Sensei Starman Plays Street Fighter 6 - Part 27

In which, after explaining why streaming while half-asleep is a bad idea (I know, I know), we start trying to find a way to break into the SIRN building using the local construction site as a cover.

Sensei Starman Plays Street Fighter 6 - Part 26

In which we start training with E. Honda and Ryu, before getting back to tracking down Dee Jay's missing music.

The Flash Episode Guide: Season 9, Episode 8 - Partners In Time

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.

Plot

Barry and Iris must puzzle out a mystery together, when a time-traveling thief infiltrates STAR Labs and starts causing anomalies. Meanwhile, Khione meets an old friend of Team Flash, as some ill-chosen words threaten to ruin Allegra and Chester's romance before it begins.

Influences

Doctor Who (the whole time-heist storyline) and Gail Simone's The Atom comics.

Goofs

This episode is said to take place on April 5, 2023, which was the same day it aired in reality. However, this conflicts with the date given in 906, which took place on Jenna West's fifth birthday, which was May 22, 2023. 

It is further impossible for this timeline to work, given Chillblaine left Central City at the end of 907, but was shown to be training Khione in using her powers in 906.

It seems highly unlikely that STAR Labs would go 100 years without any kind of basic safety inspection. (Lady Chronos says the 2023 date was the last inspection "before becoming a museum," so it may have had inspections since then.)

HR Wells opened a STAR Labs museum in 310, yet apparently managed this without the city requiring any kind of safety inspection beforehand. (This is honestly on-brand for HR, who was more of an idea man and wasn't the best at little details like filling out paperwork.)

The meeting between Khione and Carla Tannhauser takes place entirely off camera, which is anticlimactic given how much importance it is given in the early scenes.

Flash Facts

The title is a play on the term "Partners In Crime."

This episode introduces the Arrowverse version of Lady Chronos. In the comics, Lady Chronos was a Chinese woman named Jia, who was a former love interest of the Ryan Choi Atom. She became an apprentice to the first Chronos, David Clinton, and used his tech for herself. She later became the mother of the Atom villain Dwarfstar.

The Arrowverse Lady Chronos has a similar costume to the comics Lady Chronos, with a clock face painted on her face in makeup.

Little is revealed about the Arrowverse Lady Chronos, beyond her status as a time-traveling thief. She tried to rob The Flash Museum in 2123, but there's no indication she is native to that time.


Technobabble

The reason everyone in STAR Labs is trapped is because (for them) space and time have lost elasticity. Some kind of gravitation force, dubbed the Time Magnet, has created a zone they can't escape from and is pulling objects out of time.

Time Magnets must be paired with some kind of stabilizer to prevent anomalies. 

A time traveler might give off excess radiation.

Jane theorizes that time travel might induce temporary amnesia. (This was shown to be the case in Legends of Tomorrow.)

The Time Magnet has an identity matrix, which Lady Chronos reset to her biometrics. This will make it explode if it is taken from her.

The Time Magnet attracts temporal displacement particles, causing everything around it to transmogrify.  

Lady Chronos' chronobelt allows her to travel through time in a single location. This allowed her to access The Flash Museum weapon's vault., then escape by traveling back in time and posing as a safety inspector. Unfortunately, the Time Magnet wouldn't allow her to leave.

The chronobelt requires a rapid kinetic generator to recharge.

Continuity

The opening scene shows a cloaked figure trying to steal a device from the Weapon's Vault of The Flash Museum. The scene ends with a focus on an inspection certificate with the date April 5, 2023.

Barry has painted Nora's crib purple and yellow - the same colors as her superhero costume in the future and her lightning.

Nora's favorite ice cream is cookie dough flavor.

Iris' favorite ice cream is a vanilla bean flavor made at an organic dairy farm in Coast City.

Iris gives Barry a gift - a mint condition copy of a North American Science magazine which has his father's picture on the cover. She remembered it after he mentioned losing his copy as a kid six months earlier.

Iris asks Barry to bring her some of Cecile's casserole when he comes home.

