Up until this week, The Flash had been pulling along a pretty strong story with the Flash up against the evil Zoom. Zoom had everyone in a corner and no one could touch him. Literally. Zoom just killed Barry's natural father, threatened the rest of Barry's family and held all the cards.
But then it seems or feels like the writers boxed themselves in a corner, having made too strong of a nemesis for Flash that Barry nor any of his normal human crew could tackle.
SPOILERS FOR THE Season Finale of The Flash are hurtling at you....
So what did they do?
First they killed off Barry's father, played by John Wesley Shipp. But it turns out that despite killing off the character, Zoom's hostage in the iron mask turns out to be the "real" Jay, from Earth 3, who is played by Shipp.
Can we never kill anyone off in these shows? It's getting redundant. Plus, when Shipp shows up in his Earth 3's Flash costume, he looked like he had a huge rod shoved up his (whoop!) and looked super stiff and uncomfortable. What the hell was up with that?
OK, so maybe we can get by with this almost unexpected turn of events. At least Shipp, who played Flash in the 90s TV show, gets to put the suit back on. And it was awesome they let him be in the show. Awesome homage.
-
Then there's Zoom's surprisingly ridiculous race of Zoom's design.
Zoom says you beat me, you win, I quit. I beat you, all of the alternate Earths will be destroyed. And Barry agrees.
Seriously? Zoom will keep his word and quit? I call bull! He'd never give in! Not when he can and has repeatedly beaten the Flash over and over.
But first, Barry runs back in or through time to grab one of his other selfs or time remmant and this other self willingly sacrifices his life to help beat Zoom. Then the speed force demons come and snag Zoom, for his atrocities of travelling back and forth in time or something like that.
Not sure which or what or who because it was explained off pretty damn fast, in a sentence or two why this Barry killed himself to help beat Zoom.
-
But wait, there's more.
After Flash defeats Zoom and they get the mask off Zoom's captive, that freaks out Barry because his dad's doppelganger from an alternate Earth looks exactly . That's totally understandable.
But whether it drives him to make his next choice, well, doesn't seem right. In fact there wasn't much more I can derive from the season that would have me see this next act coming.
Sure, Barry's been not able to let go of a lot of things, which is the driving force behind his angst.
But as the season winds down, one of his final acts that he performs is to run back through time and save his mother from being killed. In the process I am not sure if he beats down or kills the reverse Flash, but none-the-less, this last act of the season just came out of nowhere.
Barry knows what tampering with the timeline can mean. The last time he tried saving his mom it ripped a hole in the fabric of the universe. And yet he just did the biggest timeline tampering EVER!
But as he saves his mother, he sees his other self from last season watch him, smile, but then ominously fade away. As if THAT BARRY NEVER EXISTED.
WTF? (On many levels)
-
In subsequent interviews since the finale, Grant Gustin has said that his actions in the finale will make his present timeline more vulnerable.
NO SH*~!
In fact, with his saving his mother, my suspicion is that this will completely destroy the life he knew.
If his mother isn't killed, then his father probably is not going off to jail. Which means that Barry won't be raised by Joe (Jesse L. Martin) and that could conceivably mean that Iris and Barry do not develop the relationship they have. Or if Barry's actions are as far reaching as I think they are, then we may find Iris still with her other beau, who did get killed off, but now, who knows?
Or will they go so far as to have him wake up in his present, without his powers? A lot can happen, depending on what the creative forces have in mind.
And what about other shows the Flash was involved in?
Is this going in the direction of an old story plot called Flashpoint?
In that story-arc, the world changed to such a degree that Batman was a near insane Thomas Wayne, that Superman and Wonder Woman were at war with each other, and other crap. All because his mother was alive. (Remember The Butterfly Effect? SEE BELOW)
Either way, if you weren't in love with the show, these are three "jump the shark" moments that will probably lose fans who have been on the bubble about it, because these events could be construed as trite moments in writing that had no real surprise aspects, but rather, easy ways out.
Which is a shame. The world of The Flash had developed a very complicated and complex world with The Flash. But now...
Or, if you liked the show and know about Flashpoint, this could get exciting. Right?
-
You do realize that with how the writers were stuck in a corner with this season, they may now have a clean slate to start over, so to speak. Everything could and probably should be different.
But then there's the question of what this new wrinkle does to all of the CW's shows. When does Barry meet Oliver (Green Arrow)? Is Supergirl still in another dimension or does this pull her story back into Barry's world? Or how about some specific events within Legends of Tomorrow?
I mean, in one press event, the CW alluded to a promise that their traditional crossover event in December will be "the most epic DC heroes crossover event ever."
Is this new wrinkle going there?
-
Either way, I looked forward to this finale and came away disappointed with what looks like the writers having taken the easy out. But if it was a set up to start the story of Flashpoint, then what they've done is refreshed the slate and have some new story elements to introduce, making the show "new" again.
----------
The Butterfly Effect
In the 1952 short story, A Sound of Thunder, by Ray Bradbury, time traveling tourists go back in time to see dinosaurs, and one of them steps on a butterfly. When they return home, everything has changed because of that deed.
{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Sound_of_Thunder}
Or have you ever changed one word in a Google search to see different results? Same thing! Kind of.
In real life, "In 1961, Lorenz was running a numerical computer model to redo a weather prediction from the middle of the previous run as a shortcut. He entered the initial condition 0.506 from the printout instead of entering the full precision 0.506127 value. The result was a completely different weather scenario."
