Tumgik
#various arrowverse shows i never got the time to finish
fyeahdpanabaker · 5 years
Link
Godspeed, Danielle Panabaker! After almost five seasons, The Flash's always graceful and ebullient star has gotten the chance to step behind the camera for the first time to make her directorial debut.
And because this is the Arrowverse, that meant taking on more challenges than most. Not only did Panabaker have stunts, special effects, supersuits and storylines to handle, she also had to basically build a new world, because this week's episode is all about how the now-imprisoned Nora (Jessica Parker Kennedy) received her powers and came to align herself with Thawne (Tom Cavanagh) in 2049. Oh, and the hour reportedly introduces us to DC Comics villain Godspeed, as well.
That's some heavy lifting, but let's face it, the future is female and Panabaker is a perfect choice to take us there!
OK, congratulations. You directed an episode!
Danielle Panabaker: Thank you. Thank you very much! [Laughs]
Now, none of these shows are easy to direct, but you went and got an episode that is primarily set in 2049, a world we're not familiar with!
[Laughs] I did, yes. In a world we've never seen before. That was, I think, one of the biggest challenges but also one of the most exciting things that I got to do, which was create this world. On my first day of prep, the conversations were "What does 2049 look like?"  and after that it's "What does 2049 look like on an episodic TV budget?" Everybody was really creative and did everything they could to bring this very modern futuristic world together.
So what does the world look like?
In my conversations with Todd [Helbing, exec-producer] and the writers, for us it sort of felt like this was a sleek, modern world. One of my writers said it would be like KonMari...everybody went through and KoMari'd everything. Just clean, minimalist. And that was great. I sort of toyed with the idea and asked myself, "Is it that dark, moody world that Tom Cavanagh created in Season 3, Episode 19 when he first directed?" That didn't feel right to us.
Is it maybe a little icier?
[Laughs] A little icier. I would say a little more sleek and modern and white.
And you're getting to tell Nora's backstory. What can you tease about this?
OK so, this episode, Team Flash struggles to understand why Nora has chosen to do what she's done in working with the Reverse Flash. They decide to read her journal to try to get some insight into why she's made these choices. The journal sort of provides us a portal to jump forward in time to where Nora originally came from and to see how she got her powers.
Did you shadow directors before all of this, as well?
It's funny. I was actually talking to Jesse Martin [Joe West] about this last night. He laughs because somebody said, "Did you shadow?" and Jesse laughed and said, "It feels like you've been shadowing for years." I really took advantage of being fortunate enough to be on a show that has made 100 episodes. I kept showing up at the production office, sitting through meetings, eavesdropping, trying to learn as much as I could. I formally shadowed both Tom Cavanagh and David McWhirter in Season 4, though.
That must be a gift, getting to see what it's like for one of your fellow actors to direct his costars.
Yeah, absolutely. Tom was really an inspiration in a lot of ways as, yes, an actor who directs his costars but also the way he communicates with everyone and how generous and enthusiastic he is. It was pretty incredible to see.
And how much are you on screen in the episode?
One day's worth. The episode starts and ends in the Cortex where we see most of Team Flash. It's a direct pick-up from the end of 17, where they're still processing the information and trying to figure out what to do.
How long have you wanted to direct?
Now having done it, I think I've always probably had the skillset for it but didn't really believe I could do it until I saw Tom Cavanagh do it in Season 3. I watched him go through it and was like, "Oh, maybe this is really possible and this really is attainable for me."
Was there any hazing from your costars?
[Laughs ] No. I'm so grateful and so thankful that they did not! One of the previous directors was laughing at me. He kept asking, "Are you ready? Are you ready?" and teasing me and saying, "Well, what will you do if...?" The reality is, my costars were very trusting of me. I think I have [built] a good enough relationship with them over the last five years that I've really established myself as a professional and someone who cares and someone who pays attention. I think they were very trusting of me. The next go round, maybe not. [Laughs] Maybe they'll have a little more fun with me. I'm so grateful that they were so generous.
This is so cool. When you start on a show you, I'm sure most actors don't think this is ever going to be a possibility.
