Spoilers The Flash - Season 8 Discussion Thread

As long as they don’t say, “we are the Flash” anymore. That line was just pure cringe

 

One thing I forgot to mention is that I really liked all of the references to the larger Arrowverse (mostly references to Legends of Tomorrow) in this episode. Of course, it’s a crossover and it’s bound to have more references, but something that I feel has been sorely lacking from the Arrowverse shows since COIE is a greater connectivity between them. COIE was supposed to make them more connected, but instead they have felt even more disconnected from each other. I know that’s partially due to Covid, but references could still be made even if there are no crossovers. For example, Supergirl felt less like an Earth-Prime show than even S&L. How come all of the aliens just live in National City? Maybe Alex’s crossover on the Flash will give us some more connections to Supergirl.

 

OK, I was starting to wonder if he lost them somehow and I just forgot.
I'm actually fine with Alegra sticking to just the reporter stuff with Iris, I'm just surprised we haven't seen her get more involved in the superhero side of things.
It just dawned on me that with Cisco, Ralph, and Barry & Iris's kids gone, we're down to just The Flash and Frost as the only characters who actually fight the bad guys on a regular basis. I actually like having more characters get in on the action, so I wouldn't mind getting at least one or two more characters who actually fight the bad guys.

 

In the comics, Chester is a billionaire who deposits nuclear waste into an empty pocket dimension for the government.

Also obese.

Impossibly inhumanly Obese.

I have a face in my head, maybe from Glee of a portly.. Nope its AP Bio.

Eddie Leavy

Who is not Obese.

Comics Chester, his powers create girth and density, since he is by definition a singularity.

He's a big chunk of man.

wait...

There's a big black guy, former foot ball player, on Bull called Chunk.

Chunk Palmer

Chester Palmer.

Although if Chester P Runk is Chunk, then Chester Palmer should be Charmer.

 

Maybe Cat Grant or Andrea Rojas will buy up the company.

 

Really? I don't see those since I have to watch CW shows on their website. I guessed it was/will be Thawne pretending to be Flash.

This was fun, which I couldn't say so much last season. I didn't realize how much I've missed Ray! But I felt a little sad for him too. He seemed lonely. Yes, he's happily married, but he's also cut off from his friends. It was good to see him trying to figure out where to go in his life now, but I would've liked to see him passing the Atom torch too. Still might happen.

I loved Iris "looking at the time" then her muttered "not watch, bracelet." I think she ad-libbed that. Those little humorous bits up my enjoyment a ton, and there were lots of them.

Chester still has *a lot* of self-esteem issues. I hope we see him doing better with that this year. And I hope hiis new hairstyle doesn't last.

Allegra did nicely with her issue - I liked her calmly expressing her own understanding of what Iris wants instead of trying to bully the reporters or do the stereotypical Strong Woman Boss thing. This was more in character and showed what Iris sees in her. FYI, the ginger woman reporter was played by Lindy Booth, who used to play Cassandra in The Librarians.

The Royal Flush Gang are supposed to make cheesy jokes - they dress like cards! I loved how Barry beat them though. Someone remembered his powers!

Where IS Joe? That exchange between Chester and Cecile made me edgy too.

Then there's Despero. I *love* Tony Curran as an actor, and he definitely brought the menace and the warrior ethos, but I'm having a little bit of a tough time with him not being a would-be world conquerer. I'll deal. I am very glad they got his alien look and his powers right.

Bite your tongue!

 

I watch the CW shows on the app on my laptop, then after words I go to the tvpromos channel on Youtube to watch the preview. Here's next week's:

 

Iris took the same How To Be A CEO class over the break as Ryan Wilder.

 

The Arrowverse Wiki also usually has them, as does io9's daily Morning Spoilers column.

 

This was the first Flash season premiere I looked at in a long while. It was the crossover hook that got me. I thought it was a decent episode.

I liked the idea of Iris running a news organization and having a podcast. When I stopped looking at the series they had gotten away from her being a reporter so I'm glad they are back to that.

