S03.E08: Invasion!

[ParadoxLost]

9 minutes ago, blugirlami21 said:

I have to disagree with that.  Everything Rip did about Savage was personally motivated.  He seemed perfectly fine towing the line with time masters until his wife and son were killed by Savage.  

II have to agree with this and I would say that his plans to change the future were of a much larger scale.  The difference is that he is surrounded by a bunch of people who don't really care if the future changes, especially when they see it as for the better.  The only time people care is when its their past that's going to change because that effects them.  Barring something truly depressing in your personal life, people are going to generally pick the life they know over the life that is unknown to them.  That is why Rip's planned changes were more palatable than Barry's. Its perspective.  Rip was the only one changing his past.  Everyone else was determining their future.  Except all of Rip's contemporaries who were getting their past changed by his team.

You could argue that since LoT has been to the future that Cisco interfering with his precog vibes is as bad, to someone in the future that likes their life just fine, as Barry going back and changing things.

Oh, while I'm on a rant.  Someone should mention the whole Cisco would be dead thing if Barry had never time travelled.

[Maverick]

 Why wasn't Cisco part of the team fighting the Dominators?   The aliens are invading, it's kind of all hands on deck time dude.  They didn't even have the excuse that he has to offer tech support since Felicity was there.  

 So the Dominators exist in Supergirl's universe?  Does that mean Kryptonians, Martians and all the other aliens from Season 2: Supergirl Does Men in Black exist in the Earth-1 universe?

[benteen]

15 minutes ago, Maverick said:

 Why wasn't Cisco part of the team fighting the Dominators?   The aliens are invading, it's kind of all hands on deck time dude.  They didn't even have the excuse that he has to offer tech support since Felicity was there.  

 So the Dominators exist in Supergirl's universe?  Does that mean Kryptonians, Martians and all the other aliens from Season 2: Supergirl Does Men in Black exist in the Earth-1 universe?

Speaking of funny, Kara telling how awful the Dominators were and the looks she got from everyone.

Diggle always has some funny reactions too.

[rubyred]

I'm just grateful that Iris had any lines at all, so I'm going to overlook that she had the thankless "unsupportive/overprotective human" role usually inhabited by Joe. Any anyway, she wasn't wrong -- she didn't say Wally could never go out there, just that he needed more training than 2 days before taking on freaking aliens.

Although it did occur to me...when HR said he'd help train Wally I got a suspicious tingle...I wonder if HR is secretly up to no good. That foolishness about writing a novel never rang true to me. What is HR really up to? (I hope it's something, because hipster doofus Wells is a waste of Tom Cavanaugh's talents for a whole season).

I've bitched about Cisco's never-ending mainpain about Dante before, so I won't go into it now, but dang, so tired of hearing him bleat on the same self-pitying rant about Barry not changing the timeline for him, waah. Methinks his relationship with Dante was just as shitty as in other timelines, only now he's self-flagellating about that because now *sob* it's too late.

This show, even with its faults, really felt like a "crossover event" unlike last night's teaser on Supergirl. 

[loki567]

This episode was a pretty good example of why The Defenders is so lucky to have eight episodes. The whole thing was fun but boy, was it crowded. A shame that Supergirl is on Mondays because the other shows could have set up the crossover better and spread the time better over the four episodes. 

Also think that the episode shows that entire universe works so much better when they go for fun and stop with the constant team drama. Like I primarily watch Arrow and I always go through the same process with an Arrow season. I like the first few episodes because things are lighter and feel more enjoyable with natural character building, then slowly get annoyed over the rest of the season as the characters go completely OTT to cause unnecessary drama until by the end of the season, I'm nearly ready to quit the show. All the Cisco bitching and Wally whininess was getting in the way of my fun moments. 

[Maverick]

 I think Barry should tell Cisco that he really created Flashpoint by going back in time to save Dante at Cisco's request but Cisco couldn't deal with the consequences and asked Barry to undo it, thus creating this timeline and that Barry's was just trying to be a good friend and take the hit by saying he did it saving his mother.   Sure it's a lie, but if Cisco lives with it for a few months maybe he'll realize how big a hypocrite he's being by being mad at Barry for doing the same thing Cisco was begging him to do.

[Jediknight]

2 hours ago, ParadoxLost said:

Forgot to add.  Supergirl did in fact forget to bring the virus engineered to kill any non human and alien that is not Kyrptonian to the alien invasion.

While the virus does do that on Earth 3, there's no telling what it would do on Earth 1.  The virus could be deadly to humans from Earth 1.  It's better to play it safe than to unleash a virus, when you don't know what it will do.

39 minutes ago, Maverick said:

 Why wasn't Cisco part of the team fighting the Dominators?   The aliens are invading, it's kind of all hands on deck time dude.  They didn't even have the excuse that he has to offer tech support since Felicity was there. 

I'm guessing it's because he wasn't exactly being a team player.  Like you said, aliens are invading, it was time for Cisco to put aside his hatred of Barry to save humanity.  Cisco wasn't having that though, he was still pissed at Barry, and got mad at him when he found out that there was a battle in the future.  Yeah, Barry wasn't there in the fight, but you don't want anybody in any battle, especially one that big who has their mind on other things.

Edited November 30, 2016 by Jediknight

[ParadoxLost]

15 minutes ago, Maverick said:

 I think Barry should tell Cisco that he really created Flashpoint by going back in time to save Dante at Cisco's request but Cisco couldn't deal with the consequences and asked Barry to undo it, thus creating this timeline and that Barry's was just trying to be a good friend and take the hit by saying he did it saving his mother.   Sure it's a lie, but if Cisco lives with it for a few months maybe he'll realize how big a hypocrite he's being by being mad at Barry for doing the same thing Cisco was begging him to do.

I briefly considered the possibility that Martin did in fact change the timeline enough to create his daughter, not Barry, and that set off a chain reaction that caused Cisco's brother's death.

If Cisco recognizes her as his brother's gf in the LoT episode then we'll know.

Edited November 30, 2016 by ParadoxLost

[VCRTracking]

Looooooooooved Kara interacting with Ollie and the other heroes on Earth-1. Her scene with Heatwave was great.

I will never get tired of Diggle's reactions to super powers.

I totally understand where Cisco is coming from and I don't expect him to forgive Barry anytime soon, but man, he's got to ease up right now. There's more important things at the moment.

