The FLASH TV SERIES

[Punisher007]

Cecile needed to really challenged every prosecution witness:

-Question DeVoe's wife about where she was at the time of his death.
-Ask for details about her new boy toy (also the jury just buying her story wholesale, and Cecile not having any real follow-up questions, was ridiculous).
-Maybe call Dominic to the stand and question him as well.
-Ask Captain Singh if a cop has ever planted evidence before (coughRalphcough), which opens up possible reasonable doubt.
-Ask if a metahuman has ever targeted the police before (the answer is yes). With all of the weird crap in this city, the idea that a metahuman with a grudge might frame Barry isn't that hard to buy.
-Bring up the fact that Barry is a CSI and wouldn't kill someone in such and obvious incriminating way.
-Ask why, if DaVoe was so scared of Barry as to get a restraining order against him, he decided to go alone to talk to Barry at night.
-Etc.

Instead, Cecile's entire defense basically amounted to "but Barry's a nice guy." Yeah because the women who's dating his friend/surrogate father figure/father-in-law, and is pregnant with the latter's child, wouldn't totally have a conflict of interest or anything, ugh.

Seriously I know people fresh out of law school who could have shredded this case to pieces. It would almost have been more believable to have the judge break the fourth wall and go "look, we all know that he's going to be convicted. It's only halfway through the season and we need to stretch this out, so why even bother making it even remotely plausible? Only the villains get to look even moderately intelligent right now, the rest of us are just dumb, really REALLY dumb."

Also there's no way that they'd send Barry to the general population. He's a former CSI who helped send at least some of those inmates to jail in the first place, and it was a high-profile case, you're just asking for him to get killed. He'd be in a separate wing, for his own protection.

[Jim Kelly]

The one piece of evidence we saw presented was the knife and yet that's a glaring plothole, because Barry and Iris don't know where it came from. Of course, the Thinker would have covered his tracks, but there's no inidcation that anyone investigated the source of the knife--either Barry's team or the police.

And one thing I learned from watching the OJ trial is the importance of presenting a timeline for the murder. We know the police arrived immediately after Barry discovered the body. We know that minutes before Barry was at the West house in front of witnesses. There's also the fact that he got a cell phone call from the West house--from someone who later is established to have contact with Mrs. DeVoe.

How does the prosecution propose that Mr. Allen had the window of opportunity to commit the murder before the arrival of police? The timeline doesn't fit, unless everyone is a metahuman.

[KabutoRyder]

How does the prosecution propose that Mr. Allen had the window of opportunity to commit the murder before the arrival of police? The timeline doesn't fit, unless everyone is a metahuman.

Plot reasons bruh.

Sides. The Arrowverse has long since established they do not know how the legal system works or care to get it right.

[Comic Book Addict]

Plot reasons bruh.

Sides. The Arrowverse has long since established they do not know how the legal system works or care to get it right.

Exactly. I like to say that the CW shows are (often) addictingly bad. I don't watch them for the quality of the writing, I watch them because they entertain me and I get invested in the characters.

[Jim Kelly]

Just sayin' that would have been a legal defense. From what I recall of the OJ trial the prosecution created a problem for themselves by presenting a timeline that was likely wrong and the defense took advantage of that to create reasonable doubt. All Cecile had to do was create reasonable doubt. Instead, she seemed to bank on her summation speech and the character of the defendant. But she didn't even bring in any character witnesses of her own. Captain Singh was a witness for the prosecution and by Cecile using him as a character witness that only served to help the prosecution. Cecile should never play a game of chess.

I don't expect a CW show to be brilliant at this stuff, but the trial was the big selling feature and we were led to think that Cecile was going to shine in this episode. Cecile Horton was actually a better lawyer in the comic book this was based on--and the original comic book takes great liberites with the law.

[Comic Book Addict]

Just sayin' that would have been a legal defense. From what I recall of the OJ trial the prosecution created a problem for themselves by presenting a timeline that was likely wrong and the defense took advantage of that to create reasonable doubt. All Cecile had to do was create reasonable doubt. Instead, she seemed to bank on her summation speech and the character of the defendant. But she didn't even bring in any character witnesses of her own. Captain Singh was a witness for the prosecution and by Cecile using him as a character witness that only served to help the prosecution. Cecile should never play a game of chess.

I don't expect a CW show to be brilliant at this stuff, but the trial was the big selling feature and we were led to think that Cecile was going to shine in this episode. Cecile Horton was actually a better lawyer in the comic book this was based on--and the original comic book takes great liberites with the law.

You're absolutely right. It's fair to hope, if not expect, the writers to have more realistic/higher quality trials. Cecile looked useless last night, which is doubly upsetting if her comic counterpart is supposed to be a good lawyer.

[Jim Kelly]

It's not like I want to pick apart the show or that I expected Barry wouldn't go to prison. I just want enough of an effort in showing the characters as intelligent people that I can suspend my disbelief. I did say before that I really admired a lot of the writing in this episode, that's why it was so frustrating. All the good writing showed up the bad. And it didn't help having one of the best written comic book TV episodes following right after THE FLASH with the pilot for BLACK LIGHTNING.

