tofutan
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Posts posted by tofutan
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What I would like above all is
1.) For Kara to leave the DEO for a while and see how she works as a hero if she doesn't have the DEO resources as her backup
2.) For there to be some serious political fallout to the Daxamite invasion. Like it being called into question whether J'onn should lead the DEO. Like Mon-El being questioned whether he was secretly spying for the Daxamites. Like the DEO maybe getting a new boss. Or it being suggested that Kara needs to be put under more government oversight because she's a scary powerful alien. (which all could function as an excellent way to make 1 happen)
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I would be very interested if they found a way to put James in Lena's orbit. Especially since I'm very pessimistic about them finding a way to make CatCo relevant without Cat. I think that would be interesting on its own even if it doesn't turn explicitly romantic. I could see them go for something more tension filled where they work together on something, but there's suspicion going on. And they could finally make use of James position at CatCo, because in theory that should put him in a position of power/relevance in the city. So it would be fairly natural for media mogul James and business mogul Lena to interact over ... things.
SpoilerI'm very intrigued that they are gonna apparently do another round of Lena and Winn sciencing together in the finale. I don't expect anything to come out of it but I expect the scenes will be fun.
Even though I like watching Rhea a lot, I feel like I'm deeply confused about her motivations. Did she really decide spontaneously to take over earth after Mon-El said no to rejoining the family? Why did she kill her husband? Is she lying when she says it's all for the people and it's really primarily about her son? How will she react when Lena probably rejects Rhea's plans for her?
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What’s the scoop on Cat Grant and Superman’s return on Supergirl? — Rosie
Both will play pivotal roles heading into the final two episodes. “I don’t want to tease too much about how they return because both Superman’s return and Cat’s return are great surprises; how it happens, you’ll be shocked at both of their appearances,” EP Andrew Kreisberg says. “This is Kara’s darkest hour. It’s perfect that she has both Superman and Cat, who are these great stabilizing influences in her life — Cat, who tends to have a good handle on what Kara needs, and Clark has a pretty good handle on what Supergirl needs. She needs them both desperately because she’s faced with some truly awful decisions to make in the finale and choices that affect her both as Kara and as Supergirl. Having her surrogate mother and surrogate brother there to make these decisions, it’s good to have them there.”And
QuoteThe Girl of Steel is going to have her work cut out for her in the final episodes of Supergirl this season.
After Rhea (Teri Hatcher) effectively tricked Lena (Katie McGrath) into creating a portal that would allow the surviving Daxamite race to come to Earth — err, New Daxam — Kara (Melissa Benoist) will have to turn to some unlikely allies to combat this new threat, not least of which is Cadmus leader Lillian Luthor (Brenda Strong).
But just because they are aligned now doesn’t mean Cadmus has stopped hating aliens. In fact, the Daxamites won’t be Kara’s only threat as Supergirl heads into its second season finale. “There’s multiple showdowns coming up,” executive producer Andrew Kreisberg tells EW. “These are some of our biggest episodes we’ve ever done.”
“The finale is probably the biggest episode we’ve ever done,” Kreisberg continues. “We saved a bunch of money to pay for more visual effects and actually added another day to the schedule so we could make it as big as possible, and yet it also has multiple get-your-Kleenex scenes. We’re really excited about it. We’re all blown away.”
With villains abound, Kara will also find some help from returning familiar faces Cat Grant (Calista Flockhart) and Superman (Tyler Hoechlin), both of whom she needs “desperately because she’s faced with some truly awful decisions to make in the finale,” Kreisberg says.
Kara will need all the help she can get when Superman villain General Zod (Mark Gibbon) joins the board in the finale. “It’s a great moment,” Kreisberg says of Zod’s arrival. “We needed a big, iconic Superman villain, and there really isn’t anybody more iconic, at least in terms of a physical opponent for Superman, than Zod.”
