S02.E23: The Race of His Life

[millennium]

If Team Flash encountered a metahuman who threatened to travel back in time and shatter the existing timeline for his own selfish purposes, that metahuman would be deemed a supervillain.

Zoom wanted to destroy worlds to satisfy his mania.

IMO, Barry Allen is no better than Zoom.   In fact, he is worse than Zoom because he is not a psychopath.   Barry's decision to destroy life as it exists for countless millions because he can't overcome his grief or temper his overwhelming sense of entitlement is the product of his own free will.  

 In my eyes, that makes Barry Allen evil, and an enemy of mankind.

[Actionmage]

Quote

I think we can safely assume that current timeline Barry will be the one to hold up his hand and stop Barry from saving Nora. That version didn't seem to be there, so I think he'll learn his lesson AGAIN and stop Red Logo Barry.

But he didn't. Our current Barry was the one who punched out Reverse Flash and saw his S1 self in the doorway. Barry stood there gaping  in the middle of the living room as S1/Doorway Barry faded away.

If what you mean is that Barry has to go back a third time to fix this?  This is not a Barry Allen I can enjoy. 

 I kind of wish I knew whether it was a DC fiat, a CW fiat or a Geoff Johns fiat that Barry is written as stupidly dumb. I know that TPTB over on Arrow have stated that they like to torment Oliver and their favorite Oliver is Dumb Oliver, so I wonder.

[VCRTracking]

Okay thinking over this whole time remnant thing I was as confused as Wally until I went to the first Back to the Future. In the first BTTF movie Marty travels from 1955 back to 1985 ten minutes earlier than when he left to try and save Doc Brown from the Libyans. He arrives too late and sees from a distance Doc machine gunned down and sees himself yell "Nooooo! You Bastards!". That yelling Marty is a time remnant. That Marty grew up in the alternate timeline original Marty had created. Original Marty had met Doc at the "Twin Pines Mall". When he travelled back in time and ran over one pine tree, it became the "Lone Pine Mall" for "Time remnant Marty". If the Libyans had killed that Marty, Marty watching from a distance wouldn't die or fade away because he is the Marty of a different timeline.

Edited May 26, 2016 by VCRTracking

[Grace19]

On Wednesday, May 25, 2016 at 9:34 AM, zannej said:

2. And speaking of Iris, I thought she was far too resigned to Joe's disappearance, but maybe she had just finally realized she'd never be his favorite kid anyway and her life would be better now.

I don't see it as being resigned rather as Iris thinking of the greater good. Most people are mad at Barry choosing his happiness over the fate of the world and now we have Iris make a tough decision to put the safety of the universe first. How is that wrong, she saw the greater picture and Joe agreed to it as they said, to me it makes Iris a better hero than Barry, she has what it takes to make the tough decisions, and it wasn't like she loved doing it, you could see how hard it was for her, she was holding back tears.
 

[Grace19]

19 hours ago, kirkola said:

Of course, I have the same problem with Iris West too.  They can't seem to figure out what to do with her.  Now that they've solved her storyline of "she doesn't know", they've reduced her character to standing around STAR labs waiting for something to happen so she can...wear cute outfits.  (Don't get me wrong, the outfits are cute...but why can't do stuff independently that would assist the team.

Even though we've had some awsome Iris episodes this season (12, 13, 14, 21) I kind of agree with this, but isn't Joe having the same problem? He's a cop but we hardly see him and Barry at work anymore. I hate that star labs is where  90% of the action happen, its limiting most of these characters, I hope that changes next season.
 

[Grace19]

16 hours ago, VCRTracking said:

I loved when Joe asked Iris after locking up Barry "Did we do the right thing?" and Iris was like "We did what we had to do." I was like "Yes! More pragmatic and determined Iris, please!" Too bad she'll different in the Flashpoint timeline.

Who knows she might be better.
 

[Grace19]

11 hours ago, ruby24 said:

I would have liked Barry and Iris's kiss to be a lot more passionate.

How can that kiss be passionate when Barry just reveal that he was broken inside? Give the guy a break, his dad just died. I love that the kiss was sweet and nice, that was appropriate for the moment. Being passionate and tearing each others clothes off would be out off character for both of them in that scene.
 

[benteen]

8 hours ago, millennium said:

If Team Flash encountered a metahuman who threatened to travel back in time and shatter the existing timeline for his own selfish purposes, that metahuman would be deemed a supervillain.

Zoom wanted to destroy worlds to satisfy his mania.

IMO, Barry Allen is no better than Zoom.   In fact, he is worse than Zoom because he is not a psychopath.   Barry's decision to destroy life as it exists for countless millions because he can't overcome his grief or temper his overwhelming sense of entitlement is the product of his own free will.  