{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect})
-------------
But then it seems or feels like the writers boxed themselves in a corner, having made too strong of a nemesis for Flash that Barry nor any of his normal human crew could tackle.
SPOILERS FOR THE Season Finale of The Flash are hurtling at you....
So what did they do?
First they killed off Barry's father, played by John Wesley Shipp. But it turns out that despite killing off the character, Zoom's hostage in the iron mask turns out to be the "real" Jay, from Earth 3, who is played by Shipp.
Can we never kill anyone off in these shows? It's getting redundant. Plus, when Shipp shows up in his Earth 3's Flash costume, he looked like he had a huge rod shoved up his (whoop!) and looked super stiff and uncomfortable. What the hell was up with that?
OK, so maybe we can get by with this almost unexpected turn of events. At least Shipp, who played Flash in the 90s TV show, gets to put the suit back on. And it was awesome they let him be in the show. Awesome homage.
-
Then there's Zoom's surprisingly ridiculous race of Zoom's design.
Zoom says you beat me, you win, I quit. I beat you, all of the alternate Earths will be destroyed. And Barry agrees.
Seriously? Zoom will keep his word and quit? I call bull! He'd never give in! Not when he can and has repeatedly beaten the Flash over and over.
But first, Barry runs back in or through time to grab one of his other selfs or time remmant and this other self willingly sacrifices his life to help beat Zoom. Then the speed force demons come and snag Zoom, for his atrocities of travelling back and forth in time or something like that.
Not sure which or what or who because it was explained off pretty damn fast, in a sentence or two why this Barry killed himself to help beat Zoom.
-
But wait, there's more.
After Flash defeats Zoom and they get the mask off Zoom's captive, that freaks out Barry because his dad's doppelganger from an alternate Earth looks exactly . That's totally understandable.
But whether it drives him to make his next choice, well, doesn't seem right. In fact there wasn't much more I can derive from the season that would have me see this next act coming.
Sure, Barry's been not able to let go of a lot of things, which is the driving force behind his angst.
But as the season winds down, one of his final acts that he performs is to run back through time and save his mother from being killed. In the process I am not sure if he beats down or kills the reverse Flash, but none-the-less, this last act of the season just came out of nowhere.
Barry knows what tampering with the timeline can mean. The last time he tried saving his mom it ripped a hole in the fabric of the universe. And yet he just did the biggest timeline tampering EVER!
But as he saves his mother, he sees his other self from last season watch him, smile, but then ominously fade away. As if THAT BARRY NEVER EXISTED.
WTF? (On many levels)
-
In subsequent interviews since the finale, Grant Gustin has said that his actions in the finale will make his present timeline more vulnerable.
NO SH*~!
In fact, with his saving his mother, my suspicion is that this will completely destroy the life he knew.
If his mother isn't killed, then his father probably is not going off to jail. Which means that Barry won't be raised by Joe (Jesse L. Martin) and that could conceivably mean that Iris and Barry do not develop the relationship they have. Or if Barry's actions are as far reaching as I think they are, then we may find Iris still with her other beau, who did get killed off, but now, who knows?
Or will they go so far as to have him wake up in his present, without his powers? A lot can happen, depending on what the creative forces have in mind.
And what about other shows the Flash was involved in?
Is this going in the direction of an old story plot called Flashpoint?
In that story-arc, the world changed to such a degree that Batman was a near insane Thomas Wayne, that Superman and Wonder Woman were at war with each other, and other crap. All because his mother was alive. (Remember The Butterfly Effect? SEE BELOW)
Either way, if you weren't in love with the show, these are three "jump the shark" moments that will probably lose fans who have been on the bubble about it, because these events could be construed as trite moments in writing that had no real surprise aspects, but rather, easy ways out.
Which is a shame. The world of The Flash had developed a very complicated and complex world with The Flash. But now...
Or, if you liked the show and know about Flashpoint, this could get exciting. Right?
-
You do realize that with how the writers were stuck in a corner with this season, they may now have a clean slate to start over, so to speak. Everything could and probably should be different.
But then there's the question of what this new wrinkle does to all of the CW's shows. When does Barry meet Oliver (Green Arrow)? Is Supergirl still in another dimension or does this pull her story back into Barry's world? Or how about some specific events within Legends of Tomorrow?
I mean, in one press event, the CW alluded to a promise that their traditional crossover event in December will be "the most epic DC heroes crossover event ever."
Is this new wrinkle going there?
-
Either way, I looked forward to this finale and came away disappointed with what looks like the writers having taken the easy out. But if it was a set up to start the story of Flashpoint, then what they've done is refreshed the slate and have some new story elements to introduce, making the show "new" again.
----------
The Butterfly Effect
In the 1952 short story, A Sound of Thunder, by Ray Bradbury, time traveling tourists go back in time to see dinosaurs, and one of them steps on a butterfly. When they return home, everything has changed because of that deed.
{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Sound_of_Thunder}
Or have you ever changed one word in a Google search to see different results? Same thing! Kind of.
In real life, "In 1961, Lorenz was running a numerical computer model to redo a weather prediction from the middle of the previous run as a shortcut. He entered the initial condition 0.506 from the printout instead of entering the full precision 0.506127 value. The result was a completely different weather scenario."
{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect})
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