Source: CW.
Mordechai: My favorite Stargate SG-1 episode was the time-loop episode “Window of Opportunity“, so I set myself up to enjoy this. The bits with Barry remembering things before they happened were solid, but I was honestly tickled pink when Wells realized what happened right away. The time travel lecture was perfect. In fact, every time travel conversation between the two this episode is like a tifle – rich, layered, and delicious.
Corrina: I hated the lecture. Time will find a way to reassert itself? What kind of science is that? I wanted a real science lecture about how time is fluid and a fourth dimension and how that fluidity plays into what literally knits together the world, and maybe a time travel version of “for every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction,” which is sorta what happened except it was all “Look out, Barry, time’s waiting to get you back.”
That makes Time sound like a sentient being. No one knows exactly what time is, so i was ready to accept a comic book science explanation but instead, well, Time’s just like the bully you shouldn’t have messed with.
Source: CW.
I don’t need real science but what about something like “particles being tossed around, etc., forces others to rush in, and then…” But while you can guarantee a reaction, how do you know it’s negative? Why would it be negative, if you’ve caused damage to the timestream? It would be random, yes? Or it would create a new pattern, like spilling milk does.
But I know why they did this. It’s all leading toward “you can’t save your mom, Barry.”
Source: CW.
Mordechai: See, for me the great bit was that we knew every single one of Wells’s answers were self-serving; he didn’t care about Barry’s timeline, just his own. So everything he says is suspect. But Barry just eats it up.
And of course, Barry doesn’t listen and goes to chase after the bad guy, hoping to save Captain Singh’s life. Wells lectures Barry again about not messing with the timeline. Which seems odd, considering his own actions. Was Cisco always fated to die? Was Stagg?
Corrina: Maybe Wells’ timeline is broken, which is why he can’t get back. But, see, I don’t get why *Time* needs Cisco to die? Not very sporting of Time, is it? Now I’m picturing the Time Trapper, purple hooded robe and all, manipulating everything at the Dawn of Time just to screw with people’s heads.
Mordechai: Oh no, I mean Wells’s “don’t change anything” attitude is bunk, compared to his actions.
Back to the show, oh look, Captain Cold and Heatwave are in this episode. Because why not try to takeover a city that has a hero protecting it? Idiots. Oh, and Cold has a sister who they used to snare Cisco, and force him to make them new guns. How? By threatening his brother. Wow, does his brother ever have a punchable face.
What? Too soon?
Source: CW.
Corrina: If Cisco can whip up those weapons like that, why hasn’t he put on a costume yet? He’s the superhero junkie. What did that gold gun do? Use alchemy to convert something to real gold? Or is it gold glue that somehow sticks? Again, we didn’t get a comic book science explanation for it!
Mordechai: And why the heck do they need to rob anyone?!
Corrina: However, I always enjoy the Cisco parts and I liked the bits with him and his too-pretty brother.
Mordechai: I enjoyed watching Barry running in a Cosmic treadmill like setting. Nothing happens, of course, because it can’t be that simple.Then we see Joe show up and remind us that hey, this guy’s a detective, he picks up on clues and stuff.
Source: CW
Corrina: The overall problem with this episode is that what happened last week is far more interesting than anything that happened this week. Swapping out Spartacus for three villains with a lame plan didn’t work for me. Also, if Joe is a detective, why isn’t he looking for Cisco and his brother? Or why isn’t Barry investigating every place in Central City that might be their hideout? He can do that, and I’m sure he could search the whole city in less than an hour.
Mordechai: Because Barry is terrible at using his speed, basically.
Linda and Barry break up. I’m both glad to see this annoying story line go, and sad because it means we’ll see less of Linda, if not her vanish altogether. Malese Jow has brought a bit of relative emotional maturity to the show, and has solid chemistry with both Gustin and Patton. Hope we see her around.
Source: CW.
Corrina: If the women isn’t part of a romance plot, she’s not around anymore, right? So I have no hopes of seeing Linda again. But I’m glad to see her out of this horrible subplot.
