Potanical Pardon

PLENTY. But I've never minded. The superheroes have never been defined by their power. They're mostly distinct and utilize their speed powers differently with distinct personalities and characteristics. Jay Garrick, Barry Allen, Wally West, Bart Allen (Impulse/Kid Flash), Max Mercury (Speed Force guru that has lived through centuries...not because he's immortal, he just keeps time jumping when he runs so fast in various time periods), XS (Legion of Superheroes, cousin of Bart Allen), Jae West (Wally's son), Iris (Irey) West (Kid Flash/Impulse), Johnny Quick (speed formula), Jesse Quick (speed-formula - daughter of Johnny Quick and Liberty Belle), E3 Johnny Quick (evil), Don Allen (Tornado Twin, son of Barry and Iris, father of Bart), Dawn Allen (Tornado Twin, daughter of Barry and Iris, mother of XS), Eobard Thawne (Professor Zoom/Reverse Flash), Hunter Zolomon (Zoom), Rival, Black Flash (looks like death), Black Racer...apparently the same as Black Flash now, Walter West (alternate aged non-multiverse counterpart to Wally who is stuck on our real-life Earth). There are others that aren't Flash family. And there are newer characters since 2011, but I don't recognize that New-52 crap. Fun trivia #1: The Allen and Thawne families are a thousand-years-spanning rivalry that ends with Don Allen marrying Meloni Thawne, the parents of Bart Allen. Fun trivia #2: Barry Allen is a twin. His brother is kidnapped at birth, while Barry's parents are told the twin was lost at birth. The kidnapping family are the Thawnes and raise the twin as their own only child, Malcolm Thawne. Conclusion to fun trivia: These 1000 years of warring families are all descended from the exact same DNA ....and this Hatfield-McCoy shit is kinda sorta incesty. Yeah, 1000 years, but that would be the Meloni Thawne DNA. Don's would be like 1 generation apart from the common source DNA - Barry Allen/Malcolm Thawne.

The simplest explanation that I can think of is that MITIM is real Earth-2 Jay. The guy who says he's E-2-Jay who is stumbly and sleepy all the time is a liar. He tells Caitlyn that his E-1 counterpart is Hunter Zolomon but has a different name because he was adopted. Assuming E2 is a liar, than he's lying about this too; I'm saying it's simpler to keep E-1 Hunter Zolomon a counterpart to a E-2 Hunter Zolomon...so my guess right now is that E-2 "Jay" is really E-2 Hunter Zolomon. As for Zoom and E-2 "Jay" being off and almost never being in the same place at the same time or both preoccupied with different scenes simultaneously, I'm not sure if they're the same person, though that was my thought at the beginning of the season. They could still be, but if so, even in this episode Zoom is busy battling the good guys while "Jay" is with the E1 crew fixing and staring at the speed cannon. They could be different people. Or they could be the same person, but it would have to be a new speed ability like being so fast as to create after-images like you see in photography with shutter speeds. And these after-images are like a duplicating power, though not exactly, so they could independently do things, while really sharing the same hive mind, since they're really more one guy instead of twins, clones or legitimate duplicates. Try the Collider Video Recap instead. Kind-of-sort-of the same Maria Menudos circle of friends, sets, etc. but not under that umbrella/production. Completely separate entity that uses similar sets and shares talent and show formats, but the quality of discussion/deliberation for most of their recap shows is definitely superior.

I feel like Rosalind isn't a villain. She's working for Powers Booth's character, but I don't think she's aware of his Hydra-ness. I still think she thinks she's one of the good guys.