No, not at all. I'm so incredibly lucky that Warner Brothers and The CW and Greg Berlanti have supported me along this because it is a bit of a risk to have a first-timer directing. You're putting them in charge of however many millions of dollars it takes to produce an episode. I'm incredibly grateful that they gave me that opportunity. Someone asked me, they were like, "Oh, are you getting a bottle episode," which is typically one of our smaller episodes. I laughed. I said, "No, I think mine's the opposite," because we went so many places and had to create so many new sets.
What would you consider your biggest challenge and also your biggest victory?
My biggest challenge... [Arrow showrunner] Beth Schwartz gave me really great advice when I was directing. She said, "TV directing is all about problem-solving and being malleable." I think there were a thousand ways that that happened every day in varying capacities, whether it was scheduling issues or someone was really sick or a costume wasn't quite ready in time to shoot. There were all kinds of various challenges, but we sort of had to just adjust and try and make it work.
Nice. And your biggest victory?
Getting to do it. I'm really just proud of the episode. I feel like this is the first moment I've stopped and I've really pinched myself and said, "Oh, you did it. You did it. Now it's going to be on television!"
What can you tell us about Caitlin as we head into these final episodes?
It's a race to the finish starting with episode 18. There's a ton of momentum. We find Nora's origin story. She's going to have a bit of a journey until the season finale. Obviously, Barry (Grant Gustin) and Iris (Candice Patton) have their own relationship and they struggle as parents particularly in dealing with [Nora's lies]. In [Episode] 19, my father returns, which is a wonderful storyline and I'm excited for fans to see the conclusion of that story as well.
How do you feel about where they have taken Killer Frost this season? Because I'm really loving her evolution...
Oh I do, too. I'm so grateful that they really heard me after Season 4. Todd Helbing in particular did an unbelievable job in giving me a really substantial storyline that I could sink my teeth into. That sort of dual character was something that I don't feel like we really played into or utilized in Season 4. And this year, we really explored their relationship with each other, how they're coexisting, how they feel about each other, which I've loved. And that was really important to me, because I didn't want her to just be thrown away as a joke. She's a real character. We saw her in her full glory at the end of Season 3. I was always curious as to how these two people were coexisting.
Was there a cake at the end or was there any kind of wrap party for you?
No, but the caterers did make my favorite chocolate-peanut butter pie on my last day. Again, I've been so supported along the way! [Laughs]
The Flash, Tuesdays, 8/7c, The CW
9 notes · View notes
joe-the-lion · 7 years
Text
The Grey King, Chapter 7
Kara has no idea what to do.
It’s been two weeks since Alex came out to her, and a week since Alex wakes up, reports for work, and beats the shit out of all those poor NCPD people every single day, happily, for hours.
And Kara gets it, she does, she knows how good it feels to utilize all of yourself and burn up the confusion, frustration, and humiliation with a purpose. She’s listened to the self-actualization meditation techniques the DEO has in the archives (“It totally works.” Hank says, “Sports teams use that visualization. Peak Flow.”) She knows that it’s delicious punching stuff when you feel helpless in any other area of your life.
But the thing is, in the past few days Detective Sawyer is a fast study, and she’s starting to skyrocket in terms of learning everything Alex is demonstrating on her team.
Weirdly, Alex seems centered, and a little more ruthless, dangerous. Like, in training this particular group of officers, she’s not alone anymore, and Kara thinks in another horrible moment of clarity that Alex just might have been as lonely and disoriented growing up as Kara was.
What Alex is not these days is miserable. And if that gets her a fractured rib or two, and a sense of belonging that doesn’t have much to do with their family and Kara and Supergirl, she’ll obviously take it.
Sara Lance is interesting. And complicated and kind of alarmingly beautiful. And suddenly, with them.
She just walked into the bar. Barry was upbeat, fun and cheerful, Clark is a dork. But Sara is… wow. And Kara is too polite or too much of a girl scout to just ask her what she’s doing here in this alternate space/time. Like, is there a crisis they need to know about? Cadmus is a known entity and nominally linked to the Government. The DEO are allied with them. This all has to be handled very lightly.
Alex would normally strangle anyone else (or die laughing) if they came on as strongly as Sara does with Kara. And Alex, relaxed and normal for once, just sits back and enjoys Kara’s flummoxed surprise at Sara’s very blatant everything.