 In my eyes, that makes Barry Allen evil, and an enemy of mankind.

THIS.

Barry really is an example of the "ME ME ME!" generation and is so self-entitled. 

[Tara Ariano]

In case you missed it, here's the Previously.TV post on the episode!

Run, Barry, RUN!

Even Zoom gets a chance to urge Barry on in The Flash's finale.

[slayer2]

Quick thoughts: Two dead parents? I can hardly blame Barry for going back in time.It's hard to take life seriously when shit like this is going down so frequently. One parent is bad enough but to lose two looks like carelessness. 

That was some deadass, bad acting by DP when she was trying to convice Zoom to do whatever it was she was trying to convince him of. DP usually works quite well IMO but that scene just took me right out of the show like....ugh.

Joe and Harrison for brotp gold! I didn't mention it last week but I floved their little "I didn't know you cared." "Yes you did" interaction. Fantastic actors, fantastic chemistry.

It's good to see the show doing productive things with Iris, I stand with Team Flash about taking him out of the equation, I think it was a good plan and would have worked perfectly had it not been for Joe standing too close to the portal. I dug that they all covertly voted against him though, Barry has proven to make some poor choices in the heat of the moment and I think the fact that he was easily forgiving of their decision proves that at least he is aware of this.

Everyone in this episode has something great to do and everyone came across as completely understandable to me (except Zoom) all in all a good ep, happily awaiting season 3.

[catrice2]

Well, at least it is clear that they do not read forums and listen to fans.  Pretty much everyone agreed early on that this season was not shaping up to be good.   I have consistently heard criticism of Caitlyn and everyone was tired of Barry whining and being upset. 

I am mystified why they had to bring Wally in, and reconned Harry did not need a daughter.  I was bored with Cisco's family concerns.  

Zoom never really had a good motive, and the device he was trying to power at the end just did make sense. 

Joe was also not used well this season, and they basically did nothing with Henry considering that he was supposedly Barry's driving mission in Season 1, to free his dad. 

No real development of Barry the scientist. 

I am fine with no Iris and Barry and I thought Eddie was weak, but if they want to do an "Arrow" and change the lead love interest, why not leave the girl that worked with Iris? I thought she and Barry were good together. 

I finally figured it  out....when Barry is not whining and being confident, as he was in some of the rooftop scenes, etc, in the 1st season, Iris and Barry do have chemistry.  When he is whiny, etc. it is hard to see how someone as confident as Iris would be interested in him.  We are supposed to go from Season 1 when everyone,including Eddie, Joe and Barry's love interest , realized that they were attracted to each other or in love, to them being lackluster. 

I don't think any character showed development this season. 

[Trini]

So, (after saving Nora) Barry himself is a time remnant now, right? He just erased his own backstory. If he tries going back to the future, it should be changed, but will there be two Barrys or not?

Reverse Flash screwed with the timeline first, so I get that Barry would want to undo that action that led to a lot more grief/death/destruction/etc., but he knows enough about time travel now so he should know that is essentially erasing his own life. And he might still not have 'peace' since he will still remember it all, and not to mention the basic repercussions to others who were affected by Nora's death. 

I just kind of hate that this undos a lot of "The Runaway Dinosaur", which was a pretty good episode.

[Ottis]

Enjoy banging your sister, Barry.

Why would Zoom destroy the multi verse? How does eliminating endless worlds to plunder make Zoom's life better?

Edited May 27, 2016 by Ottis

[KirkB]

8 hours ago, Ottis said:

Why would Zoom destroy the multi verse? How does eliminating endless worlds to plunder make Zoom's life better?

If I understood him correctly, Zoom wants to be the fastest being in existence. If he wipes out all other Earths and any potential speedsters on them, then kills Barry, he would be the fastest. Also, he's kinda crazy, so that helps.

[Grace19]

On Thursday, May 26, 2016 at 4:44 AM, driedfruit said:

I was onboard with you until the bolded. I would enjoy this twist if I thought the reboot was permanent and the show was going back to the drawing board and reshaping itself. Because like you, I've been tremendously bored with this season and become convinced the writers had fatigued themselves with the current form of the show. Otherwise, I think it's the opposite of breathing life into the show, because whatever is about to happen for however long (half a season? most of the season?) will be completely pointless, and when Barry gets back, we're back to the same tired format.

They may reverse it, but I hope that they keep some of the improvements. For example, if they right Iris better and give her more screen time, I don't believe that when they reverse what Barry did, that they will go back to Iris being in the background. I think they might experiment with this to see what works better, then they will stick to it, or maybe thats just wishful thinking on my part lol.
 

