The CW pulled out the big guns for The Flash’s second mid-season finale: Mark Hamill’s return as the Trickster, Captain Cold, and… Wally West? Yes. Wally Freaking Kid Flash West is in this episode, and he’s beautiful. I mean, it’s beautiful. Yeah. That’s what I meant. Anyways, happy holidays and speed onward to read onward!
It’s the return of Grodd! But we’re mainly dealing with the aftermath of Zoom. Not all of the destruction was physical; Barry’s spine has basically healed but the shame of losing has not yet scarred over. Well, hopefully he “gets back on his feet” soon because superhero legends need him! Let’s just think of Grodd as the big bad boss of this video game level.
I almost didn’t change the title “Gorilla Warfare,” the original was just too good.
Is it just me, or have the early episodes of both Arrow and Flash felt more like prologues for Legends of Tomorrow than independent, standalone series? Perhaps this is the one drawback of such a wide-ranging shared universe. It’s difficult to serve your own story when you must also plant seeds that will bloom in a completely separate show that will happen several months from now. Like I said in last week’s Arrow recap, “The Fury of Firestorm” felt more like a prequel to Legends of Tomorrow than a self-contained Flash story. Still, there were a lot of things to like from the episode that launches Firestorm 2.0.
Continue reading “NOC Recaps The Flash: We Didn’t Start the Firestorm”
I always look forward to an episode featuring Wentworth Miller as Leonard Snart aka Captain Cold. The Flash’s encounters with Cold always end up with the two of them in a romantic-ish telenovela scene — like a lover’s spat in a moonlit forest or one of them saving the other’s life before fleeing town. I mean, I know SnartBarry (or ColdFlash?) isn’t a real “ship”, but the dynamic between the superhandsome superhero and his superhandsome supervillain entertains me even more than WestAllen or Snowbarry. Yeah, I said it.
This official, non-dream season return of Captain Cold was no different; Family of Rogues was a real (frozen) treat. Their relationship is so complicated.
“I opened up our world to new threats, and I am the only one fast enough to stop them.” You sure about that, Barry?
Barry spends the episode denying the existence of another speedster due to some residual other-speedster trust issues, when he should really be wrapping his mind around the existence of another freaking Earth. It’s official: Earth-2 is a thing and pretty much everyone, except Barry, is running with it. C’mon Barry, it’s exciting! Like Cisco, the king Nerd of Color, we’re getting goosies!
Continue reading “NOC Recaps The Flash: Getting Goosies from Earth-Two(sies)”
I bet you didn’t think that our second season would include Barry Allen ditching Team Flash to become a mysterious midnight contractor, Cisco becoming a semi-cop, Harrison Wells making things right, and Iris West actively-in-the-know regarding all things concerning The Flash. Yes, that all happened… or did it? I don’t know who or what to trust anymore after the re-imagined reality that was the episode’s opener.
It’s like one minute you’re in a bear hug (Barry-hug?) with Grant Gustin… but then you pull back to realize you’ve been hugging the sharp bony angles of Ezra Miller instead. NO NO NO. NOT MY FLASH. HE IS NOT MY FLASH. #NotMyFlash
Continue reading “NOC Recaps The Flash: Rebuild It and They Will Come”
If last week’s “Rogue Air” is anything to go by, tonight’s episode will be a beautifully worked and satisfying finale leaving us with lots to look forward to in the second season. Before I recap the penultimate episode below, I want to bring attention to the title “Rogue Air.” This show (and Cisco) has made it clear that names are important, so why the partnering between the words “rogue” and “air?” Team-ups and partnerships were a major theme of the episode, and “rogue” obviously refers to Captain Cold’s teaming with The Flash, then his betrayal to form his own team of Rogues. But “air?” Could it be alluding to Ferris Air and a possible test-pilot Hal Jordan aka Green Lantern coming into Barry’s life? The presence of The Flash’s superfriends and Arrow’s changing-of-the-suit-color to make room for another guy who likes green leads me to believe YES YES HELL YES.
Alright, onto the recap.
