The Flash, Season 3, Episode 22: Infantino Street
This is the second-to-last episode of Flash's third season, and 'Infantino Street' fits both a very entertaining side-plot and the Savitar story very well, something that the previous episode struggled to do. I still feel that the ultimate buildup to the Savitar main plot is absolutely uneven, but at least this episode manages to strike a pretty good balance between the two. Though maybe it's just me geeking out at seeing Leonard Snart finally back. Bring him back again for realsies, CW, jeez. It's not like you'll really be upsetting anyone by bringing him back -- you guys yourself clearly like having the dude around. This is, what, the third time he's back in a fashion?
The episode has the Savitar threat forefront even when the heist caper plot is happening. The episode opens with a pretty somber scene of Team Flash bonding and preparing themselves for the final however many hours they get before Savitar murders Iris. The moment between Barry and Joe is unbelievably sweet. Of course, the lack of Julian, one of the main cast members, makes the episode feel a little odd, but Julian's hardly the most essential character, really. We quickly attempt to get the MacGuffin that's foreshadowed last episode, but Lyla quickly says 'no'. It's a Dominator technology, and she doesn't know, really, just what Barry is planning to do with it.
I'm not quite sure why they didn't just stuff Iris inside the anti-metahuman facility, because, well, they established that Barry can't get through the metahuman dampeners, so why would Savitar?
But hey, I guess they really, really want to complete the Speed Force Bazooka, so Barry decides that the only way to do it is to steal it. But he's not a thief, so he goes through the... rather convoluted plan of going to a point in time around halfway through Legends of Tomorrow to pick up Captain Cold, bring him back to 2017, and then recruit him in trying to steal the Dominator tech. Why Captain cold specifically, why so intent on stealing, I'm honestly not sure, but hey, it does give us the very, very entertaining three-way battle between the Flash, King Shark and Captain Cold, so I'm not really complaining all that much.
After the heist subplot, which also has Captain Cold address the changes that Barry has gone through character-wise, we get back to the Savitar plotline and that went about as well for our characters as you'd expect, though I'll talk about that later.
First, let's talk about the Captain Cold thing. I've got my disdain of bringing him back but not really out of the way, I've acknowledged how utterly convoluted it was to get the heist plot going on, but the convoluted reintroduction of Captain Cold into the episode as a guest star kind of works to the story's advantage. Both Flash and Captain Cold have gone through a lot of character development after they parted ways when Legends of Tomorrow began, but despite being rivals and nemeses of sorts, they actually didn't have a lot of characterization with each other.
So yeah, it's nice for Captain Cold, who's on his way to becoming a hero from a villain, acknowledge how dark Barry has been, and is trapped between maintaining his cold (hee hee) facade of being a badass evil master thief and egging Barry on about doing 'murdery' stuff, but at the same time stopping Barry from killing King Shark in cold blood and propose a non-lethal situation. And this ends up sparking some really great moments from Barry, who, like Lyla said, chose to risk his mission (and Iris' life) in order to save Captain Cold's life.
It's a great series of interactions, where Flash's earlier meetings with Captain Cold ended up inspiring him to be a better man and eventually a hero, and the good Captain is able to return the favour in this episode by inspiring Barry to, well, basically weaponize his goodness and not fall into the same trap that Savitar fell into.
The battle between King Shark and the Flash-Cold team up wasn't as epic as our full-out sea battle between Flash and King Shark (still one of my favourite action sequences in CW) but it's hilarious how the freeze grenade allowed the creators to make a fair amount of Jaws references like the shark fin and stuff. Also, since when does King Shark have a super-regenerative factor? Having him regrow that hand instantly felt like it came out of nowhere.
Also, I'm a little confused why the metahuman dampener doesn't inhibit King Shark's regeneration powers, or his, y'know, sharkiness. Maybe they modified it so it doesn't work on ol' Sharky?
In any case, thanks to H.R.'s big mouth, Savitar finds out where Iris is, and in a very, very brutal showdown, we get a brutally short battle between Kid Flash and Savitar. Harry Wells and Joe West gave it their all, as ineffective as they are, but Kid Flash's barrage of punches only ears him a shattered knee and being thrown around the room. I'm a bit sad we didn't manage to get Jesse Quick in for a requisite 'all the other speedsters other than Barry fight Savitar' scene, but I'll take what I can get.
