dc - In what order should I watch Flash and Arrow TV Shows?

The two TV shows Arrow and The Flash cross over (or so I'm told).

I've only been watching Arrow so far, and Barry Allen has just turned up. Do I need to start watching Flash episodes?

What order do I need watch these shows in?

Answer

Ideally, you should watch them in the order they aired. That is, if you want to get the most coherent story from both shows, you should watch Arrow up through the end of Season 2, then watch alternate episodes of The Flash Season 1 and Arrow Season 3. There is only one time when the shows seem to be significantly out of sync, and it won't make a whole ton of difference. In particular, watching in this order is the easiest way to guarantee not to spoil anything from either show by watching the other.

The second season of Arrow contains what is essentially a two-part pilot episode for The Flash, where a mundane Barry Allen comes to Starling City as a forensics expert; the end of that Arrow episode sets up the first episode of The Flash.

The first episodes of The Flash Season 1, and Arrow Season 3, take place at the same time, and there are cross-over cameos at the end of those episodes. Otherwise, the crossover events all seem to fall roughly in line with the order the episodes aired (e.g. crossovers that start on The Flash finish the next night on Arrow, or take place roughly between the previous and next episodes of the other show.)

So, watching in date-aired order is (almost) always going to work best for getting the entire story exactly as it was intended.

However, if watching them in air-date order is difficult (e.g. you're watching on Netflix or DVD where jumping between shows is tedious) you don't need to watch the episodes interleaved get the full story. In fact, there is at least once case where that will be a bit confusing: the timelines of the two series remain mostly in sync with each other for the first 2/3 or the season, but sometime between episodes 9 and 15, Arrow pulls ahead of Flash. If you're interested, there's a very spoilery explanation here:

In between which episodes of Arrow did this episode of Flash happen?

So, if you prefer watching one show at a time, you really only need to pay attention to the places where the stories meet. I've put together a quick comparison of the timelines of the shows and where they cross. For the episodes in between the cross-over points, you can watch each series straight through if you want. You will miss out on a bit of Easter-Egg-level details, where the shows occasionally refer to each other's ongoing plots, but nothing central ot particularly spoilery (that I know of.)

However, you'll want to make sure you're caught up on both shows at the cross-over points, or you'll not only be confused, but probably spoil something for yourself in the process. For example, characters from Arrow reveal key aspects of Arrows's season 4 plot up to that point when they show up on Season 1 of Flash.

Flash       Arrow    Crossover
~~~~~       ~~~~~    ~~~~~~~~~

S01E01 <--> S03E01   Same scene appears at the end of both episodes.
   .           .
   .           .
   .           .

S01E04 <--     .     Felicity Smoak visits Barry at some indeterminate point
   .           .
   .           .
   .           .
S01E08 <--     .     Two-part crossover, starts on *Flash*, end on *Arrow*
   .    --> S03E08
   .           .
   .           .
   .        S03E15
S01E18 <--     .     Crossover on *Flash* between episodes 15/16 of *Arrow*

   .        S03E16
S01E19 <--     .     Crossover on *Flash* between episodes 16/17 of *Arrow*
   .        S03E17
   .           .
   .   <--  S03E19   Crossover on *Arrow* between episodes 20/21 of *Flash*
   .           .
   .           .
   .           .     
S01E22 <--> S03E23   *Arrow* episode 23 appears to take place "during" *Flash* episode 22.



S02E01      S04E01
  .           .
  .           .
  .           .
S02E08 <--    .      Two-part crossover, begins on *Flash*, ends
  .     --> S04E08   next day on *Arrow*; also counts as back-door
  .           .      pilot for *Legends of Tomorrow*.

NOTE: The arrows indicate the "direction" of characters crossing from one show to the other

Which is usually character from *Arrow* going to *The Flash*.

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.

languages - Do we ever see written English in the Star Wars films?

In Empire Strikes Back , we see a transcription of what R2's beeps and bloops mean, but it's not English (sorry for the low quality, it's from the 2004 DVDs): I'd assume it's what Basic looks like when written, but is there some point in the the Star Wars films we see written English instead? (This sort of spun off from a discussion in How do people understand astromech droids? .) Answer At one point there was English but it has been phased out in subsequent versions of the films. Chris Gould at DVD Active did a comparison of all versions of each of the Star Wars films, and in his comparison of Episode 4 , there are a couple of screenshots showing how the power gauge for the Death Star tractor beam was changed. I imagine there are probably more to be found in his other comparisons but I haven't got around to reading those yet.

Was the "pure soul" of Harry's what had really hurt Voldemort?

In the Order of the Phoenix, Voldemort possesses Harry, and it hurts. Greatly. I think that Dumbledore explained that it was because Voldemort's rotten soul was incapable of assimilating Harry's pure soul, that Voldemort didn't understand the love and friendship etc that Harry has in his heart. But, I think it was a lie. Remember that in Deathly Hallows, while looking for information regarding Horcruxes, it is discovered that it is in fact possible to merge a soul fragment back, but that the process was extremely painful. Now then, if Voldemort tried to possess Harry, and Harry had a fragment of Voldemort's soul, I think that it could have been the true cause of Voldemort's pain: the fact of having his soul so close of another fragment. I think that Dumbledore knew that fact, but had to lie to Harry because it was inappropriate to let him know that he had one of Voldemort's soul fragments at the moment. Is that right? Or was it truly the pure soul of Harry's...

Blog

Search This Blog