The Flash (TV Series, Season 2)
Jan. 3rd, 2017 04:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroThe alternate title to this season (if not this show in general) is "The Poor Life Choices of Barry Allen". Because boy oh boy, he does impressively dumb things for a smart guy who can think at super-speed.
SPOILERS in my commentary.
They spend an amusing amount of time in the front half of the season introducing characters who then went on to star in Legends of Tomorrow (and whose reveals were totally spoiled by watching that first). They also just generally assume you’re watching the other shows—the fact that Laurel Lance died on Arrow is just tossed off as an aside, and there are a number of plot holes (“Where the hell are Firestorm, the Atom et al when Zoom is tearing apart Earth-1?”) that are only answered if you watch the other shows.
The introduction of Earth-2 Harrison Wells, as a completely different kind of jerk from Earth-1 Eobard-Thawne-as-Wells, was a clever move that keeps a popular actor and character type on the show even after his arc has ended.
While Jethrien was pretty sure that Jay was Zoom from fairly early on (she never liked Jay, thought Caitlin deserved much better, and was happy to see him get killed off), I’m taking credit for figuring out, an episode before Zoom took his mask off and well before the final reveal of the man in the iron mask, that “they’re all Jay!”
Wally’s introduction in this season is less about turning him into Kid Flash (though they had a couple of subtle foreshadows that he’s a metahuman and then he gets hit with dark matter) and more about giving Iris and Joe more to do. (Besides stand around the STAR Labs crew and ask, “So, what does that mean?”)
I suspected in the episode with Trajectory that a) She didn’t disintegrate, but either time- or dimension-hopped; b) Jessie’s exposure to V9 would eventually give her speed powers. Jessie was also eventually hit by dark matter, so if she doesn’t end up with powers then WTF, but I suppose we’ll see.
I loved the inclusion of Johnny Quick’s classic speed formula. For that matter, the wink-and-nods towards the various Justice Society characters and Earth-2 were cute. And I loved Henry Allen flirting with Tina McGee (as the nod to the actors previous playing Barry and Tina on the earlier Flash tv show).
Barry’s dunderheadedness really comes to a head when he gives his powers to Zoom—I mean, it was dumb that they didn’t shoot Zoom when Killer Frost had him frozen, or that Barry stood around gloating and chatting while Zoom recovered from their battle; but it was a new record in stupidity to give away Barry’s powers, especially when it would have been so, so, SO easy to fake draining Barry’s speed and give Zoom a syringe full of cyanide. (Or horse tranquilizers, or anti-speed-nanobots, or literally anything else.)
I think that when the supporting cast has to lock up the hero to keep him from being stupid, and this seems like an entirely rational move, your hero has lost some of his heroic qualities. I mean, this show runs on “Evil will always win because good is dumb,” and there’s no easier example of that than to compare Thawne/Wells from season 1 (who succeeds at virtually everything he plots) and Earth-2 Wells in season 2 (whose batting average is somewhere around 200 at best). But also, the number of times when Zoom is standing still and distracted and either Wells or Joe has a gun but does nothing is staggering. I can understand Barry not wanting to kill anyone, and that the science squad isn’t really psychologically prepared to do so, but Wells kills several metahumans over the course of the season and Joe has been shooting criminals since the very first episode.
Oh, and the multiverse-destroying laser that Mercury Labs built? As Jethrien put it, “Why did she even build this? Why do we even have that lever?”
Overall: The fact that several major plot points in this season require Barry (and sometimes everyone else) to be an absolute chowderhead is maddening, but it’s still totally a fun show. I look forward to season 3, in which Barry Allen makes more terrible decisions and possibly breaks reality in doing so.
SPOILERS in my commentary.
They spend an amusing amount of time in the front half of the season introducing characters who then went on to star in Legends of Tomorrow (and whose reveals were totally spoiled by watching that first). They also just generally assume you’re watching the other shows—the fact that Laurel Lance died on Arrow is just tossed off as an aside, and there are a number of plot holes (“Where the hell are Firestorm, the Atom et al when Zoom is tearing apart Earth-1?”) that are only answered if you watch the other shows.
The introduction of Earth-2 Harrison Wells, as a completely different kind of jerk from Earth-1 Eobard-Thawne-as-Wells, was a clever move that keeps a popular actor and character type on the show even after his arc has ended.
While Jethrien was pretty sure that Jay was Zoom from fairly early on (she never liked Jay, thought Caitlin deserved much better, and was happy to see him get killed off), I’m taking credit for figuring out, an episode before Zoom took his mask off and well before the final reveal of the man in the iron mask, that “they’re all Jay!”
Wally’s introduction in this season is less about turning him into Kid Flash (though they had a couple of subtle foreshadows that he’s a metahuman and then he gets hit with dark matter) and more about giving Iris and Joe more to do. (Besides stand around the STAR Labs crew and ask, “So, what does that mean?”)
I suspected in the episode with Trajectory that a) She didn’t disintegrate, but either time- or dimension-hopped; b) Jessie’s exposure to V9 would eventually give her speed powers. Jessie was also eventually hit by dark matter, so if she doesn’t end up with powers then WTF, but I suppose we’ll see.
I loved the inclusion of Johnny Quick’s classic speed formula. For that matter, the wink-and-nods towards the various Justice Society characters and Earth-2 were cute. And I loved Henry Allen flirting with Tina McGee (as the nod to the actors previous playing Barry and Tina on the earlier Flash tv show).
Barry’s dunderheadedness really comes to a head when he gives his powers to Zoom—I mean, it was dumb that they didn’t shoot Zoom when Killer Frost had him frozen, or that Barry stood around gloating and chatting while Zoom recovered from their battle; but it was a new record in stupidity to give away Barry’s powers, especially when it would have been so, so, SO easy to fake draining Barry’s speed and give Zoom a syringe full of cyanide. (Or horse tranquilizers, or anti-speed-nanobots, or literally anything else.)
I think that when the supporting cast has to lock up the hero to keep him from being stupid, and this seems like an entirely rational move, your hero has lost some of his heroic qualities. I mean, this show runs on “Evil will always win because good is dumb,” and there’s no easier example of that than to compare Thawne/Wells from season 1 (who succeeds at virtually everything he plots) and Earth-2 Wells in season 2 (whose batting average is somewhere around 200 at best). But also, the number of times when Zoom is standing still and distracted and either Wells or Joe has a gun but does nothing is staggering. I can understand Barry not wanting to kill anyone, and that the science squad isn’t really psychologically prepared to do so, but Wells kills several metahumans over the course of the season and Joe has been shooting criminals since the very first episode.
Oh, and the multiverse-destroying laser that Mercury Labs built? As Jethrien put it, “Why did she even build this? Why do we even have that lever?”
Overall: The fact that several major plot points in this season require Barry (and sometimes everyone else) to be an absolute chowderhead is maddening, but it’s still totally a fun show. I look forward to season 3, in which Barry Allen makes more terrible decisions and possibly breaks reality in doing so.
