Hey YouTubers, it's Charlie.
This is gonna be my 'Flash Episode 12' video.
A whole bunch of stuff happened, so I'll try to explain all the new characters, and what's going on.
Especially with the big twist at the end (the big post-credits scene).
This is prob'ly going to be the closest we'll ever get to a musical episode.
A lot of the main cast members have musical backgrounds either on television or as actual musical artists.
Stephen Amell has the funniest answers when people ask them if they're ever going to do
a musical episode of Arrow.
His answers are usually along the lines of:
"Never"
and, "Over my dead body".
Okay, so just careful for spoilers from the episode.
I'm gonna start with Explainers for the characters that we just met in the episode (like the brand new characters).
First up is "Peek-a-Boo".
She's actually a character that Geoff Johns created in the comics.
Her origin is pretty close to what it is in the comics, as well as what her character does.
She has a boyfriend who's in prison.
She helps him break out.
And he convinces her to use her ability to steal money.
She's one of those characters that's relatively new, and doesn't get used a lot.
So she doesn't have the long history that a lot of the other Rogues like Captain Cold and Heat Wave have.
She IS really useful for teeing up the idea of 'toxic relationships'.
She's still in love with Clay Parker -- prob'ly needs to get over him.
Caitlin Snow:
Still in love with Ronnie Raymond -- prob'ly needs to get over him.
I always talk about narrative symmetry, so, think about what's going on with Peek-a-Boo's relationship
and what it might say about the future of Caitlin Snow and the 'Firestorm' relationship (how that might develop).
Caitlin's prob'ly gonna get "raked over the coal", so to speak.
Next up on the list, is Linda Park.
In the comics, she's mostly known as the wife of Wally West (of the Wally West Flash).
Obviously the shows playing with the timeline just a little bit.
They ARE going to do the Wally West at some point, but it's gonna be closer to The New⁵² Wally West.
He'll be an African-American.
And just because she's going out with Barry now doesn't mean she won't ultimately get married to Wally West in the future.
If you didn't recognize her, the actress playing her is Malese Jow.
I feel like she did a really good job.
She was really only a small part of this episode, but we're gonna see her more in the next couple of episodes.
Like, they'll develop that character.
She 'n Iris West can totally duke it out as to which female, Flash-family-member, gets Speed Force powers first.
Yes, there have been times in the comics when Iris West, and Linda Park, have had Speed Force powers.
I don't think they're gonna do anything close to that this season, but, just keep that in the back of your mind.
It is possible that we could get a female speedster at some point.
Then obviously the last big introduction is, "Gorilla Grodd"
Like FULL ON Gorilla Grodd.
I've already done an Explainer video for him, so I'll just add a link in the description.
Basically, they are bringing him on: full steam ahead.
Really what you need to know, is that Gorilla Grodd, in the comics, ...is fairly evil.
So he'll be one of the more angry villains that we'll see on the show.
Okay.
So moving on to Top 5 Moments.
No. 5: The Flash is learning to use his abilities in new ways.
Like they said in the beginning, "He's getting faster"
Progressively* faster.
And he's learning new ways to use his Speed Force power to help people.
Him vibrating his hands on the door to open it?
That's going to be a precursor to him, you know, flat-out vibrating through walls.
I DO think we'll see that this season.
If we're going to see time travel, we'll prob'ly see him phase through a wall.
For those that haven't seen any of the news:
They've been pretty open about the time travel stuff.
I think that's Episode 17.
It's the first episode that the new "Weather Wizard" is gonna be in.
It'll be like an 'accidental time travel' situation.
I'll talk more about it whenever that episode gets here.
Moving on to No. 4: Barry's dad does some detective work.
The really cool thing about John Wesley Shipp helping out in the episode, is that it means that he might
be able to get more scenes in future episodes (or future seasons) inside the prison.
It gives his character more places to go, and it gave them some really nice scenes.
"If my son were the Flash, I'd be really proud of him"
I know everyone's hoping that he'll secretly turn out to be Jay Garrick, or something like that.
They could totally do some weird storyline where he gets temporary Speed Force powers.
But that's kind of outlandish.
I think his storyline will be more of this:
Until they clear him of the murder, he's going to have more 'prison break' scenes.~
Make as many jokes about that as you want.
This episode in general just ended up turning into kind of a Prison Break episode.
Pied Piper broke out of prison.
Peek-a-Boo broke her boyfriend, Clay Parker, out of prison.
That's gonna happen more and more.
The more people they lock up -- the more people will escape.
Which is actually a nice intro to
No. 3: Pied Piper explains "Firestorm".
There are actually a couple things going on with this Pied Piper storyline.
One: He got away.
Which means he could show up in a future episode.
What I'm hoping for is that they'll do something close to the 1ˢᵗ appearance of Gorilla Grodd in the comics.
Grodd goes on a rampage in the city.
