[TV] The Flash!

[grandpab]

I thought the finale was pretty good. I'm not sure the journey to get there was worth it though.

[Immitis]

if i had to rank the shows from strongest to weakest this season id say

legends
arrow
supergirl
flash

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i think flash needs a back to basics like arrow had this season. maybe bring reverse flash back, or like i said bring on cobalt as eddie, someone weve seen before so there doesnt need as much buildup to who the fuck they are. have kid flash kick some fucking booty and when barry comes back have him be stronger than before maybe a little wiser but please no emo barry

[Mehrunes]

Savitar would've known that Barry was about to do it and he would've stopped himself

Ehh, there was some delay before he learned new information. Besides, have Cisco open a breach to random universe and random world and run it. Better yet, have him open a breach to outer space. Can't see Savitar running in a vacuum. Bam, Barry suffocates to death before Savitar can even reach them and even once he reaches Cisco, what's he gonna do? Run after Barry to space and then what? Even if his suit allows him to breathe there and survive in general, he's just going to flail around.

The original time loop is simple, a remnant becomes Savitar, travels back in time to kill Iris and thus the remnants are formed to kill Savitar and one becomes him.

Simple, yet moronically paradoxical. Without Savitar there's no need to create the time remnants that fight Savitar. Without creating time remnants to fight Savitar, there is no Savitar. And so on.

The loop has been broken though, possibly since Flashpoint, but at the least since Barry went forward in time. In the original loop, Barry and the others didn't know Savitar was a remnant. Possibly they just didn't want to admit it, but that seems off. At this point there is absolutely no reason for Barry to make a time remnant to avenge himself on Savitar. He not only knows it will fail, he knows it will create his worst enemy.

Also, this.


Overall, terrible episode. OK, ignoring what Svifnymr said about Barry having the knowledge why creating time remnants to fight Savitar is idiotic, because if the writers paid attention to that, Savitar would have disappeared already. But why wouldn't just killing Iris stabilize him? Kill Iris whenever and Barry goes on emo rage and all of Savitar's woes are solved. Because, again, evidently he's too stupid not to make the time remnant that would become Savitar once she died.

If he didn't take Barry's offer seriously in the end, why leave Cisco unsupervised and let him perform the obvious backstabbing? In his first appearance Barry said Savitar is fast enough to appear to him as normal speedsters appear to normal humans. He should be more than fast enough to speed mirage that shit and keep an eye on Cisco.

Why did no paradox blackhole appear again? Why did Speed Force go berserk without Savitar in it (let alone with a delay long enough to bury H.R.)? Because the Speed Force prison demanded a prisoner and the lack of one destibilized the Speed Force? Then how the fuck was the Speed Force not already destabilized when (pre-Flashpoint?) future Barry created it to stop Savitar in the first place? What, was there always a saved parcel of land in the Speed Force for the occasion a speedster wanted to imprison another speedster in there? Or, better yet, was there always a Speed Force prison, with its original prisoner being forced out when future Barry trapped Savitar? If so, what was the name of that prisoner? Plot convenience?

Then there's the glorious swap of H.R. and Iris, Tracy getting over the idea of helping Savitar after 2 minutes with another Wells she never met before, Wally keeping his powers with the source of his powers being erased out of existence (when few episodes Savitar losing his memory was enough to cause it)... Or, the cherry on the shit-cake, Black Flash and Savitar both managing to get hit by Killer's Frost's (also, why did Savitar even need her? Barry managed to beat Black Flash and he's a fucking snail compared to Savitar; at least as long as it's not inconvenient for the plot, of course) ice when Cisco and Gypsy avoided it just fine. Yay for plot-induced slowness, complete clusterfuck is complete.

