S03.E02: Paradox

[GHScorpiosRule]

3 hours ago, KirkB said:

I can understand where Cisco is coming from. Grief can make you feel helpless. Normally a loved one dies and that's that, nothing can be done about it. But Cisco is in a pretty unique position. He is personal friends with someone who actually COULD do something about it. Yes, there are myriad reasons why he SHOULDN'T, but logic and grief don't always mix.

Same thing happened on Smallville at the end of Season 8. Chloe asked Clark to do it for her (and she and Clark were BEST FRIENDS), but he'd done it once before, and when he did, (spoilering just in case)

he did it to save that Pink Pestilence Lana and his father ended up dying in his arms instead. No one will ever convince me that he didn't love his father more. The grief and anger he went through, some of Tom Welling's best acting. And when Davis killed Chloe's ex-husband, the whiny, twerp, Jimmy/nottherealJimmyOlsen! Clark refused because of what that might trigger/or who else could die, etc., etc.,

Chloe was mad at Clark for a loong time for that, but then he was an uber-uber douche in Season nine, that I didn't care. But I agreed with Clark's decision. And eventually they made up. Like two years later!

[bettername2come]

2 hours ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

I can understand where Cisco is coming from. Grief can make you feel helpless. Normally a loved one dies and that's that, nothing can be done about it. But Cisco is in a pretty unique position. He is personal friends with someone who actually COULD do something about it. Yes, there are myriad reasons why he SHOULDN'T, but logic and grief don't always mix.

I suspect it's this along with some guilt, which Cisco is prone to. Not only is Barry someone who can literally reverse time, Cisco sees the future. He probably feels like he should have been able to prevent his brother's death. He can save Tina McGee, he can save Earth-2, but with his brother - nothing, no warning. Cisco getting into making his own suit in this new timeline when he wasn't before might even tie into it overcoming that helplessness that comes along with grief.

[Tara Ariano]

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

It's Damage-Control Time On The Flash

Barry's got a lot of people mad at him. Luckily he's still adorbs.

[Argenta]

On 10/12/2016 at 3:05 AM, SnoGirl said:

I'm never not going to see Tom Felton as Draco. Every time him and Barry spoke, all I could hear was him saying "Potter" after everything.

"I dont like things I can't trust...Potter."

Great. Now you've got me doing the same thing  XD  Once heard, cannot be unheard, etc. 

[SnoGirl]

21 minutes ago, Argenta said:

Great. Now you've got me doing the same thing  XD  Once heard, cannot be unheard, etc. 

I'm glad its just not me anymore! Seriously, its Draco without the daddy issues. He has Meta issues now ;)

[zannej]

I actually think his delivery and mannerisms are quite different from Draco Malfoy. Yeah, he's got the accent and unfriendly attitude, but the tone is different to me. There is more maturity-- which could just be because Tom is all grown up now.

[millennium]

On 10/11/2016 at 9:59 PM, BkWurm1 said:

 

When I think about it, it really is insane that TPTB found a way to make broad changes with no obligation to explain or set any of them up.  You know the past two years that you watched?  Nothing you are sure of can ever be counted on anymore cause Flashpoint.  They now have permission to retcon anything in season one or two.  It seriously lessens my enjoyment. 

 

You kinda just summed up what I call the DC Paradox: You grow up reading DC Comics, the characters and storylines become embedded in your memory -- and then DC says "fuck you, chump, sales are down from last year so we're gonna burn down the whole thing and start over again."

[legaleagle53]

3 hours ago, millennium said:

You kinda just summed up what I call the DC Paradox: You grow up reading DC Comics, the characters and storylines become embedded in your memory -- and then DC says "fuck you, chump, sales are down from last year so we're gonna burn down the whole thing and start over again."

Yep, starting in 1986 and repeating about once a decade -- and not always for the better!

Edited October 22, 2016 by legaleagle53

[BkWurm1]

4 hours ago, millennium said:

You kinda just summed up what I call the DC Paradox: You grow up reading DC Comics, the characters and storylines become embedded in your memory -- and then DC says "fuck you, chump, sales are down from last year so we're gonna burn down the whole thing and start over again."

That sounds very frustrating but at least with a reboot, everything is starting over and retold usually from the beginning.  What existed before is IMO sort of like an alternative universe.  All the history is preserved un to itself and the reboot retells everything, keeping somethings, majorly changing other things, but it keeps its continuity (usually) with in the reboots.  And we can be there from its beginning to see it all unfold.

What they've done here is tell us now lots of things in the past never happened or happened differently but you don't get to know what or why or how until it is immediately relevant to the present. It removes the context of everyone's actions. How can we sympathize or understand choices or behaviors if we don't know what has shaped and molded them?  In watching the series we learned about these characters based on what we watched on screen, it defined what made each character uniquely live and breathe for the audience.  But this hastily done Flashpoint tells us in sweeping terms the past is now different, some of the characters are now different (Cisco personality wise and Caitlin with her abilities, Iris and Joe with their estrangement and how that would have informed their relationship to Wally and of course Barry) and without knowing what characterization can be trusted to always be true, I'm left unsure about it all.  