[Chris24601]

18 minutes ago, ParadoxLost said:

I briefly considered the possibility that Martin did in fact change the timeline enough to create his daughter, not Barry, and that set off a chain reaction that caused Cisco's brother's death.

If Cisco recognizes her as his brother's gf in the LoT episode then we'll know.

The main fault for all this stuff being different I suspect is because Reverse Flash got away after undoing Flashpoint. Reverse Flash is actually the one causing all the changes with his bouncing through the time stream (though I suspect that ones like Diggle having a son are more inadvertent than deliberate).

DC Comics actually pulled something similar with their Rebirth storyline as well. The New52 comics got started because of their version of Flashpoint where Barry went back and save his mother, in fixing the timeline things got changed (even Barry's memories of the original timeline) and, initially, the readers all thought the changes had to do with Barry's fix, but "Rebirth" revealed that Barry actually did fix things and the changes were really the result of another character tampering with the timeline.

It could be that the Flarrowverse has a similar twist in mind where the bulk of the changes are actually due to Reverse Flash and not Barry after all. If they're planning on mirroring the Rebirth comics as well, I expect we'll see not a complete fix, but a restoration of various pre-Flashpoint elements. For example, Wally and Caitlyn having powers is something you could get past narratively, but the big unforgivables seem to be Baby Sara and, to a lesser extent, Dante. So if Barry could somehow find a way to, say, enter the old timeline before Barry created Flashpoint and then bring Baby Sara and maybe Dante back with them into the Post-Flashpoint timeline, I think most people would more or less consider things to be "fixed" (especially if it doesn't also require erasing Jon Jr. in the process).

[CabotCove]

Quote

Include Iris in the episode only to be whiny and to make some off the wall comment about Oliver to Barry.  I get it was a call back to some previous episode, but so unnecessary.  

Yeah I thought that was rather inappropriate and unneeded, now that Iris/Barry are dating. They seem to forget their own single show continuity in these multi-show crossovers.

Quote

So let's say no one ever lets Barry off the hook for changing the timeline.  Where does that leave us?  How should Barry be punished for what he did?  How long should Barry be punished for what he did?  

He has been punished plenty for what he did IMO. The pain of letting go off flashpoint where his parents were alive, Dante's death, Caitlin being KF, Baby Sara's erasure etc. Barry is not a heartless person and he is very emotional, he should be very affected by how his actions affected the people he loves. And he had losses too.

Having the burden to know you caused all that and have to live with it is enough punishment for him, and the writers just need to show the effect its having on him and his mindset instead of just having people bash him.  Any normal person would be tortured about all the pain and loss this has caused, and teach them not do such a thing again.

Quote

I personally feel like Barry gave up quite a bit to fix his mistake and is doing everything he can to atone for the timeline changes. Ymmv.

Agree.

Edited November 30, 2016 by HeroLeague

[twoods]

What a fun episode. Since I don't watch Arrow anymore it was nice to see the crew and not be annoyed by too much emo and bad storytelling. I always love Barry and Oliver's friendship, and Felicity and Cisco being computer nerds together.

I also miss the Legends interacting with the other group (Ray and Cisco, Stein and Caitlyn). I especially loved that Barry got to react to Snart dying. Plus, Kara fit in so well with all of them. I hope we get another crossover the second half of the season.

I really miss the Barry and Cisco bromance. Watching Cisco ice Barry out is sort of understandable, but at the same time I want to shake Cisco out of his funk so him and Barry can be friends again. I don't like that Iris is sheltering Wally (she should know that her keeping him from being a hero is going to make him rebel even more), but I did love her reaction to finding out that Oliver is Green Arrow.

[Proteus]

I loved it. As a viewer of all three Arrowverse shows, I thought it was really awesome. I think TPTB did an amazing job tying all these characters together in 40 something minutes.

I love Karas joy of being in this universe and everyone's reactions to her.

Everything in this episode was perfect. I'm really looking forward to Arrow and LOTs parts even more now.

[BkWurm1]

4 hours ago, Arynm said:

Loved every second!! I was a geeked out mess when they all got together, I might have teared up.  Loved Mick calling her "Skirt" because Supergirl was dumb.  Barry needs to get yelled at a little by the team, especially about baby Sarah. I'm glad they all pulled together at the end behind him. Can't wait for night 3

Yeah, I pretty much loved the whole thing too.  Well, all the crossover parts.  

3 hours ago, ParadoxLost said:

Diggle and Felicity always gel well with the Flash crew.  But hands down, the hero of the episode was Oliver Queen.  The mentor/mentee relationship with Barry was on point from Barry on how to lead, to he stories about shooting him to get Supergirl to be tough on them, and just his general handling of finding out that Barry changed the timeline. Lots of nice little moments like him moving closer to Diggle and being the one to say the words about his child.

 

Yes, I completely agree.  This is the Oliver I love.  This is a character you can be proud of.  

3 hours ago, Cthulhudrew said:

That's got to be really rough for Dig. The anger he must feel about Barry erasing the daughter he now never knew, and the guilt of feeling that way knowing that he has a son he really loves now. I hope they give David Ramsey a chance to really play up the full depth of all of that, and don't just take the path of least resistance.

 

I like your perspective.  I was thinking that Dig acted out of character when he didn't back Oliver but yeah, I can see how the mix of guilt and anger over losing Sara but loving JJ would eat at him and that he would need time away from Barry.  I teared up when Sara's loss was exposed.  It's still a really emotional loss on the show for me, but I'd still been surprised about Dig's choice so this lets me enjoy that whole scene now.  

3 hours ago, quarks said:

Questionable things:

 

2. Did we forget that Felicity's name is Overwatch?

5. Oliver, I know that the real reason you wanted everyone to spend time training was to allow other characters time for their Scenes of Lengthy Exposition, but, that said, maybe, just maybe, exhausting your teammates just when they need to rest up to fight aliens was not the best move.  Also, great to have them train against Supergirl hitting them with her hardest, but unless you know for a fact that the Dominators have all of Supergirl's powers, maybe training them against her powers wasn't the most efficient use of everyone's time.

Bad things:

1. Holy rushed exposition in the first 30 minutes, Batman! Between needing to introduce everyone - twice in many cases - and squeeze in four separate plots, it was amazing that any dialogue got out. In some cases it barely did. It's ok to let lines breathe from time to time, show. I nearly missed Sara's explanation about where the other two Legends were.