“Say whatever you want about the finales, they’re not boring,” Kreisberg says with a laugh. “It really feels like the culmination of everything we’ve been doing all season long, all the different story lines, whether it’s Superman and Cat and Cadmus and M’Gann and Mon-El and Lynda Carter and now Rhea, it all comes together in one big two-part story.”
http://ew.com/tv/2017/05/12/supergirl-season-2-finale-spoilers/
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I liked how Amaya and Sara seemed to be pitted against each other (in a civil kind of way) because they have different ideas of teamwork and leadership.
In the Vixen cartoon Vixen can fly if she channels a bird. Do we think that our Vixen could do that too, in theory?
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I came across this quote in an article about Snart:
QuoteIt could be argued that setting Snart back on his redemptive path made Mick into a better and more heroic character but that is a stretch. The Mick who found redemption on Legends of Tomorrow is the one from the future Doomworld who was then killed by Leonard Snart. The Mick who survived "Aruba" is not the same one who betrayed the Legends, eventually reunited them and then had to watch Amaya die. There's nothing to stop this Mick from betraying the Legends again so even the impact Snart returning had on Mick doesn't matter.
http://www.buddytv.com/articles/legends-of-tomorrow/did-legends-of-tomorrow-waste-64099.aspx
I don't think the writers will ever think of that or see it that way, but it is an incredibly interesting thought.
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I totally expect Savitar to be defeated by true love. Doesn't everybody?
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Wentworth answered some fan questions (mostly of a personal nature or on acting) on his facebook. Some people interpret this answer to be a dig at Legends:
Either way, all the answers can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/notes/wentworth-miller/mailbag-61/1888977064648560/
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Yeah - again - you're suggesting that Superman being black equals a "crappy childhood" and my entire point was to dispute that.
No, the person who originally posed the mind experiment suggested that being explicitly being part of his childhood. To me it sounded that they felt that was a main angle as to they they thought that that would be interesting. That's what I was reacting to. I did not come up with that scenario. They laid out a scenario where that was an explicit part of it.
Quoteand you're kinda making it worse by equating being black with being raised by an Iris Mafia family,
I like how you ignore that I also compared it to growing up rich and pampered.
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I really got stuck on the "If they don't want Savitar to know, why don't they just not tell Barry and come up with a plan without him?" thing as well. Still, it was a mostly fun and cute episode, even if them HAVING to reverse it because of the convenient burning house felt a bit rushed.
I don't even try to understand the time loop stuff anymore, I just assume it's actually bullshit if you ever thought about it seriously.
HR/Tracy... why?
It was interesting that Iris got her mini-arc of "naw, I'm tempted to leave him clueless because that makes him happy" to then changing her mind on it. I actually wondered if that would piss some haters off that she would even think of that in the first place.
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I'm not sure you realize this, but you've just implied that all black children grow up with a crappy childhood because of racism and would be incapable of growing up to be nice and friendly.
A story where somebody is nice *despite* having a crappy childhood is still a very different story than somebody who grew up in a very idyllic way. IMO a large part of Superman is that he has it easy, but he *makes* things hard for himself. He can pass for human and have a normal life, but he puts himself out there. He has all these powers, but he uses them to help people and puts a lot of moral restrictions on himself. He could embrace his Kryptonian heritage but he's human because of the love for his parents.
It's not the "being black" part that I object to, it's the being bullied for it before going to Metropolis (where the current version of Superman was usually talked down to because he's not a cityboy) and that was in the pitch the original poster proposed. [and for the record, I'm sure they could come up with a scenario where a black Superman still has a reasonably idyllic childhood]
Yes, they could still have him make the same choices, to be a hero, to mostly reject his Kryptonian heritage while having a traumatic childhood (whether as a black or a white character), but the context of these choices would be very different and hence it would be a very different type of story and a very different type of character. It would be the same if you, let's say changed the backstory to The Kents being part of the Irish Mafia or The Kents being filthy rich real estate tycoons living in the city. Yeah, he could still get a cape and fly around and save people and date Lois Lane, but it would still be an extremely different story.