[zannej]

As an example of the acting from Danielle that is off, remember when they were saying goodbye to Harry and Jesse and Caitlin says "Don't make me cry, Harry!" she can't hold her head still. She moved her head all around in a weird way-- someone made a gif of it (but I can't load tumblr right now bc my ISP is being retarded by a thunderstorm) and it was just awful. It does not look like the way a real person would actually behave or move when saying those words. I think that she is capable of better acting, but I think the director's consistently encourage her to do weird things. From everything I've heard about Danielle, she is very sweet and knows that a lot of fans say mean things about her, but she seems ok with it. The cast members say nice things about her acting-- but I think that is because they are biased since they work with her. Plus, it is just a no-no for producers, directors, crew, and cast members to say negative things about one of their cast.

As for Zoom, keep in mind that he was legitimately batshit. He was put in a mental asylum for the criminally insane because he was that batshit. However, I still never really felt that come across from Teddy Sears. I also never saw any chemistry between Teddy and Danielle.

I think that Barry going back in time to save his mother was his way of saying "fuck you" to the speedforce for getting his hopes up and then feeling crushed when his father died. At first I didn't get why he would go back that far instead of just saving his father, but then I realized that he was also trying to save his father from spending years in prison.

I do wonder what Barry will do with Eobard. Will Eobard escape? Will he just bring him to 2016 and see if the pipeline is there to lock him in or hand him over to ARGUS? He won't have the same relationships with people.

I actually hope that Eddie is alive and that he will survive somehow.

I think it would be interesting if on Earth 3 or maybe Earth 4, it will turn out that Harrison Wells ended up being named John Chambers and will be the one to get speedforce powers (along with Jesse).

[hello]

Quote

 In my eyes, that makes Barry Allen evil, and an enemy of mankind.

Never attribute to malice, that which can be attributed to stupidity. By which I mean Barry's a well-meaning dum-dum who doesn't even know what the hell he's doing. He's just a collection of nerve impulses, awkwardly flailing about. Don't get me wrong, he's as selfish as the day is long. He at least knows its dangerous to tamper with time because smarter people told him so. But he's not evil, just woefully ignorant of the possible consequences of his actions.

 

Things look different from our on-high places as viewers; we can see everything Barry can't as a lowly player. But from his point of view? This is a clueless -- not evil, just clueless -- attempt to set things right.

[zannej]

Speaking of STAR Labs and Joe and Barry working there more than they do at the police station, what if they got special dispensation to use STAR Labs for their jobs? Like, what if Barry can do his lab work there while Joe can head the metahuman task force there?

[AudienceofOne]

2 hours ago, hello said:

Never attribute to malice, that which can be attributed to stupidity. By which I mean Barry's a well-meaning dum-dum who doesn't even know what the hell he's doing. He's just a collection of nerve impulses, awkwardly flailing about.

 

I agree. I think my biggest problem is that this is now clearly a Berlanti thing. All four shows now have the protagonist(s) driving the plot purely through emotion and stupidity. It worked IMO for Arrow because a) the Green Arrow was never an iconic aspirational superhero like Superman and b) exploring Oliver's PTSD was something I found interesting, especially because we were introduced to him after his tour through hell. To me it was a modern version of Dante's Inferno and I found that conceptually innovative. But by the time you get to a version of Supergirl who's "just a collection of nerve impulses, awkwardly flailing about" it gets tiresome and annoying. It's like watching Stephen Moffatt's 20th female character who's nothing but a repository of male fantasies around a magical uterus.

This is literally the only story Berlanti knows how to tell and it doesn't matter what tonal decisions he makes around a show, the writing ends up in the same damn place. Barry Allen is supposed to be the smart one, Supergirl is supposed to be the stoic, noble one and Oliver Queen is supposed to be the flawed emotional one. Instead they're all incompetent, emotional and flawed in the exact same way.

And that was never more obvious than in this episode.

[zannej]

I found the gif that pretty much signified to me why I don't like the way Danielle was acting in the episode.

Seriously, it reminds me of a wind up clown music box doll my grandmother had.

[marketdoctor]

Quote

Never attribute to malice, that which can be attributed to stupidity.

What made that *slightly* more plausible was that Barry wasn't just being stupid with everything (he's a scientist), but a domain-specific kind of stupid, which is that he'll risk the universe to save his parents.  That can still make a supervillain--but it's more like he's his own superantagonist.  It doesn't take much of a scientist to think he should really stay away from time travel.

