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Secret Invasion...

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I'm not one to buy into the idea that Marvel has jumped the shark, but something is wrong.  I don't know if they spread themselves too thin or they lost the ball or what, but their storytelling has gotten so much weaker. 

And I think Secret Invasion is a good microcosm of this.  I think Secret Invasion could've been a huge movie - essentially the spiritual sequel to Civil War.  The Avengers reunite to take on some big bad (not Kang).  With no Cap or Iron Man, the team is powerful but struggles, and one member of the team (Rhodey?) is killed.  They finish the job and rush to Rhodey and...he's a Skrull. 

So now you have Carol Danvers and Dr. Strange and Peter Parker and whoever else trying to figure out who else is a Skrull and what the heck is happening.  You have Sam Wilson trying to argue that he's the leader....is he doing that because he's a Skrull or because he thinks Captain America should have more respect?  You have all these new heroes - Shang-Chi and Shuri and maybe Kamala or Kate Bishop or the Eternals - who are they and where did they come from and are they Skrulls?  No one knows who to trust and everyone starts fighting and maybe by the end there are no more Avengers in any form.

Instead of being a huge $300 million+ budget movie, they made it a show.  Which I think is fine.  With the Super Skrull, there's an argument in-universe for why the Avengers cannot show up.  So you make it mostly unpowered humans Skrulls.  That's fine.  You save a ton of money on cast and effects and make it a modern spy thriller.

Here's the problem: they did nothing.  The show goes nowhere and does nothing.  People accuse Marvel of moving pieces around to get to the next movie, but I don't think this even does that.  It's just nothing.

- The whole premise is that Fury promised the Skrulls that they'd find him a home if they helped him.  The Skrulls held up their end of the bargain and Fury didn't.  And that thread goes....nowhere.  Fury never talks about why he didn't find them a planet or what he tried or where he failed.  And, again, this is something the show worked really hard to set up.  Episode 2 is called "The Promise." So this isn't something that they set up in the background and never followed through on (like how everyone assumed the scientist friend in Wandavision was going to be Reed Richards and the writers never meant for it to be an Easter Egg).  Fury never has to struggle with why he failed or even explain himself (the only time "he" even talks about it, he's being impersonated).  It's bizarre.  It's Chekov's gun except the gun is shown picture-in-picture consistently for the entire movie but is never used.

- Rhodey is a Skrull.  So what?  When?  No one ever asks him or confronts him.  Has he been a Skrull since Civil War (human Rhodey seemed to be paralyzed so that's as far back as it can go).  Did a Skrull fight Thanos?  If not, was he a Skrull during Falcon and the Winter Soldier?  If not, when was he a Skrull?  If he was only a Skrull in this appearance, who cares?  Same with Ross.  Was he a Skrull in Black Panther 2?  If not, who cares?  Rhodey being a Skrull only matters if he was a Skrull when we didn't know he was a Skrull.  If they showed Rhodey during the time period of Infinity War being a Skrull, that's interesting.  If he was only a Skrull now, the reveal is narratively pointless.

- What was Fury doing out in deep space?  It's been referenced a couple different times.  What was he doing?  Was it unrelated to finding the Skrulls a home?  There was plenty of time for him to talk about it, and he never does.  Is that going to be saved for a line in the Marvels?  If so, why wait for that?

- The Super Skrull.  It's a cool idea, but it shatters the whole point of not bringing in the Avengers.  If we were going to end up here, Fury should've called in the Avengers immediately.  And at the very least, Maria Hill was alive.  Now there's a huge threat out there.  That and the human-Skrull war that the president launched.  This feels like the Celestial from the end of Eternals - is this going to be a fairly big deal that no one ever talks about again?  How can Ga'ia exist in her current form.  She's a one-woman Avengers who should be a part of every team going forward.  Or she's a threat.  I dont' know how she can be in the background when she's literally the most powerful character in the universe now.