[everydaygamer]

if i had to rank the shows from strongest to weakest this season id say

legends
arrow
supergirl
flash

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i think flash needs a back to basics like arrow had this season. maybe bring reverse flash back, or like i said bring on cobalt as eddie, someone weve seen before so there doesnt need as much buildup to who the fuck they are. have kid flash kick some fucking booty and when barry comes back have him be stronger than before maybe a little wiser but please no emo barry

Personally I say no more speedsters as the main villain for at least a season. I mean can you imagine how old Arrow would have gotten if every big bad had been an archer.

[Khime]

Simple, yet moronically paradoxical. Without Savitar there's no need to create the time remnants that fight Savitar. Without creating time remnants to fight Savitar, there is no Savitar. And so on.

It's known as a boostrap paradox or a causal loop; no need to make up new terms for a well-established time travel trope.

Overall, terrible episode. OK, ignoring what Svifnymr said about Barry having the knowledge why creating time remnants to fight Savitar is idiotic, because if the writers paid attention to that, Savitar would have disappeared already. But why wouldn't just killing Iris stabilize him? Kill Iris whenever and Barry goes on emo rage and all of Savitar's woes are solved. Because, again, evidently he's too stupid not to make the time remnant that would become Savitar once she died.

This is the same Barry who was stupid enough to create Flashpoint even after the Speed Force told him that he needed to learn to accept the death of his mother, because greater losses were in his future. This is the same Barry who, just last episode used time travel to solve a problem even after being repeatedly told by both his friends and enemies how dangeous time travel is, and how many problems it can cause. This is the same Barry who, after having seen Iris' death play out both in front of his eyes and in his memory over and over, still thought that somehow begging Savitar not to kill her would change things, even after having seem himself say the exact same things before. Emotional Barry is not Smart Barry. That Barry was still capable of creating time remnants in a moment of rage and despair to try to stop Savitar.

What changed? Well, H.R. died. Barry was confronted with the realization that it wasn't just Iris who would suffer because of his decisions. His life with Iris was preserved by H.R. giving up his life with Tracy. Maybe that was enough to finally make Barry realize that it wasn't just his future with Iris that would suffer from the choices he made.

Why not just try to kill Iris again once Savitar remembered the changes? Well, maybe he realized/felt/remembered that Barry would now never make a time remnant to stop him no matter what he did, plus he already had Plan B (Become a God) in the works, so why rely on his past self anymore? If you want things done right, do them yourself.

If he didn't take Barry's offer seriously in the end, why leave Cisco unsupervised and let him perform the obvious backstabbing? In his first appearance Barry said Savitar is fast enough to appear to him as normal speedsters appear to normal humans. He should be more than fast enough to speed mirage that shit and keep an eye on Cisco.

Savitar is that fast, yes, but without the suit, using that level of speed would destroy him; it's why the suit exists. Eobard Thawne and Barry both only ever made speed mirages in a small area; the same room, or one platform of a train station. Zoom needed to create time remnants in order to be truly in two distantly separated places at once. Savitar probably was fast enough to make speed mirages across town, but only with his suit on.

Why did no paradox blackhole appear again?

The singularity at the end of Season One was because the wormhole apparently wasn't closed in time, despite them thinking they'd done so (after all, Stein didn't start the clock the moment it opened, and they shut it down at the last second). Besides, if that were truly caused by a paradox, Ronnie blowing up inside it wouldn't be enough to "fix" time being broken.

Why did Speed Force go berserk without Savitar in it (let alone with a delay long enough to bury H.R.)? Because the Speed Force prison demanded a prisoner and the lack of one destibilized the Speed Force? Then how the fuck was the Speed Force not already destabilized when (pre-Flashpoint?) future Barry created it to stop Savitar in the first place? What, was there always a saved parcel of land in the Speed Force for the occasion a speedster wanted to imprison another speedster in there? Or, better yet, was there always a Speed Force prison, with its original prisoner being forced out when future Barry trapped Savitar? If so, what was the name of that prisoner? Plot convenience?

Savitar existed before Flashpoint; his origin just didn't involve killing Iris. Originally, his life was a causality loop, with Barry creating a time remnant to stop him only for that time remnant to become him. Tracy created the prison for Savitar, and Savitar was trapped in it for all eternity. Since the Speed Force is technically all places and all times simultaneously, the prison always existed once it was created, and it always had Savitar as a prisoner.

