The FLASH TV SERIES

[Frontier]

So, it looks like Flash "leveled up" to be ... as fast as Quicksilver?? (I guess they thought it was finally safe to rip off Q's scene from "DoFP")

It was still nice to see Flash handle a train collision, a prison riot, and an evil super-team single-handedly! (one last parting shot at the "Supergirl" writers )

Did Flashtime predate the DoFP sequence? I guess not.

Also had Ray take some shots on the Legends and how Routh didn't leave willingly.

[KabutoRyder]

Enjoyed the episode even with some of the typical Flash issues. We spend the episode showing how much faster he has gotten but he gets tagged by Despero and when Despero goes for the killing blow he just puts up a hand and flinches instead of running away. It is what it is at this point.

I wouldn't have put Alegra in the position she was in. I spent over a decade in newsrooms as a reporter and someone of her experience would likely not get that kinda bump, but gotta have the other characters doing stuff, eh.

Enjoyed Brandon Routh and the fact it was not just a throwaway appearance for him. We got a little arc and some progression with Ray. Well worth it if we ever see him again or if this is his true swan song to the Arrowverse.

Since Despero only knew of the Flash and not that Barry is the Flash I assume it will be some kind of misunderstanding with whomever the actual evil speedster baddie is.

Kramer...ugh....

Ready for more Barry/Jefferson stuff and curious to see the interaction between Ryan and Barry since the last Batwoman he worked with was the Kate Kane one so I wonder what their dynamic will be and Ryan's reaction to more meta related stuff than she has likely dealt with to this point.

Still think this should be the final season, but I been saying that the past couple seasons so....

[Frontier]

I wouldn't have put Alegra in the position she was in. I spent over a decade in newsrooms as a reporter and someone of her experience would likely not get that kinda bump, but gotta have the other characters doing stuff, eh.

Does it count as nepotism? Although it doesn't seem like the writers understand how news media is actually run.

Kramer...ugh....

Nobody cares about Kramer, but where the heck is Joe?

[KabutoRyder]

Does it count as nepotism? Although it doesn't seem like the writers understand how news media is actually run.

See if they had the staff call her out for the nepotism like move and then made Alegra work to show she deserves it (not just some cute speech and be done with it) I'd be into that storyline more.

I just SMH at the writers having their characters so entrenched in these various systems/industries that they show less than basic understanding of how they actually work.

[Nate Grey]

Its cronyism, actually. Uglier word, sure, but, nepotism is specifically for relatives/family members, cronyism is the same concept just for people you aren't related to.

To that end...watching the scene that I guess "justified" Allegra being in that position (all the people Allegra felt should have been chosen over her bickering about what to do next) was more an indictment of them being there at all, not that Allegra would make a good supervisor/manager. But, I don't think its supposed to be that deep, they just want to give Allegra something to do rather than be backup to Flash all the time. *shrugs*

[protege]

So- the flash pulled everyone off of two trains, before they collided? How did that work, exactly? I haven't watched the flash in several years, so I don't understand Caitlin's relationship with frost. They're separated now? Guess it was too much for me to hope that Currie Grahame would be part of the Royal flush gang. Is this a new crew? And what happened to captain Singh?
I'm really hoping despero turns out to be a good guy. I really can't understand though, how despero can't see who's really behind this.

[90'sCartoonMan]

After the mess of last season, that premiere was great. I think the more the supporting cast has of their own lives outside the Flash, the better I like them and their stories. Chester had his science and technology convention, Iris and Allegra are at the Citizen, and Caitlin...well, at least she got her almond milk. I don't like Kramer either, but I do like how apprehensive Barry is around her because he has to protect his secret from someone who can use his powers.

With all the supporting players taken care of, they left the superheroing to the superheroes. Flash doing what he does best, and Ray becoming the fully realized character he might have been after Arrow if Legends hadn't turned him into a goofball. Not that I don't like him with Nora, but he actually felt like a respected scientist and superhero this time around.

Despero looks cool, and I like the visuals with his powers. He blames the Flash for the future, but if this event is going to live up to its title, maybe at some point it's going to be a guessing game of which hero actually turns bad in the future.

There were a lot of guest stars listed in the episode. Was that the Royal Flush Gang? The Citizen Reporters? Both? I'm not sure I want to see the reporters become recurring characters.

And for a deep cut, Kenny Johnston from the JLA pilot .

Sadly, I wouldn't be able to pick him up out of a line-up, so a cameo from him wouldn't do anything for me.

So we're doing the periodical "write Frost off so we can only have one version of Caitlin around" thing. Why is Frost so hung up on Chillblaine? Everyone else can see he's terrible.

Are we just going to forget about Caitlin dating Hunter and Julian? It's not like she's been single the whole time Ronnie's been dead. But I guess this is indicating she'll get a romance arc this season. Hopefully it'll be better than Frost's.

I think Frost probably has the emotional maturity of an adolescent, so that's why dealing with Chillblaine is so hard for her. I was upset Caitlin didn't mention Julian, I liked him.

The Royal Flush Gang are now closer to the comics in terms of being powered Metas, and apparently they always were thanks to Crisis it seems and they existed around when Barry was in his coma. All those card puns. They were definitely a hot topic looking Royal Flush Gang, but as far as adapting the aesthetic on a TV budget, I think it was decent. Although were they supposed to be a husband and wife with their two kids? I wasn't quite sure how they were connected with each other as a group being King and Queen being a couple.

I don't think those were supposed to be their kids. But was the hacker guy supposed to be Ace?

7 Days? So about when the normal Flash episode airs. Now that I think about it, does every Flash episode take place on a Tuesday...?

