In the penultimate episode of The Flash season 3, Tracy needs an incredibly rare power source to make her “Speed Force Bazooka” work on Savitar. Cisco tracks this source to a nearby location. Leftover tech from the Dominator invasion of their planet is being held in an ARGUS base that has meta-human dampeners that prevent the usage of superpowers. Barry has no experience breaking into places, so he travels back in time to grab Captain Cold from his adventures on Legends of Tomorrow during their first season. The two break in, grab the tech, and leave once they convince Director Lila Michaels that Barry is worthy of the tech.
From there, Tracy finishes her work on the bazooka and Iris creates a message for Barry to find should she die as she is foretold to. Wally and Joe take her to Earth 2 to hide with Harry and to prevent Savitar from finding her. However, Savitar, disguised as the Flash, gets HR to accidentally tell him where Iris is hiding and, by the time Barry returns from dropping Cold back off with the Legends, he finds her on Earth 2. He breaks Wally’s leg and takes Iris before Harry or Joe could do anything to stop him. Cisco goes off to challenge Killer Frost while Team Flash tries to stop Savitar. Their plan fails as Savitar manages to overcome the effects of the bazooka with the help of the Philosopher’s Stone. The episode ends with Savitar stabbing Iris through the heart while her message to Barry plays, reciting her vows and becoming his wife.
Overall, this was a good episode. The beginning portion was really fun, especially seeing Wentworth Miller return to the show as Captain Cold. There were a lot of fun references in the ARGUS base such as mentions of Gorilla Grodd and Cupid. Another reference to the DC Comics character Cheetah foreshadows her eventual inclusion in the Arrowverse. There are also plenty of direct references to Legends of Tomorrow in the episode, such as Cold making a joke about having experience losing a hand and him saying “no strings on me”, his final words before he dies at the end of Legends season 1.
The best part of the episode by far was the latter half. There was a good amount of setup throughout the season to make the events to come emotional, but this episode ramped up the acting and drama to make it even more impactful. While Flash was given a good reason to be off doing his thing, the rest of the cast was worrying about their own potential for making mistakes and letting Iris die. Every single one of them had their own take on it and played their roles quite well. When Iris’ death finally occurred, the writers stuck to their guns and let her die. I think this is very important because most audience members (myself included) were probably expecting them to find some way out of this situation. The fact that they failed, and the message from Iris playing at the end especially grounded the moment in an intensely emotional realism that is oftentimes lacking from The Flash.
What didn’t work in this episode were some strange choices made with the plot. For starters, why was King Shark guarding the Dominator tech? This is something I have been wondering since last week’s episode ended and it is never explained. It was entertaining, sure, but it made no sense. There’s also a moment that I thought was dumb initially but ended up not being as bad later. Savitar receives updated memories of Barry traveling to grab Cold and steal the Dominator tech. Instead of sending Killer Frost after them, he decides to act like a classic, cheesy Bond villain and let them do their thing because “it won’t matter.” It ended up not mattering, but it still came across as over the top and dumb.
There’s still one episode left this season and hopefully the writers don’t bring back Iris. I think the character is great and I have nothing against her or the actress that plays her, but they shouldn’t diminish the impact her death had by bringing her back. This is a mistake they made in Arrow many times over and it should not be repeated in The Flash.
Trailer for Next Week’s Episode:
Generally, The Marvels is good. It has a 59 on Rotten Tomatoes, which isn’t great, but it’s better than Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania and Disney+’s Secret Invasion. Perhaps director Nia DaCosta’s video game inspirations contributed to that.
The American filmmaker said Square Enix’s Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children influenced her latest film at a press junket with IGN. “It’s just an amazing movie, with great fight scenes and a great ending sequence with the main character being thrown into the sky by all the other characters,” she said.
Despite poor reviews upon release in 2005, Advent Children has become a Final Fantasy cult classic. DaCosta seems to agree that the film is a classic. PlayStation exclusives also influenced the Marvels.
