Chicago Redshirt

I think that we're supposed to believe that Cold is that much of a bad-ass Alpha dog that he made other folks cower and not think or act rationally. He basically stared down the museum guard and was like, "Do you feel lucky?" And the museum guard bailed. Eddie did take a shot at him IIRC which got him to bounce and not kill Joe. The show sort of lampshades that with Flash himself. In all his super-speeding, he doesn't take the 10 seconds it would take to find Cold and knock him senseless by ambushing him from behind. Even before when he was just Snart, the notion that Barry couldn't have run the wounded guard to the hospital in under a minute and then caught up to Snart is basically for plot purposes only.

The ways in which a disintegrator bomb is better than a gun or other conventional weapon depend on what your objectives are. But generally, off-the-top, I would say the following 1. It's possible to survive one or several gunshots, even at close range. Not so much with the disintegrator bombs 2. Everyone knows what a gun is so it's an obvious threat. Again, the disintegrator bombs are not anywhere close. 3. A gun leaves various forensic evidence that even local law enforcement might be able to trace back to you. Disintegrator bombs don't. The only reason Our Heroes were able to track down information had to do with Bobbi having been undercover, some lucky guesswork that it was probably the handiwork of a suspected Hydra weaponmaster, and that weaponmaster thinking with his li'l Hydra and giving up some of the deets of what he was up to. Not that I can blame him, because like whoa. 4. Gunning someone down, or even several someones, in this day and age is all-too-commonplace. To commit a real act of terror -- which is what Hydra is about, really -- you have to up your game. Literally disintegrating people accomplishes the terror part far better.

I think that there was a line that the robbers used liquid nitrogen to get the armored truck's doors open.

To people confused about why the Flash Mob let Cold "get away": Cisco and co. were running a massive balls-out bluff. The device they claimed was a prototype cold gun was really a prop. They didn't have a working cold gun and possibly any weapon. They were lucky Cold bought it and/or decided it wasn't worth it to harm civilians when he already got what he came for. Barry was still "frozen." Re: the heat gun, the STAR labs thief took a lot of weapons, including the explicitly shown heat gun. One of my few complaints about the show is having Cisco basically invent Captain Cold and presumably some other number of rogues. It requires a) the idiot plot that there was no security on these highly dangerous weapons and no surveillance on them b) that Cisco is basically some levels of genius to the point where the suspension of disbelief is breaking badly. It also takes away from the specialness of each of these villains. They could just have easily had Snart be the genius who invented his own cold gun, or depended on any number of mad scientist types who did it. Also, the Flash Mob not being able to keep their weapons secure really makes using the STAR labs facility into a juryrigged prison seem like a bad idea. Re: the trivia competition, there's no way that Barry and Felicity don't know what the Millenium Falcon is, nor any way that they would let Eddie answer that incorrectly. They should have chosen something way more obscure.

I'm in the middle of Bruce has shown not enough Batman/too much Batman qualities to be in the "just right" camp. Future master detective: he's been investigating his parents' murder, the Arkham deal, Wayne Enterprises and others obsessively and at an understanding far greater than your typical 12 year old. Ninja skills: More of a wink, but there was at least one scene where he surprised Alfred by suddenly appearing and Alfred told him it was rude to do so Self-discipline: testing himself with the flame Relationship with Alfred: We've already had a scene where Alfred complained about Bruce not eating, another about his obsessiveness, another where Alfred decides to pitch in and help with the detective work. Fighting: We had a scene where he and Alfred fence. The main areas we haven't seen him be like Batman are using Bruce Wayne as a mask, and actual undercover work. But there hasn't really been a need for the former since he has hardly interacted with anyone beyond Gordon and Alfred. Maybe the scene where he was interacting with the Wayne Enterprises "middle manager" he could have been more like "I'm just a goofy kid, but I'm curious about these things." But it seems like that would be too much of a stretch. As for Bruce doing undercover work, well, that is an aspect of Batman that has gone largely ignored in modern live-action versions of the character. Plus it's still early.