Mordechai: Speaking of emotional maturity, Barry jumps right back on the creepy train by seriously strolling right over to Iris after being dumped and starts straight-up hitting on her. Sorry, I know she said she had feelings for him last episode, but the thing is – that hasn’t happened anymore. And even if it had, there’s still the small matter of Eddie.
Corrina: I’ll give Barry that one. He hasn’t time traveled before, and she did just kiss him, which he’s been creepily waiting his entire adult life for. So, I understand why he tried. On some level, I was so upset that they waved away the kiss and declaration of love because if they kept it, then we could move forward from this idiotic back and forth. I’m so done with that.
Mordechai: But this scene is a bit more important because last episode, when Barry talked to the reporter who was going to expose Wells, he knew Barry’s name. Now he doesn’t. Which makes me wonder: when Barry runs back in time and Cisco starts talking to him, why isn’t there a second Barry on the line? What if there is a second Barry running around, i?
Corrina: Because Time has to make things worse, remember the Time Trapper, purple robe and hood, evil cackling?
Back to Cisco being in peril. I’m still stuck on whatever the gold stuff was and how Cisco made it up on the fly. You’d think after being clocked by Pied Piper a few episodes ago that he’d have some sort of secret cool weapon up his sleeve to take on supervillains.
Source: CW.
Mordechai: And then we cut back to Barry being creepy as hell, with Candice Patton nailing the utterly creeped out reaction. The lady can act, people. Blame the writers for Iris.
Seriously, Iris right about “it’s not fair that you keep making me the bad guy who keeps telling you no.” That entire scene nails Barry’s treatment (and the show’s, to an extent) or Iris as an object he “deserves”. In fact, it does it so well that it may well be lampshading.
Source: CW.
Corrina: Whatever it is, I think we’re meant to feel bad for Barry but I feel bad for Eddie. What I’m supposed to feel about Iris, I don’t know, because she just exists as a toy for them to fight over. At least Joe’s advice was good.
Everyone on the show should listen to Joe. Wait, he’s the one last week who wouldn’t tell his daughter a crazed supervillain wanted to kill her. Nevermind.
Mordechai: Thankfully, Captain Cold attacks a casino, so we can move the episode away from the dragging relationship nonsense. Oh, and now Lisa has a gun that shoots gold. That’s going to do wonders for the economy. I guess she’s more Goldface (classic Green Lantern foe who was eventually shifted to The Flash comic) than she is The Golden Glider (her original, kinda sexist, comic book identity). Barry grabs them right away, but they threaten Cisco…which makes zero sense. Barry’s so fast that he could defeat them and still rescue Cisco in no time. He outran a lightning bolt last week, you guys! I guess he’s just not a fast thinker.
Corrina: Again, search Central City. Find Cisco and his brother. Free them. Grab the weapons. Total time elapsed: 30 minutes.
Mordechai: But hey, Eddie punches Barry!
Source: CW.
Corrina: Should I be rooting for Barry to get punched? I don’t think I’m supposed to be doing that.
Mordechai: Pft. CSI-boy has had that coming. You know what though? Joe coming to speak to Iris about it is another boundary thing. Pick up a phone, people.
But Wells and Cisco’s heartfelt chat in the same place he killed Cisco last week? Well done. Great acting there.
Corrina: Can this show be about Cisco? Ah, forget it. That would probably mean he’s be a main character and have stupid romantic subplots and forget the abilities that he has. Nevermind.
Mordechai: He’s already forgotten. FFS, they put him with tech. This is a man who built a time-viewer. He should be able to do something. But hey, we finally get a fight scene…sorta. STOP TALKING!
“I could speed you to my own private prison where you’ll never see the light of day.” – This. THIS is why you’re creepy, Barry. Also? Less talk, more doing. The new status quo of the show? Barry now has a deal with Cold to let him go free and commit crimes in exchange for his just not killing anyone. This is terrible.