In the interview, she said she didn’t want the superhero film to look “too much like a video game” but did draw from Sony’s biggest franchises, like The Last of Us and Horizon Zero Dawn. “For me, it was from the best games, the best stories that you get, that sort of inspires me to play, and I think inspires people to watch movies like this,” she said.
Since movies have shaped video games since their inception, it’s interesting to see the dynamic slowly changing. Now that technology and interactive storytelling are more complex, filmmakers are looking to PlayStation for inspiration.
Netflix reported third-quarter earnings and is doing well. Revenue increased as the company added 9 million subscribers worldwide.
Netflix is also using this opportunity to raise the prices of some of its U.S., U.K., and French plans to differentiate ad-free plans from its entry-level ad-supported plan. New subscribers to the most expensive plan will pay $22.99 per month.
Let’s step back and examine Netflix’s current situation. Netflix cracked down on password sharing in its home market and dozens of others in May. The third quarter is the first full quarter under the new rules, so we can see the effect of password sharing.
The company removed the basic tier in the U.S. and U.K. two months ago to simplify its offering. People must pay a lot to remove Netflix ads.
Reports suggest that many customers are experiencing subscription fatigue and considering canceling some streaming subscriptions, but Netflix still has room for growth, especially with advertising revenue.
The company has 247.15 million subscribers. The number of subscribers increased 8.76 million this quarter. Netflix subscribers haven’t grown that much since Q2 2020, when Covid lockdowns were enforced worldwide.
Netflix earned $3.73 per share on $8.5 billion in revenue this quarter. As ads plan subscribers rise almost 70% quarter-over-quarter, ads are contributing more to the bottom line. Nearly a third of new subscribers use ads.
Netflix shares are up 13.75% pre-market ($393.79 per share) on good news for shareholders. However, subscribers will be unhappy because the company will raise prices for some plans again in three key markets. Full breakdown here.
In the U.S.:
- Standard with ads: $6.99 per month (no change)
- Basic (no longer available): $11.99 per month (up from $9.99)
- Standard: $15.49 per month (no change)
- Premium (with 4K streaming): $22.99 per month (up from $19.99)
In the U.K.:
- Standard with ads: £4.99 per month (no change)
- Basic (no longer available): £7.99 per month (up from £6.99)
- Standard: £10.99 per month (no change)
- Premium (with 4K streaming): £17.99 per month (up from £15.99)
In France:
- Standard with ads: €5.99 per month (no change)
- Basic (still available in France for now): €10.99 per month (up from €8.99)
- Standard: €13.49 per month (no change)
- Premium (with 4K streaming): €19.99 per month (up from €17.99)
New subscriptions start at these prices today. Bills for existing subscribers will rise in the coming weeks.
When your writer—one of Hollywood’s hottest—tries to hide their involvement, it’s a bad sign. The Borderlands film’s original script was written by Craig Mazin (The Last of Us, Chernobyl), who recently asked the WGA to use the pseudonym “Joe Crombie” instead of his name.
We hope this means Mazin considers Joe Abercrombie, Lord Grimdark, the grittiness GOAT, but that theory is unproven. Since Mazin wrote the script in 2015 for Eli Roth to direct, a steady stream of writers has been brought in. Aaron Berg, Chris Bremner, Sam Levinson, Zak Olkewicz, Tony Rettenmaier, Juel Taylor, and Oren Uziel have put around 70 fingers in the honey pot.
The name change likely avoids confusion. Mazin probably doesn’t want to be blamed for Jack Black/Claptrap madness, but he wants to keep his rights.
To clarify, the Borderlands film finished filming in 2021, but Roth was replaced by Tim Miller (Deadpool) in January.
When this surprising star-studded film (Kevin Hart, Jamie Lee Curtis, Cate Blanchet) limps out, what are your expectations? We think this was supposed to coincide with Borderlands 3’s 2019 release, but it’s overshot the mark.
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