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Iris West


Lisin
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Actually, a lot of masters programs have electives.

Good point - I don't ever remember thinking of them that way when I was in grad school though...

Maybe the writers should have said she was working on a "thesis" in the pilot instead of a "dissertation". Then it might make sense. Because with the word dissertation there, you have to be done with all coursework and your proposal to be working on a dissertation.

It's a stupid mistake for the writers to make - even if they changed their minds they could have slipped in something to make that make sense.

It just goes to show that they just didn't care.

  • Like 1

Actually, a lot of masters programs have electives. 

 

You're right--I was thinking about it wrong. I dismissed it out of hand because the things she was doing seemed very Journalism 101, not a grad-level course. But I suppose I could see the use in taking a Journalism class for a Sociology masters degree.

 

Anyway, I still think it's bizarre that they had so much time to ponder Iris as a character, and still we ended up with this weird dropped degree thing. And if they were going to do that--just to show this progression of her sort of dissatisfied with her education/career path, and then latching onto this story she finally cared about--why not a degree in journalism? Sociology just serves no purspose for her. Anyway. I'm glad she's moved on.

I guess I'm not too worried about the whole  PhD/Masters whatever it was said thing, because in pilots, there are things shown/mentioned, that never show up once the show "starts."

 

Example (and this was the first thing that popped into my head); in the pilot of The Cosby Show, Claire aske Cliff why they have four children and he responds with they didn't want five. Yet, into the first season, we meet Sondra, the oldest of five.

 

I'm thinking the same thing probably happened here; although the show runners for this show have less of an excuse, since most backdoor pilots are like a year or two before the actual show gets the green light.  Again, i.e.--Original pilot for mothership Law & Order was filmed in 1988, but the show premiered in 1990.

 

{shrugs}

  • Love 2

There have been worse inconsistencies between pilots and the rest of the series. The big one that comes to my mind is CW's Gossip Girl pilot had a major male character attempt to rape two of the main female characters and nobody seemed to hold it against him for the longest time. One of those girls was even on good terms with him in the second half of the first season.

  • Like 1

I assume that her dissertation is going to come into play in later episodes. I think there is something on the laptop and someone was hired to steal it. Otherwise, why show such a pointless scene?

 

Iris doesn't get much screen time or narrative focus, so a lot of the criticism for her seems disproportionate to her actual role. Is she an amazing character right now? No, but she gets very little screen time so how could she be?

 

The problem is that we're 14 episodes in and she's still way behind the other characters. She doesn't know who flash is, she's just starting a career and everybody around her other then Eddie still treats her like a kid that needs to be protected. That approach might have worked with thea since she was Oliver's younger sister, but Iris is the same age as everybody else on the show.

 

If CP was a bad actress, the hate to get her off the show would be even worse than it is right now. I'm glad she's such a great actress - and her character deserves better than the short shrift the writers (and some fans) give her

 

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that Candice is doing Iris justice. It just bothers me that the writing is letting her down.

 

I guess the only thing that I can do is to sit back and watch how they develop her character in these final nine shows.

 

 

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The problem is that we're 14 episodes in and she's still way behind the other characters. She doesn't know who flash is, she's just starting a career and everybody around her other then Eddie still treats her like a kid that needs to be protected. That approach might have worked with thea since she was Oliver's younger sister, but Iris is the same age as everybody else on the show.

 

This is all extremely infuriating, I agree. But it doesn't make me write Iris off, but rather it makes me resent Joe and Barry and see them in a less favourable light for disrespecting and betraying the trust of a woman they love. It's also a reminder of the extremely uneven male to female ratios of TV writers. 

  • Love 12

I enjoyed everything we got with Iris tonight. They are certainly doing the slow burn with her career, which right now is working. I liked the fact that when her mentor made some very serious allegations about Wells, she immediately went to Barry to get his thoughts, which seems to have planted the seeds of doubt amongst Team Flash that festered into Cisco learning the truth.

