Season 6x18: Pay the Piper

I don't think I understood a good half of what was going on tonight. So much wonkiness and dilly dallying. Another exploration of Barry losing his speed was really not needed and they've drawn out the trapped in the mirror-verse way too long. Based on how this episode ended and the promo for the finale, I'm guessing neither of these problems will be solved until the seventh season comes around.

This season started out pretty promising, what the hell happened. It's really fallen into the pit falls of the last two seasons, and it fell hard. I think there's only been two post-crisis episodes I've liked. Everything else has been rather boring.

 

I liked this one more than I thought I would, but the real star of this episode was the strategically placed pillow used to block Danielle Panabaker's stomach, as if we didn't already know she was pregnant at the time.

But then again, like Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Walking Dead, and countless others, it's always fun to spot the ways shows try to work around or obscure a baby bump.

 

Is there a place for Cisco in Team Flash anymore? I wonder if he's leaving the show for real.

 

What on Earth is with Godspeed? That, and did anyone else ... was anyone else confounded as you why the four versions of Godspeed in Iron Heights were still wearing their costumes?

 

Why is Godspeed never really a character in his own right but just a set of duplicates like Doombots? He could've been a season-long villain if developed properly. Will they even resolve who he is working for this season? I'm betting it was Reverse Flash.

What is it that is causing Iris to get itchy like Eva was? And how come Kamilla isn't suffering any of these ill effects? It didn't explain how Iris was able to find Kamilla suddenly? Where was this extra room?

How come Barry has speed when he needs it, and at other times when the plot demands, he doesn't have any speed? It's all very inconsistent.

Is next week the season finale now?

 

I doubt Godspeed is working with Thawne, though he may be a reluctant (or unknowingly be a) puppet for Thawne.

From what we’ve seen, Godspeed reminds me more of Zoom at the minute; his focus isn’t on revenge like Thawne or Savaitar, but rather to get faster and absorb as much lightning/speedforce as possible, though we obviously don’t know to what end yet. It certainly won’t be revealed this season either.

Iris has been in this mirror dimension for longer, so her itching is probably a result of that. It’s only recently that she’s learned about Camilla being duplicated as well, so it stands to reason she’d not have looked for her before now.

Plot Convenience my friend.

I guess you could also say that he gets a boost when his emotions are running high, kinda like how endorphins work for the rest of us?

God, I hope not! We’ve got one main thread in Mirror Witch, then we’ve got several other threads that all need concluding, or at least they’re going to factor into next season. Barry’s Speed. Godspeed, and whatever Thawne is supposed to be up to at the minute. And Black Hole. Can’t wrap all that up in a single episode. Oh and there’s Caitlin too.

 

Yes, next weeks episode 19 airing on 5/12 is the season finale. They were filming episode 20 when production shut down so maybe they used some of what was shot for that one in episode 19. We know what we get isn’t what was intended so no complaining about things being unfinished. Please no asking why this or that, we’ll find out the answers at some point.

 

I thought it was only up to episode 19 that was completed so looks like it is in fact the case. Of course it's not ideal as it will leave many threads hanging, but they're not going to be able to finish it anyway now with the coronavirus.

But they did say that episode 19 was going to be the biggest episode of the season anyway regardless of the pandemic. So maybe it does wrap up the Mirror Master storyline, but still leaves certain things hanging. They obviously can't get back to Thawne as intended originally.

 

the episode was alright nothing special. I noticed in the barry/godspeed encounters they used similar footage from barry's encounter with the clone godspeeds before, more specifically the clip where godspeed runs past barry up the building wall, come back down and clothline barry...well that first happened but with barry being the fastest and giving godspeed the clothline knocking him on his butt.

also quite nice that even though barry pretty much has lost most of all his speed he was still able to keep up with godspeed before the clothline running at mach 5....obviously full powered barry would be way faster than this version of godspeed on any normal day but depowered barry managed to still keep his distance even though cisco said godspeeds running at mach 5 he's faster than you.

