The Flash The Flash Season 2 Episode 9: "Running to Stand Still"

[haephestus]

The fact that she somehow had a device created to stop the Flash while she tried to off the Weather Wizard seemed like a BIG STRETTTCCCH.

I thought that it was "The Boot" which Cisco invented for the Metahuman Taskforce to use against metahumans? So, it would make sense for Patty to have access to it since she's one of only two members of the taskforce.

Of course, it's effectiveness against The Flash is questionable, especially since he could have easily used his arm tornado powers to "blow" Patty away from the Weather Wizard. Or, if I recall correctly, he potentially could have simply "phased" out of the restraint, since I'm pretty sure he's phased through things before (unless he needs to be "free" and able to move before he phases through trucks and human bodies).

 

[Boy Scout]

What's more dubious than any of that is the fact that his reflexes weren't fast enough to dodge the damn thing in the first place.

 

[Mike Murdock]

- How the hell did sending one bomb up the breach cause others to follow? I thought Cisco said something about magnets but shouldn't a whole bunch of magnets flown out of houses as well?

It wasn't magnets. Magnets were just an analogy.

I'm not sure why people are still confused. They also clearly explained it in the episode. The answer was made up barely pseudo science so I can see people thinking the answer was dumb. But I don't know why people are just confused. I heard the answer, I got the gist of it, I realized I didn't care because it didn't make any sense, and I moved on.

Essentially, it locked the signal from the bomb (or something like that, could have been the molecular structure of the bomb itself) to the portal, which caused the portal to suck them in.

 

[Avenging Angel]

I thought it was a fairly decent mid season finale.

A couple things I liked:

Trickster and Weather Wizard teaming up. Hamill's one-liners were hysterical. Mark's powers were really sweet out of nowhere, didn't expect them to go all out with them.

Leonard/Cold coming around on Barry, him breaking into his house was cool. Loved that he didn't want a part in it.

The mystery with who Zoom is is definitely amped up. I still think it's Henry but we'll see. It's obviously someone close to Barry.

Stuff I didn't care for:

Iris/Joe West family drama. All the hype built up for a 2 minute scene at the end? Whatever.

Cisco should legit be handled like Felicity, a side character. No reason to see this much development so soon. Caitlin hasn't had any development yet, just in Gorilla Warfare. But so far no flash blacks.

Overall I'm gonna say it was decent. Not great like last year's mid-season. I hope we get more Zoom and a better insight into his weaknesses and who he really is.

 

[Avenging Angel]

I kind of agree and it didn't really fell much like a midseason final and last years midseason final was much much better.

I think because there wasn't much Zoom - the main baddie - it was a filler episode. It felt like one.

 

[zenith16]

Cons:
-I'm so sick of Jay... Either give him his powers back or get rid of him. What does he even do all day? You would think he'd be trying to get his speed back but he doesn't. He's really just a wet blanket for the team. I wish they would have made him a little more BA. He's kind of a wimp and hasn't played an important role for a while.
-Jay and Caitlyn's relationship seems so forced. I know it's been a while since she lost Ronnie but I don't think she'd be throwing herself at him. Hopefully this will somehow tie in to her becoming Killer Frost.
-Zoom, he's the stuff made of nightmares, but don't give him the exact same goal as RF. Come on...
-Really, there was no cliffhanger or anything we didn't all see coming. I think they should have at least hinted to who Zoom was. Given us a vague clue or something.


All in all not a terrible episode but not midseason finale worthy IMO

well I think it's a set up for this below. or it will be eventually.

BTW it wasn't terrible episode to me. it was ok.


Comic Book Resources

15 hrs ·






Victor Garber and Robbie Amell hint at Firestorm reunion on "Legends of Tomorrow"; "S.H.I.E.L.D." stars Clark Gregg and Brett Dalton weigh in on last night's big change and more.




