Thread:ZeVikingSif/@comment-16747922-20150408195027

Holy. Shit. Cakes. Of. Shit. And. Creamed. Mushroom. Soup. Coating. A. Tower. Of. Dried. Shit. Which. Explodes. And. Gets. Affected. By. The. Particle. Accelerator. And. Becomes. Super Shit Colossus Man the Unstoppable Metahuman.

Last night I stayed up until 4:30 AM seeing all the way from Crazy For You to Tricksters. Part of my reaction is above, but here's what I thought about each episode.

Crazy For You - This one got better as the episode progressed (sort of a trend with these ones), but I really loved how the case tied into the side-story. Case itself wasn't very compelling, though it got really fun once Barry learned how to get an advantage over Shawna. This episode was sort of a turning point for the Barry-Dad dynamic, since he now sees his dad in the cells and in person. My favorite moment, obviously, was Barry and drunk Caitlin singing onstage at a bar :D These sort of "dorky Barry" moments can be so tense with the cringes yet simultaneous delightful, and I was rather surprised how good a singer Barry really was. And den he got himself a hawt chick 2 slay yipee!!!

But the most interesting bit of this episode was CISCO. HOLY SHIT. That guy really knows how to fight! I mean, he's demonstrated how faithful and headstrong he is, so I never quite doubted that he "had it in him", but to see him dole out such physical power was quite shocking, yet oddly inline with his character. Carlos Valdes looked like he was doing most of the fighting after all. And Hartley's story was more fun than it was in "The Sound and the Fury", since we finally learn that Ronnie is actually FUSED with Dr. Stein. That was borderline compelling until the next episode...

The Nuclear Man - I had mentioned being a little pumped for this since the ratings on IMDb were 8.8 and episodes 8.8 or above are the best, and damn, this really paid off! The Stein/Ronnie story proved to be a lot, LOT more interesting than it was when they introduced it, and the way this episode delved into both the lives of Stein and Ronnie created this sort of multifaceted element to a simple story arc. It had this emotional and dramatic depth that satisfied the closure required when Caitlin and Ronnie finally reunite. And even if Stein speaking through Ronnie was all lines written for Stein, Robbie Amell still had to convey all those expressions and I think he did an excellent job. And it's impressive because I only remember him as Fred from that god-awful live action Scooby Doo Curse of the Lake Monster movie. Most live-action Cartoon Network/Disney Channel alumni don't generally have a chance elsewhere, and even if Amell was considered since he's Arrow's brother, he's a surprisingly solid actor.

As expected, director Glen Winter's involvement resulted in some insane action sequences, with the special effects work being some of the show's very best. And even though I sorta wished the episode was set in the snow a little more, that ending scene with the nuclear explosion was outright spectacular.

Oh and Barry (almost) got laid! Unless that was all clothed after-sex makeout, since quite a few events passed by after that first kiss and I doubt they'd still be in underpants, even for network TV. But Glen Winter is quite an ingenious director. He can do everything! Action, cinematography, special effects, lighting, setting a tone for the episode, and of course, sexy time. (Remember the Eddie and Iris scene at the start of Flash vs. Arrow?)

Fallout - Okay, here's where the "holy shit" moments really amped up until they were a constant. You were right that this episode was way better than the Nuclear Man. I absolutely LOVED LOVED LOVED IT!!! Again, it had this very "eventful" and "populated" feeling. You know that feel when you sometimes sneak a peek at a later episode, and you see so much out-of-context shit that you want to just get there? I imagine this episode as being one of those. Just so much shit happened in just 42 minutes, it was incredible! We got to meet both the real Ronnie and the wonderful Victor Garber as Dr. Stein, that bastard Eiling came back, we got several reunion moments, we were introduced to the brilliant Firestorm dynamic and how geniously it was employed here, Wells revealed his Reverse-Flash involvement, GRODD came back, it was just packed! It balanced all the character work and investigative plot with this infiltration storyline - anytime Eiling is involved the episode automatically gains this depth to it. Not sure if it's because his story is purposely complex, or if Clancy Brown is just that good an actor. I'm quite sure it's both. Anyways, the episode had tons of highlights. Garber was superb as Stein, and those scenes with the pizza made me hungry as shit at like 2 AM! Barry's meeting with Stein was a blast to watch, then we had the scene where they help Stein during his interrogation. That was brilliant. The effects with Firestorm topped what we saw in The Nuclear Man, and then, the ending. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Grodd can TALK??!!?!? At the end of Plastique I went like "JESUS MOTHERFUCKER" at Wells since I knew Gorilla Grodd from Batman: The Brave and the Bold, but holy shit. The whole "sewer monster" feeling mixed with Wells' sinister vibe makes this story so damn creepy. It still has that "out of context" feeling that I sorta like with this. Eiling definitely deserved his grisly fate, but that was quite frightening.