Quote

Seriously, it reminds me of a wind up clown music box doll my grandmother had.

I've noticed acting-within-acting is almost never as good as the original act.  There are exceptions, but this should be a trope (performance decay?)

[GHScorpiosRule]

On 5/26/2016 at 10:12 PM, Trini said:

So, (after saving Nora) Barry himself is a time remnant now, right? He just erased his own backstory. If he tries going back to the future, it should be changed, but will there be two Barrys or not?

Reverse Flash screwed with the timeline first, so I get that Barry would want to undo that action that led to a lot more grief/death/destruction/etc., but he knows enough about time travel now so he should know that is essentially erasing his own life. And he might still not have 'peace' since he will still remember it all, and not to mention the basic repercussions to others who were affected by Nora's death. 

I just kind of hate that this undos a lot of "The Runaway Dinosaur", which was a pretty good episode.

I hate you @Trini for making my mind go here after reading your comment above:

That things will be back to where they were before Barry went BACK to save Nora, because when he returns to the future, the world is Fucked Up, and Nora still died and Henry died, so he went BACK to undo what his second, third? Remnant did, ergo, Reverse Flash kills Nora, and everything is back to...normal?

At least, when I watched the animated Flashpoint, I wasn't subjected to Barry pulling this stupid shit of going back in time. I only got to see him tell Nora's grave how he wished he'd gotten there in time, and lo and behold, he wakes up to a world where NO ONE knows who the heroes are and Nora is alive, Iris is married to someone else and has a child.

Why does this show hate me so? I was very skeptical when I first saw previews for this show, because the costume looked ridiculous. But Grant Gustin, in all his adorkableness, swayed me. I've had to do a LOT of handwaving because his Barry came off as Wally to me, but, Grant. And I cried in the finale. I had the FEELS, y'all! And then the writers just FUCKED ME OVER BUT GOOD with the last five minutes, no, last minute with this finale.  I think I'll go watch Doom and then maybe my JL/JLU.

[TwistedandBored]

I think I have finally accepted Barry would forever be the bitch of the group. Honestly, I thought I would stop being mad about this show and Barry's selfishness but then I saw some WestAllen gifs and got mad all over again. 

[Kathemy]

<Doux Reviews> <Flash> <The Race Of His Life>

[bettername2come]

Something I just thought of that I had totally forgotten in the anger-inducing final moments - did anyone else think that when Barry went back in time that he was going to become the time remnant that stopped Zoom and died?

[hello]

So...now Barry is going to go through life, alongside his younger self, in the past? Oh, is that going to get awkward...

And he did have his powers in the past, right? So what, now he's the Flash just 10+ years earlier?

[zannej]

11 hours ago, bettername2come said:

Something I just thought of that I had totally forgotten in the anger-inducing final moments - did anyone else think that when Barry went back in time that he was going to become the time remnant that stopped Zoom and died?

At first that is what I was hoping he was doing-- that he was going back to become the time remnant to sacrifice himself but that somehow there would be another version of Barry out there to go back to Iris. Another option was that I thought he might go back to save his father from Zoom.

On 5/28/2016 at 8:09 AM, marketdoctor said:

I've noticed acting-within-acting is almost never as good as the original act.  There are exceptions, but this should be a trope (performance decay?)

Are you referring to Danielle's performance as Caitlin doing bad acting? I think they already established that Caitlin is not a great actress and she can't lie very well, so I didn't see that as an acting fail from Danielle. I was specifically referencing the image I showed of Caitlin saying goodbye to Harry where her facial expressions and head movements seemed very unnatural and strange.

10 hours ago, hello said:

So...now Barry is going to go through life, alongside his younger self, in the past? Oh, is that going to get awkward...

And he did have his powers in the past, right? So what, now he's the Flash just 10+ years earlier?

I was thinking either he gets trapped in the past the way Eobard was and either has to keep fighting Eobard or kills Eobard or Eobard manages to escape. I'm leaning toward the latter. In which case, Barry will have to be the creepy uncle figure or something. OR, he will end up returning to his time and finding that things will be very different and his life will be worse. Iris and Joe will have continued to live in grief without Barry. Cisco will be estranged from his family while working at some dead-end job feeling miserable. Caitlin will possibly be working at Mercury Labs but will not have met Ronnie. Eddie will be dating Charlene (I can't remember if that was her name or not-- the dancer who canceled the date on him). Barry will be in a science job but not necessarily forensics, but might be unhappy.

Another weird thought I had: What if Eobard still gets up and kills Nora but when young Barry returns, he finds the man in red hovering over his mother and thinks it was the man in red who killed her and not the man in yellow. Or what if Eobard kills his father instead. And maybe Joe doesn't like Barry that much like on Earth2.