- Thematically, it's all over the place.  The main theme is supposed to be how immigrants/refugees should respond to a system that doesn't love them.  Do you work as hard as you can to make people love you (Talos' method) or do you fight for a place of your own (Gravik's)?  The answer is....nothing?  Talos died saving the president's life, and the president turned around and declared war on his people.  Ga'ia is forced to face this question and never comes to any sort of real conclusion.  It's another Chekov's gun that never leaves a drawer.

I wanted to like this show.  I loved the idea of telling smaller stories on Disney Plus to fill in gaps or introduce new characters.  But most of these shows are mediocre or don't go anywhere.  And it seemed like, at least at some point, these shows had a point.  Wandavision was great and led right into Multiverse of Madness.  You could get the backstory if you wanted, but the movie fills in enough gaps if you missed the show.  Falcon and the Winter Soldier leads directly into Captain America 4.  Loki into the Kang stuff.  Ms Marvel into the Marvels.  We get some character stuff so that we can get into the good stuff for the movies.

But if we're going to get stuff like this, I'm less interested.  And if stuff like this is also going to make the movies worse (Thor 4, Quantumania, etc) then what are we even doing?

This case seems so open and shut that even in a pretty red area, Trump is going to get convicted.  And it's so Trump for it to be something he could've easily avoided if he just followed the rules or listened to anyone competent.

The problem is that even if Trump is convicted prior to November, he's not going to serve any jail time (because of appeals) until after the election.  And if he wins, the case gets dropped.  Even if he's convicted in New York or Florida, apparently he could easily argue that a state conviction can't keep him from serving while he's president (which is a real thing - otherwise, a deep red state could convict Biden of something silly and force him to go to jail).

So the election is the real trial.  I'm still dubious that Trump will actually see any jail time in any of these cases, but he's gotta lose the election first.  If he wins the elections, literally none of these crimes is going to matter.

What's crazy to me is that so many people are willing to go to jail for Trump. And it's not even like Trump takes care of the people in his inner circle.  There are numerous examples of Trump abandoning the people who went to jail for him.  So I'm literally flabbergasted at the number of people willing to continue to do it.

And that's why I think the Democrats have made such a strange mistake.  If Trump is the big villain...if Trump is the big threat...if everything is about keeping Trump out of the White House again...going after Trump gets you nowhere.  It makes him more popular in his circles, and he can spin out of anything you throw at him.  The way to beat Trump is to take away his support.  And I think there were ways to do that, and I don't really think the Democrats even tried.

I had the same thought and Prodigy ended up really surprising me.  I don't even think it was all that kid-friendly at times.  I would say it was about as kid-friendly as the Clone Wars or Rebels?  Which is to say that there are some kid-friendly episodes but it still can get pretty dark.  And there are episodes that are as pure Trek as Strange New Worlds.  In fact, a recent episode of SNW essentially ripped off an episode of Prodigy (albeit a bit more twisted).

Now that's it's cancelled, I'm not going to say you definitely need to watch it.  But it shouldn't be written off any more than Lower Decks should've been written off.  Prodigy belongs.

I finally saw Shazam 2.

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I wonder why Gal Gadot was in so many of these movies.  What was the post-Snyder, pre-Gunn plan?  With Batman cameoing in Aquaman 2, Batman cameoing in Batgirl, it seems like maybe Wonder Woman and Batman were going to be more involved?  But none of these movies are really building to anything.

I thought the movie was pretty fun.  Although I could see why it bombed so bad.

I thought the crossover was a lot of fun.  I struggle with the silliness of Lower Decks (although I also love it) as canon.  Boimler seems to know things as if he's a fan of Star Trek (not just Starfleet).  The crossover did a good job of making Boimler's neurotic behavior kinda normal, and that all these people on all our favorite shows might've all just been history nerds that love this stuff like we love Star Trek.

And I'll accept that some of the way-too-specific stuff that Boimler and Mariner reference is because Starfleet has some sort of extreme FOIA stuff going on, and bored lower deckers might read all the crew logs.

