S03.E13: Attack on Gorilla City

[tennisgurl]

Oh Harry don't leave us again! Its not that I don't like HR, but Harry is just the best!

[waving feather]

There is a weird scene this episode when Cisco basically told his friends he needs to sacrifice his life or that they have to kill him and no one looked horrified by that suggestion. Perhaps they have been desensitized about such talk but all of them were pretty horrified about the possibility of Iris dying. Caitlin was the only one who shut it down and even that seemed like she was just dismissing a casual bad idea. That scene wasn't well written or directed.

[Trini]

I like Felton, and I liked Julian in this episode, but he really didn't need to go to Gorilla City. He was only there to further Caitlin/Julian - and to let the show make Indiana Jones jokes.

I'm sure Tom C. was having fun playing Grodd and doing the voice!

I like Wally and Jesse, and them as a couple, but it was not a good look to have him keep pressing her about their relationship status when her dad could be dead. I think Wally is sincere, but the show has barely spent time with Wally/Jesse as a couple; so it was weird that he's asking her to move to a whole other dimension. I don't mind her staying for a short while, --but girl-- do not be switching dimensions for a dude.

Too bad Armen didn't have the budget for actual talking gorillas; but I thought the gorillas and Gorilla City looked good for a TV(CW) budget. I would have enjoyed the Flash vs. Solovar fight more if they weren't being so obvious about it being 90% CGI.

I'm with Harry: Why is HR still here? Instead of him having a talk with Jesse, I would have loved to see Iris and Jesse have a heart to heart since she's kinda the emotional support to the team. Also, just let the women talk to each other in general.

Faking Barry's death with Caitlin's powers was a good idea; but how would they know that Grodd would take him out of the cage?

"Sorry you guys missed it" ? Barry, y'all were in cages most of the time. Anyway, next trip to Earth-2 better be him taking Iris on a date to Atlantis.

There better be good answers about how Grodd even knows about Gypsy, and how he captured her. (If that the Gypsy that visited before.)

Dumb things:
• Barry knows how to shake off a tranquilizer, so him getting tranqed twice had me rolling my eyes.
• Wait- what?? Grodd not only has power dampening tech, but power dampening tech that specifically targets Flash AND Cisco?? How did he know Cisco had powers? (Let's see if this very convenient and useful tech shows up in Part 2.)
• Even with no powers, that room full of 'geniuses' couldn't find some other way to escape?
• Grodd was lying and playing everyone the whole time -- did anyone not see that coming? I mean, besides the room full of geniuses....
• I guess Team Cage needed something to do, because them coaching Barry during the fight shouldn't have been necessary at all. (Actually, those cuts back to the cage during the fight could have been eliminated and nothing would have changed. We could have seen more of Earth-1!)

Edited February 26, 2017 by Trini

[tennisgurl]

2 hours ago, waving feather said:

There is a weird scene this episode when Cisco basically told his friends he needs to sacrifice his life or that they have to kill him and no one looked horrified by that suggestion. Perhaps they have been desensitized about such talk but all of them were pretty horrified about the possibility of Iris dying.

Yeah that was weird wasn't it? Shouldn't they be concerned that Cisco was so quick to want to kill himself as, apparently, plan A? Everyone was just kind of like "meh, possible, but probably meh" except Caitlyn, who was just like "Nope, I don't think so...". It was really weird. Maybe because the writers and audience knows that Cisco isn't going to die, but the characters don't know they're going to come up with something else! Shouldn't they be more quick to talk him out of this?

Also, Grodd is a real asshole gorilla. He wanted to create more gorillas so he wouldn't be alone, so they sent him to a city FULL of intelligent gorillas to hang out with, and now he's pissed off that they sent him there, giving him what he wanted! That's way more than what they do for most bad guys, and it was just because they felt bad for him and wanted to help, as well as deal with the threat. If he didn't like it, that's not their fault. Curse Your Sudden but Inevitable Betrayal!

Edited February 24, 2017 by tennisgurl

[Trini]

On 2/24/2017 at 11:43 AM, waving feather said:

There is a weird scene this episode when Cisco basically told his friends he needs to sacrifice his life or that they have to kill him and no one looked horrified by that suggestion. Perhaps they have been desensitized about such talk but all of them were pretty horrified about the possibility of Iris dying. Caitlin was the only one who shut it down and even that seemed like she was just dismissing a casual bad idea. That scene wasn't well written or directed.

And besides all that, (and maybe it's just me being a seasoned TV watcher) we knew that none of them were going to really die or kill each other. So the whole conversation (the way it was written) was also pointless that way.

Edited February 26, 2017 by Trini
clarity/typo

[legaleagle53]

On 2/22/2017 at 7:14 AM, waving feather said:

Caitlin's fake acting over Barry's "death" was so fake, I am surprised Grodd was dumb enough to believe it. And how come she could use her powers in the cell but Barry and Cisco couldn't?

Simple.  Grodd didn't know she had powers (because she didn't have them the last time they met), so there was no way for him to prevent her from using them.

[waving feather]

1 hour ago, legaleagle53 said:

Simple.  Grodd didn't know she had powers (because she didn't have them the last time they met), so there was no way for him to prevent her from using them.

So the power dampening was done by Grodd by mind control? Not the actual cell itself?

