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S05.E08: What's Past is Prologue


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In the 100th episode, Barry and Team Flash come up with a plan to stop Cicada. However, the plan calls for Barry and Nora to travel back in time to gather some key necessities. However, Barry hesitates, concerned about his daughter seeing certain parts of his life. Meanwhile, Sherloque takes his concerns about Nora to Iris, and Caitlin turns up a key asset in the fight against Cicada.

Tom Cavanagh directed the episode written by Todd Helbing & Lauren Certo.

Airdate 12/4/2018

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Episode threads are for episode discussion.  They are not for comic discussion, spoilers, previews, or convincing posters that their opinions are wrong.  We have threads for comic and spoiler discussions.  If you wish to reference comics, previews, or spoilers, that's allowed but they must all be tagged as spoilers and they cannot move discussion from the episode itself.  Posts that fail to use the spoiler tag will be hidden and repeat offenders will be warned.

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Clip from the episode:

 

I know the writers are just giving a reason for the time travel trip, but it looks like I'm going to have to ignore the psuedo-science justifications and just enjoy the trip down memory lane.

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How freaking annoying. I cannot believe that Barry time traveled YET AGAIN! He will never learn. Honestly, I was rooting for the time wraith to get them both.

Of course, Nora is working with Thawne. She is as idiotic as her father.

Got to say Barry/Grant was looking particularly handsome tonight.

I hate "Harry's" horrible accent and I am not a fan of Barry's new suit. 

  • Love 8
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Overall it was an ok 100th episode. Missing 2 very big key players (come on! its the 100th episode, give me some Eddie and Wally) so that sucked and kind of disappointed that them going back in time didnt cause any consequences (as far someone in the past being able to survive or something)

Wow "lets make a weapon stronger then Cicadas dagger!" was just brilliant thinking. Not sure how they couldnt think of something like that sooner lol. I just wish that we had a stronger villain that would force them to do all of this because  they cant use their powers when near Cicada...may be time to learn some hand2hand combat.

Cisco/Caitlin got some super memory to remember every little detail and the exact date that it happened.

It was cool to for them to acknowledge  Nora was originally Dawn in the original timeline...I can dig it. Gideon should've called her in Dawn when they were in the past but whatevs.

Wells/Thawne still remains the best.

Team Flash just standing around like idiots while they clearly see Cicada summoning his dagger was the dumbest thing ever. 

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You know who else didn't get their powers from dark matter and should therefore be immune to Cicada's dagger?  Supergirl, Superman, and J'onn J'onzz.  You should really ask them for help the next time you see them, Barry.

It will be really, really funny if this Thawne is the one who Barry let run off at the end of last season's crossover.  That's what you get for stupidly letting your enemies go.

Team Flash is also really, really inconsistent with how they treat time travel.  It's either a super dangerous technique that should never be used OR it should be used semi-regularly.  You can't have it both ways.

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3rd time watching the ending and the 2nd time I was expecting a different outcome. Shame on me.

I thought Thawne was up to something when he offered Nora water.

Gideon has no loyalty to Barry to warn/inform him of anything?

Edited by mxc90
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So, the night of the particle accelerator explosion Barry went to the hospital with a blob of Chekhov's dark matter infused gum stuck to the bottom of his sneakers. Will this meta-gum be the key to stopping Cicada, or alt!Thawne, or...whatever?

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I KNEW IT!!!!!!!

Nora/Dawn/Nora works with Thawne!

But ThawneWells is the best Wells.

HARRY!!

I want Season One baaaack!!!😭😭😭😭

So, as someone who is a total technoturd, does “Time Travel is Malleable” mean one can manipulate time travel?

Oh, so NOW the Time Wraith shows up?😒

Loved Huey’s ”Going Back in Time.” 🥰🥰🥰

Edited by GHScorpiosRule
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10 minutes ago, Primal Slayer said:

Missing 2 very big key players (come on! its the 100th episode, give me some Eddie and Wally)

Forget that. No Joe?! I get that Jesse's on leave, but not even flashback -staring-up-at-the-explosion Joe? 

