The Flash season 3
Sep. 23rd, 2017 02:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethHR and Tracy
Joe and Cecile
and Barry finally figures it out.
I am finding I have less to say as the season gets closer to over. I'm not into this storyline. I know how it ends from spoilers, and I want it to be done already, even though I know I'm not going to like it.
I kind of like Tracy, but since they're doing a thing about people needing people, they made her... the lowest point version of herself.
Burning all her work seems more like a symbolic gesture, given everything is on computer now.
Not believing in herself until someone else believes in her... we know she had another timeline where she went from there to a nobel without HR telling her to, but, this version is the power of love remix, and I'm a bit blah about it.
Joe and Cecile... I feel like she deserves better? I know telling all his kids secrets is a whole different relationship level to telling all his own secrets, but they weren't even there yet. And the thing with the ring, I'm not sure what it's meant to be, but it just reminds me he's lied and lied and lied to everyone closest to him. His baggage isn't that metahumans target him, it's way more personal and goes further back. He wore that ring to pretend his wife was dead, lied to his daughter, and now did a weird grief thing after she actually died. If he's told C all about the Flash, yaay, but that other stuff is a bit more relevant to dating him. Lies are his first thought. I don't like that the story seldom calls him on that bullshit.
But they were working up to asking who we even are without love.
... I've got to say, I've never dated anyone, so by the standards here presented, I'm thinking I know who I am without love. Not evil. Lonely and pathetic, sure, but not evil.
Unless my love for fictional characters is saving me... I know, they're talking about capacity for love, and prioritising other people, but still, they've put romantic love front and centre and a great many people do fine without that one.
... It's not that Savitar and his 'let's be gods and not feel things' plan isn't consistent or plausible, it's more like it hit :eyeroll: with me on the phrasing.
Everyone tells Barry all season he's not a god, Savitar!Barry just snapped and decided fuck it, i will be. Fair enough. No grief, no guilt, no being a human. What's not to like?
Same like Caitlin goes cold when she loses and loses and loses people, and gets scared, kidnapped repeatedly, but has this ethic she believes is part of her DNA, do no harm, which she feels is in conflict with fighting back. So Killer Frost decides not to feel bad, stops caring, starts fighting back. Consistent. Just every time they refer to it as her being possessed by her inner ice demon I want to shake someone.
Course the problem is either way what the hell is the point once you've successfully stopped feeling everything, but they seem to be having fun with superpowers, so, there's that.
The problem from the viewer's point of view is multi layered. Like, one part is that for this to be a dramatic shock reveal we must all have heard the misleading punctuation rather than what he actually says. When Barry spent all season wondering who Savitar is, Savitar said "I am the future flash" and he turns out to be the future flash? Well, that's... a thing. We are shook? Why? Blah.
But also, Savitar is kind of the opposite problem to Barry? I mean, Barry cares so much about the few people like his mum, dad, Joe and Iris, that he's turned back time repeatedly for them, ignoring that it affects other people. That's where we were at at the start of the season. So how does Savitar answer that?
Well he's like saying it'd be worse if he didn't care for them. And yeah, all that power and not caring, that would be a problem. But not the problem we have. We still have the problem where he'll do anything for the people he loves, hold them to different standards, apply different law.
Like leaving Caitlin running around without benefit of law enforcement because he cares about her. That isn't supposed to be how it works. Julian had a point, and the writers did not answer it. They just undermined his personal plausibility by having him be possessed. Which, you know, creepy and unhelpful. Answer the damn problem. This is a whatabout. Doesn't answer Barry's personal double standards.
So there's a few episodes left and they might. But I fear their answer will be that loving someone means it's all justified, kind of like Julian saying Cisco's powers come from a place of love. This show seems to think motives matter. Because they're the good guys, because they care, that makes it okay. And I'd have to disagree with that really strenuously.
But they haven't finishes their argument yet, so, onwards to the last disc.
This season is telling a story about dark sides and disconnection but without putting the capacity for choice where it belongs, and it's leaving me feeling like I have to take the story apart and jiggle it before it's any good at all.
Which is annoying.
Right now I'm looking forwards to this season being over and next season doing something different.
Joe and Cecile
and Barry finally figures it out.
