Brinny

Right? How did that conversation go in the writer’s room? ”What if Randall decides to find his birth parents?” ”Yeah, we already did that. First episode of the series. He found his dad. There was a whole season about it.” ”But what if he found his MOM?” ”Oh. We’ve already established that she died of an overdose and that’s why William had to leave Randall at the fire station.” ”But what if she wasn’t dead?” ”I think we’ve mentioned several times throughout the series that she is, though.” ”BUT WHAT IF SHE WASN’T?” ”Genius.”

So, I caved and watched it. Criticisms of Johansson's ignorant personal views aside, I still don't find her to be a compelling actor. Something about her always rings as inauthentic to me. I definitely echo everyone on here (and the rest of the interwebs), that Michelle Williams would have KILLED it in this role. I don't know if we were supposed to feel sympathy for Nicole (and this may be more of a comment on Baumbach's script/direction than on Johansson's acting choices, although I'm guessing there may be some blame to go around), but her portrayal seemed very one-note to me. She was angry, so she yelled. She was upset, so she cried. She was happy, so she laughed. I just felt she lacked dimension. By contrast, I really enjoyed Adam Driver's performance and found it to be very layered. Like, near the end when he's reading Nicole's list of what she likes about Charlie and he starts to tear up? On the surface there's definite sadness as he's struggling not to cry, but the emotions he presents are more complex than that: he seems mournful of his and Nicole's relationship, but also almost as if he's grateful and maybe even relieved to know that she really did love him once, except they both have these new lives where they're separate and apart and OHMYGOD, give him all the awards, because he's amazing. I completely forgot about reading that Randy Newman did the score and literally the entire movie thinking about how much I liked the music throughout. Which is saying something since, while I do very occasionally enjoy Mr. Newman, my brain refuses to believe his music is anything other than that bit from Family Guy.

You know what I find super weird about Iris having Cisco vibe her into the timeline of her and Barry's first kiss (other than it being the same timeline where Cisco was literally murdered, so, that's mega awkward in and of itself)? Iris only knows that kiss exists because Barry told her. She doesn't remember it happening. Which, okay, knowing that Barry loves her across multiple timelines and universes, is kind of romantic, sure, but the Iris from THIS timeline was in love with Eddie at this point*. Like, I had absolutely no horse in the Iris/Eddie game, but YIKES, the dude sacrificed himself to kill Thawne (not to mention, her memories of that time were of her building her life with Eddie: loving him, moving in with him, marrying him, etc.) and years later, you're telling me we have a newly grief-stricken Iris being all, "Yeah, but show me the version of my life where Eddie didn't die and Barry and I mack on each other, instead." I totally get that it's supposed to be this sweet little moment, and, yeah, I'll concede it accomplishes that, except there's this whole other aspect of it that feels like it cheapens both of Iris' relationships with Barry and Eddie. (Sorry, guys, it's possible that I'm still beyond cranky with the lack of all of the West-Allen and West family/Allen family interaction lately and it's made me salty. I'm going to go console myself with fanfic.) *And, yes, of course somewhere in there are her feelings for Barry, although they're not yet defined.

Oh my god. What the fuck was that? Look, I love me some Flash cheese (pretty sure I’ve confessed my love for King Shark in these forums more than once), but everything about this Bloodwork storyline has been horrible in the worst way. Most notably whatever poorly rendered CGI horror show monster they ended up with. Actually, almost everything about this entire 6A season has been horrible in the worst way. I was SO optimistic about the new season and feel so let down. The pacing has been atrocious, almost everything on screen seems to be more of the telling instead of showing variety (and not even in a sort of cringe-filled exposition way, just in a plain old lazy way), and while it’s great to explore different relationships/pairings in later seasons of any show, focusing on this while your titular character is literally counting down the days until his death is probably NOT the best time to do this. Like, why are we watching Frost and Caitlin stand in a room alone talking to “each other”? Does anyone really need to watch Kamilla and Cecile make an ill advised plan to run around in the dark? Who decided either of those things were dynamic storytelling? Why are Barry and Iris having their one or two sparse intimate moments IN FRONT OF TEAM FLASH?! What is going on?!! At this point, if you wanna shake things up so desperately, just kill Barry and start over with Wally. The characters who are onscreen now are already dying from character assassination (minus, maybe Cisco and Barry, to a degree), so it can’t be much different.