It ultimately depends on whether you see Superman as a set of powers or as a specific story (last survivor of an alien race choosing to be a defender of humanity, wide eyed country boy falling for tough as nails city reporter who ignored him at first, person who could be worshipped as a god but choosing to be humble and stereotypical boy scout because of oodles of inherent goodness => you can still have all those while being black, but I think having an "everybody bullies you because you are black because rural Kansas" backstory would give these stories a very different tinge. Btw, I'm debating back and forth whether doing a "black kid raised by white parents" would be an interesting variation on the Superman mythos or whether the fact that the Kents adopted somebody from a different race [Kryptonian] is not that apparent to outsiders is an important part again in how he chooses to act on his powers and on his heritage; I'm leaning more towards it being interesting).
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I don't know, I think Superman to me is kind of tied to having an idyllic childhood. To explain why he is so nice and friendly. So I think a Superman with a crappy childhood would always be a very different story.
I'm kinda sad that Supergirl didn't go and expand on this idea more, that there are aliens who can pass for humans (like Kara and Clark) and aliens who are recognizably alien. I was also hoping that they would eventually tackle this fundamental difference between Clark and Kara, both are immigrant stories, but Clark is somebody who never knew his "home culture" and grew up with humans pretty much 100% of his conscious life. While Kara actually remembers Krypton and Kryptonian culture and hence is more torn between the old culture and the new culture. While Clark just has no personal emotional access to that culture, while for Kara the question of heritage is more interesting.
But it's always up for debate whether it makes sense to do stories like that as metaphors (ie alien rights issues standing in for immigration/muslim rights issues) or to just do them literally. (as an interesting contrast to Legends who do more literal versions of social issues, but by in a time travel context, like in that episode where they go to the 1950s and the one where they go to the civil war, but it hard to judge because it's usually a one off and they go back and forth on whether they try to do stuff like that or just want to have only a good time; of course Legends is kinda caged in that they can't do anything that messes with the timeline too much)
As for Wonder Woman, I'm still waiting for WW or Supergirl to do that story where somebody actually realizes, wait, they aren't Christians, they come from a polytheist background/Kara believes in an alien god.
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I dunno, I always got the impression that the whole message of the racebending that the comics and comic shows did (I think it started with Smallville but maybe others can think of an earlier example) was that the character is what matters, not the ethnicity/hair color. Lana is still Lana even when she's not a redhead. Iris is still Iris even though she has brown skin. Iris/Flash is a fixture, but ethnicity doesn't matter. It asks the viewer: what do you really care about? What color her skin is or that she's his high school sweetheart? What color her hair is or that she's a big damn hero? Does it matter who she is, or is the message what he feels about her?
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Darn, no Jeremiah in the finale? That's the first thing I heard of it. That's quite sad, I was kinda counting on there being some payoff there.
Anyway, the Inside Look is out:
My first reaction would be to be worried that James decides to give up being Guardian because he realizes he can inspire people better as a writer/journalist. Except we know he fights in the finale together with everybody else. So maybe he does get his groove back by the end of the episode.
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I think the coming out story deserves a bit better than being considered just "a few signal exceptions". I remember Alex and Kara getting quite a lot of hanging out scenes. Just because they were out and about or in the bar doesn't mean they don't count.
I think Homecoming set up a theme of Alex's obsession with Jeremiah that you also see in some other episodes. Yes everybody is suffering from the stupid in this episode, but it was there to set up the plot for Exodus more than anything. And I think the main point was to give us a chance to see Jeremiah interact with his family only to take that away again. (then again, the main thing I remember from this episode is the Jeremiah/Eliza scene which I liked a lot and cringing at J'onn talking about how he can't read Jeremiah's mind as Jeremiah runs off) I think that kind of subterfuge fits Cadmus and I'm not convinced that the plot holes were that much worse than in "Alex" for example.
