The FLASH TV SERIES

[AdamFTF]

Just saw the episode.

I was impressed that they gave Jay the hard water origin. I mean, I knew they wouldn't give him the new Earth-2 origin that involves the god Mercury, but as I understood it the original origin was often seen as a little dated.

So, Cisco's thing is that he's going to get visions when he's around time travel and interdimensional stuff? [sigh] I want to see him throw some shockwaves around. And breakdance (Yeah, I know it's silly and that it was the other Vibe that did that, but for some reason I love the idea of a crimefighting B-boy). Oh well, at least we got the name drop.

Joe's ex is in town. Could this be leading us to meeting Wally?

[Star_Jammer]

Is Season 2 supposed to have as many episodes as Season 1 (what was it, 23?)?

[kalorama]

While Arrow can't seem to go past 2 episodes without the characters having an argument over the ethics of killing bad guys, Flash rarely brings that issue up. The way I see it Barry was raised by a cop, so it makes sense that he might have a certain mindset about that kind of thing.

He also works for the police himself. On the flip side his father, who he seems to worship, was a doctor. (Do we know what his mom did?)

[Jim Kelly]

I was impressed that they gave Jay the hard water origin. I mean, I knew they wouldn't give him the new Earth-2 origin that involves the god Mercury, but as I understood it the original origin was often seen as a little dated.

I don't know anything about the new Earth-2 origins--ignorance is bliss--but that sounds like a dumb origin story. I wonder if the guys who re-create these origins have a vested interest--if they make enough of a change they can claim this is not the intellectual property of Gardner Fox and Harry Lampert and claim some creative co-ownership.

I always thought Jay's was one of the better origins and it has enough rough edges to be more natural. Which the older origins seemed to have--they felt like origins for regular guys. Jay goofing off and smoking a cigarette gets himself in trouble by inhaling fumes from an experimental hard water. It's rather precocious as very few people in 1939 knew anything about hard water and its uses in nuclear radiation experiments. And the origin is vague enough that it suggests some unusual effect without getting into details that could easily trip up the writer with real science. In other words an origin that doesn't become dated and still stands up.

Compare that with Barry Allen's origin in the comics. Now that's one whopper of an origin story. A lightning bolt just happens to splash him with random chemicals that somehow grants him super-speed? I love the character--but you need to grit your teeth and contain your skepticism with that one.

While Arrow can't seem to go past 2 episodes without the characters having an argument over the ethics of killing bad guys, Flash rarely brings that issue up. The way I see it Barry was raised by a cop, so it makes sense that he might have a certain mindset about that kind of thing.

I'm not sure what this means. Joe isn't a dirty cop--he's by the book. From all the cop shows I've seen, shooting a perp on the job is the last thing a cop wants to do. You have to ride a desk while the internal investigation is dragging on. They send you to see a psychiatrist--which could last from 6 months to five years, depending on the cop show. It goes on your permanent record and could hurt your career or could prevent you from retiring with a full pension. Often you're prosecuted by the D.A. you slept with and she's out to get you--so your forenisc buddies have to do a thorough job to clear your name. And you still end up demoted in rank. Then the dead perp's brother or sister comes gunning for you and you have to go through a civil hearing for damages. And there's paper work. If there's one thing cops on cop shows hate, it's the paper work.

[Frontier]

And, if I recall correctly, Joe was the one who pushed for a way to contain them (The Pipeline) or at least supportive of one because they couldn't just kill all of them off. He even harped on The Arrow because he was wanted for murdering criminals, and didn't understand why Barry would support someone like that.

I wonder if we'll ever see what the Metahuman cells in Iron Heights are like? Might reveal whether Atom-Smasher or Sand Demon are still alive.

I'm a little disappointed that Jay only had one year over Barry. I was expecting there'd be wider gap in experience between the two.

[daisetsu100]

Jay Garrick, wow. he was so cool (even w/o speed) that it bums me to know having a Justice Society series or spinoff is but a dream.

[OzBat!]

It was a flash forward to the future a woman was giving kids a tour of star labs and bosting about the advances it has made including robotics but the tour was interupted by the man who saved central city...Harrison Wells

I don't think it WAS a flash forward. I haven't posted on CBR in ages, but I was posting on Jonah's facebook thread for the CBR article no the episode. Wait up, I'll cut'n'paste my facebook deliberations:

Actually, if I'm right, they've not only done the homage to a classic silver age scene, but they've set up a post-crisis homage of spectacular scope.

I was replying to Jonah Weiland's facebook post on this article when I had a small brainstorm concerning Jay and the closing dramatic reveal. Let's try some spoiler space (don't click 'more' if you haven't seen the show yet!):

Okay. Last scene. What I presume is Earth-2. We've got Art Deco buildings, monorail, old-fashioned clothing style, speech mannerisms and sensibilities. We've also got modern technology (sliding doors, combo ear/microphone headsets etc), giving a very clever, disjointed feel to the whole scene. And who walks in to STAR Labs and gets introduced as the "Saviour of Central City" but... Harrison Wells.

I have no idea if this is the Earth-2 Wells, or "our" Wells having escaped his fate via the wormhole. It's a damn fine hook for the ongoing series and the reveal of the multiverse, and I'm looking forward to where it goes.

I'm more concerned with the evidence of the city itself, and Jay's comments earlier in the episode. He's wearing a helmet that belonged to his father and saw active use in 'The War of the Americas'. That would appear to place Jay's origin back around WWII as it was originally in the comics. He's also stated he's only been in action as the Earth-2 Flash for around two years, so in practical terms he's only got a year on Barry in experience. How is this so?

