The Flash S03E12 Review: I Think I Can

The Flash, Season 3, Episode 12: Untouchable

A bit of a villain-of-the-week episode, and one that pulls back something that we haven't seen in a while -- Flashpoint-immigrants. In all the excitement of Savitar, trying to prevent the bad future, Dominators and crossovers, I have completely forgotten about the fact that out of the metahumans created by Savitar and Dr. Alchemy, there are a couple of metahumans that are unaccounted for. One of them is Clive Yorkin, who's hunting down people who were policemen in the Flashpoint timeline. Yorkin has the horrifying ability of instantly killing and rotting anything that he touches, and he has a grudge against Joe. Not the most original villain, and a bit of a waste, but at least he's not as bad as how they handled Shade.

Meanwhile, Iris's stupidity, directly challenging the man with the fucking touch of death, nearly got herself killed. Good job, Iris! Joe tries to get a normal life and grows closer to the still-one-dimensional Cecile, and finally the big revelation about the bad future is made to Joe and he reacts badly -- though only for a scene, thankfully. Not a piece of drama that I want stretched out for a long time. Caitlin struggles with her inner supervillain when her powers are called forth to help stop Iris's infection, but other than Julian getting some scenes to show off his inner nice guy, there's not much to it.

The star point of this episode is definitely Barry and Wally's relationship, where Wally is learning more and more how to be a hero, as Barry settles into the mentor role. It's a bit touch and go, with Wally having some growing pains over not being fast enough to save Iris despite Barry putting so much hope in Wally being faster, and the badass moments of Barry vibrating an entire train through the rubble (I would ask 'wouldn't it be faster to pull a season one and grab everyone out of the train?' but it's such a freaking awesome moment that I won't) and Wally vibrating his way through Yorkin to insert blood into his body. Pretty badass moments, but neither of these are mutually exclusive to a more interesting episode.

Ultimately it's still a good episode, I just don't have a lot to say about it. Throwaway villain, some nice acting from Joe, Caitlin and Julian, the focus on Wally is appreciated... but the foreshadowing that next episode is going to have Grodd, Jesse Quick, the useful Harrison Wells and Gorilla City is far, far more exciting than the rest of the episode combined.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Clive Yorkin, who shares a similar power set in the comics, is a minor villain of Barry Allen that had the ability to drain life, although the comics version of Yorkin was a far more crazy human whose pain and pleasure centers were switched up in his brain. Yorkin was framed by Reverse-Flash for the death of Iris Allen in the comics, rather ironically considering here he actually attempts to do so.
• Julio Mendez, having previously appeared in the Flashpoint episodes, was a major supporting character created for the 1990 Flash TV show.