IMO it was probably an intentional choice to not have Kara be needy about Maggie, precisely so it would never look like a "Alex abandoning Kara" storyline and it can be enjoyed guilt free. Especially since Kara has expressed repeatedly how much she wants Alex to have a full life.
I also think it's a good thing that maybe it might set up some more serious conflict down the line, in season 3 maybe. But then again, I've been very, very vocal that I think they should at one point do at least a season where Kara doesn't work at the DEO anymore, because it's frankly a bit embarrassing that as the big female superhero she's the only one who works as part of a government agency rather than working on her own terms.
I'm not a big fan on how it sometimes seems like some fans want Kara to be infantilized just so they can get quality Kara/Alex scenes where Alex has a big impact on Kara. And I say that as somebody who really does love the sisters relationship, I just happen to think the journey has to be towards growing up and also standing on your own, rather than keeping Kara needy because that's cute.
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I think on Flash the behavior is consistent enough across various couples that I think it's pretty clear that it's probably an artistic tone choice rather than actors saying no. Normally I would say maybe it's an effort to be child friendly but I always find that kind ridiculous when I consider how much violence/murder/pretty screwed up subject matters these shows deal with.
I think what makes Legends interesting is that romance plots (outside from various 1-episode stints, which again were spread around, Sara had the nurse, Jax had that girl from the 50s, Nate had that girl from historical Japan) almost seem to be more the thing of side characters.
Sara is the lead, but Kendra was in a way the romantic lead of season 1 who had all the men falling for her (Carter, Jax, Savage, Ray) and competing over here. As somebody who actually likes that and finds that interesting, I'm actually very glad that they didn't go for an actual full on schmalzy Sara/Captain Cold story.
I think this structure gives them more freedom to do romantic plots, but then also end them again. Rather than: THIS IS THE OTP YOU MAY NEVER ABANDON IT. Sure the downside is that the build up on this stories are often rushed. But for example with Nate and Amaya it seemed pretty obvious that the hooking up part never really interested the writers, for them what was dramatically interesting was how they would deal with the moral conundrum of Vixen's future grandchildren. Is Nate the daddy and will he give up the Legends to be with her? Will he eventually let her go so she can fulfill her destiny? Will she disrupt the timeline out of affection for the Legends? [similarly, I think Kendra/Ray in season 1 was supposed to be mostly about how Ray deals with the fact that she has this whole destiny baggage with all these people who want something from her because they knew her in a different life and the worry about whether she will repeat that cycle/whether it is possible to break that cycle]
By playing a lot more fast and loose with couples they can explore that, then write the couple or the characters out again and start a completely new romance with a completely different core conundrum. Rather than "this is the one couple, we have to come up with new obstacles over and over again for the same 2 characters". And by having those romances take place in the supporting cast rather than with the main character, I think this also gives them more freedom, because it sidesteps all the arguments about "this is the MAIN love interest". Romances can play out when they have material and then end and be replaced. I bet for the writers that is like super liberating, but fans just really enjoy latching on to certain ships (or they latch on to one character they like and obsess over that character getting their perfect person).
Now Flash was never gonna be like that, because despite it being probably less known, Flash/Iris is just a fixed thing in the comics, like Lois and Superman and Mary Jane and Spiderman.
==> Speaking of the Hawks. I find it interesting that I've always only seen that story done with Hawkgirl as the one who is not interested and Hawkman as the pursuer. It was like that in DCCW, it was like that in the Justice League cartoon (where she dates John Stewart) and in the JSA comics (where she dated Sanderson Hawkins/Sand).
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Spider-Man was as much about Peter's romance with Mary Jane as it was about being a hero
In the comic books? Or just in the movies? The movies add love stories because they want to get a 4-quarter audience, young and old, male and female. That doesn't mean that it's the same balance between action and romance in the comics. I think you can find plenty of comic book issues where any panels dedicated to romance are relatively minor compared to the panels dedicated to action.