Sherloque as Wellsobard hadn't actually occurred to me, so that was a fun surprise. I enjoyed seeing angry Barry starring down Wells. I always love when Barry's angry and right. Hatred of Eobard will always be right. Seriously they just have to reference that Thawne tried to break an eleven-year-old kid by murdering his mother and I temporarily forget Barry's flaws and am just happy that he didn't break down from that and became a hero and married the love of his life because fuck off, Thawne.

 "You brought me your daughter" is the fucking creepiest thing he's ever uttered. Sounded like  he thought Barry was serving her up on a platter. 

Good acting by Grant and Carlos. I liked how Cisco had that old innocent quality talking with Thawne. He really seemed younger. I had no idea how much I missed him as Vibe untik he was back in the suit. Loved that he pointed out to Cicada that they tricked him.

They referenced Dawn! Original recipe Gideon! Touching father/daughter hug. Loved seeing Ronnie and Stein, even if it wasn't new material. How the hell does Nora not know Thawne murdered her namesake? How? I question Future Iris's parenting for that choice more than for chipping her daughter.

I wish we'd gotten a bigger clue to Elseworlds since that kicks off next. Not wanting Barry to cause it but seriously, put some clues in the time tunnel. Or give me a stinger I haven't already seen twice. I'm a loyal viewer. I deserve 3 stingers.

  • Love 12
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So, for the 100th episode, it actually was decent. I think the bright spot was seeing Tom Cavanagh play his very best roles on this show: season 2 Harry (not crappy season 4 mixture of Harry and HR) and, of course, the ever so terrifying Eobard Thawne as Harrison Wells. In merely one scene, Tom reminded me about what I loved about him on this show. Eobard Thawne is one of the best villains in the entire Arrowverse. His moment with Cisco actually made me shudder a bit. 

For once, Team Flash had a great idea. I mean, it didn't quite work but for once, it wasn't because they were super dumb. I don't think anyone could have foreseen Cicada being much more powerful than anticipated initially. 

Oh, Nora. So, I guess we're really going down the route where Future Iris doesn't tell Nora anything and she feels compelled to work with her father's arch enemy. Ok, even without knowing the true history of Barry and Eobard, she knows that her father hated this guy, that he was his enemy, and...she still trusted him? And now, the ending where she knows Eobard killed her grandmother and she STILL decides to go back to him? Girl, not even your father works with a known enemy with ease. He even shows some reluctance! The fact that she likely trusts him because he was "honest" with her is probably worse. Also, how much time did her and Eobard really have to bond if she's defending him to her father? Wouldn't she have just founded out at least a few weeks before she ran to the past? We know she first showed up at the West-Allen wedding and Nora made it seem like she had just found out before running to the past. 

So...Killer Frost saves the day. Woohoo? I was blanking on why KF showing up was a big deal before the show pointed out to forgetful people like myself about what Cicada's dagger does. And they even explained it in the episode! D'oh!

So, is Sherloque really Eobard Thawne? If so, excellent twist and it makes up for the horrid character. If he's not...then he should be.

Ok, I chuckled at Ralph's use of song choice when Barry and Nora went on their mission.

Nice return of The Flash's Gideon. If they could remember that Barry creates Gideon at some point, that would be great. 

I loved the season 1 characters again. Hell, we even got a Hartley mention! 

  • Love 5
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So some of you are saying that Sherloque is Eobard Thawne as Wells? I didn't get that. I saw it as him trying to figure out what Nora is up to.

Also, I can only conclude that the actor who plays Thawne wasn't available which is why he has Wells' face in the future.

I didn't think that episode was special enough for a 100th episode.

Edited by SimoneS
  • Love 3
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1 minute ago, bettername2come said:

When he called her "clever girl" like Thawne Wells did it was seriously suspicious.

Now that I think about it, probably not Eobard since he wouldn't need to decode her journal (we see him in prison and he has the ability to read it himself since he likely created the language). 