Oh, and how could I forget? We even added Joe's story in the mix of all this crap! He and Cisco take their investigation of Wells to the murder of Barry's mother, and we come to the conclusion that an older Barry was in the room. You told me this, but thankfully they didn't make too big a deal of it and it remained engaging. That scene at the end when Barry decides to defy his destiny of failure was what truly set the stage for Out of Time. It got me more pumped than ever, and I couldn't resist. I was fully awake, unable to sleep, so I just clicked that goddamn click and went for it.

WHICH BRINGS US TO...

Out of Time - FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Basically my entire reaction at the top of this post was directed towards this episode, obviously. 9.8 out of 10 on IMDb, huh? So I went in with that mindset, since I was already excited for this episode and tried to view it through the lens of a "standout" episode. Again, it became more engaging as it progressed, though these developments were a little faster since the episode got rapidly interesting. The return of Mark Mardon, the brother of Clyde from the pilot, obviously wasn't the most gravitating element of the plot, and though I was pretty sure this episode would hammer home some serialized stuff, I was thinking a lot of the meat lay in Mardon's return, especially after witnessing the special effects that went into his scenes, and the emotional depth it began to have on Joe. And I really love Joe as a character, and even if I doubted his death, the intensity of it ramped up like crazy. Director Thor Freudenthal helmed Percy Jackson 2, and even if that apparently sucked, it's a full-blown fantasy movie, so I expected some above-the-norm special effects here. Boy, did I get what I want! And then some.

So the story began progress. In the meantime, Iris' reporter buddy Mason began investigating the disappearance of Simon Stagg. I was glad that they returned to that whole story since it would be cheap of the show to leave Well's initial reveal as a villain to be a loose end, but I was a bit skeptical of this story for a couple reasons: 1) I expected to know how it ended. In House of Cards, Kevin Spacey's character murders a congressman in season 1, and then kills his reporter friend in the season 2 premiere by shoving her in front of a train after she becomes too suspicious. The reporter's friends/colleagues start an investigation which ends in one of them being scared into quitting, and the other arrested by the FBI as a cyberterrorist. So some snoopy wiseguy trying to craft his "scoop of the century" always promises bad things. 2) It tends to slow down the plot when other characters start unraveling details we already know. It's been done smartly before on POI and stuff, but with the speed at which the plot moves, I was worried that this would be a pointless endeavor designed to give Iris some narrative importance. Well, it was rather stupid of me to expect cliches from this show.

What seemed like an easygoing stage-setter for the Wells storyline culminated in what I hoped (and sort of anticipated) to see in this episode: Wells revealing himself to the good guys. Caitlin stalling Wells at the coffee shop while Cisco reviewed footage from "The Man in the Yellow Suit" was extremely tense, but I thought we'd just see the episode drag on after they "met up" with Cisco, so Caitlin calls him, Cisco cleans up, acts like nothing happened, you know the drill. But this episode played with my expectations like FUCKING CRAZY. Caitlin gets those coffees and BAM, Wells is gone. Caitlin now knows the truth (ish), Cisco is fucked.

And now, you were quite right that this was Carlos Valdes' highlight episode. Sure, for the most part he just learned how to cry on television, but that goes a long way sometimes :D That motherfucker Wells comes in walking. And what happened after that was just EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING I wanted to see Wells do. Cisco's reaction to Wells' entrance made me nervous as hell, and then Wells does the whole dramatic "taking off glasses" thing. It was gold, Cavanagh clearly having a blast. Then Cisco says "I can help you", so I had a vague sense of where the plot could go for a brief period of time. But no. Wells says "I am Eobard Thawne". Thankfully you didn't tell me what that REALLY meant, so I assumed "Harrison Wells" was a longtime alias of a man named Eobard Thawne, who grew up to look like Tom Cavanagh. That all comes later. But then, perhaps the most terrifying scene in all of this show happens. Wells' hand starts vibrating. I got SO FUCKING SCARED. I was quite ready to see something bad happen to Cisco, but the way he looked like a deeply upset little boy, just horrified, enhanced how BONE-CHILLING it was when Wells just stared at him with that fucking buzz saw of a hand. The amount of violence that suggested... that shit just got to me. Wells tells Cisco how much like a "son" he was, but then says "you've been dead for a over a century". And then fries his heart out. I didn't want to scream in the middle of the night, so I stuffed my bedsheets into my mouth and then exhaled like dragon. My enter body was vibrating like a tuning fork and I was just mouthing "FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK MOTHER FUCKER NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" the whole damn time. THIS you didn't tell me. This... NEXT FUCKING LEVEL.

