For the next two weeks, nothing is on my mind about the CW's The Flash except for the crossover it has with Arrow. That's the danger of announcing these sorts of things. Yes, it gets the fans hyped as heck, but I could care less about the goings-on of sir Barry Allen right now because I just want to see Team Arrow venture to Central City. And it doesn't help when you've got a weak villain who makes really dumb decisions and the possible reappearance of a love-triangle.
While certainly not a bad episode, this week's The Flash felt to me like a "trap-episode." The term I steal this from is actually "trap-game," which is used in sports when a team comes off a victory over a rival or an upset, then has to play a weaker team before another big game after that. This episode came off of a pretty emotional episode of "Plastique" and has the Arrow crossover waiting for it, so I couldn't help but wait in anticipation of that. However, like I said, there are things weighing this episode down, but I'll get to those as we dig into this episode.
We open with Iris continuing to blog and Barry, as the Streak (the name luckily changes by the end of the episode), arrives and tells Iris to quit it before something bad happens. Foreshadowing, yah? We jump over to Thawne and Joe trying to stop an armed robber, but as Thawne tries to shoot him, the bullets reflect off of his metal body and Thawne becomes a deer-in-the-headlights with confusion before Joe saves him and Barry chases after the metal man. He corners him but breaks his wrist trying to punch him in the face, then gets tossed around and flees to S.T.A.R. Labs.
At S.T.A.R. Labs, they try to deduce what the heck could stop this metal man and Cisco decides to make a dummy out of the same metal to have Barry try and find a weak spot against in with the hopes that it'll be effective in a live fight.
Joe assigns Barry to work with Thawne on this case as he decides to go off on his owns subplot for this week. So, at least we get to see more of Thawne. Perhaps...for a reason?
Reverse Flash?
But, while Thawne isn't in the yellow suit, he and Barry get to working on the case and we find out that the big metal guy is a meta-human named Tony, who was also a bully of Barry's back in the day.
So when I said Tony was a weak villain, I meant it. The show brings back flashbacks this week but all they do is show that Barry was a nerd as a kid and let his emotions get the best of him. Big deal, we knew that already. What do they decide to do about it?
Throw in a stereotypical bully to make fun of Barry and freaking call him a murderer like his father! I mean what the heck? These kids are supposed to be ten or eleven years old, and they're calling each other murderers? When I was a kid we'd call each other stupid or other derogatory names but that was because we never knew what they meant. But a murderer? No! And even if you don't know them and just like to pick on them, that's the worst insult you could make anyway. This bully was an idiot.
And as we'll see later, that does not change with time. I didn't like this villain. Why not show Heat Wave or Pied Piper? Or heck, why not just have the focus of the episode on Barry trying to hone his abilities instead of a weak villain? It'd be better to have a build-up episode for Barry rather than one that just feels like filler.
The most important subplot of the week, in my opinion, actually turned out to be Joe's, wherein he looks back into the death of Nora Allen and recruits Dr. Wells in helping him, as he figures that his scientific mind should be able to explain her death. The recurring theme of "the impossible" shows up once again and Joe follows that to a great amount.
Barry fights and gets creamed by the metal man Cisco made, dislocating his shoulder. He and Thawne have to hope to work, though, on the Tony case. I found it odd, if not inconsistent, that Barry was carrying all of his stuff with his right hand just after he dislocated it. I know he heals quick, but, there wasn't an ounce of discomfort. Just a nit-pick, though, on my part. But it took my out of the episode. Which actually happens a lot.
Hmm. Anyway, Thawne and Barry find out that Tony was supposedly killed at their old workplace the night of the particle accelerator incident, which basically fused him to the metal. Kinda sucks. What also sucks is that Tony goes to visit Iris at work, in a very pointless scene, just to say hi, break her phone, and show off his tattoo.
I am not even kidding.
Meanwhile, back in important-land, West and Wells talk about the night of the murder and West reveals that a mere month after Nora Allen died did Wells arrive, which implies Joe is suspicious of this all and believes that Wells may have something to do with the man in the yellow suit that killed Nora and framed Barry's father. Wells says nay and leaves.
Barry, back with Thawne, takes some of the metal that was shaved off of Tony's head by the bullet at the crime scene then goes after him once he figures out where he's hiding out. And proceeds to get his butt-whooped after everyone at S.T.A.R. Labs told him not to. Smooth.
Cisco and Caitlin arrive and clear him from the rubble and manage to get him back safe and sound, but Wells berates Barry for leaving ill-advised and nearly getting killed. There is good news, though, and that's Cisco's found a way for Barry to beat Tony: punch him at Mach 1.1, or 837 mph. Basically Barry has to punch him greater than the speed of sound. Makes sense if he's trying to break or dent the metal, but as we see, that doesn't happen.
