The FLASH TV SERIES

[j9ac9k]

BTW, does anybody actually age ten years from now or is the Fountain of Youth only around in that alternate timeline?

I think ten years isn't enough of an age difference to justify bad makeup (and you know it would be) which would be distracting.

[90'sCartoonMan]

There are...two Ryans? Superman & Lois still holds the record for having three Johns, but it's kind of random they have two people named Ryan here. I wonder if they had been planning this since the days of Kate and just did "find and replace" in the scripts. It's cool that Ryan and Iris are friends, but considering she's married to a woman and thinking about adopting, it feels like she should be talking to Alex about that.

Both Barry and Thawne were pretty unsettling in this. Thawne addressing his friends by their last names...no wonder Iris was having second thoughts. Barry knows enough about his villains to act like one and convince Darhk for a little bit. I think the Reverse Flash suit looked better on Barry than the Flash suit looked on Thawne. The Reverse Flash symbol is too dark, though.

I guess since they got Darhk back, they had to give him a fight scene, but that dude has no peripheral vision. He was basically beaten by people walking up beside him and catching him unawares. Constantine reference, eh? Interesting...

So...shouldn't this be over? This part was cool and would have made for a fitting end to Armageddon (well, if they had shown us Joe on screen and made it an even bigger emotional moment), so I hope Thawne has something even bigger up his sleeve if he needs to be fought again next episode.

Damien Darhk has probably become the most fascinating character in the Arrowverse. A thoroughly reprehensible and evil man who unconditionally loves his daughter and who he has willingly sacrificed himself for on three separate occasions now. And I wish now he had started out as a Flash villain, as he would have fit into that world a lot better than Arrow.

He's what Malcolm Merlyn should have been. The problem with Merlyn was the heroes trusted him too often (not to mention Tommy). Darhk was a threat right up until he had to save Nora.

I have to admit, this was probably Thawne's most insidious plan yet. Cause a Reverse-Flashpoint, mess with Barry's mind, kill Joe, turn the people against The Flash, then become The Flash and make Barry the villain while stealing his wife, and then finally doing what basically set off the entire series by killing Barry as a baby to erase him from existence. To top it all off we have Barry in a recolored Reverse-Flash suit and Thawne in The Flash suit, complete with a new version of the intro with Thawne!Flash. Simply diabolical.

It's kind of messed up that when Barry alters time, it comes back and bites him, but when Thawne does it, it goes just as he planned. I guess Thawne needed years of experience mucking with time until he learned to do it with precision.

Does Barry have any idea who Ryan is? Because otherwise he's getting his butt kicked by some random black woman in Kate's Batsuit.

Maybe she was the Batwoman that helped them against Faust and not Kate.

Two-Face doesn't exist in the present-day of Batwoman, they only mentioned Harvey Dent and he seemed squeaky-clean, so is Ryan getting her own Two-Face?

Maybe it's Mary. I think every season of Batwoman just needs to reimagine Mary as a different Bat villain.

"The French Exit." "Returning to the scene of the crime." So Ryan Choi in this timeline is a single Casanova who is best buddies with Chester, but he's secretly extremely lonely. Good thing he'll wake up next to his wife again with Barry correcting the timeline.

I think he called himself Don Juan. He's no longer the Paragon of Humanity. In this timeline, he was the Paragon of Jerkishness.

See, you can do an Atom suit as a normal costume and not a souped-up Iron Man armor! It would be a waste to never see that suit again after it was only on screen for, like, a minute. Although it seems like Ryan only became The Atom because Ray died, so I wonder if they have any present-day plans for him.

It was more plot relevant to have Ray Palmer work on a weapons system and defense for himself (and since it was season 3 of Arrow, shrinking may've been too much), so that made sense for him. I like Ryan's version of Atom, I want to see him become a hero in present day. I wonder what reason he would give for not having armor for a costume.

But despite all of this Iris still wants to believe in Barry. That ultimately proves to be the key to everything being reversed.
That the Iris-Barry relationship is hardwired or hardcoded that can overcome everything else that can be changed.
I liked that. It makes it interesting to think about. What other relationships work that way? Lois-Clark, Bruce-Selina (maybe),
Diana-Steve (maybe). But it gets hard to think of other superhero relationships that are just unmovable.

Wally and Linda, definitely. The whole idea of the Flash's girlfriend/wife being his "lightning rod" came from the days when Wally was always disappearing into the Speed Force. He had to focus on Linda and, in doing so, she became the lightning rod that drew him back.

