S02.E08: The Chicago Way

[yellowfred]

So, I was a little surprised that Malcolm's offer to Sara was to not blow up the Queen's Gambit, rather than, say, not killing her that one time.  In fact, I'm a little disappointed that there was no mention of that time he killed her.  It seems like a pretty significant moment in their history.  Still, getting to watch Sara kick his ass was honestly cleansing to my soul.  It almost made up for how lame it was that she not only let him get away but also gave him their part of the amulet.  

Almost.

I feel like that whole thing where they exchanged the amulet piece for Stein was just poorly thought out.  Like, couldn't Sara have leveraged the fact that she literally had a knife to Malcolm's throat and made a trade of his life for Stein's?  Or, since Stein was apparently in the exact same spot they found Ness earlier, couldn't they have done a quick sweep of that area before handing over some powerful artifact to the villains?  

[KirkB]

7 minutes ago, yellowfred said:

So, I was a little surprised that Malcolm's offer to Sara was to not blow up the Queen's Gambit, rather than, say, not killing her that one time.  In fact, I'm a little disappointed that there was no mention of that time he killed her.  It seems like a pretty significant moment in their history.  Still, getting to watch Sara kick his ass was honestly cleansing to my soul.  It almost made up for how lame it was that she not only let him get away but also gave him their part of the amulet.  

I think the point of his offer was for her to have a better life, free of all the death and pain that came from being in the League of Assassins. Keeping Thea from killing her that one time would only really alter the blood lust, which she already got under control by going back to the League in the 50s, which she wouldn't have had to do if she never met them in the first place. You're right though, that the fight was good to watch, even though I couldn't help noticing there were times Sara was kicking Malcolm so hard it seemed to change his face into a different person.  :)

7 minutes ago, yellowfred said:

I feel like that whole thing where they exchanged the amulet piece for Stein was just poorly thought out.  Like, couldn't Sara have leveraged the fact that she literally had a knife to Malcolm's throat and made a trade of his life for Stein's?  Or, since Stein was apparently in the exact same spot they found Ness earlier, couldn't they have done a quick sweep of that area before handing over some powerful artifact to the villains?

While I liked the idea that Sara was willing to risk the bad guys furthering their plans to save Stein, they might have been better off having Sara stand up to Dark or Malcolm and say "Martin would never want me to trade his life for..." about which time Thawne runs in holding the amulet, waves it around to show he found it, smirks and runs off.

Edited December 10, 2016 by KirkB

[misstwpherecool]

The usual time travel paradoxes came up ie at what point and time were Merlin and Dark plucked from history. And when and to what are they taken back to.

[Argenta]

2 hours ago, MarkHB said:

Was it his wrist-Gideon from Flash S1?

It looked different to me - I thought portable Gideon was something he held in his palm rather than something he wore on his wrist. It looked reminiscent of Harry's metahuman detection watch from Flash S2, which confused me for a moment because I thought he had decided to spare Amaya on account of her being a meta, which she can't be. 

Whatever it was telling him, it must have been urgent if he held off on killing her.

[Sakura12]

21 minutes ago, KirkB said:

You're right though, that the fight was good to watch, even though I couldn't help noticing there were times Sara was kicking Malcolm so hard it seemed to change his face into a different person.  :)

While I liked the idea that Sara was willing to risk the bad guys furthering their plans to save Stein, they might have been better off having Sara stand up to Dark or Malcolm and say "Martin would never want me to trade his life for..." about which time Thawne runs in holding the amulet, waves it around to show he found it, smirks and runs off.

That's why it's always fun to see CL fight everyone's stunt double. I notice the camera people seem to forget that the people CL fights are stunt performers and forget to hide them like they would if everyone was a stunt performer. Or they really want to give CL her dues for performing her own stunts and don't want to do a lot camera changes and cuts. 

They probably could've found a better way to get Stein back, but I think that choice was more for Sara to choose her crew over the mission. Sara feels responsible for the whole team. And it's not like she had all the time in world to think of a better plan. Martin was about to be thrown in the river, if they got there too late he'd be dead. 

[BkWurm1]

5 hours ago, Spaceman Spiff said:

Sara and Stein were being hypocritical assholes. Last week they were all over Barry and this week was all "Oh you love your time anomaly daughter, she can stay she is family". Barry's mom (and dad) were family to him. The writers and their inconsistency of time travel and changing it with the repercussions in this verse is boggling my mind. Are you telling me Barry allowing his mom to die again (which should have corrected the timeline) broke the timeline but then a late 20something woman who attended MIT and is a master in the field of nano technology has no far reaching effects on the timeline? I really hope we find out Lily is the cause of the disruption, because 20+ years of interaction with countless people should have had a massive effect on the timeline.

The shows seem to have been presenting the idea that time travel with the Waverider affects the timeline different.  Like the way that Barry travels through time itself was in part a causation to the problems.  (I mean, he has to deal with Time Wraiths for goodness sake.)  

Lilly absolutely has far reaching affects.  For one, she's the brains behind sending the alien invaders packing.  But at the same time, while what Barry does seems to be noticed as messing with the universe, what the Waverider crew does, seems to more often than not to be just the way history actually was.  Or barring that, don't badly damage the time line.  

Which basically says to me that the Legend's crew has more leeway with their choices - whether that's fair or not.  They are they Time Masters now.  It's their world to decide (again, fair or not).  Most of the time they also have Gideon to warn them when something is going really wrong and that probably makes a big difference too.

Barry resetting the timeline might have been a bigger bad thing that Eobard killing his mom because the Time Masters were manipulating certain events for a better outcome.  Her death might have been one of those things that the world needed, and per Eobard, in this timeline, Barry became the Flash a lot earlier and I imagine the flood of Meta's came sooner too as well.  (Heroes and Villains) so yeah, when Barry changed time back, then the consequences could be far reaching and since he wouldn't have the overview of time and history like the Time Masters did, he wouldn't be able to see it.

