It was a nice goodbye.
A somewhat weak action/conflict episode, with multiple super-bads (some of whom individually once stymied the team for most of a season) defeated far more quickly and easily than they ever were or should have been.
But at least it included a fairly nice goodbye; better than some.
Edit: Turns out there're other reasons for at least some of this last season's choppy abbreviated feel: https://ew.com/tv/the-flash-showrunner-reveals-everything-cut-from-final-season/ :disappointed:
Damn, but crazy ol' Bet Sykes has the craziest damn charmed life, must have the wiliest guardian angel on watch.
So far, I'm really liking pretty much all of the characters and the actors' renditions of those characters.
The story is... okay.
Daaamn. And after all the Eclipso-induced hell that Mr. Deisinger survived last season...
I think I especially liked...
"Who's Jack Bauer?" —Arlo Glass
[looks of dude? seriously?] —everyone else
Arlo don't know Jack. Yet.
Huh. So far (catching up on this some months after it ended), I'm having very mixed reactions here, not unlike with some of the other CW DC shows...
I like the characters, the actors' portrayals, etc. Even the arguably stiffer characters, like Dee and Zumbado, kinda make sense and seem consistent about it. The high school kids are all distinct without being too iconicly stereotypical and make for an interesting mix and some fun interactions.
The high-level story-line, what we can see of it so far, looks interesting and promising (if a little overly steeped in the all-aliens-have-powers thing).
OTOH, the execution details, low-level story writing and direction, are sometimes frustrating to watch. A lot of clumsy or sloppy story bits, like:
Not that any one of these are necessarily fatal-to-the-story carelessnesses, but the way they pile up like this (like no one cares about fleshing them out well) pushes the believability of the story itself too much and is getting a little frustrating.
I hope that this aspect improves over the rest of the series, and wonder if it (along with all the interestingness going on with CW and Discovery) is part of why this show didn't get a second season.
Does anyone else think that something is distinctly wrong with Sylvester? (Beyond his ridiculously reckless destructive behavior; like something's wrong with him causing this behavior.) I have to wonder if, when he "came back" in his coffin (as he explained in episode 3x01), he came back a little incomplete. (He's reminding me just a little of Harold Meachum from Iron Fist.)
I'm finding it interesting that Courtney, Nebraska's Conclusion-Jumping Champion of Seasons 1 and 2, is now the one [finally] practicing extreme caution about suspecting or condemning any one in particular.
Roe Saunders: "Is it that I look stupid?"
Carrie Wells: [holds that frozen smile]
I do enjoy these interestingly individual characters and their interactions.
This is kinda like a two-episode prelude a few months before Day Seven. Perhaps not entirely necessary to watch and understand Day Seven, but the bit of background is definitely helpful.
That, and any excuse to watch Jack save some people and fight off an evil strike team is good enough for me.
My name is Jack Bauer. For twenty months, I was stranded in a Chinese political prison with only one goal: survive. Now I will fulfill my President's pleading wish: to use every skill at my disposal and bring down those who are attacking my country. To do this, I must become someone else. I must become something else.
Strike Team Jack, always a winning hand.
I was kinda hoping for more Die Hard Jack in there, but still... daaamn.
Mmmm. Errr. Gaak.
Honestly, I really liked the basic idea of the primary story here: Eobard's second-chance return (perhaps earned for that end in Legends) sans most of his memories leaving little more than the Speed Force source designs to drive him but unaware of its "negative" aspect, etc., etc., etc. This storyline alone could easily have fueled a good solid movie. And that's my problem: it should have been a movie, or at least 2-3 episodes, to give it enough room to flesh out and breathe. Jamming it all into one episode this like required simplifying and shortcutting too much of it, leaving it feeling choppy and... well... shortcutted.
A good idea quickly rushed together half-baked yields an okayish result that could have been so much better.
The deadliest flashdance ever. (Daayam.)