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1. I know I need to stop asking this show science questions, but if Barry and Nora are running fast enough to go back in time, surely they are running faster than the speed of sound and therefore can't hear each other and shouldn't be talking to each other?

2. Speaking of bad science, why didn't Cicada's weapon burn up while it was zooming back through the atmosphere, given that we saw it burning and it was travelling pretty quickly?

3. I can live without Eddie, honestly, and without Patty, but where was Wally? This episode had time for Hartley references but couldn't bring in Wally? 

Also, not that I missed her exactly, but where was Dinah? She turned into a metahuman during the particle accelerator explosion too - and was in Central City at the time. There's archival footage of that, too.

4. The "Back in Time" bit was hilarious. I still hate Ralph, but he was bearable tonight, kinda? Maybe? Ok, bearable in smaller doses.

5. Team Flash. You know that's the only hospital room in Central City AND Star City and you know that by going back in time you are probably going to change something and yet you think that you can hide a dark matter whatever in a column near that hospital and it will survive? Or did you just assume that Berlanti was not going to pay for a new hospital set no matter how many seasons I spend yelling about this so the hospital is the hands down safest place to store anything?

6. I loved Tom Cavanaugh's return as First Season Evil Wells, but...shouldn't the future 2049 Evil Wells have Matt Letscher's face, or does Reverse-Flash think he'll have an easier time avoiding Team Legends if he just looks like any of the various Wellses that are running around? 

7. Hey, Team Flash, if the key to defeating Cicada is to have someone with superpowers not created by uh, whatever, you have a whole world of superpowered people who that world/show keeps insisting are not metahumans no way no possible way they are all aliens, many of whom would be delighted to hop over to this world and help you defeat Cicada as long as it means they are out of the political metaphor they are currently stuck in. Or, failing that, you can call in someone highly skilled with arrows to help you out.

I mean, I love the shared shows/universe concept, but it does get frustrating at moments like this, when the easy solution is "HOP OVER TO THE OTHER SHOW" or "CALL IN PEOPLE FROM THE OTHER SHOW" something that has happened more than once this season on Supergirl, Arrow and Flash. 

8.

15 minutes ago, bettername2come said:

I wish we'd gotten a bigger clue to Elseworlds since that kicks off next. Not wanting Barry to cause it but seriously, put some clues in the time tunnel. Or give me a stinger I haven't already seen twice. I'm a loyal viewer. I deserve 3 stingers.

Me too. I know many viewers aren't watching all four shows, but some of us are, even if we miss the occasional episode.

  • Love 4
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5 minutes ago, quarks said:

6. I loved Tom Cavanaugh's return as First Season Evil Wells, but...shouldn't the future 2049 Evil Wells have Matt Letscher's face, or does Reverse-Flash think he'll have an easier time avoiding Team Legends if he just looks like any of the various Wellses that are running around? 

It turns out Letscher was busy and couldn't film the end scene, so they allowed Cavanagh to take over the role. Which I don't mind, since I love Cavanagh's version of Eobard Thawne/Harrison Wells and will gladly welcome him to take on the role for the rest of the season. Listen; I've had to suffer through HR, a horribly retconned version of Harry and now Sherloque. Give me this!

  • Love 3
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1 minute ago, shantown said:

If the Zoom chased Barry and Nora into the time travel tunnel, and the Time Wraith grabbed him - shouldn’t that have altered the past?

Maybe the time wraith dropped Zoom off where he was supposed to be at that moment? I did like how when he grabbed Barry, the wraith was like 'nope'

  • Love 3
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Just now, Lady Calypso said:

It turns out Letscher was busy and couldn't film the end scene, so they allowed Cavanagh to take over the role. Which I don't mind, since I love Cavanagh's version of Eobard Thawne/Harrison Wells and will gladly welcome him to take on the role for the rest of the season. Listen; I've had to suffer through HR, a horribly retconned version of Harry and now Sherloque. Give me this!

Fair enough, but I hope there's some sort of in-universe explanation for this, especially since Barry has seen the Matt Letscher version.

