The Flash - Final Season Discussion

[tomalak301]

It's the final season, it premiered tonight, and it deserves its own thread.

I appreciated this episode had Barry and Iris together for a nice chunk of it. As a premiere to the final season (A final season that I'm actually excited about considering before I was getting burned out and tired and dismayed with this show), it was a really nice start. I haven't seen Supergirl since Season 2 so when they were talking about Cat Grant, my first thought is are they going to get Flockhart to have a cameo? That would be pretty cool.

The time loop sequences were funny, but my only negative was I wish they hadn't actually mentioned the movie Groundhog Day. I think fans were able to figure it out, not to mention the repeating day was February 1st.

Looking forward to this season and all the guest stars we will be treated with.

 

[Romulan_spy]

Super glad to get the Flash back for one last season.

The ep was fun. Really nice start to the final season IMO.

I feel like Barry is still dumb though. He can be very impulsive, leaping into things before thinking. I guess that is part of the Flash character. But he should not have made that book on his own without first discussing it with Iris. Come on, Barry! You can't plan out your entire life with your wife and just surprise her with it, and not consult her first! I do think the book itself was not necessarily the problem, but how Barry tried to "force" the book on Iris, that she had to follow what the book says. He took away her free will. And Barry did not seem to understand Iris' point of view until Cecile and Joe explained it to him.

It does raise an interesting question. How would you react if someone gave you a diary that told you all the key moments in your future? Would you be upset like Iris because of the loss of free will? Or would you feel safer like Barry? And would you try to change future decisions in the book that you did not like? Would you refuse to read the book or would you read it?

Also, I see he still likes to stop to chat with bad guys first which negates his entire speed advantage. That is a tired trope IMO.

I am curious who Caitlin/not-Frost is.

I am also curious about the new speedster villain. We see what looks like a bat signal at the end. Is he some sort of batman-speedster?

 

[Christopher]

At least it's finally back, but it could've been better. I'm not a fan of the time loop trope, but at least this one minimized the repetitive scenes and dialogue that are my main annoyance with the idea. Having Barry and Iris be in the loop together helped, though the explanation for why was lacking, and they were a bit dense going a whole day without figuring out it was a loop.

I guess the other repetitive thing I'm getting tired of in time loop episodes is how they always predictably have a day (or a whole series of them) where they decide to stop trying to get out of the loop and just indulge themselves. It was fun the first few times (Stargate: "Window of Opportunity," for instance), but it's become a cliche by this point.

It's also odd that nobody mentioned they were looping on February 1, the day before Groundhog Day. It's also odd because modern TV shows tend to be set on the day they're intended to air, so I wonder if this season was meant to start a week earlier.

And yes, Barry is being written as pretty dumb. He has a tendency not to listen when other people disagree with them, just to ignore them and say "But I'm right because of this." That's a problem with the current showrunner's writing style, I think. Barry used to be a more sensitive, empathetic character, or at least that's my impression. These days he's written as rather egocentric and insensitive to others' points of view, and only Gustin's easygoing personality tempers it.

Also, if the interaction of Flash speed with the Kord battery created the loop, then wouldn't ignoring Captain Boomerang's theft of the battery have been enough to break the loop? And why did the fusion explosion break it? Not to mention that the idea of phasing an explosion is kind of hard to buy. I mean, really, the fireball of a nuclear explosion consists of the air around the bomb as it's superheated by the heat and radiation from the bomb. So if the Flash phased the bomb and its radiation so they didn't affect the surrounding matter, then the larger fireball would never have been created. There would probably have been a brief flash of white light... although, wait a minute -- if phased objects are still visible, then the EM radiation should have affected the surrounding matter and everyone would still have been killed! Ah, forget it. It's no sillier than the show's usual physics, I guess.

I'm glad the opening scene, with everyone but Flash and Frost fighting the bad guy in civilian clothes, was just a dream. If this is the final season, then I want to see Allegra and Cecile finally suit up and get code names, dang it!

