I haven't read the whole thread yet, so forgive me if someone's mentioned this already, but it's pretty clear why Karen develops this bond with Frank. She's haunted by her own murder of Wesley last season. When she's arguing in Frank's favour, she's arguing for herself — if Frank can be a good, or at least…

But would it be a King Shark-jump?

Just wait until you start dropping lyrics into conversation without realizing it. I can't even hear single words anymore without thinking of Hamilton — like, someone will say "meanwhile", and my mind immediately goes "Madison is grappling with the fact that not every issue can be settled by committee"…

"First of all, the SATs are culturally biased. It's a fact."
“Me and Austin were having a D and M… a deep and meaningful?”

See, I thought Major's happy zombie-ing was incredibly entertaining, but also HEARTBREAKING because you knew the other shoe had to drop. It was hard to watch, for me at least.

It's astonishing how gripping the verdict scene was. I almost forgot for a moment what the actual verdict was.

VAGUE SPOILERS FOR LATER ON IN THE SEASON

I'm surprised no one mentioned the shot right after Matt and Karen's doorway-kiss, where Matt walks out of that perfect bubble and back into the dark and dangerous world of Hell's Kitchen, because it was a season highlight for me. The way the warm light from the lampposts by Karen's building changes to this electric…

That's a good point — and kind of the same reason that LEGO Batman works so well, because we've all become so familiar with Batman as a hyper-serious entity that it loops back around to being silly again.

Bernthal is fantastic in this role. No way he gets an Emmy for this, but he absolutely deserves one.

I'll allow it. There's definitely a statute of limitations on historical figures being exempt from fictionalization.

As someone who was at Tulane for a year before transferring out…HAHAHAHAHA

That would allow us to have a TOM CAVANAGH FACE-OFF.

Honestly, I'm not even that opposed to the Barry/Iris relationship on the "sibling" grounds, because I agree with most everything you've said. Just wanted to clarify that while Barry might not see Iris as a sister, he definitely sees Joe as a dad.

I'm not proud of it, but I had this same thought when Barry and Other Barry shared screentime tonight.

Barry has definitely called Joe "Dad" or referred to him as "Dad" on several occasions. That scene in the finale comes to mind where Barry says something along the lines of "even though I'm getting my dad back, I already had a great dad (referring to Joe )".

I can see how he might have reformed in this timeline — presumably, because Cisco and Caitlin worked together with him, Hartley didn't have to suffer that epic beatdown at Cisco's hands. That could turn anyone over to the dark side.

On the one hand, I don't feel good about making random speculations into the love lives of two characters who are actually real people.

I mean, by adding Andy Mientus to the cast, you'd have yet another player on the bench for the eventual musical episode. I'm certainly not opposed to that.

One might say that Kara and Barry became…superfriends.