Flahspoint changed that, allowing Savitar to escape and then try to ensure his own creation sooner by killing Iris, which led to the series of events of this season where he eventually broke his own origin. Much like Eobard Thawne trying to create Flash early led to Eobard never existing.

And we knew from Jay and Savitar that someone needed to be in the prison, but that doesn't mean that the destability caused by the prison being empty would immediately explode into a Red Skies over Central City event; maybe it needed time to build up, like a tropical depression becoming a hurricane. Maybe if Star Labs hadn't been wrecked the would've gotten an alert of some kind of energy buildup in progress, but since they didn't have that at their disposal they only detected the instability when it was visible to the naked eye of everyone.

Then there's the glorious swap of H.R. and Iris, Tracy getting over the idea of helping Savitar after 2 minutes with another Wells she never met before,

Technically, we never saw Tracy get over anything or agree to help anybody. Harry tried to convince her to stay, she seems to be wavering, then we cut to Savitar saying why both he and Barry existing wouldn't work ("how do we explain me at the wedding?"), which him eventually zooming off to bring Cisco and Caitlin back but actually leaving the Philosopher's Stone to explore. We then see everyone left in the building (including Harry and Tracy) rush into the cortex in response to the alarm. Now Tracy would stay to help stop Savitar, easy.

Wally keeping his powers with the source of his powers being erased out of existence (when few episodes Savitar losing his memory was enough to cause it)...

Yeah, that makes no fucking sense, and isn't even consistent with their previously established plot points. Can't explain away that one.

Or, the cherry on the shit-cake, Black Flash and Savitar both managing to get hit by Killer's Frost's (also, why did Savitar even need her? Barry managed to beat Black Flash and he's a fucking snail compared to Savitar; at least as long as it's not inconvenient for the plot, of course) ice when Cisco and Gypsy avoided it just fine. Yay for plot-induced slowness, complete clusterfuck is complete.

Plot-induced slowness is a hallmark of this show. During season one, we saw Barry manage to have reflexes fast enough to dodge a bullet he neither saw nor heard being fired while it was in the process of penetrating his skin. I'm guessing the show writers included that as a Moment of Awesome for the Flash, since it was only the 12th episode and they were still exploring the limits of his powers, but later realized "Oh fuck, if we have Barry's reflexes actually be that fast, nothing can ever hit him," so since then it seems like the writers are pretending his reflexes actually aren't that fast. Otherwise, nothing would ever hit any speedster as fast or faster than Barry. Eobard wouldn't have been hit by Oliver's nanite-filled arrow. Zoom wouldn't have been hit by Cisco's anti-speed dart. The Rival wouldn't have been shot by Flashpoint-Joe. Savitar wouldn't have been shot by Iris. At least with cold powers, it's been well established that cold is the antithesis of motion/speed, so the "cold front" in front of an incoming cold blast could be handwaved away as being able to slow a speedster's reflexes, but still, if Barry's reflexes were really as fast as they were shown in the Peek a Boo episode, nothing short of an energy weapon could ever touch him. It would break the show.

And technically, Barry never defeated Black Flash; he defeated Zoom. We've no idea how much enhancement Zolomon received when the Speed Force turned him into its avatar of the death of speedsters. Caitlin was insurance.

[Gemini Soul]

And technically, Barry never defeated Black Flash; he defeated Zoom. We've no idea how much enhancement Zolomon received when the Speed Force turned him into it's avatar of the death of speedsters. Caitlin was insurance.

Be kinda cool if Barry took over as Black Flash for a few episodes.

[Svifnymr]

Simple, yet moronically paradoxical. Without Savitar there's no need to create the time remnants that fight Savitar. Without creating time remnants to fight Savitar, there is no Savitar. And so on.

