Flash, Season 3: My name is Barry Allen and I'm the dumbest man alive

[Cheesegear]

No one considered the possibility of interviewing someone from their world? Is there a shortage of smart people not called Wells?

No. Just a shortage of actors who don't look like Tom Cavanagh, and aren't named Tom Cavanagh.

It's a brilliant budgeting strategy on CW's part, since they can reuse the same actors over and over and over, ad infinitum, for an infinity number of universes. With an infinity number of universes, there are also an infinite number of suitable Wellses. But it also means that the death of a character might not mean anything, because the writers can always dip into the multi-verse and pick out a new one.

But, now that dipping into the multi-verse for new dudes has been established, you can bet that it's going to get wrecked. That's why they had to introduce 'Time Ghosts' to prevent Barry from time-travelling all the time, except that was dumb, so they rehashed the 'no time travel allowed' with the Cup Theory (that's what I'm calling it).

[Pronounceable]

Even Legends of Tomorrow is goodish this season. It's still just as (maybe even more) dumb as last season but they're managing to be entertaining. I only watched it due to hearing of a certain spoiler after having sworn off of their idiocy and was -again- shocked by how not terrible the writing was. They totally have new writers. Or a new director/producer who prevents their crap? Is this what a producer does?

Something has definitely changed over there for the better, at least for now.

e: Welp, didn't take long before they took the nosedive.

[The New Bruceski]

I donno if the writers intended Julian to be alt-universe Malfoy, but I think Felton was definitely channeling that background for his tearful little speech tonight.

[huttj509]

I donno if the writers intended Julian to be alt-universe Malfoy, but I think Felton was definitely channeling that background for his tearful little speech tonight.

Oh, but you don't have to follow the rules, do you, Golden Child?

[LaZodiac]

Finally caught up with show just call me The Turtle, the fastest slow lady in the world.

I quite like how The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow is going, for complete different ways. Legends of Tomorrow has been FANTASTIC. The Flash has bee utter nonsense in the best ways. STOP ****ING TIME TRAVELING BARRY.

[Fiery Diamond]

People keep telling me that LoT is good this season. My question: is it actually better than last season? Because last season was a freaking disaster by the end. They didn't even TRY to be consistent with their time travel rules. The "out-of-time" location was both integral to the story and incredibly stupid. And worst of all, they killed off Captain Cold, the only character I was watching the show for.

[Pronounceable]

is it actually better than last season?

Of course. It's damning with faint praise, sure, but in four episodes, they've been more fun than entire previous season combined. The lack of Hawk crap improves it by at least 37% by itself and lack of Savage is another 43% on top. It's even dumber though, they just embraced dumb fully and managing to be entertaining with it.

Ontopically, Julian seems like an irritating Eddie. He'll be a baddie, him not being a baddie would be just rehashing Eddie. It's a waste of casting if he doesn't turn out to be surprise Abra Kadabra, but I'm sure cape TV series are clinically unable to keep it in their pants and would've been trumpeting AK name everywhere if that was the case.

[huttj509]

Of course. It's damning with faint praise, sure, but in four episodes, they've been more fun than entire previous season combined. The lack of Hawk crap improves it by at least 37% by itself and lack of Savage is another 43% on top. It's even dumber though, they just embraced dumb fully and managing to be entertaining with it.

Ontopically, Julian seems like an irritating Eddie. He'll be a baddie, him not being a baddie would be just rehashing Eddie. It's a waste of casting if he doesn't turn out to be surprise Abra Kadabra, but I'm sure cape TV series are clinically unable to keep it in their pants and would've been trumpeting AK name everywhere if that was the case.

Oh gosh, I really want that to be true just for the obvious jokes.

Spoiler: Obvious joke is obvious

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Would that make him Avara Kedavara?

[LaZodiac]

People keep telling me that LoT is good this season. My question: is it actually better than last season? Because last season was a freaking disaster by the end. They didn't even TRY to be consistent with their time travel rules. The "out-of-time" location was both integral to the story and incredibly stupid. And worst of all, they killed off Captain Cold, the only character I was watching the show for.

Yeah, it's way better than last season. I considered last season to be good myself, but this season's extra good. It's just really fun and comic-booky, in a way that works. White Canary got seduced by the Queen of France and then eventually ends up in the Salem times and is responsible for the witch trials because all the girls threw themselves at her and this is hilarious to me.

