The Flash Season:01

Posted on by Bubbawheat

It’s been a nice long season, with just one episode more than several of the other superhero shows this year that had a mere 22 episodes. More than any other show, this felt like a show about comic book superheroes. It wasn’t overly dark, gritty, and realistic. Character names weren’t changed to be less silly. The television series from 25 years ago wasn’t erased from memory, it was raised on a pedestal. It felt like more of a Marvel television show than the Marvel television shows, but it still managed to have real relationships between real characters going through real problems that just also happened to involve superpowers. It has one of the most diverse casts alongside Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and it showed that it can play well with others, namely Arrow. Simply put, it was one of the best hours on television this season, the highest rated show on the CW ever, and one of my favorites.
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The Flash S:01 E:23

Posted on by Bubbawheat

Episode Title: Fast Enough
Original Airdate: 5-19-15

From the very first moment of the pilot episode of the Flash, we knew that it was going to lead up to this moment. The moment where Barry makes the decision to go back in time to save the life of his mother and change the entire world for better or for worse. But what’s almost more important than that is the lead up to that decision. It’s full of emotional moments with everyone important in Barry’s life in one way or another. And not everyone is giving him the same advice. Not only that, but what happened here in this episode will have a pretty big impact on where this show goes forward in season two.
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The Flash S:01 E:22

Posted on by Bubbawheat

Episode Title: Rogue Air
Original Airdate: 5-12-15

As the show teases its way towards the climactic encounter between Eobord Thawne and Barry Allen it takes one final moment to inject a little bit of chaos into the mix as Barry and the team have to figure out a way to transport the five meta-humans contained in their particle accelerator slash prison before it comes back online and kills them all. It brings a whole different level of conflict than we would usually see in these types of shows and brings together a couple friends for a pretty epic fight to bring things to a close.
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The Flash S:01 E:21

Posted on by Bubbawheat

Episode Title: Grodd Lives
Original Airdate: 5-5-15

It’s time for the a bit of a breather before next week ramps up to the season finale big superhero team up slash backdoor pilot for the officially-picked-up Legends of Tomorrow. Here we finally get a decent look at one of the most ridiculous sounding villains from the DC Universe: a massive gorilla with the ability to control people’s minds named Grodd. He also apparently knows martial arts, at least enough to casually deflect and redirect a supersonic punch. And there’s also a bit of the aftermath of Iris figuring out Barry’s secret and Eddie trying to get Eobord to start monologuing.
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The Flash S:01 E:20

Posted on by Bubbawheat

Episode Title: The Trap
Original Airdate: 4-28-15

We finally get our full villain reveal at the end of this episode to head into the last two episodes of the season along with plenty of other reveals for all sorts of cast members. This episode had a strong build up to the climax along with plenty of great character moments and humor along the way. This show just keeps getting better and better all the time and it’s one reason why Wednesday is my favorite day of the week for television (being a day behind to watch streaming). After proving time and time again that Iris is the worst reporter ever, she finally starts to make a little bit of headway towards not being completely oblivious to everything around her, and Dr. Wells finally gets to the chance to go full villain, and explain why he always seems to pop up at the right (or wrong) moments.
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The Flash S:01 E:18

Posted on by Bubbawheat

Episode Title: All Star Team Up
Original Airdate: 4-14-15

It’s been a little while since the last crossover, so it’s nice to see the return of Felicity Smoak and the introduction of Ray Parker also known as the Atom here in Central City. And as I haven’t been watching Arrow, I’ve brought in fellow writer here at Channel: Superhero Jeffrey Lyles, our Arrow correspondent to share his thoughts on the episode from Arrow’s perspective. But as for my own thoughts, there was a little bit of television trope tension involving keeping secrets and the tensions that creates between friends and lovers, and it never ends well. But other than that, there’s a lot of fun to be had throughout the episode which is one of the reasons why I love this show so much. There were a few rocky patches, but overall there was much more to enjoy than there was to criticize.
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The Flash S:01 E:12

Posted on by Bubbawheat

Episode Title: The Trickster
Original Airdate: 2-7-91

With the release of this week’s episode of the Flash featuring the return of Mark Hamill’s the Trickster, I thought it would be fun to take a look back at the episode that originated the role. I later thought it probably would have been just a bit more appropriate to look at his first “return” near the end of this series, but it was nice to take a quick look back at this episode, even though I had re-watched this series less than a year ago. I did quite enjoy this take on the Flash and I will likely revisit it once again episode-by-episode for this site, but for now enjoy my thoughts on a single episode.
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The Flash S:01 E:17

Posted on by Bubbawheat

Episode Title: Tricksters
Original Airdate: 3-31-15

It’s the return of Mark Hamill as the Trickster! There’s not really anything more important than that in this episode. Oh, besides some flashbacks of how Eobord Thawne takes on the role of Dr. Harrison Wells back after the death of Nora Allen 15 years ago. As well as another fairly important reveal near the end of the episode that will definitely change the course of the next few episodes. Not only that, but we get to see a little bit more from John Wesley Shipp as Henry Allen both inside, and outside of the jail cell. A very nice episode, and a welcome return of the Trickster.
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The Flash S:01 E:16

Posted on by Bubbawheat

Episode Title: Rogue Time
Original Airdate: 3-25-15

Continuing where last week’s episode left off, which was also pretty much the beginning of last week’s episode since Barry found himself repeating the same day once again, but the show doesn’t go the typical time loop route for very long. And while it does undo pretty much all of the major revelations of last week’s episode as most of us would have anticipated, it did undo them in ways that I didn’t entirely expect. It was a very surprising mixture of falling into expectations while also subverting them in some subtle ways. And while there are still some serious topics coming through the episode, it always finds time to lighten the mood whenever possible. Not quite as enjoyable as last week’s Out of Time, but still a great entry in the series nonetheless.
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The Flash S:01 E:14

Posted on by Bubbawheat

Episode Title: Fallout
Original Airdate: 2-17-15

Continuing where we left off last week, we get to see a bit more into what makes Firestorm tick, and he (they?) will become the first metahuman of the series that is not a villain and also survives through the end of the episode. We get some more of Iris playing reporter, and the return of Clancy Brown as General Eiling. And on top of that, we get some discussion of time travel as Joe reveals his discovery from Barry’s old house. And finally, as usual it ends on a nice reveal though I still don’t think it means what some people will think that it means.
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