I am finding I have less to say as the season gets closer to over. I'm not into this storyline. I know how it ends from spoilers, and I want it to be done already, even though I know I'm not going to like it.
I kind of like Tracy, but since they're doing a thing about people needing people, they made her... the lowest point version of herself.
Burning all her work seems more like a symbolic gesture, given everything is on computer now.
Not believing in herself until someone else believes in her... we know she had another timeline where she went from there to a nobel without HR telling her to, but, this version is the power of love remix, and I'm a bit blah about it.
Joe and Cecile... I feel like she deserves better? I know telling all his kids secrets is a whole different relationship level to telling all his own secrets, but they weren't even there yet. And the thing with the ring, I'm not sure what it's meant to be, but it just reminds me he's lied and lied and lied to everyone closest to him. His baggage isn't that metahumans target him, it's way more personal and goes further back. He wore that ring to pretend his wife was dead, lied to his daughter, and now did a weird grief thing after she actually died. If he's told C all about the Flash, yaay, but that other stuff is a bit more relevant to dating him. Lies are his first thought. I don't like that the story seldom calls him on that bullshit.
But they were working up to asking who we even are without love.
... I've got to say, I've never dated anyone, so by the standards here presented, I'm thinking I know who I am without love. Not evil. Lonely and pathetic, sure, but not evil.
Unless my love for fictional characters is saving me... I know, they're talking about capacity for love, and prioritising other people, but still, they've put romantic love front and centre and a great many people do fine without that one.
... It's not that Savitar and his 'let's be gods and not feel things' plan isn't consistent or plausible, it's more like it hit :eyeroll: with me on the phrasing.
Everyone tells Barry all season he's not a god, Savitar!Barry just snapped and decided fuck it, i will be. Fair enough. No grief, no guilt, no being a human. What's not to like?
Same like Caitlin goes cold when she loses and loses and loses people, and gets scared, kidnapped repeatedly, but has this ethic she believes is part of her DNA, do no harm, which she feels is in conflict with fighting back. So Killer Frost decides not to feel bad, stops caring, starts fighting back. Consistent. Just every time they refer to it as her being possessed by her inner ice demon I want to shake someone.
Course the problem is either way what the hell is the point once you've successfully stopped feeling everything, but they seem to be having fun with superpowers, so, there's that.
The problem from the viewer's point of view is multi layered. Like, one part is that for this to be a dramatic shock reveal we must all have heard the misleading punctuation rather than what he actually says. When Barry spent all season wondering who Savitar is, Savitar said "I am the future flash" and he turns out to be the future flash? Well, that's... a thing. We are shook? Why? Blah.
But also, Savitar is kind of the opposite problem to Barry? I mean, Barry cares so much about the few people like his mum, dad, Joe and Iris, that he's turned back time repeatedly for them, ignoring that it affects other people. That's where we were at at the start of the season. So how does Savitar answer that?
Well he's like saying it'd be worse if he didn't care for them. And yeah, all that power and not caring, that would be a problem. But not the problem we have. We still have the problem where he'll do anything for the people he loves, hold them to different standards, apply different law.
Like leaving Caitlin running around without benefit of law enforcement because he cares about her. That isn't supposed to be how it works. Julian had a point, and the writers did not answer it. They just undermined his personal plausibility by having him be possessed. Which, you know, creepy and unhelpful. Answer the damn problem. This is a whatabout. Doesn't answer Barry's personal double standards.
So there's a few episodes left and they might. But I fear their answer will be that loving someone means it's all justified, kind of like Julian saying Cisco's powers come from a place of love. This show seems to think motives matter. Because they're the good guys, because they care, that makes it okay. And I'd have to disagree with that really strenuously.
But they haven't finishes their argument yet, so, onwards to the last disc.
This season is telling a story about dark sides and disconnection but without putting the capacity for choice where it belongs, and it's leaving me feeling like I have to take the story apart and jiggle it before it's any good at all.
Which is annoying.
Right now I'm looking forwards to this season being over and next season doing something different.
no subject
Date: 2017-09-24 09:15 am (UTC)*goes to rewatch the Supergirl episode where her kidnapping a dude and holding him prisoner using her shadowy organisation is shown to be NOT OKAY*