What a fantastic show. While the dialogue and the casting were more than enough to keep me engaged, it's a really rare thing to experience a "see yourself" whoa moment, at least for me. I've been pretty well-conditioned to not expect that kind of thing at all, and view/read everything through a completely objective lens even if a scene here or there in whatever show/film actually is relatable. But this is something different - seeing yourself goes way beyond relatable. It's totally weird and shocking while amazing mainly because this sort of thing you just get used to compartmentalizing and keeping to yourself out of a sense of "no one's going to get this" or "this is just a me thing; I'll just be quiet and safe". I don't know if that makes any sense. My girlfriend and I just binged this and each episode was like a greatest hits track of life in your late twenties/early thirties. I really love how the overall theme is basically: "Real life happens, get over yourself. Oh and meanwhile it's both hilarious and enlightening anyways." I want more of the old people/parents stuff. It's refreshing and a great commentary on society's disposability of them. Younger me was so dismissive of my immigrant parents well, everything. It was a hoot seeing the hardship back stories contrasted with Brian and Dev's spoiled assiness. My father went from a two-room apartment where he shared floormats as beds with his older 7 siblings, his only toy being a yo-yo he made out of bottle caps, deworming his own dog, having the boys and girls separated during WWII seeing literal death on the streets to becoming a Fulbright Fellow, busboying on a freighter to get over here and being immediately robbed of his $50 his family scrounged up for him to teach in Evanston by day and sleep at a YMCA an hour away walking by night, being told that he and my mother couldn't have children to me with my bajillion LEGOs, M.A.S.K., Transformers and Garbage Pail Kid cards, consciously dumbing myself down in school to not be 'that Asian' to be accepted blaming him and whining about other kids with their Jordans and Z-Cavaricci making fun. Fast-forward to now, and it's a complete role-reversal with my folks and my girlfriend and I. They're a handful and arguably more difficult than children...mainly because they have bank accounts and can reason and convincingly endear themselves to whomever to get what they want, how and when they want even when it's against the best of judgments. There's so much gold in old people scenarios for both humor and real. My mom reads an article on the web or finds a picture she likes and wants to share it on her FB? Naturally, she will print out the ENTIRE page in all of it's inks, comment sections and final page with one line, cut the parts out of it that she likes with scissors, tape it all up together, put it into the combo printer-scanner's scanning bed and import it directly into whatever social media. Oh and there's the 10000 "Untitled Folder" and "Untitled File" that may or may not be actual things littered everywhere. While waiting for me to rename/save/delete, she'll randomly tell me a story about how as a child, she once conspired with a cousin to harm a frail old lady in their home town village who they were convinced was an evil witch who walked around town barefoot by spreading tack/thorn like fruit all around her house. So Season 2...moar old people, please! Also, Rachel is totally going to come back to NYC in a brand new relationship, but I have faith in the show to continue to subvert the usual sitcom tropes.

Better than the pilot. Still wish this show was more Linda Danvers-Earth Angel Supergirl in tone and quality. It's tooooo crap still.

I feel like we're finally getting the Meg Manning's parents creepy and abusive plot playing out here. And does 'Hearst College' mean that there is now a Mars-verse?

It's all in the context, and you know it. That isn't Fitz's favorite sandwich because it just is. It isn't Fitz favorite sandwich that he impossibly couldn't get anywhere else. It's his favorite sandwich because Jemma.

Haha nope. But thanks for the link!

Saying yes to dinner is stringing him along. Making sandwiches, not best friend sandwiches, sandwiches that are meaningful to him in a way more than best friends way is stringing him along. Telling him she's not into him like that and then continuing to behave like there's maaaybe a chance! Is stringing him along. A dude doesn't hold reservations for months renting out the whole restaurant for a hey, pal, buddy o mine. That's usually the cue for the string-alonger to go "I never asked for any of this!", "I don't owe you anything", "It's your own fault for doing this." And he/she would be correct in all of those responses. Conveniently, this still maintains the other's enduring presence and reinforces the irrational "Well, I just have to keep trying harder, then!" It's such a passive-aggressive cowardly and manipulative move.

She is. We're on three seasons of her stringing him along. She knows/has known that Fitz has always been into her. She's not stupid. She uses that and has been using that so that she can have a best friend. She should have told him back at the Academy what's what. No, instead she keeps him around because well, hey he's useful, validates her, stimulates her mentally and is her best friend. She knows very well that the second she spells it out to him, she risks losing any of those things.