The stage is set, and our heroes go to meet the villains. Flash goes off to face Savitar, and Cisco... gets a vibe of him and Caitlin fighting in a forested area. I'm not sure why Cisco decides that it has to be now, but hey, it makes the finale a lot tenser, and we get the long-awaited mano-a-mano Flash/Savitar and Vibe/Killer Frost fights.
The buildup was a bit tense, and we did get some more character moments for Savitar, that, while felt more like 'too little too late', it's better to have some characterization than none. We get to see the broken, angry and jealous man under the armour, bristling at being called Barry Allen, and being a complete monster since he's, y'know, less Future Barry Allen and more Barry Allen Clone. The episode ends with Savitar succeeding in stabbing Iris, and while part of me is absolutely annoyed that the half-season-long buildup ended up kind of not mattering in the end because nothing they did ended up mattering, but on the other hand that's going to make up for a very interesting finale.
Also the Speed Force Bazooka is totally like a Ghostbusters Proton Pack Cannon, isn't it?
Meanwhile, after a very heartwarming moment between Cisco and an absolutely distraught H.R. (how is he going to play into the finale beyond being morose and self-loathing?), he goes off to face off against Caitlin, but we don't really get much conclusion on that end. It's slightly obvious that Killer Frost is going to be very instrumental in whatever happens next, and this episode drops more hints of Caitlin trying to resurface.
Honestly, I haven't been really vocal about it, but I'm honestly not very okay with the whole Killer Frost thing just being an evil split personality. When post-Flashpoint Killer Frost was introduced in episode... seven, I think, of this season, she was just Caitlin Snow who seeped too much into her anger and other negative emotions, making everything that Caitlin does as Killer Frost ultimately accountable to her. Here she's just an evil personality, and it's just way too convenient for them to 'kill' Killer Frost and return/redeem Caitlin. It's just a matter of rescuing Caitlin from her split personality, and giving us a clear villain to punch means that, well, it's not a fight to get Caitlin to actually stop being evil, it's a fight to rescue Caitlin from an evil entity. Which isn't as exciting if it was really Caitlin Snow gone evil, and not just an evil personality. That's just me, though.
Now we'll see what next episode will bring, if the final episode will bring a satisfying conclusion to this Savitar mess, and maybe it won't be entirely too predictable. It's not the best sequence of events at all, considering how under-developed Savitar still is, and how much I'm not okay with the Killer Frost development, but considering what they have to work with, this episode isn't bad at all.
DC Easter Eggs Corner:
- Cheetah, a longtime enemy of Wonder Woman, is among the prisoners in the ARGUS facility. Other than Cheetah and King Shark, also interred in ARGUS are returning characters Gorilla Grodd (last seen a couple of episodes ago) and Cupid (last seen a while back in Arrow).
- Flash makes note that this is where Waller keeps the Suicide Squad, and both King Shark and Cheetah are pretty prominent members of different incarnations of the Suicide Squad.
- Infantino Street is a reference to Carmine Infantino, a Silver Age writer for the Flash that's responsible for a good part of his mythos, among them creating Captain Cold.
- Various references to older episodes are made, in addition to Captain Cold (the inclined-towards-good version from season one of Legends of Tomorrow) and King Shark returning, among them:
- The plot device being of Dominator origin, with the Dominators having attempted to invade Earth during the Invasion! multi-part crossover.
- Captain Cold makes references to the last time he and Barry teamed up (the end of season one) where he double-crossed Barry.
- Barry references the events 'Attack on Gorilla City/Central City' two parter for Captain Cold's benefit.
- Captain Cold's departing line, 'no strings on me', is a reference to his pre-death one-liner in the penultimate episode of Legends of Tomorrow's first season.
- Captain Cold also references his sister, Lisa Snart, and the attraction she and Cisco has for each other, as well as an event in Legends of Tomorrow where he got his arm sliced of.
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