Of course. It's damning with faint praise, sure, but in four episodes, they've been more fun than entire previous season combined. The lack of Hawk crap improves it by at least 37% by itself and lack of Savage is another 43% on top. It's even dumber though, they just embraced dumb fully and managing to be entertaining with it.

Ontopically, Julian seems like an irritating Eddie. He'll be a baddie, him not being a baddie would be just rehashing Eddie. It's a waste of casting if he doesn't turn out to be surprise Abra Kadabra, but I'm sure cape TV series are clinically unable to keep it in their pants and would've been trumpeting AK name everywhere if that was the case.

Oh Julian's got powers in the comics? Cool. I imagine Dr Alchemy will metamorphosize him at some point, they're just building up to it.

[huttj509]

Oh Julian's got powers in the comics? Cool. I imagine Dr Alchemy will metamorphosize him at some point, they're just building up to it.

Julian's not in the comics. The suggestion was for a reveal that could be interesting to tie the character to a villain who has not yet appeared.

[The New Bruceski]

People keep telling me that LoT is good this season. My question: is it actually better than last season? Because last season was a freaking disaster by the end. They didn't even TRY to be consistent with their time travel rules. The "out-of-time" location was both integral to the story and incredibly stupid. And worst of all, they killed off Captain Cold, the only character I was watching the show for.

They've abandoned the all-constraining full arc plot of the first season. In four episodes we've had

Spoiler

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Nazis kidnap Einstein to build a nuke.
Nazis get a supermutant serum.
"How many samurai movie tropes can we fit into an hour?" Answer: all of them
Civil War gets interrupted by a zombie outbreak

As well as the idea of "we're a bunch of screwups but at least we get things right in the end." It feels like when Gothm said "oh, THIS is the kind of show we are" and went full ham instead of trying to be multiple things.

[Hopeless]

Sorry for the interruption to this thread but Tesco is selling combined set of Season 1 & 2 of the Flash TV series as in the one this thread is supposed to be all about for £25 and they're still selling Season 1 alone for £20 so in case anyone is interested...

Otherwise please ignore!

[ryuplaneswalker]

Season 2 of Legends of Tomorrow is shaping up to be the Arrowverse answer to Guardians of the Galaxy. It has zero right to be as good as it is but holy crap it is just a fun ride with some lovely character moments.

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Ray Palmer giving up his suit, and getting Snart's cold gun is wonderful.

[Pronounceable]

Man, it's as if they're specifically trying to piss me off with the lamest "twists" imaginable. Writers are back on track. The track of LAME, with a dash of dumb. The plot is extremely lazy and bereft of inspiration or originality.

OTOH, character writing is actually mostly good. Even Iris' latest motivational speech wasn't terrible and Killer Frost's monologues were pretty cool. If only I could ignore the lame events surrounding the characters like in LoT, this might've even been a good show. Sadly, no such luck.

[Hopeless]

So...

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Savitar the God of Speed

?

[Fiery Diamond]

Spoiler: Latest episode

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So... is our Malfoy CSI actually Dr. Alchemy? That... doesn't make a lot of sense. I mean, I know people were speculating that after last week's episode due to him being absent when Alchemy was present and the fact that Alchemy and our CSI both appeared out of nowhere post-flashpoint (because I looked it up) but... a lot of his characterization no longer makes any sense if he's Dr. Alchemy. For starters, his jealousy-turned-hatred of metas. Also his sense of justice-and-goodness.

Related, can anyone tell me who Savitar, God of Speed actually is in the comics lore? I know he's a villain and that he's been called the god of speed, but that's it. Also, I couldn't quite figure out what was going on with HR when Barry mentioned Savitar's name. He acted like it was a word that meant something? But google is failing to turn up anything other than the DC character when I search for "savitar."

Also, can I say that I actually like HR? I really didn't think I would, but I guess the actor is just too good. He's been amazing in all his character incarnations: Flashback!Wells1 "Real Wells", Season1!Wells "Dr. Wells", Wells2 "Harry", and NotScientist!Wells "HR."