I think it's that's what sets them apart.  Barry can only make a choice based on what he wants personally while the Legends can see if they've messed things up too much or not.  Barry's (pardon the pun) running blind.  

And as for Sara and Stein's hypocrisy, you're not wrong but I also do think there is a big difference between bringing back from the dead and not deleting someone from the time line.  Just in general I think bringing back the dead breaks time travel rules.  Clearly Barry's time travel with the tidal wave and undoing Vandal Savage's destruction of Central City seems to go against that but maybe not since Barry both times undid it before really any time went by and per LoT, if you are there fixing it fast enough, time is still flexible.  But too much time had gone by for his mom's death.  Plus some events just seem to be fixed in time.

Stein spent weeks getting his memories of Lilly back.  Now that she's so firmly fixed in his current reality, I think that showed that Lilly was firmly fixed into the fabric of time and apart from going back and killing her, there was no undoing her existence.  

I also tend to see Sara's softening of the rules for her Team Family as doing what needs to be done to get the very heavy task laid upon them done.  Again, they are the ones making the rules and while for the most part they are impartial stewards of time, they have to be able to be able to know they can keep their loved ones as safe as possible in order to be emotionally capable of doing the job.  They'd be nothing if the team fell apart and Lilly is what Stein needed now to not fall apart.  

[Lady Calypso]

I really think that Eobard has been a great villain this past season. The actor didn't get that much work on The Flash so I never knew if I wanted more of him. Now? I think he's one of the best villains on all the shows. I like how calm and collected he is. He pretty much runs Damien and Malcolm, and not just because he's a speedster. Damien's too chaotic and Malcolm's....well, he's Malcolm. He's a pretty smart villain, so that makes him such a compelling character to watch. 

Hello, Rip! I'm so glad to see your pretty face. I should have figured that they'd give us a tease of Rip for the midseason finale, but I wasn't expecting it at all. Now, I used to like Nate but then he became Ray 2.0, became annoying and started taking away from other characters. Plus, he doesn't add value to the team, at least not in a unique way. Sure, now he can turn into steel so he's an offensive asset, but Gideon can provide more information than he can. So I wouldn't be opposed to Rip coming back and taking Nate's place. If they had made Nate more unique, then I'd truly root for him to stay, since Nick Zano is a decent actor. 

Yeah, I don't know if Berlanti and company are planning for a Savitar reveal or if it's a coincidence that dead characters keep popping up on the shows this week, but if it's not Savitar, then they're really confusing people. Now all I can think about is Ghost!Snart is actually Savitar!Snart, taking advantage of Mick during a low point. 

DAMNIT, BARRY.

I mean, maybe it's just my logical brain thinking, but why didn't Sara just kill Malcolm and then go to the pier? They were just there a couple of hours before! Maybe it's just me, but that would be the first place I would look, especially since they just saved Eliot Ness there. But we got to see Sara kick his ass, so yay. But she does lose points for giving him the amulet. She's not as bad as Barry, but she clearly was tricked through her emotions and attachment to the team. 

Nate almost had a good plan there. Ray was just being an annoying jealous kid, and Nate kind of emulated that as well. I need to never see these two bro it out again. Ever. But I'm glad Mick took charge. I guess we're heading toward a Mick/Amaya romance, which...eh. I don't really need to see any romances on the show. But Mick does deserve to be happy, so if Amaya can provide that, then I'm for it. I'd just prefer a strong friendship. 

[Potanical Pardon]

The amulet is a compass/star-map/thingy leading us to the Spear of Destiny.

Didn't they say last season that Vandal Savage's kriss knife was the tip? Or wasn't that how Ollie and Flash took out Savage before the show Legends started? Another Barry time-jump.

Oh no...does this mean that the Hawks are coming back? And how long until we see Dr. Fate? I mean that has to be the Amulet of Anubis.

ITA: Oh. That was the Staff of Horus. Are we sure this and the Spear of Destiny aren't the same thing? I could have sworn that they were.

Edited December 10, 2016 by Potanical Pardon

[Miss Dee]

My guess is that they're going for unrequited feelings more than a romance. Eventually Amaya has to make it back to the 40s, doesn't she? But I can see Mick falling for her and that being the catalyst for him deciding to be a better man.

I don't mind Nate, but I really hate that he's interfering with the Heatwave/Haircut bromance. Ray and Nate are fun to watch "bro out", but they're too much alike for the pairing to generate a lot of story arc or character growth. I was really hoping that Ray's friendship with Mick would prove to be a catalyst for both characters deepening.

[scarynikki12]

Our Vixen is animated Vixen's grandmother, right?  Or was that just an assumption?  If she is, then she does have to return to her time at some point, though she must choose to hide/work alone if the JSA never saw her again.  Or, if not, then she'll just need to pass on the amulet to Mari when the time is right, which can be the end of the show or her own death. 

Along those lines, one things I love about this show is how well it plays the "I never knew I wanted" game with the characters.  Last season I never knew how much I wanted a Sara/Snart friendship (with the potential for sexytimes) until I saw it.  Same with the friendship of Ray and Mick.  This season I was shown Captain Sara and friendships between Amaya/Sara and Amaya/Mick.  Again, didn't ever occur to me but they were exactly what I wanted when I saw them.*  A downside of comics with regard to these unusual but awesome pairings is that the characters rarely are allowed to leave their individual universes (by which I mean Batverse, Superverse, Flashverse, etc., rather than full on different timelines or Earth 2, 3, 15).  So the idea of seeing Black Canary working with Captain Cold and being friends, or Heatwave doing the same with Atom would not only never cross my mind but would seem unnatural.  The closest we really get is when the rogues and heroes team up against each other but readers expect that kind of thing so it's not strange.  I know this is due to the medium and the actual people who bring these characters to life make all the difference so I'm very grateful that LOT not only does it but does it so well.  Just like last year, when I was rooting for Sara/Snart to be besties with benefits, I'm currently doing the same with Amaya/Mick.  It's so much fun.

