Spoilers The Flash - Season 5
- Thread starter dahj
- Start date
He also lamented something similar before he killed Cisco.
Unfortunately, with only the season finale left, I have to see this is by far the worst season of The Flash. It feels like such a complete muddle. Last year it just felt overly drawn out, however, this season just feels like the writers never had a clear sense of where they were going. All signs point to some level of creative overhaul happening between seasons. Sorry to see Carlos Valdes going but feel it is a positive for the series. Danielle Panabaker's leaving, if true, could have a far more negative impact. Her Dr. Snow/Killer Frost duality gives her a complexity that has been a real bonus for this series. In fact, I think a Killer Frost spin-off would have been a better move by The CW network than going with Batwoman. With The Crisis being moved up and Arrow coming to an end I am hopefully next season will be a rebirth.
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I think the thing that has disappointed me this season is either the whole thing with the writers breaking up the season into 3rds was a false report or they ended up backtracking on the whole thing. The back half of this season did exactly what the back half of last season did, which was stall until there were 3 episodes left and then cram as much into the arc you possibly can. There is no reason why the episode last week couldn't have aired like 3 weeks ago and then we have a few episodes of fall out from that. There were some episodes in the back half that we didn't need, like the Grodd/Shark episode, the Cause and Effect episode and Berry and Ralph going under cover.
I've been watching Buffy for the first time and just finished season 2 of that series. I loved how cohesive and interesting that season was, where you had individual episodes, but the arc was always moving forward and the episodes themselves were always interesting. With the Flash, there were some episodes where I'm either bored or rolling my eyes. It's such a shame too because I was really excited after that midseason finale to the point where I hated that the crossover was the week after, and when they came back, all that momentum went out the window.
Oh man I would love a Killer Frost spin-off series. I like Panabaker as an actress but she and Valdes have been pretty sidelined this season.
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I think many would disagree about a Grodd/Shark episode not being needed. The producers themselves had been trying to get it done for years. It's just going by a different definition of "need."
Well, it felt like fan service, which I guess was the point. Still, when for two seasons now it's obvious that the writers use the back half to just stall to the final month of the season, a lot of those "fan service" episodes feel very obvious.
I think it was serving the CGI team as much as the fans. This was something they really, really wanted to do, and they did an amazing job of it. So what if it didn't advance the arc? TV got by just fine for decades with every single story being a pure standalone, existing strictly for its own merits as a story. There's nothing wrong with something having value for itself rather than being just a piece of something bigger. Audiences today are too snobbish about serialization. It's not better than episodic storytelling, just more fashionable.
I wouldn't mind if they sort of cleaned house with the cast. Keep Barry,Iris,Nora and Wells. Let this Wells be the computer guy he has been in the past and also Cisco has been. Maybe even transplant the show to the future in Nora's time. Is their any reason it has to be set in 2019 or do that at the mid-season break and let that be a new arc.
Jason
Jason
I could have named any other episode from this half of the season and I probably should have. The thing is I actually liked the Shark/Grodd episode, and they did advance the arc by testing the cure. The only reason I did mention it was because it felt pretty random, dealing with Cicada one week and then all of a sudden a Gorilla and Shark come back. In terms of being snobbish about serialization, it shouldn't be too hard to keep interest up each week. How many weeks in the back half of the season did the team just stand there letting Cicada get away because it "wasn't time yet". The pacing this year, much like last year, was this season's undoing and the writers really need to work on that issue if this show wants to be good again.
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Disagree. Folks can understand why it was made but one can't say it was "needed as it really didn't do much for the overall arc of the season. Don't get me wrong, the Grodd/Shark episode was one of the more enjoyable diversions and not all of the 22 episodes has to be in service of The Arc, however, the seasons seem to be trending toward more filler than filet mignon.
Agreed (mostly). Keep Barry, Iris, Joe West, and Caitlin Snow (let her be their Dr. Wells next season). Go to smaller arcs and tighter/more mature storytelling. No speedsters other than Barry.
It isn't that they are doing filler stuff but that they still try to hard to connect the filler stuff to the main arc. Maybe Cicadia doesn't need to be in every episode causing trouble. The "Grodd/Shark" episode worked because it's a very stand alone type of episode that tv used to do more often and maybe they need to do that. If you want a arc to last all season actually do arc related stuff kind of less and save it for special episodes. Kind of the old "X-FIles" type of thing or I would even say "Stargate" or "Supernatural." Just get a better balance on arc and stand alone stories.
Jason
Jason
Well, X-Files is a bad example as it became clear long ago that Chris Carter has never had any idea where the story or mythology was going or how to bring any real closure to it. Stargate haven't watched. Supernatural, yes and no. Pre-season 10? Yes. Post-season 10? No.
As for "filler," well, I think most of us are agreeing the writing needs to be tighter - whether "on" point or "off" in terms of an arc. The most worrisome part is that The flash's problems seem to be establishing a trend and engraining themselves into the templet of the series.
I really wish the rumour this season was going to be divided into 2-3 arcs with would have happened. I just haven't felt interested in Cicada as a "big bad". This has been by far the weakest season for me with the Grodd/Shark episode being the only memorable one besides Elseworlds.
I also think they would have done well not making another Wells character this season and letting Thawne be enough for Cavanagh. Certainly would have helped Cisco/Caitlin/Ralph have more focus. I could have done without Nora as well at least the way she has been written acting much younger than her character actually is but I guess this season wouldn't work without her.
