Jessie Robertson reviews the twentieth episode of The Flash season 3…
Debuting this week on Amazon’s Best Sellers: “All’s Wells That Ends Wells”
So, the reveal is finally here! And for as much as I’ve been slamming the show for having yet another season long reveal, this one didn’t bother me as much because as we got to see our “Keyser Soze” moment, it made sense to a certain degree. But, before we get into all that, this episode barely hinges on the reveal, even if the episode opens up with Barry confronting Savitar with his identity. Before we get there, we’re confronted with Killer Frost going full on Killer (even if she hasn’t actually killed anyone yet.) Savitar uses that notion as a stinging point when talking to her. After last week’s jaunt to the future, Barry lets the team in on the info he got about future Nobel Prize winning scientist Tracy Brand creating a trap to capture Savitar in the Speed Force; seeing no other options, they decide to see if they can jumpstart that process or maybe get the crib notes to get the work started on that trap. Anne Dudek (of Mad Men) plays Brand as a quirky scientist who’s burning her work as Team Flash finds her and ready to start serving fries at Big Belly Burger. She pairs up wonderfully with everyone’s favorite fake genius HR in some great scenes between them where’s he getting scientific blurbs to spout to Tracy ala “Roxanne” in some very funny scenes.
Getting Tracy to wrap her mind around being a successful scientist who can trap speeders isn’t the only new potential inductee to Team Flash; after a pre-marathon jog with Joe and Cecile, she drops the “L” bomb on Joe and completely freaks him out. Joe mentions to Barry that he hesitates to say it back as it will change the only normal thing he has in his life. This plot line sort of drags on quite a while within the same day, which is said multiple times “when you said you loved me this morning,” haha. Joe, after getting a talk from Barry about being no normal, retreats back and just lets Cecile go, but when Killer Frost shows up and threatens her life, there is no way around it now. In an interesting moment that I totally didn’t pick up on, when Joe gives into his feelings for Cecile, he removes his wedding ring, which I never realized he still wore. It said a lot about a family guy like Joe. Despite all these feelings going on tonight, Joe didn’t get his real deep emotional speech moment that he usually does.
Tonight’s main story line that I particularly enjoyed was the showdown between Cisco and Caitlin, actually Killer Frost now; now, we have a deep history between these two, a great friendship where neither wants anything from the other except true friendship and I love their bond. As Caitlin melds further into being Frost, Cisco still sees his friend and in the few instances when he had the chance to stop Caitlin from her Tracy killing rampage, he didn’t do it. He was holding back and Caitlin knew it, as did Julian but he had his reasons; he doesn’t want her to get hurt.
So, the Reveal: Savitar is in fact a Barry Allen from the future, an alternate future I’m guessing because he’s scarred and hates himself & all his old friends. I think then at this point the main interest of the story is finding out how and why he became this. And why Caitlin would listen to him. In fact, as I sit here and ponder tonight’s episode, the timing of everything always drives me batty when you have these speedster villains. Caitlin’s missing and gone rogue, and there’s an awful lot of talk about Joe’s love life. as HR states, Wally’s off romancing with his girlfriend in another Earth and Iris and Barry don’t share one conversation tonight. It’s a rather odd time to put Joe and Cecile at the forefront of The Flash.
7.5/10- After this season’s big reveal, it’s apparent that in the past, when The Flash has worked so well with these crazy shocks , one after the other, has always been to put them in strong episodes; that formula failed tonight as there was really nothing of note besides Killer Frost’s ice bridge that was overly exciting. Three episodes left!
Jessie Robertson
Originally published May 3, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
