Arrowverse Couch Club Season Two, Week 27: The Flash Season Finale

SPOILER ALERT!

It’s been a big month for The Flash, and after a hard-fought battle against Godspeed and his clones, the war has finally come to an end. We’re celebrating Flash’s season finale this week on the Arrowverse Couch Club, as Barry sought to better understand August Heart so that he and his family could find a way to end the conflict terrorizing Central City. But it’ll take all the speedsters the team has available and then some to put a stop to this latest threat from the future. Meanwhile, Constantine recruited Spooner to help him track down the Fountain of Imperium and regain his magic on Legends of Tomorrow, and the Kent family dealt with the aftermath of taking down Morgan Edge/Tal-Rho on Superman & Lois.

Legends of Tomorrow – “Bad Blood”

  • With Constantine making some questionable (at best) decisions at the end of the episode, does it seem like he’ll continue going down a dark path in order to keep his powers or will this be more of a temporary journey into a gray area before he comes back to the light?

The Flash – “Heart of the Matter, Part 2”

  • Now that this arc is complete, what are your impressions of Godspeed as a villain?
  • Looking ahead to season 8, the first five episodes will all be crossovers featuring different characters from across the Arrowverse. Who are you most hoping to see appear at the start of the next season?

Superman & Lois – “Fail Safe”

  • Which side of the kryptonite weapons debate do you fall on: Should most of them have been destroyed, or does it make sense to keep them around?
What was your favorite episode from this past week?
  • Legends of Tomorrow – “Bad Blood”
  • The Flash – “Heart of the Matter, Part 2”
  • Superman & Lois – “Fail Safe”

0 voters

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Normally I’d probably just think this is an instance of the latter, but the back half of this season hasn’t had much of a specific path beyond just cleaning up aliens scattered across history. Because of this, there’s still an opening for a new big bad of these last 5 episodes, and I’m starting to think there’s a possibility it could even end up being Constantine himself. Whatever the hell kind of insane acid trip that red potion is, it’s clearly nothing good but we know that John’s gonna be taking it at least a few more times. I also can’t imagine that after taking it again and again, it’s only gonna have that same exact affect we saw w/out things getting even worse. I could definitely see this substance really corrupting him, as we already saw him mind control Spooner w/out even a 2nd thought. The further he sinks into this, I figure there’ll be less and less that he’s unwilling to do to keep this a secret, which will just make it even worse when the whole thing blows up in his face. Whether something else takes him over completely or he becomes fully corrupted, I think there’s real potential for this to be the start of Constantine as a villain for the Legends, even if it doesn’t go past this season. While I do hope that’s not the case, I have to acknowledge that it does seem like a real possibility

However it ends, it’s gonna be a shame to see John go down this path, which he’ll probably justify w/ the assumption that his soul is once again damned after killing those men at the end of the episode. True, if he just left things there that’d be the case, but this isn’t quite like before where it’d take an extraordinary effort to get his soul back. He’s not beyond saving at this point, but I suppose it’s just easier for him to assume that’s the case again after so many years of it being true. Despite these months of him being in a better place, I feel like this shows that he wasn’t able to truly move past that previous darkness in his life. I think losing his magic was the thing that exposed this truth rather than something that he can blame for his current actions and state of mind. But if he does come to this realization, it’ll likely be another interesting bit of character development for him

While it was ultimately cool to see a speedster big bad after multiple seasons w/out one, I’m not really sure that this version of Godspeed lived up to the buildup since season 5. Granted, he certainly wasn’t all bad. The costume is still awesome, Karan Oberoi was clearly having a lot of fun chewing the scenery during his villain speeches and it led to 1 of the most ridiculous but also kind of awesome sequences w/ the speedster “lightsaber” battle between him, Barry and Thawne. But ultimately, I just felt like the writing wasn’t all that strong for him. It was disappointing to learn that his motivation just came down to a thirst for power, which isn’t particularly interesting or even original. His whole “god of speed” shtick felt repetitive from Savitar, who had the edge in the writing department when we learned that he was 1 of Barry’s time remnants who felt neglected and abandoned. Heart didn’t have that kind of sympathetic angle to make him more interesting, as he just feels that he’s “owed” organic speed w/out having a compelling reason for it

You compare that to his comics counterpart who, because of his brother’s murder, took to killing criminals out of a twisted sense of justice, and it’s clear which version is more interesting. Not that they should’ve necessarily copied this origin completely, but I think it would’ve been good for the writers to remember that in an attempt to make their Godspeed more compelling. I do think they had something going like that when Heart lost his memories and was fearful of the kind of person he was w/ them intact. If they hadn’t abandoned this completely and perhaps done something like having the 2 versions of Heart at odds w/ each other – the villain wanted to wipe out his “weaker” self and the amnesiac one not wanting to let his dark side hurt anyone else – then I think the character would’ve been better as a whole. But as it stands, this Godspeed is just power-hungry. Even though he’s still alive and could thus return at some point in the future, I’m not too hopeful that his character will be significantly improved upon, but you never really know