That's why it's a time loop rather than a paradox. You have to send the guy back to save Sarah Connor because he's your father and if you dont' send him back to conceive you there won't be any you to send him back...

Savitar exists because Savitar existed. There is no paradox. Paradox is Savitar existing after Barry learned who he was/ how he was created. At that point you break the loop and create a paradox.

Overall, terrible episode. OK, ignoring what Svifnymr said about Barry having the knowledge why creating time remnants to fight Savitar is idiotic, because if the writers paid attention to that, Savitar would have disappeared already. But why wouldn't just killing Iris stabilize him? Kill Iris whenever and Barry goes on emo rage and all of Savitar's woes are solved. Because, again, evidently he's too stupid not to make the time remnant that would become Savitar once she died.

The Paradox backlash had already occured when the future was broken, so killing her after wouldn't matter. I'd still have done it anyway, if I were an evil psycho speed god, but that's me.

Why did no paradox blackhole appear again?

I think that was explained as a blackhole caused by the energy of the whateverisms, rather than paradox.

Why did Speed Force go berserk without Savitar in it (let alone with a delay long enough to bury H.R.)? Because the Speed Force prison demanded a prisoner and the lack of one destibilized the Speed Force? Then how the fuck was the Speed Force not already destabilized when (pre-Flashpoint?) future Barry created it to stop Savitar in the first place? What, was there always a saved parcel of land in the Speed Force for the occasion a speedster wanted to imprison another speedster in there? Or, better yet, was there always a Speed Force prison, with its original prisoner being forced out when future Barry trapped Savitar? If so, what was the name of that prisoner? Plot convenience?

That's another problem with breaking the time loop, there can't be a speed trap to fill if Barry never made it to trap a Savitar that never was.

BUUUUT, I think that was the point of the final scene. He's not going in the Speed Trap. The Speed Force appeared, telling him politely "you promised us you wouldn't fuck up time again, then you did, then you promised again you wouldn't, now you did again... you're on time out fucking idiot." It wasn't the Speed Force putting him in the prison, it was it removing him from reality before he could fuck things up again.

Killer's Frost's (also, why did Savitar even need her? Barry managed to beat Black Flash and he's a fucking snail compared to Savitar; at least as long as it's not inconvenient for the plot, of course) ice when Cisco and Gypsy avoided it just fine. Yay for plot-induced slowness, complete clusterfuck is complete.

No no, forget that. Explain to me, what Killer Frost gained. She helps him become a time god and he... lets her... uh, wander off? What did he promise her? (A promise not kept in 2024 as she sits in prison.) I've never been a fan of "my powers make me evil" Frost while Vibe isn't his E2 version when his powers kick in, but she could have just left, what did she gain by allying with him? I could swear they referenced her having a deal or objective.

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Yeah, that makes no fucking sense, and isn't even consistent with their previously established plot points. Can't explain away that one.

Well, in theory, lets say that the Amnesiac Savitar still existed and thus would change what he did in the future/ past meaning he's not undone yet. But a paradox because Savitar is dead wouldn't undo what he did in current time anymore than it undid what Eobard did in S1. Really the problem was Amnesiac Savitar meaning no Kid Flash, that doesn't fit at all with the barely-rules they've almost-established.

[Khime]

I've never been a fan of "my powers make me evil" Frost while Vibe isn't his E2 version when his powers kick in

I'm fine with "my powers make me evil" when it makes comic book sense. Magenta had magnetic powers. Manipulating magnetism could have an effect on the electrical impulses of your brain, actually making you have a different personality (in the comics, Magenta stopped using her powers because the act of using them made her crazy). Caitlin using her cold powers was causing measurable changes to her physiology, and she could feel her feeling and thoughts being altered as the use of those powers directly impacted her brain chemistry. Since it's comic book science, those changes were to numb her feelings and emotions, thus making her, well, cold, hence her direct "my powers make me evil" correlation.

