth-1!), so this kinda superscience solution was totally out of character.

Then there was the whole time remnant thing which, sure, had been established before, but it doesn't make sense at all if you think about it a bit. So, Barry travels a couple of minutes back in time, so that there's two of him, and one Barry sacrifices himself... But if the one who died was the time traveling Barry, then once the other reaches the point where he has to time travel to create the copy, there'd be no Barry left. And if the one who died was the non-time travelling version, then the time-travelling version should disappear, because he couldn't exist anymore, just like Eobard Thawne disappared in the season 1 finale. So in any case, the end result should be that Barry died.

And the time wraiths were pretty much a deus ex machina too... Okay, they'd been established before, but the fact they were specifically after Zoom, and the reason for that, were only mentioned like 15 minutes before they took him. So it felt a bit anticlimactic.

finding a way to get john wesley shipp to play the flash again was pretty clever - i totally didn't see the jay garrick reveal coming.

I don't want to to sound condescending, but I thought the reveal was very easy to guess. We knew that the guy in the iron mask was a superhuman (since he was in one of those special cells), and obviously the writers wouldn't have given him the mask if he wasn't some familiar face, so that the unmasking would be a big twist. Throughout the season, most of the candidates who he could be were ruled out one by one, because we saw them while he was still in the cell: he couldn't be the Earth-2 version of Joe, Cisco, or Barry, nor the Earth-1 version of Hunter Zolomon. So the only real candidates left were alternate versions of Wally and Henry Allen, and when a Henry mentioned his mom's maiden name was Garrick a couple of eps before the finale, it was pretty obvious who the masked man would turn out to be.

And after it was revealed Zoom wasn't really Jay Garrick, it was reasonable to assume they'de eventually introduce the actual Jay, so it wasn't hard to guess the masked man was Jay, who was also his universe's version of Henry.

the crossover episode with supergirl was pretty fun!

― a lad of balls (bizarro gazzara), Friday, April 8, 2016 1:03 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Totally missed this and there is no mention of it in the Flash as far as I can see so had to look it up when I saw mentionon this thread.
It's in episode 18 of Supergirl an episode called World's Finest if anybody else has missed it.

& since it is him guesting in her show I guess it does make sense taht they continue purely with plots from her story rather tahn introducing the baggage from his.

There was a very brief scene in one Flash episode to indicate where the crossover was supposed to have taken place, but if you hadn't seen the Supergirl ep, you wouldn't have noticed it.

The crossover itself was okay, but also a kind of a missed opportunity. They were juggling too many balls (mostly relating to Supes' own ongoing plot) for one episode, so it didn't feel as epic as it should've... But Supergirl will move to the same network as Flash and Arrow and LoT next autumn, so there'll be more crossovers coming up.

Next season they've promised to do mega-crossover between all four DC shows! I guess Crisis on Infinite Earths is not too far in the horizon. (They already homaged Flash's sacrifice in it in the season 2 finale.)

We're catching up on Legends of Tomorrow pretty much from the beginning, and it's been pretty fun so far. I said something offhand about how I thought the dude playing Vandal Savage was really good, and my gf was like ehhh he kinda oversells it, and I said yeah but he's supposed to be like borderline bestial because in his comics incarnation he's an immortal Neanderthal, and she gives me a look like 'oh, come the fuck on'. And I'm like, 'really? that's where you draw the line?' and I remind her what show she's watching.

wentworth miller and dominic purcell's utterly shameless hamming as captain cold and heatwave is my favourite thing about that show

Sadly the last couple of episodes of LoT were a disappointment, after the series had picked up some steam after the meh beginning. There where way many too many plot twists where they basically introduced new rules for time travel while ignoring the previously established ones. The worst example is the way they defeat Savage...
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(MILDISH SPOILERS FOR THE SEASON 1 FINALE!)
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...because it makes no sense within general rules of fictional time travel, nor within the rules they'd established for this series, plus if you think about it logically, even after the heroes' "victory", there should be at least one version of Savage still at large. So basically they achieved jackshit!

I decided long ago that the only way I can enjoy any story about time travel is to ignore the rules established within the story regarding time travel because I can be assured that those rules will get chucked under a bus at some point. Time travel and internally-consistent storytelling are like oil and water, apparently.

Primer is super consistent on its time-travel rules. But also sort of boring.

I've been meaning to rewatch Primer to see if I'm able to revise my initial reaction of "uh...wat?"

Primer was mindnumbingly boring

Agreed on Primer's boringness... Everyone should watch the Spanish movie Timecrimes, it has the same basic idea as Primer, but done in a much more entertaining and visually arresting way.

But I disagree that time travel movies/shows have to be internally inconsistent... IMO the best movies in the subgenre, like Back to the Future or Timecrimes, are the ones where there consistent rules from time travel are established, and the drama comes exactly from how the characters manage to solve their problems without breaking those rules (they may bend them in creative ways, but the rules still remain).