 

[thribs]

So this is a week after season 8 but its 2023? How does that work? I don't recall season 8 being a year in the future.
I would have jumped to 2024 since that was the year everything was building up to in the early days of the Flash. I know Crisis is over but they could just create another one to hill the gap. In the comics infinite Crisis was next.
The Cat Grant mention was nice. I always thought the Earth Prime references have been rather lacking since Crisis so its nice to have one.
Its a shame Red Death won't be Bruce Wayne or at least Ruby Rose. I just feel it won't the same with it being the replacement Batwoman. Just seems like the perfect role for Jensen Ackles.

Its no Stargate SG-1, Window of Opportunity but I thought they did a good job with the time loop. I liked their twist with both of them being in it and both being in the same bed when it resets. Them scaring each other was funny.

 

[Christopher]

So this is a week after season 8 but its 2023? How does that work? I don't recall season 8 being a year in the future.

TV time is like that. Especially with today's serialized shows, where each episode's plot tends to pick up immediately after the last episode, yet they still pretend every episode takes place on the day it airs. They just fudge it and hope we won't notice.

The Cat Grant mention was nice. I always thought the Earth Prime references have been rather lacking since Crisis so its nice to have one.

Oh, there have been plenty of throwaway mentions of this sort, like Kate Kane giving Kara Danvers and Catco the interview when Batwoman came out as lesbian, or Cisco going on a vacation to Atlantis. It's the actual character crossovers and meaningful story connections that have been less frequent than hoped.

Its a shame Red Death won't be Bruce Wayne or at least Ruby Rose. I just feel it won't the same with it being the replacement Batwoman. Just seems like the perfect role for Jensen Ackles.

Arrowverse Bruce Wayne is Warren Christie. Not sure why you suggested Ackles. He was Jason Todd in the Under the Red Hood animated movie, but otherwise I don't see the connection.

 

[thribs]

Arrowverse Bruce Wayne is Warren Christie. Not sure why you suggested Ackles. He was Jason Todd in the Under the Red Hood animated movie, but otherwise I don't see the connection.

He has that CW/DC Comics connection and he is now the voice of Batman in the new animated movies. I just feel like an actor like him would give that character some significance to who he is with the casual viewers. Star power of you will. I’m sure Ben Affleck is unavailable.

Speaking of the kids, i really hope some timeline meddling happens and we get the Tornado Twins at the end. No offense to Nora and Bart but they aren't his actual kids from the comics. Hell, Bart is his grandson.

 

[Christopher]

He has that CW/DC Comics connection and he is now the voice of Batman in the new animated movies.

Oh, I didn't know that. He was surprisingly good as Red Hood. I was never impressed with his acting until I heard him in that role. I guess I can see him being Batman.

Speaking of the kids, i really hope some timeline meddling happens and we get the Tornado Twins at the end. No offense to Nora and Bart but they aren't his actual kids from the comics. Hell, Bart is his grandson.

Adaptations adapt. The show's Nora and Bart are something of a composite of the comics' versions and the Tornado Twins, I suppose. Sort of like how Batman: The Animated Series' Dick Grayson was really an amalgam of Dick and Tim Drake, while the sequel series's Tim Drake was basically Jason Todd in all but name.

 

[thribs]

I know but considering the show is all about altering the timeline and we know that Dawn was a thing from Thawne from season 5, I just assume we would get there by the end. I'm not a fan of them bringing back Nora. I know she is a different person but the fact she's the same actress and has the same name sort of takes away from her sacrifice when she erased herself from the timeline.

 

[kirk55555]

Not a bad start to the final season, but I tend to really like time loop episodes anyway. I still can't stand Chester and Allegra, they're such a huge downgrade from Cisco and Caitlyn I wish they'd just been dropped at the end of last season, its not like the show doesn't have a big enough cast as it is. Still they didn't take up too much time in the episode, and I doubt, with a shortened final season, that they're going to be giving either of them any big story episodes or subplots, so I can tolerate them.

 

[Christopher]

I know but considering the show is all about altering the timeline and we know that Dawn was a thing from Thawne from season 5, I just assume we would get there by the end. I'm not a fan of them bringing back Nora. I know she is a different person but the fact she's the same actress and has the same name sort of takes away from her sacrifice when she erased herself from the timeline.

Presumably, though, the fact that she's the same actress is why they brought her back. They wanted to keep Jessica Parker Kennedy around rather than cast someone new. TV series plots are often shaped by the producers' or audience's fondness for certain actors, or by actors' chemistry or lack thereof, rather than by pure story considerations. (Which is why Oliver Queen ended up with former bit character Felicity Smoak instead of his traditional love interest Black Canary.)

