Cthulhudrew

Even after all they've been through together so far, Nacho still underestimates Mike? That man is a badass!

Plus Rip's all, "Excuse me, I need to have a... word... with Jonah" and proceeds to disappear for a while with him, and with no reference to what their "word" was about. I can't imagine that the writers were really trying to go that route- or that they would ever follow through with it, at any rate- but if they did, I would give them major props for one of the most daring things this show has done so far. It would almost make up for so much of the misfires they otherwise do for me. In any case, it absolutely had those overtones, intended or not. (EDIT: Come to think of it, given how hokey so much of the writing has been this season in my view, I wouldn't be surprised if they had written this without regard to how it played, and the actors took it upon themselves to add the subtext. That would be even better.)

So, my takeaway from this episode was... Rip and Jonah were lovers. Oh, and the menace of the Hunters that was last week's cliffhanger was ridiculously overdramatized. At this point, I'm nearly convinced that this is his plan; create as much havoc with these rabble rousers as possible in order to force the Time Masters to get rid of Vandal Savage themselves just to stop his menacing. (The joke's on Rip, though, because the "Time Masters" are pretty clearly incompetent themselves.)

Did Kendra just smash a chair on a guy who was doing nothing but observing the barroom brawl?

So Viv and the Fillmore Graves troop are going to have to corner the Utopium market now that they have Max Rager, right? Is this going to lead to a gang war with Mr. Boss? And what are they going to do when they find out that they need the "special cut" that only Preach knew how to make? And I wish I had a twitter so that I could hashtag #wheresnatalie all over the place.

Wow. That was a pretty intense two hours. A lot of unexpected things, sad to see Drake go like that. I think it would have been nice to see him and Liv together now that she knew his secret. Also sad to see Vaughn and Rita go; I thought they'd at least let Rita "live". They're going to need some new villains next season. Mr Boss is interesting, but he seems like he might be a little too easy to defang now. I imagine Vivian Stow will be the nemesis going forward. Glad that Clive got let in on the secret, and man does Malcolm Goodwin do a good job. Both he and Robert Buckley turned out to be so surprisingly good in their roles; in the pilot, I felt them both to be pretty flat as performers, and they showed me otherwise over the past two seasons. All the talent is good on this show; even David Anders- who I've loved to hate since Alias- is able to make the despicable Blaine somewhat charming. The big question is: where's Natalie? I imagine they couldn't get the actress back, but were they suggesting that she was a victim of one of the early experimental cures, or did she get roped into sex trafficking again? I hope they don't just let that thread dangle; the character (and actress) was unexpectedly endearing in such a relatively small role, and she and Major had some chemistry. I hope she makes a return.

Ravi smashing evil bodyguard guy in the head with a fire extinguisher has to be one of the greatest moments on this show.

Supergirl seemed far more disaffected by Superman's mind-control than she did about anyone else- including extra of the week Kelly. She must have read the reviews of his movie. Speaking of Kelly, her fate might have actually meant something if they'd, I dunno, given her a line in a prior episode. Even the immediately prior episode. Just to indicate that there might be someone at Catco that Kara cares about other than Winn, James, or Cat. Of course, that would have required them to Taft-Hartley an extra, but IMO it would have been well worth the cost! J'onn seemed awfully casual about hightailing it back to National City. Either he's really polite and didn't want to just bail on Kara and Alex' mom, or else he's still miffed the show sidelined him for the last episode or two. In the latter case, I agree.

I've got to say, as much as Rip Hunter sucks as a time traveler, with all the screwups and apparent lack of knowledge of time travel he has (though he and the writers espouse otherwise), the Time Masters pretty much suck just as badly for not being able to do a better job of stopping him. At this point, I believe the Council of Time Masters is really just a bunch of Doctor Who geeks in the future who got a hold of some time machines and made this fanclub with a lot of ritual and pomp but with no actual technical or chronological know-how to support any of it.

I'd be happier about them finally having the Russia flashbacks next season if they hadn't already shown that they don't know what to do with the flashbacks for the last two seasons. :(

Crazy thought of the day: What if Clive is a zombie himself? I mean, probably not, but just thinking about it, there could be some subtle clues: 1) He used to work for vice, but then was apparently "drummed out" and went to work for the homicide unit. We know from Benedetti that the vice squad is investigating the Utopium trade, and Clive could have possibly gotten infected that way, and where better to get an "Eat! Brains!" fix than on the homicide unit? 2) He picked up a chorizo burrito for himself (a spicy sausage). 3) And... umm, that's all I've got so far. Anyone else have any possible Clive/Zombie observations we could add? Again, he probably isn't, but it could make a fun game! :D

Can you even lock an airplane bathroom from the outside, or is that option available only in zombie passenger seating?