IMO it's a sign of lazy writers if they can't be arsed to stick to the rules rather than coming up with new ones whenever they feel like it. I can sorta understand this in long-running shows like Dr. Who, because after years or decades it's understandable they want to come up with fresh ways to use their gimmick... But LoT was only one short season, and the rules were still changed maybe three or four times during that, it was just stupid!

I can never understand people who are so insistent on "rules" in genre stuff.

you hate it when a long poem tells a story.

so i'm currently way behind on season three but i just saw that upcoming episode will feature a trip to gorilla city (with keith david!) and i am 100% back on-board:

When Jesse Quick (guest star Violett Beane) informs the team that her father (Tom Cavanagh) has been abducted, Barry (Grant Gustin), Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker), Cisco (Carlos Valdes) and Julian (Tom Felton) voyage to Earth-2 on a rescue mission to save Harry from Gorilla City. As they trek through the forest, Barry and the team are immediately captured and brought to Grodd (voiced by David Sobolov). Grodd tells them he needs their help to stop Solovar (voiced by Keith David), the leader of Gorilla City, as Solovar wants to invade Earth-1.

this show is dopey but I'll watch that

yeah i'll ride the dumb-train to gorilla city no question

Earth-2 is usually a good time

unexpectedly i've been enjoying supergirl the most out of these shows recently - melissa benoist is really great at being upbeat and positive without being grating and the subplot about her sister realising she was gay was sensitively handled

i do kinda admire legends of tomorrow's second-season commitment to doing as much ridiculous time-travel shit as possible tho

Yeah, Supergirl is currently the best of these shows, especially because most of the cast is pretty good, and because they haven't yet fallen to the stupid overt melodrama a lot of these shows suffer from. Even the coming-out story was handled in a nicely low-key manner (well, low-key for a flashy superhero show), they could've milked a lot more drama out of it, but thankfully they didn't.

Flash is still okay, but it suffers from the same flaw what all these DC shows have in common, i.e. most of the time the characters are written like idiots, or like mopey teenagers. But unlike in Supergirl, only a couple of the actors (Grant Gustin and Tom Cavanagh) are really able to overcome the crappy writing, so whenever you have "dramatic" scenes involving other characters, it's cringe-inducing.

The newest Flash season is also kinda meh because they're yet again repeating the same arc as in the previous two seasons: a mysterious evil speedster appears, he's way faster and more powerful than Barry, Barry needs to up his game to defeat him. I wish they'd use a non-speedster main villain for change! Well, at least this time (unlike in the previous two seasons) they're not hinting Savitar is (gasp!) someone familiar to the heroes behind his mask... Though they did repeat that trope with his minion.

Legends of Tomorrow is kinda entertaining in its over-the-topness, but I do hate the fact that the rules of time travel change every week. Like, in one episode they hesitate to free a couple of slaves in 19th century USA, because that might cause a butterfly effect that would alter their timeline, but in the episode that preceded that they killed the Shogun of Japan ten years before he was due to die in real life, and no one even raised the issue whether that would have any consequences!

I do think stories revolving around time travel need at least some sort of consistency in what the rules of it are, because it's hard to feel anything is at stake when the rules change every episode to what's most convenient for that particular plot. The drama that comes from the heroes trying to avoid breaking the timeline/causing a paradox doesn't really work when there's no way of knowing what they can and can't do this week.

took me a while to get into this, because the first two eps felt like total cheese factor. After two episodes though, it turned out to be an entertaining thrill ride. about to wrap S1

It took me nearly a whole season to realize that Julian is Draco Malfoy

is there a DC TV universe thread or is this it?

Started watching Supergirl with my daughter and it is surprisingly great, even my wife likes it. Def the best superhero TV show (and a vast improvement over the DC films)

this is it iirc

supergirl is a lot of fun. melissa benoist is really great at playing wholesome positivity without being cloying

yeah, she is a v good lead, and I appreciate how it splits the difference pretty capably between soap opera mechanics, CSI cop show, and superhero action silliness

also, as i think I mentioned upthread, it features probably the most touching and sensitive portrayal of someone coming to terms with their sexuality i've ever seen on tv. it's got a real heart to it

supergirl and the flash are dev my favorite 2 superhero tv series, yes; and yes, they are better than the DC films by a fair margin.

hysterical evangelical nervous breakdowns on FB at the lesbian stuff in Supergirl this year were amusing to read.

well spoilidad I guess!

only fair, I am a couple of years behind

also, as i think I mentioned upthread, it features probably the most touching and sensitive portrayal of someone coming to terms with their sexuality i've ever seen on tv. it's got a real heart to it

― bitumen: the animated series (bizarro gazzara), Wednesday, July 5, 2017 12:35 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

short lived bad sitcom whitney had a storyline where the sister came out as transgender that was surprisingly nice

so according to this Marv Wolfman intro to a recent Teen Titans reprint omnibus, there's a Teen Titans live action show in development w/Warner Bros...?

