The hero-loses-his-superpowers plot was bound to happen, but was it too soon to have that onto the series?
I’ll say yes, if only for the sole reason that when the episode was over, nothing felt different. There really wasn’t much at stake here no matter how bad the writers wanted us to feel like there was. We knew there was no way The Flash was going to lose his powers for too long, so that’s why that particular subplot fell flat.
Harrison Wells, on the other hand, continues to add the kind of intrigue and deception that makes the show much, much better. I loved that the villain-of-the-week was out to hunt him this time, and their final conversation about the people who were lost due to the particle accelerator, and Harrison naming every person who died because of him (including Ronnie) was a perfect scene. That moment where he looks at Caitlin in the eye just as he’s about to mention Ronnie’s name gave me the chills. I love this guy.
I wish I can say the more about Iris though. A part of me knew she was going to make it, but seriously wouldn’t it have been a better move to kill her off right there at that moment? Sounds a bit cruel, true, but I find her so annoying that I feel like her dying could finally add something interesting to this storyline. Or maybe even Eddie dying. But the fact that all the hostages came out of that situation completely fine and undamaged is proof again why this episode had no real impact on the show. By episode’s end, the show completely reset itself and nothing had changed in terms of its status quo, and that’s something unfortunate. I hate when writers are so scared of taking risks and creating game-changing tactics that really up the stakes.
The same could be said about releasing Tony from the prison that the gang had him locked up in. I was thrilled by the idea that Harrison was offering this man a trade, but I found myself disappointed that it had no real payoff in the end. He slowed down Farooq for a little while, but then the two of them just died. And there I thought Tony was actually one of the interesting metahuman prisoners if only because he knew that Barry was The Flash.
This was still an entertaining hour. The show has developed its characters well enough to make me care about all of them (Iris excluded), but this episode sadly felt like a random unimportant one regardless of how big its subplots seemed to be. Harrison and his Gideon buddy was the only thing that truly surprised me. But then again, that’s saying much considering how much Arrow stumbled in its first season, and just look at how it’s doing now: oh wait, it’s been stumbling again.
Regardless of the mediocre episodes we’ve gotten this week from The Flash and the past couple of weeks from Arrow, how excited are we all for the crossover?
Speedy Bits
– Robert Knepper (the Clock King) is always terrific at being creepy. However, his role here isn’t as nearly as groundbreaking as it was on Prison Break or his appearance last year on Arrow in the “Time of Death” episode.
– The STAR labs gang discovering a way to up-start Barry’s powers again but it meant putting him in danger (which Caitlin warned him about) felt repetitive.
– Really loved Barry walking into the precinct and seeing all the damage that’s been done. If only that scene didn’t end with Iris being alive. Seriously, she should be tired of being the damsel in distress week after week.
– I actually prefer the power outage scene that was done on Arrow in its horrendous Felicity-centric episode. That scene was much more intense.
– The Mist is now lonely in that prison down there. Sad.
– Eddie on painkillers was hilarious.
– Still trying to figure out how many secrets Harrison is keeping, and why no one has noticed him walking around the labs yet.
Red Blurs & Quotes
Cisco: There’s an 82% chance your victim looked like this.
Barry: 82?
Cisco: Hey, it was zero when you walked in here, pal.
Cisco: He runs slow even for a normal person.
Clock King: One helicopter, one vegetarian takeout meal, and one laptop with eight gigabytes of RAM.
Barry: Why do you do what you do? Why get up in the morning?
Harrison: Because I believe in a better future. One that I very much want to see. One that you are a part of. I might not very much care for people, Barry, but I care for you.
Barry: I forgot your game is chess. We’re all just pawns to you, right? So what’s your move, Doctor? Which one of us gets sacrificed next?
Cisco: We could have called him Blackout.
Harrison: Barry’s attachment to people, the people he cares about, is actually key to getting him up to speed.
Conclusion
Not as gripping and entertaining as last week, but still a solid episode.
Chris Rating
B