Vibe's powers would never have made him evil; he was just scared of "power corrupts", drawing parallels with Anakin Skywalker becoming Vader, not having the Marvel example of "with great power comes great responsibility" to fall back on as a counterpoint. Plus after a year of working with Barry and seeing practically every other meta they encountered using their powers for evil, he might have started to feel like only a select few would use those powers for good. Seeing Reverb gave weight to his pre-existing idea that his powers could make him evil, but Reverb was probably evil beforehand.

[ravenmoon]

I think the Season 4 synopsis was less "misdirection" and more "outright lie." But we'll see in October, I suppose.

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It was an entire scene with Barry (disguised as Lyla) and Captain Cold trying to get past A.R.G.U.S. security, with the face-swapping tech allowing Barry-as-Lyla to even pass a retinal scan.

yeh i missed it and didn't connect it.

Flash is still the best of all the CW comic shows, and not disappointed by this season's ending at all, its the best yet.

[Svifnymr]

I'm fine with "my powers make me evil" when it makes comic book sense.

Oh you did not just say "Comic Book Sense"!!!!! :-p

Caitlin using her cold powers was causing measurable changes to her physiology, and she could feel her feeling and thoughts being altered as the use of those powers directly impacted her brain chemistry. Since it's comic book science, those changes were to numb her feelings and emotions, thus making her, well, cold, hence her direct "my powers make me evil" correlation.

I did not read DC comics, but looking stuff up after it happens in Flarrow. I liked the idea of Killer Frost needing to drain warmth. Sure there are other versions, but this version that needed to seek ways to live with a condition, like Mr Freeze or something like that, and doing bad things because of it.

TV Killer Frost just makes cold. Sure she's a metahuman and it changes her metabolism.

Vibe's powers would never have made him evil; he was just scared of "power corrupts", drawing parallels with Anakin Skywalker becoming Vader, not having the Marvel example of "with great power comes great responsibility" to fall back on as a counterpoint. Plus after a year of working with Barry and seeing practically every other meta they encountered using their powers for evil, he might have started to feel like only a select few would use those powers for good. Seeing Reverb gave weight to his pre-existing idea that his powers could make him evil, but Reverb was probably evil beforehand.

We have no evidence of Reverb or Deathstorm being evil due to powers or not, we don't know why they were evil but other Earth 2 folks were not.

The idea that Caitlin becomes Killer Frost because of her powers is solely due to a unique circumstance set up just for her with no basis in other similar metas/individuals btween E1 and E2. It's not a pattern in the show, but they act like it IS one, so it's very irritating to me. They don't really even explain why this Killer Frost is super-healer while E2 didn't seem to, and how they knew such a thing ahead of time when Vibe certainly doesn't seem to have anything similar.

Don't get me wrong, I understand that TV Killer Frost from Earth1 is given evil tendencies due to blargity blargness, but it still bugs me and doesn't meet my level of justification for a good storyline.

[Mehrunes]

And technically, Barry never defeated Black Flash; he defeated Zoom. We've no idea how much enhancement Zolomon received when the Speed Force turned him into its avatar of the death of speedsters. Caitlin was insurance.

Gotta get over the rest tomorrow, but Barry defeated Black Flash in the Speed Force when he went there to free Wally. Not get rid of him for good beat him obviously, but enough for him to no longer be a problem throughout the rest of the episode.

[Kalcheus]

How did future flash know about DeVoe if he fell apart right after Iris died? Or is it because he's a reminant and DeVoe appeared shortly after Iris died and THEN the remainder of the team had to stop him. And that leads me the question even if he knew about DeVoe, what AFTER that initially caused them to fall apart if this happens AFTER iris was supposed to die?

The remnants don't happen til after Iris dies; they happen in future fights against Savitar. Savitar must've taken a break for a little while when DeVoe was around (it took them some years to trap Savitar).

[Svifnymr]

The remnant-barry also hung around long enough to be ostracized and made to feel bad, before deciding to become Savitar.

[Jetstream]

Honestly, I've never been terribly fond of how they characterized Killer Frost in this show. In the comics, Killer Frost is unhinged because she has to kill people to keep herself alive. She absorbs body heat, otherwise she'll die.