Maybe they can claim that Team Legends really did vanish the Matt Letscher version even though Team Legends obviously did not? That sentence made more sense in my head before I typed it out, I promise.

  • Love 2
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Not quite the epic of an ideal 100th episode, but it was fun to see some old faces, and go back to season one for a little bit. Really, it was a pretty good episode, even if I would have liked to have seen more people, and the rest of Team Flash having more to do (not even a flashback of Joe?!?), but the skips through time were fun, even if no one ever seems to learn the lesson that time travel leads to bad stuff! 

Between this show and Legends, everyone in this franchise needs a long ass assembly on the importance of responsible time traveling.

Loved going back to the season one days, and especially seeing Tom as Fake Wells/Thawne, and Savitar era Harry. I much as I started to roll my eyes at the overuse of Wells over the years, I still freaking love both of them. OG Not Wells is still so damn chilling and creepy, he stepped right back into those old black shirts like he has been there just yesterday. I also loved seeing the younger versions of the gang (even a Hartley reference!) and Ronnie, and even original Gideon! I especially think Carlos did a great job at playing season one Cisco, he looked so young and innocent. And, while it was super obviously shot, it was legitimately chilling when he put his hand out to shake his hand, the same way he would stop his heart when he found out who he was. Poor, young Cisco. 

That actually was a pretty good idea, even if it didnt work. At least they were thinking outside the box. Although, I have no idea why they didnt attack Cicada when he didnt have the knife. Everyone was just standing there, starring at each other waiting? Come on, half of you literally have super speed! 

So Nora is working for Thawn in the future? Sounds like she has about the same gift for making bad life choices as her dad! I figure she is working with him to prevent her dads death, but did she really never hear about why her dad hated him so much? How much he hated her dad for the pettiest reasons imaginable? I am actually interested to see Thawn back in play, although its hard to keep track of which one he actually is now. So, this isnt the one the Legends killed, is it? This is the one that Barry let go? For dumb reasons?

Sherloque is Eobard Thawne? I can see it, actually, even beyond the "Clever Girl" thing. That, or they both happen to be big Jurassic Park fans. 

  • Love 5
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4 minutes ago, quarks said:

Fair enough, but I hope there's some sort of in-universe explanation for this, especially since Barry has seen the Matt Letscher version.

Maybe they can claim that Team Legends really did vanish the Matt Letscher version even though Team Legends obviously did not? That sentence made more sense in my head before I typed it out, I promise.

The best explanation that they could come up with is explaining that this captured Thawne is the one Barry let go in last year's crossover.

  • Love 1
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1 minute ago, Lady Calypso said:

The best explanation that they could come up with is explaining that this captured Thawne is the one Barry let go in last year's crossover.

But wasn't that Thawne the Matt Letscher version? Or am I misremembering?

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Just now, quarks said:

But wasn't that Thawne the Matt Letscher version? Or am I misremembering?

I just rewatched a clip of it and it was Tom Cavanagh, not Matt Letscher. He used the excuse that he put on Harrison Wells face "for old times sake". 

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1 minute ago, Lady Calypso said:

I just rewatched a clip of it and it was Tom Cavanagh, not Matt Letscher. He used the excuse that he put on Harrison Wells face "for old times sake". 

My bad then! I blame Barry for annoying me so much for letting Reverse-Flash go that I couldn't remember which version of Reverse-Flash he let go. Thanks for clearing that up.

ANYWAY.  My new fanwank is that Team Legends DID vanish the Matt Letscher Reverse-Flash but thanks to Time Wackiness one version of Reverse-Flash - containing the part of Reverse-Flash that really liked people looking at him and thinking he was an awesome scientist - survived - the version that Barry released last year and the version talking to Nora now. 

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I think my favorite part was Barry and Wells No. 1 shouting at each other-Barry telling him he doesn’t get home; Wells shouting yes he does! Then Barry telling him to fix that whatzit and then he’ll be able to go home!😆😆😆

Not in this universe, But it did pave the way for Arrow, Flash, Legends, Supergirl...But Smallville had the best, gut wrenching 💯 episode. It still guts me and makes me 😭😭😭😭 Talk about high stakes.