5. Cisco. Oh, so much about Cisco. Let's start with HELLO CISCO. IN CASE YOU HADN'T NOTICED, ALIENS ARE INVADING AND NEED TO BE YOUR PRIORITY RIGHT NOW. I get why he's upset and angry, really, I do, but this isn't the moment.  I mean, yes, it did lead to both Barry and Oliver staying behind and thus not getting dominated, a plus, but since that was an accidental byproduct, I'm not counting it. Let's continue with HEY CISCO YOU HAVE SUPERPOWERS SO WHY AREN'T YOU OUT IN THE FIELD RIGHT NOW HELPING? Felicity, Caitlin and H.R. are all capable of providing backup here. 

 

Ha!  Yeah, I was bummed when Felicity didn't get to say her code name but I guess it's probably only known among the bad guys that listen into Team Arrow's chatter, not among the general populace or even the other teams.  

I too couldn't understand why (in show) Oliver was having the team get tired out by fighting an alien with powers that didn't seem to mimic the Dominator's power at all.  WOuldn't it have made more sense to find out the Dominator's weaknesses rather than just train to fight like a team?  Yes, I know, plotty, plot, plot and I'll shut up because in this case I really like the result...even if it doesn't make sense.  

I agree the first half was rushed and I might have complained if I hadn't been watching on my DVR.  As it was, I just paused and rewound a bunch of times so I got what i missed and then I actually ended up rewinding to the beginning half way through and watching it again and it was even more fun that time.  I haven't rewatched any scenes from Flash or Arrow since last years mid season finale, so that's saying something.  (On LoT I rewind Sara's fights all the time, they are so good that by comparison what she did tonight was dull)

Which leaves Cisco.  Oh CIsco, I don't like you in a way that I had only not liked Laurel - in the "I know you are in the right but I am finding your attitude and manner so distasteful that I don't care and am siding with the one that did you wrong" kind of way.  

You can't both be pissed that Barry didn't use time travel and then more pissed that he did.  His earlier hypocrisy negates a lot of my sympathy.  

 

3 hours ago, ParadoxLost said:

Forgot to add.  Supergirl did in fact forget to bring the virus engineered to kill any non human and alien that is not Kyrptonian to the alien invasion.

What was more interesting to me was that on Monday Kara was all upset that it was her father that made the virus, but now we find out that before she was born Krypton was invaded by the Dominators and really, the virus sounds like a direct response to them so maybe she should have been less disillusioned by what her dad did since she's pretty pumped to take out these guys now.    

3 hours ago, jmonique said:

I'm actually on Wally's side with this. Either they train him and he can learn and grow, or they treat him like he's 7, and he runs into fights ill-equipped.

They need to suck it up and let him be Kid Flash already.

I don't see why they didn't let him hang out as part of the support team.  He did that during lots of The Flash's fights.  And what if they needed to have someone run some kind of tech quickly to the front line?  He could have been really handed untrained right now as long as he'd agree to stay out of the main fights. They so often phrase this stuff badly.   And yes, he got hurt out there, but didn't he also save Oliver and Barry's butts?  

2 hours ago, blugirlami21 said:

I have to disagree with that.  Everything Rip did about Savage was personally motivated.  He seemed perfectly fine towing the line with time masters until his wife and son were killed by Savage.  Most things the legends do is personally motivated.  Hell everything most of these heroes do is personally motivated.  The only one I may leave out of that is Kara but she's still a newbie.

So let's say no one ever lets Barry off the hook for changing the timeline.  Where does that leave us?  How should Barry be punished for what he did?  How long should Barry be punished for what he did?  

I personally feel like Barry gave up quite a bit to fix his mistake and is doing everything he can to atone for the timeline changes. Ymmv.

It was personal but it was also a global fight to save most of the world and the Time Masters where helping Savage cheat so Rip was fighting against a rigged system and he did eventually learn his lesson which he passed on to Sara when Laurel died.    

Quote

-Sara…love Sara but she’s the last person who should be lecturing about Barry saving someone he loves when she’s spent about six months trying to alter history to save her sister.

My first thought as well too but then it made sense that she'd be even more upset since while she absolutely would understand wanting to do it, in the end she didn't and she's been living with the knowledge that she has the ability with the Waverider of going back and saving Laurel, but right away Rip explained why she couldn't and though she's still struggled with not killing DD, she hasn't and so for Barry, the guy that is supposed to be unquestionably the hero, to do what she wanted to do but knew was wrong, must have been even harder to take.  Ray's astonishment also worked for me since he's the rule follower of the bunch.  

[tarotx]

5 minutes ago, BkWurm1 said:

Yeah, I pretty much loved the whole thing too.  Well, all the crossover parts.  

Yes, I completely agree.  This is the Oliver I love.  This is a character you can be proud of.  

I like your perspective.  I was thinking that Dig acted out of character when he didn't back Oliver but yeah, I can see how the mix of guilt and anger over losing Sara but loving JJ would eat at him and that he would need time away from Barry.  I teared up when Sara's loss was exposed.  It's still a really emotional loss on the show for me, but I'd still been surprised about Dig's choice so this lets me enjoy that whole scene now.  

Ha!  Yeah, I was bummed when Felicity didn't get to say her code name but I guess it's probably only known among the bad guys that listen into Team Arrow's chatter, not among the general populace or even the other teams.  

I too couldn't understand why (in show) Oliver was having the team get tired out by fighting an alien with powers that didn't seem to mimic the Dominator's power at all.  WOuldn't it have made more sense to find out the Dominator's weaknesses rather than just train to fight like a team?  Yes, I know, plotty, plot, plot and I'll shut up because in this case I really like the result...even if it doesn't make sense.  

I agree the first half was rushed and I might have complained if I hadn't been watching on my DVR.  As it was, I just paused and rewound a bunch of times so I got what i missed and then I actually ended up rewinding to the beginning half way through and watching it again and it was even more fun that time.  I haven't rewatched any scenes from Flash or Arrow since last years mid season finale, so that's saying something.  (On LoT I rewind Sara's fights all the time, they are so good that by comparison what she did tonight was dull)

Which leaves Cisco.  Oh CIsco, I don't like you in a way that I had only not liked Laurel - in the "I know you are in the right but I am finding your attitude and manner so distasteful that I don't care and am siding with the one that did you wrong" kind of way.  