 

I hope that we'll eventually - maybe soon, see Iris not only asking questions, but doing her own digging for answers. The other good thing about tonight's episode, was that she learned a lot without realizing it. Being as she learned about another meta-human - the Weather Wizard and that most of the CC PD knew about him. Then there was her learning that Barry is the Flash. It's really too bad that his time travel likely erased this knowledge she gained.

 

Finally we get a smidgen of her POV on her feelings for Barry, but it still wasn't nearly enough IMO. It's obvious  she confessed her feelings because he and her were facing imminent death, but say the tsunami wasn't about to crash into CC. Would she have ever confessed her feelings? She said she'd been thinking about Barry for months and didn't want to stop. If that is truly how she feels, why did she go ahead and move in with Eddie? What does she want now? She's obviously having difficulty seeing Barry with other women, but yet she's holding on for dear life to Eddie. The writers are still doing a poor job showing us how she feels. What I wouldn't have given to have had her in the car with Joe talking about her complicated relationship with Barry instead of the other way around.

Edited by Enero
  • Love 4

I think that even those who refused to accept it can now agree that she was at least subconsciously sabotaging his relationship with Linda. And we learn from this episode that it's not the first time she's had a problem with someone he's dating. She probably only does it with those he's getting serious with. 

 

I agree, Enero, they still didn't tell us why she's holding on to Eddie when she feels this way about Barry. She can't handle seeing him with other women but she refuses to date him herself. 

 

I'm also glad that her career storyline is picking up. I think they'd done better with her in these last two episodes. 

  • Love 1

I think that even those who refused to accept it can now agree that she was at least subconsciously sabotaging his relationship with Linda. And we learn from this episode that it's not the first time she's had a problem with someone he's dating. She probably only does it with those he's getting serious with.

 

Iris sabotaging Barry's relationships is pretty tame if we're going there. Barry has done a lot more manipulative stuff to sabotage Iris' relationship with Eddie. Besides, Iris' actions would be completely null without Barry responding to her. 

 

I don't even think Iris has any hateful intentions, but rather she's being careless of Eddie's feelings and selfish because she considers Barry as hers.

 

But Linda is all on Barry. Iris was truthful with her at least.

Edited by driedfruit
  • Love 6

Sigh. Iris "sabotaging" Barry's relationships is pretty tame if we're going there. Barry has done a lot more manipulative stuff to sabotage Iris' relationship with Eddie. Besides, Iris' actions would be completely null without Barry responding to her. 

 

Very true. If Barry felt like his relationship with Linda, is it a relationship if they've only been dating for two seconds? Is being sabotaged by Iris' behavior HE needs to check Iris. However, as you said, he's responding to her touches and even giving some touches of his own. Did anyone see how he touched Iris' face and told her that things were going to be okay while they were at the police station? Those touches were not those of platonic friend. The way he touched her expressed something much deeper and in front of the whole police squad no less.

 

 

 

And we learn from this episode that it's not the first time she's had a problem with someone he's dating.

 

Yes, which is interesting. So has she had feelings for Barry all this time, but has been holding back, and continues to hold back for her own reasons? Barry failed to tell her how he felt all those years due to what happened with his mom. Could Iris be dealing with something similar due to her mom's death or disappearance (have we ever learned whether she died or disappeared?) and therefore is choosing the "safe" choice that is Eddie?

Edited by Enero
  • Love 5

This isn't about being tame or worse than Barry.

 

IA; it's about the two of them growing up and owning their responsibility in hurting others instead of being truthful. If we get an almost painfully honest couple from this going forward, then I'm okay.  

 

I got upset while watching, when Iris was " I'm starting to worry..." ( about Joe.) Then I had to check myself as I started to yell at the TV-- Iris has been kept in the effing dark about anything and everything that could potentially impact her safety and her family! It got me mad, but not at Iris. ::continues side-eye of Writers::

 

I'm just glad we got Candace Patton as Iris! She keeps me believing and hoping for Iris when there's not a lot for her to work with.

  • Love 3

This isn't about being tame or worse than Barry. It's just that the writing was pretty obvious in Episode 13 and I'm glad that this episode made things even clearer.

I'm just not buying Iris as having malicious intent. Even Candice explained that's not what they were going for.