There’s so much potential that I’m really excited to see in November, but I think above all else, I’m hoping that 1 of these episodes will bring Flash and Supergirl together 1 last time. W/ both Grant Gustin and Melissa Benoist confined to their respective sets under COVID filming restrictions so far this year, it unfortunately make sense that neither of them would be able to cross over to the other show, as would be the case for any other actor in the main/supporting cast of any of the other shows. But w/ Supergirl’s final season just about finished filming, I don’t think it’s unrealistic to hope that Melissa will be OK to make a guest appearance on Flash since she won’t be confined to the Supergirl set the way she’s been for most of this year. Since Kara and Barry have known each other for years now, it’d truly be a shame to see Supergirl end w/out just 1 more crossover. I absolutely love their dynamic, and having 1 of the 5 episodes be dedicated to Supergirl could also serve as somewhat of an epilogue to that show. Further, bringing in other members of the Super Friends like Lena, Nia and Kelly who’ve had little to no opportunity to interact w/ characters outside their show would be amazing. While I certainly wanna see characters from Black Lightning, Legends and Batwoman also appear during this “Brave and the Bold” run, my hopes remain the highest for Supergirl

Both Clark and Lois had very valid points in their argument, but what pushes me toward Clark’s side is just knowing how many stories there have been throughout the decades where Supes has been completely brainwashed, mind-controlled or otherwise corrupted. It’s happened enough times throughout his history that a number of fans have complained that “evil Superman” is an overused trope, but it’s definitely 1 that’s not gonna be going away anytime soon. Ultimately, I think the compromise they came too is a good balance of what they both wanted. I initially thought that the DoD would be more capable of protecting the weapons than just 1 person, but then I realized that it’s not necessarily a matter of protecting them w/ a huge force. Beyond the matter of general trust, John Henry will be able to stash them away somewhere in the world where only he knows, making it even harder for 1 of Clark’s enemies to get to them compared to if they were at the Pentagon. And while he might not be able to have an entire army protecting them, JHI is still plenty capable of building something that’ll provide a solid amount of physical protection if a villain does manage to find the supply. This’ll never be a perfect situation, but given the complicated circumstances, this seems like about as good a solution as possible

(Of course I’m also unsurprisingly upset that in all this talk about ways to stop Clark if he went rogue again, nobody brought up the only other Kryptonian on earth, who’s even been proven to be physically stronger than Superman. Seriously, would it kill them to mention Kara just once?)

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Flash - Speed Force Sabers. Kramer is the Mimic Meta. the wedding season finale seems to be a pattern.

S&L - Lois yelling at Clark about keeping 7734 and having to stay angry to scare Jordan when bailing him out of jail.

I like the small town scapegoating.

Legends - regardless of how this plays out, Spoons is not going to like getting whammied.

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The Godspeed Menace. The Thawne Awakens. Return of the Vows. There’s plenty of other mashup names that could come out of this, but whatever it could be called, that lightsaber battle was 1 of the most ridiculous but also awesome moments in the show. Something tells me it probably won’t be used again, but I’m still glad we got it

She’s gonna realize what happened eventually, and when she does, John’s a dead man :skull:

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Considering there are only about five more episodes left in the season, it would feel like too much of a cop out if they turned him back to the side of good in an episode or two (I am looking at you Flash and your shortened storylines). He had been used to magic for a good portion of his life, almost to the point where I would say it was what he felt made him Constantine. He must feel like a good portion of him is missing, and now that he has found family with the Legends, he may feel that he cannot play a part as he did before. For this reason, he feels that he needs his magic back in anyway possible. The way he did not even think when he made Spooner forget so he could hide his secret and how he is willing to work with a vampire shows how low he is going. I will be interested to see how the team deals with trying to fight one of their own, especially as Astra is coming up to speed on magic but is not yet a master with experience. I do not like the trope of team member goes bad and must be redeemed, and I still hold to the hope that Kayla will return to seek revenge, but this does add an interesting drama of a traitor in their midst.

My thoughts on Godspeed can be summed up in one word: “eh”. He appears in a few episodes before this season with the promise of a greater threat, but I never quite understood the clones from the future. They also all spoke in modem speak so it seemed to me they were more robots than clones so I was confused there. They started to deal a little bit with going into his mind, but we do not find out any great tragedy in his past drove him or speak to who he was before becoming bad; we only hear the monologue of a villain. I was hoping for more insight and they had a memoryless August which I was hopeful for a flashback rather than just dropping a line about side effect of splitting across time. There was no background to make a personal connection, the reasons behind his actions were confusing, and he just seemed to not have the scary nature to be a big bad like Thawne (though I enjoyed seeing him again and allowing for future appearances, though hopefully not as long between). There were a lot of him, fighting all over, and causing destruction.