 

[thribs]

Don’t remind me about the Felicity disaster.

 

[Guy Gardener]

LALALALLALA!

I'm still doing a rewatch of season 8.

Why?

Why do they keep assuring/reminding/instructing me that Eddie is handsome?

 

[Christopher]

You know, one of the consequences of time loops being such an overused plot device is that I've learned to see the signs that something is going to turn out to be a time loop episode. If an early scene makes a point of focusing on seemingly trivial or irrelevant details, like the close-up on the bedside calendar/clock here, that's a tipoff that those details are going to repeat in the next loop and be recognized by the viewpoint character. Between that and the title "Wednesday Ever After," I could tell we were in for a time-loop story well before it looped.

And at first, I thought they were going somewhere interesting with it. When Barry seemed to have foreknowledge of certain things, like when he told Iris to "just say yes" at work or anticipated the captain's offer to run the crime lab, I thought it was going to turn out that he'd already been in the time loop long enough to know what was coming. Instead, it just turned out to be from the book of future events he'd pieced together.

But it would've been an unusual twist if they'd started it mid-loop, with the looping viewpoint character already well into the cycle, instead of at the beginning with them first catching on. I've seen that done only once or twice before. Syfy's Dark Matter episode "All the Time in the World" was one example I recall. Agents of SHIELD's "As I Have Always Been" does it halfway, since we start out with Daisy discovering the loop, only to learn that she and Coulson have been stuck in it for a while and she forgets and has to start over if she dies during a loop. (ST:TNG's "Cause and Effect" doesn't count; they were well into the loop already, but none of the characters were aware of the loop, so we did see them figuring it out as they went.)

 

[Commander Troi]

A fun outing for the premiere!

It does raise an interesting question. How would you react if someone gave you a diary that told you all the key moments in your future? Would you be upset like Iris because of the loss of free will? Or would you feel safer like Barry? And would you try to change future decisions in the book that you did not like? Would you refuse to read the book or would you read it?

I saw Barry's point of view because my anxiety sometimes make me feel like knowing the future would keep me safe. But in the end, I saw Iris' pov that having my life mapped out would take the life out of living. What's the point without choice?

 

[theenglish]

The plot of the episode wasn't great, but it was great seeing Barry and Iris working together. I am also surprised by the end scene:

Spoiler: The Big Bad

Night Flash was only just introduced in the comics last year. I'm surprised that this would be the main villain for the show's final season so I'm going to think there might be something more to this--maybe actually using the mulitverse perhaps.

 

[thribs]

Night Flash? I thought it was the Red Death.

 

[kirk55555]

I thought the villain in that scene was

Spoiler

The Black Racer. Night Flash isn't even a villain, at least according to the DC wiki, not that The Flash TV show has ever cared about being accurate to the comics with its villains.

It really has gotten to the point where the number of evil speedsters on the show is almost at parody levels I guess it would be weird to not end the show with a super speed powered big bad at this point.

 

[Tuskin38]

The plot of the episode wasn't great, but it was great seeing Barry and Iris working together. I am also surprised by the end scene:

Spoiler: The Big Bad

Night Flash was only just introduced in the comics last year. I'm surprised that this would be the main villain for the show's final season so I'm going to think there might be something more to this--maybe actually using the mulitverse perhaps.

Spoiler

It's the Red Death not the Night Flash. The Bat symbol with the lightning bolt gives it away.

/spoiler]

 

[theenglish]

I'm sorry for not putting this in Spoiler Code earlier.

Spoiler: Ending

Night Flash is Batman too--which is why I went there.

I didn't really follow the Dark Multiverse stuff so I missed the Red Death completely up until now. Thanks for the correction.

EDIT: WAIT-- Does this mean the final season is going to be the CW version of Metal with Red Death standing in for the Batman Who Laughs?

 

[Commander Troi]

Spoiler

It's the Red Death not the Night Flash. The Bat symbol with the lightning bolt gives it away.

/spoiler]

Thank you. I'm not up to date on the comics, so I was speculating an alternate universe character and that's as close as I got.