Danielle Panabaker Discusses Directing ‘The Flash’

On tonight’s new episode of The Flash, Danielle Panabaker will play triple duty as Dr. Caitlin Snow, Killer Frost, and as director of the episode. This will be Panabaker’s third time in the director’s chair after making her directorial debut in season five. I got a chance to speak with the actress/director recently about getting back behind the camera post-COVID and what it’s like to be the last remaining member of the original S.T.A.R. Labs team.

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NOC Recaps The Flash: Powerless and Pouty

My name is Barry Allen, and I am the saddest man alive. The title of the episode is “Back to Normal,” but this is not the normal Barry Allen that we met on Arrow years ago. He hates buses and putting on clothes and when his coffee cup breaks, he looks like he’s going to burst into tears.

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NOC Recaps The Flash: Escape Velocity

Team Flash is dealing with their Post-Traumatic Zoom Disorder in a healthy way. Motivated by avenging Jay’s death and defeating Zoom, they take a team field trip to a cliffside-waterfall–river-canyon to test out Barry’s ability to run at escape velocity. It’s a lot like the first “test runs” with the Core Four pre-supersuit, but there’s a level of familiarity and kinship that can only happen after dealing with all of the bullshit that Barry, Cisco, Caitlin, and Wells, have been through together.

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NOC Recaps The Flash: (King) Shark Attack

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to Earth-1… King Shark returns. Also, I learned that there’s no such thing as a “filler episode” for The Flash. I’ll admit that I was wrong and incorrectly assumed that bringing back King Shark after the heavy Earth-2 plotline was a gimmick, but this episode (aka Jaws 2) really sunk its teeth into developing character growth of the members of Team Flash.

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NOC Recaps The Flash: Earth-2, Frozen Boogaloo

All the Barry Allens. All the Iris Wests. All the Caitlin Snows. All the Jay Garricks?

I’d laugh that Zoom is doing the CW voiceover for this episode if he weren’t, um you know, scary as hell. Zoom takes Banksy-ing a city to a whole other level:

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NOC Recaps The Flash: From Whole Speed Force to 2%

ConStar here standing in for Christelle, but neither of us are running fast enough…! WHO STOLE OUR SPEED?

I realize I’m getting my milk/speed force analogies mixed up for the 2% pun, but let me live. I only just learned that whole milk is only 3.5% milk anyway.

Episode 2×12 of The Flash, “Fast Lane,” features two characters slowing down: Barry and Wally. Both of their speed problems converge upon Iris, is this a sign of things to come for poor Iris West? There’s a monster of the week, but it’s not all that interesting, so we’ll be zipping by mentions of it.

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NOC Recaps The Flash: Origin Story in Reverse

Like the return of Harrison Wells earlier in the season, the latest episode of The Flash found an interesting way bring back last season’s main baddie: The Reverse Flash! Unlike Wells-2, this isn’t an alternative universe version of Eobard Thawne. Instead, the Thawne we meet in “The Reverse Flash Returns” is actually one from a timeline different from last season’s Reverse-Wells. Yeah, it’s kind of confusing.

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NOC Recaps The Flash: DTR (Define-The-Relationship)

“Potential Energy,” the title of 2016’s first episode, is pure nerd genius. This episode explores the coulda-shoulda- woulda potential of fresh relationships between our favorite characters and some of the show’s newcomers: Barry + Patty Spivot, Joe + Wally West, and Caitlin + Jay Garrick. By the shock-factor end tag (don’t miss it!), one pairing aggressively commits to eachother, one pairing takes the first tentative steps towards building a stronger connection, and one pairing dissolves in a pile of angst. Keep reading to figure out the fate of each duo.

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NOC Recaps The Flash: The Rogues Awaken

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!

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NOC Recaps The Flash: It’s Getting Hawk in Here

Other title options: Ready to Hawk and Roll, Hawked and Loaded, Hawk of Ages, We Will Hawk You, Too Hawk Hawk Damn, and Drop It like It’s Hawk1.

Before we begin… does Hawkgirl “claim” to be white? Uh oh, this is hawkward… but it wouldn’t be too surprising. (See Sandra Hawke, Sin, and Ra’s Al Ghul). I personally went through Kendra Saunders’ twitter history to read her tweets and reactions and responses to identifying as white. I urge others to do the same and form an opinion after seeing both sides.

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NOC Recaps The Flash: Grodd + PTZD

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.