*Still not on board with Nate, though I tolerate him way more as a teammate than when he's shoved front and center.  If they would just manage his story the way they are with Amaya, I probably wouldn't have any issue with him but every episode feels like they're trying to make him the star (in terms of what he does, not necessarily his screen time) and it's too much.

[Lady Calypso]

11 minutes ago, scarynikki12 said:

Our Vixen is animated Vixen's grandmother, right?  Or was that just an assumption?  If she is, then she does have to return to her time at some point, though she must choose to hide/work alone if the JSA never saw her again.  Or, if not, then she'll just need to pass on the amulet to Mari when the time is right, which can be the end of the show or her own death. 

It's hard to say now because Obsidian told Amaya that they haven't seen her since she left with the Legends in 1940s, so presumably she doesn't make it back, or she goes into hiding. So it's possible time was changed so there's no granddaughter Vixen. Maybe Vixen does go back to a time, but not 1940. Maybe she ends up being Mari's mother instead of grandmother. But I have not seen the animated series so I have no idea about what goes on there. 

15 minutes ago, scarynikki12 said:

*Still not on board with Nate, though I tolerate him way more as a teammate than when he's shoved front and center.  If they would just manage his story the way they are with Amaya, I probably wouldn't have any issue with him but every episode feels like they're trying to make him the star (in terms of what he does, not necessarily his screen time) and it's too much.

Agreed. I was 100% fine with him in the first two episodes. He was actually pretty cool, but that was before he got powers. Since then, and with him being paired with Ray, he's been quite insufferable and annoying most of the time. He works as a supporting character and away from Ray. When he's with Ray, it's like there's just two of the same person. I think Nate's had good scenes with Amaya and Sara. I honestly think it's when he's with Ray or when he's on his own, he's not fun and more annoying. 

And I will stress this: in my opinion, he's still better than the Hawks. He has POTENTIAL. I just need to not see him with Ray ever. And I need him to showcase a new skill or ability or something, other than a historian or turning into steel. He was actually useful this episode with his knowledge of the 1920s, but then they took it too far by making him have a rivalry with Ray. 

[KirkB]

30 minutes ago, Lady Calypso said:

Agreed. I was 100% fine with him in the first two episodes. He was actually pretty cool, but that was before he got powers. Since then, and with him being paired with Ray, he's been quite insufferable and annoying most of the time. He works as a supporting character and away from Ray. When he's with Ray, it's like there's just two of the same person. I think Nate's had good scenes with Amaya and Sara. I honestly think it's when he's with Ray or when he's on his own, he's not fun and more annoying. 

See, that's the thing. If they had kept Nate as a historian, able to pick out patterns caused by temporal anomalies and stuff that Gideon might overlook (or the others might not know to ask about) and spent all his time on the Waverider, he might be more tolerable. But thrusting him into the spotlight with powers and pairing him with a guy so similar to him in personality makes him far less interesting IMO.

30 minutes ago, Lady Calypso said:

And I will stress this: in my opinion, he's still better than the Hawks. He has POTENTIAL. I just need to not see him with Ray ever. And I need him to showcase a new skill or ability or something, other than a historian or turning into steel. He was actually useful this episode with his knowledge of the 1920s, but then they took it too far by making him have a rivalry with Ray. 

To be fair, that random time traveler who showed up at the beginning of the zombie Civil War episode was better than the Hawks. I just think he is an unnecessary character. If he left the show wouldn't suffer, I don't think.

Edited December 10, 2016 by KirkB

[Lady Calypso]

52 minutes ago, KirkB said:

See, that's the thing. If they had kept Nate as a historian, able to pick out patterns caused by temporal anomalies and stuff that Gideon might overlook (or the others might not know to ask about) and spent all his time on the Waverider, he might be more tolerable. But thrusting him into the spotlight with powers and pairing him with a guy so similar to him in personality makes him far less interesting IMO.

Yep, this 100%. Having him be a hemophiliac may be tough to write for in a show filled with action and danger, but do you know how interesting that could have been to Nate as a character? It added a depth that could have been challenging yet interesting to explore. Good writers would be able to utilize that and find a way to make it work. Even better writers would be able to take this depth and create their own twists and turns while not making him fragile and unable to be a great and useful team member. 

But, of course, the easy way out is getting rid of that one trait and allowing that to make Nate reckless because he's "been careful his entire life" so now he can do whatever he wants with no consequences of getting hurt, especially now that he just turns into steel and he's pretty much untouchable when he's in Steel Mode. Well, until they use weaknesses against him.

[BkWurm1]

I just feel that the personality that Nate has - which is pretty insufferable and full of himself - doesn't ring true with who he was supposed to have been. He might have had all these longings to be in on the action but he's written like he's been this way all his life and it doesn't jibe with how he was introduced.  

[squidprincess]

Nate doesn't make sense, but it's an interestingly consistent way of not making sense.  For all that he tells Ray that Ray acts like he learned history from movies, that's true for Nate too.  Shogun and Abominations both showed him acting very inappropriate for settings that he's supposed to have specialized in.  And his abhorrence to research in Outlaw Country didn't make sense at all.  He even compares research to high school at one point...when the man is a PhD!

I suppose that's why I keep thinking that the show is going to go somewhere with it.  It really seems deliberate.

[Starfish35]

I just got a chance to watch this, and I haven't read most of the comments here yet, so apologies in advance if I'm rehashing points.

