So much happened in this week’s episode of the Flash but the show handled it extremely well. The episode pushed multiple storylines forward in an efficient manner and was very well-paced.
The big storyline in this episode was Caitlin’s powers taking over her mind and turning her into Killer Frost. It was a great idea to have her powers take over her the more she uses them, it raises the stakes since we know she will eventually have to use them in the future. This episode she uses them one too many times and it almost pushes her off the deep end. Danielle Panabaker did a fantastic job in the episode. She sold the confliction that Caitlin was feeling and made me believe that she was not completely in control. Her performance was different from how she played Killer Frost from Earth-2. On Earth-2, Killer Frost was a bit campier but that fit for that world. Earth-2 seems to represent the more Golden age of comics. The heroes and villains are a bit campier and flamboyant while Earth-1 is kind of a mixture of the Modern age and the Silver age, so it makes sense that this Killer Frost would be a bit more subdued, with less ice puns (even though she did manage to get a few in there). We also get a bit more insight into Caitlin’s mindset this season. We learn she kind of blames Barry for all the trouble the team has had for the past couple of months and that it’s not fair that he’s happy when everyone else is suffering. Although she was under the influence of her powers, there was some truth to what she said. Barry gets to be with Iris while everyone else kind of got the short end of the stick. It’s good that they touched on this fact because the fans have been talking about this for a couple weeks now. Barry was able to snap Caitlin out of it by bluffing her but I don’t believe this is the end of the Killer Frost storyline. I believe they can still get many more interesting storylines out of this dilemma.
On the topic of Barry’s consequences of messing up the timeline, Caitlin reveals to Cisco that Dante was alive in the original timeline before Barry created Flashpoint. This creates another wedge between the two, right after things seemed to be getting back to normal. This is a great plot point because it lets us see a different side of Cisco. He’s usually comic relief of the series but this storyline shows us another dimension to the character and also shows Barry more of the consequences of Time Travel. Carlos Valdes, who plays Cisco, has showed off some real acting chops in past moments and hopefully this storyline will let him flex them a little bit more.
Wally’s storyline was also progressed this week. He was in the cocoon for most of the episode until Joe makes the decision to break him out. HR points out this probably isn’t a good idea but helps Joe regardless. When the Cacoon explode Wally wakes up with SUPER SPEED. We’ve finally got Kid Flash…almost. It’s been a long road full of red herrings and teases but now, our Wally, the Wally of our current timeline has super speed. It’s an interesting take on how Wally gets his powers but I enjoyed the different take. It felt natural and right for the overarching storyline of the season. There are no signs of side effects yet but we’ll see what happens in the upcoming episodes. We also don’t know if Wally will take any part in the upcoming cross over episode but I’d personally love to see Kid Flash be a part of this TV Justice League.
We do learn a bit more about Savitar this episode. We find out that Alchemy is just his servant and that Savitar calls the shots, which wasn’t much of a surprise. We also see just how fast Savitar is, to the point where he’s basically teleporting from one place to another. It looks like every time he runs he basically goes into the speed force and then pops out someplace else. I made a joke last week how Barry needs to stop calling himself the fastest man alive but this really is something he’s never faced before. I like how we’re finding out about him little by little. With Zoom last season, it seemed like there’d be one big zoom episode and then 3 or 4 episodes would past and they’d barely mention him. I hope that they continue to pace the information we’re getting on Savitar but don’t forget about him like they did Zoom last season.
It’s also revealed that Julian is Doctor Alchemy which, I’m not going to say I called it, but I called it. It wasn’t much of a reveal, in my opinion. Julian seemed to recognize the name Savitar when Caitlin told him to search for it and there were hints that I picked up on in previous episodes. I’m more excited about the implications of Julian’s character. Does he know who the Flash is? Does he only exist because Barry messed up the time line? Why can he see Savitar when he’s not a speedster? Why does his accent change when he puts the helmet on? So many questions that I can’t wait to get answered.
Next week is the highly anticipated crossover episode where all 4 shows will finally come together! Lets see how CW handles their version of the Justice League.
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