COMIC REEL: Former Firestorm Partners Garber And Amell Reunite; Gregg Reacts To "SHIELD" Surprise
Victor Garber and Robbie Amell hint at Firestorm reunion on "Legends of Tomorrow"; "S.H.I.E.L.D." stars weigh in on last night's big change and more.
COMIC BOOK RESOURCES


I put this in the general threads for LOT and the flash. it's likely for tension reason's though amell said he'd return and garber said he'll be around on video. after posting this last night I came up





with this joke cause we know the writers are gonna want to keep Jay around for love triangle none sense and may be make them fist fight. etc.

here's what I'd rather see after Ronnie comes back cause rather see him avoid all the usual none sesne that have certain parts of the fan base hate any of the three.

Ronnie comes back see's Caitlyne has moved on head up to her talks with her and say it's ok he's happy she moved on and then leaves town cause well this has happen twice and the second time was on theur wedding day and honey moon. and she with jay now cause the writers are pushing for this hard core . so he's a free man. he tell's her he'll head to san demico or Deminicon republic as we English call it and have the paper's about their marriage taken care of. in they were never married at all.

And he leaves star labs saying he's headed to Cancoon to find his own happiness, with his fist pumped in the air in freez frame caption with Cisco doing the same at the star Labs door saying right on Brotha.

 

[Guard82]

There was a lot of fun stuff in this episode. While it wasn't as exciting or dramatic as last year's midseason finale, it was still very enjoyable, with lots of Christmas-related fun.

The villains were one of the best parts of this episode. I had been wanting to see another Rogues-centric episode, and this one was well-done. Seeing the three villains interact was hugely entertaining, especially since we can see clearly how different they are in terms of personality: Weather Wizard is grumpy and short-tempered, Trickster is wacky and crazy and unpredictable, and Captain Cold is calm and deadpan. The resulting clash of personalities among the three villains is a highlight of the episode.

Mark Hamill returning as the Trickster was a real delight, with him clearly having a great time playing the character and utilizing his Trickster/Joker voice for maximum zany, creepy fun. Hamill had great villain one-liners. I especially liked this line: "Where's your Christmas spirit? Christmas is about togetherness, and what says togetherness better than mass graves?"

I also liked how they showed us some neat displays of Weather Wizard's powers. His ability to fly by creating updrafts of air was a nice touch. I also liked how Barry went into full Flash mode after the hostage situation was defused and took down Weather Wizard and Trickster simultaneously in the blink of an eye.

It was also nice to see Wally West for the first time, and lead-up to Wally's appearance featured some very nice acting by Jesse L. Martin and Candice Patton in the earlier scenes dealing with the emotional fallout of Joe learning about Wally's existence. Cisco had some funny dialogue when he was teasing Jay and Caitlin about their obvious attraction.

I liked Patty's involvement too, with her intense fury providing a nice contrast to her usual adorable demeanor. The one frustrating thing is that it's been taking way too long for Barry to reveal his secret to her. At this point, there really isn't any logical reason to keep her in the dark. He's already revealed his secret identity to people like Linda and Kendra, and practically everyone close to him knows his secret except Patty. There's really no reason for Patty to be left out of the loop when everyone else is in on Barry's secret, and I'm glad it looks like they're finally going to change that in the next episode in January.

I'm hoping they develop the conflict with Zoom more since that plotline took a backseat in this episode to the conflict with the Rogues. Also, I hope they give Jay more to do in future episodes, because it's been a while since he did anything interesting.

Overall, it was highly enjoyable with many memorable and fun scenes.

 

[Guard82]

I also wanted to give special mention to Captain Cold. Any time Leonard/Cold is in an episode, he's practically guaranteed to be awesome, both because of Wentworth Miller's acting and because the writers use him so well. Even though his role in this episode was smaller than usual, he still had some of the best lines, a lot of which were delivered with great deadpan humor.

COLD (sitting in Barry's living room as if he's just relaxing): Hot cocoa just isn't hot cocoa without those little mini marshmallows, and you're all out of those. I know 'cause I checked.