On Barbara's danger, it really depends. I think she's owed at least the broad strokes of "There are gangsters on all sides of me who are putting pressure on me and who may kill or threaten me, you or anyone else I am close to. Plus the other cops aren't particularly willing to stick their necks out for me or to do their jobs properly and fairly either. There's basically no one in this city I can trust outside of you, and there's no one you can trust outside of me either. I'm not going to share everything that I'm going through because that knowledge in and of itself might put you in increased danger. But at least now you can make an informed decision as to what's at stake in our relationship." I think without knowing those basic details, she's more liable to blunder into something or trust the wrong person or not have her defense shields up at the right time. I am curious how much Barbara knows about Gotham. In other words, is she just naive as to how Gotham works in general? Blinded by being (apparently) part of the 1 percent that sees an entirely different Gotham than the one Jim has to deal with? Hopefully she will come to have some sort of existence independent of Jim, Montoya, her apartment, the steps of GCPD and future damsel in distress.

Oswald is already bad from before Jim met him. He was working for Fish and so was no choirboy even then. Between the time Gordon fake-kills him and when he resurfaces as "Peter," Oswald has killed or seriously injured somewhere on the order of 4-5 people. (The fisherman who helped him out, one if not both of the frat boys who were foolish enough to give him a ride, the Fish henchman who recognized him, and the dishwasher who had the "right" shoes). The killing of the restaurant manager and his three coconspirators also happened. So even if Penguin claims that he went (more) crooked because of Gordon rejecting his friendship, he's kind of an unreliable narrator that way. As to Nygma, I hope they bring him more front and center. I think pretty much every other future Bat-villain (except for future Poison Ivy) has gotten a significant amount of screen time.

I think Coulson referred to her as Agent Morse. I took "Call me Bobbi" as her being like "We're all friends here...except maybe for my ex."

I suppose it's inevitable, but I really dislike the notion that future Two-Face is at a minimum 10 years older than Batman. If Bruce is 12, and Harvey is a young DA, he would have had to graduate college and law school. That would probably put him at 24.

Compared to spy level-lying Simmons is still bad. Last season, Simmons' lying was just flat out bad for regular people. For example, when she tries to lie to Stillwell by saying she was attracted to him and ultimately has to tase him. Or when she was undercover on the train, and created the elaborate backstory about Coulson being the absentee dad who frequents prostitutes. We also have to consider that Bobbi was a) playing a role to a certain extent when she criticized Simmons' lying and b) being a bit of the evil person Hunter makes her out to be. The fact that she survived whatever number of weeks as a Hydra mole shows that she has gotten significantly better at lying than last season (and/or that Hydra is just as incompetent at determining moles as SHIELD.)

I think we're on the same page. But the judge originally was going to bar DOW (and anyone else) from testifying about the alleged abuse, even though they would be competent to do so. The backdooring of the song because the prosecution has someone testify to the song, and therefore that entitling the defense to use the blog in its entirety and therefore that entitling all mention of abuse just doesn't make sense. I still haven't gone back and watched the entire episode, but did the song even refer to abuse of the mother?

I actually love the notion of Fitz going from "We're going to do all this by the book so we can prosecute him all good and properlike" (as if detaining him in the Pentagon without access to counsel, without charges for more than 48 hours is anything in the ballpark of "legal") changing into the President actually beating up a chained man all because he teased him about doing Olivia. It also calls to mind how thin-skinned Fitz is. When he tried to taunt Rowan about having sex with his daughter, Rowan is like "You're a little punk." But Fitzy becomes all unhinged not at the thought that Jake may have murdered his son but because Olivia liked her some hot Jake action.

