Saw the first part of the two-part crossover. Interesting as always to see crossovers with multiple personalities.

Of course, the issue with Vandal Savage (and all characters like him) came up, like it always does. Everyone's power levels/ability is equalized in that one guy's favor because reasons and hurr durr the guy is immortal and awesome and the speedster can't beat him in like half a second flat because reasons. People are always as strong as the plot demands them to be, reasoning or no.

Having said that, the episode was great. The production was clearly upped several notches, and I liked the plots unfolding at the same time with Barry, Oliver and co and at Star Labs.

 

Great episode imo.

Joe West is the best dad on tv

 

I really liked that he gave the watch to Barry. Of late, they haven't focused as much on the Joe-Barry relationship, but it's nice to see that even with everything coming out about Wally, Joe still sees Barry as his son, it reminds me of that S1 interaction where Barry says Joe will always be his dad.

Honestly, I'm really enjoying the way Flash handles all this character drama (with the exception of Patty still not knowing about Barry). So much better than Arrow, tbh.

Cold is always awesome, although he did have limited screentime and it felt like he was just there to push the 'you can be a hero' thing before LoT. That said, it was the most aggressive redemption attempt ever, Barry saying Snart should be a hero in a tone suggesting he'd like to beat him down was pretty funny.

Trickster was also underutilised imo, kind of a shame especially since I doubt we'll be seeing this character very often. His ending line was hilarious.

Mardon didn't really click for me, especially in comparison to the rest of the villains.

 

'Every Earth hast The Godfather, Vito,' such a great line from Wells lol.

While I agree that the drama seems to be handled better with The Flash than with Arrow, I still feel like Wally's introduction could have been better. I didn't buy Iris this episode but maybe that's just me nitpicking.

I actually thought Cold would be part of the problem and by doing so, bringing The Rogues a step closer to being what they are in the comics. They don't kill kids, woman or innocent and only do so if extremely necessary. I mean, Batman hates his villains as they do him. But Flash is different or at least I've always seen it that way.

Really love Joe. Had Caitlin not being married to Ronnie I would buy her romance with Jay but right now it just seems too forced. Patty's survivor guilt was a bit cliché but it waa handled quite nicely, I think.

Wally. I don't have a problem with the race change. I'm up for representation since I can only name three or four Latino superheroes of the top of my head. However, with the way Joe was talking about how no one was there to teach him how to be a man and stuff, I feel like they are bringing the New 52 Wally West personality, which is basically non existent to be honest. I really hope they give him his preNew 52 personality or something akin to Kid Flash in Young Justice.

 

My only real DC knowledge is from the DCAU and the occasional wiki trawl, so I can't speak to Wally's personality. I did think the intro was a bit lackluster, but then it's leagues better than having him be thrust into the Flash's happenings out of nowhere, so having him seek Joe out actually works from that perspective.

Cold's being set up for LoT more than the Rogues at this point, so I doubt they'll show up any time soon, tbh.

The Caitlin thing does seem forced, especially since its treated as normal. Even a single conversation about how she already dealt with losing Ronnie and the few months he was back just being a gift or something... Not as good as just scrapping the stupid romance subplot, but still.

 

The episodes with the arrow were fun but nothing really special. Honestly, never cared about hawk boy and hawk girl or whatever their names are. Only really know them from a few Justice League animated shows and they were uninteresting there and uninteresting here.

Flash and Arrow interaction is fun, haven't really watched Arrow since season 2, so, wondering where Roy Harper is. Time travel stuff was fun but, yeah, decent episode, nothing great but nothing terrible either.

The latest episode was more fun. Mark Hamill is always a joy, whatever he is in, but he just wasn't build up enough in this episode and did more of a Joker impression than anything. Honestly, don't care all that much about the Joe subplot any more, and the romance between Caitlyn and other Flash is still forced as hell. Caitlyn and Wells cooperating in the crossover episodes was great though. Wish those two had more bonding, in a mentor student kind of way instead of that stupid romance.

Captain Cold was enjoyable as always, though, love that guy.

The cop girl, well, it's still fucking retarded and atrocious that the Flash thing is being kept from her and for the life of me, I cannot fathom why. It makes absolutely no sense and seeing that everyone and their dog complained about the Iris being kept in the dark part last season, as it was, by far, the worst thing in that season, I don't get why they thought "hey, let's do that again".

Fucking tell her, they have no problem with anyone else finding out and having Joe's partner be in on this can only be an advantage, especially since she knows physics and science. Also, stuff like her turning up and shooting a known criminal might not happen if she is in the loop.

But hey, they need to lie to a loved one somehow, I guess.

As to the revenge for her father thing, am rather disappointed that she didn't pull the trigger. I also couldn't take Barry all that seriously, when he talked about killing being wrong and her going to prison, seeing as he flaunts the law regularly, keeping prisoners in illegeal inhumane and cruel prison sentences for months, killing off quite a few enemies himself, being friends and allies with at least one mass-murderer.

Don't really get why he sits so comfortably on that high horse of his.

Also, fucking lol that neither Patty nor Joe ever talk about the her shooting Wells incident. Like what, did they both forget? Never came up? Not curious at all, either one of them?

 

And here's the eventual race change. I know I'm gonna get a lot of flak for what I'm gonna say but I'm gonna speak my mind.