The "Flash of Two Worlds" homage from the article below refers to the classic Flash comic cover where both Barry and Jay run to save the same construction worker from a falling steel beam, separated by a brick wall representing the barrier between their separate universes. This was for the story that reintroduced the original Jay Garrick Flash to a new generation, and set up the concept of the multiverse, Earth-1, Earth-2 etc in the comics that lasted for decades. Eventually DC comics decided that the concept was getting too complicated and tried to compact everything during their seminal 1985 story "Crisis on Infinite Earths" into a single storytelling universe. From there, they dedicated pages and issues and storylines and entire series to explaining how classic stories now worked, what 'really happened' inside their "post-crisis" universe. It got to the point where they couldn't stop dealing with the fallout from having had a multiverse, and they've ended up bringing it back in modified form. Several times. Shoulda known ya can't keep a good concept down! Anywho, the tv show recreated the classic cover in the show almost perfectly, complete with our two Flashes jogging around a brick partition to a police officer in the same pose as the construction worker.

Back to our closing scene. Now that I've thought about it for a little bit longer, I'm wondering if this isn't a brilliant reference to a specific post-crisis Showcase storyline where Jay Garrick and Keystone City were put into stasis and/or dropped out of time itself for decades by an assortment of Jay's villains, until discovered and saved by Barry Allen. It was basically a post-crisis retelling of the "Flash of Two Worlds" story but contained in a single universe. The idea was to explain how there could be a World War II or 'Golden Age' Flash that nobody remembered and had completely disappeared until the modern Flash broke the stasis and helped bring his counterpart and his city crashing back into the current day (see above's casual glossing over DC Comic's attempt to 'streamline' their history and continuity in efforts to remove the multiverse).

The frugal evidence thus far revealed by the closing cliffhanger of this episode suggests to me, that Jay Garrick and his version of Central City have indeed been in some form of stasis, and been there for over three quarters of a century. It appears that the man responsible for saving them may well have been Harrison Wells. In the two years since their release, E-2 Central City has had a crash course in modern technology, and Jay Garrick possibly got his powers from the same event that freed them.

And what absolutely amazes and excites me about this show is that we're getting a a city saved from stasis, IN ANOTHER UNIVERSE. The producers have doubled down on everything!! It's a tv-retelling of a post-crisis revision of a classic silver age story, returning everything to a multiverse once again!

Damn I hope I'm right!

[obatalla]

Sand demon?. Look I love the flash and enjoyed the first season but the writing so far on this second season has been underwhelming at best...rather than build on what the flashow looks like they are using thesame template for last season and just changing the roles of the same characters. ...and can we get away from d league super villian of the week?..and the dad leaving him as soon as he is released....super lame writing...

[Sandy Hausler]

About Jay Garrick. Is it only me, or was the character kind of stiff? I'm not sure whether it was the acting or the words put in his mouth, but I was not impressed -- notwithstanding his look was dead on.

Sandy Hausler

[Sandy Hausler]

I don't know anything about the new Earth-2 origins--ignorance is bliss--but that sounds like a dumb origin story. I wonder if the guys who re-create these origins have a vested interest--if they make enough of a change they can claim this is not the intellectual property of Gardner Fox and Harry Lampert and claim some creative co-ownership.

Just for the record, Fox and Lampert have no intellectual property rights in the Flash. DC Comics does. And the writers of the show similarly have no intellectual property rights in the show. The studio does. Work for hire.

Sandy Hausler

[Doctor Know]

So does Jay have his own Reverse Flash (possibly The Rival) or is he referring to Zoom?

[Sandy Hausler]

I gather Earth 2 did not have World War II (as we know it), but a War of the Americas, which Jay mentioned. Just a throwaway, but I wonder about that.

Sandy Hausler

[j9ac9k]

There's going to *have* to be a discussion at some point where Jay mentions whether or not there are other heroes on this world...

[Cyke]

About Jay Garrick. Is it only me, or was the character kind of stiff? I'm not sure whether it was the acting or the words put in his mouth, but I was not impressed -- notwithstanding his look was dead on.

Sandy Hausler

My impression, too. Likeable and pretty, but stiff, which is on par for a lot of CW casting in the first place. I mean, yes, I do expect Jay to be a little milquetoast, but he's also a bit paternal and occasionally cracks a smile, rather than looking kind of bored sometimes.

One question, though: what kind of pants does he wear for his costume? They're definitely not tights or spandex. Are they blue leatherish pants like the rest of the suit? Blue slacks? I really hope they're not blue jeans -- they'd be terrible to run in (and might explain his stiffness!).

[FishyZombie]

I don't know anything about the new Earth-2 origins--ignorance is bliss--but that sounds like a dumb origin story. I wonder if the guys who re-create these origins have a vested interest--if they make enough of a change they can claim this is not the intellectual property of Gardner Fox and Harry Lampert and claim some creative co-ownership.



I'm not sure what this means. Joe isn't a dirty cop--he's by the book. From all the cop shows I've seen, shooting a perp on the job is the last thing a cop wants to do. You have to ride a desk while the internal investigation is dragging on. They send you to see a psychiatrist--which could last from 6 months to five years, depending on the cop show. It goes on your permanent record and could hurt your career or could prevent you from retiring with a full pension. Often you're prosecuted by the D.A. you slept with and she's out to get you--so your forenisc buddies have to do a thorough job to clear your name. And you still end up demoted in rank. Then the dead perp's brother or sister comes gunning for you and you have to go through a civil hearing for damages. And there's paper work. If there's one thing cops on cop shows hate, it's the paper work.

Joe slept with the D.A? Also he totally killed Clyde and Every-man, and Barry had no problems with either of those. I'm not saying Barry will execute bad guys who have surrendered, he just doesn't have Batman's "never kill anyone under any circumstances" rule. Anyway Barry actually ended up killing Eobard Thawne with his bare hands in the comics.