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This conversation reminds me of Supernatural (the finale for which I will be watching tomorrow night). The show has it's baseline story structure, right? After season five, things were shaken up. Dean was given a new lifestyle (meaning domestic, not that he turned gay or something) and Sam was without a soul.

Obviously, Sam needed to be restored to normal at some point. However, I was really, really hoping that they would allow Dean's life to progress and keep Lisa and Ben around for good. Dean matured into someone who wasn't into casual sex, and just seemed to become the next logical version of what that character should be. The same guy, but older, wiser and with his battle scars. I liked it. It was progress. It was good. It was a chance to really move the story structure into a new area and draw a line between the past and the future.

But at the end of the season, it was completely undone. Lisa and Ben had their memories wiped, so they have no clue that it ever happened (a huge violation, by the way) and Dean never wanted to speak about it again. Over time, he went back to being the more reckless, boozing, sexing guy that he was before. I still like the character, but it's a shame that they chose to undo that progress.

That's a fair opinion to have, but at the same time, I have always liked the way DC will grow characters like Dick Grayson or Wally West. When Barry dies and Wally takes over, it's not just some random new character, it is someone who fought beside the original and who has earned the title. There is loyalty built in.

Some of the characters aren't like that though and they do introduce new characters. With Green Lantern, it's pretty much the nature of the beast. One dies and the ring moves on. But it's harder for the audience to make that transition and it's not as safe as using an established character. The Jason Todd thing comes to mind. People wanted him to die. Obviously, the character wasn't working out. However, if he had been established earlier and promoted to that role later on, there would have been a chance to see how the audience responded to the character, and a smoother transition once the Robin title was handed off.

The problem with Wally West is that people did embrace him as The Flash, but most people knew that it was only a matter of time before Barry returned (even though it turned out to be a long time, it always seemed like the door was open). That makes things awkward when Barry does come back and you have two Flashes that people love for different reasons. The is no Flash Corps, so it's a difficult situation.

I understand why they brought back Barry, but it was awkward for me to have the "real" Flash come back when the only Flash I'd really ever known was Wally. And the secondary Flashes were Jay or Bart. Barry was a legendary figure that I knew about but had no real connection with, so on some level, I probably resented him pushing Wally out of the way to come back.

And I agree that this is what comic books are. It always has been. I do like it when something big changes and doesn't just snap back to normal. Dick Grayson stopped being Robin and it only made things more interesting. At the same time, they can't constantly be changing things for keeps, because after 80 years, none of these characters would even still be around. Superman would be making out with Lois' niece while Lois died in an old folks home. To a certain extent, they do always have to snap back. So yeah, Captain America isn't really a Nazi and it's all a fake-out. We know that, just like we knew that the death of Superman wouldn't last forever. I agree that the worth of that story is in how they play it.

But it still doesn't make for a good headline. No matter how you cut it, it would be a huge PR nightmare to have Superman pretend to be a pedophile for a few months. We have some distance from the whole Nazi situation these days, but it is still not a good image. Putting the story itself aside and discussing this on a purely superficial marketing level, the image isn't a great one, probably for the same reason that people hate the idea of Superman killing Zod or Batman marking people for death. It might be perfectly solid storytelling, but the image doesn't sit well with some people.

Woohoo! The real Wally is back!

Sounds like it'd be a cool story to read. I might think about doing that.

So, what did you guys think of the Arrow finale?

I kinda felt like we'd seen it before. It seems like every time there is a big disaster, there's the rioting crowd scene and the big speech. There didn't seem to be a real solution to the problems at hand, so they had to BS their way out of it with "clap if you believe" logic and wonky hacking skills. Damien started out as being a better villain than Ra's, but I don't think they knew what to do with him at the end of the day. And of course, I spent a large chunk of the episode thinking "If only they had smashed the totem... oh wait, they did! None of this should be happening!"

And Malcolm was back in the Arrowcave (aka "The Lair with Worse Security than STAR Labs").

And then the kicker. Literally every character on the show took off, EXCEPT Felicity, who a lot of fan are tired of and actually want her to leave. It's like the writers are Olicity shippers and they're just f-ing with us now.

I wish Thea would just get rid of Malcolm once and for all.

I do like that Felicity stayed fired (Smoak building on Legends be damned). She should probably be brought up on charges for what she did while running that place.

I chuckled while Oliver took the oath of office, swearing to uphold the laws of the city.

All in all, I actually think that they left the show in a good place to be rebuilt in the fall. I doubt that Barry's actions will do anything to Arrow, though it would be cool (maybe a Flashpoint Paradox-type movie event to kick off the new season before returning to normal). But it will be nice to cut back the team a little bit. Felicity should also leave, of course. Or Curtis. We really don't need both.