You can't both be pissed that Barry didn't use time travel and then more pissed that he did.  His earlier hypocrisy negates a lot of my sympathy.  

 

What was more interesting to me was that on Monday Kara was all upset that it was her father that made the virus, but now we find out that before she was born Krypton was invaded by the Dominators and really, the virus sounds like a direct response to them so maybe she should have been less disillusioned by what her dad did since she's pretty pumped to take out these guys now.    

I don't see why they didn't let him hang out as part of the support team.  He did that during lots of The Flash's fights.  And what if they needed to have someone run some kind of tech quickly to the front line?  He could have been really handed untrained right now as long as he'd agree to stay out of the main fights. They so often phrase this stuff badly.   And yes, he got hurt out there, but didn't he also save Oliver and Barry's butts?  

It was personal but it was also a global fight to save most of the world and the Time Masters where helping Savage cheat so Rip was fighting against a rigged system and he did eventually learn his lesson which he passed on to Sara when Laurel died.    

My first thought as well too but then it made sense that she'd be even more upset since while she absolutely would understand wanting to do it, in the end she didn't and she's been living with the knowledge that she has the ability with the Waverider of going back and saving Laurel, but right away Rip explained why she couldn't and though she's still struggled with not killing DD, she hasn't and so for Barry, the guy that is supposed to be unquestionably the hero, to do what she wanted to do but knew was wrong, must have been even harder to take.  Ray's astonishment also worked for me since he's the rule follower of the bunch.  

 

Plus Sara had to mention Laurel for tomorrow's Arrow, since if Oliver would have mentioned her the internet would not have been happy. Or at least my twitter timeline ;) 

[yellowfred]

I feel like they were pushing the whole "Oliver really supports and understands Barry" thing to the detriment of some of the other characters.  Sara, in particular, should have empathized with at least wanting to change the past, since she had to be talked out of doing the exact same thing.  Not to mention, when dealing with her own team, she's usually a lot more focused on finding solutions for when people screw up than placing blame.  Also, Martin's usually pretty pragmatic, so the fact that he had no problem leaving behind two of their strongest people on a dangerous mission seemed out of character.  Honestly, I feel like Diggle is the only one I would have expected that reaction from, since he was the one affected, but even he usually has more of a "we can deal with this once we're out of mortal peril" type attitude.

Future!Barry's message was maybe the least helpful thing that Barry Allen has ever done.  Like, if he is, in fact, referring to this fight, why doesn't he mention anything about what they'll actually be fighting or how they can defeat it?  Then again, maybe he sends that message knowing how the whole thing will work out, because otherwise he and Oliver would have been mind controlled along with everyone else.

I thought the scene of Supergirl learning everyone's names was cute and also probably useful for anyone who doesn't keep up with all four shows.  Overall, though, I feel like she was a bit underutilized.  I think that comes back to the fact that, for this episode at least, the main focus was the Oliver-Barry relationship.  I don't necessarily have a problem with that, particularly since this was the Flash part of the crossover, but it seems a bit overly narrow, in some ways.  Focusing on their dynamic when Flash and Arrow were the only two shows involved made sense, but adding two additional shows to the mix ought to broaden the focus a bit, in my opinion.

Edited November 30, 2016 by yellowfred

[Trini]

I mean, I knew the other characters from the other shows would be here, but didn't realize their plots were coming too. So much stuff going on.

Why? WHY are they ruining Cisco? The fan favorite, the audience/producer surrogate, the comic relief; everyone hated mopey Barry last season, NOBODY wants mopey Cisco, too.

Supergirl/Heatwave was funny, but I was looking forward to more Barry/Kara adorkableness.

Iris barely interacted with the other casts; I hate how you continually reject the possibilities, show. The entire West family seemed to get stuck with clichés.

I did like that Oliver was on Barry's side (someone had to be!), of course he would do the same if he had the chance.

It's been established that Barry can't undo the changes, so I'm not sure what else people want from him.

[Minneapple]

Cisco has gone from being my favorite character to being the worst. Bring back the old Cisco please. Get rid of this sullen, passive aggressive, hypocritical character.

Okay, so Barry has now faced actual consequences of changing the timeline. Can he be happy again? I just want a scene with Grant and Melissa being smiley and charming together. IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK. 

[Kromm]

Too. Many. Warehouse. Sets.

And they weren't even supposed to be a single location. The heroes met in a warehouse. The President and his advisers met in another warehouse. The Dominators hid the fake President in yet another warehouse. Supergirl chased Barry through at least three MORE warehouse locations.

TOO! MANY! WAREHOUSE! SETS!

[ruby24]

Yeah, sullen Cisco really is the worst. I thought sullen Barry was bad, but man. Cisco is unbearable like this.

The Flash's appeal was its lightheartedness in Season 1 and they keep getting sucked into this mopey shit. The worst part is it probably makes sense given what Barry did, but that just shows what a writing mistake it was to have him do this. We don't need to see everyone dragging Barry for eight episodes in a row, geez.

It brings everything down.

[BkWurm1]

  They goofed with Cisco.  This part now where he is mad at Barry cause he changed the timeline and his brother died, this part now would be fine and have a lot of impact if they'd just not had Cisco blaming Barry for not saving his brother in the first place.  They could have had a slightly sadder, more serious, but still nice and quippy Cisco mourning his brother but not blaming anyone for the first half of the season and then only now have him upset and it would feel justified and we all (or at least I) wouldn't be sick to death of it.  

Edited November 30, 2016 by BkWurm1

[Spaceman Spiff]

I haven't had a chance to read thru the thread yet but wanted to comment on the show.

 

So an episode where everyone gets to dump on Barry. Not my favorite. So yay for Oliver, I'm in his corner. I especially didn't like Sarah and Ray getting on a high horse and being all self righteous. They are not Time Masters. LoT should be more like Timeless, because the Legends have a tendency to change a lot of minor things when they are on their trips and those changes should have ripple effects. Felicity should have also had Barry's back when talking to Cisco. Or Barry himself could have mentioned to Cisco about how in the original timeline Dante was a dick and Cisco and him were on the outs most of the time. Another example is Stein and his daughter, which we don't know if that was FlashPoint thing or because he himself encouraged his younger self to make babies.

Wally is still a d-bag.

Iris didn't know about Oliver being the Green Arrow?