Yeah, I agree.  I just think he'll have a harder time in 2024 than he had in 2020, and he lost in 2020.  I don't think there's a ton of reason for optimism - people still need to turn out and vote for Biden and enthusiasm on Biden is low - but I think it will hard for people that don't like Trump to vote for him when he's in so much trouble.  People will write it off, but I don't know if everyone in your groups 2 or 3 will do that. He doesn't need all Independents, but he needs more than he had in 2020.  And I just can't think of many non-Republicans that would have been convinced to vote Trump over Biden now.  Mayyyyybe when gas prices and inflation were high, but I don't see it now.

The problem with every Republican candidate (with the exception of Christie) is that they're all terrified of alienating Trump voters by speaking against him.  But Trump voters like "fighters" and would be more likely to abandon Trump if they fought against him.  The other problem is that, because of how the GOP primaries are organized, Trump can win with a smaller percentage if the rest of the vote is spread out.  The only one willing to speak out is Christie (who has no shot), and too many anti-Trump candidates have jumped in.  They need to consolidate behind someone and attack Trump where he's vulnerable (and where he's vulnerable with Republicans is different where he's vulnerable with non-Republicans).

I just can't imagine the GOP leaders allowing Trump to win.  I just don't know if they can do anything about it.

I'm very sorry to hear this.  Prayers to you and your family (and I mean it )

I don't know if that's entirely fair.  Gunn has succeeded in doing just about everything he's done.  I get the idea that he's handpicked every project he's done, particularly because he's written almost everything he's been a part of.  He didn't do The Suicide Squad because he was assigned it - DC offered him whatever he wanted and he picked it.  So, yes, a lot of his projects are weird (Slither, The Belko Experiment) or about outsiders (Guardians, The Suicide Squad, Peacemaker, even Scooby Doo).

But remember that Gunn handpicked this too.  If he only liked outsiders or fringe stuff, he could've made a DCU where the Justice League are background characters.  After all, DC has a deep roster and he's already starting his universe with The Authority and Creature Commandos.  He could've copied the MCU model and built his universe around C-list characters, winning people over before the big guns ever come out.

But he chose Superman.  Not just to start his universe but to write and direct himself.  So he must want to do it as much as he wanted to do the other things he's done in his career.  Maybe moreso.

Everything Gunn has done has been pretty well made.  I've seen almost every movie he's made and I've generally enjoyed it all.  I don't think there's any reason to not believe that he's going to guide this ship in the right direction this time.  WB being a mess notwithstanding.

Hypothetical question - if Trump breaks the gag order in his federal trial, would that be an automatic punishment or would that be another trial that he'd be able to delay?

I don't know how this works, but how cheap would that need to be to make sense?  Batgirl was finished and will never get released.  Does it make sense for Netflix (or some kids' streaming service) to pay for 30 episodes of a show?  If it's cheaper to not release it, why would another streaming service pay for it?  If it was part of a package with TOS, TNG, Voyager, etc maybe.  But by itself?

But honestly, I don't know anything about this.  Maybe its an easy sell.  I hope you're right - I would like to see the rest of the episodes, even if the show won't get a proper sendoff.

Yeah, I understand why he was in a tough spot.  What's kinda funny is that I feel like the DCEU was starting to find its footing.  Between Cavill showing up in Black Adam and Gadot showing up in Shazam (which I haven't seen but showed up in promo materials), it was starting to feel like a cohesive universe with some kind of plan.  But I absolutely understand why Gunn and Co. decided to start over.  And I understand why they can't just throw out Aquaman 2 (the sequel to the highest grossing DCEU film?) and a Flash movie that was very expensive.

Still, if it were me, I would've done a post-credit teaser for the "Gunnverse" and just clarified that Barry's universe is done.  It would've fit nicely in the movie and would've shown that something new is coming.

I don't know about Aquaman.  I know they've talked about Mamoa being Lobo so maybe they will recast.

Well, the actors playing Lana, Kyle, Sarah, John Henry, and Chrissy have all been axed as regulars as well.  So maybe we're going to spend a season in Kandor!