I thought it was his lack of conversation, but I could be remembering it wrong.

It would be awesome if Arrow got reset to the end of season 2.

So for the next movie, should Captain America be given a boyfriend, or should he be a Hydra agent? The headlines and hashtags are all over the place this week!

Serious question though... for something like Agents of SHIELD or Daredevil, is there a reason why we can't see Avengers fighting in the distance? A lot of them are CG anyway, so the computer models exist. I can understand not being able to afford actors, but why not use the CG versions in creative ways, just to tie things together?

I don't expect this to last very long, but it would have to have some element that carries over into the rest of the season, right? Like Barry closing the vortex thing brought Zoom into his life.

Interesting. You should get Chevy Chase for the role! ☺

Gibson did a lot of apologising. He met with Jewish leaders and seemed to really work hard at making things right. And he appears to have cleaned up his act since then. But racists and bigots in Hollywood are a dime a dozen. There is no reason why that event should destroy him after so many years of making tons of money for them.

RDJ, I think k has been open about his past and has tried to make good. I don't know of any specific apology, but I'm sure it is out there.

Hollywood is a twisted, corrupt industry. And despite the revised history, the efforts to take down Gibson's career started before the slurs to the cops. That actually came after years of horrible things being said about him in the press, all surrounding his making The Passion. The slurs are just the easiest way to get the job done now. You suddenly have people saying that alcohol is like truth serum, revealing a person's true self. Anyone who knows an alcoholic knows that isn't true at all, and the concept would be taking down a lot more Hollywood personalities if it were.

How did I get dragged into this?

It would make some sense if they intended to follow up later, I guess. Like if the character were to play a larger role next season, eventually leading him to that meeting with Kendra. But as it stands, it meant nothing.

That is a fair comparison. Like Smallville, it is fun but not necessarily good. Fun is good enough though, sometimes.

The problem that I had with the finale is that so much of it made no sense. Killing Savage in three times at the same time makes no sense. Killing him in two time periods before Kendra or the man who was Carter were born means that they shouldn't be born (right?) And then Hawkman doesn't return to his own time. Is there a Hawkgirl there? Or is Kendra the last? And how did she happen to find the WWII helmet that Rip owns and recognize it as that one specific helmet?

Time travel shows always have logistical issues, but it seems like they went out of their way to make no sense, and just blamed it on the time travel.

It as bad as some logos, but it seems more like a concept than a finished logo.

I hope they don't use George Takei. He is so overplayed these days. He's annoying.

However, I do hope that they talk to Michael Dorn about his idea for a Worf series.

I think Black Siren was a metahuman. Laurel may have been too, if she happened to be in Central City during the explosion. And there may not be a Sara on Earth 2. Maybe Laurel was on the Queen's Gambit instead?

It doesn't seem like everyone who can become a metahuman does. Barry wasn't a meta-human on Earth 2, for example.

It would have been better played if Cisco had these dead bird flashes for a few episodes, leading him to finally figure out what it all meant and call Star City to warn Laurel... only to hear that she is already dead. He could have saved her, if he'd figured it out faster. Vibe's first real superhero loss.

Like I said, I'm really interested in the script. I'm curious to see what is on the page versus the screen. Maybe you're right.

Then again, if M. Night Shyamalan came out and said that Signs was not the movie I see when I watch it, would it change anything? Ultimately, a movie is what it is. Once it is out of the hands of the creators, it becomes whatever the audience sees when they watch it. So if BvS was meant to be something else, does that really change anything?

Is it weird that I really didn't have a huge problem with Batman in the movie? He was pretty irrational when it came to Superman, but when he was fighting other people, I didn't see anything wrong. Then I read people talking about him being a murderer and I had to stop and think about what they were talking about.

I think it's just my mindset. If I reach a point where I am fighting bad guys who have guns, my goal would be to put them down. No leg shots or whatever. It is more distracting for me to watch movies where the hero refuses to kill someone who is willing to kill him.

I don't think The Flash was ever going to look or feel like BvS. Even Man of Steel was different. Wonder Woman looks pretty different too. Suicide Squad is a little dark, so it may not be extremely different, but it seems like a different director and a different angle on that world.

If you like BvS, ultimately, that was Snyder's fault. I have issues with the Marvel universe as as a whole, but ultimately the weaknesses come down to the names on the credits. But either way, the other movies would feel different, I think. Though Justice League might not be to your liking. Even in the comics, the big events can be weird and dark, and sometimes not entirely coherent. Even lighter characters can be dragged into dark plots.