I think it's the reverse, actually. They had (at least) a fling back in the day and so asking her to have that coffee that they never had a chance for before is what seemed off. Garrett did make a play for May and quickly concluded she wouldn't join Hydra last season. Seems to me that Hydra should have some sort of sense of who it can turn or not turn. Trying to turn a L8 agent like May is probably a foolish endeavor.

1. Yes, Jake personally killed James and two others in on the "Publius"/Sally Langston murdered her husband and the government covered it up train, while leaving David alive with brown-stained underwear. 2. Rowan had Jerry killed by Tom. Harrison figured it out that Marie did not really have the motive, means or opportunity to kill Jerry but that Rowan did, and like a dumb-ass confronted Rowan directly about it. We saw Rowan have a minion (possibly Tom again, I forget) kill Harrision. We then learned in the pilot that Harrison was believed to be killed in Arizona or some such with Adnan, instead of in DC. Jake uncovered that there was video of Charlie eating two meals at one of the restaurants where Harrison and Adnan supposedly were, meaning B613 was involved. 3-4. Not sure myself. 5. It's Hollywood dirty, I suppose.

In real world trials (or at least, with my experience watching and participating in them), interns would mostly wait till breaks in cases to hand things up and of course, people would have their stuff together such that most of the time they would not need to hand stuff up on the fly. But I've certainly seen messengers, interns, other attorneys hand things to the people sitting at counsel table while court is in session and the jury's there, and done it myself. In real-world jury selection, the jurors are instructed repeatedly that they are supposed to follow the law as the judge gives it to them (i.e., no jury nullification). Absent blatant evidence to the contrary, people presume that they will follow that and every other instruction. I would imagine during the voir dire process people would get questioned as to whether they can follow the law as it's given to them. Some might be the "stealth jurors" that were referred to in the show where people are lying about their true intentions. Oh, I should add that voir dire doesn't generally work as the show had it either. You would generally interview a bunch of folks at a time and then have outside the hearing of the jury any discussions about who is excused for cause, and you would do your challenges in secret, and you would only have a limited number of them, rather than yelling out "ACCEPTED!" or "EXCUSED!" I suppose some people are attracted to bad, mean girls.

So as usual, there is a lot of suspension of disbelief that needs to be done with any court show and in particular this one. A quick rundown of what was wrong, or at least off, about this episode, IMO. (Keep in mind that I didn't finish the entire episode because I had a couple eps of Spartacus and Scandal that I was watching, and I also wasn't necessarily paying the closest of attention to the parts I did watch): 1. The judge's initial ruling that no mention of the abuse could come in. There would be no basis whatsoever for a judge to bar the defendant from introducing evidence as to his state of mind and his motive for committing the killing. The notion that there had to be some outside corroboration of the abuse is absurd. This is something that would almost certainly get the case reversed on appeal because a criminal defendant has to be given leeway to defend himself. The notion that defendant of the week (DOW) killed his father because he was scared of the abuse of his mother goes directly to whether or not DOW had the mens rea, or guilty mind as the pilot mentioned, needed for murder. The notion that there is no evidence for the abuse, apparently, other than the word of DOW and mom of DOW is a classic question for the jury to consider if that is sufficient evidence. 2. Even assuming a judge would ban somehow evidence of the abuse, such a ruling would almost certainly have to be made prior to picking a jury. That is when motions in limine, or the set of motions trying to determine the ground rules of a trial (what evidence/arguments are permissible and what's not), will be decided. 3. It is possible that a judge might bar evidence unless one side "opens the door" to it. So apparently we're to buy that mentioning an event that was covered in the blog somehow brings into evidence the whole blog, and therefore the notion of abuse. Annalise used the blog to contradict the notion that the prosecutor wanted to leave that DOW suddenly decided to shoot his dad and sing about it shortly before the murder. She does so by showing that DOW actually wrote something about this on the blog months earlier. (Which makes it seem worse to me, like he had an even longer standing desire to kill his dad. But what do I know?). There is a general rule of evidence called the rule of completeness. As it implies, once you admit part of a document, the opposing party gets to introduce the whole thing. So here, it wouldn't necessarily mean that Annalise gets to introduce the rest of the blog, the prosecutor could. There would also be a lot of foundation that would need to be done, or work to be done to establish that this blog was written by DOW at the time it purportedly was etc. This actually grinds my gears less than most of the rest of the stuff. I just read it as the trial judge realizing what a mistake he made by trying to bar the evidence of abuse in the first place and correcting things on the fly. 4. Jury nullification. I hate the notion that our purported lawyers are acting like it's a valid legal concept. It's true that there's nothing that lawyers or judges can do if the jury willfully decides to ignore the law and the facts. But it's also true that this doesn't make jury nullification "a right" or legal. http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/jury_nullification 5. DOW as a "cop killer." It seems random and strange to use that phrase to describe him, because he didn't kill his dad because he was a cop, really. 6. Domestic violence and this case. I'm not sure we're supposed to think that dad's domestic abuse left no objective evidence -- no hospital visits by mom for example -- or if we're supposed to believe that DOW and mom just cooked up the idea of domestic abuse which is why there's no objective evidence. 7. People wouldn't be allowed to testify, "Well, dad of DOW didn't seem like an abuser to me."