And that hint of it's-going-to-be-okay smile emerging at the very end, as he finds the sorely missed taste of supportive family among the power of the dark side...
"Now, matters are worse." —Yoda
After listening to that last-minute phone call...
Frenchie, we may need even more of that Novichok nerve agent...
Daaamn. I was really growing to like Alex, too, but... sigh... The risks of trying to recruit from that volatile mix of assorted desperates into what they're trying to do... I can't even imagine.
Oh, poor Timothy... :-(
And Starlight's hidden fist-clench... damn.
Warning: Minor naming gripe.
Hell Storm? Really? I could see that as something flip that Frost might say, or maybe if Constantine was involved, but... uhhh...
Given the trail so far, from Firestorm to Deathstorm to... Icestorm?
This was another one of those episodes in which I did really like the high-level storyline, but was frustrated by the excessively sloppy/clumsy execution of so many of its pieces. (I get the feeling that Khwalah's probably right about it being at least partially a direction problem.) In any case... sigh. This could have been really good.
High-level story progression: 8/10.
Detailed execution: 5/10.
And why does Deathstorm (in his reveal-pose at the end) look a bit like a big flaming Dammit Doll? Hopefully, that'll improve, too.
Curious what they'll name him, or whether the producers/writers had even given him a name by the time this aired...
Captain Stormcloud? Gullystorm? Deathsmurf?
IAC, he looks a bit like one of those armored tanks had a baby with Mr. Freeze.
As fun all of this chaotic confluence was, in some ways, that first living room chat scene (and all its personality interplay) was among the best bits of the series so far.
There were some good moments in this one. Joe's what-are-you-really-worried-about speech to Barry. Some of Frost's succinctly Frost moments. The possibilities in that weird end-teaser moment (Deathstorm?). Even Tinya's brief reunion.
But so much of the rest was a mess. The pseudoscience-babble has gone off the rails. Did the writers bother to look up what cold fusion actually is? There's nothing cold about it. It's nuclear fusion (the stuff that happens inside a star) sustainable at something approaching room temperature (i.e., not requiring insanely high temperatures to sustain, only "cold" in comparison to where fusion usually occurs). And latent genes are just genes until something activates them; they won't generate power signatures while they're still latent. Maybe we're saying that we've deliberately activated Carla's frosty genes (will she personality-split, too?) and she's a meta now, but... they can do that? Why haven't people been doing that before?
I know it's a comic-book show, and stretching reality is part of the game, but when the writers stretch it so far that we can see the tears and gaps in what's left, it ain't working any more.
Sigh. This show can do better. We're seen it do better. But its frequent erratic swings between really good stuff and really sloppy WTFs has been giving me whiplash for a while now...
Jack Bauer is a scary MacGyver of emergency enhanced interrogation tactics.
Jack Bauer on a one-man rescue-raid mission is always a winning hand.
Oh, Ein, you data dog.
Heading into this finale did kinda have the feel of an oncoming classic tragedy. It did deliver.
Ed must be the happiest random-wacky generator ever.
Well, I suppose if Mr. Nobody was going to bolster his post-revenge-high mood-crash by getting stoned on blue Curaçao and then stumble-magic his drunken way into a doomed corner (on Danny Street in a psychoactive paintingspace with... them) and then, at his desolate lowest, get pep-talk coached into wresting back enough narrative control to guide everyone else out while forgetting to account for himself...
As I now think back over the many weirdly assorted elements of this episode, they do fit together into a chaotically odd but functional collage. And, think about it: if the seriously wacky-weird world that is Doom Patrol is going to escalate all the layers of wacky it's built thus far into an appropriately wacky and intense climax (too soon?), that does sound about right, doesn't it?
OTOH, as the credits were first rolling, I did have a minute or so of "what in Beebo's name did I just watch?!" going on there.
The improbability drive was working overtime with this one.
Overheard in the Doom Patrol writers room:
"If loose lips sink ships, what do loose butts do?"
"Let's find out."