[Fishybugs]

Spoiler: Latest episode

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So... is our Malfoy CSI actually Dr. Alchemy? That... doesn't make a lot of sense. I mean, I know people were speculating that after last week's episode due to him being absent when Alchemy was present and the fact that Alchemy and our CSI both appeared out of nowhere post-flashpoint (because I looked it up) but... a lot of his characterization no longer makes any sense if he's Dr. Alchemy. For starters, his jealousy-turned-hatred of metas. Also his sense of justice-and-goodness.

Related, can anyone tell me who Savitar, God of Speed actually is in the comics lore? I know he's a villain and that he's been called the god of speed, but that's it. Also, I couldn't quite figure out what was going on with HR when Barry mentioned Savitar's name. He acted like it was a word that meant something? But google is failing to turn up anything other than the DC character when I search for "savitar."

There's an ancient Hindu god named Savitr who is the god of hte sun and energy...maybe that's who they based it on? Savitar the DC character has only appeared in six or seven issues of the comics, so my guess is they're breaking all new ground with him.

[Friv]

People keep telling me that LoT is good this season. My question: is it actually better than last season? Because last season was a freaking disaster by the end. They didn't even TRY to be consistent with their time travel rules. The "out-of-time" location was both integral to the story and incredibly stupid. And worst of all, they killed off Captain Cold, the only character I was watching the show for.

I think, if the only member of the cast you enjoyed was Wentworth Miller doing Captain Cold... no, you're not going to like the new season more. The writers have learned to lean hard into their great cast members, instead of trying to create an overwrought plot about accepting history, but that means leaning hard into the cast.

If, like me, you just fell in love with Caity Lotz, Dominic Purcell, and Victor Garber, the show is much improved. All the cast members are doing better (and the new guys aren't nearly as annoying as the Hawkdudes were), and the show is all kinds of ridiculous fun. It's not much more consistent with time travel rules than it was before. It's just a lot more fun. It's a lot more of the things that were good in Season One, and somewhat less of the things that were bad. But if you didn't like the things that were good in Season One, the series hasn't really changed fundamentally.

As for the most recent episode...

Spoiler

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It seems like Savitar is somehow forcing or controlling Julian into being Alchemy. When Julian hears his voice, he panics and tries to run away. I wouldn't be surprised if Alchemy turns out to be a weird fugue state that Julian doesn't really remember most of the time, aside from a subconscious resentment and distrust of metahumans stemming from his manipulation.

In particular, Julian doesn't realize that Caitlin is a meta until she throws her frost at him; he's caught totally off-guard, and wants her taken out. But Alchemy apparently knew a lot about Killer Frost and wants her to be there for whatever the season thing is about. They're directly opposing motivations, which makes sense if Julian isn't in full control of himself.

[Ping Pong Along]

Agreed about LoT. I like that this season isn't trying to be a knock off of Doctor Who the way the first season was. Not having the hawks is so incredibly nice too. I hope they get Rip back at some point. I'm assuming that was because of scheduling conflicts that we haven't seen him around.

As for Flash:

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So Julian was Alchemy. Meh. The show needs to stop doing these reveals for awhile. After the third season, it's too predictable. One of the things that I did enjoy about the season was that the big bad wasn't yet another speedster... See where I'm going with this? Then when Savitar comes out, it's just so out of nowhere. For a bit, I thought that Savitar and Alchemy were the same person.

Anyway, the rest of the episode was decent, though a little rushed. While I'm excited for the big crossover, both Flash and Supergirl feel like they had to rush the past few episodes to be ready for it. I like seeing a more complex Killer Frost than the alternate universe version we saw last season, which was just full on ham. It was really neat seeing her as an almost possessed person. Good stuff. Of course it was resolved a little too quickly, but I talked about that earlier. And now Wally is officially a speedster. It's a bit odd how they went about all of this since they could have just as easily had him get his powers the way Jesse Quick did, but I guess it's fine. The whole thing with the cocoon also felt like it should have gone through another episode.

[GAZ]

Spoiler: Alchemy

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Dr Alchemy's comic book thing was always that Albert Desmond suffered from the pop culture version of dissociative identity disorder and never had any clue that he was Alchemy and a bad guy. The way Julian was acting with that mask last week suggests that something similar is happening here. Alchemy is Julian, but Julian isn't Alchemy.