COLD: Mardon wants revenge. Jesse wants chaos. I'm just not as invested as they are.
IRIS: You mean there's no money in it for you.
COLD: Nonprofit work doesn't usually pay much.

BARRY: Are you going to tell me where Mardon and Jesse are?
COLD: Nah. Consider me more of a secret Santa.

I loved this scene because Miller was absolutely killing it with his delivery of Leonard's hilarious deadpan lines.

 

[DCMarvelFanGuy]

Mediocre episode.

- Why didn't Barry just knock the Weather Wizard and the Trickster out with his super speed? The bombs can't go off if they can't detonate them.

Well, we don't know how they would detonate the bombs. Maybe Trickster needed to constantly "update" them or whatever. I don't think knocking them out with the bombs out there is a good idea.

 

[The Incredible Hulk]

I just imagine 99 people waking up to small round holes in their houses, or did Well's pseudo-science have the portal make the bombs use the door too?

 

[Spider-Aziz]

I just imagine 99 people waking up to small round holes in their houses, or did Well's pseudo-science have the portal make the bombs use the door too?

Every bomb broke a window.
It was a chilling night for every house.

 

[Hunter Rider]

I thought it was a fun Christmas ep, the oldschool villain team-up gave me a nostalgic feel and The Trickster's Christmas present bomb plan was neat fun that was defeated by equally comic booky science!

There was some good development for Patty and Joe, I hope things go well with Wally, he didn't seem to have a chip on his shoulder at least. I also really liked the scene where Joe passed his watch on to Barry, you could tell from Barry's facial reaction when Iris told him about Wally that he was conflicted over Joe suddenly having another son, so that was a great moment between him and Joe, befitting a Christmas episode.

The opening sequence of Zoom chasing Harry was awesome, Zoom is easily my favourite visual villain in any comic book TV show and Todd is owning the voice work as expected. I hope Harry has a plan as we've been down the traitor path before even though it wasn't technically him.

 

[edwardc]

When will wally get his powers.
How will Wells make Barry faster.

 

[Spider-Aziz]

I think Wally might get his powers by episode 17 of this season, then Jay gets his powers back.

 

[Mikelus]

Like many have said, this episode was very mediocre for a midseason finale. Barry letting Cold get away just like that was terrible, the real reason of course is the producers wanting Cold on LoT, ridiculous with all the heroes DC has BTW, even with the silly restrictions. And taking two of the Flash's rogues away is not the best idea either.

They're doing with Zoom the same mistake they did with Ra's Al Ghul, one big confrontation and little character development in the first half. Hopefully they will do a better job next year, but after Zoom almost killed Barry on episode 6, now they're going to stall by repeating the "getting Barry to be faster" from last season, then why Zoom was going to kill him in the first place? It is not coherent. It seems the producers don't know what to do with the characters, Jay Garrick has also been wasted so far, Iris and Caitlin don't have anything interesting going, etc. I think the CW or any big network is not the best venue for the genre, too many restrictions. If WBTV could make a deal with HBO, Netflix or Amazon, we would get better quality than this. The CW could also show more ambition and try to make the best series possible instead of repeating the same formula over and over if they want to be more respected as a network.

 

[DCMarvelFanGuy]

Like many have said, this episode was very mediocre for a midseason finale. Barry letting Cold get away just like that was terrible, the real reason of course is the producers wanting Cold on LoT, ridiculous with all the heroes DC has BTW, even with the silly restrictions.

I just assumed that was Barry and Snart's mutual respect at play again. Snart could have let the Rogues just blindside Barry, and Barry could have just ran Snart back to Iron Heights. They didn't though because their relationship is... complicated to say the least. I have a feeling that Barry will be on the scene if Snart causes trouble again. But until, then Barry has bigger concerns and trusts Snart not to break the "rules!"