[legaleagle53]

1 minute ago, waving feather said:

So the power dampening was done by Grodd by mind control? Not the actual cell itself?

Possibly.  Or Grodd simply didn't bother to install a dampener in Caitlin's cage because it never occurred to him to do so.

[Trini]

I wonder if the "gravity controlling metahuman" subplot got cut because the effects budget got used up because of Grodd/Solovar/Gorilla City? I just get the feeling there won't be any deleted scenes of that to be had.

[Trini]

Behind the scenes video of the special effects:

Wait-- so there wasn't even supposed to be a Solovar vs Flash fight at first? What were they going to do instead??

Edited February 27, 2017 by Trini

[zannej]

On 2/24/2017 at 1:31 PM, Trini said:

I like Felton, and I liked Julian in this episode, but he really didn't need to go to Gorilla City. He was only there to further Caitlin/Julian - and to let the show make Indiana Jones jokes.

I'm sure Tom C. was having fun playing Grodd and doing the voice!

I like Wally and Jesse, and them as a couple, but it was not a good look to have him keep pressing her about their relationship status when her dad could be dead. I think Wally is sincere, but the show has barely spent time with Wally/Jesse as a couple; so it was weird that he's asking her to move to a whole other dimension. I don't mind her staying for a short while, --but girl-- do not be switching dimensions for a dude.

Too bad Armen didn't have the budget for actual talking gorillas; but I thought the gorillas and Gorilla City looked good for a TV(CW) budget. I would have enjoyed the Flash vs. Solovar fight more if they weren't being so obvious about it being 90% CGI.

I'm with Harry: Why is HR still here? Instead of him having a talk with Jesse, I would have loved to see Iris and Jesse have a heart to heart since she's kinda the emotional support to the team. Also, just let the women talk to each other in general.

Faking Barry's death with Caitlin's powers was a good idea; but how would they know that Grodd would take him out of the cage?

"Sorry you guys missed it" ? Barry, y'all were in cages most of the time. Anyway, next trip to Earth-2 better be him taking Iris on a date to Atlantis.

There better be good answers about how Grodd even knows about Gypsy, and how he captured her. (If that the Gypsy that visited before.)

Dumb things:
• Barry knows how to shake off a tranquilizer, so him getting tranqed twice had me rolling my eyes.
• Wait- what?? Grodd not only has power dampening tech, but power dampening tech that specifically targets Flash AND Cisco?? How did he know Cisco had powers? (Let's see if this very convenient and useful tech shows up in Part 2.)
• Even with no powers, that room full of 'geniuses' couldn't find some other way to escape?
• Grodd was lying and playing everyone the whole time -- did anyone not see that coming? I mean, besides the room full of geniuses....
• I guess Team Cage needed something to do, because them coaching Barry during the fight shouldn't have been necessary at all. (Actually, those cuts back to the cage during the fight could have been eliminated and nothing would have changed. We could have seen more of Earth-1!)

Having Tom Felton mention Planet of the Apes and go along was sort of an inside nod to the fact that Tom Felton was in the movie Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011).

I think the sienna tint filter is what ultimately ruined the CG for me (apart from it very obviously being all CG). If the tint had been a little more subtle it might have been ok, but the saturation was just too high so it just ruined it for me.

I agree that Barry getting tranquilized twice was kinda dumb. He's fast enough that he could have pulled both tranqs out before they could release anything.

No idea how Grodd knew about Gypsy or was able to lure her.

I think I forgot to quote where someone asked about why Grodd was unhappy when he was given pretty much what he wanted: More of his own kind. But, I think that perhaps Grodd's intentions were never so innocent from the beginning. He wanted to create an army of minions he could control. When he went to Gorilla City, he was not in control-- he was an underling. He wanted that power. Also, when Harry was pretending to be Reverse Flash, he presumed that RF had promised that Grodd would be able to take over the city one day-- and I suspect that it may have been true. So, Grodd had this goal of having his army of minions and ruling Central City. That couldn't happen if he remained an underling on Earth 2.

On 2/25/2017 at 2:10 AM, waving feather said:

So the power dampening was done by Grodd by mind control? Not the actual cell itself?

That seems to be what they were implying. Which makes me ask again: Why didn't they bring their mind-control dampening earbuds or create something more reliable to block Grodd's control?

[AudienceofOne]

On 27/02/2017 at 5:35 PM, zannej said:

I agree that Barry getting tranquilized twice was kinda dumb. He's fast enough that he could have pulled both tranqs out before they could release anything.

He can't get drunk because of how fast his body metabolises alcohol, but he can get tranqued? Rubbish.

[AudienceofOne]

My second "favourite" part of this episode was when Julian randomly yells something, "Forsooth, this is quite the reversal of our fortunes" or something equally as bizarre and Cisco has a lightbulb moment over the word 'reversal'. 

[millennium]

On 2/22/2017 at 1:15 AM, TDT said:

Julian made a nice Nightwing reference(for you comics readers here..)

I also get the feeling that it will be him,and not Iris,who winds up on the business end of Savitar's blade..

I'm keeping my fingers crossed it's Wally.    He ruins every scene he's in.

I wish Jesse had said to him, "The reason I'm not that into you is because your fame-whoring makes me want to hurl."

Nice CGI for the Gorilla City scenes.   Julian is fun:  (second time, more serious) "Are you going to the Planet of the Apes?"