[hello]

18 hours ago, zannej said:

In which case, Barry will have to be the creepy uncle figure or something.

Oh my God, he'll have to wear a lot of gold chains and drive a van.?!

[KaleyFirefly]

I'm still confused why Jay Garrick looked just like Henry Allen?

[AudienceofOne]

His mother's maiden name was Garrick so in that reality she kept her name and called him Jay.

[ElleMo]

On 5/26/2016 at 10:12 PM, Trini said:

So, (after saving Nora) Barry himself is a time remnant now, right? He just erased his own backstory.

I wish  in the TV series, Barry's mom had been killed by an average mugger. It would have made everything make more sense.

Barry saving his mother really shouldn't be a bad thing.  He is setting the timeline straight.  Thawne was pissed at Barry and went back in time to kill him, instead he killed Barry's mom.  So in the ORIGINAL timeline that we have never seen,  Barry's mom lived through that day.  The accident still happens and Barry becomes the Flash.  It happens several years later in the original timeline according to Thawne, which is why he killed Wells and became him;  He built the reactor years before Wells would have, thus gettting Thawne get back to his timeline faster.  It didn't work out well for him, however.

 Of course, how Thawne knew that Barry would be in the right place at the right time during the Thawne-created accident is beyond me.  Maybe one of those time correcting itself thing.

So it really should be a good thing -- maybe not for Arrow and co whose lives were saved by him and various citizens of the city - but it is the timeline as it should have been. 

On the positive side, I am hoping that Rip grabs a time remnant of Snart  and takes him to his ship before time gets set straight.  Yes, I know I mentioned that before, but it is worth repeating.

Edited June 2, 2016 by ElleMo

[mac123x]

It took Arrow 3 seasons before I washed my hands of it.  The Flash did it in two -- I guess he is the fastest man alive!

[waving feather]

I finally caught up to this show and man, is it stupid. I've been able to watch this show for this long because of Grant's charming acting and the rest of the cast who are good as well. But why do they have to make the Flash such an emo character. That's why the only superhero I really like is Superman. He's the least emo of them all.

And most shows can't pull off time travel. The only recent show which could is the 12 Monkeys, the TV series. Here, the writers should never have attempted time travel if they don't have a clear set of rules they abide by. Time travel in this current way takes the gravity out of every situation because why bother when they can always go back in time. And I want progressions to my characters who have learnt lessons instead of fresh multiple versions of Harrison Wells, Joe, Iris and Caitlyn.

I will tune in to the 1st episode of next season to see if the writers managed to get themselves out of this mess without redoing all the characters. I don't have patience for that. I hardly had patience for those Earth 2 episodes.

Edited June 9, 2016 by waving feather

[hello]

Quote

Here, the writers should never have attempted time travel if they don't have a clear set of rules they abide by.

Yeah, I've always imagined the most commonly-heard phrase in the writers' room while they're trying to figure out this time travel paradox stuff is "Fuck it".

[hello]

I was being sarcastic when I used the word "writers", by the way.

[zannej]

On 5/31/2016 at 11:33 PM, hello said:

Oh my God, he'll have to wear a lot of gold chains and drive a van.?!

ROTFL! I wish I could get photoshop working and that my photoshopping skills were good enough to create that.

[TobinAlbers]

On 5/26/2016 at 1:04 AM, millennium said:

Zoom wanted to destroy worlds to satisfy his mania.

IMO, Barry Allen is no better than Zoom.   In fact, he is worse than Zoom because he is not a psychopath.   Barry's decision to destroy life as it exists for countless millions because he can't overcome his grief or temper his overwhelming sense of entitlement is the product of his own free will.  

You know what would've worked as Zoom's motivation? He was so filled with anger and impotent rage that his goal was to kill every version of his father on all the earths. Doesn't matter if he was good on some, his psychosis is such that all versions were bad versions. And in order to accomplish this, he needed to siphon all the speedsters speed force so that he could hop from world to world. Then while on E1 he discovers that Earth 1 was the nexus and decides to blow all the worlds and everyone up since Barry keeps thwarting him and he's dying from the Velocity drug issues. He wants to make sure that before he dies, there are no more versions of his murdering dad alive.

And this relates to Barry because he's in the same position regarding wanting to save his mother. Zoom is the inverse warped ultimate version of Barry in that while Zoom focused on killing his father to save his mother, Barry focuses on saving his mother but it's still to the detriment of the world if he doesn't accept his mother's death and let the past stay the past. Save her and screw up the world or accept her death and let her go.