The Flash S03E16 Review: Return to the Speed Force

The Flash, Season 3, Episode 16: Into the Speed Force

Hey, another Speed Force episode! Barry enters the Speed Force for a bit of self-discovery... and it's honestly not as good as 'the Runaway Dinosaur' a season ago. The buildup in this episode was well done, but the end wasn't all that good.

With Wally's loss at the end of last episode, and Barry being forced to return to the Speed Force once more, it's a pretty tense episode. Wally's lost, Barry is almost lost halfway through when he breaks Cisco's interdimensional anchor, and Jesse Quick, filled with rage, knocks H.R. out and runs off half-cocked to fight Savitar on her own.

Let's cover the meat of the episode, though, which is Barry facing against the Speed Force again. This jackass godlike mystical force is pissed off at Barry for abusing his speed and creating Flashpoint, and this time he manifests with the faces of every fallen ally in Barry Allen's life. Eddie Thawne, Ronnie Raymond, Lenoard Snart.... Yes, it wasn't technically these three characters, and it's all just the Speed Force being a prick to elicit emotions from Barry, but the impact is still felt. Snart tells Barry that he was responsible for inspiring him to be a hero. Ronnie and Eddie both confront Barry that the two of them also sacrificed themselves, losing the happy lives they could've had with Caitlin and Iris respectively.

The main point of the Speed Force is that, well, Barry needs to realize that Flashpoint was his fault, his fuck-up. Savitar, ergo, was also his fuck-up. It was irresponsible for him to ask Wally to fix his problem by being the one 'fast enough' to stop Savitar, because as much as Wally is a hero, Barry's mistake is his own to fix. Mind you, Barry's willing to immediately take Wally's place in the very cruel prison that the Speed Force put him in -- reliving the death of his mother over and over again -- but the Speed Force runs on a bit of a different set of moralities because it's a weird disembodied cosmic force.

Barry's brief struggles against the Time Wraith and the unexpected showing up of Black Flash was pretty cool, even if it's more symbolic of the Speed Force's punishing him than anything, but Jay Garrick showing up is amazingly awesome. Jay is a character that I really wish we see more of, but he shows up, helps Barry defeat illusory Captain Cold, and takes Wally's place in the Speed Force prison. 

But as much as the Speed Force asks a lot of cryptic questions and forces Barry to do a fair amount of soul-searching, the episode ends with... nothing much, really. Jay's trapped in the Speed Force, but neither Wally nor Barry really felt like they're very changed by the ordeal, other than Barry being more confident that he has to take the fight to Savitar himself. 

Jesse, meanwhile, goes off to take on Savitar, but doesn't really accomplish much beyond showing that Savitar can be hurt (mostly by stabbing him with his own Megatron-esque exoskeleton), and them going 'yes, he's not a god, he's human under it all!' which isn't the biggest revelation ever. Maybe if we get some more information from the Speed Force about the function of the Speed Force prison or whatever, it would shed some light, but as it is I just feel more confused and underwhelmed than anything. I guess the Speed Force is satisfied that Barry's finally standing up for himself when he punched the Snart avatar in the face? But on the other hand, why the obsession with Barry, Speed Force? Why not pick Wally, Jay or Jesse as your champion?

It just all seems to be a big convoluted way to get Barry as the only speedster, because Jesse's gone off to Earth-3 to be the Flash there (what about Earth-2? Does no one care about Earth-2? Without Jesse and Jay, who's stopping crime there? Fucking Solovar?), Jay's trapped and Wally's out of the game for the moment. Oh, and what's the point of Barry pushing Iris away? There is absolutely no real reason for that other than Barry punishing himself for some arbitrary reason to be miserable. 

So yeah, an episode that really started off strong but ends up dropping the ball around halfway through. The roles by the show's recurring guest stars are definitely amazing, though, and the rather subtle undertone that the Speed Force might've allowed Zoom to kill Henry as a test to Barry (he failed) is a bit of a nice dark undertone to it all, but ultimately the Speed Force's mysterious ruminations and conversations all end up being a great buildup with no real conclusion.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Black Flash (a.k.a. Zoom) made his debut a couple of weeks back in Legends of Tomorrow. Eddie Thawne died at the climax of season one of Flash, Ronnie Raymon in the premiere for season two, while Captain Cold at the climax of season one of Legends of Tomorrow.
• SpeedForce!Snart tells Jay Garrick that he's gotten slow in his golden age, a reference to how Jay Garrick originated in the Golden Age of comic books, and is often known as the 'Golden Age Flash'. 
• The prison that Wally's trapped in is a reference to a similar 'relive your worst memories' prison that Hunter Zolomon was trapped in for a while in the comics.