 

And my point about bringing Barry up was that literally no one in the fandom, certainly not the people dragging on Iris, ever even bat an eye at his behavior even though it's intentionally malicious on his part.

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Seriously, Candice is putting in some heavy duty work to save that character because the writing is pretty much letting Iris down at every point.

 

I think the bowling scene was more about her not realizing that she was being inappropriate then any malicious intent on her part. But that flip flopping is going to get old rather quickly.

 

How does Joe not have her inside of a plastic bubble? There's overprotective father and then there's Joe who overcompensates for ignoring every other aspect of her life.

 

I guess we can be happy that there's one timeline where Iris knows Barry's secret?

  • Love 5
But that flip flopping is going to get old rather quickly.

 

 

What flip flopping? She might be developing feelings for Barry, but unless she's about to die, Iris isn't even in place where she can acknowledge those feelings. She hasn't even flipped in Barry's direction yet in the "real" timeline. 

 

I find the complaints about her place in the story amusing as she was woven in quite nicely this episode. And for the first time in like five episodes, she actually felt like an important character that played a hand in all the different plot threads. 

 

I even liked the way she approached Barry with the issue of Wells. It was upfront and respectful, but she didn't look like she took his word for things. 

Edited by driedfruit
  • Love 8

I think that we're going to get even more PoV from Iris in the next episode as Barry plays that day out over and over again. I think the lesson he will end up learning is that if they are going to be together, it has to be the right way... I feel like he's going to "push it" and that's going to degrade and upset the timeline even more, leading Eddie to lash out in "le crazy"... and forcing Barry to take a step back and let things happen naturally or not.

I did enjoy Iris in last night's episode - I thought she was woven in really well - but I really hope she doesn't drop this story... though I worry about her safety with Wells... after seeing what he did to poor Cisco.

  • Love 1

I can headcanon that when Barry came to live with them Joe had a lot of quiet chats with young Iris enforcing the idea that Barry has no one and they need to be his family now. So that as she grew older any romantic feelings were firmly suppressed but she could never quite bring herself to like any of his serious girlfriends. Why should I have to headcanon though? Basic motivation is something the show should be spelling out to us.

Because of all the damselling and the 'don't tell Iris' bs I'm kinda hoping she ends up going to the 25th century and comes back as a deadly ninja who has no time for anyone's nonsense.

Edited by patchwork
  • Love 7

I'd be game for that. It beats the alternative that Iris gets kidnapped by Wells and Barry has to save her.

I actually think Iris is going to end up investigating further (I think something's gonna happen to her mentor Mason) and she'll end up in a bad situation with Wells, but I don't think it will be as bad as her just getting kidnapped - unless she's kidnapped because of what she uncovers in her investigation.

  • Love 1

I can headcanon that when Barry came to live with them Joe had a lot of quiet chats with young Iris enforcing the idea that Barry has no one and they need to be his family now. So that as she grew older any romantic feelings were firmly suppressed but she could never quite bring herself to like any of his serious girlfriends. Why should I have to headcanon though? Basic motivation is something the show should be spelling out to us. 

 

Because of all the damselling and the 'don't tell Iris' bs I'm kinda hoping she ends up going to the 25 century and comes back as a deadly ninja who has no time for anyone's nonsense. 

 

I agree with everything said here. Like word for word.

 

We need to start a Liberation: Iris movement or something because they treat her like a puppy or a doll. It's to the point that I start singing No Doubt's "I'm just a Girl" when she's on screen. I mean that line Joe had about wanting to keep a smile on her pretty face just made me cringe.

  • Love 2

We need to start a Liberation: Iris movement or something because they treat her like a puppy or a doll... I mean that line Joe had about wanting to keep a smile on her pretty face just made me cringe.

Please tell me where to sign up and I'll be the first in line. Upon rewatching last night's episode, I found it extremely off putting how all the men in Iris' life, save for Mason, treats her like an infant. Not only was I annoyed by Joe's continuous insistence on keeping her in the dark about the danger she could possibly be in and his asinine comment about keeping a smile on her face, I was also annoyed with Barry referring to her questions about Wells as her being completely influenced by Mason without having any thought or opinion about the situation herself.