Barry scheduled a mold check at STAR Labs so it would be safe for Nora once she is born.

Barry sealed the Starchives and had Chester and Khione store all the other Team Flash equipment in the Time Vault, so their secrets are safe.

Carla Tannhauser, Frost and Caitlin's mother, expressed an interest in meeting Khione.

Khione is afraid that Carla will reject her, like Chillblaine did.

Barry's request for a mold inspection wound up triggering a full DOE inspection since STAR Labs adn't had any permits renewed since before the particle accelerator exploded.

One inspector is searching for mold. One inspector is measuring any device energy or matter that emits ionized radiation or particles. One is there to inspect the electrical systems.

Iris shows up, having not been able to wait for the casserole.

Barry is stuck for an explanation as to what the Speed Lab is for and why it is called that which does not involve The Flash.

The electrical inspector forgets the name for the breaker box. This is a clue that she is not who she says she is. 

As the inspectors, Barry and Iris try to leave the Speed Lab, they keep coming back to it.

A grandfather clock suddenly appears in the Speed Lab. It is identified as being from the 19th century, but looking as if it was built yesterday.

Nobody can get a signal on their phones.

Iris makes reference to being trapped in a time-loop with Barry (901) and the Dream Realm with Dreamer (907).

Barry decides to travel forward in time to figure out how they escape the looping rooms. He promises to bring Iris a snack with pistachios.

Chester and Allegra are playing board games on their day off. They start off with Scrabble.

Allegra makes reference to "going Nova" with her powers in 906 during the fight at O'Shaughnessy's.

Chester says "I love you" to Allegra, causing her to freeze up.

Chester invites Cecile to play Settlers of Cattan with them, after it becomes clear Allegra is uncomfortable being alone with him now.

The clothing of everyone in STAR Labs suddenly changes into historical garb from different time periods.

Barry reveals his secret identity to the inspectors to calm them as they begin to panic.

Barry recalls that his research for the Map Book of the future revealed a weapon's vault would be built into the Speed Lab in 100 years. He also thinks one of the objects in it is a Time Magnet.

Chief Inspector Howard is replaced with a statute.

Cecile senses things are awkward between Allegra and Chester and asks why.

Allegra froze up when Chester said he loved her because everyone she ever loved had something bad happen to them and she's afraid, on some level, that she's cursed.

Cecile sympathizes, having her own abandonment issues from her first marriage, but she says Chester is not the kind of guy to run.

Barry deduces Inspector Tao is the fraud because of her not knowing what a breaker box was. He later traps her in a lie, saying that check valves are probably to blame for the electrical wiring in STAR Labs going bad.  Check valves are used in plumbing to guide water flow.

Tao, revealed as Lady Chronos, tries to take Iris hostage.

Barry reasons with Lady Chronos, offering to recharge her belt so she can put the Time Magnet back, convincing her that she'll die if she doesn't.

The timeline is restored with one of the inspectors remembering what happened and Barry just convincing them the Speed Lab is named in honor of The Flash.

Khione tells Barry she could have told him that STAR Labs didn't have a mold problem, although she can't say how she knows.

Khione says she is eight weeks old at this point.

Khione says that Carla just wanted to get to now her as a friend and that she hopes to get to know her as a mentor.

Khione can also sense when Iris is hungry.

Khione, Iris and Barry go to get dinner at Helena's, which was revealed to have Iris' favorite cheese fries in 907.

Allegra tells Chester she loves him too and the two officially become a couple.

Location

The Flash Museum - Central City - 2123

Untelevised Adventures

The meeting between Khione and Carla Tannhauser takes place entirely off camera.

The Bottom Line

A harmless filler episode, but a rather odd one given how few episodes are left at this point in the season. It is clear this episode was meant to save the show's budget for the grand finale, with most of the action confined to one room and little in the way of showy superheroics.

Sensei Starman Plays The Bard's Tale (Snarky Path) - Part 50

The thrilling finale and all three endings! Will The Bard settle down into monogamy with the princess? Will he sell her out to side with the druids? Will he say to Hell with it all and go have a drink?