Losing that certainty forces me to second guess everything which completely breaks suspension of disbelief and leaves me disconnected to the characters.  I don't have a relationship with most of these people now.  It's A Cisco and A Caitlin, but it's not THE ones I knew, so how much am I going to care about anything that happens to them?   A Joe died on E2 and it was briefly sad and then I got over it.  Same thing with E2 Cisco and Caitlin.  And nobody expects the audience to be heartbroken about them because they aren't the characters we have invested in.

And now many of the characters we were invested in no longer exist.  We are left only with their uncertain copies and no way back to what was before.  

So yeah, I find the permanent changes they have left floating really crappy storytelling.  

Edited October 22, 2016 by BkWurm1

[millennium]

1 hour ago, BkWurm1 said:

 

Losing that certainty forces me to second guess everything which completely breaks suspension of disbelief and leaves me disconnected to the characters.  I don't have a relationship with most of these people now.  It's A Cisco and A Caitlin, but it's not THE ones I knew, so how much am I going to care about anything that happens to them?   A Joe died on E2 and it was briefly sad and then I got over it.  Same thing with E2 Cisco and Caitlin.  And nobody expects the audience to be heartbroken about them because they aren't the characters we have invested in.

And now many of the characters we were invested in no longer exist.  We are left only with their uncertain copies and no way back to what was before.  

So yeah, I find the permanent changes they have left floating really crappy storytelling.  

I understand completely.   This I would call the Star Trek Paradox, because if you just change some names you'll have the primary reason I don't care at all about J.J. Abrams Star Trek reboot and why I couldn't be bothered to see the most recent installment in that series.

Probably they'll reinstate the original timeline.   They can't just swap out Baby Sarah and expect everyone at home to be okay with that.   Or for Barry to go through life harboring the secret that his time passages killed Cisco's brother.  Besides, Emo Cisco is kind of a drag and that's not good for anyone.  I feel worse for Caitlin.   She has been little more than a one-dimensional character throughout the seasons, now she's being set up to lose even that meager persona to Killer Frost.   It seems terribly unfair.  

Felicity seemed off.   That whole pudding metaphor was cringeworthy.  And she didn't seem to care all that much about Barry's predicament or the changes he wrought.   She ushered him off like she was late for an appointment.  I don't know whether to chalk it up to Flashpoint or different writers.

[Argenta]

Personally, I think I'm going to assume that everything is as we saw it in S1 and S2 unless it's explicitly said or shown otherwise. It's the only way to keep from coming unstuck as a viewer :)

[BkWurm1]

Quote

I understand completely.   This I would call the Star Trek Paradox, because if you just change some names you'll have the primary reason I don't care at all about J.J. Abrams Star Trek reboot and why I couldn't be bothered to see the most recent installment in that series.

I have a friend who is a huge fan of the original series so I totally understand your viewpoint.  I was ok going into it viewing it as a total reboot. I was fine accepting two separate versions of the same thing (even though Nemoy's participation actually complicated that, lol)  My affection to the characters had to be re-earned and though it's a really different take on the series, I thought at least the first movie did an excellent job.  But yeah, just giving the characters the names isn't enough.  I need to be shown why I should care about them.  It's why I personally think that BvsS was a failure. (and one of the biggest flaws in Man of Steel)  It just skipped over the actual development of most of the relationships, relying much too much on the viewers coming into the franchise already feeling certain ways about the characters.   

Quote

Probably they'll reinstate the original timeline.   They can't just swap out Baby Sarah and expect everyone at home to be okay with that.   Or for Barry to go through life harboring the secret that his time passages killed Cisco's brother.  Besides, Emo Cisco is kind of a drag and that's not good for anyone.  I feel worse for Caitlin.   She has been little more than a one-dimensional character throughout the seasons, now she's being set up to lose even that meager persona to Killer Frost.   It seems terribly unfair.

And they probably want us to think like that but TPTB also want to randomly make changes when it suits them and they can't have it both ways.  Least not with me. 

6 hours ago, Argenta said:

Personally, I think I'm going to assume that everything is as we saw it in S1 and S2 unless it's explicitly said or shown otherwise. It's the only way to keep from coming unstuck as a viewer :)

I really don't think they will reinstate the original timeline because that would mean that anything that happens currently until they did "fix" things doesn't count and that's as big a problem as what they've already done.  I is terribly unfair but I think they were pretty clear in this episode that they are done having Barry actively try to fix things.  Stuff clearly will happen in some cases (like obviously Wally and his powers) but even if they did somehow do something and Cisco's brother is suddenly not dead, I'm feeling certain they show runners won't feel the need to fix what they did with Baby Sara because that would mean they'd have to first recognize that there was a problem.  : (