I had not even considered Ego when I watched this at first, but now that you mentioned it, I'm completely sold. It's totally Ego. It also matches up and addresses the inconsistencies and weirdness with shiv-ready Jemma. If the planet is Ego, then the sandstorm/humanoids are also Ego; Will is Ego. All the clues: The two moons. One bigger, one smaller. Ego is often depicted with them in an almost Venn diagram way, like an eyebrow or birthmark. There was dialogue in the episode where Will and Jemma talk about how the planet was once lush green paradise or something like that. Ego can change it's ecosystem and look (like the canyon distance) however it wants to. Making it look like a green paradise was one of the ways it lures explorers or whoever to the planet before turning into a desolate planet ready to consume them. Ego can grow roots/plants and tentacles. Jemma eats the tentacles and we see her digging for roots. They both eat roots/plants exclusively. Ego taking a humanoid form. That Kylo Ren looking thing in the sandstorm. We never see Will at the same time on-screen as whichever single humanoid is walking towards Jemma. When Fitz fires off the flare, we see sandstorm and then creepy astronaut suit. Then more dust and sand and it's Will again. They emphasized that Jemma is to represent hope while Will represents doom - that's totally Ego's MO. He does both, e.g., giving hope that they can reach the next portal opening 30 meters away, when it's really 100m now because he moved it. Shooting the bottle and making it in the portal before it closes, but then doesn't. Telling Jemma that she can make it, but then keeps stopping her. Jemma thinking that they can both make it but then keeps hesitating. I think Will is totally part of the luring victims strategy, and now that they're going to try to go back, Will/Ego has successfully lured even more victims to come over using Jemma as bait. Those old-timey British aristocracy kept sending victims annually, I believe. The NASA thing must have happened in at least some partial truth, since Ego knows to use it/reference it and if Will's dialogue is to be believed, NASA was sending people over repeatedly just like the British. The monolith ended up with SHIELD, so Ego's feeding stopped for awhile. Ego's just trying to start getting fed again. Maybe the Kree initially used the Monolith to both dispose of Inhumans while at the same time keeping Ego away from one of their other colony planets. Then once they thought Earth had no more, some humans stumbled across it and found some incentive to send over human sacrifices. Now that exchange between Will and Jemma about Jemma saying that he's fattening her up to eat her has weight to it aside from being a throwaway line. She might actually have been right! The subterranean cave that they lived in with the luminescence thing. Ego has tunnels all over itself that that cave could actually be. It did have a lot of curbs and turns in it and less of a single hollow place. If it was intentional to give their cave home an endless feel to it, the director succeeded. And though Ego/Will could have eaten Jemma at any time, the true goal of getting a consistent food supply is why she's still alive with his whole bait/switch, hope/doom thing. The shiv thing with Jemma being startled probably has to do with her current misophonia elevating the impact of sound and it's resemblance to the sandstorm sounds. She never heard it that loud unless she was outside of their cave, but being back on Earth, her sensitivity to sound gives the impression that whatever startled her is much, much louder and dangerous.

Fitz is totally raging on the inside. There's no way that he's not, e.g., raging at that monolith, willing to die exhausting his last lead towards saving her. He's constantly putting forth the effort, though too embarrassed and scared when actually admitting his feelings to her in person. She leaves his side when he's mentally and emotionally in need even though she thinks that's what he needed. He recovers anyways, she makes him his sandwich and he gets to enjoy it. And she gets to address her guilt and project it onto Ward wanting to murder him, even if she thinks she's doing it for Fitz. Then it happens again: She gives up on him; he never gives up on her...and yes, I get that everything looked hopeless and the other dude's 14 years of almost total solitude alleviates most grrrrr towards him; I don't blame him at all. Were the tables turned, there's no way that Fitz would have given up even after the bottle launch failed. It's not in his character just as much as it's in his character to help Simmons now with saving Will. That's how awesome he is. And that's why he's too good for Simmons. She doesn't deserve him. He's going to continue to be awesome and show example after example why and she may even realize it, but I hope he realizes that it isn't a matter of missing his chance or window or whatever. She was never going to be into him as much as he was into her, so he needs to realize and admit it to himself and get past it. There may or may not be a someone who will appreciate him as much as he'll appreciate that person back, but it's cool if not and hopefully he/the writers will get to that place, because that's way better than the character ending up being an eternal rebound/second-choice. If it helps in an internal monologue selfish way, he'll get to consider himself a good one that got away sort-of thing. Man, if they do find a match for him...that is going to be so hard to cast and write! Damn, that was a really good episode. Anywho, officially getting off the Fitz-Simmons train now. P.S. She didn't have to tell Fitz that she told Will that her dad would have liked him. Hahaha! That's really why he stormed off initially before saying anything about helping. Not the boning. Yeah, that hurts, but it's the dad line that twisted the knife.