The Flash Episode Guide: Season 9, Episode 7 - Wildest Dreams

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.

Plot

When Iris and Dreamer becoming connected in the Dream Realm, it falls to the rest of Team Flash to rescue them. Meanwhile, Chillblaine takes Khione out for a night on the town with ulterior motives.

Influences

Neil Gaiman's The Sandman (the dream realm setting and general dark atmosphere.)

Goofs

Iris' article places this episode as taking place on March 28, 2023 - one day before the episode aired in reality. However, the previous episode, 906, took place on Jenna West's fifth birthday, which was May 22, 2023. It is further impossible for this timeline to work, given Mark leaves Central City at the episode's end, but was shown to be training Khione in using her powers in the previous episode.


Performances

Nicole Maines is still a delight as Dreamer. It's a shame this was the best she could hope for after Supergirl rather than a full spin-off.


Artistry

The dream imagery is rather effective.

Flash Facts

The title is a reference to a Taylor Swift song. (This in itself may be a reference to Nia saying she is a Taylor Swift fan in S502.)

Technobabble

Gideon's biometric analysis determines that Nia and Iris were put into a deep REM sleep. Their cortical functions are totally siloed, keeping them from responding to any outside stimuli.

Chester notes that their neural functions in their cerebral cortexes are sinking and this could result in a permanent comatose state.

The Naltorian mystics had a word that means "angry sleep," referring to the phenomena when a dreamer spends too long in the Dream Realm and their body starts to feel intense strain.

At 106 degrees, organs shut down and a person can die.


Dialogue Triumphs

Chillblaine: I'm almost embarrassed. 

Khione: By your secret crush and the love you feel for them? 

Chillblaine: By my not-so-secret love of bourbon, which is why I fell asleep on monitor duty.


Continuity

As the episode opens, Dreamer has a vision where she is surrounded by people and a hooded woman. She sees Iris West, who tells her "It's all about control," before dying.

Iris is having cravings for cheese fries. She thinks this is where Nora probably got her love of that food.

Helena's on Third Street has gourmet cheese fries. 

Iris is still working on an article about the Red Death attacks.

Allegra suggests the title "Nightmare Under Red Skies" for Iris' story. This is the title of the story that Iris was told would win her a Pulitzer Prize.

Chillblaine has a dream about Khione manifesting ice powers and making out with him. This is revealed to be a dream sequence.

According to Khione and Chester, Chillblaine talks in his sleep. 

Chillblaine offers to take Khione out to give her a break from testing herself for powers.

Dreamer travels to Central City to meet with Iris.

Dreamer says that Iris is her idol as a writer. She makes reference to a story she wrote about being kidnapped by Cicada. (517.)

Dreamer reveals that she was trying to hone her powers, seeking out an ancient source of Naltorian dream energy in the Dream Realm.

Dreamer reveals that she lost her powers after her last vision and thinks, because Iris was in the dream, she can help her restore them.

The hooded woman from Nia's dream shows up, but Iris cannot see her. She sends the two women into a dream.

Iris' dream of being a cop is a nod to her original dream career before she withdrew her application to the police academy because of Joe not wanting her to follow in his footsteps, as revealed in 104.

In Iris' dream, she's a Captain, like her father.

Reference is made to Captain Cold and Golden Glider (aka the Snart Siblings) and how Iris took them down.

The door out of the cop dream takes Dreamer and Iris to C.C. Jitters.

Iris' dream of being a barista is a reference to her job in The Flash season 1.

In this dream, Iris is the manager and Nia, Barry and Chester are her employees. 

Barry discovered Nia and Iris in Iris' office and takes them to STAR Labs.

Chester monitors them, while Barry and Cecile go to call the League, Cisco Ramon and John Diggle for help.

Supergirl, Martian Manhunter and Brainiac-5 are all said to be off-world.

Chillblaine takes Khione to O'Shaughnessy's Bar, despite Khione not drinking. Before that, he took her to play paintball, which she also did not enjoy.

Khione asks to do something more relaxing that will nurture the body and soul. She suggests the Arboretum, but Chillblaine suggests midnight roller derby instead.

