DC CW, April 23, 24 & 26

With DeVoe, I would argue that it's the result of his intelligence reaching a breaking point; where he had previously reached a pinnacle point in his thought process, that did in fact allow him to accurately predict the most likely outcome of events. But now he's stepped beyond that threshold, to where he's now overthinking; while his growing intellect (and possibly the multiple body transfers) have diminished certain facets of his critical thinking, which in turns alters how he calculates his subsequent predictions. He's becoming more detached while growing more arrogant, which consequently leads to the cracks in the veneer; and I think the crucial thing is that he's starting to factor himself out of his equations - the ramifications of his behavior, because the thought processes should be so perfect, that he takes for granted how he's perceived or responded to - by Barry when he froze and now, exponentially, his wife as he fails to return her affections or comprehend how the emotional factors have played a role in recent events.



It actually reminds me of an episode of Deep Space Nine, where these genetically enhanced individuals - many of them with some type of behavioral problem - find that they can pick-up on the certain things; like body language, linguistics, giving Starfleet insight and a small edge in negotiations during a war. They even begin to calculate statistics that prove valuable in making certain decisions about the war, but it soon becomes this rabbit hole; where they deeper they go and the further out they work their predictions, the more obsessive become, while simultaneously less objective. Even the more well adjusted Augment, Dr. Julian Bashir, gets drawn into their conclusions about the ultimate hopelessness of the Federation winning the war with the Dominion; and that a surrender now would save countless lives that would most likely be lost, only to lose anyway.

This leads to some of the less stable Augments to use some of the classified reports that Starfleet had given them access to when they were helping with analyses to try and win the war, by planning to give the info to the other side; so that they could use those reports to bring a swift conclusion. What they failed to take into consideration was a young Augment woman who was part of their group, who because of the nature of her genetic and cognitive augmentation, was something short of being locked in her own body, scarcely able to communicate with the outside world. They didn't think she'd be of any consequence to their plans or any of their predicted outcomes, but she was able to warn Bashir and stop them - and as Bashir tells them, no matter how sound the math, they couldn't even predicted what would happen in their room.





As for Siren-X… The naming convention is about par for anything else on these shows, much less the comics. I mean, just Earth X alone hurts my brain. When they first introduced the multiverse on The Flash, they detected 52 earths; yet somehow there was one more, but it wasn’t given a designation, because blah, blah, no goes there or comes back or some bullshit – but if that were true, how does anyone know it exists or what’s happening there? And who gave any of these earths their number in the first place then? Are we to believe that other earths actually refer to Earth 1 as Earth 1, and their own Earth as Earth 38 or Earth 42?

Siren X’s power to hear at a great distance makes about as much sense as Superman’s or Supergirl’s ability to do the same exact thing; maybe more so, by virtue of it tying in with her existing sonic abilities. I wouldn’t hazard a guess what the internal logic might be, and I admit, I did role my eyes are the extreme distance her powers seemed to work over, but I did still find it to be an interesting choice in extrapolate her powers; that it’s more than just making sound, but a more elaborate command of sound. I mean, how does the sonic cry even work? We’re talking about sound that produces force; and yet it doesn’t throw Siren-X or Black Siren or Black Canary backwards when they use such abilities. Does this mean other characters with a sonic cry should have or will have the same ability to hear? Maybe. If it means exploring the nature of those powers more, I can get on board with it. I actually thought it might have been worth starting to explore that with Dinah in Arrow this week, when they were trying to use the laser to listen in on the meeting. Maybe it’s the next evolution of those powers; and because the metas on Earth X are less inhibited, and perhaps were experimented on, they can do stuff their counterparts on other earths can’t.

One thing that gets me though is how we now have two alternate Laurels with the same powers, which Earth 1 Laurel didn’t actually posses. I kind of wish they’d examine that more, and the fact that someone else entirely ended up having those powers on Earth 1 instead.



With Supergirl, I thought the initial introduction of J’Onn’s father’s dementia was a little much; especially with how they had him not want Alex to tell J’Onn – as if he wouldn’t find out eventually. The psychic bleed affecting other characters resembled more than one episode of Star Trek, but if you have a character with telepathic suffering a loss of mental control, it kind of makes sense that, that might become an issue. And what it would mean for a species that places such importance on their mental disciplines and telepathic abilities to lose all that does have some strong implications. The whole sub-plot with the cape work was a little much, I will say. I would say it reminded me of the short lived NBC series The Cape, but since I never watched it, it reminded me more of Community and Abed’s obsession with The Cape, and the whole “Six season and a movie!” bit….

Nice to see Mon-El finally in his costume, though somehow there’s something off about. I can’t place my finger on it though.

The part with Lena and Sam was solid; and in comparison to other Supergirl episodes, this was definitely a better one. And that’s pretty much how I looked at all three shows this weeks; not so much in contrast to each other, but against their own episodes to date. Supergirl’s plot and execution was reasonably well done; The Flash was fairly solid, with minimum cheese.



As you said, I could have done without the B-Team’s self-fellating, aren’t we great without Oliver-ness. I really hope they don’t have a moment where Oliver realizes the error of his ways and apologizes to the team. The only apology deserved was the one he’s already given to John about remaining the Green Arrow.

I’m ambivalent about the second (or first?) story with Oliver and Anatoly; I mean, it apparently took Oliver a week tops, if not significantly less than that, to put Anatoly back in good graces with the Bratva, and he didn’t do that until now? And Anatoly needed Oliver or Diaz to prove which one actually had honor? Did Anatoly receive a brain injury that we don’t know about?