I honestly thought we were heading to a Civil War type scenario. That Barry and GA would gather up the misfit toys to battle those who were taken over by the aliens. Martian Manhunter, Alex in her Kyptonite suit (no James, he's useless, stupid Guardian arc, plus Digs would be pissed that this black belt wanna be hero gets a full cool suit and his army trained badass only gets a silly helmet), Jessie Quick, Killer Frost, Vibe (no Kid Flash cause d-bag), Ollies group (I hear he is training some?) Vixen and Nate. But it looks like Arrow's episode will be more centered on Arrow's characters tonight, which will have all the Laurel haters choking on their bile, since KC was seen in the previews.

 

I did like Stein and Caitlyn bonding, but his quick Hi Bye with his daughter didn't sit right and seemed out of place.

[cambridgeguy]

One of these days they need to show someone whose life was improved by the Flashpoint (it's not clear if Stein's daughter is because of Barry or the Legends stomping through time).  I suppose Wally might count but there has to be a giant catch coming with his powers or the show is essentially broken with two speedsters around.

Ultimately the true test of Barry's resolution to not change time will be if Iris (or maybe Joe) dies. 

[mrspidey]

So Barry evaded Kara's heat vision. But doesn't that thing move at the speed of light? 

[quarks]

8 hours ago, rubyred said:

I'm just grateful that Iris had any lines at all, so I'm going to overlook that she had the thankless "unsupportive/overprotective human" role usually inhabited by Joe.

And I'd agree with you if she'd had any other role this season besides this and "supportive love interest."  One episode, I'd handwave. Eight episodes seems like a waste of Candice Patton's talents. 

 

5 hours ago, Kromm said:

Too. Many. Warehouse. Sets.

And they weren't even supposed to be a single location. The heroes met in a warehouse. The President and his advisers met in another warehouse. The Dominators hid the fake President in yet another warehouse. Supergirl chased Barry through at least three MORE warehouse locations.

TOO! MANY! WAREHOUSE! SETS!

This forum needs to let me like some posts, like this one, 100 times.

[kirinan]

So. Very. Tired. Of. Emo. Cisco. Bring back snarky, funny Cisco and quit ruining one of my favorite characters, showrunners. I do not care in the least about the switchout of Diggle's little girl for a boy. And put me on the "For gawd's sake, just drop the Barry beat-up already and MOVE ON" train. I hate Flashpoint. Oh, and cut the Wally angst while you're at it. He's an adult--a whiny one, but legally an adult, I believe--so let him be a superhero so he'll grow up a little when things don't go his idealized way.

On the good side? I like Diggle, I really liked Oliver, I don't know who the girl (Thea?) is but she seemed okay, I LOVED Kara and Mick's interactions, I always love watching Grant Gustin and Melissa Benoist together, I enjoyed Caitlin and Stein's scene, and yay, they acknowledged Snart!

We'll be watching Arrow tonight, which will be a first for us. I hope the episode will have a good balance of the crossover stuff so we don't have to do a lot of fast-forwarding past stuff that won't mean anything to us. I do look forward to Thursday's LoT, for the first time this season, to see how it all wraps up. 

[benteen]

Stein's daughter is definitely the result of his talking to his counterpart in 1987, telling him that his wife was the most important thing in his life.

If Sara had acknowledged that she did try to save her sister but it was her friends who had talked her out of it, her speech to Barry would have rang true.  At the very least, it would have been an damning indictment of Barry's enablers...er, friends!

[maxineofarc]

Everybody's already said everything I came here to say about my increasing over-it with Cisco (WHOM I LOVE, which makes it extra annoying) and with the "keep information from people in order to protect them" plot, which never ever EVER works, so I'll just ask: why exactly the everloving hell was Iris wearing a cocktail minidress with thigh high boots and a 2" choker around the lab?

Love Felicity's coat. Want one.

[Primetimer]

Barry puts together a supergroup to fight off an alien invasion, but the aliens have other plans.

View the full article

[DavidJSnyder]

Did you get the sense that even Felicity didn't know how she could have possibly sent a message through time to the Legends?

[Racj82]

1. Cisco is annoying as shit right now but part of the issue is that his angst is stemming from a character no one gives a shit about. From our perspectives, he was an asshat that got a little better after he nearly died. To be fair to Cisco, we don't know how he was to Cisco in this timeline. They could have been as close as Cisco and Barry were. But, that's the problem. They haven't made us care about those two as brothers so why should I give a shit that he's dead? I can empathize on a certain level but I still don't really care.

2. All, where is this person type questions should just be squashed at this point. We know the reason why all people that should be there aren't. Budget and script reasons. It's kind of not worth even breaking down.

3. Barry deserves to get the reactions he's getting even if I'm not mad at him. Yes Diggle has a right to be mad. All he's hearing is that he lost a daughter. Not the further logistics of that statement. Grief is often irrational. Let the man get a chance to get over it.

[Artsda]

Sara lecturing Barry was ridiculous. She was doing anything to bring Laurel back and altering the timeline, she was on a crusade of it. 

Cisco is just getting annoying now. Barry needs to stop taking it from him.

[ElleMo]

22 hours ago, blugirlami21 said:

23 hours ago, statsgirl said:

I think of Rip Hunter stopping Vandal Savage as more of a surgical or precision strike. Barry just emotionally jumps in there and to hell with any consequences to anyone else.

 

 

 

 

 

I have to disagree with that.  Everything Rip did about Savage was personally motivated.  He seemed perfectly fine towing the line with time masters until his wife and son were killed by Savage.  Most things the legends do is personally motivated.  Hell everything most of these heroes do is personally motivated.  The only one I may leave out of that is Kara but she's still a newbie.

 

 

 

1

All of Rip's actions were very personal and he did not care how it affected the timeline.  He was willing to go back to ancient Egypt to kill Savage before he got his immortality.  That would have caused huge ripples in the timeline as Savage, Kendra and Carter all impacted the timeline for THOUSANDS of years.

The people at LOT have done a lot more to impact the timeline than Barry.  Ray worked at a university for two years in the 1950s.  That disrupted at least one person's  life -- the professor that should have been there - and Ray could have influenced his students in ways they wouldn't have been before.  They have killed people in their time travels;  people who could have lived longer and had a bigger impact and saved people who perhaps should have died. People in the past have witnessed Firestorm's powers, Heatwave and Captain Cold's weapons and Ray's suit, which could have had huge impacts on them.  Jax freed slaves.  Stein told himself to pay more attention to his wife and ended up with a daughter. Most of this was further back in the timeline than Barry's lifespan, causing much bigger ripples.  Kill one person before the have a child can wipe out generations of people who may have impacted the world.  Sure, a lot of that was while trying to fix the timeline, but they are always very sloppy.