[Comic Book Addict]

It's not like I want to pick apart the show or that I expected Barry wouldn't go to prison. I just want enough of an effort in showing the characters as intelligent people that I can suspend my disbelief. I did say before that I really admired a lot of the writing in this episode, that's why it was so frustrating. All the good writing showed up the bad. And it didn't help having one of the best written comic book TV episodes following right after THE FLASH with the pilot for BLACK LIGHTNING.

I get that frustration. The writing can be pretty good sometimes, which makes the bad stand out that much more. High praise for Black Lightning, I'll definitely have to check it out.

[Frontier]

I get that they didn't want the trial to go on as long as it did in the comics and wanted to get Barry in prison, but it would've been nice to see them draw it out a little so there could be some more actual effort put into the writing of the trial itself and more actual effort on Barry's defense.

I mean, maybe Barry knew there was no way they could've won the trial and that DeVoe would have planned for it, but there was way more Cecile could have done for the Defense then just throwing in the towel as soon as the Prosecution was done. She didn't even need Barry to testify, just bring in Team Flash or anyone Barry's helped or known as a CI who could vouch for him or throw in reasonable doubt.

And wasn't Barry constantly late or tardy even before he became The Flash? That was what Singh was always riding him on .

It was nice to see Team Flash finally realize that Barry wasn't just talking gibberish when he came out of the Speed Force. He was saying things he's said in the past and what he will say in the future.

Marlize is a wonderful dramatic actress. I would respect her loyalty and devotion to her husband if it didn't make her so gung-ho and complicit in ruining the lives of innocent people, with her seemingly feeling no guilt about at. About the only thing that seems to have bothered her is DeVoe in Brainstorm's body, and even that seems to have subsided by the end of the episode.

So is Barry being able to stop time and interact with someone during that period a new power? Is that what "Flashtime" is?

It was great to see Ralph's character growth as he talks Joe out of planting evidence, and finally acknowledging that what he did back when he was a detective was wrong. And I guess taking those pictures of Marlize and DeVoe in Dominic's body together is the most we've seen him doing any kind of detective work since his first episode.

It feels like it's been a while since Caitlin got to name a Metahuman, so it was nice to see her name Fallout.

Poor Caitlin. Having to have your co-workers badger you into your super-powered alter ego is probably not the most healthy work environment. Getting blasted into glass probably doesn't help either .

I thought Johns did a better job of utilizing Fallout in his run, or at least made us care about him more, but it was still nice to see Barry come up with the means of saving the day, especially since this might be the last time we see him in-suit for a while.

It was bad enough when DeVoe could just think of what you were going to do or what was likely going to happen before it even did, but now he can read minds? I guess we're seeing more and more why Team Flash will end up needing to use the Cerebral Inhibtor, since it seems like the only way they'll be able to stop The Thinker is by getting him to stop thinking .

That judge, OG!Human Target, and jury are going to feel so dumb once Barry is revealed to be innocent...presuming that does happen.

I can't imagine it's it's any kind of coincidence that Barry ends up in his father's old cell at Iron Heights. I mean, would Henry have even scribbled "Henry Allen was here" on his prison cell?

Oh hey, we're getting our pre-requisite once-a-season Trickster appearance! Only it's Axel instead of Jesse. I guess they couldn't get Mark Hamill back this eason.

[WontonGirl]

I thought it was fine. I thought that Cecile should had done a better job defending Barry but he was right, ALL the evidence was pointing toward him.

The only thing I could think of her doing was questioning the knife. And the timeline of Barry committing the actual murder. When and where did he find the time to leave a Christmas Party where he was and then commit the murder? Why did he leave the party?

I mean, I would had put up more of a fight for Barry BUT it was pretty much a closed case from the start. Like Scott Peterson.

[Jim Kelly]

I imagine one of the reasons Barry was tardy even before he became the Flash was that he was trying to prove his father's innocence and that took up a lot of his time. And Central City knows that Henry Allen was ultimately shown not to have committed the murder.

[Frontier]

I imagine one of the reasons Barry was tardy even before he became the Flash was that he was trying to prove his father's innocence and that took up a lot of his time. And Central City knows that Henry Allen was ultimately shown not to have committed the murder.

That, and he just generally seemed to have bad luck when it came to being on-time for anything.

[WontonGirl]

Some people are just tardy. He is one of them. It also plays into the irony of you would think the "fastest man alive" would never be late for anything.

[Kevinroc]

All that green energy, and we'll never see Green Lantern on these shows.

[Sandy Hausler]

First of all, a presecutor cannot just decide she wants to be the defense counsel in a case. It's a conflict of interest to the greatest degree. Cecille should be fired. I assume that Star Labs has money. They should have hired the best defense counsel around. It was a hard case, and, even with a good attorney, Barry might have lost, but at least there would have been a fight.

No judge would allow a criminal defendant to walk out of court. That's when he'd be most likely to run.

Also, why no request for a mistrial after the judge said that he had to be there for the sentencing? That surely sent a signal to the jury that he should be found guilty. Any lawyer would have done that.

I could go on, but what's the point.

Sandy Hausler