But we're not done. WE ARE NOT DONE! Captain Singh gets electrocuted into paralysis, and this of course made the CCPD all pissed. And I was pissed too, because Mark was actually quite a formidable foe, and the things he did highlighted the monstrosity of his character. And it did have emotional value because of that initial conversation about Clyde being family. You could almost feel the pain Mark was feeling. I never rooted for Mark in any way since Joe is the absolute best, but the scene on the boat was some pretty heavy shit. They call Iris and everything. This is reminding me of two episodes of POI which I'll never forget. Anyways, Iris comes down there, Barry's with her, and then Joe CALLS BARRY RIGHT IN FRONT OF IRIS, TALKING ABOUT WORK N SHIT! OH BOY.... OH BOY!!!!!!!!!11!!!1! THEN IRIS SAYS SHE CAN'T STOP THINKING ABOUT BARRY, BARRY SAYS THE SAME, THEY FUCKING KISS, AND THEN BARRY REVEALS HIMSELF HOLY SHIT I SAT UP AND STARTED POUNDING ON THE MATTRESS JESUS FUCKING CHRIST

AND THEN THE TSUNAMI!!!!!!!!! THE SFX HOLY SHIT!! AND THEN JOE TELLS BARRY HE HAS TO RUN FASTER THAN HE EVER DID!!!! SO BARRY DOES!!!!! And this was truly extraodinary. The amount of fierce intensity Barry had in his eyes and body language while sprinting that triathlon was insane. And then I see him running into a street at night. I'm like what? Did he end up somewhere else in a different timezone? And then I see that woman who missed her taxi.

HOLY FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKCAKES OF MOTHERSHITBLASTERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Out of Time" was what "If-Then-Else" was to Person of Interest, and more so what "The Reichenbach Fall" was to Sherlock. It's more of the latter, since everything that happens in POI is real, and in Sherlock, it was all staged. A huge-ass event designed to shock us all and stay in us is a mystery within itself. This whole episode sort of felt like this simulation or fantasy sequence, yet it was executed so powerfully that I was convinced it was real. Well, it was, until Barry traveled back in time. So he had a chance to reverse all this! As much as I'd want to see the repercussions of all that shit, I couldn't live with Cisco dying.

Rogue Time - Okay, I won't really call this episode "disappointing", but with the idea that it was all designed to undo "Out of Time" was a bit of a disheartening idea since despite how devastating the last one was, it was just played out with so much force and magnitude, that trying to erase it is like spending two full years on a painting and then dunking it in acid. Nonetheless, I'm glad that Barry was able to at least remember all the shit that went down. Wells' argument that the timeline continuum shouldn't be ruptured was actually quite nice since it kept us hanging. Barry arresting Mark so fast was pretty funny, but this episode began to sort of feel like getting an A on an 800 point test only to learn that the grading system had a glitch. Even if it was sort of the opposite from the characters' perspectives.

Nonetheless, the rogues are so goddamn entertaining! We had a second Prison Break reunion, and even if it wasn't as riveting as it was in episode 10, Wentworth Miller and Dominic Purcell are definitely having a blast playing these two lunatics. There's this nice balance between cheesy and smartly (snartly) done. Cold sometimes goes a little over-the-top in quieter scenes, though in the scenes where you expect him to be cheesy he actually gets some good stuff. "Rogue Time" sort of took both of these guys a little more seriously, in addition to giving Leonard's hot sister Lisa time to shine, as well as Cisco, who made me even more thankful that he's alive. Cisco got even more funny and emotional here, and the value of his scenes seemed to resonate louder than they did in "Out of Time". Wells brought him down to his impending tomb, only to say the same things Eobard Thawne told him to uplift him rather than break him. It was quite a brilliant turn of the tables, and it made me admire the episode for re-utilizing Out of Time and treating that as both a "test run" and an "impending doom". If the Rogue encounter was Wells' aforementioned "surrogate tragedy", then that's a little lame, but I'm confident that we'll be treated to something cooler later on. And I also liked Wells' "is the future intact". It's a nice way to putting it that goes inline with what was explained here. And the resolution to the plot was obviously uncomfortable since Snart knows Barry's secret. Even if he does sort of like Barry, he can do some evil shit if he wants. That deal is bound to be broken.