Perhaps they were responsible for some of the time changes attributed to Barry.  Maybe Stein's daughter works for Lila and because of her Lila had to work the night that Sara would have been conceived. Maybe Stein's child is Sara; her soul got to earth much earlier in this timeline.

 I understand Diggle and Cisco being upset.  It would freak me out if I had a child I couldn't remember and now that child does not exist. I would be upset if my brother (even if I were not close to him) had died.  But Sarah, Ray, Stein and Jax have no right to say a single thing and should have been on his side. 

Edited December 1, 2016 by ElleMo
my typing sucks

[ElleMo]

Did anyone else think that Oliver purposely allowed himself to be abducted?

[legaleagle53]

38 minutes ago, ElleMo said:

I understand Diggle and Cisco being upset.  It would freak me out if I had a child I couldn't remember and now that child does not exist. I would be upset if my brother (even if I were not close to him) had died.  But Sarah, Ray, Stein and Jax have no right to say a single thing and should have been on his side. 

I found it interesting that Kara and Oliver were the only ones who didn't lay into Barry. Kara, because neither she nor her universe were affected by Flashpoint, and Oliver, because he knew that there were much bigger fish to fry at the moment.  In fact, Kara didn't even seem shocked by what Barry had done; I would have at least expected a "Wait --  you did what?" out of her.

I wonder if Diggle will turn on Felicity when he finds out that she's known about the changed timeline for some time now -- wasn't she the first person Barry confided in about having created Flashpoint, which is when Barry started to realize just how radically he'd changed everyone's lives after he saw that Diggle now has a son instead of a daughter?

[johntfs]

12 hours ago, Maverick said:

 I think Barry should tell Cisco that he really created Flashpoint by going back in time to save Dante at Cisco's request but Cisco couldn't deal with the consequences and asked Barry to undo it, thus creating this timeline and that Barry's was just trying to be a good friend and take the hit by saying he did it saving his mother.   Sure it's a lie, but if Cisco lives with it for a few months maybe he'll realize how big a hypocrite he's being by being mad at Barry for doing the same thing Cisco was begging him to do.

That ship has sailed and one of the laws of this universe (multiverse?) is that secrets and lies always get revealed, usually at the worst possible time.

I'm really okay with Cisco's attitude.  When the whole "Dante's dead due to Flashpoint" bomb dropped that was one episode ago, which is what, maybe a few days ago in time passage term?  Let's take a bit of stock here.  Barry changed time and one of the effects was that Dante died.  Barry also has the ability to go back in time and fix that mistake(yes, there will be other side effects which is why he didn't do it).  Also, Cisco and Barry work closely together and that prevents either of them from getting space and perspective.  By the way, previous episodes showed us that Dante was the favored brother, the prodigy.  Cisco is probably getting a little bit of "I wish it had been you that died" at home.  So, figure he's allowed to be in a bad head space that blames Barry for this stuff and that it'll take him at least another couple of episodes or so to really deal with it.

Also remember that aliens are always invading or supervillains are attacking or some other weird shit is going down.  Shoving all this emotional business to this side to take care of business will just make it fester because there's always going to be a crisis or business to take care of. 

Edited November 30, 2016 by johntfs

[VCRTracking]

Yeah I don't really want or expect Cisco to be all "We're friends again!" but I would have preferred his excitedly geeking out over this superhero teamup over Felicity. I don't find her amusing anymore.

Is the show trying to make a case it was the right thing that Iris was kept in the dark about Barry's secret for so long? That she would have been this annoying overly protective over Barry starting out as she is now about Wally?

Edited November 30, 2016 by VCRTracking

[ohjoy]

14 hours ago, jmonique said:

"What worked well during the first two seasons?"

"The Barry-Cisco dynamic."
"Aha. Let's f that up, then."

 

10 hours ago, Trini said:

Why? WHY are they ruining Cisco?

 

10 hours ago, Minneapple said:

Cisco has gone from being my favorite character to being the worst. Bring back the old Cisco please.

Just wanted to highlight the progression of my feelings over the course of the season so far, since they were on major display this episode. (And on a lesser scale, I have these same feelings about Wells. I actually trust this Wells -- I'm not calling him H.R. -- less than the last one. Ugh.) Why must you keep screwing with the characters I like, Arrowverse? Why can't I have nice things?

That being said, I did enjoy this episode more than most of Flash this season, and this Oliver more than most of Arrow this season. (Though to be fair, my favorite episodes of "Arrow" tend to be the Flash episodes in the crossovers.) I think I have new favorite lines of the show, courtesy of Iris and Sara --
Iris: "Oliver's the Green Arrow? He just got so much hotter." (Complete with Barry's exasperated response)
Sara, as Barry's repeating Oliver's "covert" instructions for the team-up: "Are we just supposed to pretend we can't hear him?"

[Sakura12]

Sara tried but didn't kill Darkh, Barry did change the timeline. And we haven't seen many changes the Legends have done to the timeline while we are seeing all the changes Barry made. That makes a huge difference to me. I can't see things that aren't happening on screen. Sara didn't know about Reverse Flash (which to be honest is also Barry's fault. He's around because Barry let him go). She had no clue that Damian would get a friend that can time travel. Without RF, Damian didn't know where, when or who made that future come true. He would just know it happened. Without time travel how much of future could he have really changed. So it's really another Speedster that is messing with the timeline. 

Edited November 30, 2016 by Sakura12

[Aeryn13]

Quote

I'm really okay with Cisco's attitude.  When the whole "Dante's dead due to Flashpoint" bomb dropped that was one episode ago, which is what, maybe a few days ago in time passage term? 

I agree. In the second episode when everyone found out about Flashpoint, they had one scene maybe were they were kinda mad and then by the end the "excuse and enable" commitee was already back to work again. Including Cisco. Then for the longest time Flashpoint was mentioned here and there but IMO there was zero real calling out of Barry`s actions. Now there is, last episode and this one he had to take a few hard words. Well, those things should have happened sooner and then we could have had it over with but they needed to happen. For some reason they chose now. Barry isn`t used to it but I think it`s ultimately good for character growth. The constant enabling and the "noone can stay mad at pudding" attitude is what led him to his mistakes in the first place. 