QuoteBut I don't get the reasoning in this because movies do crazy comic book style villains and plots,
Movies are not tv shows or comic book series. You have 1 movie, but you have 22 episodes. Just because a thing is in the movie doesn't mean that it would be in all of the 22 episodes. Or in all issues of a comic (or be in there or more than just for a bookend).
Quotetoo so why is it easier for the hero to be more independent in a movie, but not in a TV show? About the only reason I can think of is to make an ensemble show that doesn't ride on a single actor.
That's definitely one aspect. And you need character for tech babble. And characters on the other end of the earpiece to explain to the audience what is going on/to have something for the main character to talk to. It allows them to have more characters with different personalities to exchange quipps with. Especially since live action tv action scenes are expensive for a tv show. They don't have as much freedom to do big action compared to cartoons or comic books. In a comic book a scene where the main character punches out a 5o foot tall monster is just as expensive as a scene where two characters talk. On a tv show the latter is indefinitely cheaper.
A movie generally has only a single plot (and the budget to pay for the big action scenes), so only one thing where they have to justify why the hero gets drawn into it. On a tv show you need a new plot every episode (I personally thought it was pretty painfully cheesy how Clark just kept "stumbling" into meteor freaks every episode in the earlier seasons without actively searching for them).
I'm also guessing one factor is that it maybe gives the audience more people to identify themselves with. That maybe a lot of nerdy fans can relate more to the human sidekick supporting characters than they can with the main hero characters. Not to mention it allows them to do male/female, ie if the main character is female, have a male tech nerd (like Winn), if the main character is male, have a female tech nerd (like Chloe or Felicity). So in a way it's probably almost a favor to Westallen that Cisco is treated as closest to the typical nerd character, respectively it's not that unusual for a pattern that fans gravitate towards the "other sex person in the support system" ships. Again a pattern that had clearly in Smallville where Lana was the adored love interest who was still the outsider, while Chloe was the more helpful in the know one. And then of course that was repeated with Laurel/Felicity.
So in a way at least Iris found out within acceptable time parameters compared to poor Lana. I found that always an interesting aspect of James in season 1 that they didn't bother with the whole clueless about her identity thing. I still think that Winn still came off as the more helpful one and even though James was part of the smaller CatCo team back then, he always came off more as a guide to me, rather than the typical helpful supporting character. Of course, I think that archetype is generally fueled by the helpful person pining after the hero. Something that didn't work with Kara/James since Kara was pining for him, again, making him more like the Laurel/Iris, the person who is unavailable because they are in a relationship in season 1.
I think tv shows really love doing "pining" storylines. Because it makes for easy dramatic scenes. But the problem is that it usually makes the person being pined over an object and even if it doesn't (ie, Ollie was still clearly the main subject of his tv show), people still tend to relate more to the person pining than with the person being pined over. But non-pining, actually in a relationship stories are hard to write (and mutual pining is hard to do without the characters looking stupid), so many tv shows go back to that.
QuoteAs for Kara, I head-wank that that's why she's Super-Junior. Superman gets to fly solo, and be a free agent while she needs a support system.
Which is pretty insulting if you think about it. I know people love it how much Alex came to Kara's rescue in season 1, because yay girlpower, but I still firmly think that this is something Kara should ultimately grow out of. And that it's a healthy thing that in season 2 we had more of Kara supporting Alex.
BTW that's one reason why I think Legends of Tomorrow is the most interesting DC TV show because it doesn't follow the blueprint of the other shows at all. There is no main hero with a central romance and hence there isn't this same feeling of a strict hierarchy (though they still have the support system in the form of the all knowing AI, but other than that, various characters act as info dumpers, but still go out in the field) To bad that nobody is watching it. Because it is noteworthy that Flash to my knowledge is still the highest rated among the currently running DCTV shows, correct?
