Jessie Robertson reviews the fourth episode of The Flash season 6…
A fantastic movie and a clever line encapsulates this week’s episode as, despite it being dark black, blood was everywhere. Dr. Raymond Rosso continues to try and cure his HLH but is frustrated beyond belief at his work meeting dead ends. When after a long and sometimes humorous and sometimes uncomfortable, Barry gifts Rosso a serum that should eliminate all bad cells within him; when it does work, he says he must kill to live, while staring at a wall plaque of the Hippocratic Oath. And thus, our evil villain is born.
I’m not sure how Bloodwork will, ahem, work as a major villain, perhaps he will only play out through the first piece of the season but it looks like The Flash wants to get in on that Walking Dead action as Bloodwork can revive people he’s murdered as his “Blood Brothers and Sisters” who in this show, look like glorified zombies. I’m sure that’s a fun concept for the makeup people but I’m not interested in watching Team Flash battle possessed corpses. Although, I eat my words a bit when Killer Frost faced off against one and created her own ice brass knuckles.
The thing that isn’t really working so far in this season is how Barry is handling his upcoming death and these lessons he wants to impart upon the rest of the team. Last weeks’ with Frost wasn’t super helpful and this weeks’ was borderline friendship toxic when Cisco, who does what heroes try to do and not to lose anyone, lies to Barry about the recovery of aforementioned serum, thinking he could use it to save Barry’s life when the time came. He just wasn’t great at hiding things that need -15 degrees temp to stay healthy. Barry was very suspicious of several people tonight and one of them came true with Cisco; it was a hard scene to watch and not in a good way. It sort of made Barry came off as not just their team leader, but someone who views his position as their superior, with all the power and the way he made feel Cisco low by saying he was choosing him to lead the team and thought he chose wrong was just douche. I liked Cisco bluntly telling him “I would make the same choice.” It didn’t fully check out for me later on when Cisco basically admitted he was wrong and hugged it out with Barry and then wondered “gee, you make tough decisions,” when he’s been a hero for many seasons, before and after having meta abilities.
Nash Wells is also a highlight this week; he’s a bit like a lot of other Wells wrapped into a fun, Indiana Jones package; the digs at Cisco are always welcome when noticing his “shoddy workmanship” gives that warm Wells feeling. His tag scene at the end was also quite exciting as he seems to have tracked down the Monitor. Hmm…could Wells actually be a major character in the coming Crisis?
The other scene absolutely worth watching is the heart to heart with Joe and Barry: Nobody, I mean NOBODY does emotion like Jesse L Martin but give a slight nod to Danielle Nicolette (Cecile) who can read Joe’s mind when he wants to stay back and gives you one brief flash of pure heartbreak for what he needs to get off his chest with Barry. It’s Joe’s hallmark and this one knocks it out of the park again.
8/10– Technically, this was a good episode; I really felt off put by some of Barry’s behavior here and I think Frost summed up the whole plot by saying “You can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped.” Joe continues to be the emotional anchor of the show in a fantastic scene.
Jessie Robertson
