While I wouldn’t expect her to try and start back up right away considering that Jacob’s now fully onto her, I do think there’s a good chance we’ll see Mary get a second chance at this further down the road. One thing I could see her doing in the short term is going back to Gotham University to finish getting her medical degree. It’s not that she needs the extra knowledge, but if she’s official, than Jacob and the Crows have a weaker case for shutting her down again. Regardless of how she goes about it, I certainly can’t see Mary stopping completely in her attempts to heal people. The main impacts of this move will likely just be slowing her down and forcing her to think even more carefully about how she operates. And whether or not she does decide to finish getting her degree, I’m sure she’s still gonna have her hands full in trying to treat Ryan’s kryptonite wound
I’ve gone back and forth on this one. Since Salim Akil talked about his plans to include both Jen and Anissa in the Painkiller spinoff a couple weeks ago, I took that as a confirmation that Jen would ultimately survive Black Lightning despite her early exit. Whether or not the show actually gets picked up is irrelevant in this situation, as Akil and his writers still have to keep preparing and moving forward as if it’s going to happen unless they’re told otherwise. So if they plan to have Jen appear on that show, regardless of what capacity it is, she’d have to be alive for that to happen. But there are still some ways where this might not actually be a confirmation that she has to stay alive
For one, Akil’s exact quote is that “if Painkiller gets picked up, you’ll probably see” Jen and Anissa, so it’s not a 100% guarantee. Even if it was, they could also just go w/ flashbacks and/or hallucinations of Jen that Khalil could see. And even disregarding both of those things, even if Akil had explicitly said that Jen would absolutely be appearing as she is in the present, it could still end up being a complete lie meant to cover up her death and make it all the more shocking. It’d hardly be the first time something like that happened before in terms of TV/movie producers messing w/ our expectations so as to try and throw us off, so it’s just one of many things I have to keep in mind before we hopefully get an official confirmation next week. While this certainly looks very bad for Jen, I also keep thinking back to how the season premiere ended w/ her dropping out of the sky, making it look like she could fall and die, only to then see her in the next episode completely fine as if nothing had happened. I doubt they’ll completely gloss over her completely disappearing in the same way, but perhaps something similar could still happen where this issue is solved faster than we’d normally expect
Though I certainly sympathized w/ Barry when he asked, “How can I be the Flash without a Wells on this team?” I think I do understand finally retiring his character, especially in a way that allows Barry to fully regain the Flash mantle again. While I’ve loved seeing Wells in his various incarnations over the years, I’ll also admit that the last 2 versions – Sherloque and Nash – did feel a little more tired than Thawne, Harry and HR. Though they still could’ve possibly continued post-Crisis by essentially having a rotating roster of Wells inhabiting Nash’s body, if the writers weren’t as confident in their ability to keep him fresh going forward, then perhaps this was the best move. Like w/ any good character death, the fact that he got to go out a hero – and deliver one last “Run, Barry…run!” was a pretty great sendoff to someone who’s meant so much to the team over the years
But speaking of the team, my main problem w/ Wells’ death is the fact that Cisco and Caitlin weren’t there to say goodbye to him/them. Aside from Barry, these 2 have been the most impacted by the Wells, and the fact that they’ll now only be able to send him off after the fact instead of being there for when he died just doesn’t feel right. I understand that the only reason Caitlin went away for a while was to accommodate for Danielle Panabaker’s pregnancy, but seeing as how filming started for this season at least 6 months after she gave birth and that she was apparently ready to go when they started shooting, it seems like it would’ve been easy enough to bring her, and Cisco, back a little earlier than expected. I know they’ll be back next week, but Wells’ death would’ve been even more powerful if Cisco and Caitlin had been there to complete the original trifecta
There are some aspects of both side’s missions that won’t change at all. Eva will almost certainly still be determined to wipe Black Hole out of existence and continue expanding her power, while Team Flash will still work to stop her from hurting others in the process and ultimately save Iris. Part of what’s interesting about this reveal is how it could stand to break Eva even further than she’s already been broken. She’s lived for 6 years under the belief that she’s the original Eva McCulloch, so seeing video evidence that that’s actually not the case could very well be a turning point for her. She could say that it ultimately doesn’t matter and that she still needs to complete her noble (in her mind) work, or she could choose to fully brace her inhumanity and throw any semblance of morals aside in the pursuit of greater power
What’s also interesting is how this could affect Team Flash’s approach to dealing w/ her. Her powers still make her an incredibly difficult opponent, but finding out that she’s a mirror duplicate would open up a number of different new ways to take her down. There could also be a heated debate about whether or not they even consider her to be human, which would also tie into a debate over whether or not to “kill” her as opposed to locking her away. While it seems inevitable that the team will figure this out about Eva soon, I’m sure she’ll also be determined to keep that fact from them for as long as possible
Given the amount of control that Edge was exerting over her material, it’s hard to argue that she could’ve gotten results while still writing for that paper. I suppose she could’ve tried playing along for a bit while getting her actual articles out in another way, but even if she tried hiding her identity while doing so, I figure it’d eventually come out that it’s her. Granted, just self-publishing right away would get her fired immediately, but she might’ve figured that anonymously publishing would only last so long, thus giving her fewer viable options for taking down Edge from w/in the Planet. But that certainly doesn’t mean that the decision to quit was cut-and-dried as the fully right move
While there’s no doubt that her name alone will bring plenty of attention to the Smallville Gazette, it’s still only a 2-person operation that won’t have nearly the reach that the Planet does. Plus, w/ Lois now set to use the Gazette to launch her attack against Edge, there’s a very good chance that the local readers who have kept the paper afloat will be alienated by this new direction. Sure, getting national attention will be huge for the paper in the short term, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Chrissy has second thoughts about Lois’ long-term impact on the paper. Given all the local support for Edge, a lot of people in Smallville could end up cancelling their subscriptions and stop buying papers, and once the Edge story is inevitably wrapped up, where will money from the paper come from? Lois is gonna have to do a lot of work to transform the Gazette into a media source that expands well beyond Smallville if she wants to be able to have a career that helps sustain her family. Because I’m not really sure what Clark’s been doing for work since he got laid off, so unless he’s been able to use his Superman connections to get money somehow, this decision to quit could be met w/ more scrutiny if she struggles to make a similar wage as before. But it’s for all these reasons and more that I completely support the move. I’ve always loved seeing deep dives into Lois’ journalism career, and adding these new layers onto it should just prove to make her arc this season even more interesting