Superman & Lois has been renewed for a ten-episode season four.

Okay so he's been indicted.  I think this one is significantly bigger than the New York one, which seems much more politically motivated.  This one still technically could be, but even Republicans see this one as a bigger deal.

I still wonder if Trump will be able to push the trial beyond (well beyond?) election day.  It would be something if Trump was the nominee and having to report to his trial for breaking the espionage act.  I still don't know how this will play politically - the New York indictment consolidated his support but this one has to hurt him, right?

And I think it was annoying they couldn't get Carlos Valdes back.  I get that actors get busy and I'm sure traveling around the country to shoot a scene isn't fun, but that should've been a priority (just like it was a major priority to get Michael Rosenbaum back for Smallville).  Cisco was a major player in the series and arguably its most beloved character.  The show clearly dipped when he left.  An even if he'd shown up on a video chat, that would've been better than literally nothing.  Unless there's something behind the scenes that no one has talked about, Valdes was happy to come back.  If he couldn't make it back for the finale, plan something earlier.  The finale was four episodes long so I assume they filmed for four weeks.

I assume Wallace understands that he may have screwed things up.  I think either he was caught off guard by the end of the Arrowverse or found himself unable to do anything about it.  Again, it's not his responsibility to close up the entire Arrowverse, but I wish he would've said those things if that was the case.  "Look, all I could do was wrap up Barry's story" plays differently than "I would've done X and Y but I only had 13 episode and I needed to use all 13 of those to finish Barry's story."

Because as we all saw, Wallace wasted so many of those episodes.

It's probably unfair to judge him based on the fact that season 9 was the last season of the Arrowverse.  If, say, Batwoman had been the last season of the Arrowverse, it probably wouldn't have been able to do much better.  Legends was probably the most equipped for many reasons.

But I still think Wallace could've done a much better job.

So I wonder if, like Republicans have done with abortion, Democrats could sponsor some kind of challenge on the debt ceiling with the idea that it's unconstitutional under the 14th amendment, get it all the way to the Supreme Court, and get their answer.

Although whatever works for Biden would work for a Republican president and maybe the Democrats want the ability to use the debt ceiling as a weapon as well.

I haven't voted for a single Republican since 2016, and I have voted in basically every election (local, state, national) since 2018.  I was wrong about the Republican Party in 2016 - I thought they'd use Trump and dump him when he became politically damaging (and go with a safer puppet in Pence), but despite losing election after election, they still haven't done that.  And with the rise of politicians like MTG and Kari Lake and the conversion of guys like Ted Cruz from "mostly annoying" to "very dangerous", I agree that it doesn't make sense to vote for any Republicans.

That being said, I think it's alarmist to think that the Republicans can eliminate democracy.  First, we already survived four years of Trump.  Trump definitely tried to overthrow democracy, but he didn't succeed and didn't get all that close to succeeding.  There's a subset of people that believe the election was stolen, but outside of January 6 (which wasn't nearly as violent as it could've been), no one believes it enough to do much about it.  Second, I think a lot of the people that believe 2020 was "stolen" aren't really talking about switching votes or the dead voting or anything like that.  They're talking about Covid-specific policies that may or may not have been unconstitutional that led to increased turnout for Democrats.  I think the majority of people that don't consider 2020 to be legit (and hopefully this is crystal clear but that's *not me*) think Biden got the votes but that some of the votes should've been thrown out because certain states expanded voting rights too much (and they believe illegally).  That it's more procedural issues than actual fraud.  Which is why they're more annoyed than angry.  They'll tweet about it but won't protest it.

Think about the alternative.  If Trump did get Georgia to find him enough votes to win or if the Cyber Ninjas found a way for Trump to win Arizona and Pennsylvania flipped somehow...there would be nonstop protests and civil unrest.  It would've been chaos. 

I do think Trump would try crazy things to stay in power, but I don't think anywhere near the majority of the country would support that.  I worry more that Trump would destabilize the world than destabilize democracy.