to me godspeed's storyline was boring, basically all they did was reinvent zoom....and zoom must be alot faster than godspeed since zoom was going to different earths stealing other speedsters speed to become the fastest.....this version of godspeed wouldn't be able to go to other earths as this is after crisis so that's not possible, therefore the only speed he's sucking out is from true speedsters like barry or from someone who had temporary speed or used some type of drug like velocity.

the other thing is this version we don't get the back story as to why his blood was infused so that he could vibrate sound/light that was trying to suck the remainder of barry's speed.

anyways another speedster on the prowl for wanting to be the fastest by going around taking everyone's speed which they covered with zoom and in my opinion a better villain.

also not sure if the show will continue to rely on an artificial speedforce or if down the road the original comes back. The crystal stone that Ralph got from Sue may have something to do with how they build the artificial speedforce or get the original back....OR maybe barry friggen gets so in tune with the speedforce like beyond what wally could do and basically creates the speedforce and becomes one with it as in like the comics where he creates, generates, the speedforce for himself and all other speedsters basically without him they have no speed.

 

I have no doubt that somehow, some way, they’ll revive the speedforce. It’s the holy grail of speed as far as speedsters go, and without it, the likes of Wally, Thawne, even Zoom (he’s existed in this new post crisis timeline, right?) shouldn’t have their speed.

We know that Thawne created his own speed force, and yet the actual speed force still perused him when he altered the timeline too many times. How is that? It wouldn’t surprise me if, somehow the negative speed force coexists with the actual speedforce, and without one, the other cannot exist - at least for a prolonged period of time. Maybe Thawne is running on borrowed time too?; but because he (presumably) doesn’t use his speed as often as Barry, he’s not yet noticing the changes.

 

ya good points. we really don't know how thawne created his own speedforce, we never see him wearing any devices or tinkering around with the size of cisco's artificial speedforce device...keeping in mind thawne from the future would have materials, technology, and knowledge well beyond what cisco has access too so his device could be quite smaller in comparison.

Reason...he had that device strapped to his chest to maintain/control his speed while he was pretending to be wells, the device was only stabilizing his speed not a power source for his negative speed force since if he had that then he wouldn't of been stuck on earth and keep in mind wells was using a device just to stabalize his speed so my guess is his artificial speedforce is something he can't carry on him like his suit ring or speedforce stabilizer.

and we don't really get the fine details to the back story of thawne....like originally he got his speed and was using the same speedforce as barry, then eventually he became bad and created his own negative speedforce.....and his speedforce is quite different than the other speedsters, villains like zoom, godspeed could take regular speedforce or artificial like velocity 9 even though they were evil, yet thawne relies on his own negative speedforce and never seems to have the need or desire to steal others speed which makes me wonder if he can even use the regular speedforce anymore and my guess is NO, since if so wouldn't he have been able to leave earth and not have to pretend to be wells for years.

barry never uses up all his speed like the way it happened to thawne where he basically lost his speed and couldn't get back home and had to plan to give barry his speed earlier to help him get back to his time line.....barry can tire himself out by using his speed and exert himself to the point he seems to have drained his speed but I think it's more of him being exhausted rather than draining his speedforce like a battery...that being said barry never loses his speed like the way thawne did, the next day or even minutes later barry has his speed like normal....SO my guess is ya they have to somehow bring back or revive the original speedforce since relying on a device to give barry speed changes the whole concept of the flash.

 

Did they mention Atlantis at the end? Or did I just hear things.

 

You heard correctly, and this is (at least) the third time it's been mentioned.

There was an episode set on the now doomed Earth-2 where Atlantis was said to exist. Post Crisis, Cicso went on a world tour to find himself and visited Atlantis, and now he's going back there for something.

Taking into account it's only him that's going back there, and that the city is seemingly easily accessible to him, I wouldn't imagine it's the same Atlantis that we'd like to see, and I wouldn't imagine there's an Aquaman around either. Probably just another nice little nod to the fans.

 

Nothing special about this episode it felt flat and very filler. I thought Godspeed would provide the restoration of Barry speed but it wasn't the case. Also I felt piper was wasted

So Catalin absence is a result of her going to Hub City to get medical treatment from her mother (due to Panabaker's pregnancy)
to restore her Frost abilities from the blast from sunshine

What has happened to Cisco? Ever since he gave up being Vibe he seems distant and useless.