Kara, more in control of herself than she lets on, considers a standing ovation when Sara manages to pull her pretty genial major flirt offensive off without being too much of a dick and Alex doesn’t hit anyone, so yay everyone, good job.  
Alex watches them talk together over drinks, half listening to Winn and James debate who they would be in the Arrowverse and multiverse space/time (and deciding it’s pretty lame not to have Superman or Supergirl in that world so whatever who wants to go there.)
“Am I the only one,” Winn queens out dramatically, “who’s a big fan of the arcs that read much better when starting from the beginning of a writer’s run? Reading from like, I don’t even know, like, Claremont is a master of the long game, and it shows reading those 40ish issues leading up to Dark Phoenix. Or am I forever doomed to spaz out remembering Spider-man when Gwen died? It destroyed me. It changed my perceptions of life. I was a kid. The Dark Phoenix saga, on the other hand, is messed up, there’s a planet populated by asparagus people that Dark Phoenix destroys. It was funny because the people that died when Phoenix ate that sun did look like asparagus people. It did get me thinking about how something the artist drew, that wasn’t directly called for in the script, birthed this whole storyline in the first place. The fact that millions of sentient people were killed is what up'ed the stakes and created that story. And then Jean Grey comes back, oh my God Emma Frost The White Queen of the Hellfire Club…”
“I don’t know. I don’t read comics,” James says, taking a long swig of his Manhattan.
“And then things got really complicated,” Winn sighs, “I couldn’t keep up, man. Oh my God, all the backstories. I mean just Emma Frost’s alone, you know?”
“Alex, you’re a bioengineer,” Sara slides her another beer without taking her eyes of Kara, “The Cadmus virus, what did it look like? I’m guessing you displayed a buckyball-like structure instead of an actual virus, with something random smooshed into the middle.”
“Right,” Alex agrees, “I saw way too many interlocking cyclic/aromatic carbons on their display for it to actually work as a virus. In addition, the thing smooshed in the middle had way too much impossible detail, since we could see individual atoms already in the surrounding shell and yet the texture detail for it was probably around 2000x smaller.”
“So what does that tell you?”
“A hack? A MISLEAD?!” Winn perks up, “We’ve had several attacks in the last few weeks, all triangulated to a complex…”
“Yes, we know. Cadmus, that’s what we’re saying,” Alex murmurs.
Alex ends up assessing what looks like numbers being exchanged (but Sara wouldn’t do that, exchange numbers, because she doesn’t exist here), and then Kara glances at Alex and literally freezes.
“She wants to sleep with you,” Alex says, cheerfully, because she’s becoming an expert on these things.
Sara finishes chewing her bloody mary olive and swallows it quickly before shrugging.  “Have you seen her? Look at her, she’s hot.”
James and Winn watch stupidly and across the room, Sawyer is playing pool with a group of friends—and Alex dies a little internally. Which is ridiculous. Alex definitely wants someone to stare at her dopily with all the lust and adoration in the world like Sara is looking at Kara.
Sara looks at her, finally, and Alex feels funny again.
Sara is a very beautiful woman. So is Maggie. Alex is a moron. And one or two glances across a room and her composure sails out the window. And God, how did she get to the bathroom; she can’t remember anything. Her short-term memory is shot. She’ll have Hank check her for a mild concussion tomorrow.
Alex doesn’t want to throw up. She hasn’t blacked out in years, but as she sways against the stall door she knows she used to be more careful. This was a private thing or done with strangers. This never touched her life with Kara.
She used to be more careful, though, and what she’s not expecting is Sara to still be there and fixing her hair in front of the sinks when she gets out.
“You okay there, Danvers?” Sara asks.
Alex squints against the light “No, I just—did Kara send you? I just feel a little sick.”
“Kara did send me.” Sara glances at her in the mirror and smiles slightly.  “Your heart feels broken?”
Alex smiles back and says, “It doesn’t matter.” And then she has a frightening thought, “oh God, did Kara—?”
“I told Kara to stay away from that Detective of yours,” Sara says, and the way her eyes flash it makes Alex’s stomach drop uncomfortably, again. She’s pretty sure she’s through the dry heaves.