Overall I have mixed feelings.  And they mainly revolve around a couple of areas.  

1.  Malcolm Merlyn.  Malcolm has so far outlived his usefulness as far as I'm concerned on Arrow that I can only groan about seeing him show up here.  And I honestly don't get what he adds to this group at all (other than, yes, I get it, it's John Barrowman *sigh*).  Darhk and Thawne are entertaining, but Malcolm, not so much, at least in my opinion.  On the other hand, it was immensely satisfying to see Sara finally get to kick his ass.  Unfortunately she couldn't kill him for plot reasons, but I suppose I can always hope for next time.   I am, however, wondering exactly when they yanked him out of the Arrow timeline.  Post season four, I'm assuming?  

2.  Mick.  What are they doing? Look, I admire their commitment to mixing their cast up, I've said that many times, but not at the cost of retconning previous episodes.  It's great (I suppose) that Nate and Ray are all "science bros" now, but what happened to Mick and Ray being partners?  That's been dropped so hard it's like it never happened.  They went so far as to have Mick say Amaya was his only friend.  I mean....what?!?  If they want to put them together, fine.  But do they have to do that at the cost of Mick's relationships with the rest of the crew? I don't get it.  I guess I'm just grumpy because Mick and Ray was one of the major things I was enjoying about this season, and I don't get the hard 180 on it. 

Other than that, it was an alright episode.  As already stated, I enjoyed Sara kicking Malcolm's ass, and her bonding with Stein and acknowledgement that they are a family.  But beyond that I didn't find it especially great.

Oh, the last minute reveal about Rip.  Eh.  It's been done.  I'm sure a lot of shows have done it, but I remember it most on Stargate SG-1.   I don't really enjoy the whole meta thing, so here's to getting Rip back to normal as quickly as possible. 

[Starfish35]

On 12/8/2016 at 7:09 PM, Lantern7 said:

Nice to have Snart back, albeit as a hallucination. I miss the heavy sarcasm. Surprised he didn't give Mick shit about giving his gun to Ray.

I think this is part of them ignoring, for whatever reason, the Mick/Ray partnership. Ray is Nate's partner now, and Amaya is apparently Mick's.

But yes, it was nice to have Snart back, even as just a hallucination.  I wonder where they're going with that.

ETA:  A few more comments after reading through the thread.  I haven't been watching The Flash this season, but the idea that hallucination!Snart might be Savitar!Snart is intriguing.

I do think they need to address what has happened to Mari McCabe, with Amaya vanishing from the timeline.  

Edited December 11, 2016 by Starfish35

[MarkHB]

I just saw someone point out on Twitter that the gadget RF used on Stein was the same one he used to kill and impersonate Wells in the flashback in The Flash S1. 

[Argenta]

I loved this episode. I was really happy to see Malcolm show up and join the other two - I know a lot of people seem fed up of him, but I've only seen the 4th season of Arrow so he's a relatively fresh character to me. I love a good villain, so him, Dahrk and Thawne together are a real treat. 

I also enjoyed Ray and Nate taking the opportunity to be silly together, and I loved Ray's Sean Connery impersonation. 

[Sakura12]

I'm not really sure why Eobard and Darkh plucked Malcolm out of the present, other than his knowledge about Sara I don't see what they need him for. But it is nice to see him play the side kick to them, (he's not the big dog in that group) as well as get his ass handed to him by Sara. He apparently doesn't know about Sara's recent extra 2 years of training with the LoA. 

As for Mick and Ray, I think in the White House episode Mick realized that Ray is too much of a boy scout to be his partner, then Ray ditched him for Nate. Amaya has been the only to reach out to him and proved she can hang with him. Ray was a nice guy trying to play a bad guy, while Amaya like Sara will do what is necessary to complete the mission, if that includes acting like the bad guy they will do it. Having said that I don't like that they ditch other friendships to focus the one they are trying write for. People can have more than one friend at a time. 

[Lokiberry]

Wasn't Stein there at the end of Flash S01 when Barry fought Reverse Flash? Shouldn't he know who he is?

[KirkB]

58 minutes ago, Lokiberry said:

Wasn't Stein there at the end of Flash S01 when Barry fought Reverse Flash? Shouldn't he know who he is?

Thawne was wearing Wells' face at the time, not his own as he is now, so since I don't think Dark or Malcolm ever said his name in front of Stein I don't think there is any way for Stein to know this speedster was the same one Barry fought.

[MarkHB]

On 12/10/2016 at 3:49 PM, Lady Calypso said:

It's hard to say now because Obsidian told Amaya that they haven't seen her since she left with the Legends in 1940s, so presumably she doesn't make it back, or she goes into hiding. So it's possible time was changed so there's no granddaughter Vixen. Maybe Vixen does go back to a time, but not 1940. Maybe she ends up being Mari's mother instead of grandmother. But I have not seen the animated series so I have no idea about what goes on there. 

I'm taking this to the shiny new Amaya thread!

[BkWurm1]

13 hours ago, MarkHB said:

I just saw someone point out on Twitter that the gadget RF used on Stein was the same one he used to kill and impersonate Wells in the flashback in The Flash S1. 

Hmm.  RF did say something about him modifying it cause usually it kills people.

[Argenta]

8 hours ago, KirkB said:

Thawne was wearing Wells' face at the time, not his own as he is now, so since I don't think Dark or Malcolm ever said his name in front of Stein I don't think there is any way for Stein to know this speedster was the same one Barry fought.

Not directly, no. Although:

-He's old enough to have known (or at least known of) the real Dr Wells and what he looked like, allowing him to conclude that Thawne-Wells had stolen Wells' appearance somehow and therefore had a different face originally

-He now knows that this speedster can also steal peoples' appearances

-During their encounter when he asked if the two of them had met before, Thawne replied "It's complicated," which is a hint that they sort-of had met

Put all this together and he may realise just who their speedster nemesis is. 