I also think they would have done well not making another Wells character this season and letting Thawne be enough for Cavanagh. Certainly would have helped Cisco/Caitlin/Ralph have more focus. I could have done without Nora as well at least the way she has been written acting much younger than her character actually is but I guess this season wouldn't work without her.
That speech he gave about how he almost saw Cisco as the son he never had right before killing him because to him he's been dead for centuries was chilling. He's just a monster who is trying to suppress his humanity. Even with Barry, he was clearly proud of him at times. It was like he was Obi-Wan and Darth Vader at the same time.
Cicada is certainly a weak villain, but since I found Season 4 to be literally unwatchable (I dropped it a few episodes in), I have to say that this season is definitely an improvement. At least most of the individual episodes are good, even if Cicada isn't particularly interesting. As opposed to last year, which had a terrible villain, terrible episodes and mostly terrible characters (and it also basically killed off one of its best characters, Season 4 would have been the worst Flash season just for the stupidity of what it did to Harry even if the other elements of the season weren't as bad as they are).
At this point, I expect The Flash to have no good big villains outside of Thawne. Its like some of the MCU movies, most of the main villains are mediocre but that doesn't mean that the overall story can't be good.
At this point, I expect The Flash to have no good big villains outside of Thawne. Its like some of the MCU movies, most of the main villains are mediocre but that doesn't mean that the overall story can't be good.
Wow, 2049 Central City doesn't look any different from 2019 CC. I guess they couldn't afford to update their digital cityscape for the big speedster fight. Great teamwork with the Thawne takedown, though.
A lot of the beats here went pretty much as we could've predicted -- Grace is cured so future Cicada is defeated, Cisco takes the cure (something he really should've told the whole team about before doing it), Sherloque goes back home to be with Renee, Thawne escapes again, and Nora is written out of the show somehow. And the date of the Crisis moves forward -- we already knew that was going to happen. I didn't anticipate what would happen to Nora, though. And I expected that they would destroy the dagger at the start of the episode and the rest would be about fighting Thawne, but I guess they had to wrap up the Cicada/Grace stuff.
I didn't predict Joe's promotion to captain either, though I can see now how they set it up last week. I guess it makes sense -- maybe after Jesse L. Martin's injury, he needs to be in a more sedentary role and spend more time behind a desk. Singh being officially in the know now is a nice touch.
I think it might've been a nice bit of symmetry if the episode had ended up with Iris finding out she was pregnant with Nora. Although I guess I'm not sure the timing works; per the original Crisis dating, if she were conceived now she'd be maybe 5 when Barry disappeared and would have some memory of him.
Aside from the Crisis tease, I think this is the least cliffhangery season finale The Flash has had. We only get a couple of slight hints about what lies ahead. It looks like Cisco made a new costume for Caitlin/KF, but we don't get to see it yet. And Ralph was looking at a file labeled "Dearbon," which apparently is the maiden name of Ralph's wife Sue in the comics. I was wondering if they'd get around to that storyline.
A lot of the beats here went pretty much as we could've predicted -- Grace is cured so future Cicada is defeated, Cisco takes the cure (something he really should've told the whole team about before doing it), Sherloque goes back home to be with Renee, Thawne escapes again, and Nora is written out of the show somehow. And the date of the Crisis moves forward -- we already knew that was going to happen. I didn't anticipate what would happen to Nora, though. And I expected that they would destroy the dagger at the start of the episode and the rest would be about fighting Thawne, but I guess they had to wrap up the Cicada/Grace stuff.
I didn't predict Joe's promotion to captain either, though I can see now how they set it up last week. I guess it makes sense -- maybe after Jesse L. Martin's injury, he needs to be in a more sedentary role and spend more time behind a desk. Singh being officially in the know now is a nice touch.
I think it might've been a nice bit of symmetry if the episode had ended up with Iris finding out she was pregnant with Nora. Although I guess I'm not sure the timing works; per the original Crisis dating, if she were conceived now she'd be maybe 5 when Barry disappeared and would have some memory of him.
Aside from the Crisis tease, I think this is the least cliffhangery season finale The Flash has had. We only get a couple of slight hints about what lies ahead. It looks like Cisco made a new costume for Caitlin/KF, but we don't get to see it yet. And Ralph was looking at a file labeled "Dearbon," which apparently is the maiden name of Ralph's wife Sue in the comics. I was wondering if they'd get around to that storyline.
I admit to not always following The Flash's timey-wimey stuff, but I had the impression the reason Nora disappeared is because she is never conceived, because history has been altered somehow so that Barry's disappearance now happens in 2019.
^The intent is presumably that Nora disappeared because she came from a future where Cicada was never caught, which is what motivated her to come back in the first place. So with Cicada caught and stopped, the new timeline's future version of Nora would never have had a reason to come back in time, and so the version we know was just a time remnant, a leftover from a now-erased timeline.
After all, narratively, it makes more sense to end Nora's story as an effect of the story arc she was a part of for the past two seasons, rather than because of an unrelated crossover gimmick that's just tacked on at the end.
After all, narratively, it makes more sense to end Nora's story as an effect of the story arc she was a part of for the past two seasons, rather than because of an unrelated crossover gimmick that's just tacked on at the end.