“How do you know about Sawyer? What are you even doing here?” Alex says, with a small grunt, before raking her fingers through her hair and wiping her mouth. Sara hands over her glass of whiskey with a murmured go ahead take it rinse your mouth.
“Oh yeah, you are fine, I can tell,” Sara says, making a face. “Don’t throw up again. That’s really gross.”
Alex laughs, “Yeah, it is.”
“You should laugh more. Joy makes the worlds go ‘round.” Sara tells her, and seconds later she’s being kissed, hard, and then, “I’m here for your father. And maybe your sister. What do you think?”
“What about my father?” Alex’s attention sharpens; she ignores the subtle teasing about Kara. Kara is a grown up. She’s Supergirl. Alex ignores the kiss. Sara seems amused, a little impressed, and lets her go.
“Jeremiah was doing work on timestreams—something I’m deeply involved in— when he wasn’t hunting aliens. There’s been a lot of jumping between time/space continuums lately. I protect timelines.” Sara takes her glass back and stares into the warm, amber liquid for a minute before swallowing it down. She doesn’t look up even when Kara slips into the room.
“What is it like, Sara?” Kara asks softly.
“It’s like driving a car down a road from the past to the future. We have to keep the car on the road. The car is going and we’re in the passenger seat, okay? We see events go by like exit ramps along the road—there goes the moment Led Zeppelin formed, there goes Turing cracking the Enigma code, and look, Oscar Wilde meets Bosie. But the universe might be like a giant on/off ramp exchange, with all those roads interlaced. Next to our road is one on which World War I never happened? A car is constantly encountering exits either left or right at which it may take either of two roads. Before World War I, there may have been a day when Archduke Franz Ferdinand couldn’t have been killed, diverting the car onto a road on which World War I did not occur.“
That meant something, and—Alex nods, “So the many-world theory of quantum mechanics. Different parallel worlds where the particle is detected at those various places. Dad took the many-worlds interpretation and its refinements and extensions seriously.”
“Well, obviously. It just happened to your sister. It’s happened to me. Barry busts through the continuum all the time.”
“So what about Dad?”
“What about him?” Sara leans against the wall and rolls her shoulders, “Jeremiah’s work was in direct opposition to my mission. The simpler and more conservative conception of the physical plausibility of time travel is grounded in self-consistency—time travelers do not change anything in the past because they always were in the past.” Sara looks up again, with some softness.
“Like Harry Potter?” Kara asks, “Harry and Hermione don’t change anything when they travel back in time to save Buckbeak: they were there all along.”
“Yep.”
“Can we get out of this bathroom,” Kara wrinkles her nose, “it’s gross in here. I stayed away from Maggie,” she tacks on, sounding really proud of herself.
“Sure,” Alex nods, suddenly very tired. She washes her mouth out again with the rest of Kara’s vodka and red bull. Which, really? Kara adjusts her glasses and laughs at her.
Alex almost cries herself to sleep later, but she’s really tired of feeling like an emotional clown car so she gets up to rewrap her wrist and put some more ice on her ribs. She scrolls through some work emails and pours herself another glass of wine. There’s no way she’s sleeping tonight.
A text pops up out of nowhere, and Alex squints at it. It’s Kara.
What do I do about Sara? She won’t leave.
Alex snorts into her hand. Also, she loves that Kara is texting in full sentences while possibly being chased around her apartment.
Is she mauling you?
There’s no response. Alex fucks around with Instagram for a bit, and then;
No. Not really.
Alex sighs and wonders what she can contribute to this situation. She hasn’t slept with anyone, obviously, in a few years—that she remembers—and it was probably terrible so really, who is she to be snide about anything right now.
You need me to manhandle her? Do you need me to help you? Are you just that lame?
Kara just sends back two frowny faces and an explosion, which means basically fuck off in Kara text-speak and five minutes later, Alex regrets being shut down because she would kill to witness what’s happening right now. She gets up and turns on some Iggy and the Stooges. On low.
She’s asking about Lena
Alex blinks at that, a few times, and wonders what she needs to be right now. A sister or an agent. She goes with sister.
Why? Is she jealous? Is something going on with you and Lena?