If a character such as Aqualad (Kaldur'ahm) had been changed from black to white then there would have been plenty of people complaining about race representation and whatnot. Same goes for the Fantastic Four (But that's another topic for another time). Also, what about ginger representation?

And, when Wally does become Kid Flash, we have to remember that his mask doesn't cover every single piece of his face. All people are going to have to do is find a guy in his 20s hanging around a teenager and voila, you have their secret identities.

I know I just made a huge rant on the race thing but it only brings my rating for the series down from a 4.75 to a 4.74.

Also, what is the issue with telling Pattie? Is there a name for this trope because I'm pretty sure it exists.

The romance with Jay and Caitlin is so cringeworthy. I'm half expecting Jay to have a wife in Earth-2 just to create some more tension. Would it really have been that much of an issue for Caitlin to go without a relationship for just this season (Kudos if they managed to pull it off for 2 or more seasons)? Then again, knowing CW they might have done the opposite and have her have a bunch of one night stands or soemthing stupid like that.

Snart was really underused in this episode. Like really underused. Like there was no point in him being in the episode at all. It gave off the impression that they were setting up for something(The finale maybe?) but I doubt that's it.

 

Barry should tell Patty? What the? They barely know each other. A few months maybe? In fact, that was clear in just this episode when Patty wasn't comfortable talking to Barry about what she was going through.

The situation with Iris was completely different. They've known each other for a majority of their lives and there was a lot of trust.

A superhero doesn't last long if he reveals his identity to every girlfriend after a few months.

In my opinion, you're letting your opinions of Patty effect your judgement. I too want to see her have more screen time, but there is no way Barry should tell Patty at this point, when he barely even knows her enough to have asked her about her family.

I'd be more happy if she discovered his identity by accident, or through detective work. Because that would help the lame drama at the moment, but in no way should he be telling her.

 

Some people get married after a few months of knowing each other. And what I meant is that there were plenty of opportunities where e should have told her. When Wells was shot, she should have been brought into the loop if only to ensure that nothing like that happens again.

Discovering his identity by accident is stupid. And through detective work? Barry has the best minds in the world working to keep his identity a secret. If a simple detective is able to crack it then it would stand to reason that plenty of toehr detectives are able to do the same.

By the way, I think Barry is the only protagonist of any show/movie/book that has time travel on hand 24/7 with little to no consequences. They really need to put some limits on that.

 

I think they've shown clearly that time travel does have consequences - this previous occasion, we didn't notice because the original timeline was so bad, but before when he travelled to take down Mardon it led to Cold kidnapping Cisco and discovering who the Flash is.

 

Except that it all worked out, didn't it? Snart is more or less a frenemy (I feel like such a girl saying that) and in the last episode warned him about the fact that Weather Wizard and Toymaker were after him.

Besides, instead of a whole city dying, it's much better just to lose your identity to someone who isn't even out to kill you.

 

Zoom is just the biggest troll. I lol'd.

Cisco is still awesome.

Caitlyn and whatshisface is still cringe as fuck.

Cold still cool.

Joe's actor is fantastic, but, like many others, I just don't care about the West family drama. Having said that, Wally's introduction scene was masterful. Really well done.

Barry had the perfect setup for the reveal to Paddy, but he didn't take it. Huh. Not sure how I feel about that, but not very positive.

I love how Zoom just comes and goes and no one knows anything. Revolving doors indeed.

Hamill is a great actor but ... yeah. The Trickster is just ... not what he should be.

I have to give it to this episode. It was pretty decent all around.

 

He probably would have revealed it but seeing as how 2 of his enemies were right there...

 

That's not the scene I'm talking about but okay.

 

Oh, woops. Sorry aboutt that. It's just that I thought the same thign for that scene but then realised how stupid it would have been.

 

Seems to me that there's going to be a shift to Citizen Cold for Snart soon. If that's the case then my only concern is that his face turn is only temporary. It'd be a real shame that they would end up undoing all his development after the fact.

 

I heard a lot about the flash. In my opinion the flash is kinda a superman rip off. You know if super man was done well

 

How are they remotely similar?

 

Except, you know, he was technically an already race changed character and everybody liked him.

The original Aqualad is a white Atlantean named Garth. Kaldur'ahm is a character introduced in Young Justice to try and give more diversity by giving us an alternate world where two atlantean teens helped Aquaman. On regular continuity Garth decided to become Aquaman's protégé on that continuity it was Kaldur. His origin in the actual comics is a bit different but he still is his own character.

That, I believe, is the right way to give the mantle of a famous character to a person of different ethnicity. Just like Jaime Reyes or Miles Morales. They were created to become those characters. They are not those characters with an alternate skin color.

With all that said, I don't see a problem with Wally being black in this continuity though. Sure it is different and sure it is not the Wally West I am used to and love. Except I don't know yet. As said in a previous post of mine, if he keeps the preNew 52 personality that I am all for this Wally. We have to wait and see.

And regarding the secret identity thing. That's kind of an stupid argument. There has to be thousands of white guys on their twenties that hang around black teenagers in a city as big as Central City.

 

...What?

Flash has one of Superman's powers. One! How on earth does that make him a ripoff. Also, let's not forget that half of marvel is a ripoff of DC (The other half DC ripped off Marvel).