Dark is so OP. Like he could force choke/neck snap and kill anyone at any time and just doesn't because reasons.

He killed Laurel pretty easily.

BTW, does anybody actually age ten years from now or is the Fountain of Youth only around in that alternate timeline?

Chester's hair ages.

[AnakinFlair]

Let's not forget Rene and Merlyn's wigs .

Oh, god! I HAD forgotten Rene's!

[AnakinFlair]

The CW in general seems to be very afraid to cast older actors to portray older versions of characters.

Why waste the money when they can put some grey in a younger actor's hair?

[RobinGA]

The CW code is if they can do something on the cheap, they will.
Special effects usually isn't their strong suit.
But hiring another actor to play someone else to make it believable?
Please, that is not how we roll.

But that said this we have to all admit is an improvement over last season.
Maybe I'm just mellowing with the Flash, but they seemed to be toning down
the gobbledygook. Provided we don't have any more 5 hour wedding renewal shows,
it should all be fine.

[AnakinFlair]

The CW code is if they can do something on the cheap, they will.
Special effects usually isn't their strong suit.
But hiring another actor to play someone else to make it believable?
Please, that is not how we roll.

I have to disagree with that somewhat. The Arrowverse shows have had some incredible VFX for tv. They gave us a great battle between King Shark and Gorilla Grodd- heck, every time either of those characters were on, they looked incredible. Arrow used a lot of subtle VFX every time an arrow was fired. I always found the Waverider to be somewhat dodgy, but then I never liked the outer design of the ship. Much of the flying, and all of the power usage in Supergirl, Superman and Lois, Flash and Black Lightning has almost always looked very good. And most of the effects in Stargirl look incredible as well.

That being said, it does feel like at least Flash has been using a different effects house for the past few seasons. I forgave some of the horrible digital characters in Season 6, because I figured they diverted a lot of their FX budget to Crisis on Infinite Earths. But look at some of the other digital characters since then, like the Strength Force- oofa. Just terrible.

[Frontier]

Mika Abdalla will be playing Tinya Wazzo, AKA Phantom Girl.

Although I assume this is Phantom Girl from The Terrifics and not Legion Phantom Girl.

I have to disagree with that somewhat. The Arrowverse shows have had some incredible VFX for tv. They gave us a great battle between King Shark and Gorilla Grodd- heck, every time either of those characters were on, they looked incredible. Arrow used a lot of subtle VFX every time an arrow was fired. I always found the Waverider to be somewhat dodgy, but then I never liked the outer design of the ship. Much of the flying, and all of the power usage in Supergirl, Superman and Lois, Flash and Black Lightning has almost always looked very good. And most of the effects in Stargirl look incredible as well.

That being said, it does feel like at least Flash has been using a different effects house for the past few seasons. I forgave some of the horrible digital characters in Season 6, because I figured they diverted a lot of their FX budget to Crisis on Infinite Earths. But look at some of the other digital characters since then, like the Strength Force- oofa. Just terrible.

At least Despero looks far better than Fuerza ever did.

[Captain Craig]

At least Despero looks far better than Fuerza ever did.

True, I was impressed how real he looked vs Fuerza.
Different F/X operation I wonder or the one they use got that much better over the past year?

[tabo61]

Clever end credit scene with the photo.

[Kirby101]

Flash finally figured out that he is fast and can use that in a fight. I actually liked this arc compared to recent seasons. The fewer episodes helped a lot.

[AnakinFlair]

So when Chuck opened the case, who else was thinking Marsellus Wallace? And with the picture at the end, I couldn't help but think of The Shining.

[Kirby101]

So when Chuck opened the case, who else was thinking Marsellus Wallace? And with the picture at the end, I couldn't help but think of The Shining.

Me as well.

[Frontier]

Joe! It was nice to see his side of the one-sided conversation last season and to see Barry run all the way to the West home to give him a big hug. It was just nice to finally see him again in the flesh.

"What about me and Allegra?" "Sorry Chester, I really didn't have time for your random romance arc since I was worried about stuff that actually mattered to the plot."

Nothing more classic than Reverse-Flash causing havoc just to get The Flash's attention.

I guess we now have the exact reason Thawne grew to hate Barry. He wanted to be like The Flash, he wanted to be a hero, and when he thought he was going to get to save a bunch of people...Barry just casually time-traveled and did it in the middle of another case, stealing his hero debut. And Thawne hated him ever since.