Pied Piper helps Team Flash take him down.
Hartley's been kind of a dick so far, so I don't know if he's gonna help 'em out.
But it would be really cool to see him in that Gorilla Grodd episode.
As he said though, he totally held up his end of the bargain.
They see footage of what happened to Ronnie Raymond, and Professor Martin Stein.
I like that freaky looking shot of Robbie Amell's face.
...it just looks so scary.
They kind of explained it in the post credits scene.
The next episode is gonna be them trying to separate Ronnie, from Professor Martin Stein.
They're trying to like, "deactivate" Firestorm (so to speak).
Moving on to No. 2: 'Snowbarry' karaoke night.
Like I said, probably the closest we'll ever get to a musical episode.
I'm not really big on stuff like that, but I love it when they can have fun for just a few minutes.
If you're not familiar with it, they were singing the song from Grease, " Summer Lovin'"
They're both tryin' to find new relationships.
And I THINK what's developing, at least what I saw, is sort of a reverse Ollicity situation.
Told from the female's perspective.
So if you're not familiar with Ollicity:
You have Oliver Queen, in love with Felicity, but can't be with her.
Per Stephen Amell's explanation, she is, "unattainable".
It's just like an unattainable thing.
It's never gonna happen.
At least the way that the Fandom wants it to.
So
I think the same situation is gonna develop between Barry, and Caitlin Snow.
She'll develop those, 'Ollicity' type-feelings for Barry.
The look on her face at the end (whenever she was thinking about it), that's what sold me on it.
Just think of the emotional havoc that's gonna wreak whenever Firestorm comes back into the narrative.
'Cause there will be a ton of Firestorm in the back-half of the season.
You guys can let me know what you think, but:
Is it Barry, that she is developing feelings for?
Or is it some mystery person that we haven't met yet?
My favorite performer this week though:
Danielle Panabaker---hands down---as Caitlin Snow.
She was a force...of...nature.
She's rapidly outpacing Felicity Smoke as my favorite female character in the DC/Arrow universe on TV right now.
To be fair though, Danielle Panabaker has been one of my favorite like, 'genre actresses' for a long time.
Who else remembers "Sky High"?
It's like she graduated from that superhero school, and went to work at Star Labs.
It totally fits within that metahuman universe.
Like The Flash TV show is a Sky High sequel.
"Saved by the Bell: The College Years"
And, moving on to my No. 1 Moment:
Grodd lives.
So full disclosure, I knew we were gonna get Gorilla Grodd really soon.
Did NOT know we would get to see him at the end of this episode.
I was scanning my Twitter feed for news, and I saw that Greg Burlanti tweeted,
"Be sure you watch tonight's Flash, if you like giant gorillas"
And I was just like, "wait...what?"
I can't remember off the top of my head---it might be Ep isode 14 or 15---but Grodd will be in a full-on episode.
In broad daylight, running around, being crazy.
Based on the special effects in this episode, it makes me really hopeful for the future of the series.
If they can do special effects like this (on the cheap), and it looks this good,
then that means they'll be able to do all kinds of crazy superpowers.
Here's my big question for you guys:
Given what they've done with Gorilla Grodd so far, where would you like to see them take that character?
So while you guys think about that, just to talk about some of the Easter Eggs that I haven't already mentioned.
So, I've already talked about Linda Park.
Wally West.
Gorilla Grodd.
There was the line that Barry Allen had,
"I guess I'm faster than a speeding bullet"
That's another dig at Superman.
TECHNICALLY the Flash is faster than Superman, but that's ONLY because he can break the laws of physics.
I know it sounds silly, but the Speed Force is the reason why he isn't subject to friction.
All in all, great episode.
I didn't have any significant Thumbs Down.
The Peek-a-Boo stuff at the beginning (with the telescope), that was a little bit silly.
But the character is a little bit silly, so they were being true to the comics.
The Flash in general, week to week, has some of the strongest scripts of any DC, comic book TV shows on.
Tomorrow, Arrow is actually going to kinda continue this CRAZY energy.
This crazy 'party-vibe'.
There will be an all out THROWDOWN in the Glades.
So, if you haven't seen the clip:
We found out Malcolm Merlyn's wife, was murdered, by Brick.
So Merlyn is gonna go 'ape-shit'.
There's some other awesome stuff happening that I don't wanna spoil.
But be sure to subscribe to get my video. I'll post it after the episode airs tomorrow.
And yes, I will do an Arrow/Flash Q&A this week.
So don't worry about that.
I know a lot of people have been asking.
Okay, so while you guys wait for all that to happen:
You can click here* to learn more about Gorilla Grodd from the comics. If you haven't seen that video yet.
I just do an Explainer for his history in the comics.
And, you can click here* to get ready for Arrow.
Thank you so much for watching.
So, let's all high-five.
I'll see you guys tonight.