The Flash (CW)

Yeah, that was pretty fantastic. Looking forward to flashbacks of all the goofy adventures the team’s had with good-guy-Hartley. “Man, remember that time Hartley used soundwaves to sculpt “Thawne Sucks Donkey Dongs” onto his timeship before we sent him packing? LOLOL!”

Also waiting for some crazy reveal-drop in an episode or two. “What do you mean you miss Ronnie? He’s at his mom’s on vacation? Man, remember when he almost bit it in the vortex? That was craaaazy!”

Nonetheless, good episode! Definitely looking forward to how the season winds up wrapping up.

And Scott, I’m holding out hope on the Arrow front. Haven’t gotten to tonight’s episode yet, but I will in time. I’ll polish off S4 at the very least. I’ll admit I’m a little morbidly curious about that damned grave. . .

Just caught up on the last couple of episodes. So far they’ve done nothing besides show Barry hitting a portal for the Supergirl tie-in, sadly. Still could happen, I suppose, but they’re sure taking their sweet time about it.

Too bad there hasn’t been any Piper follow-up yet. Plenty going on, I suppose, hard to fit it in. It’s nice that Jesse is back in the fold now.

Sorry to see Killer Caitlin offed. I enjoyed the back-and-forth between the two Caitlins, cheesy though it may have been.

New particle accelerator explosion in the works, Wally hanging around where he just might happen to get caught in it…has potential!

Not a bad episode. I am surprised that Barry was able to get his work done without super speed. I wish I could get my work done in the morning, but it seems to always be their when I leave.

Did this show just Infinite Crisis us. . .

Latest episode spoiler

. . . at the same time it gave us Jessie Quick and Wally West-Flash???

Goddamn I love this series!!

Yes I believe they did. The Flash has really hit its stride and become the best of the current crop of super hero series. I dont count the Netflix Marvel series because they operate under much looser restrictions than network TV, but as far as the other stuff, The Flash is boss.

Holy cow, this week’s episode was VERY good.

Better than last week’s mess?

Very much so. Very thoughtful.
They need to bottle it, and make it into an movie. DC doesn’t have to go all dark to be different from Marvel. It can be thought, which is not something that Marvel does a ton of.

I don’t recall having any major issues with any episode of The Flash (certainly none to refer to as a “mess”) so I don’t really feel qualified to answer that, but it’s the episode that Kevin Smith directed and it came together really, really well.

For those interested, Fatman on Batman (podcast) has the guy that plays Jay/Zoom on and that’s a fun conversation, and then now (I had to pause here as my run was over) he’s got the writer on for this episode, which I’m excited to hear about.

The zombie-Girder thing felt pretty weak, but holy cow was the Barry-emotional-odyssey part incredible. The bit where they’re reading that dinosaur book…more emotional impact to that scene than anything else we’ve seen this season.

Last week’s was phenomenal, but in so many ways, so was this week’s. When the worst part of the ep was the uncharacteristically terrible CG during the building rescue scene (and, let’s be fair here, it was so bad), it’s a good week. Everyone was thoroughly on-point, particularly John Wesley Shipp. . .

I’m really confused, didn’t Wally know Barry was the Flash already? I don’t specifically remember when it would’ve come up, but last week I remember thinking “oh, I guess he figured it out and I forgot” because there’s no way he wouldn’t have figured it out otherwise with all the efforts to re-power Barry, then thinking they’d lost him, then getting him back from the speed force.

Then this week Wally clearly didn’t know until the very end.

Wally would have had to have been an idiot to not see it, and the show wasn’t making nearly as much of an effort to hammer home “Wally doesn’t know” as it used to with, say, Iris or Patty, but no, there’d never officially been a reveal. That Wally was hanging around STAR Labs while they tried to repower The Flash and Barry was curiously absent when literally every single other member of his social group was around would certainly lead one to believe either he A) Knew, or B) Could figure it out, but. . .

Well, at least we don’t go into the finale with Wally being in the dark!

Out of everything thats good about The Flash, and theres plenty good, the one thing they have really mishandled is the whole secret identity thing. Every time they run into it, its like a teenage boy trying to deal with a bra strap for the first time. At this point Barry should just go all Ironman and hold a national press conference.

Regarding the collapsing building scene, yeah it wasnt the best CGI that The Flash has used but it was kind of cool seeing Barry bounce around through the parts of the falling building, even if the CGI was lackluster. As far as the death, man did they telegraph that one!
the mark of death

Once they started showing sparks between Barry’s dad and the female scientist, I knew he was doomed. They even threw in the “Im here with you for good, Barry” speech just to make it clear. Finally they had the big family dinner/get together happy moment near the end. The mark of death, indeed!

Flash Fact!

Amanda Pays also played Christina McGee in the 1990 series The Flash alongside leading man John Wesley Shipp, eventually as a love interest. Their, ah, implied interest here was a simultaneously endearing and groanworthy nod if there ever was one :-D

I don’t think I would’ve expected the death if I’d just watched the episode on my own, but a couple headlines I saw earlier mentioned “losing a team member”. So expecting someone to die,

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Barry’s dad was my guess immediately. He means a lot to the team in theory, but basically means nothing to the show. And then the speeches solidified it. Poor guy, oh well.

After we watched this week’s episode last night I put on the pilot to the old Flash to show my son.

OMG the pacing was horrible. Now I remember why I never watched that one.

Was half-expecting Zoom to tell Barry “All it takes is one bad day…”, as we’ve sort of been wandering into Killing Joke territory the last couple of weeks. Zoom seems more interested in proving to the team that they could be bad guys, too than he does in world-conquering or anything of that ilk.

Except for, you know, the main project that he’s been working on. Which, re: Cisco, is apparently destroying the whole planet.

Good fun in the finale, despite the silliness of a race around a high-tech Ferris Wheel. The Crisis on Infinite Earths callout with the red stuff in the sky tickled my inner comic nerd.

The man in the iron mask reveal was pretty cool. I’d been hoping for a speedy alternate Wally, but this was just fine.

I think I like next season’s cliffhanger, too. Lets the writers go nuts for a few episodes and throw everything on its head before whatever they do to bring it all back in line.