The open had a Navy team that was tasked with rooting out Hydra getting killed. So the U.S. government is expending at least some resources trying to track Hydra, and presumably others are as well. They just don't seem to be doing all that good a job. I think it's safe to say that part of that is because Talbott has taken an extra interest in getting SHIELD because he has been kidnapped or knocked out by them a couple of times. As we can intuit from how comic book Talbott is obsessed with the Hulk, he's going to tend to hold a grudge longer than most.

There are lots of problems with Laurel going after dude. Even if she had managed to beat him with the bat severely without him turning things around and beating on her, what then? Was she planning to literally kill him to douse the "fire" she feels inside? Leave him for the cops? Based on what? Or as others have already pointed out, leave him alive, free, but enraged? Where he would undoubtedly take it out on his girlfriend, possibly even killing her, for ratting him out as an abuser? As a woman, a prosecutor, a daughter of a cop and a vigilante-wanna be, Laurel should have thought this through more. She could have, for instance, tried to talk to DV Victim within the context of the AA meeting and let her know that she's supporting her, encourage her to go to the authorities or even offer to take things in her own hands.

One thing I do wish we had more insight into: Thea (presumably) knows that Malcolm tried to bury the Glades with his quake machine and in fact killed 500+ people and would have killed more if Arrow and Moira (RIP) hadn't at least partially thwarted his plan by stopping quake machine 1 and by giving a public heads-up to GTFO of the Glades, respectively. She knows that Malcolm is presumed dead. I don't think we've ever really gotten a good answer as to why Thea would go along with Malcolm knowing these things. I mean, I get that she wants to never be victimized again and maybe to an extent she wants to find out about her blood dad. But there are other ways to not get victimized than to share time with crazy pants.

I liked a lot about the episode, but dislike that Venom was explicitly named dropped as being in use by the military at this point. This is 10 years (minimum) before Bats puts on the cape and cowl, and thus probably 12+ years before Bane would make the scene. Seems like if Venom is a known quantity that early it would have surfaced far earlier than it did.

I wish they had not had Bobbi Morse identify herself as Bobbi Morse, because as someone who knows comics, it was obvious to me that she was also a mole. Also, using her real name when she was supposed to be undercover doesn't seem to be the best move. I'd like to think that Mockingbird is protected by Plot Armor, but I suppose she is not a high enough character in the comics or the potential MCU for that to be the case.

Credit where credit is due: Laurel took up a bow and arrow and helped Arrow escape a collapsed tunnel in one of the episodes last season. I think she also got the drop on someone attacking Sara last season. There are probably a few more situations where she was a help rather than a hindrance. But just a few.