Something has felt off to me these last few episodes. I don't know if it's the pacing (there doesn't seem to be any sense of urgency with respect to the fact that Barry is going to die any day now) or if there are just too many characters/side plots going on, but it just seems to be lacking on substance and missing the heart that the first couple of seasons has. Like, I'm happy that they're trying to round out the cast with more female characters and develop Iris' team, but I don't feel any connection to either Kamilla or Allegra (who, EXCUSE ME, your boss doesn't owe you shit, lady, especially not divulging her superhero husband's secret identity, COME ON) and I don't particularly understand why they're focusing so heavily on the B stories when they're doing these little "half seasons" and their main character is marching off to his death. At this point, I'm just really ready for Crisis to be over with and them to get onto the next half of the season. All that being said, Grant Gustin is doing a really great job with all the material that they're giving him. I always enjoy scenes with him and the actor that plays Nora Allen (even when she's playing the SpeedForce), they have a really easy chemistry together. Not a writer and am far from the grammar police, but I'm pretty sure her opening line where she has "who I named the Streak" should have been "WHOM I named the Streak". (Best tip for this? If you're not sure when to use who vs. whom, you can substitute s/he for who and him/her for whom. Like, you could say, "I named HIM the Streak" but not "I named HE the Streak". I feel like I'm right about this, hahaha.)

I thought Carlos Valdes did really well with the episode and I'm not going to complain about a Cisco centric plot where he gets to shine, however, it does seem a little strange that the Crisis is less than two months away and we're spending time fridging Cisco's ex-girlfriend. Which brings me to this: OMG. Why is Iris being so nonchalant about Barry dying? It would maybe be understandable if she was just trying to be positive and upbeat for Barry's sake and then we see her secretly being unable to hold it together. But instead, it's literally like they have her just lying down and accepting the fact that her best friend/husband is going to KILL HIMSELF in a few weeks. Like, WHAT?! I just don't get it. She doesn't even seem mildly bummed. Look, it's not like I want her walking around all mopey and weepy about Barry's impending doom (although, even Joe and Cisco have been allowed a quiet, sobbing breakdown), but she should be showing some type of reaction, no? I'd even take Iris being in massive denial about the whole thing, causing Joe and Cecile to be concerned about her. I mean, ideally, Iris should be working together with Cisco trying to find a way to save Barry or, I don't know, using Wally's connection to the Legends to see if they can time travel to the future and trying to use that to their advantage (...do the Legends travel to the future? They do, right? Or is it just the past? I still don't watch) or doing something INVESTIGATIVE considering she's a journalist. What she should definitely not be doing is business as usual. So frustrating. On the subject of Iris, Candice looked stunning for the brief amount of time she was in this episode and I'm forever jealous of anyone who has natural curls that look like that. It is VERY bizarre. Especially when CP has been fairly vocal about the fact that she had previously asked and was subsequently shot down. No lie, one of my favourite bits of tuning into This Is Us (don't judge me) is seeing how Susan Kelechi Watson's hair is going to look that week. Although, actually, if you think about it, none of the ladies on Flash have varying hairstyles even between themselves. Caitlin, Iris, Nora, Cecile and Kamilla almost always have the same style: parted to the side or down the middle, bit of wave at the ends. I think Cecile had a bun once. And Caitlin used to have bangs. God. How boring. I'm with Barry on this one. Nothing against Empire, which is a solid movie, but Jurassic Park is kind of amazing. (I'll confess that some of my bias for this may be because I was pretty young when I watched all of the Star Wars movies on grainy VHS and it's possible that a lot of thematic stuff went over my head? I do remember being surprised by the Vader twist and owning a lot of ewok toys. I was old enough to see Jurassic Park in theatres though and it was absolutely thrilling/terrifying/other adjectives that start with the letter 't' in a way that it definitely cemented its way into my top movies list.)

I think you have a point @SevenStars with respect to Barry’s willingness to do anything and everything for Iris, but just 2 seasons ago we also had Iris going to therapy over the fact that Barry left her to go into the speed force, so it does seem a little weird that both she’s so blasé about Barry’s death.

Some random thoughts: While I still don’t care about this whole Killer Frost needs to be a real girl storyline, I’ve got to say that that at least she’s more entertaining than Caitlin. I mean, that bar is pretty low since OATMEAL is more entertaining than Caitlin, but I’ll take it. Um. How did Ralph never figure out that his mom was lying about all her boyfriends dying? Or not at least suspect her just a little bit of maybe killing them? Yikes. I understand he’s supposed to be kind of loveably stupid (which is a fun turnaround from when his character was first introduced), but he was also a cop. He’s currently a PI. It drives me batty when writers Flanderize characters to the point of being too dumb to function (see: Eric Matthews) and I really hope that’s not going to be the case with Ralph. All that being said, Hartley Sawyer is a delight. I hate so much that I enjoy Tom Cavanagh, because the constant revamping of Wells annoys me to no end. Le sigh. For the most part though, I think this episode fell a little flat. The Bloodwork storyline hasn’t grabbed me too much yet and while I do appreciate the show pairing off different characters, it seemed like there was A LOT going on, but with nothing actually happening? Iris and Cisco investigating the new Wells, Barry and Frost investigating Ramsay (with a bonus of Frost doing her best Anya impression and discovering that feelings are a real thing), Cecile and Ralph investigating his mom, blah, blah, blah, random rave at Team Flash’s SECRET HIDEOUT with Norvak DJing?! before finally addressing the fact that Barry’s gonna die, which should probably be at the forefront going forward, no? All in all, not my favourite.