That's why she's obsessed with Firestorm, because he can basically act as a battery for her without ever running out.

So yeah. She's a murderer by necessity and that made her crazy. But in this show? Cold powers, mind goes! Because raisins! :P

[Khime]

Gotta get over the rest tomorrow, but Barry defeated Black Flash in the Speed Force when he went there to free Wally. Not get rid of him for good beat him obviously, but enough for him to no longer be a problem throughout the rest of the episode.

Ah, I'd actually written a response, then MMO-C ate it, so I had to re-do it from scratch and forgot to address that point in the rewrite. I really didn't count that as an actual fight with Black Flash.

Basically, he encountered something looking like Black Flash in the Speed Force, but he also encountered Eddie, Ronnie, and Snart too, so whether it was the actual Black Flash or just a Speed Force representation of him is questionable (though it could be argued that, when it comes to Black Flash, they're the same thing). The whole scenario was set up by the Speed Force as a lesson, and his fight with the Black Flash avatar mostly consisted of him doing a few throws and punches, running away, and then being caught and almost "killed" until eventually he had to give up his easy escape route (contained in his chest emblem) in order to survive. That seemed more like a metaphor within the lesson than an actual defeat of Black Flash in my eyes; I doubt the same trick would have worked in the real world.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

started watching the flash recently and i have to say i'm rather disappointed with what they did with caption cold, him killing people takes alot away from his character if you ask me.

[Khime]

The idea that Caitlin becomes Killer Frost because of her powers is solely due to a unique circumstance set up just for her with no basis in other similar metas/individuals btween E1 and E2. It's not a pattern in the show, but they act like it IS one, so it's very irritating to me.

Huh. See, I never got the impression that the characters in the show were acting like it was a pattern. Cisco was scared of his powers because they came from Reverse Flash's actions, and Caitlin was scared of her powers because they actually were changing her. The only person I ever saw outright say that powers were inherently evil was Wild Dog during the crossover, and even he recanted that position. Both Firestorms were embraced as allies, as was Jessie Quick, and the only reason Wally's powers were questioned was because they came from Alchemy/Savitar. But maybe there is a larger "getting powers makes you evil" concept to the show that I just haven't picked up on.

[Immitis]

Honestly, I've never been terribly fond of how they characterized Killer Frost in this show. In the comics, Killer Frost is unhinged because she has to kill people to keep herself alive. She absorbs body heat, otherwise she'll die.

That's why she's obsessed with Firestorm, because he can basically act as a battery for her without ever running out.

So yeah. She's a murderer by necessity and that made her crazy. But in this show? Cold powers, mind goes! Because raisins! :P

same, the only thing i can think of is maybe flashpoint caitlin is bipolar or has a dissassiociative personality disorder which still feels kind of handwavy and dumb since she showed no signs of it in other episodes

[Svifnymr]

Huh. See, I never got the impression that the characters in the show were acting like it was a pattern. (Snip) But maybe there is a larger "getting powers makes you evil" concept to the show that I just haven't picked up on.

No, there isn't, that was my point. It was just Caitlin. There was no basis for it, they didn't scan her and see her brain chemistry was wrong or anything. Before Flashpoint there was that fear, after Flashpoint as she began manifesting power, there was fear again.
"If I get powers I become Killer Frost!"
"Why? No one else that has powers on Earth1 with an evil Earth2 doppelganger became evil?"
"I'll be eeeevvvvillll!"
"But you're a doctor, can't you express the reasons better than that?"
"Eeeeevvvviiillllllll!!!"
"Do you just want the white hair or something?"

[Morally Grey Storm]

Despite the show going arrow-levels of retard scenario and logic -wise more often with time, still it has its moments.
Slivers of something awesome, of actual, well, actor play.
This last episode I was incredibly pleased with how Grant Gustin managed to pull off that fragile, broken, cornered bitter appeal when that black actress touched his face.