And as I've been saying, neither side can get any legislation passed.  Even if the Republicans got a filibuster-proof number of senators (or got rid of the filibuster), I think they don't really know what they want to do with it.  They couldn't overturn Obamacare.  They couldn't even figure out what they wanted to do with Healthcare.  They've done a ton of damage in terms of abortion, but even then, they can't really agree on what they want to do with it.  Several very-red states have struggled to pass full abortion bans, and some of the abortion bans they have passed have backfired on them electorally.

The Republican Party is bad, and I cannot support them until they cleanse themselves of this nonsense.  I fear what they can do with power.  But look at my state of Texas - they just overwhelmingly voted to impeach our super corrupt (and super MAGA) attorney general.  Maybe he'll survive a trial (his wife is one of the state senators who will vote on his removal), but it shows that, even at the state level in a state like Texas, they don't bend to the will of Trump on everything.  Trump was against it, and a vast majority of republicans still voted against it.  Cruz was against it.  MTG was against it.  They did it anyway.

I think the tide is starting to turn, but we still need to stay vigilant.  And I think we need to keep an even keel.

*The opinions of Slider_Quinn21 do not represent the opinions of anyone at sliders.tv or anyone else here.

Yeah.  Again, I know what I would've done with the season, either if I wanted to wrap up the Arrowverse or just the Flash.  Maybe my idea wouldn't have worked that well either, but at least it would've been something.  This season wasn't really about anything, even if you look at it the way Wallace does (as a couple different graphic novels).

Wallace talked about how he needed all 13 episodes to properly wrap up Barry's story.  I think he could've easily done everything he did in season 9 in 6 episodes.  The premiere, one episode for the Red Death, the Oliver episode, and three episodes for a finale.  I'd probably do an entire episode getting Eddie from "who is this guy?" to Cobalt Blue, the episode where Barry goes back and deals with Thawne, and the finale.

That's really all they needed.  So Wallace either needed to tell a bigger story (so there's less wasting time) or spent more time on the rest of the Arrowverse.

That all being said, I think the Flash was still an overall success.  It never got great after season one, but it was watchable all the way through.

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I mean....sure.

I've struggled with the Flash for a while now.  I think Grant Gustin is really good in the role, and I think the show was really likeable.  The problem I've had, essentially from the beginning, is that Flash in the Arrowverse sorta breaks things.  Barry inside of the Arrow universe should be unstoppable.  What's the point in being a guy with a bow and arrow if there's another guy who can run fast enough to go back in time?  Barry and Oliver could be fighting two different people on two different sides of the planet, and Barry could end both fights before anyone knew what was going on.  Barry could end crime in Central City and Star City and be home for dinner.

And, yet, to keep Oliver relevant, they had to straddle this line where Barry is super fast but can still lose to the right guy.  They even had Barry lose to Oliver (on his own show no less!) in the first fight between the two.  Which is fine.  Batman has been a top 3 guy in DC despite having no powers.  Maybe being rich and a good fighter is on the same level as being a speedster.

On Barry's show, they dealt with this in two ways.  One, in the spirit of Smallville, having Barry fight a constant line of metahumans that can give Barry trouble.  And two, having Barry fight someone who is just as fast (OR FASTER!) than him.  First Eobard Thawne, then Zoom, then Savitar.

But the problem with that is that if you have a super fast guy fighting a super fast guy, it just looks like a regular fight.  So what ends up happening is some sort of race.  The two speedsters chase each other until the fight is just over.  We see this dozens of times in dozens of fights.  And to be honest, I just sorta tune out in the third act of a lot of Flash episodes.  The fights, at least to me, have never been visually interesting.  It's simply the end of an episode that has to happen.

After Savitar, the show tried to change things up.  But it never quite worked.  I think the most interesting thing to do with Barry is take away his speed - make him a normal guy still trying to be a hero.  The show played with this a few times but never really committed to the idea.  It's a show about a fast guy, even if that fact is both the show's greatest strength and its greatest weakness.

