This week introduced to us not only the expansion of The Flash's universe but also added a bit of a tension to Team Flash as Cisco was doing some pretty smart, yet perceived dumb, things. I'll get to my thoughts on it as we dig into the episode.
By far the best part of the week was Emily Bett Rickards, aka Felicity Smoak of Arrow, being on as a guest. She brought all of her positive energy on Arrow, that juxtaposes with the gloom of Oliver, and it meshed very well with Barry Allen. It showed once again how perfect the two are for each other.
So stop shipping Olicity, people, Barry x Felicity is where it's at! They even say it in the episode, hello! What more do you want?
The villain of this week was, dare I say, rather weak. Yes, it was cool to see such a popular Flash villain on the screen and given the ending of the episode we know he'll be back--possibly for the Arrow crossover since he's looking for "a team"--but really he was just as interesting as the Mist from last week. There was hardly any backstory other than "he's been a villain before" and his motivation was to simply steal a diamond. Dodger did that on Arrow and did that make him interesting? No, of course not. He was kinda lame. I won't say Captain Cold was lame, and he certainly proved problematic for Barry, but sadly he was underplayed greatly.
And my gosh, the "cool it" jokes. After Batman and Robin, ice-jokes in DC comics movies are never going to work. It was all I could think of! So stop it.
Plus, Captain Cold was a bland, generic bad guy. He was never smiled and just wanted to do bad, and made bad puns. I suppose that's the workings of a master villain but I mean Multiplex was more drawn out than him in that respect. And he's not Captain Cold, he's not a premiere Flash rogue like Gorilla Grodd.
But, let's get into the episode. We start with Barry doing various activities to continue to train his brain to multitask while on the run--including chess, ping-pong, and beating Caitlin at "Operation." Bad guys show up so Barry gets to taking down some dudes trying to steal from an armored car while using liquid nitrogen to bust in. Barry manages to save the policemen but the villains get away, returning to their boss, Leonard Snart--Captain Cold--who delivers ice-puns and tells them to get their act together.
Barry returns to his lab where Felicity is waiting for him. They catch up and Barry shows off his powers in public. Not the wisest of things but he is the fastest man alive so it's a tad excusable. He decides to take her to S.T.A.R. Labs where Team Flash is waiting for her. He tells them that she works for the Arrow, smart move, and Cisco gets all psyched about it. Cisco is definitely the pseudo-fan of the show for us, given that he has thus far named all the villains and has now fan-boyed over another super-hero. Felicity gets stoked to see Wells as he is such a big deal in the field of science, and he says that she is more than welcome. Given her great abilities with hacking and technology, her help is also probably welcomed, too.
Joe and Barry manage to tack down who it is they're looking for and begin the man-hunt for him. Barry, meanwhile, gets caught up in a double-date night at Iris's coffee job as they are having trivia night. Iris notices that Felicity has a thing for Barry and she begins shipping them. Go, Iris, go! They have a nice little nerdy date night while Joe gets on finding Captain Cold, finding him at a museum.
Alright, I just want to know if the gum Captain Cold gave that kid was minty. If it was, I'm out. Not really. Was that Connor Hawke?
Back at S,T,A,R, Labs, Wells and Cisco find that a freeze-gun is missing, and Cisco, the one who created it, determines that it was probably stolen. Well no duh. Wells gets super mad, more than he should be (wink wink), and storms out. Barry and Eddie are notified at the same time that Captain Cold is at the museum and the two head out, Barry obviously beating him there. Captain Cold tests Barry on his abilities, but finds a weakness in Barry: that he is compelled to save everyone he can, and that when hit by the freeze gun, he slows down. As such, a man dies because Barry is too slow to save him. And Captain Cold gets away. Remember that.