I really do hope that when she learns of all the lies these men have been telling her she will give them hell then not give the the time of day for several episodes. I hope that we'll see them working to regain her trust, while also learning to respect her as a grown woman who has her own mind and won't wilt at the slightest sign of trouble.

Edited by Enero
  • Love 3
I can headcanon that when Barry came to live with them Joe had a lot of quiet chats with young Iris enforcing the idea that Barry has no one and they need to be his family now. So that as she grew older any romantic feelings were firmly suppressed but she could never quite bring herself to like any of his serious girlfriends. Why should I have to headcanon though? Basic motivation is something the show should be spelling out to us.

 

IMO I like that the show isn't spelling everything out verbatim. I like filling in the blanks. The best shows make us work in that regard imo. 

  • Love 1

I love that Iris is human and makes mistakes. People protested that she was mary sue, damsel in distress,(joe is the damsel in distress of the flash), useless character, now she is a bitch and detestable for having conflicting feelings? How she felt was realistic in my opinion. I would love for her to make it to the wells timeline by season's end and come back to this timeline few years later with a lot of things changed. I would love to see that.

  • Love 9

I hope Joe's overprotectiveness is addressed because when it comes to Iris, he firmly believes that ignorance is bliss. As expected, he asked those two knuckleheads to keep her in the dark about Mardon but something that just made me shake my head was how he barked at Singh when he suggested that Iris contact The Flash. Was that really necessary when Barry was standing next to him? 

  • Love 2

Just recently got into this show. I like Iris. I don't know why she has to be anything other than what she is. I think the actress is very charismatic and has chem with all her co-stars. I don't like her as a reporter but thats just because I read I think they were going to have her as like a criminal profiler at first or something and changed it to reporter instead and meh.  I love her relationship with her dad, it just needs more focus. Last episode when she got the call about him, she went to go help save him. So yeah I don't think she is a damsel in distress either.  I did like when she was confessing her feelings to Barry she mentioned she was angry at first. I wish we got more on that because I always thought it was a little douchey for Barry to confess his feelings to her right when she was making a big life commitment to some one else and would like to know if thats why she was angry. I wish she was given more POV but this is a CW show so I think she's done ok considering. 

Edited by Grumpymonkey
  • Love 6

IMO I like that the show isn't spelling everything out verbatim. I like filling in the blanks.

 

There is a difference in not spelling everything out and actually giving the audience some hard facts.  There are folks who watch the show and think of Barry/Iris as incestuous. Barry was eleven years old and already besties with Iris before Nora Allen's death. Moving in with Joe and Iris was not like a legal adoption. They act like siblings because they spent a lot of their childhood and teen years together.  As Jenesis pointed out here, likely Joe mentioned to Iris that Barry needed them more as a family and less as friends. That is plausible and logical.  But some folks still are icked out that close friends call the father/father figure "Dad". Barry still calls him Joe, though, and Iris doesn't. How they see their family unit seems clear to me, but it's not clear to everyone in the audience.

 

We don't see Iris hanging out with anyone but Eddie or Barry. We don't see her wave to friends or excuse herself from a group of females/ mixed company that she identifies as her friends.  For someone with the same on-screen life of Caitlin "I have no life" Snow, complete with significant other, we're supposed to believe she's happier?  To be fair, Barry doesn't seem to have anyone outside of the Flash Mob and Team Arrow that he interacts with either. I think that's partly why we were so happy when Linda Park/ Malese Jow showed up. There was another female and Iris could talk to her and have work stuff with her.

 

There is a happy medium between the void that is Iris' current background and everyone's headcannon.  At least headcannon shows that there is some thought going towards Iris and her place in the showverse. I tune in to watch stories being told, not making them up due to lack of reasonable information.

  • Love 6

We don't see Iris hanging out with anyone but Eddie or Barry. We don't see her wave to friends or excuse herself from a group of females/ mixed company that she identifies as her friends.  For someone with the same on-screen life of Caitlin "I have no life" Snow, complete with significant other, we're supposed to believe she's happier?  To be fair, Barry doesn't seem to have anyone outside of the Flash Mob and Team Arrow that he interacts with either. I think that's partly why we were so happy when Linda Park/ Malese Jow showed up. There was another female and Iris could talk to her and have work stuff with her.