Chief's a lot smarter than he comes across. At least cunning, though it would be kind of cool if he ends up taking on a bigger role because everyone underestimated him. And man, that punch he landed on Venedetti! That looked like it hurt. Have to echo the Rita as albino sentiment. She looked really hot in her alabaster glory. This episode got me to thinking, though. What happens to non-light skinned people who end up zombified? I know that the lieutenant in season 1 was asian (Japanese, IIRC), and he seemed to have no issues covering up his albinism; kind of a cheat, really, but for some reason I didn't question it at the time. But what if someone of normally really dark skin were to change? What if Clive got zombified, for example? Would the show try and pull a Suzuki and pretend they just wear really believable makeup, or will they just not go there so they don't have to push the bounds of reality?

Just got done watching this episode and... WTF????

To add to this: Did Future Barry just leave Past Barry lying in the alley like that? Or did he run him back to his apartment to sleep it off or something? I know neither Barry seems to really take the whole "secret identity" all that seriously they way they tell everyone who he really is (except Patty), but seems kind of dangerous to leave yourself lying around where someone could stumble over you. lol

This episode reminded me of two things: 1) How good Tom Cavanagh's turn as Harrison Wells/Thawne was in the first season, and how much more menacing and impressive a threat he posed compared to this season's Zoom. 2) How, even with its shortcomings, the first season seemed so much more fun and thrilling to watch, because every episode seemed to pack so much story into it. They advanced their A plot, but also introduced so many new characters and stories along the way. While this season... plods along. It's something I noticed with the second season of Arrow, and have noticed in other shows as well, but it didn't strike me until this callback to Flash season 1. It almost feels like, whereas in season one they didn't know if they'd get renewed, and they kept adding moer episodes to the order, so they just kept introducing more and more elements to the show. Then, in season two, they were given a distinct episode run, and in order to make the show fit into that tangible number, they just keep padding it out, until they hit the end and try and cram in too much story into too few episodes in order to resolve it all. Pacing issues. On a show called the Flash. Irony? Anyway, for all of the troublesome time antics, I enjoyed this episode, definitely more than last week.

You pretty much distilled my thoughts about the episode perfectly here (get out of my head!!). A couple of salient points: Same. Siobhan was very one-dimensional when they introduced her character, and then they started to actually flesh her out and make her more than just the "mean girl." I really liked the character, and like you, was hopeful that she might be a nuanced nemesis for Supergirl (perhaps her first this season, save maybe her aunt?). But then her aunt tells her she has to kill the one who wronged her in order to get rid of the voices in her head, and she's all, "okay." As if the decision to murder another person is just something that people do casually all the time. Only in crappy comic books or lazily written tv shows. Seriously, after giving this woman a few more layers and even some degree of sympathetic writing- not to mention giving yourselves an out with the voices in the head- they kind of toss all that aside casually. At least give us some more buildup to it, let us see her deterioration and torment that maybe leaves a conflicted soul who sees no alternative but to ease her own suffering by taking Kara's life? Instead it's just "ow, a headache," now I wander in a fugue for a few minutes, then everything's okay. And I'm going to kill someone. It's the same short-shrift this show gives to a lot of its plots; we'll condense all of this into 2 minute segments and resolve it just as handily. The same problem I have with the way they handled Supergirl's "They love me/They Don't?/They love me again" plot. Give these things some time to develop and breathe, and you make them much more poignant and give the audience and your characters a much more satisfying emotional denoument. Or, as the Flash put it in this episode, "sometimes you've just got to slow down." Yeah, that was a zinger. "Whew! They're both down. Now... retreeaatt!!!?????" This was probably the most laughable part of the episode, and the worst acting. I mean, the silly bit with all the bystanders in the park all suddenly stopping in place and turning their heads simultaneously to look up at the helicopter and Supergirl was bad, but hey- they're extras! Mehcad Brooks' run, stop suddenly, gasp, then reach so obviously for his signal watch moment was pathetic. I enjoyed him on Necessary Roughness, and felt he displayed a wide range of emotiveness in his acting choices on that show, but he's been pretty bad on Supergirl. That rose to a whole new level of hamminess in this episode, though. His world-weary jealous mugging when watching Barry and Kara was bad, but the run gag was terrible. Given some of the other acting choices in this episode, I wonder if it had more to do with the directing than the actors. And on another note: Lucy always dressed pretty professionally before, whether in uniform or as KatCo's lawyer. Now that she's head of the DEO, though, she's sporting catsuits, heavy makeup, and post-coital mussy hair? That seemed very out of place to me. Just me?