  • Love 4
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If you are going to time-travel back in time, how about going back 3 weeks and moving Orlin and his niece out of Central City on the night of the Star Labs satellite crash so Cicada is never formed and Gracie is never hurt.  That seems a lot simpler than this Rube Goldberg solution they came up with.

When Wells/Thawne and Barry were brought to the hospital on the day of the Star Labs accelerator explosion, was that the doctor that is teaming up with Orlin tending to them as they came into the Emergency Ward (the same doctor that gave Orlin the idea to 'kill all metas') ?

What's the deal with the Time Wraiths ?  Barry and Nora go back a couple of years for about 10 minutes and the time wraiths show up immediately, but Nora has been in the past for months with no sign of the Time Wraiths at all.

  • Love 13
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1 minute ago, ottoDbusdriver said:

If you are going to time-travel back in time, how about going back 3 weeks and moving Orlin and his niece out of Central City on the night of the Star Labs satellite crash so Cicada is never formed and Gracie is never hurt.  That seems a lot simpler than this Rube Goldberg solution they came up with.

But then the episode would be over in five minutes and we wouldn’t get to see Original ThawneWells!🤪

3 minutes ago, ottoDbusdriver said:



When Wells/Thawne and Barry were brought to the hospital on the day of the Star Labs accelerator explosion, was that the doctor that is teaming up with Orlin tending to them as they came into the Emergency Ward (the same doctor that gave Orlin the idea to 'kill all metas') ?

What's the deal with the Time Wraiths ?  Barry and Nora go back a couple of years for about 10 minutes and the time wraiths show up immediately, but Nora has been in the past for months with no sign of the Time Wraiths at all.

Yes, that was her.

I know, right?

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Wait . . so Sherloque is Eobard? Eobard is in Nora's time? That's the same Eobard that helped the Earth-X Nazis last yer. The same Eobard that got wiped out in Legends two seasons ago. I need a chart. A big chart. I mean, great that Tom gets to be evil again, but I can't think too hard about this stuff.

The hundredth episode? Went a lot better than Arrow. "Okay, so this falls on 'Invasion!,' so we're gonna have the aliens drop the main gang -- along with Sara and Ray -- into the Matrix. The Dominators' Matrix. Dominatrix??" Clever idea to use the past to beat Cicada . . . for all of thirty seconds. And it didn't occur to anyone he had that much power over the bolt? On the plus side, one can dig deep for this joke: "Now there are three Barrys. But Barry is dead."

Man, Nora is sketchy. Also, she's a Legionnaire, which mean the Legion of Super Heroes exist in Earth-1. And now I want to Legends to meet and fight them. Also fun to see EoWells reference Dawn from the comics. No "Jenni," though.

How much of the particle accelerator footage was new? Was all of it recycled from past seasons? If so, I am impressed.

Barry needs to leave time travel for others. On the other hand, we could end up with a situation with a few dozen knocked-out Barrys sleeping it off in an alley. At this point, why not??

Edited by Lantern7
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1 hour ago, SimoneS said:

Also, I can only conclude that the actor who plays Thawne wasn't available which is why he has Wells' face in the future.

He's always been available and has said that he would love to reprise the role.  He's just never been asked, for some reason.

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50 minutes ago, Lady Calypso said:

It turns out Letscher was busy and couldn't film the end scene, so they allowed Cavanagh to take over the role. Which I don't mind, since I love Cavanagh's version of Eobard Thawne/Harrison Wells and will gladly welcome him to take on the role for the rest of the season. Listen; I've had to suffer through HR, a horribly retconned version of Harry and now Sherloque. Give me this!

 

5 minutes ago, legaleagle53 said:

He's always been available and has said that he would love to reprise the role.  He's just never been asked, for some reason.

Not true this time. See @Lady Calypso‘s post above. He wasn’t available.