The other interesting thing about Thawne suggesting they had met before is that it implies that this version of Thawne is the same one that posed as Wells for years - or at least, is aware of that timeline. I'd previously assumed that none of that had happened yet for him. If this is followed up on, it would be very interesting to see if that has any effect on Eobard's personality.

[KirkB]

3 hours ago, Argenta said:

The other interesting thing about Thawne suggesting they had met before is that it implies that this version of Thawne is the same one that posed as Wells for years - or at least, is aware of that timeline. I'd previously assumed that none of that had happened yet for him. If this is followed up on, it would be very interesting to see if that has any effect on Eobard's personality.

The impression I get, which may be disproven later, is that this version of Thawne hadn't done any of that yet, but he's been traveling around through time since he dropped Barry off. So he may have looked into what his other/future self did, found out about Stein and the particle accelerator, he wasn't really there but a version of him was. His statement to Stein is accurate. They have met, sort of.

[ItCouldBeWorse]

On 12/8/2016 at 10:51 PM, benteen said:

Considering that Lily played a role in defeating the Dominators, she's basically part of history now and that can't be changed.

 

On 12/9/2016 at 10:23 AM, Stacey1014 said:

I worry about Stein's daughter since she was mentioned when the evil speedster was disguised as Stein. 

Yes to both.  She can't be removed from history, and Stein has a new vulnerability.

[ItCouldBeWorse]

On 12/10/2016 at 3:49 PM, Lady Calypso said:

On 12/10/2016 at 3:30 PM, scarynikki12 said:

Our Vixen is animated Vixen's grandmother, right?  Or was that just an assumption?  If she is, then she does have to return to her time at some point, though she must choose to hide/work alone if the JSA never saw her again.  Or, if not, then she'll just need to pass on the amulet to Mari when the time is right, which can be the end of the show or her own death. 

It's hard to say now because Obsidian told Amaya that they haven't seen her since she left with the Legends in 1940s, so presumably she doesn't make it back, or she goes into hiding. So it's possible time was changed so there's no granddaughter Vixen. Maybe Vixen does go back to a time, but not 1940. Maybe she ends up being Mari's mother instead of grandmother. But I have not seen the animated series so I have no idea about what goes on there. 

Or what if she goes back to her time period, and returns to her village, already pregnant with a fellow Wave Rider's child?

Edited December 12, 2016 by ItCouldBeWorse

[Sakura12]

I don't think they'll make Mick, Mari's grandfather. 

[ItCouldBeWorse]

1 hour ago, Sakura12 said:

I don't think they'll make Mick, Mari's grandfather. 

I honestly don't either, but it's an idea!

Maybe they'll go forward in time, meet Mari, and Amaya will realize that she needs to return to her village for this to happen.

[blackwing]

On 12/9/2016 at 4:49 PM, johntfs said:

Even though it was cool to see Snart and Rip again, I really hope they stay recurring/occasional characters.  Right now we have Sara, Stein, Jax, Mick, Amaya, Ray and Nate plus Gideon.  That's already eight beings interacting in any given episode.  Adding back Rip and Snart would make ten and would effectively neuter other characters.  Snart's already a master criminal, so we wouldn't have gotten Mick rising up last night to lead the other in fighting Capone like a criminal.  Rip makes Nate into nothing but a walking bulletproof vest, turns Jax back into little more than the active part of Firestorm (instead of mechanic/engineer) and demotes Sara to "first officer" or somesuch.  I like watching the characters growing into their roles on the team and the return of Rip and Snart would sidetrack that, I think.

To me Gideon barely counts as a character.  She's a robotic voice.  Amaya replaced Kendra.  Nate replaced Snart.  Looks like Rip is coming back.  So the team numbers will be the same as last year.

I don't mind Nate so much, he is growing on me.  I think I don't mind him because I like him so much better than Ray.  I've disliked Ray Palmer ever since he showed up on Arrow.  Brandon Routh still has the crazy eyes, and I don't find the character funny or endearing.  He's basically a guy in an Iron Man Lite suit, although it was nice to see that they finally got him back to shrinking this episode, with no apparent real explanation of why it is working again.  

They didn't really explain the Snart hallucinations did they?  Why didn't Mick see him until just now?  It couldn't have been the drinking, since he is always drinking.    Since it was the midseason finale I knew we would finally see Rip at the end of the episode for a mini-cliffhanger until the show returns.  Will be interesting to see his role when he rejoins the team.  Sara has been a great leader, but if she stays on as leader, then Rip really doesn't add anything to the show.

[Lokiberry]

1 hour ago, blackwing said:

 Amaya replaced Kendra.  Nate replaced Snart. 

This is the problem for me, because while Amaya is a huge improvement over Kendra, Nate doesn't come close to equaling Snart. I know this is unfair and WM brought something special to the role, but they should have tried harder with his replacement than generic white DoucheBro.

That being said, I did enjoy this episode: Sara's long awaited beat down of Malcolm, Sara in the flapper dress, Mick convincing Amaya to be Bonnie to his Clyde, his hallucination of Snart; in fact, everything Mick was fantastic. This has really been his season to shine. I'm interested in seeing where they're going with Mick and Amaya, romance or friendship: they both work for me. I just hope they haven't abandoned his partnership with Ray, that was compelling. Using Ray to prop up Nate? Not so much.

[squidprincess]

4 hours ago, blackwing said:

They didn't really explain the Snart hallucinations did they?  Why didn't Mick see him until just now?  It couldn't have been the drinking, since he is always drinking.    Since it was the midseason finale I knew we would finally see Rip at the end of the episode for a mini-cliffhanger until the show returns.  Will be interesting to see his role when he rejoins the team.  Sara has been a great leader, but if she stays on as leader, then Rip really doesn't add anything to the show.