As for crossovers, I am looking forward to Superman and Flash interacting, as Clark is a father now and Barry and Iris are looking to start a family, so it would be nice to receive some advice. Plus Clark has a superpowered kid, so he can give Barry some pointers for the future with his speedster kids. Hey what about a meeting with Star Labs and John Henry? We could have Chester and John work on something together or Chester just fanboying over the technology he has at hand.
I am also interested in seeing a true Legends crossover. It always seems they get left out, or they have one or two characters included. They even have their meta comments, so I would be curious to see what they have to say about Flash’s problemsome season 7, if they could comment on it. I would love that! They already poke fun at crossovers as it is.
My final comment about the Flash, was I understood they did the best they could with this past season, with the pandemic, with having to tie up last season’s loose ends, bring in the forces, Kramer’s vendetta against Killer Frost, Killer Frost going to jail and then not in jail so what was the point?, Iris’s time out with the Still Force, Godspeed. It just seemed like too much to jam in a shortened season. With the knowledge of the pandemic still impacting I was hoping for a more focus on one storyline than several to give it time to grow properly. It just felt like too much and too rushed for me.

I think it makes sense to keep them around. They just need to make sure they stay in the right hands and are only used in case of emergency. This is why I think it is good to have John Henry handle them for now. I worry if he becomes corrupted what would happen, but you have to trust someone and the military always seems to be doing a lot more secretive with it. There might even be divisions in military so top secret that Sam Lane does not know about them. I do not think they need enough to power an army, but they need enough to defend themselves if needed.
As an aside, I like that 7734 upside down is HELL. Brings me back to my old calculator days when you made words out of numbers and flipped it upside down. Ah the good ole days.

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Hey, don’t forget to visit the Legendary Island of Misfits for more of my insights on this week’s Legends episode:

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This all takes on a much different meaning in light of today’s new trailer and the news that John won’t be returning after this season!

Now knowing for sure that Bishop and Kayla will return, though w/ the latter it seems like it’s in a more friendly capacity, and that there will be a greater conflict w/ John, it feels like they’re really trying to stuff a lot of material into these last episodes. I hope they can at least find a way to combine Bishop and John’s arcs so that it doesn’t feel like 2 main stories happening at once, but more than that, we now have to worry about the possibility that John might not make it out of this season alive. Astra even teased as much in the trailer, so we can’t rule that out just yet. It’s already gonna be bad enough not having John around the show anymore, but if he’s killed off, that’ll make it even less likely for him to return in a guest capacity sometime later. Yet I can still see this arc of playing w/ deadly magical forces that not even he fully understands ending in his demise. However it ends, I’m definitely gonna be watching these last few episodes w/ a greater sense of dread

They do seem pretty robotic, but the fact that August absorbed all of them into himself right after getting organic speed makes me think that’s not quite the case. I could totally see him building an army of drones w/ advanced AI and infusing them w/ artificial speed, but this…I just don’t really know

100% agree. It took until Crisis for us to finally get some sort of one-on-one interaction between Barry and Sara despite the fact that they’re 2 of the faces of the Arrowverse. Since I’m assuming 1 of the episodes will bring the Legends in, I’d love to see those 2 get more screentime together

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Okay, I thought I was really far behind but it turns out I only had one episode of Superman and Lois to watch. So here are my belated thoughts from this week:

He’s Constantine. I’m sure he will find a way out of this. Him being addicted to magic is kind of spot on for him. It just isn’t a metaphor anymore. He’s always been in a gray area but I think he will find a balance somewhere. Especially now that we know the fountain exists. That should mean there are other ways for John to gain back his magic.

Very different from the comics but I enjoyed it. I am a sucker for the ‘bag guy loses memories and becomes friends with Hero, then gain memories back’ tropes. They’re almost always fun.

Everyone? Is that too much to ask" :laughing:

My inner Batman fan is showing but it makes sense to keep them around. Especially if Clark is the one suggesting it. Lois is right that the wrong hands will get them eventually, but it is worth the risk.

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I had to pause the show because I was laughing too hard at this line. A+ parenting by Lois and Clark.

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I definitely agree in general, but this felt like it only scratched the surface of that trope. I felt like “good” August’s strongest connection was w/ Cecile, and even then it’s not like they had much time together. The return of his memories definitely would’ve hit harder if Barry and August had in fact become friends, or at least gotten legitimately friendly, but we never got close to that

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