Francine being from the future could be an interesting storyline, for sure. Totally agree that the whole drug addict who abandons her family backstory was messy at best. Don’t know how I feel about Iris being from the 30th century though. How would that work with Joe being her father? Because as much I love a good preaching about how family isn’t just blood (no sarcasm, it’s legit the main reason I watched The O.C.), I’m definitely not crazy about a retcon of our Iris not being Joe’s kid.

Honestly? Just poking a little fun. But, also, they literally show Barry just moments earlier both whooshing away Cecile and Allegra from one of Ultra Violet's blasts (after she's shot it, mind you) AND then ducking her next one when he runs to face off with her. And he actually starts to duck her final blast that ends up hitting him, but instead, decides to turn and run away. Thus the Prometheus School of Running Away from Things joke. Of course, after Barry is hit, Gideon decides that this is the best time to let him know that he cannot outrun the ultra violet light. So, that's pretty useful. Come to think of it, I believe she also lets him know about whole anti matter destructor of worlds thing after he full on runs into it. So, while it's possible that even though Barry is now smart enough to have made a mobile Gideon, he may want to have, like, a warning setting built in, instead of having to keep prompting her about what happened. Like: "Gideon, what happened?" "You died. It appears you lost connection to the Speed Force and were unable to outrun the gunfire/bomb/whatever." Isn't super helpful.

Prometheus School of Running Away from Things!* (I somehow missed your post during my first read through, but yeah, I absolutely hate this trope. Just move to the side. Or duck. C'mon, Barry.)

I thought so, too. I liked the premiere just fine and I think it set up the tone for the this season nicely, but I didn't think it was spectacular or anything (amazing use of Flash by Queen aside). I thought this episode really put everything in motion, though. Barry's barely whispered, "Mom?" when he saw Nora's doppelganger just about broke me. For a CW show, the cast (with Grant Gustin and Candice Patton being the standouts) really put in a lot of work in making the material feel grounded. Oh, I just got the worst Supernatural flashback of those Winchester boys sacrificing their souls each season and then coming back with so much overwrought angst and man pain and then lather, rinse, repeat and OH MY GOD, if they just keep making Barry sacrifice himself to the Speed Force and to the Monitor (because I'm pretty sure Barry is gonna bite in the Crisis and Wally's coming back for a funeral and then to play Flash for a bit) and whatever else, only to bring him back over and over, I just can't. I cannot. ...My apologies. That show ruined me for hero sacrifices and any sort of emotional impact that they may have. AHEM. Other things I enjoyed about this episode? Iris and her gang with the VOTW storyline. I always get a kick out of the cheesy rogues gallery episodes, because they're a fun nod to the comics. Like, of course King Shark is ridiculous, but it's entertaining! Also, are we actually getting closer to it being even halfway believable that OUR Barry Allen makes Gideon? Um. YAY. I love science Barry! I still don't see the point of the whole Caitlin/Frost personal growth thing. Unless they're gonna merge them? Like, why are we wasting time on this? Are there Caitlin Snow/Killer Frost fans? I'm honestly not trying to be rude, but Caitlin has literally had 2 storylines the entire time she's been on the show: 1) My fiancé is dead and that makes me sad; and 2) A frost demon lives inside of me. Legit didn't notice he hasn't made an appearance until I read this thread. Amazing.

Gotta say, EW has me pretty pumped for the new season. I really like that he's stated that he wants to approach his new job as showrunner as a fan first (especially of him being a fan of genre TV, but maybe more importantly of comics in general and the Flash, specifically), because I feel like so many execs who are in charge of genre TV shows, don't seem to actually like or aren't familiar with the source material that they're adapting and want to change it into something unrecognizable. Legit, Wallace kind of seems like a huge dork, who is just happy to get to tell stories about his favourite comic book. (I mean this in the most endearing way possible.) I did get a bit worried when he said the new format for the show would be following a "graphic novel" breakdown, because I thought maybe it would be leaning to hard into Heroes or Ang Lee's The Hulk, but it seems like they're just splitting the season into 2 arcs and then possibly 2 mini arcs within those? Which I'm down with. And it makes sense since the show REALLY ran out of steam with Cicada last season. Although, I'll admit a little skepticism from when Veronica Mars tried this same tactic with their third season and it didn't go over well. (Of course, to be fair, there was a lot of that season that didn't go over well. But I digress.) Anyway, mark me down as excited!

OMG. Thank you for bringing this into my life.

I really want to see this, but wish Scarlett Johansson wasn't one of the leads. Wasn't there a tree she could have played instead?