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That bothers me too about Supergirl, that most superheroes are sort of rugged free agents who pursue their superheroing outside of the control of the government (even Legends of Tomorrow SPOILER cut the ties to the Time Masters after a season and technically before that already) and the one female superhero is a government employee who must stand down and fly through hoops if the higher ups say so. I still hope that they will eventually write it as Kara having a falling out with the government and decide she needs to do her own thing, just like Clark does. I think that would be a very interesting challenge for her and make her more independent.
But that's off topic. Anyway, I see a lot of structural similarities between Supergirl and Flash. I also think that Supergirl is written in a way that Kara/Alex is the platonic OTP as far as the writers are concerned and they also put more weight into Kara's relationships with various supporting characters like Cat or Astra.
Contrary to popular opinion I actually don't think that that is seriously under threat by Mon-El. To me Mon-El is a character with a very clear plot purpose and even if they go for making him Valor, a character with a time limit, who might be around for 2-3 seasons, but not longer, hence, the main OTP, Kara/Alex is not seriously under threat. I lean towards Supergirl being very similarly wholesome to Flash, but it is hard to judge because Supergirl has had only two seasons. Maybe they might eventually do actual love scenes further down the line but so far the only thing they have had like that the characters in question also never took their clothes off and then by the next episode one of them is alone in bed and the other one is already fully dressed. And everything after that has been pretty wholesome.
Though I guess Supergirl has this thing where sometimes side characters are put in more suggestive scenes than the main storyline characters, like Winn/Lyra in season 2. Or the various "somebody barges in on side characters making out in the copy room" scenes, but I wouldn't really call those love scenes (btw, I have a huge hate on for when shows do that thing where the villains have more sexual scenes than the goodguys, with the whole sex=evil implication of it, Smallville suffered from that occasionally, where good guys have wholesome sex and bad guys have dirty sexy sex)
Again, presuming there is a similar structure/aesthetic/level of of sensuality in place for both Flash and Supergirl, it's always interesting to wonder if that is a chicken or the egg thing. That maybe they went for interracial love stories because they had already decided the show was gonna be tame and wholesome anyway.
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Smallville wasn't a soap opera because it had some love stories. It's a soap opera because it had episodes like "Just as Lana is about to marry Lex she sets a trap which finally reveals to her that Clark has powers. She wants to ditch the wedding with Lex, except then Lionel forces her to get married to Lex, to save Clark's life". If that is not soap opera 101 I don't know what is. Especially in the way it was shot and presented.
Smallville was at least as much about "will he get the girl" and not just "will he be a hero". That's how the stories played out. That's how the screentime was divided. It was Dawson's Creek with some superhero elements and they embraced that. The balance between comic book style stuff and relationships was in a different place than it is on Flash or Supergirl or Legends or Arrow.
For example, there's a decent amount of comic book fans that watch the current batch of DCTV shows. And it is noticeable that a decent chunk of them start complaining when they think that the show starts having "too much romance". They did that about Olicity in season 4, they did that about both Kara and Alex's storylines in Supergirl season 2. Nobody in their sane mind would ever have done that about Smallville because Smallville came right out with it that that was a core element of the show. If you hated relationships, then Smallville was not the show for you. Just like nobody would have watched Lois and Clark if all you cared about were superhero fights.
The relationships on Smallville were a larger part of the core plot of the show, especially when the show was still in the Lana era. Hence they were given more room, whether it came to screentime/episode importance or how much work they put into romantic scenes.
Quote(see Tobey Macguire's Smallville; the first Iron Man movie; Batman, etc)
Those things are easier to do in a movie. On a show there's a reason why hero+all knowing tech support system has established itself for more procedural action-y type shows (it is done by all 4 currently running DCTV shows). It's what makes it easier for them to do crazy comic book style villains and plots.
To me traditional has less to do with team versus alone structure but again, what amount of attention is given to the superhero fighting versus other stuff. That's why for example the netflix Daredevil show is still a traditional superhero show, but so is Supergirl.