That earns her several exclamation points and a demon. It’s so ridiculously dramatic.
You’re an idiot. Alex text-hisses, right before she talks herself out of marching over to Kara’s apartment to coax her sister down from a freakout. She considers making up a dire emergency just for the hell of it.
You’re a superhero. She’s an assassin who died, was resurrected !!!11!1 lost her soul and got it back and doesn’t even belong in this universe. What could go wrong? Just have fun and don’t kill each other. Ask about Dad again before second base.
Alex swipes off her phone and tosses it next to her on the couch. Because, Jesus.
Sara’s managed to get Kara’s glasses off. Huge triumph. And Kara practically congratulates her for it.
Kara hilariously finds Sara’s presence comforting, says as much, and somehow what feels right is to give her a hug.
Sara’s eyebrows almost shoot off her face and then she smiles at Kara a little and says, “You are completely sweet, you know that?”
“I can’t help it. I like you,” Kara says because that feels right to say, too. She does like Sara.
“You are sweet. And beautiful. And you can fly. That’s dreamy. You’re stronger than Superman. Is that why you like Lena? She’s a Luthor. Is it the savior thing?” Sara asks, and she slides her hand down Kara’s side, making her shiver.  “She makes you happy. I can see that. You should pay attention to that.”
“How do you know?” Kara asks, quietly.
“Well. Maybe you’re just unusually happy and chill all the time, but you practically melted when I said her name,” Sara tilts her head, before sighing.  “Also, who doesn’t like someone tall, dark and a potential bloodbath?”
“What—no. How did you know about Lena?”
“You like a challenge,” Sara says, with a quick, appreciative glance at Kara’s shoulders.  “You’re like—wow, your eyes just darkened to an amazing blue, tiger—let her challenge you, you know?”
Kara lets Sara trace her hands through her hair, and sighs, “I don’t trust her.”
“I know, Kara.” Sara presses her lips together. “I just think you —hey, I don’t know how much longer I can stay here. I go in and out of places to fix things. Make things right.”
“How so? What do you have to get back to?”
“My entire life, everybody I know? The Timestream?”
“This world is real.” Kara shifts, so that their legs touch. She leans over and hovers above Sara’s lips, sharing air. Sara can’t get over this woman, the unexplained hopefulness and happiness she feels around her. She reaches up to take out the tie in Kara’s hair, letting the full luxurious curtain of honey blond waves fall around them and decides against telling Kara that she’s here for her as much as anything else.
“Of course it is. But there’s something else I can’t figure out.”
Kara pulls back and rests her head on Sara’s arm. “Jeremiah,” Kara says, nodding.
Sara takes her foot in her lap to rub. Kara looks at her mildly entranced.
“No. Yes. Cadmus is a threat to everyone, in all the ‘verses. And it’s not Cadmus—it’s what this particular group has. Project Medu—”
“Cadmus works with us.” Kara, when excited, doesn’t tend to listen. Another charming trait that normally would drive Sara nuts, “They’re way off the map and we—the DEO—it’s tricky. This Cadmus might be a faction and totally off the reservation.” Kara settles and lets Sara’s strong thumbs stroke her instep, “You could find out. I don’t have—”
“You’re too public, and you work for the government. Yeah, I got that.” Sara says.
Sara pushes up Kara’s shirt and kisses her stomach, which is flat, and strong and covered in very fine downy hair. Sara’s eyes close and she moans softly.
“You should ask me if I want to kiss you, first.”
Sara looks up and goes completely still. It’s honest, and it’s one of the more direct, nicest things anyone’s ever said to her.
Kara shakes her head and kisses her softly on the lips “I like you. You don’t have to sleep with me to get information.”
Sara smiles, “Do you even like girls?”
“Girls are more fun than boys,” Kara shrugs shyly.  “You are. But, I don’t know.”
“Well, your sister is figuring it out,” Sara says.
“Your mouth is lovely… soft.” Kara murmurs.
“Want to try again?”
Kara’s arm brushes past her back and settles somewhere behind her buried in the pillows, and Sara leans back and just makes a small noise of approval. She likes that Kara is quiet, a little reverent. Not scared at all.