If it were Roy, at least he has been part of Team Arrow for a while. So there would be a precedent for him to have earned the right to call Felicity on Team Arrow business. As far as I can remember, Laurel hasn't fully been part of Team Arrow, hasn't previously established a "favor friends" relationship or a friends friends relationship with Felicity. And Felicity is often perfectly blunt and says what is on her mind. So pointing this out doesn't seem out of character to me. Add that Ollie has been expressly calling for Laurel to stay out of things, and Felicity acting like she did makes even more sense to me. If it were Lyla or any other random person calling asking for a favor in a commanding tone, I'd at least comment on it. As to why she should think about Quentin, she should because Quentin has been through a helluva lot. Sarah was presumed dead, which broke up his marriage and turned him to an alcoholic. Sarah then came back into their lives and that led to him and his wife (and Laurel) being almost killed by crazy-ass Nyssa. And unbeknownst to Quentin, Sarah has actually been killed because of her vigilanteeism. Plus Laurel has only been threatened with death or kidnapped about a half-dozen times as a civilian. So think of what would happen if Laurel were to be going out of her way to put her life on the line. (Why she shouldn't also think of Dinah is another thing) Peter Parker often had angst about how his being Spider-Man hurt his aunt, and keeping secrets from his aunt was a bad idea. Yeah, he ultimately did it anyway because the good he does as Spider-Man outweighs the bad of lying to Aunt May. Oliver also had angst about how he was lying constantly to the people around him. Part of the difference is that they have unique talents. Laurel, at this point, does not. Onto other matters: the plans that Ray was looking at were schematics for OMAC. I wish there was more with Thea and Ollie. I would have loved to see the full admission that he's been the Arrow, that Deathstroke came after the family because of him, and so on. But I guess he pulled up and decided to only admit some broad strokes. No good can come from Thea not admitting that Malcolm's alive. I wish they would explain to us how that happened. Mark Shaw is another DC goodish guy turned bad guy for the show. Maybe he will be shown as part of the Suicide Squad eiter going forward or in flashbacks. Seems his bad guy efforts could use some work. No reason for him to basically hip John to his upcoming sale of the NOC List..I mean, the Argus Actual. I get that he wanted the transcoder dealio, but he probably could have gotten the transcoder any number of ways rather than trying to ambush John. While lying to a district attorney isn't perjury, it is potentially obstruction of justice. And yeah, there's no real reason for Laurel to be doing the investigating, and even if there were, there's no reason she would go to Ted Grant rather than the guy who was suspected of the break-in. One other thing: I think Laurel and Thea's motivation is essentially the same. Both have been hurt so much and are looking for a way to not be victims any more. But Thea comes off as completely credible (to me, anyway) as a newly fledged bad-ass. I can buy that after five months of training with Malcolm, she can do high level fighting. I'm fairly sure Laurel will not come off as a credible fighter, ever.

Presumably yes to both. Obviously his Secret Room employs futuristic tech. We saw in the pilot that he had access to a future newspaper that talked about the Flash disappearing and a WayneTech/Queen Inc. merger being completed. So either what is being experienced by him now is the past to him (or a version of it that he is manipulating). Basically I would fanwank that with his speed he also gets super-reflexes. These of course disappear at plot-convenient times, or else it would not be possible for anybody to surprise him. But at the end of the day, as someone said jn response to another question about his abilities, you just have to ignore that he violates all sorts of science and just accept that he can do what he does. To respond to a couple other things in the thread: Ra's Al Ghul and Vandal Savage are both classic villains with long lives. However, neither has the ability to look into the future as we saw Wells does. There are two potential classic Flash villains that might make sense:

Narcisse claims to be a doctor of divinity. Ways for Narcisse to die: 1. Chalky Jr. or Mrs. Chalky takes revenge for Chalky and Maybelle 2. Someone -- I don't care who -- forces Narcisse to perform in a minstrel show and then kills him 3. An encore performance of "Harlem by Torchlight" has Narcisse playing the torch.