Rip adds the actual time travel know-how.  Thus far, they've been barely skirting by some really phenomenal timeline disasters (see: Tokugawa Ieyasu).  And even if he couldn't have stopped Martin from influencing his past, he could have identified the issue a lot sooner.  This kind of show can always use someone who can actually sell a ridiculous explanation as to why some made up time travel concept works.  He'd be a fine adviser/temporal science officer, if he doesn't end up a co-captain again.

[Starfish35]

I agree with that, but Mick should know more than they usually show him knowing, due to his time as Chronos.  I wish they'd do more with that.

But I'd be perfectly happy with Rip playing Temporal Science Officer to Sara's Captain.  

[yellowfred]

While I could see that being the logical role for Rip to fill on the team, I think the more this show tries to explain how time travel works, the less it makes sense.  This season, as a whole, has benefited a lot from their "just go with it" approach to preserving the timeline, in my opinion.

[squidprincess]

10 hours ago, yellowfred said:

While I could see that being the logical role for Rip to fill on the team, I think the more this show tries to explain how time travel works, the less it makes sense.  This season, as a whole, has benefited a lot from their "just go with it" approach to preserving the timeline, in my opinion.

Except they haven't actually preserved the timeline.  Lily Stein.  Tokugawa Iemitsu.  Time pirates running around in the late 1800s.  Public use of powers at the White House.  There are a lot of mild changes and lapses.  

We haven't seen a lot of consequences yet, but we also haven't had a lot of movement on the overall metaplot either.  That's changing with the introduction of the Legion.  (I do think we'll see consequences though.  The series has always been pretty good about that.)

Besides, I'm not suggesting that Rip provide an explanation that actually makes sense.  That would fly against comic book science principles.  He can however give us a vaguely plausible sounding bit of technobabble for any necessary convenient bit of deus ex machina in a given episode.   Really, given how Nate's been 85% useless as a historian, Rip could also take over the setting exposition.  He can't actually be any worse at it.

[jhlipton]

On 12/8/2016 at 9:15 PM, Advance35 said:

Amaya is] absolutely gorgeous by the way.   I think she is definitely one of the most beautiful women in the DCU TV Verse.  Wow.

Glad to see I'm not the only one to think that!

 

On 12/8/2016 at 11:11 PM, Last Time Lord said:

I swear, if this show gets any more Doctor Who, they might as well start each episode with this

 

If they do, I'm out.  My biggest complaint about Whovians is that they make everything about Dr Who.

On 12/10/2016 at 5:04 AM, Argenta said:

Does anyone know what that watch-like device Eobard had on his wrist was, that bleeped just as he was about to kill Amaya? 

It was his PLOT!!!!-alarm.  See below.

On 12/10/2016 at 0:05 PM, yellowfred said:

I feel like that whole thing where they exchanged the amulet piece for Stein was just poorly thought out. 

Once Eobard entered the WaveRider, the plot went to pieces.  Eobard could have easily killed Jackson and Amaya, but didn't because of PLOT!!!  Jackson & Ray and Amaya & Mick could have killed Eobard, but didn't because of PLOT!!!  Sara could have killed Merlyn, but didn't because of PLOT!!! Stupid, stupid, stupid.

It was a fun episode until then, but I just got more and more angry at the horrid writing.

(Also, one the things I don't like about this season is how much they're assuming I know (or care) about the other corners of the Flarrowverse (I know very little, and care even less) If the move after January means more crossover, they can count me out.)

[jah1986]

7 hours ago, jhlipton said:

(Also, one the things I don't like about this season is how much they're assuming I know (or care) about the other corners of the Flarrowverse (I know very little, and care even less) If the move after January means more crossover, they can count me out.)

Thank you for this! I don't watch Arrow at all so don't know who Damien Darhk or Malcolm Merlyn are and am not impressed or surprised or anything when I see them on this show. They just seem like any other random bad guys that chew a lot of scenery.  I do know the actors and am glad to see them working but their characters don't mean anything to me on this show.

[Sakura12]

I think the other show bad guys are better so far on this show then the show they originated on. Even Ra's al Ghul in his one appearance was miles better than he was on Arrow. They are also all DC villains like Vandal Savage so you don't really have to watch the other shows to know about them. Malcolm is the only one that had a big entrance scene which was stupid but they've been writing for John Barrowman instead of Malcolm since season 3 of Arrow. Although Malcolm does have the biggest ties to one of the characters on this show. He's the one that sank the Gambit that Sara was on, he was the one that killed her and allowed her to be resurrected. That's Sara's entire backstory. It's the other two that don't have any ties to any of the characters. 

However I'm enjoying the bad guy team up against our team. It's much better than the villain arc last season. 

As of now they don't have any more crossovers planned with LoT (only Supergirl and Flash have a musical episode planned), they moved Legends because Berlanti's other show Riverdale needs a spot. 

[squidprincess]

Eobard implicitly has ties to Rip Hunter, I think.  It was Eobard who name-dropped Rip in the Flash's first season finale, and his possession of the Time Sphere suggest at least some kind of past adversarial connection.  But he doesn't seem to have any ties to the other characters at all.

[BaggythePanther]

16 hours ago, jhlipton said:

(Also, one the things I don't like about this season is how much they're assuming I know (or care) about the other corners of the Flarrowverse (I know very little, and care even less) If the move after January means more crossover, they can count me out.)

 

9 hours ago, jah1986 said:

Thank you for this! I don't watch Arrow at all so don't know who Damien Darhk or Malcolm Merlyn are and am not impressed or surprised or anything when I see them on this show. They just seem like any other random bad guys that chew a lot of scenery.  I do know the actors and am glad to see them working but their characters don't mean anything to me on this show.