Mia returns from the future, still looking for her brother, and apparently William's been missing for two years since the failed GA&TC pilot, and Mia's close to becoming season 1 Ollie again. Also William's not only been kidnapped but time-traveling? Does anyone have an idea where this plotline is going or is it just to keep people in the know that Mia's adventuring across time to find her brother as the Hard Time-Travelling Green Arrow?

It was nice to see the last "team-up" be Green Arrow considering how the "Brave and the Bold" precedent was set with Barry and Ollie way back in the day.

Wow, it doesn't get emphasized enough, but there's sure no love lost between Caitlin and Thawne. We got icy Caitlin Snow from season 1 back. Although without Cisco I guess Caitlin is also Thawne's main connection to the past.

Curse our heroic need to save villains from themselves even to the point of keeping them around to inevitably still try and kill us!

Joe really took it personally that Barry was willing to not bother to save his Archnemesis, who has ruined his life constantly and killed a lot of his family/friends, from a fate that Thawne himself induced. Like when was the last time Joe yelled? Like, jeez Joe, at least understand where they're coming from.

Despero was the Final Boss after all. I guess at the end of the day, Despero is still a villain. He portrays himself as a savior but in reality it's all self-serving and he'll do anything, kill anyone, to achieve what he views as the greater good. And so

Mind-controlled Green Arrow! First it was Flash in the OG!Crossover and now it's GA. Nice parallel.

CG Flash vs CG Despero: Battle of the PS1 graphics. Also, where did that lightning shield come from?

It does feel kind of full circle that Thawne gave himself speed to become The Flash, then had to give The Flash his powers to save himself from his own screw-up, and now The Flash takes said speed away from Thawne after he pulled yet another screw-up. Although we all know Thawne will inevitably get his speed back, and he hates Barry even more, but I guess it'll keep him out of the show for the foreseeable future.

Who would've expected the day to be saved by The Flash's iconic Gold Boots? The Flash suit is now truly complete, and it culminates in Flash basically Rider Kicking Despero with his new footwear.

Did Despero burn himself alive or get transported out of there? It was kind of unclear if he died or not. I guess the ambiguity might be deliberate in-case they want to bring him back.

The Supergirl cast isn't the only cast that can dress up and party. Although I only just realized now that, other than Joe, there are only two guys on Team Flash right now.

How many times is Nora Darhk going have to see her dad die, let alone die for her sake? At least Darhk got to go out getting the Best Dad seal of approval from the other Arrowverse Best Dad, Joe. Were Nora and Darhk in purgatory/limbo before switching places?

So it seems Bart and Nora are going to be time-travelling to Barry's origin story to make sure their dad gets his powers.

[RobinGA]

I'm taking a break from grading. So not sure how coherent this will all be.

I'll echo the thoughts that the five episode arc was much more focused this year on Flash.
It worked a lot better than the rambling mess that was last season. I haven't been that impressed
with the CW special effects, but you had to be here. The climatic scene with Flash against Despero
was beautiful to watch.

The first half hour went slowly as they talked a lot about saving Reverse Flash. You knew in the end that
Barry would, because other wise there wasn't a show. But it was the Batman Begins conundrum do
you have to save the evildoer who will kill you. Batman voted no, you don't, but Barry makes a different choice.
Considering all that the Reverse Flash has put Flash through in the past, will do so in the future, there is
something to be said to letting him fade away.

It was great to see Joe again. You knew it had to be Joe who would do the you have to save him speech. I said
to my wife as we were watching just before it happened, "Dad wants a word." It was totally within character, but
ultimately you could see that happening. The whole we can save him because he will just go prison isn't believable.
Because you know ultimately that the Reverse Flash is coming back, because well he is the Lex Luthor of the Flash universe.
It becomes the believable plot device that you know isn't true.

That triggered the ultimate fight with Despero. It proved relatively simple to defeat Despero, but had to be acted out. I thought
it worked fine, although the whole will the new Green Arrow do Despero's dirty work wasn't convincing. I mean how many times
have we seen the hero mind controlled, then at the last minute fights it off. I mean we just saw that last year with Superman and Lois.

But it all ended nicely, Joe even had a nice the Dad's of two worlds moment (yes, I know that was lame) with his counterpart. You had to
feel bad for Nora, even if well we have seen it before. Then well all that was left was the teaser for next year. God, the kids are coming back?
Maybe it won't be as bad as last year. No more singing is all I have to say.

[j9ac9k]

Damn, Joe gives a good impassioned speech. I was all on board letting Thawne die, but I liked his cop perspective - it's not in his job description to decide who deserves saving, so it definitely shouldn't be in a hero's one either. You go, Joe!