Tricksters - HERE. WE. ARE. THE CATCHUP IS COMPLETE. OH BOY!!!! Now, I'll admit despite Mark Hamill being in the episode, I wasn't quite as "pumped" for it as I was Out of Time. Thankfully, this episode lived up to all that anticipation. Right away, we got Trickster's first prank, which obviously resembled something the Joker would do, except the Trickster was some annoying punk-ass kid who I vaguely remember as a guest star in a Mentalist episode, playing an equally annoying kid.

Luckily, this wasn't the real Trickster. Barry and Joe paid a visit to Hamill's James Jesse, the original Trickster. Now, this was the scene where things got truly trippy. No doubt about it, Hamill was outright UNFORGETTABLE. Every scene he was in made this episode 10, 20 times as entertaining. And I agree, he really borrowed a lot, and I say a lot, from the Joker. Even the rasp in his voice made me desperate to just yell at the screen going "JUST DO IT ALREADY" in regards to the Joker voice. I just want to hear that voice again! Even the laugh was a bit soft on the edges, but Hamill's subtle Jokerisms here already brought him to life. But the way the Trickster is literally the Flash's version of the Joker without the element of him being a nemesis, made the whole affair feel a little more original even if all the clown stuff just threw me into Arkham City's whole immersion. For a lot of the episode, it felt more like a Batman episode rather than a Flash episode, and those scenes with Iris and the CCPD were the only ones that kept me within Central City.

The conclusion, however, made this a more Flashy ordeal, since it tied into the serialized plot a lot better. Turns out that the fake Trickster was Jesse's kid, and I didn't really take this very seriously, since I was pretty sure it was either 1) a way to manipulate a crazy little sucker like that kid or 2) a means for Luke Fucking Skywalker to finally say "I am your father" and get a "YES" rather than a "NAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW" Nonetheless, this episode really got some good laughs out of me. The whole "Speed" parody was fantastic, and I liked how Hamill distinguished Trickster from the Joker by being a little more culturally caught-up and feeling like he belonged in a modern setting rather than the juxtaposition of 1930's and 2000's that Gotham is designed to create. Wells teaching Barry to phase through a wall was simply astounding. And after all this I could really see how Hamill's performance seemed like he wanted to play Joker at a little kids' party or something. He didn't have that monstrous grit he had in City, and he was lot more subdued. It opened my eyes up to how deranged Joker really was in City, even though or the most part I actually liked Joker in city. Not just for the entertainment value, he just seemed like a sweet guy to be around.

Oh, and Barry revealed himself to Eddie :D That was priceless.

But then... OH. SHIT. You were absolutely right, Sif. "Tricksters" was truly Tom Cavanagh's episode to shine. The whole Tess Morgan storyline was interesting to me since the beginning, since Wells has never been very expressive as a human being. Sure, Cavanagh brings this warmth to his character and balances it out with his sinister alter-ego, but we're mostly seeing Wells with the same confident and somewhat robotic mannerisms he keeps showing. He's still a very endearing character for what he does, but as a human being, who is he on the inside? Did the tragedy change him to be a little more stoic or disregarding of human life?

So when we cut back to Wells and his beautiful wife on the beach, I was invested in seeing Wells as a human being. He had mentioned being "married to his work as much as he was married to Tess", and I loved seeing the conception of STAR Labs. The whole "you are the star I see" line was a bit hammy but fit for scientists somehow, and I liked Wells' delivery of "that's gonna get you kissed". Cavanagh's delivery was still rather casual but you could see that human side in him. I think Wells is just better defined by those around him.

Well, until that goddamn car crash. That was quite brutal. And here's where I truly gasped. Wells screaming for his wife was something else. It was just profound. He looked and sounded genuinely horrified. The acting was just perfect. Thawne comes and tells Wells the same thing he told Cisco... before THROWING HIM OUT OF THE CAR, AND ABSORBING HIS MOTHERFUCKING BODY. Now, I am a little bit upset that all this while it's actually been Thawne, and for the first time I really feel what it's like when a nice guy like Wells is lying. It's not Wells. But thankfully, THANKFULLY, there once was indeed a Harrison Wells with the warmth and compassion shown by Tom Cavanagh's character.

However, series co-creator Andrew Kreisberg, in an interview, said that we haven't seen the last of Trickster or the original Wells, specifically his body. Don't know what they plan to do with a hollow corpse, maybe just more flashbacks, but I really want the real Wells alive. Maybe they can take his "good" memories of Barry and put them into his body? I dunno, something! But I want to know what Thawne is up to. Apparently he's some metahuman from 100 years in the future, traveling back 115 and then living through 15 years as "Harrison Wells". His intentions... OH BOY. 