I liked this episode, yet I felt it was a little too cutesy. It also illustrates what is I think my biggest misgiving about this show so far, which is that it tends to treat anything other than the Kara/Alex/J'onn storylines with way too much superficiality. (Actually, they generally do a good job with the Kara/Kat storylines, too.) It seems like any time Winn, James, Lucy, romance, or villains are involved, there is a lot of slapdash characterization and brusque treatment of the subject matter, with unearned emotional payoffs.

I think he faked his death to get away from the psycho. Or, it being Floyd, maybe he willingly went to his own death just to get away from her. Either or. Also, anyone know what all that was about with Darkh and the wedding ring at the end? Was that his, was it something besides a wedding ring? Yet to be revealed?

IIRC, it was. I thought I remembered Dig saying something to the effect of "Lyla and I just found out that Waller was serious about letting the Suicide Squad working towards their pardons" or somesuch. What I'd like to know is just exactly how far away did they decide to station Spartan and Speedy (their backup?) because it took them like ten minutes to get to the chapel to try and help stop Cupid (and even then they were pretty useless). Oh, and as much as I'd like to see them use Laurel and her legal skills, I'd rather they continue not to do so if they are going to do such a bad job with the courtroom drama. Kthx.

Are we sure Rita's a zombie? IIRC, her hair was still red when she came back, and she had her high heel ready to do some zombie head stabbing before her dad abandoned her. (Of course, as sacrebleu mentions, she could have been scratched and just not turned completely yet. I can't recall precisely how it works; it seems to me it was always a pretty quick change, but I don't think we've seen it happen since Drake, maybe? So I could be wrong.)

Maybe there will be another spinoff: Agent Danvers and J'onn J'onnz: Manhunters! (Hey, I'd watch it.)

Something else that just occurred to me: at least one of the Jays that is working with Team Flash must actually be a scientist (chemist?) as he originally claimed, because he has cooperated with Caitlin more than once on the Velocity-X, among other things (unless I'm misremembering). E-1 Hunter Zolomon, inasfar as we know anything about him other than he sits on a bench in a park and people watches (and his name is apparently Hunter Zolomon), isn't a scientist to my knowledge. Now, it could have been Zoom working with her at those times, and not at others, but wasn't Zoom on E-2 when V-9 was created? From all the evidence, that was a legit, non-powered "Jay" that was injected and fought Geomancer, not Zoom. I dunno, my head hurts trying to figure it out right now. Hopefully the Flash writers have considered all of the Jay/Zoom stuff and have a really well-crafted explanation for it; something that is better than the reveals they've presented so far. (I'm almost tempted to go back and rewatch and see if you can tell any different acting choices Teddy Sears may have made in his scenes that would show when he was Zoom and when he was "Jay." Almost.)

Good point about trusting Jay. I'd forgotten that he was initially inclined not to open up, until everyone jumped on the bandwagon and essentially browbeated him into doing it. I also agree with you about Iris and saying that either the Flash was her mysterious informant (she's had him on record before, IIRC, so not that odd). The argument I imagine the writers would have had her boss use is the same one he used here, though, that being that Iris needs to have "hard facts." Of course, it apparently only works one way- he doesn't need the same sorts of hard facts before he decides how to frame the anti-Flash story he wants to tell. Sigh. I was hoping when he told her she had to write the story he wanted ("Flash Turned Freak," or whatever) that she'd turn around and write some kind of Swift-ian satire piece seeming like she was questioning the Flash's sudden turn to villainy, but really throwing a light on the public's (and her editor's) inexplicable and illogical willingness to believe that he would go from being a proven hero to using his powers to pick people's pockets for change. That's an Iris story that would have been nice to see, instead of the creepy faux-romantic boss dating subplot.

I wondered the same thing. Apparently it was just so that the writers could convey to the viewers that she was underage. And was it me, or did it seem like Barry was drunk in the bar scene? They didn't play it up much, but Gustin's acting choices seemed to me to have Barry's speech seem a bit slurred and his movements awkward. Just kind of struck me as weird, since it didn't seem to start until after they got the shots, and he isn't supposed to be able to get drunk except with the help of Cisco and Caitlin's super beverage.