Oliver should have killed Diaz when he had the chance, instead of demanding he yield. I don’t know what that might have proven to Anatoly, but a great of the current problems would be resolved; and it’s not like he has the same compunction about lethal force that Barry has….

Something I didn't think about until considering my response, which the show could have done better acknowledging or exploring, is the fact that DeVoe has been around since the beginning; just somewhere in the background, planning and setting things into motion. That gives him four years where he could have quite possibly explored the multiverse - I mean, 52 Earths in addition to his? Why not? Especially once people from those earths start crossing over to Earth 1 and vice versa; they became variables in his analysis like everything else. So understanding the nature of those factors would be just as important monitoring events on Earth 1.

What it all boils down to is statistical analysis. In real life, an actuary can calculate the likelihood of certain things happening, like a home being destroyed by a flood, or an accidental death, based on statistics of a wide variety of known circumstances. It makes me think of an episode from the Canadian medical drama, Saving Hope; where a patient is sleep walking and drawing on the walls of the hospital. The character was an actuary, and it turns out that what he's been writing on the walls are actually statistics of things like meeting your wife under these set of circumstances, having a kid after a certain again. It becomes clear quickly he's talking about his own life; and he continues he notes how, this is the formula that predicts the likelihood that said child will have dark hair, be left handed... get hit by a car, marriage falls apart, losing your job...
None of those things were something he could have definitively known would happen based on his math, but it was still something that plagued him; especially since in his line of work, he knew how to draw the correlations and how one thing might lead to something else. And that torment of not being able to use that to protect his son or save his marriage lead to his sleep walking.

With DeVoe, it's taking all of that to the next level. In earlier episodes he would often talk about how, out of so many different possible outcomes, only in this percentage did x, y, z happen; they might have called him something other than the thinker, or taken some other course of action. He's not predicting with such absolute certainty, down to the decimal what will happen, so much as calculating 50 or 100 different scenarios based on the variables he does know, to predict the top 50 most likely outcomes; and probably weighs each by some standard of probability, as he waits to see which one plays out.
They've downplayed that a little lately, especially with the last episode where he was certain about Barry's actions and blindsided by how they failed to play out the way he thought they would; which may very well be the point. As I said, he could be so far up his own ass and deep into his thought processes, that he's decompensating; he thinks he no longer needs to think of the top 50 possible outcomes, but the top 5 or even just what he deems to be the 1 most probable outcome, because he's so smart that any of those other variations don't merit consideration.


While it was never hinted at as a possible storyline, I actually wanted to see something along those lines as an arc for the Zachery Levi series Chuck; where the Intersect gets an update that programs Chuck's subconscious with all these statistics and predictive algorithms. He starts to sort of predict things before they happen, because his mind is extrapolating its observations and projecting what will happen next; and at first it's pretty accurate. Then he has this experience where the Intersect creates this elaborate simulation in his mind - basically a dream - that would contend to predict his distant future; something like 15 years removed from the present. And he sees all these things like he and Sarah are getting divorced, Casey losing a leg and finding inner peace, Awesome is out of shape and depressed. Chuck himself is a full fledged spy, who barely uses the intersect anymore, or at least isn't phased by the flashes; while Sarah has left that life behind to raise their daughter. Morgan is a General, who now gives Chuck his orders. And Chuck's sister is dead, and Chuck blames himself. The whole experience, from Chuck's perspective, would be entirely in the moment; like a dream where the events you're experiencing are exactly how things are supposed to be, instead of the detached or remote perspective present-day Chuck would have.
Chuck would wake up from this wanting to do whatever he can to avoid all of this from happening, but the more he tries to avoid it, the more some of the things come true - until he comes to understand and appreciate that at least some of the things are being influenced and forced to come true as a result of his foreknowledge, as sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy; something that the Intersect took into consideration. It knows well enough to factor in behavior stemming from knowledge gleamed from the predictive flashes, even though it becomes a logical paradox of knowledge of predicted events leading to those predictions coming true as a direct result of predicting them. In wrapping his head around this, Chuck embraces his free will and manages to make a decision that allows him to break the loop and achieve a happier ending.

I don't think it's so much that they have control over the concept of green hair, so much as the combination of that with the other physical attributes that would visually evoke the distinct identity of The Joker.

It sort of goes back to the discussion about copyrights. A prime example might be performing a musical production versus singing a song from the same musical. You can sing a song from a musical without paying for the full performance rights of the play, or under certain circumstances without paying anything at all; because generally the venue will have paid for broad license to companies like BMI or ASCAP for non-dramatic use of music in their venue, like karaoke or bringing in a band or even just having a jukebox. But, if you incorporate costumes or use dialogue from the show along with the music, that combination changes the nature of the performance to what would be considered a dramatic performance, which would not be covered by the same type of license and you'd have to license the entire musical to legally perform it that way.

Take away a distinctive element from the Joker, like his green hair and the actual character name, and he could hypothetically be any other knock-off. It may seem like splitting hairs, and it is, if it's open secret that this is who it's supposed to be, but both parties leave enough room for plausible deniability; where either the show could say (again) that this person everyone thought was the Joker really wasn't; or for whatever purposes Warner Bros have to disavow a legitimate connection between this and the character they own, they can do that too, by pointing to the ways the character differs.
It's not unlike Jimmy turning out not to be Jimmy on Smallville.