This week's Flash was good and all, and I like Black Siren, but I think they wasted the opportunity there. For a while now, they've been talking about how the team would be emotionally impacted by the appearance of Black Siren. But the moment fell short because A. They'd never even acknowledged the death of Laurel. and B. Aside from their initial shock, they didn't seem to care much.

Barry saying "It's Laurel Lance" instead of "It's Laurel" didn't jive with Caitlin saying "We didn't just know her. We loved her."

She's a cool villain, but there was an emotional note missing from her appearance.

The odd thing was the question of whether or not they should tell Sara about her being there. Has Sara returned already?

Not really. Man of Steel wasn't about an angry or cold person.  It's just about the area that they need to get back to. So the character is already established. They just need to get back to that. Some people were still calling him broody or whatever, but Superman is not a comedic character. I don't think that he should be all smiles and fun any more than I think he should be all angry.

This is something that would be interesting to address. Arrow got silly when he decided to stop killing people, because it makes no sense for someone claiming to fight a war, yet holding back. The Batman in BvS was shown to be at the end of his rope. I doubt that he resembled the Batman that he started out to be, or the Batman that worked with Dick Grayson. He was a Batman who had witnessed pure, unrelenting evil for decades, and at the cost of at least one sidekick. So his mentality makes sense. The question is, where does he go from here?

I don't have the article in front of me, but it looks like Warner/DC has named two men to run the movies in development and provide the continuity that you were looking for (though I hope that the movie tones fit the characters, rather than try to all look and feel the same). I know that Geoff Johns is one of them, and then there is a studio guy. The report says that the studio is trying to wrangle the projects after the BvS backlash, but there's no official statement about that. So hopefully you'll get more of what you're looking for in the movies that are coming up. But hopefully they won't become Marvel clones, because I really like the different angle that the movies have come from thus far.

Interesting.

It is amazing how many old characters there are in comics which I know nothing about.

Interesting. Tom Cruise is creepy. I would hide from him too, if only so that I wouldn't have to talk to him.

It is possible that Singer is partnering with Dabb because either A. Dabb is a good story guy but not a good business guy.
Or
B. The powers that be aren't sure of Dabb's ability to run a series and want someone there to back him up.

I assume that Singer won't suddenly become a big writing guy after all this time, right?

That said, I sincerely hope that anything remotely like Bloodlines  is left out of this show.

Okay, I have a story idea.

Rather than start by throwing Kara into the Arrow universe, what if they start the season with a crossover event in which both Barry and Kara (and possibly with some Legends involved) travel to the future of their own universes... Only to discover that both universes share one future? How this happens can be a season long arc, leading toward a massive Crisis-like event wherein the entire multiverse is threatened. The heroes manage to save it, but not before their two worlds are merged.

Or, they could put Kara on Earth 2. The retro vibe would work well with a character like her. Crossovers would be easy, since the Flash goes to Earth 2 all the time.

Globally a success, like David Hasselhoff's singing career. But in the US, I think it is a horrible flop. Disney will probably reconsider all Marvel movies going forward. They've been humiliated on their home field. The movie will probably be vaulted, next to Song of the South or From Justin to Kelly.

Agreed. Especially about Felicity. She is awkwardly placed in episodes to keep her active, and then on other shows, we end up wondering why they don't call Felicity.

Cisco is pretty firmly planted on The Flash, but we know that he is constantly working with the Arrow team off screen. So yeah. I agree.

Supernatural is in for some new showrunners. I was kinda expecting this, I just wasn't sure who would get the job.

Robert Singer and Andrew Dabb will be taking over from Jeremy Carver. Presumably, Carver's arc is ending this year. Both guys have been with the show for years, so I have high hopes.

I like that this show changes hands like this. With most shows, it would be a bad sign. With Supernatural, it is almost like a comic book. New people come in for specific arcs and then leave. I just hope that they have a clear plan for the next arc of the series.

Looks like the Most Wanted series was also passed on. Which means that AoS wrote off two characters for no reason. Not that they can't come back, because their reason for leaving was lame anyway.

I'm sure they'll be able to get most of the cast for guest appearances if they need to (Calista basically did the show as a favor anyway) but yeah, they should just throw Kara into the Arrow universe, which will only help the show. Having her exist in a world with Clark but without showing Clark just didn't work.

They will probably want to keep as many as possible, but I don't think that Calista will go for good. Chyler has a young family, so she is out. Mehcad... I don't know. Jeremy is a New York actor anyway, right? So he might go. David, I don't know. But even of he leaves, Martian Manhunter could go. I just don't think that two alien superheroes are needed on the show.

So, they could just make her a stranded alien from another world again, or they could send her to the future, to work with the Legion.

The writers could remain the same, since they all work from LA anyway. I always thought that writers should live closer to their shows, so they know the area that they're writing for. But that will probably never happen.