Patty reminds me more of comic!Iris way more than Iris does. I'm pretty bothered by Hewitt being allowed in on Barry = Flash so casually. I mean, possibly he doesn't know? But that costume was right there in the middle of the room when he was undergoing testing. And even if he didn't know then, he would definitely have figured it out by the time of his insta-stoopiding once becoming a villain. Jackson Jefferson didn't even get allowed to know anything Flash-related until that fight, I guess.

Yeah, but wasn't Oliver or Merlyn with whoever was going there at any given time? As long as one person in a group is deemed worthy to enter, it's okay. But Laurel + Speedy...yeah, no.

How exactly does Laurel plan on both transporting a dead body internationally AND finding Nanda Parbat? It's not like she can ask Felicity for money to grease palms as far as the body goes, and Nanda Parbat is totally off-limits unless you're allowed to find it. Unless I'm mixing up comic lore and Dark Knight Trilogy lore with DC TVverse, I assumed the same rules applied to NP. Well, to be fair both characters are kinda-sortof brand new in the comics. Felicity existed, though not really as a Green Arrow supporting cast at all, but the comics Felicity from way back then, was a pretty underused forgettable character. The current comics has a definite Arrow-inspired Felicity now as well as Diggle, a brand new character. I don't see why she can't be Oracle as a codename. If not that, let her be the Calculator, or is that the plan for who her dad ends up being? Proxy is a cool name too but that's Oracle-lite. Also, Felicity is a terrible CEO, but it's a show and I'm sure it'll all work out with Mr. Terrific's whatever he comes up with .

Summary:

Oh no. Now I think that's what it is and it's that one guy who got lines who drew the white Othello disc.

Maybe it's all those old-timey guys from the British creepy ritual. If it is, I can't wait for them to return to Earth with their fencing swords and get accustomed to the present day.

Beat me to it. I really hope it's Rival. "Zoom" needs to always be a speedster who wears a yellow-red reverse costume to Barry, whether it's Thawne or Zolomon. Someone upthread mentioned E-2 Barry being Zoom. I very much hope this doesn't happen; I like my Earth-2 clean without too many dopplegangers. Speaking of dopplegangers...that was totally E-2 Kal-L's baby ship in Star Labs. It didn't occur to me that retro-future world was E-2. I thought it was still Earth-1, but the future, as in where Eobard Thawne was from or even not necessarily from that time period where he came from. It could be E-2, which makes the most sense to keep it simple visually and the retro-future stuff is an homage to WWII-era which is appropriate, but I just assumed E-2 would be just like E-1 with the main differences being certain superheroes/villains running around and different cities. Zoom's MO sounds weak. He must be the fastest speedster, so he's going after speedsters? Lame - zero personal connection to Barry and his friends/family but automatically hates him. I think it'd be cool if Mama West were from E-2 instead of 1000 years in the future. It makes Joe's "dead mom" story make more sense telling a kid than the truth. It also allows that side-story to dovetail back into the A-plot. It also means some Flashy business has been happening across time besides when Barry's mom was murdered. Maybe this is how they bring in Wally West and he's a little brother instead of a nephew now. It still bugs the crap out of me that Thawne doesn't exist anymore but everyone remembers him and history played out as if he existed. I understand that with the Multiverse there can be infinite Thawnes, but THAT particular Thawne doesn't exist - he poofed like a BTTF photo and we're reminded of it repeatedly with Eddie mentions. The universe should have altered itself for Season 2 with a new history where Season 1 only exists as a finite alternate timeline. Patty doesn't bug me yet, but Caitlin still does. Iris still does too, but less than her counterparts in Laurel, Lois and Lana Lang in that "They're the main LI in the comics so they HAVE to be on the show endgame" way. Keep Linda away from this show, please. Linda is Wally's wife to me - it's equally as icky to me for her to be a Barry LI as it is siblings Iris and Barry; Linda's supposed to be like a daughter/niece to him. Superman's baby ship - cool Easter Egg. The mention of "52 breaches" - not cool at all. I'll let it slide if it means each breach signifies a breach to different Earths and not just limited to E-2.

