So it occurs to me that an alternate universe version of Joe West could theoretically be called a “poppelgänger” and you can’t fire me I’m the boss. Enjoy this recap of CW’s The Flash.
BECKY
So it’s time for the fun Elseworlds issue…uh, I mean episode of The Flash. There’s a 1940s retro aesthetic in the alternate universe of Earth-2, but more advanced technology than Team Flash has access to on Earth-1.
Spoilers under the cut.
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This week’s Flashcap is about family – what makes it, what breaks it, and why you probably shouldn’t go to a drag race undercover to yell at your long-lost younger brother on this week’s recap of CW’s The Flash.
GEORGE
Come ‘ere, young’uns, let ol’ Grampy George tell you ’bout the first internet debate he was a part of, just before the turn of the century.
Spoilers under the cut.
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This week’s Flashcap says goodbye to Kevin and Bethany’s reign of tyranny and welcomes Becky and George’s reign of tyranny! Both sides are clearly just as bad here on CW’s The Flash.
BECKY
It’s nice to have the episode intro narrative kick off with Barry acknowledging that he’s been putting off dealing with things, which he still does even as he narrates, patrolling the city for small crimes instead of confronting the more active issues in his life, like Patty, his family, Zoom, etc. As much as it can sometimes be frustrating as a viewer, I also appreciate that the characters are imperfect people, because for the most part, the show does eventually get around to calling the behavior out.
Spoilers under the cut.
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This week, more than one person says goodbye. Slow down and take a breather, because it’s time to take a look at CW’s The Flash.
BIXBY
The theme of this episode could be described as “HOW DO I RELATIONSHIP?”
Anybody could probably tell you the answer: it takes work, it takes trust, it takes love. The thing about trust, though, is that it’s a leap of faith. You have to hope that someone will catch you if you jump. If you don’t know that you’ll be met halfway, you stop at the edge and suddenly there’s this chasm between you and someone else, one you didn’t see before.
I mean, it’s all metaphorical, here. But you don’t really run up on that chasm until the moment comes when you have to trust, and be trusted. You have to meet in the middle; it doesn’t work any other way.
Spoilers under the cut.
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This week’s episode is a bit of a rogue one. Grab your teddy bear and come in from the storm, because it’s time to take a look at CW’s The Flash.
K
How far would you go to protect your family?
This is a question that comes up in nearly every story, sooner or later. It is, like many other themes, deeply rooted in our own fears and insecurities. Often the true horror of a situation isn’t the ghosts or monsters or evil speedsters from another world, but the loss of a parent, child, or other loved one.
Stephen King made a career out of supernatural horror that was never about the supernatural at all, but rather how terrible people could be to each other, and also there were murderous alien clown spiders and vampires and possessed cars and unu elektroroller scooters but that’s not the point here.
TV Tropes refers to it as the Adult Fear, and it can evoke a far more visceral reaction from the viewer than any jump scare or xenomorph from hell.
…gosh, this is a depressing opening for a super fun Christmas episode.
Though this episode is old, spoiler warnings are in effect after the cut.
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These two episodes of television were too savage for Kevin and Bixby to handle alone. What happens next is nothing short of legendary, so grab a friend because it’s time to take a look at CW’s The Flash and Arrow.
BIXBY
This is a big ol’ two-parter and we’ve got a guest this week, so we’re gonna skip the preliminaries and go straight to the good stuff!
Spoilers below the cut.
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Kevin and Bixby stop monkeying around and really get into the heart of this week’s episode. Grab a latte and note the nearest exits, because it’s time to take a look at CW’s The Flash.
KEVIN
Expectation and obligation.
Everyone feels it. It’s an intrinsic part of being, for us as well as superheroes. It surrounds us, binds us all together, and it’s a force that really just kind of sucks.
There’s a lot that can be said about expectation in this week’s episode, and that’s what I’m going to do – it comes directly into play for pretty much everyone, in ways that we may not have even considered.
Oh, and a giant gorilla attacks, too.
Though this episode is old, spoiler warnings are in effect after the cut.
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We can talk and talk until we’re black and blue, but this week’s episode has us at the edge. Get ready to have a blast, because it’s time to take a look at CW’s The Flash.
BIXBY
I work with two other women at my level of management. Our boss is a man, and often our complaints are dismissed out of hand, or inadequate excuses for them are given. Recently, his boss discovered that we were all in the process of leaving and decided to have a manager meeting, whereupon we all discussed why we were leaving.
Here’s some background: None of us are amateurs. Two of us have been with the store for a while – me for well over a year, the other for longer than the store manager. One of us has been here for less time, but she is much older and more experienced with management. We are all smart women and I, personally, have more experience in pizza than anybody else in the store, period. I’m not exaggerating here. Any outsider can look at this situation – three of us all looking to leave, and soon – as a basic problem with the store itself and the way it’s being run.
The “emergency managers’ meeting” we had in order to address the issue made it clear that our boss’s boss was under the impression we were all in some sort of interpersonal conflict. I would not be surprised if, behind closed doors, my boss and his boss didn’t mutter about us all being on our periods together or something.
There was no trust given. At no point did I feel like either my boss or his direct supervisor believed there was a real issue.
Trust is important, even in very small jobs like mine.
It is, in fact, even more important when your job involves being armed and capturing dangerous metahumans who shoot light beams out of their hands.
Spoilers under the cut.
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This week, Kevin and Bixbyy are looking at the bright side of life. Grab a coffee and make it a double, because it’s time to take a look at CW’s The Flash.
KEVIN
Everybody has secrets.
This isn’t necessarily malicious, of course. Secrets can range from “hasn’t come up in conversation yet” to “actively hiding”, and everything in between. There are extenuating circumstances, or sometimes omissions that simply happen because they may have just slipped your mind.
Part of this is because everyone has different sides of themselves that not everyone sees all at once. We act differently to different people, or sometimes we just wish we were someone else.
We all have a face, essentially, that we hide away forever, and we take them out and show ourselves when everyone has gone.1
In comics, of course, and the DCTV Arrowverse, it’s taken a bit more literally than that. Secret identities of heroes and villains are part and parcel of the experience, but even the civilians and bridge bunnies get in on the action now and again.
We all fall in love, after all, and we disregard the danger. And though we share so many secrets, there are some we never tell.2
Though this episode is older, spoiler warnings are in effect after the cut.
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Tensions really flare up in this week’s episode. Have a seat and bond with your friends, because it’s time to take a look at CW’s The Flash.
BIXBY
What does family mean to you?
This show asks this question a lot, in a lot of different ways. We probably all have different faces we picture in our heads when we think about our family. Parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins, even close friends who aren’t related by blood. It varies from person to person, as do the shape and size.
Here’s something I don’t talk about a whole lot. If you follow me on Twitter, you may already know, but not all of y’all do, so here it is: I don’t talk to my mom. In the last, oh…four? Five years? I think I’ve sent her one email. I cut her out of my life. My reasons are…well, they’re pretty personal, and it’s not just about me, so it’s not my story to tell. One of the reasons my Twitter was marked private for so long is that my mother Twitter-creeps on me, and I’ve heard about it third-hand once or twice. It used to make me uneasy, but it doesn’t bother me anymore.
So when I refer to “my parents”, I’m talking about my dad and my stepmom.
That’s not unusual. Not even the way I’ve cut my mother out of my life is unusual – a lot of us have had to remove toxic people from our lives. It makes me a little…sensitive about some things, though.
Spoilers occur under the cut.
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