The show quickly got stale and never really recovered.  While Arrow experimented with different things (magic! alternate worlds!), the Flash never felt comfortable enough to change what it considered its bread and butter.  It was always pretty good but it rarely became great.

Then, it was forced to play its biggest hand (the one it had been toying with from day one) too early.  Barry is able to escape his fate in the form of Crisis...and then the show just kept going.  Barry's greatest fight was already over but the show just kept going.  Cisco left.  They kept giving Danielle Panabaker and Tom Cavanaugh different wigs and accents to play around with.  We met Barry's future kids.  It wasn't from a complete lack of trying but nothing really worked.

As we've already talked about, this season has felt like a waste of time.  Now the solo show in the Arrowverse, the Flash had a chance to be really unique.  Maybe it could be a conclusion to the whole Arrowverse!  Maybe it could use its time to wrap up both Legends and Batwoman, two shows cut down unfairly.  But despite talking a big game about the possibilities, the showrunner said, since they only had 13 episodes, they had to focus on Barry's journey.

Which, as I've said, is fair.  It's the Flash.  Not Arrowverse: the miniseries.

But how do you finish Barry's journey?  What does the end of the Flash, not the Arrowverse, look like?  To me, I think it should have been the story of Barry's hero's journey ending.  He became a hero when he was young.  He had fun with it.  He met the love of his life.  He struggled to be married and be a hero because even he can't be two places at once.  And now he's going to be a father.

Maybe it's time to stop putting his life in danger.

As I've mentioned, I think that's what I would've done.  Follow in Oliver's footsteps and start to plan for his own retirement.  Build a team and tarin a successor. 

Instead, the show just sorta ran in place, adding nothing to Barry (outside of the idea, in the premiere no less, that Barry can't just follow a script written by the future).  Not only were we not telling a story about Barry, we weren't even watching Barry a lot of the time.  We were focusing on Barry's supporting cast, which (like Arrow) was now B and C string team members.

This even continued into the finale, where Barry is missing half the time.  It's great that Allegra got a suit and Cecile got a codename.  It's great the Chester found love.  It's great that Dreamer was able to conquer something, even if it never came up during her own show.  It's great that Becky, a character I didn't remember, was able to have some sort of redemption arc.

But wasn't this Barry's story?

Now the finale.  And the problems we faced we continued to face.  We brought back a bunch of speedsters and they all ran around.  It was neat for XS to defeat Savitar.  But the rest of the fights were a bunch of characters fighting other characters they barely ever interacted with.  And Barry gets Eddie, a guy he's barely dealt with this season (after not seeing him for 8 years).  Reverse Flash, a character we have been repeatedly dealing with and is consistently referred to as Barry's greatest foe, gets beaten by Allegra.  I know Barry already defeated Thawne once and for all but still.

And so I was sorta bored the first couple acts.

The rest of the episode was nice.  Barry becomes a father.  Joe and Cecile get engaged (although I thought they were already married?).  No Bart.  No Cisco.  We get Caitlin back, which at least means she wasn't unceremoniously written off off-screen.  And Barry shares his speed with some new heroes.

It's a happy ending.  And it was...fine?  I'm happy that everyone was happy.  I'm glad the universe ends on a happy note.  But I don't know...the Flash was just never able to recreate the magic from season one.  It was great and then just was good the rest of the way.  And good is good.  There's no shame in good.

I will miss the Arrowverse.  I will miss Barry.  But this was a show that probably should've ended two years ago with Crisis.

To be fair, MSNBC is slanted to the left.  Not as bad as Fox but it also runs news that appeals to those on the left.  There's more complete charts than this, but this is a good one: https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/media-bias-chart

I say this as someone with a journalism degree that watched a lot of this stuff happen in real time.

As the chart shows, it isn't about accuracy.  It's about slant.  Slant can obviously be editorial, but it can also be selection of stories.  If an illegal immigrant were to commit a mass shooting with a gun obtained legally, Fox news and MSNBC would tell the story differently.  Fox News would report that he was an illegal immigrant with a violent past that was allowed into the country.  MSNBC would talk about how stricter gun laws would have prevented the man from getting the gun in the first place.  Both might be accurate, but the choice of which story to tell is the slant.