Darhk, Merlyn and Thawne all have a connection to characters on this show. The problem is the writers are just being a little lazy assuming the audience has watched Arrow and The Flash and they're up to date on the backstory. As @Sakura12 pointed out, Merlyn is responsible for almost every bad thing that's happened to Sara. Darhk is responsible for killing Sara's sister and Thawne is responsible for turning Stein (and I think Jax?) into Firestorm and played a part in the death of Stein's first Firestorm partner. If it weren't for these three villains half of the storylines on LoT wouldn't even be happening. And now that they've also given Amaya a reason to go after Thawne it means multiple characters have multiple reasons for wanting to see these villains taken down. I think that's a much better set up than last season when only Rip and Kendra had personal stakes.

[Argenta]

On 12/14/2016 at 6:05 AM, jhlipton said:

Once Eobard entered the WaveRider, the plot went to pieces.  Eobard could have easily killed Jackson and Amaya, but didn't because of PLOT!!!  Jackson & Ray and Amaya & Mick could have killed Eobard, but didn't because of PLOT!!!  Sara could have killed Merlyn, but didn't because of PLOT!!! Stupid, stupid, stupid.

It was a fun episode until then, but I just got more and more angry at the horrid writing.

(Also, one the things I don't like about this season is how much they're assuming I know (or care) about the other corners of the Flarrowverse (I know very little, and care even less) If the move after January means more crossover, they can count me out.)

I see what you’re saying, but I feel like we should cut the writers some slack here, because I think these are both examples of situations where they’re struggling to balance conflicting demands.

They’re going to want to include some direct confrontations between the good and bad guys before the inevitable big final showdown. It would be unsatisfying if they never faced off until the last episode of the season, so that leaves the writers with the challenge of scripting fights without characters getting killed off prematurely. That’s why we end up with scenes like the ones aboard Waverider, where from an audience POV there were several missed opportunities for the Legends to have disposed of members of the Legion and vice versa. Yes, of course it would have made more sense e.g. for Sarah to just slice Malcolm’s throat, for Thawne to just crush Jax and Amaya’s hearts without wasting time snarking at them first...but then half our characters would be dead now. It’s a level of contrivance that I think we have to accept in order for the show to happen.

The same goes for the crossovers. They’re tremendous fun for people who watch more than one of the sister shows, and it would seem a shame not to have them. Of course people who only watch one show may feel sidelined or at least not fully appreciate the character interactions, but you can’t please all segments of the audience at once. 

And to be fair, LoT is a direct spin-off from two other shows. It's not that unreasonable, IMO, to expect a basic level of awareness of what happened on the parent shows. You don't even have to watch them to do that - the Arrowverse Wikia, for example, is  a great resource if you want to catch up on Damien or Malcolm's history.

[KirkB]

I tried watching this episode with the eye of someone who had never seen a single episode of Arrow or Flash. You miss some details but I think they got enough of the point across to follow and enjoy what is happening. You're told Dark was involved in something happening to Sara's sister and she hates Malcolm for something he did to her. You may not know what, exactly, but the show does tell you Sara, especially, has reason to hate them. You don't know who Thawne is, obviously, but he can run really fast and Stein apparently knows someone like him. You do get the sense you're missing some elements of the back story but I don't think it is absolutely necessary to watch the other shows to watch this one.

[Sakura12]

This episode did have Malcolm do a quick recap of his involvement in Sara's story, except they left out the big part of him being the one that murdered her. They need Thawne to time travel with the Legends. 

[kismet]

I think the let's hallucinate and see dead people is a trend amongst the Flarrowverse this season... and judging from previous shows I think it means bad news for Mick. Although hallucinations in real life are generally also not a good thing. SO, I anticipate bad things for Mick. Luckily he has a friend in Amaya and Ray. I know they have moved away from the Ray/Mick bromance, but for me it's fine. I liked them together... but too much of them together is not a good thing in my book. Ray is too much a straight shooter and Mick is too much a crooked criminal. I think they blend together well, but I like that they are seeing other people.

That being said, I find Ray's new bromance to be extremely boring. But then again, it all comes down to the fact that you really can't replace Snart that easily. Nate was supposed to "replace" him and as much as they rotate him through the cast he's just not that interesting. He has enough chemistry with everyone that it's not like watching the disaster that was the Hawks, but its never good chemistry that makes you want to watch it again. I honestly think they should try him with Jax. They have similar attributes of just being there because of plot purposes and having a few moments of OK, that makes sense to keep them on the Waverider.

I don't dislike Nate, I just don't like him. To me he adds nothing to the team, but he doesn't subtract from it. He's like those spare jeans you have in the back of your closet. You may never wear them or need them, but they're not causing any problems so you might as well keep them around just in case.

I'm really looking forward for Rip to come back in and mess with some of the chemistries. I think it will be good TV.

I'm like Amaya. I don't care about the other Vixen, so if they mess up her backstory I'm fine with it. Somehow Amaya is the other Vixen's ancestor. I'm fine with that, I don't need it to make actual sense. The original Vixen was pretty random to begin with.

However, once again Stein was the character MVP. VG brings such depth and gravitas to his character. Every moment is filled with something tangible. I hope we never lose him. As for his daughter - I've yet to watch the crossovers, but I do think there is the potential to perhaps bring her on the Waverider, that way she perhaps will not be the cause of a time aberration. The Legends seem to exist outside of the timeline, so it might be the perfect place for her. Also the show needs more females on it.