 

 

I never thought Linda and Iris could become besties.  Just the opposite.  They are both vying for the same man, even if for one of them that's at the subconscious level now.  "Rivals" better describes them IMO. 

"Rivals" better describes them IMO.

 

After tonight's episode? I hope not. Linda was sending clear breaking-up signals to Barry. The "You should ache for me" or however the line went showed that she knows that Barry's heart isn't there for her. Linda seemed a bit disappointed but not devastated. ( I was side-eyeing her dialogue in that scene. It sounded too invested after about three and a half dates.)

 

With Iris choosing Eddie, again, hopefully the ladies at The Picture News can be work buddies. It would be nice.

Shows gloss over the rivalry thing all the time. So it's very possible that Linda could forget that little tidbit in a few episodes, if she sticks around, which could result in her and Iris becoming friendlier.

I'm glad that we finally got more of a peak into what Iris is thinking about Barry's confession. It seems obvious that there is some conflict within her about it. Based on her reaction last night I think she is aware that her feelings for Barry go beyond friendship. However, it seems as if she's decided that she's made a commitment to Eddie and she plans see it through no matter what she feels for Barry.

That said, I didn't like the writers back pedaling by having Caitlyn tell Iris and Eddie the lie about Barry still having side effects from the lightning strike. Not only did it stall out the fall out of Eddie learning the truth about Barry's feelings, but made both Iris and Eddie come off a a little like nitwits, especially Iris. Barry has been out of the coma for several months. She's interacted with him quite extensively during this time and not once has she seen him act to the extreme he was acting at Jitters, except MAYBE when he confessed his love for her at Christmas, which begs the question does she think that was apart of his psychosis? And what exactly did she confess to Eddie? Did she confess just what happened at Jitters? Or everything? And if she confessed everything is she now believing or pretending to believe his Christmas confession was just a side effect of his lightning injury?

Lastly, I'm also concerned about Iris' journalism career. Now that her mentor is dead and she has no idea that he was working on a big story surrounding Wells, will what little story she has grind to a halt? It shouldn't because there's plenty the writers can do to build on this, but I fear this may be the case now that they've given this storyline to Barry. I'm hoping though that Mason might've pulled a fast one on RF/Wells and hid the info he had on him some place where Iris will discover it and pick up where he left off.

Edited by Enero
  • Love 2
She's interacted with him quite extensively during this time and not once has she seen him act to the extreme he was acting at Jitters, except MAYBE when he confessed his love for her at Christmas, which begs the question does she think that was apart of his psychosis?

 

Barry woke up a completely different person and instantly became very distant with her. Iris told him she knew something was up with him in 1.02, alluded to it in 1.05, and during Christmas, before his confession, Iris asked Caitlin about it. All that put together with the confession, his later retracting of it, and a second more forceful confession, might be making a lot of sense to Iris now that she knows there is a medical explanation. 

 

The only kink in her believing it is that she knows for a fact Caitlin, Joe, Barry were all involved with the Burning Man and lying about it. But that hasn't been brought up since, so maybe we're supposed to forget.

Edited by driedfruit

Lastly, I'm also concerned about Iris' journalism career. Now that her mentor is dead and she has no idea that he was working on a big story surrounding Wells, will what little story she has grind to a halt? It shouldn't because there's plenty the writers can do to build on this, but I fear this may be the case now that they've given this storyline to Barry. I'm hoping though that Mason might've pulled a fast one on RF/Wells and hid the info he had on him some place where Iris will discover it and pick up where he left off.

 

Gah! I hope not. It'd be a shame for them to go one step back after finally going two steps forward. On one hand, Iris could investigate Mason's death, but then she'd be the next target. ... And now I'm thinking -again- of how simpler things could be if Iris knew Barry's secret. (It would be easier to communicate important info, and for Barry to protect her -- now that he's suspicious of Wells.) Sigh.