Sadly, everyone tells Barry this is a horrendous idea and Barry leaves. They find out that Tony's split town and I was relieved. Thank God he was gone, I thought. Instead we got character development between Thawne and Barry as Thawne tried to help Barry get his frustration out while the two took jabs at a punching bag. It was interesting to see Barry interact with Thawne given what regard he holds him, and it was nice to see him take Thawne's advice for once. The two interacted well throughout the episode and it was something I enjoyed seeing, and would enjoy seeing in the future, particularly because they could just talk and not have Iris there.
Speaking of which, she gets kidnapped by Tony. And this is where I pretty much lost it with the episode and geez this villain is stupid. The guy takes Iris, brings her to the school, and just tells her that the Flash is dead and that he's better.
That's it. That is literally the only reason he took her to the elementary school. He literally brought her there to tell her, "Hey so I'm super strong and I beat the streak and I AM THE MOST POWERFUL MAN EVER" or something like that but yes folks he actually yells out something along those lines. Talk about campy.
But how stupid can you be? If you're going to kidnap her, take her out of the city you dolt. Don't stop, don't just go to the school. The police know who you are, and if they find out you took Iris, there are three places the two of you could be: her place, the coffee shop, or the freaking school. Sure, you can stop bullets, but you can't stop a whole police squad of bullets.
Really the situation only came about so the writers could have Barry punch him with the super-sonic punch. I'll admit, the effects were cool and impressive for the feat, but it was mostly highlighted by Cisco fan-girling over the idea and watching Caitlin be dumbfounded throughout it.
Alright, so remember what I said about how if Barry punched this dude at that speed it would probably dent or crack the metal, possibly shattering it? I'm not much of a science dude, but, I mean, that makes sense, right? So how in the heck when Barry punches him does it make the metal recede back into his body? Did it run away scared? Did it realize it was going to be punched and Barry actually wound up punching his human face? If that happened, his head would be halfway to Starling City by that point!
I know I'm supposed to have a suspension of disbelief, particularly for a super-hero show, but the physics of this world can't completely break. Barry punching that guy would have been better if it shattered the metal on his face and broke that off, leaving an opening for Barry to hit him with his human face. But no, it just deactivated it for some reason. A punch does not neutralize metal. If I punched a metal wall at Mach 1.1, it isn't going to shrink away, it's going to be burst through. While more violent, it's more realistic.
Another thing that happens: when Barry punches the guy, at 837 mph remember, there is indeed a boom that occurs and a gust of wind follows. Barry had set Iris down behind Tony and when he hit him, Iris was right behind him. That boom, the blast, should have crushed her with the force of the attack. The editors even made the mistake of showing the blast burst back and blow some wind in her face. No, no that's not how it works. That force should have almost killed her. How the heck does it only blow some wind at her and force her to roll over and then she gets up and punches Tony in the face? Lady, you've just been hit by a burst of wind that just broke the sound barrier. You don't get up from that...ever!
To top it all off, Tony gets right back up once Barry punches him. Yeah Iris takes him down but...
You know my thoughts.
So yeah, Tony gets put in the pipeline prison, Cisco makes a joke that tries to make me forget about the idiocy of that whole scene but can't save it, and then we get another scene with West and Wells wherein Wells explains his wife's murder sent him to Central City since PTSD was forcing him to discontinue his work where he was. West, buying the story, decides to let Wells off the hook.
But what episode of The Flash would end without some cryptic Wells-related ending? As West contemplates who else could be on that list, the same man who killed Nora Allen that night arrives at West's home and steals all the information Joe has regarding the case, and pins a photo of Iris to the wall with a knife.
Ruh-roh.
So yeah, theory time: given that Wells was the one that created Gorilla Grodd, it could be possible that he is in fact no Future Barry but is in fact some other villain we could have been introduced to, or not, and is instead leading a group of Rogues against Central City. Or, he could be indeed trying to protect Barry. However, the connection between Wells and Reverse Flash has been all but stated at this point. It's definitely possible, given what we've seen, that Reverse Flash is Wells but why would Wells be keeping Barry alive then?
I don't know. Apparently we'll get a little more of that next week, which I hope has a better villain because guys...this one was just bad. It wasn't a bad episode of the series, with great interaction between Wells-West and Barry-Thawne, as well as some charming S.T.A.R. Labs humor (by the way if Caitlin turns evil I'll be sad because she's actually warming up to me now) and even a possible Firestorm Easter Egg dropped by Iris. But, the villain and the dumbness of his actions and what ensued in the scene at the school are what really hurt this episode for me.
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