It's not that comic books can never have stuff like "omg, the love interest is dating the big bad, what will our hero do?", it's more about what the ratio is of that vis a vis the amount of time dedicated to punching things or doing comic book tech babble or moralistic speeches.
On Smallville, Jor-El popped up every once in a while, to cause trouble in Clark's life. Yes the Luthors were a big threat, but they also were threats in the form of things like "OMG, Lex is putting the moves on Lana!" and "OMG, Lex's father is putting the moves on Clark's mother!". They still had to act out certain soap opera type things in order to make sense of the soap opera parts of the show.
(for the record, I think Smallville became more comic book-y once Lois joined the show, they moved the show to a more urban environment and introduced Green Arrow; that's also when they began to more seriously mine comic book lore for plots, but it's roots were Dawson's Creek-ish and they retained some elements of that even as the show become more traditional comic book-y)
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Isn't she the one who has joked she wants Caitlin to date Sara from Legends of Tomorrow?
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I will say that I think structurally Smallville felt very different. Probably because Clark took quite a long time to officially do superheroing, with like the support system and such. So to me relationships in general had a higher importance in Smallville because in a lot of ways, it was more like a soap opera with superhero elements. While Flash and Supergirl to me are superhero shows with relationship elements. (and Gotham and Arrow are wanna be grimdark noir shows) (and Legends is just pure crack)
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I don't understand why they didn't make Barry a virgin either. Just because Iris presumably wasn't one? If Barry/Iris had been Barry's first time they would have had a concrete reason to actually show it. (personally I think Smallville overdid it in coming up with pretty silly excuses of how Clark and Lana had been saving themselves for each other even though it took them several seasons to finally have sex and they had multiple other partners in the meantime, including times when Clark was under Red K influence for longer periods of time => it always seemed like a huge stretch to buy that even in those circumstances he always held back because of his crush on Lana; but the writers really wanted it that way)
But other than that, like I said, I don't think that it makes sense to compare Arrow to Flash in that sense. Arrow is just a different show. It has always been more sexual. Whether in main pairings or in secondary pairings. It's also a lot darker on the violence front. Arrow isn't just more sexual than Flash, it's also more sexual than Legends or Supergirl. The whole point of it is that it is more grimdark and edgy.
As you said yourself, no couple on Flash has ever acted that way. As has no couple on Legends or Supergirl, regardless of whether a person involved was a POC. Yet on Arrow, multiple couples have had more suggestive scenes, like Oliver Sara
or Oliver Laurel
IMO it makes more sense to see Arrow as the odd one out rather than the thing to compare onself too. It's just a different aesthetic they are following and the amount of sex and shirtlessness and murdering people and torture is part of that aesthetic.
Does Flash have to be quite as wholesome as it is? No. But I think it was always bound to be at least more wholesome than Arrow.
I still think that Smallville struck a sensible balance between being somewhat wholesome but also delivering the sex scenes if it was at an essential storyline junction. (plus the occasional naughty scene when Clark is on red kryptonite and you get a "bad" sex scene)
For comparison, how Smallville did it for their core couples:
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I think the writers definitely did mistreat Bonnie and really dragged their feet where she was concerned. But it didn't go to the extent of total lack of sensuality. She did get sensual/state of undress romantic scenes with both Jeremy and Enzo, it just happened that those were not the people her fans wanted to see her with/they didn't have the same high status as the core male characters of the show (Stefan, Damon and Klaus) had.
As for dysfunctional storylines, it was my understanding that the show at least played with the idea of doing Bonnie/Kai and that it was disrupted because the actor was instead cast on a different show. That it might have been different if his other show hadn't been picked up for a season order.