  • Love 1

Barry woke up a completely different person and instantly became very distant with her. Iris told him she knew something was up with him in 1.02, alluded to it in 1.05, and during Christmas, before his confession, Iris asked Caitlin about it. All that put together with the confession, his later retracting of it, and a second more forceful confession, might be making a lot of sense to Iris now that she knows there is a medical explanation. 

 

The only kink in her believing it is that she knows for a fact Caitlin, Joe, Barry were all involved with the Burning Man and lying about it. But that hasn't been brought up since, so maybe we're supposed to forget.

 

Maybe that's why Iris had that strange look on her face when Barry and Caitlin was walking away. She knows something doesn't make sense. I hope this propels her investigation now that Mason Bridge has gotten the hand through the chest and evidence stolen.

 

But then again, it could be because she's feeling sad that Barry love conefssions are an effect of LP.

Edited by Jenesis
(edited)

Well they continue to dumb Iris down and give her no agency. Would she really believe a Putlizer Prize winning writer would quit his job without telling anyone and run off with a woman? Is she so gullible that she would believe such fodder? It's truly insulting to the audience and the character of Iris if this is how the writers will continue with this story.

And I'll tell you right now that I will be even further insulted if Iris doesn't figure out Barry is The Flash on her own. If one of the men in her life ends up confessing to completely aloof Iris about Barry, I think that might actual be enough to make me quit this show.

Furthermore, does Iris have no investigative skills at all? Why is she depending on Eddie and the Flash to help her investigate what happened to Mason? Couldn't she have done some preliminary investigating on her own? Find out when the last time Mason was in the office. Surely the newspaper has security cameras or some form of a security log on the doors if someone is there after hours. If no security is at the office what about Mason's place of residence? Would there be some form of security there tracking his movements? Has she forgotten about the lies she was told about Firestorm? Though it might've ended up being too much stuffed into one episode, I would've rather seen Iris digging into Mason's disapperance on her own than randomly showing up at the mayor's fundraiser.

I'm really not at all pleased with the way they're handling Iris' character. It's extremely sexist and insulting.

Candice is gorgeous though and saves this character every time.

Edited by Enero
  • Love 8

Candice Patton deserves better than this cliched and trope-filled writing.

There seriously better be a point to all of this. I hope the writers don't think we're okay with how they're infantilizing Iris so badly. It makes NO sense - and honestly doesn't even help further the plot. What makes this so bad is that EVERYONE knows except her - his supposed best friend and (according to him) the love of his life.

$#*%)$(){#P%IP${#IRQ{I@@#$EW{PQVIRP{ITE!!!!!!

  • Love 6
(edited)

Candice Patton deserves better than this cliched and trope-filled writing.There seriously better be a point to all of this. I hope the writers don't think we're okay with how they're infantilizing Iris so badly. It makes NO sense - and honestly doesn't even help further the plot. What makes this so bad is that EVERYONE knows except her - his supposed best friend and (according to him) the love of his life.$#*%)$(){#P%IP${#IRQ{I@@#$EW{PQVIRP{ITE!!!!!!

IMO Barry's continuous lies and total disrespect for Iris' thoughts and choices leaves no room for any type of romance between him and Iris. I don't care how much chemistry they have or how much they might love each other. I don't want her any where near him until she knows about these lies and he's spent at the very least three episodes doing whatever he can to get back in her good graces.

Though it was nice of Eddie to "not be okay" with lying to Iris, the bottom line is he is lying to her and with a terrible and insulting lie at that.

I really do hope the writers aren't making Iris as dumb as what it currently appears. I really hope she digs deeper to confirm Mason has runoff and at that point start to figure out the number of liars she has unknowingly surrounded herself with.

Edited by Enero
  • Love 5

I have a feeling the only thing that will happen is some crappy writing where Iris finds out (she doesn't figure it out, she's given zero agency and instead is told) and then she's angry for half an episode, but then by the end of it something happens to "prove" her dad right and everyone gets a pass.

That better NOT be what happens. Which means that's what's gonna happen.

*kicks something*

  • Love 3

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