Continue reading “NOC Recaps The Flash: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Enemies?”
“Grodd Lives” is like that old school video game level before the Big Boss that you may die a couple times trying to beat, so you just turn off the game and restart the battle until you are successful. Just add the drama of your best friend/love of your life learning your biggest secret and having that person watch you as you keep taking brutal hits.
Continue reading “NOC Recaps The Flash: This Sh*t is Bananas”
The episode is called “The Trap,” and refers not to the semi-idiotic plan by Team Flash to lure an anachronistic speedster villain into his own basement, but the counter-trap set up by the Reverse Flash to use their trap as the actual trap to trap them. I know. A lot happens.
Central City buzzed with excitement this week when Team Flash teams up with Team ATOM (Team ATOM consisting solely of Arrow‘s Felicity Smoak and Ray Palmer) to tackle CC’s new bee problem. The bees, however, aren’t the only stings felt by our favorite Central citizens: Barry hesitates whether or not to talk to Cisco and Caitlin about his Wells theories, Eddie and Iris are on the road to couples counseling, and Cisco is feeling some bad vibes concerning Dr. Wells. Are we sure that bees are the only bug problem? Surely, there have gotta be spiders, too, because everyone is tangled in a GOTDAMB WEB OF LIES.
Continue reading “NOC Recaps The Flash: Bee-ing Truthful or Why Lies Sting”
The Flash won’t be back until April 14, so I’m here to late-recap last week’s “Tricksters” episode and muse upon the recent spoiler-y sizzle reel revealed this past weekend at WonderCon!
While thinking about last week’s episode, I’m alternating listening to “Father Figure” by George Michael and “Tricky” by Run DMC. A lot of daddy issues in this one, but there are also a lot of fun inside jokes. So while you read this, keep in mind that during the serious moments I am singing, “I will be your father figure, put your tinyhandinmine” and during the fun Trickster moments, I’m rocking a rhyme that’s right on time.
Continue reading “NOC Recaps The Flash: May The Speed Force Be With You”
The ever-expanding DC Universe on The CW just got a little bigger. Relative newcomer Ciara Renee has been cast as Kendra Saunders, aka Hawkgirl, in the still-unnamed Flarrow spinoff that will also star Brandon Routh and Caity Lotz from Arrow and Victor Garber and Wentworth Miller from The Flash.
What’s unmistakable about this casting, though, is the fact that Hollywood producers have once again gone “ethnic” when casting a traditionally redheaded character from the comics. So I have to ask, has the pendulum swung too far? Is this too much of a good thing?
Continue reading “Orange is the New Black: Racebending Redheads”
The Flash has delivered so many thrills and twists, it’s hard to imagine what the showrunners have in store for the season finale. With so many surprises, it’s understandable that even the most astute viewer may have missed the hints of another superhero on the rise; a super heroine rather.
Barry and Joe aren’t the only crime-fighters in the West household. To date Iris West has played a key role in the defeat of Girder, the Clock King, and Peekaboo. Three prominent super villains in the DC Universe. Not to mention besting both Doctor Light and Killer Frost.
“Crazy For You” opens in an upside-down car with two “ohmygod”-ing teenagers strapped down (up?) and trapped while electrical wires zap around, signaling to us that they are in trouble. It’s very Smallville/CSI/Teen Horror Movie, but I accept it; The Flash has always had a trope-ier tone anyways. Our hero zips in just as a powerline ignites the car’s leaked gas and creates a LITERAL RING OF FIRE around the inverted vehicle. Shit goes down real fast, but our man in red is even faster. The car bursts into flames like Ronnie Raymond, but Barry has already rescued the remaining victim. And the Central City Fire Department is all, “Okay we can take it from here, I think.”
But the two car crash victims embrace and turn to Barry. “Thank you… Flash.”
I’m not gonna lie: I was excited and a little bit warmed-in-the-heart-place when I saw that Barry Allen, aka The Flash, was in love with Iris West, his best friend, on The CW’s new hit superhero series, The Flash.