"There's a new meta terrorizing Central City? It must be Tuesday".

I loved having Ray back, especially with Brandon Routh whose Superman Returns is an underrated film.
The Superman touches were nice. Especially that scene where Ray is changing into his costume, reminding you of how
Superman rips off his clothes as Clark Kent to change.

That made me smile. Although I didn't think Ray ever had to change like that to become the Atom before.

Did Flashtime predate the DoFP sequence? I guess not.

The thing that made it feel really DoFP was Flash casually walking over and changing the positions of the RFG so they'll hit each other. That became the X-Men version of Quicksilver's signature move.

So- the flash pulled everyone off of two trains, before they collided? How did that work, exactly? I haven't watched the flash in several years, so I don't understand Caitlin's relationship with frost. They're separated now? Guess it was too much for me to hope that Currie Grahame would be part of the Royal flush gang. Is this a new crew? And what happened to captain Singh?
I'm really hoping despero turns out to be a good guy. I really can't understand though, how despero can't see who's really behind this.

Flash is fast enough to vibrate everyone out in time (although he busted through the train window to save the conductor for some reason), Caitlin and Frost are separated while Frost works on her humanity, and Singh was promoted to a new position.

[signalman112]

Good start to Season 8.
Despero actually looks good.
Good seeing Atom again and doing the shrinking bit. Cool!
Interview with Routh about his return.

https://www.dccomics.com/blog/2021/1...n-on-the-flash

[Kirby101]

You are the fastest man alive, so make sure you don't run down the bad guy too fast to see, you first should stand in front of them and tell them to give themselves up. It has worked so many times before.

[tabo61]

Poor Barry's losing his mind.

[Kirby101]

What the Joe?

[AnakinFlair]

It sounds like they are painting Despero a a kind of tragic hero, which instantly makes me think he's the one messing with Barry's mind. And since Thawne will be a part of this crossover, I'm guessing Despero's parterning with Thawne to drive Barry mad, and thus paint him as a villain and destroy his legacy. And probably that Joe will be back by the end of this crossover due to time travel hijinx.

[Frontier]

Barry can never get a power boost without it coming with some kind of drawback, huh?

I was expecting Alex to appear more than just via video chat, but I guess it helps with filming around COVID and she might be suited up in the final part. Also she's trying to set Caitlin up with a guy who helped develop the Tower's software, so I'm guessing he's ex-DEO.

I guess Frost is now the de-facto member of the team whose job it is to be contrarian or go for the most efficient, if brutal, method possible to resolving issues.

Someone or something is really trying to break Barry, by framing him as a mole for Black Hole (I wasn't expecting that to come up again), shutting down STAR Labs by sabotaging their radiation security, making Barry doubt his own mind, and taking away the backbone of Barry's support system. Is Thawne messing with the timeline to screw with Barry since he can't fight him speed-to-speed anymore? It would explain a lot.

(If anyone shouldn't have a badge right now, I'd say it's Kramer, but that's just me...)

I'm glad they at least thought to cover up anything in the lab that would jeopardize The Flash's identity (although I feel like it's unspoken knowledge that The Flash works at STAR Labs) although it also came at the cost of Gideon 1.0, which is pretty significant since she's been a part of the show since season 1. I guess we have the Gideon that Barry created, so she's not completely gone, but now Barry has no peek into the future or her vast swathe of information.

So was Xotar supposed to be a gender-flipped version of an old JLA villain of the same name? She definitely had a pretty regal fashion sense for a telepathic thief.

Chester and Allegra are Saturday night D&D pals, but could it be something more...?

Chester is a pacifist? Did that come up before? Although becoming one because you made a ray gun at age 10 that ended up burning your best friends' house down because you saw a Marvin the Martian cartoon (shameless WB plug) was...something. It does differentiate him from Cisco at least.

Despero showing mercy to the being that ravaged his planet explains a lot about why he wants to save Earth and prevent what happened to his people from happening again.

Yay! Barry once again managed to stop the villain and save the day without help and by coming up with the solution himself !

I was more and more getting the sense that Joe had passed away off-screen and Barry was the only one that wasn't aware of it. To everyone else it just makes it look like he's losing it, but I assume what happened was the timeline changed to kill Joe and Barry, being a Speedster, was immune to the change in the timeline so he still thought Joe was alive. So, y'know, probably Thawne (he loves killing Barry's parents). And I'm guessing we'll get Joe back by the end of the event otherwise having him in the Opening seems kind of morbid.

Cecile really thought she had a chance against Despero? And he just put her to sleep in two seconds. Telepathy trumps an empath.

I guess "Kara and J'onn are off-world" is going to be used to explain a lot of their future absences in this universe.

Barry may be having a mental breakdown, but it's nice to see the Hall of Justice again and all the chairs despite all the recent series endings and recasting's. Y'know, speaking of recastings, I wonder if Batwoman/Ryan is going to assume Barry is out of control and try to stop him because she doesn't know or care about him like Kate did?

And when Barry needs help the most, Black Lightning answers the call and shows up. Man, it's nice to see Jefferson again and finally able to breathe away from his family. If anyone can give Barry a good pep talk, it's Jefferson .

[Anarchist]

So Xotar was a Red Herring, guess it was obvious.

I too am not 100% sold on Despero acting that selflessly, I'm just waiting for him to pull a Mysterio-reveal, Spider-Man Far From Home-style.

[The Darknight Detective]

You are the fastest man alive, so make sure you don't run down the bad guy too fast to see, you first should stand in front of them and tell them to give themselves up. It has worked so many times before.

If the writers actually wrote any of the speedsters correctly in the comics or live action, the stories would be over in a minute.