And again, it`s really only been two episodes and I found Barry`s reactions to be still somewhat flippant last week. If this went on for half a Season, I would agree that it needs to stop already but IMO it has barely started. And apparently, already ended. 

Cisco can`t be expected to just get over it in a milisecond just because Barry has a cute puppy dog face and feels bad. If you screw up and it affects other people, you get to feel bad AND take their anger on top of it. They deserve to voice it. The whole "nothing you could do or say would be as bad as I already feel" is such a cop-out in my eyes. It`s not about the person screwing-up, it`s about respecting a right of the others to be angry.

For the most part I thought Cisco just established boundaries. He has a right to say who he considers friend and wants around right now and who he doesn`t. It was ill-advised to have confession time right at that moment but I could see why it was the straw that broke the camel`s back. And I thought it was the worse call to keep it a secret in the first place. No wonder everyone reacted so badly. 

That said, I enjoyed the Oliver-Barry relationship here and that Oliver was supportive. It was also cute that he tried to bolster Barry as the leader and then had to feed him cues. That`s okay, Barry isn`t the leader yet of his own team, they rather try to reach a consensus and make group decisions. And in Season 1 evil Wells was the de-facto leader. Supergirl is in a rather similar position, I wouldn`t call her the leader of her group either. Ollie and Sara are of their respective teams and they have more experience with it.

It was neat seeing various character combos here but overall Supergirl was kinda underused.

The aliens so far? Meh. And the easy mind-control thing seemed just, well, too easy.

Iris, normally I really like her, but they made her so whiny about it, it completely overrode Wally`s normal whinyness. 

Edited November 30, 2016 by Aeryn13

[CletusMusashi]

Dear Show: Please do not bring Wally onto "Arrow" tonight. Let him stay behind and train. Oh, I'm not a complete moron; I know he isn't going to do that. You'd think that, with all his incessant whining about wanting to be able to run fast, we'd have at least seen him go out jogging a few times, but he never did. Pre-Flashpoint Wally wasn't entirely bad, but post-reset Whiny Wally just wants everything handed to him on a silver platter. Well, maybe he'll bitch the aliens to death.

I've got mixed feeling about this whole "crossover event." So far: We've had a completely normal episode of Supergirl, that ends with a scene lifted from last night's Flash. So, Monday was not actually a crossover episode at all. Then, tonight, we spent half an hour shoveling people from all three shows together, just so they could face off against some antagonists from a 90s video game. How come alien baddies on Monday look like White Martians, but alien baddies on Tuesday look like... this crap?

Then tonight and tomorrow, after two days of this thing being oversold on shows that I actually like, I've got to try to watch Arrow and Legends? I mean, I will. Try, that is. But my hopes are not high. Arrow always looks better in commercials than it actually is, because the only person in the commercials who ever says anything is Felicity, so that gives the impression that the entire show is her, instead of the boring other 20 people. And Legends always looks exactly as bad as it is.

I'm actually hoping for this whole thing to be saved by the introduction of Joe West's half brother... Adam.

Edited November 30, 2016 by CletusMusashi

[Bruinsfan]

6 hours ago, mrspidey said:

So Barry evaded Kara's heat vision. But doesn't that thing move at the speed of light? 

Depends on whether it's actually laser vision or tightly-aimed pyrokinesis that heats molecules up. The latter might not travel at lightspeed. (Also, Flash in the comics is at least theoretically fast enough to dodge the former, though it probably doesn't matter on a show where you can time travel by running faster than sound.)

I was never a fan of Cisco BEFORE when he was embodying every geeky stereotype and throwing a hissyfit if someone else dared to coin a code name, things the rest of the audience seems to find charming. At this point I think Barry should go back in time and swap him out for Dante in the hope that the latter wouldn't be constantly bitching about the dead brother that he never seemed to get along with in the first place.

[yellowfred]

1 hour ago, ElleMo said:

Did anyone else think that Oliver purposely allowed himself to be abducted?

I've actually been thinking about that.  It seemed like there was enough time between Sara getting abducted and Oliver getting abducted that someone should have reacted.  I don't know that I'd call it purposeful, since I don't necessarily think that Oliver, himself, could have gotten away if he'd tried.  At the same time, though, if getting away had been his first thought (rather than getting his abducted friends back), he had enough time to tell Barry or Kara to get them out of there, which he didn't do.

I've been thinking more about Oliver's defense of Barry, and I think that a lot of it comes from Oliver's own experience with his choices having consequences beyond his control.  Like, Oliver's made a lot of decisions that weren't necessarily good or smart, but he's ended up feeling guilty and being blamed for consequences he could not reasonably have anticipated.  I think that's why I'm disappointed that Sara wasn't more understanding, since that's an experience she can relate to as well. 

[johntfs]

14 hours ago, Maverick said:

 Why wasn't Cisco part of the team fighting the Dominators?   The aliens are invading, it's kind of all hands on deck time dude.  They didn't even have the excuse that he has to offer tech support since Felicity was there.  

 So the Dominators exist in Supergirl's universe?  Does that mean Kryptonians, Martians and all the other aliens from Season 2: Supergirl Does Men in Black exist in the Earth-1 universe?

Cisco gives access to other dimensions.  He's the key to recruiting Supergirls from Earths 39-56 or whatever, so it's probably a good idea to keep him out of the line of fire.

Just because the Dominators exist in Supergirl's universe doesn't mean Kryptonians,, etc exist in Earth 1.  We know that there are differences from the first time Barry visited her universe.

[CabotCove]

Quote

If Sara had acknowledged that she did try to save her sister but it was her friends who had talked her out of it, her speech to Barry would have rang true.  At the very least, it would have been anamning indictment of Barry's enablers...er, friends!

Yeah, she shouldnt leave the part were she never consulted them of her plans and they had to find out her secret before they could disapprove, just like Barry's 'enablers' didnt know what he was gonna do. And how stubborn she was to listen to her non enablers. Then confess how she may have created a new timeline anyway, by telling the villain his future fate. 

Quote

 

Cisco is annoying as shit right now but part of the issue is that his angst is stemming from a character no one gives a shit about. From our perspectives, he was an asshat that got a little better after he nearly died. To be fair to Cisco, we don't know how he was to Cisco in this timeline. 