I was very curious about Despero and how they would use him. I was surprised that they actually had him comics accurate for a while, though this Despero comes across more as an antihero than a villain. I wouldn't be surprised if he's lying to Barry about wanting to protect the world, but for now, I'm going with him being an antihero here. I wasn't super impressed with the special effects for him, but still I give them credit for making the attempt. Though it's not explained in universe why he takes a human form. I would've been fine with them just keeping him regular human sized but making him up to look like Despero.

If Despero can read Barry's mind and senses no ill intent I don't get why he gave him seven days, outside of an arbitrary excuse to get the crossover team together. Not sure why Barry took off his mask, with Despero already being a mind reader either. Granted I know it was Barry's way to establish trust, to prove he had nothing to hide, but shouldn't Despero been able to learn who he was by being inside Barry's head?

It was neat seeing the Atom again, but it made me wish for more Brandon Routh as Superman. I liked the way he dashed off, opening his shirt like Clark Kent would.

 

Don't forget Nora Freis...

Except we've now already seen Iris actually doing the job...

 

Yeah, but she's a guest star in a different show. It's not hard to keep them straight when they're kept apart. But The Flash already has two Noras (three if you count Barry's real mom and her Speed Force double separately) and now they start talking about yet another one.

 

Most of my thoughts have already been posted here, but I do want to say that this is the first premier of a Flash episode I've really enjoyed since season 4. It was a lot of fun.

 

One of the best parts of the premiere was how little time was spent in STAR Labs. Was it 20 minutes or so before it was even seen?

It’s a great set but from the beginning this show has been to reliant on it. The characters rarely have a life outside that building. “We are the Flash” never bothered specifically. He gets help... big deal. But what it really represented in terms of lack of character development.

Iris has been a reporter the whole time but we rarely see it. Same for the other supporting cast. Far too often they are the bridge crew of a Federation Starship who rarely beam down. Seat fillers. Not a perfect perfect analogy but it kinda works...

 

Which is necessitated by budget. All that superpowered action is expensive, so they have to cut costs in other ways. You can see this in their big crossovers -- even when the stories are really epic, they write them to take place mostly on the standing sets (e.g. the resistance HQ in Crisis on Earth-X being a duplicate of Green Arrow's lair even though that made no narrative sense, and the villains building their own evil Waverider).

 

Sad to hear about Joe. He will be missed somewhat.
Seeing Black Lightning was cool but surely Superman would be the one to call out. He is the king after all. Plus having him fight Despero would be fun to see

 

They kept him in the opening title sequence for the past two weeks. I'll be curious if he is there next week.

 

It seemed obvious to me that Joe's "death" is just a plot thing and something Barry has to figure out and fix.

 

This is some of the best Flash I've seen in years. If they didn't want to do seasons but wanted to do like a fall and spring event the likes of Armageddon, I could totally see something like that being doable. This episode was fantastic and everything keeps building as it should for a 5 episode event. I loved that things you expect (Like that villianess making Barry lose his mind) is not what you expect, and I do wonder if this is taking place on another earth, mainly because of the scene about Joe's Death. That's a very major character to have a death off screen, but the way they played it up and the payoff was incredible. I think my only concern is this is setting up for a predictable reset button and I really hope they find a way to not be that predictable.

 

Hmm, they were touting this as a big hero crossover event with a major guest in every episode, but Alex was just on a screen in a couple of scenes giving exposition. That's underwhelming. Well, I'm still hoping all five guests team up in the finale.

I have a hard time believing they had to wipe all the STAR Labs servers and erase Gideon. I mean, they just hid all their other stuff behind holo-walls, so why couldn't they just hide this too? For that matter, why couldn't Barry just super-speed all the Flash gear out of the building -- or super-speed the radioactive material out to the desert or something? If he limited his exposure to a matter of seconds, he'd be relatively unharmed, and his speed-healing would take care of the rest.

Anyway, I suspect it'll turn out that Thawne is behind all of this somehow, messing with Barry yet again. Although it's also possible that Despero is lying. Given his comics history -- and, heck, just his name -- he seems more likely to be the despot than the defeated rebel.