On the CR and DS, I constantly wished that the show was longer to accommodate longer interviews and wished that Stephen wouldn't interrupt the "intellectual" guest so often (it did help once CC put the extended interviews as clips on the web). On The Late Show, I find myself (so far) not minding at all that Stephen is interrupting because to me he's the entertainment and late show interviews are always so safe and tame anyways; I'm the same way with Conan constantly talking over his guests. They aren't going to be offering anything of value to the late-show format and the general audience, so why not? Even with guests like Elon Musk...if it were the CR I definitely would have wanted to hear more from the guest, but for the Late Show, I know they're going to be talking about nothing substantive - zero about his infrastructure across the country of charging stations, zero about the cross-country (or even SF-to-LA) Hyperloop, zero about the batteries and undoing the archaic Edison infrastructure, zero about PayPal...he's just going to be the real-life Tony Stark/new Steve Jobs-schtick for the general audience who has those cars that keep breaking records, pissing off unions and dealerships, and the space thing that the far majority of people think is the same billionaire/people/program that's sending a bunch of people to form a Martian colony...if they're even aware of that story.

Best debut of a host in recent memory for me. I couldn't help but feel like he was in-character for the majority of the episode, though I guess I was expecting drastically different. Then again, everything was formatted as bits. Real Stephen looked like he was having the time of his life. I don't think I've ever witnessed a host of anything bask in the moment authentically before other than Conan during his tour. The band is even like a younger version of the Basic Cable Band/Max Weinberg 7. Can't wait for more!

Just when I thought I ran out of shows, three out of nowhere that I'm suddenly really psyched about - this, Humans, and From Dusk Till Dawn (though, I'm late to this party). Really surprised this is USA, but I'm in. I can see it going the way of FSociety being all in his head. The techy-speak is hit or miss, though for the most part much better than any other hacker lingo in other shows/movies. All the terminal stuff seemed correct as did half of the dialogue. I'm a sucker for characters that are perceived sociopathic and anti-social who actually are the furthest thing from it...they just sacrifice their own happiness so that others can be - which is sufficiently fulfilling.

Haha, my gf has this Night's Watch shirt that she's wearing today and just realized it's not something she's proud of any more.

Eh. Lot's of interesting things, but I'm not shocked by Jon's death/stabbing. To me, the dude has plot-armor on, so between that and Melisandre being shown to just show up, I'm pretty sure he's going to be okay. Melisandre clearly lied about sacrificing Shireen for Stannis' battle with the Boltons, so doing it must have been for something else...which is maybe undoing Jon's death which she maaaaybe foresaw coming? Don't feel sorry at all for Cersei. I guess no Margaery/Loras/Cersei great escape hijinx nor Kool-Aid Man Mountain busting through any walls. Boo. I really don't get why the High Sparrow just went along with letting her return to a position where she could/would retaliate. Figured that he'd want to maximize his chances of gaining power. Don't believe Stannis is dead, same as the Hound...no body. Also the edit to Ramsay swinging sword and chopping someone's head off tells me that Brienne probably didn't do it. No idea why she would let him live, but I get the vibe that she's not really into the revenge/judgy-judge thing any more from her experience with Jaime. Tyrion...so awesome. I CANNOT WAIT for Cersei to find out that a dwarf is now the de-facto King of the Targaryen empire and put two and two together. It's pretty dumb of Dario and Jorah to just leave instead of wait for Danerys to return, but now that we know some Dothraki have her, I guess that coincidence just worked itself out. I can't believe that Jorah and Dario are somehow going to stumble across her randomly dropped ring and pick up the trail. The idea of Dorne still sounds cool, but the show pretty much ruined any desire to return there. I don't get why they don't just turn the ship around; it's right there. I wonder how Tommen will die if that fortune teller was right about their "golden shrouds". Stupid Elaria. Doran has no reason not to kill her now - she just gave the Lannisters a hostage. Damn. We're going to have Bran and the boring plot return next.