Because hey, how many times — in life, art, or entertainment — do we see a young White dude who’s honestly, deeply into a fly, well-rounded, educated Black girl? And not just as a sexual conquest or to “explore,” but as an actual love interest? Not often, that’s for sure.
I think I’ve figured out why I love The Flash so much. It goes along with something Christelle mentioned in her recap of Episode 6 last week; namely, that the show is very reminiscent of another CW superhero show. Not Arrow, but Smallville. And last night’s episode, “Power Outage,” was no different. While it took 12 episodes before the Smallville writers stripped Clark of his powers1, The Flash needed only seven before having Barry figure out how to be heroic without being super.
Let me start off by saying that The Flash intro is getting too long. We’ve got a minute of “My name is Barry Allen…” PLUS a “Last time on…” I know other shows do this occasionally, Arrow too, but I feel like Arrow’s intro has been streamlined at this point. It certainly feels shorter. So hopefully this — as well as the voice over — becomes less frequent. It’s a bit overdone this TV season, and its sister show, Arrow, nixed it by episode 6 of their first season. It’s also not there every episode (it was notably absent last episode), so either stick with it, or drop it. It’ll probably decrease when the plots of each episode get more complex and they need to shave the intros for time.
Continue reading “NOC Recaps The Flash: Explosive Friendships”
Yesterday, I went on a bit of a rant about how DC was getting trumped by Marvel on the big screen. The opposite is true on the small screen. Sorry, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., but there’s only one comic-based superhero show to watch on Tuesdays: The Flash on The CW. After one of the best pilots of the season, how was Team Flash going to follow through on episode two?
Well, by fully embracing its superhero-ness, for one. Grant Gustin’s opening narration even poked fun at similar type internal monologues — *cough*Arrow*cough* — before diving right into the action. And this week’s cold open was literally on fire as we saw Barry saving folks from a burning building.
Continue reading “NOC Recaps The Flash: Better than the Multiplex”
One of the most anticipated new shows of the fall finally premiered last night, and it did not disappoint. The Flash has been on the NOC radar ever since Grant Gustin did a multi-episode arc last season on Arrow. More than that, I’ve been super psyched for this show and thought some of the initial casting choices potentially made The Flash the most diverse live action superhero adaptation in history.
Well, after having watched the pilot, I can safely say that The Flash works for all of the reasons that I think Gotham doesn’t. Namely, these writers get it. The Flash not only revels in the joy of being a superhero, it respects the source material in a way usually unseen in DC’s approach to live action.
Continue reading “NOC Recaps The Flash: Proof that Superheroes Can Still Be Fun”
At the beginning of the recently concluded television season, the creators of Arrow announced they were going to produce a spin-off based on Barry Allen, aka The Flash. Last month on Hard N.O.C. Life, we had the privilege to pick the brain of Andy Poon, the concept illustrator behind the costumes on Arrow and Smallville, and we had an intriguing discussion about Barry Allen. Most of us here at the NOC have been watching Arrow, and I voiced my enthusiasm about the episode (“The Scientist”) in which Barry — as played by Glee’s Grant Gustin — first appears.
As always we were skeptical, but knowing that the creators of Arrow were involved, I had hope. It also helped that the producers seemed to be filling out the cast with plenty of people of color. Then images of The Flash’s costume were leaked, and I seriously began to have doubts.
Continue reading “We’re Ready to Ride the Lightning with The Flash“
Over the last month or so, the supporting cast for The CW’s upcoming Arrow spin-off The Flash has been fleshed out, and we’re starting to get a clearer picture of what the show will look like. In addition to the casting announcement for the series’ villains (Professor Zoom and Killer Frost, respectively), it looks like series regulars will include Barry’s love interest, her police detective father, and a mechanical engineer named Cisco. But while the inclusion of such characters isn’t really all that groundbreaking, who they’ve cast in these roles definitely is. Also, “Cisco” refers to Cisco Ramon, a.k.a. Vibe. That’s right, y’all, Flash isn’t going to be the only DC hero on the show. We’re actually getting a live action Vibe, too.
Continue reading “The Flash Might be the Most Diverse Superhero Show on TV”