finished S2 of Supergirl w/my daughter - there were tears at Mon-El/Kara resolution of course. I assume what happens in season 3 is that Mon-El goes into the future and meets the LoSH and manages to cure himself/return but only after there have been a bunch of episodes establishing a new conflict/love interest back on earth so that when he gets back it's oh noes love triangle!

also I have no idea who the evil Kryptonian orphan in the finale was, not familiar with that bit of comics lore

I think I'm done with these, the season finale cliffhangers of both Flash and Legends were undone by the end of part 2 of the first episode of the new series and ghe status quo restored.

Arrow has flashback/forward/sideways to the point where I don't care what the actual time the plot is set in is, especially since they have rehashed a plot from S3 fir the first episode and a plot from S2 for the second.

Even Supergirl hasn't been much fun thus far, it seems to be falling into the problems you get when the supporting cast is just too big.

yeah towards the end of season 2 I was like wait how many storylines/main characters are there - 8? Kara, Mon-El, James, Winn, J'onn, Maggie+Alex, Lena? that's a lot.

" I have no idea who the evil Kryptonian orphan in the finale was"

it's someone called Reign.

this season of supergirl has been pretty good, the whole show seems to have slowed down a little and taken a breath. They're spending a fair amount of time developing the character that will become Reign.

Was wondering who stuck Kadee Sackhoff with an awful 'British' accent in the most recent episode, and turns out it was her own idea., because "'Everything just sounds more evil with an accent.'". Not enjoying this season's "FUNNYbooks!" vibe as much as the first two seasons. Hope it improves.

I'm the opposite, I love all the funnybooks stuff and wish it was Monster Of The Week all the time.

It could be worse, it could be Arrow. They've just introduced Benry from L O S T as the new big villain and last week...

He broke into the secure vault where The Internet is stored and tried to destroy it by "making it overclock itself until it explodes". Felicity solved it by Typing Really Quickly while the others helped by shooting arrows and bullets into server racks.

Really.

lol I just realized that I never watched the finale from last season. I thought the cliffhanger was Iris dying and never checked for another episode.

got sidetracked midseason on all of these last time around and i dunno if i've got it in me to catch up again tbh

It's not worth it. If you want to jump back in then do and if there's something you're missing then ask here or wiki. Your life will be better for it.

I'm with aldo, the more Silver Age silliness, the better. I'll take it over grimdark Savitar plotline and Draco Malfoy any day of the week.

Their take on Ralph Dibney is . . . something, though.

The Thinker could easily be overplayed and a bit G&G but if his masterplan is to reintroduce 80s throwback bad guys like the Kilg%re and Hazard then I'm totally on board with it.

Wow this last season was horrible more or less start to finish. Elongated Man was just awful. Even Devoe wore out his welcome well before his demise.

Elongated Man was

just had my first 3 seconds ever of interest in seeing a DCU TV show

New series, hope this isn't a rerun of Devoe with a twist or something.

The daughter character is great.

The disappearing Flash they've been alluding to for several seasons, is that a reference to Crisis on Infinite Earths? (Not up on DC continuity, though I own the CoIE issues). Or something developed for the show?

Waiting for Wayne Dyer to guest-star as the giver of the Motivational Speech of the Week.

Anyone else still watching? The daughter being tangled up with (spoiler) is both tedious and befitting Barry's "everyone's redeemable" outlook. Seeing a plot reliance on "let's try this" met with failure (curing Cicada's niece, getting a black market stasis field generator - the last two weeks), with a minor portion of the season's arc being advanced. Feels like filler, when they could wrap up Cicada in at least a half-season, and move on to CoIE, which is coming either this or next year. Need more character growth to justify all the padding.

Savitar, Devoe, Cicada - picturing these seasons with writers' room index cards for the first episode ("tease the Big Bad") and last episode ("our heroes win!"), with the other 20 cards being "hammy, glowering villain beats team", "character has personal crisis", "motivational speech", "heroes beat villain" plus "advance season arc by 1/20th".

That said, liked the Goldface character and was good to see Kimberley Williams (?) (who I think of as the perky Gabrielle Anwar) in this latest ep.

I'm finally caught up with the current seasons but still several episodes behind. Flash has actually kinda taken a backseat this year for me as Legends and Supergirl step up to knock it out of the park. Legends is hella fun and funny and I cannot say enough good things about them bringing Matt Ryan's Constantine into the fold (dude is like the perfect distillation of everything I love about the character). And while Supergirl's 'aliens = immigrants' plot may be a little sledgehammer, it's also on-the-nose enough to make for some compellingly uncomfortable viewing at this particular point in time. And also, mad kudos to Berlanti & co. on adding a transgender actress to the cast.