There are down-the-middle news outlets, but a lot of people (myself included) like reading/watching news that appeals to them.  I find myself reading stories from questionable sources because they imply all the bad things that are about to happen to Trump in his legal troubles.  I usually have to remind myself what source I'm reading.

To me, it's like watching sports.  I don't like listening to national sports media because there isn't enough focus on the teams that I like.  Local sports radio is slanted more towards the teams I watch, but the personalities on those stations are also fans of the team.  So there's a built-in bias both from them and from me.

You can also have an NFL game broadcast where both teams' fans will complain afterward that the announcers were obviously rooting for the other team.  Both sides heard the exact same thing, but they each interpreted it differently because of their inherent biases.  I think this happens with political coverage too - something that might actually be down-the-middle might seem right-wing focused to me because my own biases lean to the left.  Down the middle to me is slightly left. 

Not criticizing.  Just adding to the discourse.

Well, Valdez spoke fondly of the Flash a couple of months ago.  He said he "couldn't imagine a scenario" where Cisco didn't play a role in the finale.  He said he hadn't watched the Flash since he left because he didn't like the idea of his friends having fun without him.  He said it was "heartbreaking" that he wasn't coming back.  If he had an issue with the show, he didn't seem to mention it in the interview.  And maybe he's just being professional and doesn't want to trash anyone.

I just know that Michael Rosenbaum was done with Smallville but came back for the finale.  I do think Cisco's ending was good and maybe there's nothing more to show.  But Cisco might be one of the best characters in all of the Arrowverse, and I'm sad that he won't be coming back.

There's absolutely narrative reasons to bring him back.  And if he couldn't come back for the finale, they should've brought him back for another episode.  I would've watched an entire episode about Cisco.

I would love to know some of the behind the scenes chaos that happened on this season.

Yeah, I don't want to throw this all on Eric Wallace, but this already feels like a boring spinoff of the Flash with a bunch of characters I struggle to care about.  If they really didn't have Grant Gustin this much, I think they should've done something else entirely with this season.  Having Barry bounce back and forth and be missing for huge stretches is distracting. 

Again, it's their show but there's tons of ways they could've worked around Gustin being gone.  Maybe every episode has an Arrowverse guest star (which would make the Batwoman and Dreamer stuff more consistent).  Team Flash featuring Spartan / Oliver / Dreamer / Cisco / Kara / Black Lightning / Vixen / Wally / Constantine would be fun.  Or maybe focus the entire season on this alternate world where Eddie and Iris are together and have him slowly succumb to the forces of darkness.  And then Barry returns for the final four episodes to reclaim his life.

I don't know.  Not this.

Again, maybe the finale will make it all make sense.

Well, I think we need to have a conversation in this country about what the debt actually is.  I'm not advocating for unlimited debt or anything, but I think there's a consensus among Americans that the debt is controlled by China or foreign interests.  When that's not the case at all.

I'm really not sure what this final season of the Flash is supposed to be.  The showrunner complained that they only got 13 episodes and then proceeded to waste so much of it.

Episode 1 was good/fun.  The next four were...fine?  I don't think the Red Death needed to be two episodes.  I think Red Death is a cool idea and I'm glad they got to play with it, but it felt like a bit of a waste.  The "interlude" episodes were a waste.  I don't think Dreamer needed to be on this show (even though I like her).  I didn't like the luck episode.  I didn't think the time bandit episode was great.

I loved the Oliver episode.

And now we have this 4-part finale.  But what is this story?  Why is it four episodes?  Couldn't this have been a two-parter?  It's been two hours of television (not including commercials) and I'm not sure I could tell you much about what happened in parts two or three.