Khione asks Chillblaine, point blank, why they aren't doing anything she wants to do.

Chillblaine says that gardens are boring.

In the dream world, Iris feels her body temperature going up. Dreamer says this is a sign their bodies are experiencing trauma from the strain of the Dream Realm.

Dreamer says the only hope they have of escape is cracking the code of Iris' dreams. She asks if there is anything worrying Iris about her life.

Iris tells Dreamer that she misses the freedom of her barista job and being in a world where she could clock out at 5 pm and have the rest of the day free.  This leads them to the dream where Iris died.

Dreamer is able to drive the cloaked woman away. This takes them to a staff meeting at CCC Media. Iris is accepting her Pulitzer, but her staff speak badly of her, saying that she only gets her stories because she is married to The Flash. Even Allegra calls her a fraud.

Khione asks Chillblaine if he wishes she was Frost. Before he can answer, the bar's karaoke host tries to get them up to sing Chillblaine and Frost's song, thinking that Khione is Frost.

Chillblaine tells Khione about his dream and how he thought maybe it was a sign they could be together.

Khione accuses Chillblaine of trying to turn her into Frost, again, instead of honestly trying to be her friend. 

Chillblaine admits she's right and Khione leaves him.

Iris realizes she's upset because knowing the future has her feeling like she didn't really earn her Pulitzer. She wants to be able to make her own choices, even if her future is everything she wanted.

Dreamer tells Iris that her choices led to her success and that nothing is preordained. She learned from her dream visions.

Cecile senses another presence in the room with Nia and Iris. She describes it as powerful and kind, like a guardian angel.

Nia leads Iris back into the space with the hooded woman and the random people. She says that she thought Iris was telling her to take control of her path in the dream, but she realizes how she is meant to give up control and trust her intuition.

The hooded woman reveals herself as the First Dreamer and the source of the power Nia was seeking.

Dreamer says the First Dreamer has restored and enhanced her powers and will teach her how to use them.

Everyone meets at Cecile's for breakfast the next morning.

Chillblaine talks to Khione and says he is going to leave Central City to find a new life without Frost.

Khione forgives Chillblaine.

When Khione returns to the breakfast, the table is frozen solid.

Location

The Dream Realm
O'Shaughnessy's Bar in Keystone City

Untelevised Adventures

Brainiac-5 is said to be off-world with Supergirl and Martian Manhunter.

Mention is once again made of the monthly brunches between Batwoman, Dreamer, Supergirl and Sentinel. Iris was invited to join them in 905.)

The Fridge Factor

Dreamer is far less confident in her abilities here, purely so Iris can inspire her.

The Bottom Line

More dull and confused than bad. The Dreamer subplot wouldn't be bad as a B-story, but the whole thing is contrived to make Iris into this inspirational figure to a depowered Dreamer. The Chillblaine story is uncomfortable, primarily because Chillblaine honestly seemed to have worked past his issues in earlier episodes and comes off as a real creep here, which is rough after all the show did to redeem him.

Sensei Starman Plays Street Fighter 6 - Part 25

In which our undercover endeavors at the construction site pay off with the introduction to a new Master - Ken! We also embark on a side quest to find Dee Jay's missing music and round the chapter out with a visit to a new sumo themed restaurant with a surprising celebrity owner!

Sensei Starman Plays The Bard's Tale (Snarky Path) - Part 49

In which things come full circle to the video that opened the game and we begin the endgame, storming the Dounby Tower and facing a grab-bag of enemies in the bargain!

Sensei Starman Plays Street Fighter 6 - Part 24

In which, after showing off what I am really wearing versus what gear I am appearing to wear, we try to fight the Samurai Cop again and discover evidence of cloning on the local subway.

Sensei Starman Plays The Bard's Tale (Snarky Path) - Part 48

In which we continue our battle to the top of the Island Tower and the long-awaited battle with Mannanan (Do-do-de-do-do!). Unfortunately, now we need to go to the final tower to find the Princess in the flesh!

