The Flash, Season 3, Episode 9: The Present
Flash probably is the least solid of the four CW shows at the moment as far as the main plotline goes. Arguably Legends of Tomorrow has the least-developed storyline beyond 'the Legion of Doom is planning some stuff', but at least their villains are charismatic and not a vague two-dimensional threat like Savitar. Of course, Legends does have the benefit of reusing three tried-and-true villains from its predecessor shows, all of whom had at least a season's worth of villaining to do. But still, where Arrow's mid-season finale set up the previously bland Prometheus into a far more interesting villain, Flash... kind of falls short. And honestly, other than that one episode with Killer Frost, Flash's third season has been lacking any really compelling villains. Savitar is two-dimensional, Doctor Alchemy is literally nothing but a mask, and none of the other villains in this season -- Rival, Shade, Top, Mirror Master -- amounted to anything more but a one-note villain other than maybe Magenta.
But hey, the mid-season episode at least tries to build Savitar up as... well, a villain with an interesting backstory if not one with a compelling backstory. It's a pretty cool and eventful mid-season finale, that's for sure. Mostly, wrapping up the Savitar/Alchemy plotline with, well, actual conclusions. Team Flash digging around for information about Savitar ends up finding out a paper about an expedition to India researching a Philosopher's Stone (not the Harry Potter one, no) and seemingly unleashing Savitar... an expedition led by
Of course, apparently Alchemy is soulless because, well, Julian was never truly awake when he was in Alchemy mode, and he truly doesn't know what's going on, self-righteously demanding to be set free because he didn't do anything wrong. In order to get Julian to trust him, Flash reveals his secret identity as Barry Allen, which... convinces Julian to help out? It's a bit of an awkward leap of logic, but considering Julian and Barry has been on the mend these past few episodes, and he has been experiencing blackouts, Julian eventually relents and trusts Barry enough. It's an interesting take instead of just making Julian a big hypocrite who acts all high and mighty to Barry during the day while being the most boring supervillain at night.
We get a couple of cool speedster battles too, by the way, with Savitar fighting against Jay (!) for a bit, and later Savitar taking on both Barry and Wally. The thing is, Savitar is apparently tied to the Philosopher's Stone and its weird 'nothing' box (a box that literally shows no reading anywhere) that anyone who closes it causes Savitar to disappear to whatever extradimensional prison he's from. Barry and company ends up convincing Julian to allow Savitar to possess him to find out more about the speed god... and Savitar was once human and now has a bit of a god complex.
Savitar's brief egocentric revelations about his backstory are pretty interesting, because he blames Barry -- or his future self -- for trapping him in the Speed Force or the genie prison or whatever it is. It is a bit similar to Reverse-Flash, swapping out 'trapped in the Speed Force' with 'ruining my life'. It's a bit sad, really, that Savitar seemed more of a threatening presence when he's a disembodied voice possessing Julian than when he's being a knockoff of Megatron. But he does make a good scary disembodied voice, claiming that he's a god and giving dire premonitions of the future that one of them will fall, one of them will be a traitor and one shall suffer a fate worse than death. Making premonitions like this in a story can either make it or break it. Actually having the balls to follow through might cause the story to take some leaps and, well, be absolutely mean to some of its characters, but chickening out and making loopholes will make it a shitty cop-out.
Savitar is also very cool when he's somehow impersonating Dante, playing devil's advocate and convincing Cisco to open the box to unleash him upon the world. No doubt he did the same thing to Julian before, only masquerading as his sister. How does this power work? After Caitlin shook Cisco off, it's clear that Cisco was somewhat hypnotized by the Dante-ghost thing, so how exactly does Savitar pick his thralls? Does this mean his hold on Julian has shifted to Cisco? Having Cisco actually deal with his loss instead of being a passive-aggressive dick to Barry is a far more pleasant way to have Cisco get some emotional screentime without making it annoying to the audience.
Also, as Barry and Jay throw the box into the Speed Force like it's their personal dumping ground, Barry accidentally gets transported to the future in time to see Savitar murder Iris, while he's unable to stop the speed god. Jay pulls Barry back, but the glimpse in the future is enough. Is the future doomed to lead to Savitar killing Iris (hence the change in the newspaper last episode) thanks to the initial change in Flashpoint? Or is there something Barry can do differently to prevent that future? Or is his attempts to prevent that future the thing that will eventually lead to Iris's death in the first place? Interesting.
But honestly, the biggest appeal for me in this episode was giving the real Jay Garrick some real time to shine as a senior Flash. It's a bit odd and I honestly want to ask just where did Jay hear of all the rumours about Savitar? How many speedsters are there? Are we getting a Max Mercury or Johnny Quick somewhere down the line? Whatever the case, Jay is an absolutely fun character to have around as this older veteran superhero, and like Tom Cavanaugh playing three different Harrison Wellses as well as someone impersonating Harrison Wells, John Wesley Shipp sells Jay Garrick perfectly as a different role than Henry Allen.
Oh, and we get to see Jay Garrick doing some super-heroing in Earth-3, against the Trickster... dressed as the Joker... played by Mark Hamill. I think my brain just overloaded by this sheer fact. Regrettably Mark Hamill is only in this episode for just like one scene, but it was so much more fun than, say, The Force Awakens where he just pulls back his cloak.
I totally forgot to talk about Wally, but between last episode and this one, he really shows that he can do stuff with his speed, albeit he's not quite ready for superheroing. He honestly wasn't super-effective against Savitar other than distracting him a bit. And we did get to see him get his Kid Flash suit and moniker at the end with the Christmas party, which is sweet. Among other things, we also get to see Joe get his girlfriend (the least interesting subplot that I never take note of, to be honest), H.R. Wells get drunk on eggnog, Julian shows up soaked in rain, and apparently Barry brought a new house for him and Iris. That's a nice note to end on for the winter break, that's for sure.... but let's be honest here, Flash really needs to up its writing game next episode.
DC Easter Eggs Corner:
- Earth-3's Trickster is, of course, visually based on the Joker. Mark Hamill's most famous DC comics role, is, of course, the voice actor of the Joker's iconic voice in Batman: The Animated Series. The way the Trickster monologues to himself about what he just did is a nod to many Golden Age comics where characters would introdump very awkwardly about what they did and how they did it.
- Julian's full name in the article is given as Julian Albert Desmond. Albert Desmond is the full name of the first Doctor Alchemy in the comics.
- In the future, a news report briefly name-drops Jared Morillo, a.k.a. Plunder (literally in that order). Plunder is one of the lesser Rogues that fought Wally West during his tenure as the Flash.
- As much as it seems like it's just another Harry Potter in-joke (y'know, because Julian's actor is Draco Malfoy's actor) the Philosopher's Stone is actually indeed a mythical artifact used by Doctor Alchemy in the comics.
- Throwing a dangerous villain into the Speed Force is something that the Flashes did to Superboy-Prime during the Infinite Crisis.
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