Barry returns to S.T.A.R. Labs and gets mad at himself for letting a man die but gets even more mad a Cisco, who created the ray in case Barry should prove psychotic and would turn on them, since temperature is based off of how fast one's atoms are moving, and so Barry running fast generates heat (thus why his shoes were on fire in the beginning of the episode, thanks to kinetic energy), thus the only way to polarize that would be to slow them down with extreme cold, nearly absolute zero, such as in the ray gun. Barry gets mad that Cisco doesn't trust him and nobody stands up for Cisco.
Which made me side with Cisco. I had to take a Batman approach to this. Barry Allen, so far, the most powerful meta-human on the planet right now. Sure, there are others that might best him in the near future but as of the explosion and from what we saw, Barry was powerful. That alone should push someone to finding a way to neutralize them. If that wasn't enough, what if a superhuman came along that could take over someone's mind, and possessed Barry? How do you neutralize him without killing him? By slowing him down.
Cisco made the right move in creating a weapon, or tool, to take down Barry should he ever go rogue, should he ever become evil. Who else could handle him? The only known powerful vigilante in the world is Oliver and Barry is more than fast enough to catch or dodge his arrows, and he's also pretty darn strong. I understood why they were mad at first but the reaction after that would have been better if they realized, "Yup, Barry is powerful and if something goes wrong, we need a fail-safe."
But my disagreements aside, Barry goes on a temper tantrum and Felicity tries talking to him but to little avail. She brings her Arrow logic in, though, as she tells Barry--without actually saying it--that the path of the hero is lonely like how Oliver has made it. She doesn't wish the same fate upon him.
Captain Cold gets spotted and thus Barry moves out, tracking him down to a train and once again beating Joe and Eddie to the punch. He manages to derail the train but Barry is able to save everyone before it can crash, at his own sacrifice though, as Captain Cold manages to freeze him and prepares for the kill-shot. Cisco, Caitlin, and Felicity arrive and Cisco threatens him with a high-tech weapon. Cold surrenders...and they let him go.
Are you for real? Even a rookie would know to tell him to put the gun down, take the weapon away, and arrest him. Joe and Eddie were on the way as back-up, what the heck were they thinking? I know Felicity is all about the "no killing" thing but you didn't have to kill the guy, just punch him really hard in the face! Felicity's been training, remember? Guys?
Why'd you let him go?
Again, disagreements aside, we come to find out that the weapon was actually just a vacuum cleaner. The four return to S.T.A.R. Labs where they all say goodbye to Felicity, Barry looking like he's a little distraught. Wells warns Cisco to never make a weapon like that again.
This feeds into my theory once more: Captain Cold is obviously going to remain a big threat for Barry in the future, and Cisco creating the weapon created the villain, so if Wells had known he could have saved himself, Future Barry, the trouble posed by him. But instead, he got angry and now has to deal with him. Not only that, but if Barry in the past gets hurt, Barry in the future gets hurt.
Unless we're dealing in a Multiverse. And I am ending that thought dead in its tracks.
Barry manages to catch up with Felicity's train and the two admit how perfect they are for each other but still must live their lives in their separate shows, I mean cities. They kiss because the fans need to freak out and Barry speeds off. Just get married already!
Oh, and Captain Cold meets with a guy, I don't know who (since I'm not as well-versed in Flash rogues-lore as I should, I apologize), and gives him the heat gun, telling him that to deal with the Flash (or streak or blur or whatever) they'll need a team. So that's cool.
I would touch on the material with Eddie, Iris, and Joe but at this point it's lame and I don't feel like talking about it because it was just some awkward moments and Joe at the end giving them his blessing and Eddie is so totally Reverse Flash.
Yet again The Flash delivers on a good episode, with a great visit by Ms. Felicity Smoak, that will definitely carry us over a break next week. Gives us more time to speculate, since the show has given us a lot of that in just four episodes, which is great.
With that said...was that kid Connor Hawke? Because it could be. He's supposed to be about eight years old now, still live in Central City...I'm just saying. It'd be neat. Sort of like how Bruce Wayne is on Gotham. He's there, but not in the action yet.
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