I hope Season 7 brings some life back into this show because its seriously loss it footing.

 

Was this the first we've heard, post-Crisis, about Cisco not having his powers? He mentioned right after Crisis that he couldn't travel to other dimensions anymore, and so he assumed that other dimensions no longer existed, but that meant that he had tried to breach, and it implied his restored powers still worked. Sure, the restoration could have been temporary, and his breaching attempts by way of a portal device, and I'm in favour of the show putting limits on characters' extraordinary abilities, but Cisco losing his Vibe abilities a second time seems like a big enough deal that it should get more than an "Oh, by the way,..." mention long after the fact.

 

I felt godspeed was a watered down version of zoom, basically zoom would kick godspeeds butt around like nothing and both having the same desire to be the fastest by stealing other speedsters speed so in terms of story line, nothing new there.

cisco is only good for his intelligence at this point, as vibe he had powers that he could use in various ways without that he's not much of a defender for star labs or the team unless he has one of his gadgets to protect him.

its gonna take more than barry encountering godspeed for him to get his speed back, even if they build an artificial speedforce that is still not the correct fix to the problem...obviously the real speedforce has to be revived and re-created and my guess is barry or someone else will figure out a way to do this....my hopes is that the new speedforce is like the one barry uses in the comics where he's the creator and power source for the speedforce for himself and all other speedsters, in other words no barry means nobody has super speed or access to the speedforce at all as barry would basically be one with the speedforce.

 

I’d rather not have this, because then he doesn’t have to answer to anyone except himself. The CW speedforce holds power over Barry if he meddles with the timeline too much.

Besides, whilst I’m sure the comic lore changes and fluctuates with regard to the speedforce, how is Barry the one to create and own it? The likes of comic Savitar and Jay Garrick exist before Barry Allen, as does the speedforce.

 

The cause-and-effect might all be sensible in some frame of reference, just not in the one that we perceive. Something like how the Prophets perceive the universe non-linearly in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the reversed-time anomaly in TNG's "All Good Things", or the forward-but-disjointed time flow that Marty McFly experiences in Back to the Future.

 

I thought this was ok.

I'm bored with Godspeed if all were going to do is see a bunch different versions of the character.

 

My favourite part was when Cisco analyzed Godspeeds blood using his space satellites. What terrifying invasive technology he has at his fingertips! Of course the corrupt CCPD will never investigate Star Labs, because the cops are comprised.

I've been watching through of House of Cards lately, but the stuff these guys get away with makes Frank Underwood look like a saint, but unlike that show I am 100% these monsters won't get caught.

 

Face masks and all, at that! Just another silly choice. Like when Barry left Joe sitting on the bomb and apparently ran Cecile half way across the city - when just down the block would have been safe enough.And be lest of a waste of his remaining speed.

Plus, wouldn't there have been a lot of damage just from the sonic booms..? I can imagine the streets laid waste by the passage of a pair of speeders going Mach 5!

 

the speedforce as an energy source is not bound by time/space so therefore other speedsters prior to barry like jay or savitar is irrelevant when it comes to the science of space/time.

I don't want barry to be the creator and have authority over it, but it would be nice for him to become more in tune with the speedforce so he can tap into it like wally did only much greater and more powerful than other speedsters.

the tv show mingles with both comic and what they decide to come up with, it's like there own take on the flash...the show doesn't follow the comics 100% and every speedster that tampered with time barry, jay, zoom, RF, ect can all attract time wraiths so barry wouldn't be in total control even with an artificial speedforce it may have its limitations compared to the original, right now it seems it works but doesn't stay powered on so either a mechanical or mathamatical error in terms of getting the real speedforce back my guess is from some type of device or mystical gem or stone, OR they get the artificial up and running and stable and barry plays with the timeline again, who knows, lol.

 

And though I am fine with same-sex couples, they are getting a little overdone. That guy could have easily been Piper's brother rather boyfriend and it would have been just as well. Even couldn't harkened back to Cisco and his brother, whom Barry created then took away.

 

Hartley has been gay in he comics for a long time, so theres actually precedence for his character, unlike, say, Mr. Terrific.