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NOC Recaps The Flash: Desperate Measures

The Flash has reached near terminal velocity in my eyes with this episode featuring The Flash family at it’s craziest and the welcoming of Linda Park to the team. We all knew Linda had to get into the Secret Speedster Society at some point, considering she is the future Mrs. Wally West, but I did not expect it to be so freaking fun.

Linda Park is… a ball of light.

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NOC Recaps The Flash: When Harry Met Barry

Welcome to the reboot of Harrison Wells! The general consensus is that we (the audience and Team Flash “we”) are predisposed to dislike anyone with Harrison Wells’ handsome face. I mean, each character has their reasons for not trusting the man, and most of them involve some sort of — ahem–  murder-y business.. I mean, a guy shouldn’t be blamed for an alternate timeline which he was body snatched by an evil, time-traveling speedster, right? So, on paper, everyone should technically be like, “Hey, that wasn’t him. It was just his face! …His good looking, striking face. Let’s give him a chance to be a nice guy.”

But humans (specifically nerds) are fickle, stubborn creatures.

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NOC Recaps The Flash: We Didn’t Start the Firestorm

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.

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NOC Recaps The Flash: Daddy Coldest

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.

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NOC Recaps The Flash: It’s a Trap!

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.

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NOC Recaps The Flash: Everyman? More Like Everyship

Pizza party!  Reason why I love Barry Allen #427: He uses his powers for good… like running to Coast City to get the best pizza pies on the west coast. In my head, he bumped into a young test-pilot Hal Jordan. Maybe they exchanged a few friendly words, unaware of what kind of best friendship they’d eventually form. I wonder what they ordered on their pizzas? I wonder if they have similar pizza topping tastes, so that they’d probably even split a pie every once in a while. Wait, no. Barry needs all of the food for his metabolism. Maybe Hal shakes his head at Barry’s appetite beca — sorry, I lost focus. Pizza party.

So far, everyone in Central City who knows Barry’s secret who isn’t a body snatching, anachronistic speedster  was invited to the West house to discuss Harrison Wells/Reverse Flash. The game plan is this: Joe and Cisco investigate the night of the Tess Morgan’s death in Starling City, Eddie covers for Joe at the precinct, Caitlin covers for Cisco at the lab, and Barry must refrain from punching Wells in the face.

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NOC Recaps The Flash: Bee-ing Truthful or Why Lies Sting

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.

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NOC Recaps The Flash: May The Speed Force Be With You

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.

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NOC Recaps The Flash: Sibling Roguery

Barry runs so fast that he literally runs through time and back “a day and some change,” specifically into the beginning of last week’s episode. To recap, he’s ran into a time before [SPOILER ALERT] Weather Wizard 2.0 kidnapped Joe in revenge, before Captain Singh was hospitalized/paralyzed, before the WestAllen kiss, before a tsunami threatened Central City, and before Wells vibrated his fist through Cisco’s chest.

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NOC Recaps The Flash: The Wizard Returns

This recap of The Flash is going to be a little different because 1.) too many things happened that I’m not sure actually happened because I may have been buzzed from green St. Patrick’s Day beer and 2.) I’m much more interested in the events that reference the established history within the show and how those things might be undone in the future. You know, because — SPOILER ALERT — Barry Allen freaking ran into the past. He ran right through time, y’all. Continue reading “NOC Recaps The Flash: The Wizard Returns”

NOC Recaps The Flash:  Selfies, Secrets, and Sonic Waves

Just like last week’s Arrow, we start off with a motorcycle chase. Barry zooms around after three motorcycles and, with the help of Dr. Wells, corners them without their keys. Our thematic monologue of the week has to do with heroes. “Everyone has a hero. What’s hard is when our heroes stop believing in us.” There are two layers to this opener and it all has to do with Harrison Wells and his two different layers.

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NOC Recaps The Flash: Zoom Zoom Zoom

The Flash’s mid-season finale has left our minds racing. My thoughts are running around and colliding all over the place like a thousand different speedsters from different centuries battling it out in a football stadium.

The episode opens up BOOM! with Zoom… or “Reverse Flash” as the people in this Flashverse (eventually) call him. This mid-season finale is named “The Man in the Yellow Suit” because we finally get cracking on the storyline they’ve set up from the beginning. The promos leading up to this episode have centered around Barry’s fear and obsession around the man who he believes murdered his mother, Nora. Accurately, we follow Barry this episode as he learns that The Man in Yellow in the Lightning is once again in Central City which, of course, brings up a lot of issues for our superhero.

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