I do think that the level of sensuality affects couples other than Westallen too, but of course it's possible since the show happened to have Westallen as their core pairing that in a way they set the baseline for the remaining amount of sensuality on the show (and that that baseline is affected by her being black). And like I said, I do think/get the impression that Westallen as a concept is untouchable to the writers. Admittedly, that might be mostly my comic fan-ness talking. But I do think that the writers respect that enough and comic Iris/Flash to me always seemed to be universally liked by fans. Maybe not necessarily in an active way, but more as a general, everybody agrees they are cool/nice in the background (compared to let's say Superman/Lois or Spiderman/Mary Jane, couples that imo are more active, have more passionate fans, but also more passionate detractors).
I think somebody put it quite well in the shipper topic, that Flash is such a boys club in a lot of ways and that a lot of Barry's male platonic relationships are written with a lot of care and effort, almost like romances. (which again, might be influenced by Westallen being the core topic and that causing the writers to think of Flash as that kind of show in a way they maybe wouldn't have if Iris was white).
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This show is such a boys club. The relationships between Barry and his father figures/mentor/best friends always seem to be directed on screen with more weight and omf.
There's a lot of truth to that. I think you can even add some of villain stories to this.
I don't really get the feeling that KF is in love with Savitar and that that is her main motivations either. I would consider that a pretty big betrayal of her character if they actually wrote it like that, for her to be that sappy.
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IMO yeah, obsessive co-dependent relationships make for really interesting tv watching, but I think it makes sense that the writers didn't want that for Alex as a character forever. In the end the healthier storyline to tell is for Alex to let Kara grow up rather than always protecting her like a child and having her entire identity tied into Kara, and when that happens it is healthier for her to have her own life too. That doesn't mean that they stop loving each other. So I have a lot of sympathy as to why they gave Alex a relationship that is first and foremost about her. And I think Kara getting her own love plot at the same time makes some structural sense, because that way it makes sure that it never feels like a competition between Maggie and Kara or like Kara should be jealous or lonely because of Maggie taking up so much of Alex' time (even if the Kara/Mon-El relationship might in the end not last as long as Maggie/Alex will probably last).
I think they have had a couple of lines this season this indicated something like this. Like when Kara thought she might be dying and wanted Alex to live a full life without her. Or when Alex acted really insecure and jealous when Kara talked about moving to Metropolis. That's not really very healthy behavior.
Overall I think it's been a good season for Alex, precisely because she got to be her own person. She got her own love story where Kara was supporting her, whenever Jeremiah popped up (which admittedly has been erratic) it was always primarily Alex' emotional issue, and she got that sideplot where she was babysitting Winn and Guardian when she learned about their identity before Kara did. And it's not like the show didn't also make an effort to make time for big sister episodes.
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S02.E21: Resist
in Supergirl
· Edited by tofutan
@Artsda Considering that Cat has never met "Mike" or heard of the alien prince, why would that be giving anything away at this point? All she knows that there's some dude up there who is Supergirl's boyfriend. Could be one of the guards or a random prisoner for all Cat knows.
@NatalieEGH Lead clearly has less of an effect on Daxamites than in the comics. Remember, Mon-El got shot in the leg by Lillian earlier in the season and it didn't have any lasting effect, it was more like a normal wound. You can still kill a Daxamite if you shoot them in the head, but it doesn't seem to longterm poison or take away their powers the way it's with Kryptonite and the Kryptonians. After all, Rhea apparently was running around with a lead dagger, the one she killed her husband with, without a problem. While Kara starts getting woozy if somebody only gets close to her with a Kryptonite dagger.
I can't really blame the Daxamites for wanting to live on an actual planet with like trees and lakes and all that jazz rather than go all Battlestar Galactica. And there is some sense that they would want to take over earth considering they have superpowers here, something that wouldn't be the case on some other planet. (of course, they could just find a different planet with a yellow sun, like the one that Mon-El wanted to run off to).
I'm sad that they'll probably kill Rhea at the end of this, she's so hammy, I would have loved if they just locked her up, so there was a chance they could use her again in the future.
My question is: if Rhea can blow up buildings from orbit (like she threatened to do with the hospital), why didn't she just carpet bomb CatCo rather than sending like 3 dudes there?