 

[zenith16]

I thought it was a fun Christmas ep, the oldschool villain team-up gave me a nostalgic feel and The Trickster's Christmas present bomb plan was neat fun that was defeated by equally comic booky science!

There was some good development for Patty and Joe, I hope things go well with Wally, he didn't seem to have a chip on his shoulder at least. I also really liked the scene where Joe passed his watch on to Barry, you could tell from Barry's facial reaction when Iris told him about Wally that he was conflicted over Joe suddenly having another son, so that was a great moment between him and Joe, befitting a Christmas episode.

The opening sequence of Zoom chasing Harry was awesome, Zoom is easily my favourite visual villain in any comic book TV show and Todd is owning the voice work as expected. I hope Harry has a plan as we've been down the traitor path before even though it wasn't technically him.

Oh wally will have a chip alright for Barry sadly.

 

[signalman]

Another FUN episode of the FLASH.
The air chase scene with Flash and Weather Wizard was amazing.
Mark Hamill as the Trickster was awesome. He gets such glee out of his work.

I agree with others that say Jay has been a disappointment.
Hopefully he will be up to speed on Earth-2. Even if its only in Flashbacks.

 

[Avenging Angel]

With

Spoiler

Jay getting his powers back. He won't be for long.

 

[metaphysician]

Well, we don't know how they would detonate the bombs. Maybe Trickster needed to constantly "update" them or whatever. I don't think knocking them out with the bombs out there is a good idea.

It could be as simple as timers, really, or detonation on opening. The theoretical scenario is "After Flash is dead, they would turn over the list of the people who received bombs, which gives the surviving heroes/police a shot at retrieving all of them safely." Granted, this depends on the villains keeping their word, and while I am fairly certain Clydon would, I am almost sure the Trickster wouldn't.

 

[metaphysician]

I just assumed that was Barry and Snart's mutual respect at play again. Snart could have let the Rogues just blindside Barry, and Barry could have just ran Snart back to Iron Heights. They didn't though because their relationship is... complicated to say the least. I have a feeling that Barry will be on the scene if Snart causes trouble again. But until, then Barry has bigger concerns and trusts Snart not to break the "rules!"

Also, Snart had a plausible deterrence against conflict: the rigged deadman's switch on his cold gun. Sure, it might not have worked ( hell, it might have been a bluff ), but given the low stakes, its a good edge to discourage actual violence.

 

[zenith16]

It could be as simple as timers, really, or detonation on opening. The theoretical scenario is "After Flash is dead, they would turn over the list of the people who received bombs, which gives the surviving heroes/police a shot at retrieving all of them safely." Granted, this depends on the villains keeping their word, and while I am fairly certain Clydon would, I am almost sure the Trickster wouldn't.

here's the thing prior to the portal I thought dr. well of earth 2 was gonna use the magnet to interfere with the signal to detonation switch the tricter had.

since it was a dead man switch and not a timer. And also since most tech these days are digital it would make sense. but since Earth 2 Dr. wells used a portal as well. it would have been cool if multiple portals opened in each of the gift owner homes over the specific box that had the bombs and sucked up just that present.

but instead it happen in the middle of the city a with the gift making hole in the homes of people they're are lucky it's not like what usually happen in the east coast or place where it snows heavily .

Anyway it is what it is this story was just for cheese like the freeze gun working on laser trip wire for alarm system's a few episodes ago. so it's just best to let it slide. but I'm glad you were coming up with idea's .

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

This series... I really am getting to the end of my rope...

Pros:

1. Return of Mardon, Trickster and the always reliable Miller as Cold. Good interaction between them and loved Cold and Barry's talk.

2. I liked that this week the writers showed some self awareness in approaching Iris and the fact that she kept the info about Wally to herself.

3. The Weather Wizard chase was nicely done, I mean Helicopter blades FTW. (Though there was something that bugged me big time about it's start... But later for that).