 

That was his blood brother and possibly only sibling, thats his family. He may have been a bit of a jerk but it doesnt mean he never was a good brother to Cisco or not have some good qualities. There is 20+ years of history between them that we dont know. 

There has been two episodes of Cisco saving Dante and their relationship improving. I do believe he loved his brother and this reaction of grief make sense to me. But he can experience grief and not be written in such an irritating way. 

Quote

The people at LOT have done a lot more to impact the timeline then Barry.

Lol yeah, such a double standard, either they should have the other characters not letting the Legends off so easy, for tinkering with time. Or they shouldnt be so hard on Barry for doing it. The Legends are allowed to be irresponsible and make mistakes with time multiple times, but the world ends when Barry does it once or twice. They need to stop dealing with time travel in such a contradictory and hypocritical way in this universe.

Edited November 30, 2016 by HeroLeague

[Latverian Diplomat]

18 hours ago, ParadoxLost said:

Also, future Barry.  Cryptic don't trust anyone messages are not at all helpful.  And did I get lost at some point?  I thought future Barry was saying not to trust anything around him.  This I took to mean that Reverse Flash or something was masquerading as one of his friends.  But then Barry seemed to interpret it as the message was no one should trust Barry.  Then after that it seemed like it was that Barry shouldn't trust that he knew all the changes he made.

That message was useless for anything but stirring up trouble. Really feel like the writers dropped the ball there. Also, Jax and Martin carefully keep the message secret for days/weeks whatever, only to leave a recording out in the open where Cisco can stumble across it? Please.

16 hours ago, KirkB said:

Honestly, with Kara there I'd think you hardly need anybody else. Though I did have a good laugh when their 'training' turned out to be Kara floating in midair while everyone else shot and blasted her and she pretended to notice.

 

I enjoyed that too (though Oliver, if Kara didn't hold back at all, she'd put the whole team in the hospital).

OTOH, Supergirl's invulnerability is nerfed a fair amount on her own show (because drama). I feel like over there, the atom suit blasts or Firestorm's blasts would have at least stung a little. Maybe the Flash writers have read the comics but not actually watched her show? :-)

16 hours ago, ParadoxLost said:

Forgot to add.  Supergirl did in fact forget to bring the virus engineered to kill any non human and alien that is not Kyrptonian to the alien invasion.

Mass killing with a biological weapon is not exactly her style. Though I suppose it might be an interesting temptation for Our Heroes to confront, we have to save room for Flashpoint angst. :-(

[KirkB]

31 minutes ago, Latverian Diplomat said:

I enjoyed that too (though Oliver, if Kara didn't hold back at all, she'd put the whole team in the hospital).

OTOH, Supergirl's invulnerability is nerfed a fair amount on her own show (because drama). I feel like over there, the atom suit blasts or Firestorm's blasts would have at least stung a little. Maybe the Flash writers have read the comics but not actually watched her show? :-)

Hospital? Morgue, more likely. If she didn't hold back and were so inclined she could heat vision all of them to death in a matter of seconds. I was thinking that Firestorm was the only one who might really be able to affect Kara, and even then what he does is basically just fire and that's not a problem for Kryptonians. Ray's blasts MIGHT be strong enough to hurt her if he turned them up, but it would them being fatal to just about anyone else and he doesn't seem to be big on killing. I'm not sure Supergirl's invulnerability is really nerfed on her own show, it's just that there she is facing other super powered aliens. And most of the time she gets knocked around but not really hurt.

I forgot to mention, I liked Sara saying Supergirl was badass, and kind of hot.

[Cthulhudrew]

I assume the reason they went this route with Cisco this season was because they felt they needed to have some conflict between the characters, and not have everyone be friends- because network tv shows need drama to be overt all the time, or else they feel like the audiences just aren't going to get the subtleties or something. But it's not like there hadn't been conflicts between Cisco and Barry, or Cisco and the others in previous seasons. It's just that they didn't drag it out and beat it to death. And it was fine and worked really, really well, to the point that Cisco became one of the most beloved characters on the show (I know I didn't really "vibe" to him at first myself). So, I think they definitely overreached on this one.

[tennisgurl]

Meanwhile, in the Hall of Justice *stars fly by with laser sounds*

I think it has finally happened. I have totally forgiven Barry for the Flashpoint debacle. It happened, it was a bad call on his part, he feels awful, and has tried his hardest to make it better. What else can he do at this point? I`ll give the Legends gang some understanding for being mad about Barry screwing with the time stream. Its their job to deal with this stuff after all. And Dig should be conflicted. He lost his daughter, but gained his son. Cisco needs to build a bridge and get over it. Its understandable that he is upset about his brothers death, but Barry is one of his best friends who has risked his life over and over to help him. I hope this fight ends soon. Cisco has always been one of my favorite Arrow verse characters, and I hate not liking him right now. I mean, what has happened that Cisco, one of my former favorites, has become one of my leave, and Ray, one of my former leave favorites, has become one of my favorite characters. 

That was a really fun outing! The aliens are pretty boring antagonists so far, but I guess there is so much stuff going on, there isn't a whole lot of time for complex villains. Its just nice seeing all the different characters and teams meeting up and fighting each other/together, and bouncing off each other. I especially loved seeing Kara with the Arrow verse gang, especially seeing perky Kara with super intense Oliver, and pyro Mick. Especially with Mick. The whole "how did you get Heatwave? I set my family on fire. I like burning thing" exchange, with the long suffering reactions of his teamates, was just golden. 

I love Barry and Oliver and their friendship, and I thought this was the best Oliver has been in ages. He is super intense as always, but for a greater goal, and he is also shown to be a compassionate and strong leader. Thats my Ollie!

I was also happy that Ray told Barry about Captain Colds death. That was a nice touch, and I liked Barry's reaction. Sad, but also a bit happy to hear that Snart died a hero (even though Snart would probably be horrified by that). 

Edited November 30, 2016 by tennisgurl

[Aeryn13]

Quote

I enjoyed that too (though Oliver, if Kara didn't hold back at all, she'd put the whole team in the hospital).

Oliver would have needed to whip out magic to win. It`s one of Kryptonians canonical weakness and going by the Supergirl show, they kept it. In that vein, Amaya might have stood a good chance but they didn`t bring her. Of course none of that would have helped against the Dominators. For that, they really should have brought the freaking virus along.