Yup, because he was so calm and collected in 2x11 when he was confronted with a younger (so to speak) version of the man who killed his mother. Just because the intro changed this year didn't mean that wasn't a driving force still. His desire to save his mother in essence caused him to open the singularity and open the door for Zoom and Earth-2. Nora's death is still the catalyst, lost as it might seem in the grand scheme of things.
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I don't believe you missed anything. It came out of the blue for me, too. This is one of the reasons why I felt this episode didn't work at all. It invented a problem that the character didn't seem to have up to that point. And, like you, I think it's a totally legitimate problem to have. He just didn't show any signs that he had it.Comment
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Yup, because he was so calm and collected in 2x11 when he was confronted with a younger (so to speak) version of the man who killed his mother. Just because the intro changed this year didn't mean that wasn't a driving force still. His desire to save his mother in essence caused him to open the singularity and open the door for Zoom and Earth-2. Nora's death is still the catalyst, lost as it might seem in the grand scheme of things.
Show me the moments where Barry sabotaged his own life because he couldn't get over the loss of his mother. Show me where he pulled his punches. Show me where he even talked about it or acted weird so that we as an audience would know "something's up with this dude".
I know you've been a big fan of the show and have consistently given it strong reviews, but you can't tell me this has been a season long thing with him. If anything, it seemed to me as if the entire point of season 1 was for Barry to resolve that issue. The point of season 1 was to show Barry triumph over the loss that has defined his entire life, and he did. He beat Eobard, said goodbye to his mom, and he got his father out of jail. Mission accomplished. This episode's conflict could have been a season 1 episode, but not a season 2 episode. And the speed force sequence itself doesn't show him doing anything other than talking it out, as if he were in some sort of therapy session.
Compare it to, just as an example, the episode of Star Trek The Next Generation when Picard goes home and speaks with his brother about his experience being assimilated by the Borg. In that episode, Picard is tempted to leave Starfleet by another job offer. He almost does it, too, but his brother forces him to realize that the only reason he's even considering giving up the Enterprise is because he's afraid to face up to the fact that he was used as a weapon to murder thousands of his own people, and that he wasn't strong enough to stop it. In this episode of the Flash, Barry wants his speed back before and after he comes to his self-realization. There's no temptation to wallow in self-pity or give up being the Flash. He always wants the same thing, before and after. And the realization doesn't come from any physical trial or task he needs to complete. He doesn't have to actually catch the speed. It just comes to him. Compare this to The Dark Knight Rises when Bruce makes the climb without the rope. Both the Star Trek example and the TDKR example show how to do right what this episode was trying to do and failed.Last edited by Backward Galaxy; 05-17-2016, 11:53 AM.Comment
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Well, that's reassuring that I wasn't missing any giant signposts. Certainly I could go back and add together various events (such as the rationale for the decision that led to the singularity, which I had been well aware of) and come to a conclusion from a critical-thinking perspective that that's what I was supposed to think. But what I didn't feel I was seeing were scenes or hints of feelings and emotions, being shown on Barry's part, sprinkled throughout most of the subsequent episodes (after the one with his choice to go back in time to save his mother) that could serve to lead me to the feeling and conclusion that he was still very burdened by his mother's death, to the extent that it was holding him back significantly.Comment
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