Sensei Starman Plays Street Fighter 6 - Part 23

In which we continue our training with Cammy and her followers, before returning to Metro City to complete more side quests!

Sensei Starman Plays The Bard's Tale (Snarky Path) - Part 47

In which (after explaining why the last chapter was so short and what you missed thanks to my recording breaking down four times) we finally get our first glimpse of the Island Tower guardian Mannanan (Do-do-de-do-do!) and start fighting our way through his elemental minions.

Sensei Starman Plays Street Fighter 6 - Part 22

In which we continue exploring the nightlife of Metro City (i.e. beating up randos) and have a run-in with the drunken master Jamie. We also finally find the missing Li-Fen and start puzzling out some random numbers.

Sensei Starman Plays The Bard's Tale (Snarky Path) - Part 46

In which we enter into the Obligatory Lava Level and see what rewards you get for being snarky or nice when it comes to the matter of YET another Chosen One. We also get to hear more Trow songs.

Sensei Starman Plays Street Fighter 6 - Part 21

In which we finally enter (and win) the Novice Tournament! Unfortunately, this opens the door to a bunch of randos seeking to prove themselves by beating us up.

Sensei Starman Plays The Bard's Tale (Snarky Path) - Part 45

In which we fight our way further into the Finfolk caverns, confronting bugs and rambling vikings in our search for the road to the Island Tower.

Sensei Starman Plays Street Fighter 6 - Part 20

In which we register for the tournament, hunt for the Bao Bao Bro and finally meet and begin training with Cammy.

Sensei Starman Plays The Bard's Tale (Snarky Path) - Part 44

In which we embark on a mission of mercy to rescue some trapped miners... purely for the sake of the awesome sword we get as a reward, of course, and a pun so bad I can't believe I didn't make it.

Sensei Starman Plays Street Fighter 6 - Part 19

In which we go in search of our third competitor for the Novice League Tournament. We then take a side-trip to France and start training at the dainty feet of ballerina/model turned street fighter, Manon.

Sensei Starman Plays The Bard's Tale (Snarky Path) - Part 43

In which we start cleansing the mad butcher's farm of zombie farm animals, before doing battle with a giant haggis. With the dread dinner vanquished, we are finally free to move on to the Firbolg mines and the path to the Island Tower!

Sensei Starman Plays Street Fighter 6 - Part 18

In which we take on our second opponent in the Novice Tournament before waiting for night fall so we can help our new cop friend and do some more training.

Sensei Starman Plays The Bard's Tale (Snarky Path) - Part 42

In which we replay the intro to Stromness so we can hear all the crazy dialogue and be snarky/nice to the right respective Trow. This does get us access to Crazy Thorvald's - the last shop in the game. Shame we can't really do much here since we're about to get much better gear for free in the next level.

Sensei Starman Plays Street Fighter 6 - Part 17

In which, after leveling our skills, we seek out new side-gig employment options, before seeking out our first challenger in the Novice League for the tournament. We also fight a Samurai Cop to prove our worthiness to be his partner, in what is perhaps the cheapest battle in the whole game so far.

Sensei Starman Plays The Bard's Tale (Snarky Path) - Part 41

In which we make our way to the village of Stromness, only to discover it is overrun with infinite hordes of undead Vikings! Luckily, there are magic wards that make certain parts of the town safe. Unluckily, we have to escort an insane butcher between them in order to find the way to the Island Tower!

Sensei Starman Plays Street Fighter 6 - Part 16

In which, after going out of our way to get a coupon for a drone delivery service, we take a ride on the subway and help beautify the neighborhood... by kicking suckers in the face!

Sensei Starman Plays The Bard's Tale (Snarky Path) - Part 40

In which we continue exploring the dungeons of Castle MacRath and find an old friend is wanting to reach out to us from the realms beyond the dead. When the continue on to the resting place of the Shadow Axe!

Sensei Starman Plays Street Fighter 6 - Part 15

In which our world tour takes us to Brazil and then Mexico, where we start to learn the moves of Blanka and Lily, before returning home to Metro City and going through more basic training with Luke.