Arrow and Flash
Oct. 17th, 2015 11:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daibhidcNot sure I'll do these every week, but I wanted to put down how much I liked these.
I've always been more of a fan of Flash than Arrow; both the series and the original comics. Flash is one of my favourite characters, and while that mostly means Wally West, I'm quite fond of Barry as well, And Jay, so I'm delighted that Wally and Jay are both going to be in this season. And they're going ahead with the whole Earth-2 thing, which surely means that other alternate Earths will be introduced at some point. (I'm hoping for a Legends of Tomorrow episode where they face a Crime Syndicate led by Gustin as Johnny Quick, personally.)
It's interesting that Atom-Smasher was presented as a villain, but it's also interesting that Zoom apparently isn't the same character as Reverse Flash/Eobard Thawne. I look forward to seeing where that's going, Hunter Zolomon, the second Zoom, maybe? Or Daniel West, the New 52 Reverse Flash who wasn't Zoom? Going with Daniel would give them a more interesting visual than Another Man In A Yellow Suit.
The fallout from the end-of-season cliffhanger was nicely handled, picking up months later and only revealing what actually happened in flashback. I liked that they skipped the usual melodramatic "I know the hero did everything they could but I can't help blaming them" stuff. Nobody blames Barry except Barry.
Arrow meanwhile had something far tougher than an end of season cliffhanger to recover from; it had an end of season resolution. Ollie hung up his bow and went off to be happy, the end. And it actually handles that quite nicely; despite the absurdly overblown "embrace your darkness" Sky One trailers, Ollie realises he can be a hero without embracing the darkness and continuing to be happy, which lets him finally use the name "Green Arrow" and presumably sets up the latest variant of "I must become something else" in the opening narration.
The show does a good job of presenting Damien Dahrk and H.I.V.E. as a bigger deal than "Villain of the Week", and maybe even a bigger deal than previous arc villains. Some of them, anyway. And the twist that Quentin's working with them was genuinely shocking. I mean, he's not Jim Gordon, but he's never been Harvey Bullock (pre-Crisis and Gotham versions) either.
The flashbacks were... well, it's beginning to get a bit absurd that every year there's something that reminds Ollie of his five years in hell, and it's always in the right order. And getting him back to the island in time to be found again at the start of the series was always going to be a bit contrived, but they did the best they could with it. Lord knows what's going to happen when we get to Season 6.
(Oh and I'm usually in favour of cute comics injokes, but a scene that opens by shouting "Look! They're in Coast City, and there's a man in a pilot's jacket with a namebadge that says Jordan! Hang on a second while we fill the screen with that in case you missed it!" lacks subtlety. I do hope it's leading somewhere, though.)
I've always been more of a fan of Flash than Arrow; both the series and the original comics. Flash is one of my favourite characters, and while that mostly means Wally West, I'm quite fond of Barry as well, And Jay, so I'm delighted that Wally and Jay are both going to be in this season. And they're going ahead with the whole Earth-2 thing, which surely means that other alternate Earths will be introduced at some point. (I'm hoping for a Legends of Tomorrow episode where they face a Crime Syndicate led by Gustin as Johnny Quick, personally.)
It's interesting that Atom-Smasher was presented as a villain, but it's also interesting that Zoom apparently isn't the same character as Reverse Flash/Eobard Thawne. I look forward to seeing where that's going, Hunter Zolomon, the second Zoom, maybe? Or Daniel West, the New 52 Reverse Flash who wasn't Zoom? Going with Daniel would give them a more interesting visual than Another Man In A Yellow Suit.
The fallout from the end-of-season cliffhanger was nicely handled, picking up months later and only revealing what actually happened in flashback. I liked that they skipped the usual melodramatic "I know the hero did everything they could but I can't help blaming them" stuff. Nobody blames Barry except Barry.
Arrow meanwhile had something far tougher than an end of season cliffhanger to recover from; it had an end of season resolution. Ollie hung up his bow and went off to be happy, the end. And it actually handles that quite nicely; despite the absurdly overblown "embrace your darkness" Sky One trailers, Ollie realises he can be a hero without embracing the darkness and continuing to be happy, which lets him finally use the name "Green Arrow" and presumably sets up the latest variant of "I must become something else" in the opening narration.
The show does a good job of presenting Damien Dahrk and H.I.V.E. as a bigger deal than "Villain of the Week", and maybe even a bigger deal than previous arc villains. Some of them, anyway. And the twist that Quentin's working with them was genuinely shocking. I mean, he's not Jim Gordon, but he's never been Harvey Bullock (pre-Crisis and Gotham versions) either.
The flashbacks were... well, it's beginning to get a bit absurd that every year there's something that reminds Ollie of his five years in hell, and it's always in the right order. And getting him back to the island in time to be found again at the start of the series was always going to be a bit contrived, but they did the best they could with it. Lord knows what's going to happen when we get to Season 6.
(Oh and I'm usually in favour of cute comics injokes, but a scene that opens by shouting "Look! They're in Coast City, and there's a man in a pilot's jacket with a namebadge that says Jordan! Hang on a second while we fill the screen with that in case you missed it!" lacks subtlety. I do hope it's leading somewhere, though.)