4. The moment of Barry talking to the glass, looking at Earth 2 Wells but really speaking to Reverse-Flash. Powerful stuff, and it portends a change in attitude towards Harry, though of course the show telegraphed how that will bite Barry on the ass later. Still... Well written and acted moment. (Except for one bit... Again... Later)

5. Wally. Nuff said.

Now what drives me up the wall...

Cons:

1. Barry speeds off to confront Mardon. Mardon flies away. Barry stands there gaping. Cut to STAR and needless humor. Mardon continues fleeing. Barry stands gaping. Jay tells Barry to run after. Umm... Am I the only one? Is it really just me? How da hell do you justify this crap? Barry shouldn't need Jay to tell him to go after Mardon, I mean... He's been doing this for awhile. It undermines his character. As it stands too often Flash comes off like a weapon that is steered by the STAR Labs command center crew, not a smart, think on his feet hero, and this is another in a long line of BS that shows this. Oh, and... Flash just happens to stop Mardon RIGHT at the place Trickster is at too? No... Just no.

2. Umm... What happened with the HUGE moment last episode where Patty saw "Wells"? Yeah, there was like a second where she almost blurted it out, but even the writers flubbed on this. I mean... Barry INVITED Harry to a get together at his house where Patty was going to be. Did Joe and the others just keep Barry out of the loop as to Wells being SHOT BY HIS GIRLFRIEND? It's a good thing Wells turned Barry down because how would THAT have gone down? How was Barry going to explain THAT? Again... This is simply the sloppy, "It's a super hero show, it can be outrageously stupid and no one will care" attitude of this show's creators. Sorry, that's just how I see it. Implications and logic are brushed aside with nary a thought just because it's a show with super powers on it.

3. Shouldn't Barry have been able to just vibrate through the "boot"? For that matter, Mardon is all, "I doubt even you could find all the bombs in time, ect." Wait... Last week Barry raced from the farm house the heroes were holed up at to a museum and brought back a meteorite in less than 20 seconds with the flimsiest of information. So... Barry can run to this museum and check through it's entire inventory in 20 seconds, but finding these bombs was IMPOSSIBLE? Sloppy, sloppy, SLOPPY. Don't get me started on the drone/portal BS, which, again, was there simply to give the rest of the cast someting to do while again, undercutting the hero and his powers for the sake of BS drama.

4. Patty was shoot to kill with Wells last week after a step, but she hesitates long enough to let Flash talk her down when she has the man that murdered her father at her mercy? BS writing folks. BS WRITING. She plans this out enough to bring the meta human weapon to take out Flash but she takes her sweet time with Mardon? Last week she didn't hesitate to fire on Wells at all, but now it's buck fever with a gun to her father's killer?

The cons are REALLY starting to overshadow this show's strengths and it's getting worse each episode for me. The episodes after the break better move the ball along on the Zoom plot and wow me with the character stuff cuz other wise I may well drop this show.

 

[DCMarvelFanGuy]

4. Patty was shoot to kill with Wells last week after a step, but she hesitates long enough to let Flash talk her down when she has the man that murdered her father at her mercy? BS writing folks. BS WRITING. She plans this out enough to bring the meta human weapon to take out Flash but she takes her sweet time with Mardon? Last week she didn't hesitate to fire on Wells at all, but now it's buck fever with a gun to her father's killer?

All your other cons are fairly agreeable, but I'm going to have to disagree here. The Wells situation was different because he was holding an injector that Patty mistook for a gun. She was acting in self-defense. The situation with Mardon is different because he was already subdued and no longer a threat.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

All your other cons are fairly agreeable, but I'm going to have to disagree here. The Wells situation was different because he was holding an injector that Patty mistook for a gun. She was acting in self-defense. The situation with Mardon is different because he was already subdued and no longer a threat.

Mardon can bring down hail and lightning. As far as I am concerned HE IS A GUN. Wells takes a step? "Kill, kill, kill!". Guy that can toss lightning? "Eh, I am gonna take my time."