Corrina: Isn’t Caitlin good with computers? If not, can’t Barry just give Felicity a call to root out Cold’s little internet time bomb? Because that’s a dumb threat to someone who can summon a superhacker in about 2 minutes. I know, Felicity is on Arrow. But, hey, they put them in the same universe.
Source: CW.
Mordechai: Caitlin meanwhile, shows her usefulness by meeting with Iris and Eddie and explaining that Barry has “lightning psychosis”, and that’s why he’s behaving so innapropriatly. Really? Still, it does solve one issue with the show – why does no one notice that Barry is at STAR labs constantly?
Corrina: Why does no one figure out Barry is the Flash, especially as he seems connected with STAR Labs? Wouldn’t someone at least suspect?
Source: CW.
Letting Heatwave and Cold and Gold Sister run around free is so stupid. I rolled my eyes. I guess we’re supposed to think Barry had no choice but surely since these guys are murderers, saving potential victim’s lives is more important than saving his secret ID?
Mordechai: It really comes down to Barry being crazy selfish. Cold and Heatwave are kinda nuts, and should not be trusted. It’s not like Joe and Iris aren’t already in danger, man.
Oh and hey, remember the reporter who was going to out Wells? Even though he never had a chance to tell anyone in this timeline about the drive, the Reverse-Flash knows…and now he has it.
Corrina: That reporter isn’t good at off-site back-up, is he? I mean, you could fry my computer memory all you want but if I had my notes in an encrypted file on a secure site that’s the high security equivalent of Dropbox, that wouldn’t destroy them, would it?
That I know more about how to make sure evil Reverse Flashes don’t destroy all evidence than the reporter on the show is…not good.
And what if he has paper files somewhere? But I guess he doesn’t.
Mordechai: Seriously. Get Google Drive, reporter dude.
But we end with Barry finally suspecting Wells of being sinister, and Cisco still alive, so there’s that.
Next week should be a treat, with Mark Hamill. Here’s hoping for a greater focus on the crime fighting than the star-crossed lovers.
You are forgetting part of the agreement between Cold and Barry. Cold is free to come back and TRY to steal things. Cold wants the chase, not the stuff. So the cat and mouse between Barry and the rogues is set up.
My shouting at the TV moment was when Cicso tried to tamper with Cold’s gun which Cold knows backwards and forwards. What I was waiting for was Cisco tampering with the gold gun. No one has ever seen that gun before or understand how it works so booby trap that one too! You let Snart find that you tampered with his gun and you think it’s all over but then you go and tamper with the new one. Then Cisco and his engineering could have been the hero and not Barry.
Living in Colorado Springs, ice skating central, I’m not so sure why you would call the admitted wacky Golden Gliders original gimmick sexist. She’s a figure skater with very sharp blades and a homocidal streak. Always made her one of my favorites.
I thought the entire episode was “Meh.” After last week’s fab conclusion, I really expected a lot more. The Barry / Snart exchange didn’t bother so much, just because in the comics they teeter back and forth between playfulness (Cold once had some ethics when it comes to killing) and all out war with each other. The “understanding” they come to doesn’t work here because Cold has already killed people, and no way would the Barry of the comics let that slide. But I do see where they may have gotten the idea that this little “arrangement” might work.
All that aside, “Creeper Barry” still doesn’t at all work for me, and man was he super creepy on Iris post-time travel. The time travel stuff doesn’t bother me so much either… I just suspend my disbelief and roll with it, but they did go out of their way to make it more stupid than it had to be. They could have saved precious minutes of story / air time by just leaving it alone.
I absolutely loathe the “deus ex machina” BS they toss out every week for their plots. It horribly shallow writing and cheap drama. Making a gold gun in somebody’s living room one afternoon was just flat lazy writing. Totally “opting out” of the Weather Wizard timeline was dumb too — and hey, if Barry can just run and imprison a guy about to destroy the city in 5 minutes or less, why the heck would he fail to find Cold and Company immediately after a casino heist?
So silly.
Keep it up, love reading each week.