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1 hour ago, bettername2come said:

When he called her "clever girl" like Thawne Wells did it was seriously suspicious.

And earlier this season, he went into Wellsobard voice when talking to her.  When he asked her if somebody else told her to make her presence known with the satellite, he says that of course she made the decision on her own, because "The temptation was too much, I'm sure", and right after temptation that sentence was in Wellsobard voice.

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6 minutes ago, shantown said:

Why didn’t Cisco breach the dagger to a different earth?

Because then I would have been yelling even louder at my screen "GO GET SUPERGIRL!"

1 hour ago, ottoDbusdriver said:

If you are going to time-travel back in time, how about going back 3 weeks and moving Orlin and his niece out of Central City on the night of the Star Labs satellite crash so Cicada is never formed and Gracie is never hurt.  That seems a lot simpler than this Rube Goldberg solution they came up with.

See, they could have done that in episode 99. But conveniently enough, they only discovered Cicada's identity during episode 100, the episode that required them to revisit four prior seasons of the show.

On a more serious note, I think Flash would have been better off using Team Legends "some things in time can't be changed, otherwise people transform into cats" explanation, and try to argue that moving Orlin and his niece would have been one of those things. Bonus: Ralph would have changed in to a cat and then not been in the rest of the episode. 

  • Love 5
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On tonight's episode of... The Flash:

Nora gets a brilliant idea for how to stop Cicada after watching Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure!!! 

As Sherloque would say, "Faire la fête, dudes!"

Edited by Cthulhudrew
  • Love 2
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1 hour ago, ottoDbusdriver said:

What's the deal with the Time Wraiths ?  Barry and Nora go back a couple of years for about 10 minutes and the time wraiths show up immediately, but Nora has been in the past for months with no sign of the Time Wraiths at all.

Time Wraiths travel by the Plot Force, of course!

  • Love 11
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2 hours ago, SimoneS said:

How freaking annoying. I cannot believe that Barry time traveled YET AGAIN! He will never learn. Honestly, I was rooting for the time wraith to get them both.

Of course, Nora is working with Thawne. She is as idiotic as her father.

Got to say Barry/Grant was looking particularly handsome tonight.

I hate "Harry's" horrible accent and I am not a fan of Barry's new suit. 

You summed up my feelings perfectly. 

I am so sick of Nora. The actress is fine, but I find the character so grating. I do also, find the whole storyline a mess as well. 

I was bored throughout the episode. I would have liked more of Team Flash. Some sort of flashback with Joe in it would have been nice and I would have liked to seen Wally.

  • Love 1
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Caitlin's "No!" was right up there with Vader's "No!" in "Revenge of the Sith" - just cringeworthy.

And zero lines of direct dialogue between Iris and Caitlin (group dialogue doesn't count). 

A very meh episode; not what  I was hoping to experience. 

Nora's naiveté is completely unbelievable now that we know she's been working with her dad's archenemy.  Knowing he was her dad's enemy should have been reason enough to leave him alone.

Edited by adora721
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The Flash Drinking Game:

Every time the heroes stand around staring stupidly and let the villain monologue: drink

Every time the heroes stand around stupidly while the villain rallies right before he knocks them all unconscious: drink twice

Every time the heroes stand around stupidly while the villain escapes: finish the bottle

EDIT: Oh, and- while the Zoom and wraiths and time clones (or whatever they're called) stuff never made a lick of sense- doesn't Zoom getting caught by a time wraith in the past screw up the timeline for season 2 and everything since?

Edited by Cthulhudrew
  • Love 5
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3 hours ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

Though I am confused why Thawne has Wells’ face.

Asked and answered above, I see, so all I have to add to this is:

Can we get a Thawne/Thawne (TC/ML) team up in the future? That would be supremely awesome.

3 hours ago, BeautifulFlower said:

Well, why did she go to a prison in the first place?

Probably because she wanted answers about her father that her mother and the Flash museum weren't providing, so she went to the only other source she knew of- his imprisoned archenemy. "Tell me, Nora. Have the lambs stopped screaming?"

  • Love 6
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