Spoiler: Flashpoint Attitudes

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Is Cisco annoying anybody else with his constant Barry hate? A drunk driver killed your a-hole brother, not your best friend. Stop hating him for no good reason. Dude had to beg his nemesis to come and kill his mom to save the entire universe. He's suffered enough and has a damn good reason for going back and screwing up everybody else even worse. Now Diggle, Sarah, and Ray want to get in on the hate too? Like Sarah hasn't been specifically trying to change time to save her sister and Ray doesn't bumble around and screw up every single episode? Get off it, people! Olly and Kara had the right idea.

Spoiler: Crossover

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Yesssss! This was awesome. Barry and Olly taking on three opponents at a time was pretty sick, as was Barry using Kara to destroy the mental domination thingy. And Wally, did you see Barry shooting lighting? Stop complaining that you're treated as lesser than Barry until you can one-shot Firestorm and the Atom at the same time.

[huttj509]

Spoiler: Crossover

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Yesssss! This was awesome. Barry and Olly taking on three opponents at a time was pretty sick, as was Barry using Kara to destroy the mental domination thingy. And Wally, did you see Barry shooting lighting? Stop complaining that you're treated as lesser than Barry until you can one-shot Firestorm and the Atom at the same time.

Spoiler: crossover

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So far, I'm really liking how they're doing the crossover. Ok, Supergirl was 30 secs at the end of the episode, which was frustrating for those of us tuning in for the start of the cross, but logistically unless the aliens spilled out from that dimension the plot woulda been rough.

The Flash part of the cross? It felt like a Flash episode. Focus was on Barry, his interactions with Ollie and Kara, and Barry got to save the day. Along with some character development for a character Flash viewers are already familiar with (at least he gained a daughter, not a different wife). Tonight? Gosh, the aliens just grabbed everyone from the Arrowverse, *I wonder!* Also, the Flash episode being, well, not self contained, but having a proper plot-arc was encouraging. It ended on a cliffhanger, but felt like a between episode cliffhanger, not a mid-episode cliffhanger, if that makes sense.

Spoiler: Crossover speculation

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It's been pointed out to me that Thursday is Legends finishing the crossover, and that the aliens attacked in the 50s, then suddenly left with no explanation. This calls for Huey Lewis and the News

[Hopeless]

So all that mess from the episode where they picked up Super girl won't play a part in resolving this crossover?

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Using Medusa to wipe out the Dominators?

[Rogar Demonblud]

That seems to be the dominant theory. I've seen it pretty much everywhere.

[khadgar567]

so before end of the season we get captain cold back probably killer frost stays same and we finish the hr saga so we can return harry the angsty and Jesse quick saga thing are finally looking good

[Pronounceable]

Of all the random dumb things I expected from the history's first ever comic crisis crossover shot in live action, Jewish alien invaders wasn't one of them. They even toted a triangle space laser thing (for bonus Illuminati).

This megacrossover is transcendentally dumb, yet also very entertaining. It's awesome.

[huttj509]

Of all the random dumb things I expected from the history's first ever comic crisis crossover shot in live action, Jewish alien invaders wasn't one of them. They even toted a triangle space laser thing (for bonus Illuminati).

This megacrossover is transcendentally dumb, yet also very entertaining. It's awesome.

I didn't so much get "Jewish" as "ancient, and the 50s wasn't the first time they interacted with Earth" vibe from the gematria bit. Hebrew gematria dates back to before ~100 CE, with records of gematria use in Assyria going to ~700 BCE. The implication being that ancient Middle Eastern peoples got the idea from in depth interactions with the aliens.

[random11]

They DO realize that gematria is a simple number to letter translation, and that it can be done in ANY language, right?

[Friv]

They DO realize that gematria is a simple number to letter translation, and that it can be done in ANY language, right?

They don't even realize that negative latitude and longitude are the western and southern hemispheres. Gematria is way outside their purview.

[The New Bruceski]

To be fair, gematria/kabbalah/et cetera show up in a lot of mysticism and ancient aliens conspiracy theories.

[huttj509]

Spoiler: Crossover best line

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"You know, she kinda looks like my cousin."

Spoiler: Crossover general

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All in all, solid crossover episodes. Better than some of the recent ones in Flash and Arrow (them having 3 eps to work with helped keep things contained and well paced).