And now to Sara, I love Sara. I love her as the team leader. I'm glad she put her team above the mission. And I'm glad CL is a talented stunt performer... That being said this was not her best episode acting wise. I thought there were a lot of missed beats regarding MM. I feel like CL mailed the anger towards DD. But she felt a little light against MM. It's almost like she cares more about her sister's death than her own death. I know there are priorities. But I definitely would be more pissed at MM. MM is part of the reason the Lance family is forever destroyed. He ruined all of their lives multiple times. I don't think CL really channeled that, as much as I would have liked.

Finally, I'm liking the Bad Guy team up. I always loved them all on their original shows. I had seen Matt Letscher play the villain on Scandal and so I knew he had it in him. Flash underutilized him, so I'm glad LoT has the opportunity to use him now. DD will always be more of scene chewer, but that is what NM does best. I'd take a well acted scene chew or a poorly disguised stunt fight. As much as I enjoy MM, and I am in the minority of people I think that actually don't want him immediately dead. I think LoT needs to give a better reason as to why they recruited him and also needs to do a better job hiding his stunt double. Give him back the Dark Archer garb/mask so that I'm not pulled out of the moment by his ass kicking to realize it's just the stunt guy and not MM.

All in All though, for me LoT is the best of the Flarrowverse shows and has done the most to improve on their previous seasons. They have fixed so many of their problems in rather efficient and intelligent ways. The other shows could learn a lot from them about how to write for a large cast and to focus on characterization over dumb plot. None of the Flarrowverse shows are ever going to be plotting geniuses, they should stop trying to be what they can never be and just aim for being best at what they do. At it's heart LoT is a team adventure show and every week they are excelling at delivering a quality hour of TV. Kudos to them for doing their job and doing it well.

[Sakura12]

I could see Sara not caring about her death and being more angry over her sisters. She became a killer for hire and probably thinks she deserves a bad ending. Killing her sister would be way worse for her. Laurel didn't do anything to deserve to die like she did.

She just found out that Malcolm was responsible for the Gambit.  I think she got the right amount of anger in her fight scene with him which was after she found out that news. Then she chose her team over her revenge. That shows just how seriously she's taking her new role as Captain. 

[BkWurm1]

11 hours ago, kismet said:

It's almost like she cares more about her sister's death than her own death. I know there are priorities. But I definitely would be more pissed at MM. MM is part of the reason the Lance family is forever destroyed. He ruined all of their lives multiple times. I don't think CL really channeled that, as much as I would have liked.

I think caring more about her sister's death is pretty reasonable.  Sure, sucks to be dead, but she got over that.  

Truthfully, the way all the characters treat Malcolm is weird.  He has this free pass because biologically he's Thea's father that demotes him from most hated enemy to weird relative that no one likes but you put up with. Even when Thea wanted him dead for drugging her and making her kill Sara, Oliver stepped in and decided for her that she shouldn't feel like that since he was her father.  Oliver was willing for Thea to lose her brother so that her sperm donor "father" - the same guy that murdered the father that raised her - survived.  

I love Barrowman but I don't understand why Malcolm is tolerated like he is.     

[yellowfred]

45 minutes ago, BkWurm1 said:

Truthfully, the way all the characters treat Malcolm is weird.  He has this free pass because biologically he's Thea's father that demotes him from most hated enemy to weird relative that no one likes but you put up with. Even when Thea wanted him dead for drugging her and making her kill Sara, Oliver stepped in and decided for her that she shouldn't feel like that since he was her father.  Oliver was willing for Thea to lose her brother so that her sperm donor "father" - the same guy that murdered the father that raised her - survived.  

That's actually one of the reasons that I'm happy to see Malcolm on Legends.  On Arrow, they keep playing around with the idea that he's sort of on their side, because he "cares" about Thea, which has led to easily two thirds of the team's (though, mostly Oliver's) worst decisions.  I am hoping we'll get more of an explanation for his presence in the Legion of Doom (especially since this version of Damien Dahrk was pulled from 1987, so it's not even like he knows him), but I feel like they've gotten off on the right foot just by not portraying him as anything other than a full-on villain.

[Argenta]

I agree that Malcolm should never be trusted and that his status as Thea's dad buys him a lot more leeway than his actions merit. 

In other news, I find Damien Darhk's head to be entertainingly large. 

[jhlipton]

On 12/14/2016 at 6:01 PM, BaggythePanther said:

[N]ow that they've also given Amaya a reason to go after Thawne it means multiple characters have multiple reasons for wanting to see these villains taken down. I think that's a much better set up than last season when only Rip and Kendra had personal stakes.

That's true.  (I think my post should have been in the cross-over thread.  At this point, Merlyn, Thawne and Dahrk are "bad guys" -- I, for one, don't need a "this time it's personal!!!" for the LoT to stop them.)

On 12/15/2016 at 6:34 AM, Argenta said:

I see what you’re saying, but I feel like we should cut the writers some slack here, because I think these are both examples of situations where they’re struggling to balance conflicting demands.

They’re going to want to include some direct confrontations between the good and bad guys before the inevitable big final showdown. It would be unsatisfying if they never faced off until the last episode of the season, so that leaves the writers with the challenge of scripting fights without characters getting killed off prematurely. That’s why we end up with scenes like the ones aboard Waverider, where from an audience POV there were several missed opportunities for the Legends to have disposed of members of the Legion and vice versa. Yes, of course it would have made more sense e.g. for Sarah to just slice Malcolm’s throat, for Thawne to just crush Jax and Amaya’s hearts without wasting time snarking at them first...but then half our characters would be dead now. It’s a level of contrivance that I think we have to accept in order for the show to happen.

I get what you're saying, but I think it would be possible to choreograph the fights so that no-one has that much of an upper hand.  For example, Ray could have zonked Thawne just as he started to attack Jax.

I am enjoying this show this is a relatively minor problem (certainly when compared with Savage). 

(Another minor thing that I just can't get over -- every time I look at CL's chin, I wonder if she's related to Bruce Campbell!)