Jessie Robertson reviews the fifteenth episode of The Flash…
Be Warned – There Be Spoilers Up There in Them Hills!
The Flash does it again. A tepid episode with not much happening, then BAM! – walloped with massive plot reveals right at the end. Before we get to the meat and potatoes, let’s talk about the two plot developments that took place during this episode. Iris and Barry. I predicted by the end of the season she and Barry would kiss. I should always remember the CW Formula when making predictions: estimate when you think something would naturally happen and just pick the next episode. An extremely awkward double date took place at a bowling alley complete with Iris wiping marinara sauce off Barry’s lips. Eddie and Linda, both nice people shown to have great qualities, both speak up and feel like something’s not quite right here. Where we end doesn’t leave either of them with closure on the subject, so this may have a different path than most of us are expecting. I’ve long plead the case of Eddie Thawne as a genuinely likeable character who’s brave, selfless and super into Iris yet is pretty much a background character. Perhaps with Wells admission of who he really is, we’ll get more evidence of bigger things for young Edward.
The other story is the return of the Weather Wizard! It’s actually Clive’s older brother, Mark Martin who as we find out, did survive that helicopter crash from the first episode like his brother, but has just been….well, we have no idea why he’s just now showing up. It’s a nice idea, but executed really poorly as Martin pops up out of nowhere, just fine, and kills off the Central City Coroner (who, by the way, thanks Coroner for naming Joe as Clive’s killer. Way to hang your fellow police chum out to dry!). Then he just keeps walking right into Joe’s face trying to off him by using massive elaborate weather patterns instead of just one simple lightning bolt to the chest. To be fair, he does attempt this but the Captain sacrifices himself. The hospital visit was a quick but nice couple minutes where you find out he actually likes his co-workers, much to Barry’s surprise. Of course, Joe strikes out on his own to track down Mark and ends up getting captured and both his kids pulled into a mess of a situation. The only redeeming thing about either of these Weather Wizard characters has been the special effects. The lightning cracking through the top of Joe’s car and the slow motion effects, the tidal wave he creates, all amazing and to consider this is on a TV show! Not even a network show! It’s a hell of an achievement. I thought the makeup on Joe, beaten and bloodied, was great too. Flash has a tremendous production team working for it.
The big reveal, which was only a reveal to the characters on the show, was Dr. Wells. He is actually Eobard Thawne. Now, at this point, we only know he’s from the future. In the comics, he was a man living in the 25th century (so roughly in the 2400’s) and is a huge fan of the Flash. He discovers how to tap into the speed force and use it to time travel back to meet the Flash but in doing so, his mind became scrambled and confused. He then blames the Flash for the death of his wife, so plans on killing him so none of the events that had transpired could happen if the Flash never existed. It looks as if there will be some similarities between this Thawne and that one. Except this one’s a genius. And Tom Cavanagh plays evil and creepy as well as anyone could. Poor Cisco. We get some setup to show that Cisco means a lot to Wells; but watching an old movie together was superfluous. That connection was already well established. Wells’ line to Cisco before vibrating through his chest that “to me, you’ve already been dead for centuries,” was just plain scary. Mediocre episode ending with some crazy cool twists.
Other notes:
– Cisco makes a “Weather Wand” which the comic counterpart Weather Wizard uses to manipulate the weather , instead of having supernatural powers.
– When Iris asks Barry about Wells, and uses the statement “In your heart of hearts”, I love that we know Barry will give his honest answer. Which is that he believes Wells to be a good man.
– When Caitlin looks back and only Wells’ chair is left at the table, anyone else get major goosebumps?
– So, Barry has now ran so fast, he’s jumped through time. And we’re off. Time travel is now a thing and I have a feeling it will be very prevalent as we move forward.
– Mason Bridges. Did he tell Barry about his “secret encrypted file” hoping he would try to break into it? Will we even find out?
– What time and year (or world) will we be in for next week’s episode? Comment below
Jessie Robertson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL18yMRIfoszFLSgML6ddazw180SXMvMz5&feature=player_embedded&v=ONsp_bmDYXc
Originally published March 18, 2015. Updated April 13, 2018.