This is their show, and they were allowed to end it however they wanted.  Maybe they're really proud of this season and how it ended, but it feels like such a dud of an ending.  Maybe everyone will come back for the finale, but where's Cisco?  Where's Wells?  We get Eddie Thawne, but he's the big bad for the whole show?  And they kept talking about having to get Barry's story right, but Barry is barely in any of these episodes.

I know it wouldn't have been fair to the Flash, but I wish they'd had a 13-episode season of a show called Arrowverse.  Wrap up the Legends, wrap up Batwoman.  Give us glimpses into the world of Supergirl and Arrow.  Bring back who you can and make whatever work.  And then end with Barry and his story.  Or give the other shows one episode each and give Barry 6-7 episodes.  I don't know.

But if Grant Gustin can really only be there for 25% of 13 episodes then they shouldn't call this show the Flash.  And with so many stories left to tell, why are we wasting so much time on this?

I'm sorry.  I stood by the Arrowverse for a long time, and it's sad that it's ending this way.

So the Oliver episode.  Some quick thoughts:

- I don't know the constraints that Stephen Amell was under, but I wish we could've gotten a couple more episodes with him.  I think his role was cool.

- I guess I'd forgotten how much I missed him.  I thought he was great.

- I think Wally West is one of the big misses for this series.  Keiynan Lonsdale isn't a problem.  Not at all.  But I wish they could've either found a place for him or picked an actor who could've been a part of the series for longer.  I would've watched a Wally West show.  I thought he was fun on Flash and great on Legends.

- The Barry/Oliver stuff and the Oliver/Diggle stuff was fantastic.  I'm glad it ended the way that it did, and I'm actually pretty glad that it wasn't a time travel thing.

Is there a real-life explanation for why DS9 doesn't get as much love from the producers of modern Trek?  I think it's overwhelmingly thought of as the best Trek, but it's also overwhelmingly the black sheep of Trek as a whole.  Worf's DS9 ending was ignored essentially and he simply showed back up in the TNG movies with less and less explanation.  Chief O'Brien was essentially a TNG castmember (50 episodes) but showed up in none of the TNG movies and none of the seasons of Picard. 

The show is happy to borrow plot elements from it (mostly the Dominion War), but in terms of actual appearances, the only DS9 castmember that got any love is the Defiant (showing up in First Contact and season 3 of Picard).  I know some of the producers of DS9 rubbed people wrong at the time, but that was over 20 years ago, and I assume most of the people have left the franchise by this point anyway.

I get why Enterprise is ignored - it was a massive prequel and wasn't as beloved.  But DS9 takes place at the same time and is beloved.  Why no love for Deep Space Nine?

Interesting.  I watched the special and assumed they'd used archival footage of Kimberly, Jason, and Tommy.  But I guess watching them back to back was a little disorienting.

I was sad that they couldn't get all the original actors back, but I was happy with the special.  My friend was sad to find out that it wasn't a 10-episode series.  I think it would've been a good show if they had gone that route.

I actually missed this line on my initial watch and only went back after episode 9.  But here's the problem: Shaw is not a reliable witness.  And Shaw has no idea - he's speculating.  Just like he refuses to acknowledge Seven's Borg-ness, I think he refuses to acknowledge that the Borg might have evolved.  Even if the Jurati Borg were the real Borg, I think Shaw would've said it.

Now it's obvious that it was intended to be the truth.  But I would've felt better if this were delivered by someone with a little less Borg baggage.

One more thing I forgot to add to my list:

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The Frontier Day stuff and the "whole fleet" being there.  Ummmm....what does that mean?  The entire Starfleet fleet?  Every ship everywhere?  That can't be what they mean, right?  Because I assume Starfleet exists both as a peacekeeping force and a deterrent to other forces, right?  If the entire US military decided to have a big celebration in Washington, DC...I imagine there are a handful of nations/rogue nations/terrorist organizations that might take advantage of that.

Maybe it is simply all their non-essential ships?  Maybe it's all their ships that were going to be in Sector 001 anyway?  I have trouble visualizing what the entire fleet would even look like.  I assume it would be thousands of ships, no?