She likes that Kara’s subtly shifted the dynamic. She can see Kara’s forearm flex against hers and it sends a pulse of feeling through her—there’s that happiness again. This girl.
“You’re being very patient with me,” Sara says, “I thought I’d be thrown out a couple of hours ago.”
Kara laughs, “If anything gets too much I’ll toss you into space.”
“That’s fair.”
“Probably.” Kara smiles so genuinely that Sara has to blink a little. Kara leans back in and kisses her.
“We should train together,” Sara says when she catches her breath. “Just you and me. I know some neat stuff.”
Kara laughs; it’s genuine every time. “We should.”
“How about dating. Do you date?” Sara asks, leaning forward and wrapping her arms around Kara’s broad, strong shoulders.
Kara smiles, “I’d like to go on a date.”
“Yeah?”
“It’s okay. I don’t have a Dad so you won’t get “The Talk” and the baseball bat or the shotgun,” Kara says, lightly, but Sara winces. There’s real pain there.  “So, yes, I’d like to.”
“You have a sister. She’s badass.”
“She’ll break you.” Kara agrees.
It’s another two days before Alex actually sees Sawyer again, and it’s really the literal worst. Another detective with Sawyer asks, “Is this the Alex you were talking about? I did not make that connection.”
For a group of elite detectives, Alex is—a little worried about them.
Winn gasps, because he’s an asshole, and the more murderous part of Alex spins around and almost goes for her gun.
“Yes. This is the Alex I was talking about.” Maggie answers, staring at Alex openly.
Which throws her out of her fantasy of killing Winn so fast she loses her bearings and now she’s pretty sure there’s a little too much of her personal life bleeding into her professional life, and because let’s be honest it’s her whole life that’s the problem, and now Winn’s mortification is echoing throughout the entire DEO training area.
And then Supergirl lopes over through the group of paired up officers and grabs Alex’s hand—and Maggie’s eyes get real big—and says, “Detective Sawyer, I mean, we’re all on the same side, but can’t you just—are you serious right now?” She lowers her voice, Thank God, “That whole thing about “just off the boat?” I mean what the hell I’m just off the boat, really, if you think about it.” and that comes with a full-on heroic pose, fists jammed into her sides and Breck Girl commercial shampoo swirl, while she takes a much-needed intake of air, “And yes, you are so beautiful it hurts my eyes, and I have to squint because your hair is oh my God but I mean, puppies are gorgeous and they don’t say stupid stuff like that. Anyway, you’d be much more attractive if you stopped the bullshit. Okay. We’re leaving now. Bye.”
Alex glares at Winn one last time, throws her towel at him and then lets Supergirl haul her over to the exit and outside, where Alex starts shaking almost immediately and Supergirl looks like she’s going to cry too. She probably already is.
Alex, the big bad Black Ops agent, bursts into tears. “Everything is fucked.”
“No. You’re just in— It’s fine, okay?” Supergirl says, her face calm and certain. “You’re fine. Don’t waste your time with someone who gives you that gaslighting shit. You’re too important. To me. Stop being sad and angry and beating the hell out of everybody. It’s a waste of time.”
“Okay. Wait, she’s not gaslighting me. She just said no.”
Supergirl pulls her in for a hug, and it’s wonderful. "Yeah, but the off the boat crap is—Girl, please.”
Alex hasn’t let anyone touch her for weeks except in sparring. Kara rocks her gently in her arms, and Alex sighs.
“Puppies are gorgeous and they don’t say stupid stuff,” Alex snorts quietly, and continues to sort of cry but she’s laughing too.
“But come on, her hair is gorgeous,” Supergirl says, her nose buried in Alex’s neck.
“You’re really bad at being mean,” Alex swipes a hand across her eyes and steps back. “She has amazing hair.”
“Did you kiss her?”
“Did I—what? Yes,” Alex says, and this is mortifying but strangely fine. Supergirl’s eyes widen comically and Alex actually gets shaken by the neck like a kitten.
“Alex,” Supergirl says like she’s talking to a toddler.  “You kissed her. And she’s talking about you to other girls.” She shakes her a little, again and then, “Alex. You kissed her.“
"Yeah.” Alex finally smiles, “I did.”
Read more on Ao3
2 notes · View notes