Just finished my Season 1 binge-watch. The way I understand everything is that okay...Eddie shoots himself. Sure that erases Eobard Thawne from existence, but that would also erase everything we know from the past that we know about, yet we don't see anything else change. Let me restart... We know that the original timeline involves Real!Wells creating the particle accellerator in 2020 which also happens to have Barry nearby the exact same chemicals and hit by lightning. Timeline B.0 is created when an older Eobard and Barry go back in time and Nora is killed instead of a young Barry. This is basically Season 1 of the show up until Barry goes back and timehops into his own body one day. Cisco is dead, Iris finds out Barry is the Flash, the tidal wave, Caitlyn sees an empty wheelchair. Timeline B.1 is briefly shown evidence of existence by Gideon through newspapers where there is no Flash in the future...the losing powers episode. Timeline B.2 is identical to Timeline B.0 except Barry changed the outcome so that Weather Wizard is locked up before causing other stuff. This is basically all of Season 1. Eobard is trying very hard to preserve as much of history as possible. The biggest changes being Nora's death/Henry's imprisonment and real!Wells' deaths. He uses Gideon to check his work. He also really badly wants to go back to his home in the future (which may not be the 23rd century?) and is impatient enough to speed up certain historical events which really should have a huge butterfly effect level of impact everywhere. But he still has Gideon seemingly showing him that aside from a 2024 Crisis, everything else seems on schedule and unchanged. Eobard describes Eddie's unimportance to future Thawne history which is consistent with all the timelines. When Eddie shoots himself and Eobard reverts to his real face and then disintegrates/fades away to nonexistence, my initial thoughts were "Hey wait, I get that, but EVERYTHING else this season should have like faded/altered around too!" I think the immediacy of Eddie-Eobard made that change happen first, and reality was gradually altering itself to resemble one where Eobard never existed, which we the viewers do not see yet. The new wormhole probably is reality/universe course-correcting itself. The moment Eddie shoots himself essentially should destroy all Timeline Bs - the wormhole. Timeline C should now be created. Timeline C, because we know this is a show and has actors/actresses of certain ages, would probably retain the whole Barry gets his powers sooner than 2020 like Timeline A. This new reality requires Timeline A and Timeline B (nonexistent) from existing or weaving its way into Timeline C - or else every timeline/universe gets destroyed. So there are anomalous moments that have to happen. I think this would be Nora's death. We also know that a future Flash knows his younger self will attempt to save Nora's life, so this future Flash is mostly likely to have always been NOT from Timeline A even though we all thought Timeline A Barry and Timeline A Eobard were who came back and changed history originally. Timeline C has to manifest in such a way that most things remain recognizable, but different. The biggest changes being that Barry becomes the Flash in 2015, the real Wells are around, particle accellerator goes online 2015, both Allen parents are alive, Barry does not grow up having the hots for his adopted sister. Eddie Thawne should be alive and a new Eobard Thawne/Reverse Flash should result from that. In some weird way, Timeline C future!Barry and future!Eobard are probably the ones to go back in time to the shared point in Timeline A that creates Timeline B. It may be immediate or it may take all of season 2 for the ripple effects of Eddie shooting himself to take place in this new timeline.